Fauci Testifies on Gain-of-Function Research

We, I don't know how many times I can say it, Madam Chair,

we did not fund gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

In our health lead, we now know that

a bat coronavirus was enhanced in a lab.

NIH and NIAID categorically has not funded gain-of-function research

to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute.

The National Institutes of Health acknowledged that

it funded research of a virus that

was studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The experiment unexpectedly, we're told, made a bat coronavirus

more contagious than the original naturally occurring one.

Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress,

do you wish to retract your statement of May 11th

where you claimed that the NIH never funded gain-of-function research in

Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress,

and I do not retract that statement.

A new letter raising questions about experiments in a Wuhan lab.

What was, let me finish.

You take an animal virus and you

increase its transmissibility to humans, you're saying that's not gain-of-function?

Yeah, that is correct.

And Senator Paul, you do not know what

you are talking about, quite frankly. And

I want to say that officially.

You do not know what you are talking about.

For years, the National Institutes of Health provided grant

money to the EcoHealth Alliance Research Group,

which conducted experiments with bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.

And if anybody is lying here, Senator.

It is you, that's where you are getting.

Let me finish.

We don't know.

We don't know.

Wait a minute.

It did come to the lab,

but all the evidence is pointing that it came from the lab.

There will be responsibility for those who funded the lab, including yourself.

National Institute of Health admitted this week that it funded

controversial gain-of-function research using coronaviruses at a lab

in China at the epicenter of the pandemic,

contradicting claims from Dr. Anthony Fauci that

American tax dollars never paid for that kind of research.

I have not lied before Congress.

I have never lied, certainly not before Congress.

Case closed.