Dr. Fauci Speaks Out Defending His COVID.
на канале: Everything Everywhere
• Dr. Fauci Speaks Out Defending His COVID.
WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci defended his decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday, testifying before Congress about his work on the virus as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during two presidencies.
House Republicans who called the hearing grilled Fauci during the contentious three-hour session about the origins of COVID-19, which killed more than 1 million Americans, as well as Fauci’s role in the response. It was the first time Fauci, 83, who also served as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, had appeared before Congress since leaving government employment in 2022.
Fauci repeatedly said he didn’t conduct official business using personal email in response to allegations he did so to avoid oversight. He also said he has kept an open mind about the origins of the virus, and explained to members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic why guidance shifted so much during the first several months of the pandemic.
“When you’re dealing with a new outbreak, things change,” Fauci said. “The scientific process collects the information that will allow you, at that time, to make a determination or recommendation or a guideline.”
“As things evolve and change and you get more information, it is important that you use the scientific process to gain that information and perhaps change the way you think of things, change your guidelines and change your recommendation,” Fauci added.
Republicans on the panel repeatedly asked Fauci about how the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China received grant funding from the U.S. government, as well as whether it, or another lab, could have created COVID-19. That theory is counter to another that the virus emerged from a “spillover event” at an outdoor food market.
Fauci testified that it was impossible the viruses being studied at the Wuhan Institute under an NIH subgrant could have led to COVID-19, but didn’t rule out it coming from elsewhere.
“I cannot account, nor can anyone account, for other things that might be going on in China, which is the reason why I have always said and will say now, I keep an open mind as to what the origin is,” Fauci said. “But the one thing I know for sure, is that the viruses that were funded by the NIH, phylogenetically could not be the precursor of SARS-CoV-2.”
Fauci added that the $120,000 grant that was sent to another organization before being sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was a small piece of the budget.
“If they were going to do something on the side, they have plenty of other money to do it. They wouldn’t necessarily have to use a $120,000 NIH grant to do it,” Fauci said.
The NIH subaward to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he testified, “funded research on the surveillance of and the possibility of emerging infections.”
“I would not characterize it as dangerous gain-of-function research,” Fauci said. “I’ve already testified to that effect, a couple of times.”
Politicians have used multiple, often shifting, definitions for gain-of-function research during the last few years. The American Society for Microbiology writes in a two-page explainer that it is “used in research to alter the function of an organism in such a way that it is able to do more than it used to do.”