Dr. Anthony Fauci faces mounting demands from Republican lawmakers for his resignation, as they say his position will change whether the US government is funding research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Fauci, the White House senior medical advisor, told lawmakers Tuesday that the National Institutes of Health had funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology with $ 600,000 over five years through the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance. Funding for the nonprofit was eventually stopped by the NIH.
He denied that the funds were specifically used for so-called gain-of-function research, which involves modifying a virus so that it is either more transmissible or more deadly in order to better predict new pathogens and ways to combat them.
On Wednesday, Senator John Kennedy, R-La., Further questioned Fauci’s trust in the Wuhan laboratory’s scientists during a Senate hearing. “How do you know they didn’t lie to you and still use the money for functional research?” Kennedy asked Fauci.
Fauci said there was no way to guarantee that the scientists and fellows would not lie. “You never know,” he said.
He added that the laboratory’s scientists are “trustworthy” and he would expect them to adhere to the terms of the funding, which is to study coronavirus transmission from bats to humans in order to determine the SARS-CoV-1 Better to understand epidemic in the early 2000s.
“I do not have enough insight into the Chinese Communist Party to know the interactions between them and the scientists,” said Fauci when asked whether the Chinese government influences its scientists. He also said he had no way of knowing the Chinese government’s influence on the World Health Organization after Kennedy hinted that WHO was in the Chinese government’s pocket.
President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he has ordered a closer review of intelligence information of two equally plausible scenarios about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic – that it came from a laboratory or from an animal. The director of the national secret service previously agreed that the two scenarios are equally likely.
Biden announced that he hired the intelligence community earlier this year to “prepare a report on their most recent analysis of the origins of Covid-19, including whether it was through human contact with an infected animal or a laboratory accident . “
“To date, the US intelligence community has banded together on ‘two likely scenarios’ but has not yet reached a final conclusion on this issue,” Biden said in a statement.
Federal health officials claim the virus is more likely to be of natural origin, but aren’t ruling out a laboratory leak as a possibility.
Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio recently introduced the Fauci Incompetence Requires Early Dismissal Act, which called for Fauci to resign.
“Dr. Fauci represents everything that President Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell address: the scientific and technical elite who are steering the country towards their own goals,” Davidson said in a statement.
Republican lawmakers also said they believe Fauci misled the American people about mask-making at the start of the pandemic. Fauci said in early March 2020, “Right now, people in the United States shouldn’t be walking around wearing masks.” He later clarified that he meant health workers’ masks should be given priority, but Republican lawmakers claim that Fauci lied.
GOP lawmakers also claim Fauci misled Americans when he said there would be an explosion in coronavirus cases after Texas lifted its mask mandate.
“It is long time Dr. Fauci stopped speaking to the American public. Fauci should resign or be discharged immediately,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa.
Correction: Warren Davidson, R.-Ohio, is a member of the House of Representatives. In a previous version its title was incorrectly stated.
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