During a heated Senate debate Dr. Anthony Fauci called Sen. Rand Paul 'egregiously wrong' after the senator said Fauci refused to take responsibility for the pandemic and accused him of scrubbing the definition of 'gain-of-function' from the NIH website.
'You have said I am unwilling to take any responsibility for the current pandemic. I have no responsibility for the current pandemic,' the NIAID director said.
'I don't expect you to admit today that you approved of gain-of-function research in Wuhan but your repeated denials have worn thin and a majority of Americans frankly don't believe you,' the Kentucky Republican told Fauci.
'This was risky type of research,' he said. 'It was risky to share this with the Chinese and Covid may have been created from a not yet revealed virus.'
Paul has repeatedly accused Fauci of misleading the public about the NIH's grant to EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn distributed nearly $600,000 of that funding to its collaborator, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). He says that WIV could likely enhanced a pathogen that spilled out and led to the Covid-19 pandemic.
A Wednesday report from The Intercept found that NIH officials collaborated with EcoHealth to help them evade restrictions on coronavirus research.
But the senator freshly accused Fauci of scrubbing the term 'gain-of-function' from the NIH website to fit his narrative that the NIH didn't fund such research.
'We're aware that you deleted the gain-of-function definition from the NIH website,' Paul said.
'You have said I am unwilling to take any responsibility for the current pandemic. I have no responsibility for the current pandemic,' the NIAID director said
'Until you accept responsibility we're not going to get anywhere close to trying to prevent another lab leak with this dangerous sort of experiment. You won't admit that it's dangerous and for that lack of judgment, I think it's time that you resign,' said Paul
'The preponderance of evidence points toward this coming from a lab and what you have done is change the definition on your website to cover your ass basically. That's what you've done. You've changed the website to try to change the definition so it doesn't include the risky research that is going on,' he said.
'Until you accept responsibility we're not going to get anywhere close to trying to prevent another lab leak with this dangerous sort of experiment. You won't admit that it's dangerous and for that lack of judgment, I think it's time that you resign,' said Paul.
'It makes me very uncomfortable to have to say something but he is egregiously incorrect in what he says,' Fauci said.
'History will figure that out on its own,' Paul interjected.
'You said the overwhelming amount of evidence indicates that it's a lab leak,' Fauci continued. 'I believe ... most virologists would disagree with you. That it is much more likely, even though we leave open all possibilities, it is much more likely this was a natural occurrence.'
Prior to Oct. 20, as Paul points out, the NIH website said that gain-of-function research 'describes a type of research that modifies a biological agent so that it confers new or enhanced activity to that agent.'
The definition appeared under the title 'Gain-of-Function Research Involving Potential Pandemic Pathogens.'
'The subset of GOF research that is anticipated to enhance the transmissibility and/or virulence of potential pandemic pathogens, which are likely to make them more dangerous to humans, has been the subject of substantial scrutiny and deliberation,' the website previously said.
But on Oct. 20, the day the NIH admitted that the Wuhan lab did alter viruses to make them more transmissible or more lethal, the term 'gain-of-function' was removed from the website term list, Paul pointed out.
That page is now titled, 'Research Involving Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens.'
But on Oct. 20, the day the NIH admitted that the Wuhan lab did alter viruses to make them more transmissible or more
