Internal Documents Further Contradict Fauci's 'Gain-of-Function' Research Denials
By: Caroline Downey (MSN)
Not a good look...........................
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Newly released documents appear to contradict Dr. Anthony Fauci's repeated claims that the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
© Stefani Reynolds/Reuters Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., July 20, 2021.
The internal documents detail the work of EcoHealth Alliance, an American research non-profit which used NIH funding to research novel bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab. Among the documents, which were obtained by The Interceptthrough a Freedom of Information Act request, is a previously unpublished EcoHealth Alliance grant proposal filed with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, which is run by Fauci.
The proposal requests $3.1 million for a project titled "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence," which involved screening thousands of lab workers for novel bat coronaviruses. The grant was awarded for five years, from 2014 to 2019, and was subsequently renewed before being suspended by the Trump administration. The proposal directs $599,000 of the total grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for research designed to make the viruses more dangerous and/or infectious — and its author acknowledged the danger associated with such work.
"Fieldwork involves the highest risk of exposure to SARS or other CoVs, while working in caves with high bat density overhead and the potential for fecal dust to be inhaled," it read.
After reviewing the documents, Gary Ruskin, executive director of a group probing COVID's origins called U.S. Right to Know, told the Intercept that the grant was a "road map to the high-risk research that could have led to the current pandemic."
Fauci has repeatedly insisted during his Senate testimony that the research being funded by the NIH at the WIV did not qualify as "gain-of-function" under the NIH's current definition. But critics, including Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, have accused Fauci of playing semantic games by excluding research which makes bat coronaviruses more transmissible — the commonly accepted definition of "gain-of-function" — from his more convenient definition.
Dr. Richard Ebright, biosafety expert and professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, has also disputed Fauci's claims. Primarily, he has rebutted Fauci's chief declaration that the NIH "has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV]" as "demonstrably false."
Ebright told National Review that the NIH-financed work at the WIV "epitomizes" the definition of gain-of-function research, which involves working with "enhanced potential pandemic pathogen (PPP)" or those pathogens "resulting from the enhancement of the transmissibility and/or virulence of a pathogen."
The Wuhan lab's program qualified as gain-of-function research because it artificially engineered novel SARS-related coronaviruses to make them more transmissible and dangerous to humans, the breeding ground for accident, Ebright said.
Following the FOIA release secured by the Intercept, Ebright doubled down on his repudiation of Fauci, confirming that the NIH did conduct gain-of-function research during the five-year period in question.
"The materials show that the 2014 and 2019 NIH grants to EcoHealth with subcontracts to WIV funded gain-of-function research as defined in federal policies in effect in 2014-2017 and potential pandemic pathogen enhancement as defined in federal policies in effect in 2017-present," Ebright tweeted.
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...............not a good look at all
Egg on your face isn't appealing
It's more like a loaded 3 egg omelet with hefty sides of home fries, grits, gravy, and toast thrown in his lying, hypocritical face!
Fauci should be charged for lying to Congress.
It’s no wonder Joe Biden canceled an independent investigation of COVID-19 origins… every time we see documents it becomes more and more obvious the pro-Biden public health bureaucracy misled Americans about ‘gain of function’ research in the Wuhan lab
600k + dead, thank you Dr. Fauci.
He'll have to take a number and get in line. There are quite a number of other Democrats ahead of him who've lied to Congress (and the FBI) who still haven't been charged.
Good grief - thank you Fauci? You guys use any situation to attack anyone and deflect blame away from your own. Donald Trump doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he knew how transmissible covid was as he was actively downplaying it and fighting against the only means we had to reduce the spread, but you seem to think Dr. Fauci is solely responsible for all covid death. If there were no gain of function research by the US and terrorists were to clandestinely develop their own bio weapons that we were then that much less prepared for, you would then blame Fauci for all the resulting deaths from the lack of this research.
It was the Democrats who downplayed the threat, not Trump.
54 second mark
Are you seriously comparing a Pelosi visit to Chinatown on an unspecified date to the POTUS publicly downplaying covid on national television right after learning how deadly and transmissible it is? Seriously?
February 24, 2020
Trump was advised by Fauci, Birx, etc. Remember these Fauci flip-flop gems?
De Blasio, NYC Officials Downplayed COVID-19 Threat After Trump Restricted Travel to China. Here Are 5 Examples. (dailysignal.com)
The first strong scientific study backed by the U.S. government that showed the virus might spread through the air came on March 18, 2020.
And Trump initiated a travel ban in January.
Pelosi and her pals called him a xenophobe and racist for doing it.
It’s like playing whack a mole with you guys. One irrelevant claim pops up the second another is squashed. I’m starting to wonder if you aren’t actually a Russian bot.
You get schooled and you bring out, "RUSSIA".
Which school would that be? The one with the short busses? The virus was already raging in the US and Trump responds by banning Chinese visitors while simultaneously doing everything else wrong domestically to prevent the spread of the already ubiquitous virus?
Yes, it was and Fauci, claimed it wouldn't be a problem.
This is exactly what I’m talking about, comrade. Whack!
What is your definition of a lie..
Do you think this is "gain of function"?
So you agree Fauci was the problem from the start.
It’s unlikely that there is anything in this reality that you and I would agree on. Your goose is far too gone for rational agreement.
I feel, ya. I know it must be hard to defend the guy who said it wouldn't be a problem and may have actually caused the problem to begin with, YIKES!!!!!
The man had a secret. He played his cards well.....until he got caught!
His apologists should be arriving any time now
He sure did, and became a rock star in the process.
A sad end to a long, shady career.
Of course it wouldn't make sense unless one has read about his involvement, mistakes, and failures with AIDS, anthrax etc ... despite having been given enormous tax-payer funded budgets since 1984.
Fauci is a politician. You don't rise that high in a bureaucracy by being a straight shooter. Just like any bureaucrat, he's protecting his agency and lying is just one of those things you do. Ask Jim Comey.