{"id":75046,"date":"2021-07-22T14:35:51","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T18:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=75046"},"modified":"2021-07-22T14:35:51","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T18:35:51","slug":"fauci-rand-paul-get-in-shouting-match-over-wuhan-lab-covid-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=75046","title":{"rendered":"Fauci, Rand Paul get in shouting match over Wuhan lab COVID research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more-->By Libby Cathey and Sasha Pezenik<br \/>\nABC7<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/abc7chicago.com\/video\/embed\/?pid=10902278\" width=\"476\" height=\"267\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON &#8212; GOP Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday stepped up his months-long fight with the nation&#8217;s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, suggesting he lied to Congress about whether the National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and triggering an angry shouting match.<\/p>\n<p>At a Senate Health Committee hearing meant to update lawmakers on the country&#8217;s COVID-19 response, the Kentucky Republican began by asking Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, if he&#8217;s aware that it&#8217;s a crime to lie to Congress.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;On May 11, you stated that NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,&#8221; Paul said. He claimed that gain-of-function research &#8212; which could, in theory, enhance the transmissibility of a virus &#8212; was performed in the lab and referred to an academic paper by a Chinese scientist, which he then asked to be entered into the record and for a copy to be given to Fauci.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement of May 11, where you claimed at the NIH never funded gain-of-function research and move on?&#8221; Paul said, repeating his unsupported accusation.<\/p>\n<p>A team assembled by the World Health Organization recently visited Wuhan to research where COVID-19 came from, but it could be years before there are clear answers about how the outbreak started.<\/p>\n<p>Fauci flatly rejected Paul&#8217;s suggestion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sen. Paul, I have never lied before the Congress. And I do not retract that statement,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Paul suggested Fauci and the NIH could be partly responsible for the pandemic and the deaths of 4 million people worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>The virology expert explained that the paper Paul referenced does not represent gain-of-function research, and when Paul interrupted, the shouting match ensued.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Let me finish!&#8221; Fauci said, when Paul tried to interject. &#8220;Sen. Paul, you do not know what you&#8217;re talking about, quite frankly. And I want to say that officially, you do not know what you&#8217;re talking about.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Continuing their ongoing feud, the two argued over the definition of gain-of-function. NIH Director Francis Collins, in a statement earlier this year, warning of misinformation, said, &#8220;neither NIH nor NIAID have ever approved any grant that would have supported &#8216;gain-of-function&#8217; research on coronaviruses that would have increased their transmissibility or lethality for humans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But Paul would not be swayed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re dancing around this because you&#8217;re trying to obscure responsibility for four million people dying around them from a pandemic,&#8221; Paul said.<\/p>\n<p>At that point, Senate Health Committee Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., told Paul to let Fauci finish &#8212; though the senator continued to interrupt his witness.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I totally resent the lie that you are now propagating, senator,&#8221; Fauci said. &#8220;If you look at the viruses that were used in the experiments, that were given in the annual reports, that were published in the literature, it is molecularly impossible&#8211;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Paul interjected, &#8220;You are obviously obfuscating the truth,&#8221; to which Fauci replied, &#8220;I&#8217;m not obfuscating the truth &#8212; you are.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals. I totally resent that,&#8221; Fauci said.<\/p>\n<p>Paul interrupted, &#8220;It could have been.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If there is any lying here, senator, it is you,&#8221; Fauci shot back, pointing his finger at Paul.<\/p>\n<p>With Paul&#8217;s time expired, the lawmaker up next, Sen. Tina Smith, D-N.M., gave Fauci the chance to &#8220;counteract these attacks on your integrity that we&#8217;ve all just witnessed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think I have anything further to say,&#8221; Fauci said. &#8220;This is a pattern that Sen. Paul has been doing now at multiple hearings based on no reality. He keeps talking about gain-of-function. This has been evaluated multiple times by qualified people to not fall under the gain-of-function definition.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have not lied before Congress. I have never lied, certainly not before Congress. Case closed,&#8221; Fauci said.<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/abc7chicago.com\/fauci-rand-paul-video-exchange-covid-wuhan-lab-senator-and-dr\/10901142\/\">https:\/\/abc7chicago.com\/fauci-rand-paul-video-exchange-covid-wuhan-lab-senator-and-dr\/10901142\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}