The U.S. Senate approved an amendment to prohibit the use of funds provided by U.S. federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), for “function-enhancing” research in China. The Senate also passed an amendment to prohibit U.S. funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research. The new debate over whether the new coronavirus originated in a laboratory has once again put Wuhan virus research in the spotlight.
Amid growing calls for a full investigation into the possibility that the new coronavirus originated in a laboratory accident, Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky introduced an amendment Tuesday (May 25) that would ban NIH and other federal agencies from funding research in China that would “add functionality. increased functionality” research in China. The amendment was added to the American Innovation and Competition Act, which is designed to fully compete with China. The bill, formerly known as the Endless Frontier Act, is in the final stages of consideration by the full Senate at this time.
Last Monday, a bipartisan group of senators voted overwhelmingly 86 to 11 to end the lengthy debate process surrounding the bill and move it forward. However, lawmakers are now proposing amendments and additions to the bill. Senator Paul’s amendment defines “function-enhancing” research as “any research project that could reasonably be expected to confer properties on an influenza, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), or Sars (SARS) virus that would enhance the pathogenicity or transmissibility of the virus in mammals. “
“We don’t know if the outbreak started in a laboratory in Wuhan or evolved naturally,” Sen. Paul, who is a physician, said in a statement. “While many continue to deny funding for research to increase functionality in Wuhan, experts believe otherwise. The passage of my amendment ensures that this will never happen again. Taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund increased functionality research in Wuhan, and now we are permanently blocking that practice.”
At a congressional hearing this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and chief medical advisor to President Biden, had a verbal exchange with Senator Paul. Senator Paul criticized the NIH for funding increased function research in China, a claim that Fauci said was false. Fauci said, “Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are completely incorrect, the NIH has never funded and still does not fund increased function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
The U.S. Senate on Monday also passed an amendment offered by U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa, to prohibit U.S. funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Despite a joint report issued by a World Health Organization team of experts in China and Chinese officials saying it was “highly unlikely” that the new coronavirus originated from a laboratory accident, calls are growing for an independent, transparent, comprehensive and in-depth investigation into the possibility of a laboratory leak. On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal cited a U.S. intelligence report that said three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research “became seriously ill” and were hospitalized in November 2019. This was a month before the outbreak of the new crown outbreak in China.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Harvey Becerra (Xavier Becerra) called for a new “transparent” investigation into the source of the new coronavirus in a video address to the 74th World Health Assembly on Tuesday. Fauci re-emphasized the need for an investigation into the origin of the virus at a briefing held Tuesday by the White House New Coronas Outbreak Response Team.
The report said President Joe Biden issued a statement Wednesday asking U.S. intelligence agencies to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information about the origin of the 2019 coronavirus disease and to report to him in 90 days whether the new coronavirus came from an animal source or a laboratory accident.
According to a Liberty Times report today, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), recently denied that donations from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had funded dangerous coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research in China, although he loosely changed his story on the 26th, saying that he could not guarantee that U.S. taxpayer money had not been used for the Wuhan Virus Institute’s long-term coronavirus “gain-of-function” (gain-of-function) research!
The “gain-of-function” research involves processing the virus in the lab to explore the possibility of the virus infecting humans, which many scientists have criticized because it makes SARS-like viruses more contagious, with the risk of accidental leaks and pandemics.
Newsweek revealed last April that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had committed $3.7 million over six years to research that included coronavirus “gain-of-function” with support from Fauci. The NIAID, which Fauci is in charge of, is a branch of the NIH.
On the 11th of this month, Kentucky Republican State Senator Paul (Rand Pau) 1 in the Senate hearing on the epidemic, and Fauci fierce exchange, the two sides on whether NIH has funded the Wuhan Institute of Virus-related research, a stand-off. At the time, Fauci vowed to emphasize that Pau’s statement was incorrect and that “NIH has never funded, and still does not fund, ‘gain-of-function’ research at the Wuhan Institute of Virus.”
However, at a Senate hearing on the 26th, Fauci ambiguously informed Louisiana Republican Senator John Neely Kennedy that he could not guarantee that U.S. taxpayer money was not being used for viral “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute, and claimed that there was also insufficient evidence to show that the Institute’s Chinese scientists would have lied about the use of the funds, even to the point of covering up the origin of Wuhan pneumonia.
Speaking at a recent event, Fauci also changed his tune for the first time, saying he did not believe that the Wuhan lung virus came from nature and stressed the need to investigate “what happened in China,” the Free Times said. The Global Times, a hawkish mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, jumped on him, criticizing him for “betraying China.
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