Late last week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) wrote a letter admitting that they funded controversial gain-of-function (GOF) research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology where they would take virus samples and make them more infectious to people to learn how they acted. All of that was whitewashed by ABC as This Week host George Stephanopoulos teed up Dr. Anthony Fauci to deny and lie about the research they funded.
Of course, instead of looking at what the NIH had done, Stephanopoulos tried to make the story about people supposedly overreacting or making it political. He suggested the controversy was over subcontractor EcoHealth Alliance not disclosing “some results in a timely manner.”
“Now, some critics and analysts have seized on that to say you and others have misled the public about U.S. funding of this so-called gain-of-function research. The NIH says that's false. Our medical unit backs that up,” he claimed without evidence.
Stephanopoulos then played a recent soundbite of Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul calling for Fauci to be fired and teed up the doctor to attack him. “I want to give you the opportunity to respond to Senator Paul, but also explain, what was the United States funding? What wasn’t it funding? And why that’s important,” he wanted to know.
“Well, I obviously totally disagree with Senator Paul. He's absolutely incorrect. Neither I nor Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the NIH lied or misled about what we’ve done,” Fauci asserted. But that wasn’t true.
In his testimony to Congress, Fauci said the NIH didn’t fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab. And on Sunday, he tried to deny what the NIH blatantly admitted:
The framework under which we have guidance about the conduct of research that we fund, the funding at the Wuhan Institute was to be able to determine what is out there in the environment, in bat viruses in China. And the research was very strictly under what we call a framework of oversight of the type of research.
And under those conditions which we have explained very, very clearly, does not constitute research of gain-of-function of concern. There are people who interpret it that way, but when you look at the framework under which the guidance is, that is not the case.
Fauci claims they made the definition of GOF clear, but there were accusations that the NIH had edited it off their website. According to an archived page from October 19, 2021, there was a lengthy explanation of what GOF research entailed. Including: “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.”
But on the current version of the page, they’ve replaced it with something called “ePPP Research.” Here, they say ePPP involved enhancing a virus, but added: “While ePPP research is a type of so called [sic] ‘gain-of-function’ (GOF) research, the vast majority of GOF research does not involve ePPP and falls outside the scope of oversight required for research involving ePPPs.”
Keep that in mind as Fauci went on to defend the research being done at the Wuhan lab (Click “expand”):
But one of the things that gets mixed up in this, George, and it really needs to be made clear to the American public. There’s all of this concern about what's gain-of-function or what's not, with the implication that that research led to SARS-CoV-2, and COVID-19. Which, George, unequivocally anything that knows anything about viral biology and phylogeny of viruses know that it is molecularly impossible for those viruses that were worked on to turn into SARS-CoV-2, because they were distant enough molecularly that no matter what you did to them, they could never, ever become SARS-CoV-2.
And yet when people talk about gain-of-function, they make that implication which I think is unconscionable to do, to say, well, maybe that research led to SARS-CoV-2.
“So, things are getting conflated, George, that should not be conflated,” he whined as the interview came to an end.
This was the first time ABC viewers have heard of the NIH’s admission to funding GOF research and it has gone unmentioned by CBS and NBC newscasts.
ABC allowing Dr. Fauci to deny and lie about the NIH funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from CarMax and Vicks. Their contact information is liked so you can tell them about the biased news they fund.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s This Week
October 24, 2021
9:29:32 a.m. Eastern(…)
STEPHANOPOULOS: The controversy over whether the U.S. was funding risky COVID research in Wuhan was kicked up again this week when the NIH released a letter about that research, which showed that the subcontractor had not disclosed some results in a timely manner.
Now, some critics and analysts have seized on that to say you and others have misled the public about U.S. funding of this so-called gain-of-function research. The NIH says that's false. Our medical unit backs that up.
But Senator Rand Paul stepped up that criticism in a new interview with Axios on HBO. Let's play it.
[Cuts to video]
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Dr. Fauci should be fired?
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: By the president?
PAUL: Yes, absolutely. The thing is, is just for lack of judgment, if nothing else. He's probably never going to admit that he lied. He's going to continue to dissemble and try to work around the truth and massage the truth.
[Cuts back to live]
STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to give you the opportunity to respond to Senator Paul, but also explain, what was the United States funding? What wasn’t it funding? And why that’s important?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, I obviously totally disagree with Senator Paul. He's absolutely incorrect. Neither I nor Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the NIH lied or misled about what we’ve done.
The framework under which we have guidance about the conduct of research that we fund, the funding at the Wuhan Institute was to be able to determine what is out there in the environment, in bat viruses in China. And the research was very strictly under what we call a framework of oversight of the type of research.
And under those conditions which we have explained very, very clearly, does not constitute research of gain-of-function of concern. There are people who interpret it that way, but when you look at the framework under which the guidance is, that is not the case.
So I have to respectfully disagree with Senator Paul. He is not correct that we lied or misled the Congress. It's just not correct, George. I’m sorry.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That -- right. It showed that what was being researched was very far from the COVID -- the SARS-COVID virus. But it did show that the subcontractor did not release some results in a timely manner.
What did learn from the letter? Does it show that some of the research we were finding was riskier than we know?
FAUCI: No, it isn't. We knew what the risk was, and what the oversight is. Certainly, they should have put their progress report in a timely manner. No denial of that, and there will be administrative consequences of that.
But one of the things that gets mixed up in this, George, and it really needs to be made clear to the American public. There’s all of this concern about what's gain-of-function or what's not, with the implication that that research led to SARS-CoV-2, and COVID-19. Which, George, unequivocally anything that knows anything about viral biology and phylogeny of viruses know that it is molecularly impossible for those viruses that were worked on to turn into SARS-CoV-2, because they were distant enough molecularly that no matter what you did to them, they could never, ever become SARS-CoV-2.
And yet when people talk about gain-of-function, they make that implication which I think is unconscionable to do, to say, well, maybe that research led to SARS-CoV-2.
You can ask any person of good-faith who’s a virologist, and they will tell you, absolutely clearly, that that would be molecularly impossible.
So, things are getting conflated, George, that should not be conflated.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Dr. Fauci, thanks as always for your time and information.
