Dr. Fauci’s promotion of gain of function research may have contributed to COVID-19 pandemic

From National Security.news (June 29):

There remains little doubt that the novel coronavirus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, although no one can say for certain if its release was intentional or not. However, it’s not just the Chinese researchers at the lab who are to blame for the disease; some experts are pointing out that National institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci’s promotion of a dangerous type of research could have played a role.

That’s because, as Matthew Cullinan Hoffman points out on Life Site News, much of the research carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was funded, advocated and defended by leadership of the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Agency for International Development, along with the World Health Organization and several American universities.

The lab carries out a dangerous type of research known as “gain of function,” which involves scientists manipulating viruses in the lab in order to examine their potential to infect humans. It is highly risky in the sense that an accidental release could spur a pandemic, which may be precisely what we are seeing right now.

In 2019, the National Institutes of Health, with backing from the NIAID, committed to spending $3.7 million over the course of six years for research, some of which was the gain of function variety. This came on top of a different $3.7 million, five-year project that involved collecting bat coronaviruses and studying them. The first program funded virologist Shi Zheng-Li and other researchers at the Wuhan Lab and came to a close last year.

Dr. Fauci also came under fire when he defended a risky gain of function research project on bird flu viruses that involved passing wild viruses through live animals until they mutated into a type that could potentially pose a pandemic threat. The scientists involved took a virus that had been poorly transmitted through humans and made it into a highly transmissible one.

More than 200 scientists joined a call for the risky work to be stopped because of the potential of a lab accident creating a pandemic, but Dr. Fauci felt that it was a useful project and defended it. [read more]

Another article on the subject:

American Tax Dollars Funded Dangerous Studies On Bats With Coronavirus In A Chinese Lab