Tipsheet

Rand Paul Grills Fauci Over Funding Dangerous Research at the Wuhan Lab

Katie Pavlich
Katie Pavlich  |  May 11, 2021 1:30 PM

Republican Senator Rand Paul grilled Dr. Anthony Fauci during a hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday about the National Institute of Health's funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic likely started. More specifically, Paul asked Fauci about funding for "gain-of-function" research at the lab. 

Fauci repeatedly denied funding the dangerous and unnecessary research, but the NIH grant process tells a different story. 

In fact, Fauci is known as "The Godfather" of gain-of-function research. 

"I often talk to scientists who say the same thing, that say, ‘Listen, we really want to speak out about this, but we can’t do it. Why can’t we do it? Well, we get all of our funding from NIH, or NIAID… which is run by Dr. Fauci,'" he said on Kelly’s podcast. "And so we can’t say anything like ‘Oh, gain-of-function research might be dangerous, or it might have come from a lab, because we’re going to lose our careers, we’re going to lose our funding, we’re not going to be able to do the work.'"

"The head of the funding, the head of the entire field, really, is Anthony Fauci," he said. "He’s the godfather of gain-of-function research as we know it. That, again, just what I said right there, is too hot for TV because people don’t want to think about the fact that our hero of the pandemic… might also have been connected to this research, which might also have been connected to the outbreak."

Since the beginning of the pandemic last year, Paul has routinely challenged Fauci's guidance and assertions.