Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee looking into the budget estimates for National Institute of Health (NIH) and the state of medical research, Wednesday, May 26, 2021, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Sarah Silbiger/Pool via AP)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 8:48 AM PT – Wednesday, May 26, 2021
While appearing before a congressional budget committee, Dr. Anthony Fauci revealed and defended what he called the “modest” and “very respectful” funding of an infamous Wuhan laboratory. In a house testimony Tuesday, he admitted that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funneled U.S. taxpayer money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Dr. Fauci said at least $600,000 was sent to the lab through the non-profit called EcoHealth Alliance. The NIH director confirmed the money was given to the Chinese lab over a five-year period to study bat coronaviruses and whether they could infect humans.
“Well the underlying reason for that is that we had a big scare with SARS-CoV-1 back in 2001-2003, where that particular virus unquestionably went from a bat to an intermediate host to start and epidemic, a pandemic, that resulted in 8,000 cases and close to 800 deaths,” he stated. “It almost would have been a dereliction of duty if we didn’t study this and the only way you can study this thing is you gotta go where the action is.”
However, the doctor denied the funds were used for “gain of function” research, which is a term used to describe medical research that alters an organism or disease in a way that increases pathogenesis, transmissibility or host range. This came after Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said “gain of function” was the primary effort of Wuhan scientists.
“About $800,000 was allocated and about $600,000 was spent over a five-year period, no more than that,” Dr. Fauci explained. “That comes to anywhere between $125,000 to $150,000 per year that went into collaboration with Wuhan.”
Earlier this month, the NIH director told Sen. Paul that the agency did not provide any funding to the Wuhan lab. Dr. Fauci’s latest confessions are now sparking calls to arrest him for lying under oath.
Meanwhile, as new evidence emerges backing the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, experts have suggested the virus could have been given to the Wuhan lab by the Chinese military.
On Tuesday, bioweapons expert Dr. Lawrence Sellin said the People’s Liberation Army sent the virus to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in early 2019. While citing Chinese sources, he said the virus then underwent testing on large primates.
Dr. Sellin claimed the military unit that provided the virus for testing is the same entity that worked with bat coronaviruses in the past. He added, COVID-19 may be part of the Chinese bioweapons program.
“They were beginning to document it in their military documents that this was one viable option either in a pre-war or warfare scenario and all that information is actually out on the internet right now, in terms of what the People’s Liberation Army has been saying about the use of biological weapons,” he explained. “They specifically talk about conditions before and during a war, so they look at it in both aspects.”
This comes just days after a U.S. Intelligence report revealed three Wuhan lab workers were hospitalized in November 2019 with coronavirus symptoms. This evidence reignited the theory that coronavirus originated at a Wuhan lab and was leaked to the public.
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