Rand Paul: Because ‘he controls all the financing,’ Fauci intimidates scientists into not contradicting him
Rand paul fauci : Scientists who disagree with Dr. Anthony Fauci on the origins of COVID-19 keep their ideas to themselves since the top disease specialist controls much of their money, according to Sen.
Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, on “Fox News Primetime” Tuesday night.
Earlier in the day, Paul grilled Fauci during a Senate committee headed by Minnesota Democrat Tina Smith, with Fauci quibbling over Paul’s definition of gain-of-function study, which the lawmaker said came from a document sourced by another epidemiological expert.
Using federal perjury laws, the senator then urged Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease, to reconsider prior testimony denying NIAID or the National Institutes of Health’s particular funding endeavours at the Wuhan lab, where many believe COVID-19 originated.
Paul responded to Fauci’s actions by reiterating his claim that the 80-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y. native isn’t saying as much as he should be about gain-of-function research funding.
He claimed he read aloud the National Institutes of Health’s definition of gain-of-function study, as well as a scholarly piece from a cellular biology expert at Rutgers University in New Jersey, describing Wuhan lab official Dr. Shi Zhengli’s work as the textbook definition of such research.
“All Dr. Fauci could do was scream and accuse me of lying – but he never addressed any of the data that we laid out that the money he was giving to Wuhan was for gain of function.”
Many others in medicine rely on NIAID money, which Fauci has the final say on, according to Paul, who is one of few notable medical professionals — as a doctor himself – speaking out and criticising Fauci.
Fauci has worked at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, since 1968, according to the senator.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan named him as the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Host Brian Kilmeade went on to say that on the “Brian Kilmeade Show” earlier in the day, Johns Hopkins physician Dr. Marty Makary said that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will give $40 billion in research funding in 2020, but less than a half-percent will go to COVID-related projects.
Makary said Fauci should be ashamed of that number, and Kilmeade asked Paul why the medical profession as a whole isn’t more outraged:
“He’s been at the National Institutes of Health for 40 years, which is arguably 39 years too long.
However, he has complete control over all funds “Paul sent a warning.
“As a result, people are terrified of him. Researchers will remain silent. Why haven’t there been any more scientists?”
Paul said he regularly receives letters from scientists who disagree with Fauci’s prescriptions and public pronouncements, but they all express the same regret: they are reluctant to speak out against the health-care bureaucrat.
“They have a lot of doubts about what he’s saying. They don’t believe he’s making sense or correctly reading the science “Paul stated.
“They’re frightened to speak up because many of them are university scientists who rely on NIH funds: crossing him means you’re out of money for the rest of your life.”
Fauci has a “serious conflict of interest” in the Wuhan case, according to Paul, because he was “at the top of the food chain” in terms of funding distribution and now claims none of it got to the risky gain-of-function research.
He added, “All he’s saying is, yeah, well, the research now doesn’t satisfy our criterion.”
“He’s avoiding the truth by dancing around it. Why? Because, guess what, if this disease came from a lab and they were funding function gain?
At the absolute least, he bears moral responsibility for the outbreak of the epidemic.”
Paul went on to say that Fauci made statements in 2012 regarding the possibility of a pandemic leaking from a facility, and that if that happened, the research would be worth the risk.
Fauci defended contentious gain-of-function research in a document written that year, claiming that the “benefits” of the study “outweigh the risk” of an unintended pandemic breaking over.
“A pandemic is more likely to occur in nature,” the article stated, “and the necessity to keep ahead of such a threat is a fundamental justification for doing an experiment that may appear risky.”
Fauci responded to Paul’s claims by claiming he denies and “resents” them during the hearing on Tuesday.
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