Fauci: It would have been 'dereliction of our duty' not to collaborate with China on studying coronaviruses

Anthony Fauci testified it would have been "Almost a dereliction of our duty" if the National Institutes of Health had not worked with China to study coronaviruses as he defended NIH money going to fund "Collaboration" with "Very respectable Chinese scientists."

"Why do research in collaboration with our Chinese colleagues? Well, the underlying reason for that is that we had a big scare with SARS-CoV-1 back in 2002, 2003, where that particular virus unquestionably went from a bat to an intermediate host to start an epidemic and a pandemic that resulted in 8,000 cases and close to 800 deaths. It would've been almost a dereliction of our duty if we didn't study this, and the only way you can study these things is, you've gotta go where the action is," Fauci said.

Fauci and Francis Collins, the leader of the National Institutes of Health, are adamant in insisting that NIH did not fund "Gain-of-function" research at the Wuhan lab.

Harris then noted that "We could have sent money through EcoHealth Alliance. Money could have ended up at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which might be doing gain of function research" and added that "Because I do know that money is somewhat fungible - once you send money to institutes ... it bothers me a little bit that we would send money to an institute that might be doing gain of function research, especially China."

Harris followed up later, saying, "I just wanted to correct the record - I think Mr. Pocan paraphrased what my question was about the Wuhan institute. It did not have to do with globally not funding overseas research. It had to do with, through the indirect cost associated with grants, sending money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology when we don't know if they're doing gain of function research."

A State Department fact sheet released in January contended that Wuhan lab researchers "Conducted experiments involving RaTG13, the bat coronavirus identified by the WIV in January 2020 as its closest sample to SARS-CoV-2" and that the lab "Has a published record of conducting 'gain-of-function' research to engineer chimeric viruses."

The professor concluded that "The Wuhan lab used NIH funding to construct novel chimeric SARS-related coronavirus with the ability to infect human cells and laboratory animals" and that "The research was, unequivocally, gain of function research."

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