Cheers could be heard in the Senate chamber after an amendment introduced by Sen. Rand Paul to ban the funding of gain-of-function research in China was passed unanimously.
“Gain-of-function research, where we take a deadly virus, sometimes much more deadly than COVID, and then we increase its transmissibility to mammals is wrong,” Paul said when introducing the amendment. “Any gain-of-function research should not be funded in China with U.S. taxpayer dollars, and I recommend a yes vote.”
Paul’s amendment was then sent to a voice vote and was approved, eliciting cheers from throughout the chamber.
The Senate Chamber erupted into cheers after Sen. @RandPaul‘s amendment– which bars the US government from funding gain-of-function research in China– passed unanimously. pic.twitter.com/P05FnN7EUZ
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) May 26, 2021
The amendment comes two weeks after Paul confronted Dr. Anthony Fauci during a Senate hearing, pressing the infectious disease expert on whether the National Institutes of Health was funding gain-of-function research in China.
FAUCI DENIES NIH SUPPORTED GAIN-OF-FUNCTION RESEARCH AT WUHAN LAB
“This gain-of-function research has been funded by the NIH,” Paul said during the hearing. “The collaboration between the U.S. and the Wuhan institute continues.”
“Dr. Fauci, do you still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan?” Paul asked.
“Sen. Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect — that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Fauci responded.
But on Tuesday, Fauci told lawmakers that the NIH sent $600,000 over five years to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study whether coronaviruses found in bats were transmittable to humans, though he continued to deny that the funds went to gain-of-function research.
“That categorically was not done,” Fauci insisted.
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“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,” Fauci said. “It would have 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 got to go where the action is.”
