Senator Rand Paul: Gain of Function Research: A Death Wish for the World

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The coronavirus outbreak brought the world’s attention to the dangers of gain-of-function research. This kind of research occurs when a virus is manipulated to increase its strength or contagiousness—literally, causing it to Get a function.

Dr. Anthony Fauci reiterates the Chinese Communist Party’s talking points and insists that SARS-CoV-2 spreads from bats to intermediate hosts animals, then to humans. According to Chinese authorities, this virus originated in a wet marketplace in Wuhan. “spillover” occurred.

Yet according to Chinese officials—who have a big incentive to disprove a laboratory accident—none of the animals at that market when it closed, and none of the animals in its supply chain were infected with SARS-CoV-2. In fact, since the outbreak of the pandemic, no animal has been infected by the virus in three years.

EcoHealth Alliance (a New York-based nonprofit) applied for funding in 2018 from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. EcoHealth suggested that EcoHealth include a “proteolytic cleavage site” into bat coronaviruses which interact with furin, an enzyme found in human cells. DARPA however rejected this proposal, arguing that adding a furin-cleavage site to the coronavirus would render it more fatal in humans.

Only 18 months later, COVID-19 appeared in Wuhan—but nowhere else. Unlike the original SARS virus and the 2013 avian flu, SARS-CoV-2 didn’t spring up in separate geographic regions (as you would expect of a virus circulating in another species). It spread from one location, and appeared well-adapted from the start to cause a once in a century pandemic.  

The genetic feature that allows the virus to reproduce so quickly is a furin-cleavage site in the spike protein. However, this feature has not been observed in any other SARS-related coronavirus.. 

We later found out that the Wuhan Institute of Virology partnered up with EcoHealth to fund another project involving gain of function experiments on bat coronaviruses. However, unlike the project DARPA had rejected, this one found a U.S. government agency willing to fund it: Dr. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

This is why many scientists believe COVID-19 originated in a laboratory. Two Columbia University professors wrote in May PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). “We do not know whether the insertion of the [furin cleavage site] was the result of natural evolution . . . or was the result of a deliberate introduction . . . into a SARS-like virus as part of a laboratory experiment. We do know that the insertion of such [furin cleavage site] sequences into SARS-like viruses was a specific goal of work . . . submitted to [DARPA] . . . We also know that [sic] this research team would be familiar with several previous experiments involving the successful insertion of [a furin cleavage site] sequence into SARS-CoV-1 and other coronaviruses, and they had a lot of experience in the construction of chimeric SARS-like viruses.”   

We don’t know the cause of the pandemic. However, we know that the government funded gain-of function research in Wuhan by funding scientists who wanted to study coronaviruses using furin cleavage sequences.

This research can be used to develop countermeasures against future epidemics, by modeling how viruses might change in nature. We now have the ability to create vaccines in days after sequencing a new pathogen using messenger RNA (mRNA). Why would we want to use tools such as these? Create Guess which mutations might appear in nature and create new mutations. It is a death wish that the world takes such a risk.

If this research technique is to be continued in any form, it will require strict biosafety control and rigourous oversight. This is why I called for a thorough investigation into the cause of the pandemic and held the first Senate hearing about gain-of function research. 

I am honored to have been elected as ranking member of the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC).

As a ranking member of a committee, I will hold our government officials accountable if they were involved in this terrible act. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have made it a promise that I would subpoena every document belonging to Dr. Fauci. The cover-up will stop. If Dr. Fauci was aware of the gain of function research at The Institute of Virology, Wuhan, I will submit a Congressional Criminal Referral to The Department of Justice asking for Dr. Fauci’s prosecution. At that time, I would hope that Dr. Fauci apologizes publicly to the families who were affected by EcoHealth, NIH, and his hubris.

I believe that we will continue robust, bipartisan investigations into COVID-19’s roots.

⚠️⚠️⚠️ Editor’s Note: Google initially flagged this column as having contained “unreliable and harmful claims.” After bringing this to the public’s attention, Google issued a statement saying the article was “labeled in error” It was since taken down. ⚠️⚠️⚠️  

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