⁣STORY AT-A-GLANCE
* Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has long supported controversial gain-of-function (GOF) research, which you can hear him speak about at a hearing before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs at the U.S. Senate, held April 26, 2012
* GOF research refers to studies that have the potential to enhance the ability of pathogens to cause disease, including enhancing either their pathogenicity or transmissibility; GOF is a type of dual use research
* Fauci speaks favorably of dual use research of concern, or DURC, stating, "the risk-benefit ratio of such research clearly tips towards benefiting society"
* Due to its controversial nature and potential to fuel bioweapons, several moratoriums have been placed on GOF research, including one in October 2014, after a string of high-profile "incidents" at U.S. biocontainment laboratories
* NIAID has funded GOF research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), but Fauci — amid growing calls that COVID-19 was the result of a laboratory accident — has denied that such funding occurred
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — an arm of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that in recent years has funded gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) — has denied that such funding occurred.
Fauci told a House Appropriations subcommittee that $600,000 was given to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, which funneled the money to WIV, over a five-year period for the purpose of studying bat coronaviruses and whether they could be transmitted to humans.
However, regarding gain-of-function (GOF) research, which refers to studies that have the potential to enhance the ability of pathogens to cause disease, including enhancing either their pathogenicity or transmissibility, Fauci said, "That categorically was not done."
However, Fauci has long supported controversial Bioweapons research, which you can hear him speak about in the video above, which features a hearing before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs at the U.S. Senate, held April 26, 2012.
Dual Use Research Is Inherently Risky
Dual use research is so named because it involves research on select agents and toxins that could either benefit society or destroy it, depending on whether or not it falls into the wrong hands. Fauci specifically speaks about dual use research of concern, or DURC, which involves 15 potentially deadly pathogens, including:
* DURC involves seven categories of research experiments, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which includes GOF and may:
* Enhance the harmful consequences of the agent or toxin
* Disrupt immunity or the effectiveness of an immunization against the agent or toxin without clinical and/or agricultural justification
* Confer to the agent or toxin resistance to clinically and/or agricultural useful preventative or treatment interventions against that agent or toxin or facilitates their ability to evade methods of detection
* Increase the stability, transmissibility or the ability to disseminate the agent or toxin
* Alter the host range or tropism of the agent or toxin
* Enhance the susceptibility of a host population to the agent or toxin
* Generate or reconstitute an eradicated or extinct agent or one of the 15 DURC toxins or agents
* Controversy Over H5N1 GOF Research Began in 2012
Because GOF, or DURC, can be used to make pathogens more readily able to infect humans, it poses major biosecurity risks, which makes publication of such data almost as controversial as the research itself.
Two studies on highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza ignited the debate in 2012. One, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Madison-Wisconsin, identified molecular changes in H5N1 that would allow it to transmit among mammals.
The other, led by Ron Fouchier at Rotterdam University in The Netherlands, genetically modified H5N1 virus, making it airborne transmissible in ferrets. As written in EMBO Reports in 2015:
"Both groups introduced mutations into highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza (HPAI) that could potentially increase human-to-human transmission of the virus. These mutations are classified as GOF because they increase airborne transmissibility in ferrets — a good model for human transmission.
Some in the research and biosecurity communities are concerned that these experiments could result in accidental or intentional releases of the mutated pathogen, or that the now publicly available information about how to increase the human-to-human transmissibility of H5N1 influenza could be abused for developing biological weapons."
Interestingly, the EMBO report actually was written to protest classifying Fouchier's work as gain-of-function. However, in January 2012, six months before Fouchier's article was published, 39 international flu researchers announced a voluntary moratorium on research related to H5N1, which was expected to last 60 days but continued until January 23, 2013, due to the highly controversial nature of the studies.
This prompted the U.S. to develop a DURC policy, which was released in March 2012; Fauci references it in the video.