Despite the FBI and the Department of Energy’s assertions that SARS- CoV- 2 was good leaked from a Chinese test, congressional Democrats continue to underplay the importance of COVID- 19’s source. The lab-leak hypothesis is never a” crime concept,” according to popular witnesses, including those who promote new books on the talk-show circuit.
This indifference was apparent during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hear on Tuesday, which was somewhat limited, according to Just The News. Robert Garry, a Tulane University scientist and inc- author of the” Proximal Origin” paper in *Nature Medicine* that immediately dismissed “any type of lab- based scenario”, faced major Republican scrutiny with much defense from Democrats.
Sen. Josh Hawley ( R- Mo. ) confronted Garry, accusing him of being core to “propaganda” reportedly recruited by Dr. Anthony Fauci, next- director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to “censor individuals who ask issues”. After consulting with Fauci and past National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, the creators of the Proximal Origin paper mostly changed their position on the disease’s nature.
Garry defended his work, claiming that COVID- 19 has endured a lot of scrutiny and that “new data” have persuaded him that it came normally. He maintained that SARS- CoV- 2 is “definitely” hardly a “laboratory create” and cited an unidentified summary indicating that “four IC elements” and the National Intelligence Council lean toward normal exposure.
Hawley vehemently disagreed, stating,” That is a lie. I have read” the classified assessments, while accusing Garry and his colleagues of propagandizing the public. Hawkley remarked that the intelligence community did not arrive at the conclusions Garry had.
The hearing saw limited participation from the Democratic majority, with only Chairman Gary Peters ( D- Mich. ) and Sen. Maggie Hassan ( D- N. H. ) speaking. Petters argued that while the lab-origin theory is “possible,” it is unlikely to be definitively proven because of the potential non-disclosure by the Chinese government.
Garry reaffirmed that early COVID samples identified the Wuhan Seafood Market as a “hotspot” for the virus, despite recognising that definitive proof of natural emergence is lacking without raw data from China and records from the Wuhan Institute of Virology ( WIV ).
Sen. Rand Paul ( R- Ky. ) presented exposed communications indicating that Fauci’s “inner circle” of scientists initially considered a lab escape” so friggin’ likely” based on substantial circumstantial evidence. Paul made the point that the authors had internal discussions about the improbability of a spontaneous emergence without significant genetic modifications.
In a grant proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2018, Richard Ebright, a microbiologist from Rutgers University, testified that the WIV had only used basic safety precautions when making the proposal for risky research involving furn cleavage sites. He claimed that SARS- CoV- 2 is the only known coronavirus with a furin cleavage site, which mathematically implyes a lab origin over a natural one.
The SEC’s investigation into Hunter Biden’s business associates has been subject to requests from House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky. ) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio ). This is in line with the Republican trend of requesting greater accountability and transparency in government-related investigations.
Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, who gave NIAID funding to the WIV, has recently been suspended and proposed debarred by the Department of Health and Human Services. This action signals a growing scrutiny of potential conflicts of interest and controversial research funding.
