RAND PAUL WAS RIGHT: Newly released documents prove Fauci lied about NIH supporting gain-of-function research at Wuhan lab

Rand Paul will be so happy to be vindicated.

According to newly released documents, obtained by The Intercept via a FOIA lawsuit, Dr. Fauci lied about the NIH supporting gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab.

Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University referenced in the article by The Intercept, explained last night that these new documents reveal that the NIH funded the coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab, where spike proteins were created and made pathogenic to humanized mice.

He explains everything below:

Instead of quoting tweet by tweet from Ebright, I’m just going to quote it directly for ease of reading. But you can see the whole tweet thread under the above tweet, assuming it doesn’t get disappeared by our Twitter overlords:

“The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals that were funded by the NIAID, as well as project updates relating to the EcoHealth Alliance’s research, which has been scrutinized amid increased interest in the origins of the pandemic.”

The materials show that the 2014 and 2019 NIH grants to EcoHealth with subcontracts to WIV funded gain-of-function research as defined in federal policies in effect in 2014-2017 and potential pandemic pathogen enhancement as defined in federal policies in effect in 2017-present.

(This had been evident previously from published research papers that credited the 2014 grant and from the publicly available summary of the 2019 grant. But this now can be stated definitively from progress reports of the 2014 grant and the full proposal of the 2017 grant.)

The materials confirm the grants supported the construction–in Wuhan–of novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses that combined a spike gene from one coronavirus with genetic information from another coronavirus, and confirmed the resulting viruses could infect human cells.

The materials reveal that the resulting novel, laboratory-generated SARS-related coronaviruses also could infect mice engineered to display human receptors on cells (“humanized mice”).

The materials further reveal for the first time that one of the resulting novel, laboratory-generated SARS-related coronaviruses–one not been previously disclosed publicly–was more pathogenic to humanized mice than the starting virus from which it was constructed…

…and thus not only was reasonably anticipated to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity, but, indeed, was *demonstrated* to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity.

The materials further reveal that the the grants also supported the construction–in Wuhan–of novel chimeric MERS-related coronaviruses that combined spike genes from one MERS-related coronavirus with genetic information from another MERS-related coronavirus.

The documents make it clear that assertions by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are untruthful.

I would bold more tweets to highlight important information, but I find that’s a little distracting. So be sure and read all the tweets above because they are all important.

Someone asked Ebright “So you’re saying Rand Paul was right?” He responded “On this question, yes.”

With the release of this new information, I suspect Dr. Fauci won’t be so willing to appear before Rand Paul’s Senate Committee the next time he gets invited.

In related news, Biden recently claimed that the investigation by the US into the origins of the coronavirus were inconclusive.

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