BREAKING NEWS: COVID-19 Lab-Leak Theory 'Cover-Up' Probed In Senate Homeland Security Committee

4 months ago

The Senate Homeland Security Committee holds a hearing about the origins of COVID-19, in which some Republicans alleged a "cover-up" of the lab-leak theory.

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Transcript

00:00:00The COVID-19 pandemic was one of the worst public health crises that our country has

00:00:07ever faced.

00:00:09We lost more than 1 million Americans to the virus, family members and neighbors, friends

00:00:15and colleagues, and millions more died around the world.

00:00:20The COVID-19 pandemic led to a once in a generation event that not only threatened our public

00:00:26health but also created unprecedented challenges to our economic and homeland security as well

00:00:32as our very way of life.

00:00:35As Americans navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, they endured challenging health care guidance,

00:00:41uncertainty and misinformation about how to best protect themselves and their families

00:00:46from this deadly virus.

00:00:49Today's hearing is intended to examine the available scientific evidence related to the

00:00:55virus that causes COVID-19 and provides some transparency to Americans who are continuing

00:01:01to have to navigate their exposure to the virus.

00:01:05As chairman of this committee, I led an investigation into the federal government's initial pandemic

00:01:12response.

00:01:13The report was called Historically Unprepared and included recommendations on how we can

00:01:18ensure that we're better prepared to prevent and respond to future pandemics.

00:01:24This March, I also launched a bipartisan biosecurity and life science research investigation with

00:01:30ranking member Paul to look into a wide range of constantly evolving biological risk and

00:01:36threats to better enhance our preparedness for future incidents.

00:01:41This morning, we're going to hear from academic experts who can discuss how COVID-19 pandemic

00:01:47may have started and how we can learn from this outbreak to better address future potential

00:01:53infectious disease outbreaks and protect human life.

00:01:58Better understanding of the possible origins of COVID-19 pandemic is not only important

00:02:04to our public health, it is also a matter of homeland security.

00:02:09We must learn from the challenges faced during this pandemic to ensure we can better protect

00:02:14Americans from future potential biological incident.

00:02:19Our government needs the flexibility to determine the origins of naturally occurring outbreaks

00:02:24as well as potential outbreaks that could arise from mistakes or malicious intent.

00:02:31All that said, the history has shown us it is seldom simple or straightforward to identify

00:02:37the singular cause of an infectious disease outbreak.

00:02:41It can take months or years to pinpoint an origin and in some cases we may never find

00:02:46the answer.

00:02:48This is also the case with COVID-19.

00:02:50There are theories that indicate that COVID-19 began either by entering the human population

00:02:56through an entirely natural means or possibly through a lab incident or accident.

00:03:04Given the likelihood that the Chinese government may never fully disclose all the information

00:03:08they have about the initial COVID-19 outbreak, we must use the scientific information available

00:03:14to better prepare for future potential pandemics.

00:03:18We must not only examine the scientific information we have about COVID-19, but also the tools

00:03:24and procedures the government has in place to understand such viral outbreaks and how

00:03:29we can prevent them from becoming widespread in the future.

00:03:34Today's hearing and our panel of expert witnesses will help us understand how the most recent

00:03:40pandemic began so that we can take necessary steps to protect the American people from

00:03:45future biological threats.

00:03:49I'd now like to recognize Ranking Member Paul for his opening remarks.

00:03:57Today we are here to examine one of the most critical and debated questions of our time.

00:04:02Did COVID-19 originate in a lab?

00:04:04To answer this question, let's revisit the early days of the pandemic and examine what

00:04:09some of Dr. Anthony Fauci's inner circle said privately about the origins of the virus.

00:04:14Discussions that were only revealed through FOIA litigation.

00:04:19Christian Anderson wrote, the lab escape version of this is so frigging likely to have happened

00:04:24because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent

00:04:30with that scenario.

00:04:31Ian Lipkin stressed the nightmare of circumstantial evidence to assess regarding the possibility

00:04:38of inadvertent release given the scale of bat coronavirus research pursued in Wuhan.

00:04:45Bob Gary said, I really can't think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat

00:04:52virus or one very similar to it to COVID-19 where you insert exactly four amino acids,

00:04:5812 nucleotides and all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function.

00:05:03I just can't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature.

00:05:08According to Gary, it's not crackpot to suggest this could have happened given the gain of

00:05:13function research we know was happening at Wuhan.

00:05:17These are all private statements, which you'll discover today differ greatly from their public

00:05:22statements.

00:05:23Even Ralph Baric, world famous gain of function researcher and collaborator with Wuhan's Dr.

00:05:28Xi admitted, so they, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, have a very large collection

00:05:35of viruses in their laboratory.

00:05:37And so it's, you know, proximity is a problem.

00:05:40It's a problem.

00:05:42Federal court orders reveal that even Dr. Fauci himself privately acknowledged concerns

00:05:47about gain of function research in Wuhan and mutations in the virus that suggest it might

00:05:53have been engineered just days before he commissioned the proximal origin paper.

00:05:59Despite these private doubts, publicly these so-called experts and their allies were dismissing

00:06:04the lab leak theory as a conspiracy.

00:06:07Within days, Anderson, Lipkin, and Gary were putting final touches on what would be remembered

00:06:12as one of the most remarkable reversals in modern history.

00:06:16In their proximal origin paper, these scientists concluded, we do not believe that any type

00:06:22of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.

00:06:26Privately they were saying one thing, publicly they were saying another.

00:06:31Media pundits parroted the narrative while social media platforms censored discussion

00:06:36about the lab leak, labeling it as misinformation and stifling open discourse about the virus's

00:06:42origins.

00:06:43The cover-up went beyond public statements.

00:06:46Federal agencies and key officials withheld and continued to conceal crucial information

00:06:52from both Congress and the public.

00:06:54For instance, David Morenz, Dr. David Morenz of the NIH, deleted emails that could have

00:07:01contained valuable insights into early discussions.

00:07:04When he deleted them, he made the comment, I think we're safe now.

00:07:09He deleted emails.

00:07:11He said, the early emails I've deleted to Peter Daszak at EcoHealth, I think we're safe

00:07:16now.

00:07:20The ODNI failed to comply with a law that was passed unanimously.

00:07:25One of the senators on this committee got it passed.

00:07:27We were going to declassify all this and revealed it, and the administration has refused.

00:07:32HHS and NIH have not produced documents related to the gain-of-function research that the

00:07:37chairman and I requested nearly a year ago.

00:07:40I've been asking for two or three years as an individual member with some other Republican

00:07:44members and have not gotten these records.

00:07:47I've now asked with the Democrat chairman over a year, and they're still resisting.

00:07:52They say it's not gain-of-function.

00:07:53Well, let's hear the debate.

00:07:55Did they debate at NIH whether it was gain-of-function in Wuhan?

00:07:57If there's a debate, let's hear the scientific arguments on both sides.

00:08:00They will not give us that information.

00:08:04This has been a deliberate, prolonged effort to deceive the committee about certain gain-of-function

00:08:09research experiments that the agencies have been withholding.

00:08:16What we have found as we've gone through this is that at every step there's been resistance.

00:08:23So the hearing today is to try to find out whether or not we can get to the truth.

00:08:29Do we know for certain it came from the lab?

00:08:31No, but there's a preponderance of evidence indicating that it may have come from the

00:08:35lab.

00:08:36Do we know viruses have come from animals in the past?

00:08:38Yes, they've come from animals in the past, but this time there's no animal reservoir.

00:08:43There's no animal handlers with antibiotics.

00:08:46There's a lot of reasons why there are indications that this could well have come from the lab.

00:08:52This is what the discussion we'll have today.

00:08:54This is a discussion that's long in coming.

00:08:56It's been over three years that we've been asking for this, but this is great.

00:09:01This is good.

00:09:02We'll have scientists on both sides of this issue, and I hope we have a spirited debate.

00:09:06Thank you.

00:09:08Thank you, Ricky.

00:09:09Member Paul.

00:09:10It is the practice of this committee to swear in witnesses, so if each of you would please

00:09:14stand and raise your right hands.

00:09:20Do you swear the testimony that you will give before this committee will be the truth, the

00:09:25whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

00:09:30Thank you.

00:09:31You may be seated.

00:09:35Our first witness is Dr. Gregory Koblitz.

00:09:38He is an associate professor and director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George

00:09:43Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government.

00:09:48He serves as editor-in-chief of the Pandora Report, an online newsletter that covers global

00:09:55health security, and as co-director of the Global Biolabs Initiative that tracks high

00:10:00security labs and bio-risk management policies around the world.

00:10:05Dr. Koblitz, you are now recognized for your opening statement.

00:10:12Thank you.

00:10:13Chairman Peters, Ranking Member Paul, and other members of the committee, thank you

00:10:16for the opportunity to talk to you today about the origins of COVID-19 and its implications

00:10:20for U.S. biodefense and global health security.

00:10:24I have been conducting research and teaching on biodefense, global health security, and

00:10:28bio-risk management for the last 25 years, both at the Schar School at George Mason,

00:10:34as you indicated.

00:10:35I come before you today in my personal capacity, and my views do not represent those of George

00:10:39Mason or the organizations with which I am affiliated.

00:10:43I've submitted a lengthy written statement to you, which I will not go over today in

00:10:46detail, but I'm happy to answer any questions you have about it during the rest of the hearing.

00:10:51What I'd like to do is just highlight some key points.

00:10:54First, let me directly address the main topic of the hearing today, the available evidence

00:10:58on the origins of COVID-19.

00:11:00More than four years after the start of the pandemic, the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus

00:11:04remains a subject of debate.

00:11:06There are two pandemic pathways that have been widely discussed to explain how SARS-CoV-2

00:11:10emerged in Wuhan in 2019.

00:11:12A natural spillover event from animals to humans, or an actual release of a pathogen

00:11:17from a laboratory.

00:11:18The possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was deliberately developed as a biological weapon has been

00:11:22unanimously rejected by all U.S. intelligence agencies.

00:11:25While the intelligence community is divided on the origin of the pandemic, most of the

00:11:29agencies have determined that the virus was not genetically engineered.

00:11:33I believe the available evidence points most strongly to a natural zoonotic spillover event

00:11:38as the origin of the pandemic.

00:11:39However, a research-related accident can't be ruled out at this time.

00:11:43A key obstacle to more definitive conclusion is the lack of transparency exercised by the

00:11:48Chinese government, which affects assessments of both potential pathways to the pandemic.

00:11:53Until there's an independent, international, and transparent investigation, it's unlikely

00:11:56we'll be able to come up with a more definitive conclusion that will satisfy both sides of

00:12:01the debate.

00:12:02It's not my intention to review this debate today.

00:12:06Instead of looking backwards, I prefer to look forwards and plan for the future.

00:12:09The reality is that we're not as well prepared to prevent, detect, respond to, or recover

00:12:14from a biological incident or pandemic as we should be, regardless of its origin.

00:12:18The growing H5N1 outbreak in the United States is a testament to the challenges we currently

00:12:22face and the urgency of addressing them.

00:12:25The difficulty in determining the origin of COVID-19 is not unusual.

00:12:29Among the outbreaks and pandemics we've already experienced this century, it's taken years

00:12:32to identify the origin of a novel pathogen, sometimes in only general terms.

00:12:36Rarely is it possible to identify the exact sequence of events that led to the first human

00:12:39infection that sparked a pandemic.

00:12:42Determining the origin of an outbreak or pandemic can be divided into four stages, detection,

00:12:47identification, characterization, and attribution.

00:12:51Understanding how a specific pathogen entered and spread in a population to cause an outbreak

00:12:54is a multidisciplinary undertaking that requires expertise in epidemiology, human medicine,

00:13:00veterinary medicine, biology, genetics, bioinformatics, ecology, anthropology, and related fields.

00:13:06Seeking the origin of an outbreak requires collecting and analyzing a large amount of

00:13:09data collected from diverse sources by a range of agencies with a variety of scientific capabilities

00:13:15and disciplinary specializations.

00:13:16The quality of the data and the rigor of the epidemiological and scientific investigation

00:13:20will affect the level of confidence we have in these determinations.

00:13:25Determinations of the origin of a pandemic or an outbreak are rarely definitive and need

00:13:28to be carefully qualified to reflect the strength of available evidence as well as

00:13:31gaps and uncertainties.

00:13:34Determining the origin of an outbreak can improve the effectiveness of response to an

00:13:37ongoing incident, reduce the likelihood of or magnitude of future incidents, or even

00:13:43prevent future outbreaks altogether.

00:13:45Making this determination, however, is not always straightforward or successful.

00:13:48The process of investigating the source of an outbreak is like putting together a puzzle

00:13:52where you don't know what the final picture will look like.

00:13:54The pieces change shape and move around, and pieces are added and moved as you're trying

00:13:58to solve the puzzle.

00:14:00There are also several factors that can influence the success of an origin investigation, including

00:14:05the passage of time, the biology and epidemiology of the specific pathogen, limited scientific

00:14:10knowledge about novel pathogens, local and national politics, and economic considerations.

00:14:15We saw each of these factors at play in Wuhan in 2019 and 2020.

00:14:19Indeed, we see similar factors at play in the response to the current H5N1 outbreak

00:14:24in the United States as well.

00:14:26The key point is that determining the origin of an outbreak or a biological incident is

00:14:29scientifically complex, but can also be politically fraught and subject to countervailing pressures

00:14:34by other actors with an interest in obscuring or delaying or halting the outcome of an investigation.

00:14:40So what should be done to improve our ability to determine the origins of a biological incident?

00:14:44I recommend that this Congress, working with the Biden administration, invest in strengthening

00:14:47biosurveillance and bio-risk management in the United States and internationally.

00:14:51This will not only enhance our ability to determine the origins of future incidents,

00:14:55but also improve our capabilities to prevent them and respond more successfully to prevent

00:15:00an outbreak from becoming a pandemic.

00:15:03Biosurveillance in the United States suffers from fragmentation, chronic underinvestment

00:15:06in state and local public health capacity, and the lack of capacity to rapidly develop

00:15:10and deploy diagnostics.

00:15:13In my written statement, I provide further recommendations about biosurveillance.

00:15:17In terms of time, I'll get just to the recommendations on bio-risk management, and this is a field

00:15:23that encompasses a field in laboratory biosafety, laboratory biosecurity, and oversight of dual

00:15:28use research.

00:15:30Even if the origins of COVID-19 is proven to be the result of a natural zoonotic spillover

00:15:35event, the pandemic raised important questions about the efficacy of our oversight of dual

00:15:39use research of concern, including with pathogens with enhanced transmissibility or virulence.

00:15:46The pandemic has also dramatically illustrated the consequences if such a pathogen escapes

00:15:50from a lab and sparks a pandemic.

00:15:53Regardless of one's views on the origin of the pandemic, we should all be able to agree

00:15:56that we want to minimize the risk that a future pandemic could be caused by a laboratory accident.

00:16:00Last month, the Biden administration released a new U.S. government policy for oversight

00:16:03of dual use research of concern, which represents a significant step forward in oversight of

00:16:08high consequence research.

00:16:09There are two immediate steps that Congress could take to enhance implementation of this

00:16:14policy.

00:16:15First, Congress could support the Biden administration's efforts to provide education and training to

00:16:18the wide array of stakeholders who are now going to be affected by this policy.

00:16:23This policy now covers 95 biological agents and toxins, up from 14, so there's a much

00:16:28wider swath of biological community that's now going to be subject to oversight, and

00:16:32they need to understand this policy in order to implement it effectively.

00:16:35Congress also needs to pass legislation to close a loophole in the current policy that

00:16:41allows privately funded research, including that with engineering of pathogens, to continue

00:16:47without any oversight, and I think it's in the power of Congress to solve that fairly

00:16:50easily.

00:16:51Over the longer term, Congress needs to modernize the U.S. bio-risk management system.

00:16:57I think the most effective way to do that would be creation of an independent federal

00:17:00agency that would be responsible for bio-risk management across both publicly and privately

00:17:06funded enterprises.

00:17:09In conclusion, we know enough about the two different pathways to a pandemic, both the

00:17:14demonstrated route of natural transmission, the potential of laboratory accident, that

00:17:19we have enough information now that we can take action that will significantly reduce

00:17:21the risk posed by both types of risks.

00:17:24Thank you.

00:17:25Thank you, Dr. Koblitz.

00:17:27Our second witness is Dr. Robert Gehry.

00:17:30He is a professor of microbiology and immunology and an associate dean for biomedical sciences

00:17:36at Tulane School of Medicine.

00:17:39Dr. Gehry has been a professor of virology for over 40 years and has performed groundbreaking

00:17:45work in diagnostics for emerging pathogens, including the Ebola virus.

00:17:50Dr. Gehry, welcome to the committee.

00:17:52You are now recognized for your opening statement.

00:17:56Thank you very much.

00:17:57Chairman Peters, Ranking Member Paul, distinguished members of the Homeland Security and Government

00:18:02Affairs Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today.

00:18:07As Chairman Peters says, I'm a professor and associate dean at Tulane School of Medicine

00:18:12in New Orleans.

00:18:13And the reason you may know me is because I'm an author on a peer-reviewed paper that

00:18:18appeared in Nature Medicine entitled The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2.

00:18:23In the Proximal Origins paper, my co-authors and I discussed several different possible

00:18:27origins of SARS-CoV-2.

00:18:30The three possible origins for the virus that are most relevant to today's discussion are,

00:18:35one, direct spillover from a bat to a human, two, spillover from a bat to an intermediate

00:18:42animal and then to a human, and three, lab origin.

00:18:47At the time of writing the Proximal Origin paper in early February to mid-March 2020,

00:18:51we did not rule out any of these three pathways.

00:18:55Based on the current available evidence, I believe that the most plausible origin of

00:18:59SARS-CoV-2 is spillover from a bat to an intermediate animal and then to a human.

00:19:04I further believe the available evidence indicates that the spillover happened naturally, likely

00:19:10at the Henan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China.

00:19:13I do not believe that the available scientific evidence, when considered holistically, supports

00:19:18that the virus was created in a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

00:19:23However, I am first and foremost a scientist, and I will adhere to the scientific method.

00:19:29So I will continue to evaluate new evidence and reassess the validity of my scientific

00:19:34hypotheses regarding the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

00:19:38I look forward to continuing the scientific debate and peer-reviewed materials with other

00:19:43scientists, including those here today, regarding our different perspectives and interpretations

00:19:48of the evidence.

00:19:49That said, I'm heartened by the attention this committee is giving to a very timely

00:19:55and important topic, gain-of-function research.

00:19:58I welcome this opportunity to engage in an open and constructive conversation about the

00:20:03risk and benefits and appropriate safeguards and restrictions on this research.

00:20:09As Chairman Peters mentioned again before, I've been a virology professor for over 40 years.

00:20:14I've seen firsthand the damage that emerging viruses can cause.

00:20:18I researched HIV before we knew the profound impacts this emerging virus would have on

00:20:23all of society, and while the American public was still fearful of blood transfusions.

00:20:29I was present in Sierra Leone at the outbreak of Ebola in 2014, and witnessed the death

00:20:34toll and heartbreak, including many close friends and colleagues who succumbed.

00:20:39I'm currently developing countermeasures to Lassa virus, a deadly hemorrhagic fever virus

00:20:44with up to a 70% case fatality.

00:20:48So I understand, perhaps better than most, the importance of assuring appropriate safeguards

00:20:53for research, including adequate oversight of funding, rules and guidelines regarding

00:20:59study design, including the types of viruses that require oversight, and universal standards

00:21:04for the use of appropriate protective gear when handling highly transmissible or pathogenic

00:21:10viruses in the laboratory or in field studies.

00:21:14But I also know the vital role of responsibly performed research, including on highly transmissible

00:21:20and pathogenic viruses.

00:21:22It advances public health and national security.

00:21:26Without gain-of-function research, we'd have no Tamiflu.

00:21:31Without gain-of-function research, we wouldn't have a vaccine to prevent cancer caused by

00:21:35infection by the human papillomavirus.

00:21:38And without gain-of-function research, we won't be able to identify how novel viruses

00:21:42infect us, and if we don't know how they infect us, we cannot develop appropriate treatments

00:21:47and cures for the next potential pandemic-creating virus.

00:21:51So I also encourage the committee to empower the scientific enterprise to address the certainty

00:21:56of viral threats that emerge from nature in the future.

00:21:59For example, potential pandemic viruses can infiltrate commercial animal farming industries.

00:22:05The wildlife trade in China was the only enterprise in the world comparable in size to the United

00:22:09States cattle industry.

00:22:12Multiple spillovers of SARS-CoV, the first SARS, occurred in 2002 through 2004, and they

00:22:19came from the Chinese wildlife trade.

00:22:22Evidence similarly indicates that this likely happened again with SARS-CoV-2 in 2019.

00:22:29I hope we treat these instances as a stark and timely reminder that this can happen anywhere

00:22:34in the world.

00:22:35In fact, it's happening right in our backyard with the serious threat from bird flu that

00:22:41it poses to our United States cattle industry.

00:22:45As a member of NIID, Center for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases, or CREID Network,

00:22:51I know that gain-of-function research can be done responsibly and safely.

00:22:55The new guidance from the Office of Science Technology Policy shows that research with

00:22:59high-risk pathogens and the types of experiments that require review can be clearly defined

00:23:04in a way that does not obstruct low-risk research.

00:23:08I'm honored to be a part of this important conversation that will help define the future

00:23:12of a vitally important area of virology, and I urge the members of this committee to find

00:23:17a path forward that permits appropriate gain-of-function research to continue to help ensure our public

00:23:23health and national security.

00:23:25Thank you, Dr. Gary.

00:23:28Our next two witnesses will be introduced by Ranking Member Paul.

00:23:33Stephen Quay is an MD-PhD.

00:23:36He's the CEO of Atosa Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel

00:23:41therapeutics for oncology.

00:23:42Dr. Quay has authored 400 publications in the field of medicine, including 32 on the

00:23:47origin of SARS-CoV-2.

00:23:50His work has been cited over 12,000 times, placing him in the top 1% of scientists worldwide.

00:23:56His paper, a Bayesian analysis, concludes, beyond a reasonable doubt, that SARS-CoV-2

00:24:01is not a natural zoonosis, but instead is laboratory-derived.

00:24:05This article has been viewed over 206,000 times.

00:24:09Dr. Quay holds 238 U.S. patents and patent applications in 22 areas of medicine, including

00:24:15RNA chemistry, coronavirus therapeutics.

00:24:18Before his current role, he was a member of the Department of Pathology at the Stanford

00:24:21University School of Medicine.

00:24:23Dr. Quay, welcome to the committee.

00:24:25You are now recognized for your opening statement.

00:24:30Committee Chair, Senator Peters, Ranking Member, Senator Paul, committee members, invited participants,

00:24:37ladies and gentlemen.

00:24:38I am a physician-scientist and have a 50-year career spanning academic medical research,

00:24:43biotechnology, and scientific fraud investigation.

00:24:47My biography summarizes my career.

00:24:49I speak today, however, as an independent scientist.

00:24:53I do not receive any NIH or NIAID funding.

00:24:58Scientists dependent on NIH or NIAID funding may have pressure to publicly agree with orthodoxies

00:25:04that privately they admit are wrong.

00:25:07My approach to the COVID pandemic origin that killed 20 million-plus people, caused

00:25:13$20 trillion in economic damage, is based on six approaches to the data and the events.

00:25:20I'll start with something Dr. Gehry said privately, quote, someone should tell Nature, meaning

00:25:25the British Journal, that the fish market probably did not start the outbreak, end quote.

00:25:30I agree with Dr. Gehry.

00:25:32Unfortunately, one reason we are having these hearings is that the public statements of

00:25:36many virologists have not been congruent with their private conversations.

00:25:42In any case, I'll describe the six approaches to the question that all support a lab leak

00:25:46as a source and can go deeper into each of those with questions.

00:25:51First, the virus was spreading in Wuhan and around the world in the fall of 2019, months

00:25:57before the first case in the Hunan seafood market.

00:26:00This is supported by 14 observations or evidence.

00:26:04The evidence includes the calculation of the time to the most recent common ancestor, hospital

00:26:08overloads in Wuhan, antibodies in patients from Italy, Spain, and the U.S., wastewater

00:26:14samples from Brazil, sick athletes at the October Wuhan military games, school closings

00:26:19in Wuhan, and dozens of documented patients.

00:26:23This dismisses out of hand the market as the origin.

00:26:27But second, let's look at the market data.

00:26:29The human infections, the animal samples, and the environmental specimens.

00:26:33These generate eight observations.

00:26:36No infected animals in the market or the supply chain were infected.

00:26:40No infected wildlife vendors had SARS.

00:26:45All human infections are the non-ancestral lineage B.

00:26:48The environmental specimens with animal DNA have no SARS-2.

00:26:53One vendor had animals from southern China where SARS-2 came from, but this vendor and

00:26:57his animals are negative for SARS-2.

00:27:00Now only one of 14 environmental samples with raccoon dog DNA contain SARS reads, and that

00:27:06contains one read out of 210 million.

00:27:11Thirteen of the 14 raccoon dog DNA specimens had no SARS-2.

00:27:16With SARS-1, literally 100% of the market animals were infected.

00:27:19I frankly think it is shameful for scientists to mislead journalists and the public saying

00:27:24these data I just described are evidence raccoon dogs were infected with SARS-2.

00:27:30This is why trust in science is broken.

00:27:32None of these data are consistent with an infected animal passing SARS-2 to a human

00:27:36at the market.

00:27:37The 1,500 kilometer distance to the nearest SARS-2 related virus is like the distance

00:27:42from Washington, D.C. to the Florida Everglades.

00:27:45Imagine you're at dinner at a restaurant in North Bethesda near the NIAID labs.

00:27:49You get sick and you are told that the virus you caught is only found in bats from the

00:27:53Everglades, but it also happens to be under study at the laboratories you see outside

00:27:57the restaurant window.

00:27:59That's what the market origin people are asking you to believe.

00:28:02Third, documented events at or related to Wuhan Institute of Virology beginning in March

00:28:072019 are consistent with the expected activities when a lab acquired infection has occurred.

00:28:14This timeline has included unusual attention from the Chinese Communist Party, leading

00:28:17to the PLA physician soldier being put in charge.

00:28:21Large tender requests to repair biosafety equipment.

00:28:24A virus database disappearing in the middle of the night.

00:28:27Large tender requests for a lab security force to, quote, handle foreign personnel, end quote.

00:28:33Patents for a device to prevent a lab acquired infection.

00:28:37Rumors in the virology community of a new SARS virus in the lab.

00:28:4030 vials of the three most dangerous viruses on the planet being shipped illegally from

00:28:44a lab in Canada to the WIV in March, and then one of those pathogens being found as a major

00:28:49contaminant in a BLSA lab in December.

00:28:52These events taken together are a classic example of closing the barn door after the

00:28:55horses left.

00:28:57Fourth, the evidence that is found in a natural zoonosis with respect to the animal host,

00:29:02the virus, and the human are missing with COVID.

00:29:0596,000 animals were tested and are negative for SARS-2.

00:29:0943,000 blood samples from blood donors in Wuhan were tested.

00:29:13A natural spillover like SARS-1 would have produced about 260 positives.

00:29:18A lab accident would be zero, and of course, zero is what is found.

00:29:22With respect to the virus, a spillover produces posterior diversity in the virus genome.

00:29:27A lab leak does not.

00:29:29SARS-2 has no posterior diversity.

00:29:32Natural spillovers, as Dr. Gary indicated this morning, involve multiple markets.

00:29:35SARS-1 began in southern China, had 11 spillovers in 11 different markets in 9 different cities.

00:29:42Christian Anderson, the proximal origin of SARS-2, said SARS-2 was one person being infected

00:29:48with one animal.

00:29:50I agree.

00:29:51Fifth, the genome of SARS-2 has eight features found in a synthetic virus that are not found

00:29:56in natural viruses.

00:29:58The probability that SARS-2 came from nature based on these features is one in a billion.

00:30:03These features are the backbone, the receptor binding domain, the furin cleavage site, the

00:30:08genetics of the furin cleavage site, the number, location, and pattern of cloning sites

00:30:14in SARS-2 that use the Barak cloning method, and the ORF8 gene.

00:30:19Based on SARS-2 cloning sites, I predicted how SARS-2 could be made in the laboratory.

00:30:24A year later, Barak used the predicted steps to make an infectious clone of SARS-2.

00:30:29These same features were described in a 2018 DARPA grant by WIV and U.S. scientists.

00:30:34With respect to the grant, SARS-2 had the proposed backbone from the proposed region

00:30:40in China, the proposed adaption to human killing, the proposed diversity from SARS-1, the proposed

00:30:46no-CM cleavage site, number, location, and pattern, the proposed human cleavage site

00:30:51at the proposed S1, S2 junction.

00:30:55Let's close with a thought experiment.

00:30:57It's 2018.

00:30:58Do you think a market spillover of coronavirus could have happened in Wuhan?

00:31:01Dr. Dasik and Shi have studied coronaviruses for a decade, and they said no.

00:31:06How do I know that?

00:31:07Because they used Wuhan residents as control for a study looking for antibodies in coronaviruses

00:31:12in people living near bat caves in southern China.

00:31:14The rural residents had a 3% rate.

00:31:16Wuhan residents had zero.

00:31:18Let's flip that and ask the reverse question.

00:31:21Do you think a lab-acquired infection could begin in Wuhan, a city with the world's leading

00:31:26laboratory collecting coronavirus from nature, doing synthetic biology on coronaviruses,

00:31:30doing petri dish, and animal research on coronavirus with a bat colony for testing,

00:31:35and they had written a blueprint to make a coronavirus that had seven unique features

00:31:40found in SARS-CoV-2?

00:31:41I'll let you answer that question yourself.

00:31:44I have a number of specific reforms I believe should be implemented, and I would be happy

00:31:48to discuss them during the questioning.

00:31:51What happens if we have these hearings and nothing happens?

00:31:54The Wuhan Institute of Virology right now is testing a Nipah virus in a synthetic clone.

00:31:59This is a U.S. CDC bioterrorism agent that kills three out of four people.

00:32:05A lab leak with an airborne Nipah virus would quickly, within weeks, disrupt food and energy

00:32:10distribution, fire and police services, medical care.

00:32:13My analysis of this tipping point event is that it would set back civilization about

00:32:17250 years.

00:32:18The work of this committee is critical.

00:32:21If we now fail to act with the knowledge we have history, if it can still be recorded,

00:32:25we'll judge us poorly.

00:32:26Thank you for your time.

00:32:27Thank you.

00:32:28Professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University.

00:32:41He also serves as the laboratory director for the Waxman Institute of Microbiology,

00:32:45a position he has held for 37 years.

00:32:47Dr. Ebright has authored over 185 peer-reviewed publications and holds more than 45 issued

00:32:53and pending U.S. patents.

00:32:55He's the co-founder of Biosafety Now and a member of the advisory board of the Global

00:32:59Biolabs Project and the Institutional Biosafety Committee at Rutgers University.

00:33:05Previously he served on the Antimicrobial Resistance Committee for Infectious Disease

00:33:10Society of America, the Controlling Dangerous Pathogens Project, and the Pathogen Security

00:33:16Working Group for the state of New Jersey.

00:33:18Dr. Ebright, welcome to the committee.

00:33:21You are now recognized for your opening statement.

00:33:24Chairman Peters, ranking member Paul, and members of the committee, thank you for inviting

00:33:29me to discuss the origins of COVID-19.

00:33:32I'm board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University

00:33:37and laboratory director at the Waxman Institute of Microbiology.

00:33:41In my statement I will present my assessment of the origin of COVID and will summarize

00:33:44key lines of evidence that support my assessment.

00:33:48I assess that a large preponderance of evidence indicates SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes

00:33:54COVID, entered humans through a research incident.

00:33:57I base this assessment on information in publicly available documents, press reports, and scientific

00:34:03papers, on my research experience in microbial genomics, microbial genetics, DNA synthesis

00:34:09technology, and recombinant DNA technology, and on my knowledge of and experience with

00:34:14biosafety, biosecurity, and bio-risk management for work with pathogens.

00:34:20Four key facts support my assessment.

00:34:22First, COVID emerged in Wuhan, a city that is 800 miles from the closest bats harboring

00:34:27SARS-CoV-2-like viruses that could have served as progenitors of SARS-CoV-2, but that contains

00:34:33lab that prior to the outbreak were conducting the world's largest research program on bat

00:34:40SARS viruses, possessed the world's largest collection of bat SARS viruses, and possessed

00:34:46the virus most closely similar to SARS-CoV-2.

00:34:49The large distance between Wuhan and bats harboring SARS-CoV-2-like viruses points away

00:34:55from a natural origin of COVID, and Wuhan's status as the global epicenter of research

00:35:01on bat SARS viruses points toward a research origin of COVID.

00:35:06Second, in the four years preceding the outbreak, Wuhan labs performed research that placed

00:35:11them on a trajectory to obtain SARS viruses having high pandemic potential, and in 2018,

00:35:18one year before the outbreak, Wuhan labs proposed research to obtain SARS viruses having

00:35:22even higher pandemic potential and features that match in detail the features of SARS-CoV-2.

00:35:30Wuhan labs performed high-risk virus discovery and gain-of-function research on bat SARS

00:35:35viruses.

00:35:36In their virus discovery research, Wuhan researchers searched for new bat viruses in caves in southern

00:35:41China, brought samples to Wuhan, and sequenced, cultured, and characterized new viruses in

00:35:47Wuhan.

00:35:48In their gain-of-function research, Wuhan researchers genetically modified bat SARS

00:35:53viruses, constructing viruses having enhanced ability to infect human cells and having enhanced

00:35:58viral growth and enhanced lethality in mice engineered to possess human receptors for

00:36:03SARS viruses, so-called humanized mice.

00:36:07Already in 2015, scientists expressed concern that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting

00:36:14research that posed unacceptably high risk.

00:36:17At a 2015 Royal Society and National Academies meeting on gain-of-function research and its

00:36:22oversight, the research on bat SARS viruses by the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its

00:36:27collaborators was singled out as the research most likely of all research in the world to

00:36:33trigger a pandemic.

00:36:35In 2017 to 2018, with NIH funding, the Wuhan Institute of Virology constructed genetically

00:36:41modified SARS viruses that combined the spike gene from one bat SARS virus with the rest

00:36:47of the genetic information from another bat SARS virus, obtaining new viruses that efficiently

00:36:54infected human cells and obtaining at least one new virus that exhibited 10,000 times

00:37:01enhanced viral growth in lungs and 1 million times enhanced viral growth in brains and

00:37:08three times enhanced lethality in humanized mice.

00:37:12In 2018, just one year before the outbreak, in an NIH grant proposal, the Wuhan Institute

00:37:18of Virology and collaborators proposed to construct additional genetically modified

00:37:21SARS viruses, proposing to construct viruses having spikes with even higher binding affinities

00:37:27for human SARS receptors, seeking viruses having even higher pandemic potential.

00:37:33Also in 2018, just one year before the outbreak, in a DARPA grant proposal, the Wuhan Institute

00:37:39of Virology and its collaborators proposed to construct genetically modified SARS viruses

00:37:43having a furin cleavage site, a feature associated with increased viral growth and increased

00:37:49transmissibility.

00:37:50They proposed to insert the furin cleavage site at the spike gene S1-S2 border and to

00:37:56construct the viruses by synthesizing six nucleic acid building blocks and assembling

00:38:01them using the reagent BSM-B1.

00:38:03Third, Wuhan labs performed this research on SARS viruses using an inadequate biosafety

00:38:11standard, just biosafety level two, and inadequate personal protective equipment, just gloves

00:38:19and a lab coat.

00:38:21Lab accidents that result in infectional release are common, even at biosafety levels higher

00:38:25than biosafety level two.

00:38:27For context, the original SARS virus, SARS-CoV-1, caused lab-acquired infections in Singapore

00:38:35at biosafety level three, in Beijing twice at biosafety level three, and in Taipei at

00:38:42biosafety level four.

00:38:45For further context, SARS-CoV-2 itself caused lab-acquired infections in Beijing in 2020

00:38:52at biosafety level three, and in Taipei in 2021 at biosafety level three.

00:38:58The Wuhan labs' use of biosafety level two for research on bat SARS viruses would have

00:39:02posed a high risk, a very high risk, of infection of lab staff upon encountering a virus having

00:39:08the aerosol transmission properties of SARS-CoV-2.

00:39:11Fourth, in 2019, a novel SARS virus having a spike with extremely high binding affinity

00:39:17for human SARS receptors, a furin cleavage site inserted at the spike S1-S2 border, and

00:39:24a genome sequence with features enabling assembly from six synthetic nucleic acid building blocks

00:39:29using the reagent BSMB1, a virus having the exact features proposed in the 2018 NIH and

00:39:37DARPA proposals emerged on the doorstep of Wuhan Institute of Virology.

00:39:42SARS-CoV-2 is the only one of more than 800 known SARS viruses that possesses a furin

00:39:48cleavage site.

00:39:49Mathematically, this observation alone implies that the probability of finding a natural

00:39:55SARS virus possessing a furin cleavage site is less than one in 800.

00:39:59Taken together, the presence of a spike having an extremely high affinity for human SARS

00:40:03receptors, the presence of a furin cleavage site inserted at the spike S1-S2 border, the

00:40:09genome sequence enabling assembly from six synthetic nucleic acid building blocks using

00:40:13the reagent BSMB1, and the 1-4-1 match between these features and the features proposed in

00:40:20the 2018 NIH and DARPA proposals make an extremely strong case, a smoking gun for a research

00:40:26origin.

00:40:28In summary, multiple lines of secure evidence point to a research origin.

00:40:33By contrast, as I hope I will have the opportunity to review in response to questions, no, zero

00:40:40secure evidence points toward a natural origin.

00:40:43Thank you.

00:40:46Thank you, and thank you to each of our witnesses.

00:40:49Dr. Gary, my first question is going to – I'm going to direct it towards you.

00:40:55Of the evidence that's been presented thus far, it's still not clear to me how much

00:41:02is concrete documented information and how much is speculation or perhaps just filling

00:41:11in the gaps with assumptions based on what's out there.

00:41:16So my question for you, Dr. Gary, is could you elaborate more on the specific hard evidence

00:41:22that supports your claim that the Chinese market in Wuhan was the most likely source

00:41:27of the virus?

00:41:28Certainly, and thank you for the question.

00:41:30There is a lot of evidence that this virus emerged from the Henan Seafood Market in Wuhan,

00:41:36but let me just focus on three points, epidemiology, molecular forensics, and genetics.

00:41:44First the epidemiology.

00:41:45The early cases from December 2019, before the disease was even described, all centered

00:41:52around, in fact, they painted a bullseye on the Henan Seafood Market.

00:41:57The molecular forensics.

00:42:00Environmental samples were collected from the market after it was closed.

00:42:04The hotspot of SARS-CoV-2 positivity, the RNA, was in the southwest corner of the market.

00:42:11In those very same samples, RNA and DNA from raccoon dogs and mass palm civets was found

00:42:16in these samples, commingling with the SARS-CoV-2 RNA.

00:42:22Genetics.

00:42:23The SARS-CoV-2 spilled over at least twice in the market.

00:42:27The phylogenetics, the genetics of the virus are very clear about that.

00:42:31That is not compatible with a lab leak.

00:42:35Dr. Carey, do we know that the virus that caused COVID-19 existed in the Wuhan lab before

00:42:44the pandemic, and if not, how could we find that out?

00:42:47In fact, we don't know.

00:42:50The intelligence community has looked at that point very intently and has not been able

00:42:55to determine that Wuhan had the virus.

00:43:01We don't have the evidence from the Chinese.

00:43:03It's just one of the many things that we're missing that we would like to get from the

00:43:07Chinese government.

00:43:11Based on the bat coronavirus that we know that researchers in the Wuhan lab are working

00:43:18on, would it have been possible for them to create this virus?

00:43:22Is it possible?

00:43:23Not from a bat coronavirus.

00:43:25If you take the time to read my written testimony in that document, I went through a lot of

00:43:32evidence that this virus did not spill over directly from a bat to a human being.

00:43:38It had to go through an intermediate animal.

00:43:40It's not just the evidence from the non-market.

00:43:43There's other genetic evidence.

00:43:46The bat coronaviruses are viruses that are spread by the gastrointestinal route.

00:43:53For a virus like this to become a respiratory virus, it's just going to require too many

00:43:59mutations, too many changes for a bat virus to spill directly over to a human being.

00:44:04That could only really happen in nature with replication through an intermediate animal.

00:44:09Very good.

00:44:10Dr. Koblitz, the next question is for you.

00:44:13I'm aware that through FOIA requests, a lot of information from U.S. agencies and U.S.-based

00:44:19organizations have been obtained by people investigating the COVID-19 origins.

00:44:25However, it seems as though we've gotten relatively little or nothing from Chinese agencies or

00:44:31the Wuhan Institute of Virology specifically.

00:44:35My question for you, sir, is what specific information from China would be most helpful

00:44:40in settling this origin debate?

00:44:46Thank you, Senator.

00:44:47There's a range of information that would be useful for furthering our investigation

00:44:52of the origins of the pandemic.

00:44:55The Chinese government has collected lots of information about the samples that were

00:45:01both at Hunan Market and elsewhere in Wuhan and in other provinces where they sampled

00:45:06animals, but they haven't released the raw data.

00:45:09They've provided information, but not the data that epidemiologists and virologists

00:45:12have wanted to see in order to do their own analyses.

00:45:16Just last year, they did release more information through publications, but it's information

00:45:21they've been sitting on for quite a while.

00:45:23So there is more information that should be released and should be made the raw data available

00:45:27to independent outside experts to make their own assessments.

00:45:32In terms of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, there should be records about the research

00:45:37they're conducting.

00:45:39There should be records about the medical surveillance they're performing on their researchers.

00:45:44There should be records on the maintenance operation of their biocontainment equipment,

00:45:48and all of those documentations could be reviewed by outside experts to determine if there's

00:45:56any signs that there was any accidents or any indications that the virus was made an

00:46:05escape from the lab.

00:46:07So there is quite a bit of information that's available, but obviously the Chinese government

00:46:11has chosen to be opaque about what they have and what they know in a way that has frustrated

00:46:18people involved with looking at this in terms of assessing both the natural zoonotic spillover

00:46:25pathway and also looking at the lab accident pathway.

00:46:28Dr. Geary, you talked about the virus jumping from an animal into a human, and we've heard

00:46:36the term spillover.

00:46:38For the benefit of this committee, could you explain spillover?

00:46:42Sure.

00:46:43In fact, most human diseases have come to us from animals.

00:46:50When we're talking about a spillover, we're talking about a cross-species transmission

00:46:54from one animal species to another.

00:46:57I mean, it could be another animal, but usually when we talk about spillover, we're talking

00:47:01about from an animal to a human.

00:47:03So animals have their own viruses, just like we do.

00:47:08The ones that are dangerous in the animals, though, are the ones that have the capacity

00:47:12to infect more than one species.

00:47:13You can think about a virus like rabies that can infect a wide range of mammalian hosts.

00:47:21So do we know what animal or animals could have carried this virus, and were they at

00:47:27the market?

00:47:28Explain that more fully, please.

00:47:31Sure.

00:47:32We don't know that for sure.

00:47:34What we do know is that when you look for the virus in the market on environmental surfaces

00:47:39in various places, you found it mostly in the southwest corner of the market.

00:47:45This is where the wildlife was sold, the animals like the raccoon donks or the mass palm civets.

00:47:52And in fact, many of the samples there had SARS-CoV-2 and DNA and RNA from those animals

00:47:58right there in the same sample.

00:48:01You could imagine somebody maybe came and sneezed on that sample, but the most likely

00:48:06explanation is that the animals were in fact infected themselves with SARS-CoV-2.

00:48:11When you look at the drains outside of that one stall that had the most SARS-CoV-2, that

00:48:16drain also had virus.

00:48:19So we don't have the smoking gun evidence that there was actually an infected animal

00:48:28in the market.

00:48:29But I think we have the next best thing with this forensic molecular biology.

00:48:33All right.

00:48:35Thank you.

00:48:36Ranking Member Paul, you're recognized for your questions.

00:48:37Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit statements for the record from U.S. Right

00:48:41to Know, Open the Books, America First Legal, Frontiers of Freedom, and Dr. Alina Chan.

00:48:47Without objection.

00:48:50So just in the last few minutes, Dr. Gary has told us that this couldn't have come from

00:48:54bats.

00:48:55It had to go through an intermediate host.

00:48:56That may well be true, but arguing against that is they tested 90,000 some odd animals

00:49:01and there is no animal host that's been found.

00:49:04But what he also doesn't tell you is the animal host could be a laboratory animal.

00:49:09It could be passed serially through that, and that's one way of quickly adapting and

00:49:13pushing natural selection to adapt a virus towards humans.

00:49:16Dr. Alina Chan has written extensively about this, how this virus didn't show up clunky

00:49:22and poorly transmissible.

00:49:23This virus showed up immediately very transmissible in humans as if it had been pre-adapted in

00:49:29a lab.

00:49:30Dr. Ebright, Dr. Gary tells us that he's wedded to the scientific method and that he considered

00:49:39all the different possibilities and proximal origins.

00:49:42I know you're a professor and I'm assuming you've been the senior author on many papers.

00:49:47I assume that you teach your younger researchers what is good scientific method and not good

00:49:52scientific method.

00:49:54In the abstract of proximal origins, Dr. Gary and his fellow authors state categorically

00:50:00that the virus is not a laboratory construct.

00:50:04That doesn't sound to me like open-mindedness, and I wonder what you would tell a younger

00:50:08researcher or someone you were instructing in the scientific method about putting categorical

00:50:13statements into a scientific paper.

00:50:17It's important to emphasize that the paper in question, Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,

00:50:21published in March 2020, was not a research article.

00:50:25It was an opinion piece.

00:50:27It was published as a commentary, which is the section in the journal that holds opinion

00:50:32pieces and editorials.

00:50:35So it was an opinion piece.

00:50:37The authors were stating their opinion, but that opinion was not well-founded.

00:50:43In March of 2020, there was no basis to state that as a conclusion as opposed to simply

00:50:49being a hypothesis.

00:50:51Moreover, we know that compelling evidence has been presented as a result of congressional

00:50:57inquiry in the House that four of the authors of that paper, Dr. Anderson, Dr. Gary, Dr.

00:51:04Holmes, and Dr. Rambo, in their private communications show clearly that they knew the conclusion

00:51:11that they stated in that article was invalid.

00:51:16So in terms of what I would tell a younger scientist I would be mentoring, I would tell

00:51:21a younger scientist that you do not state a conclusion without evidence, even in an

00:51:27opinion piece in a scientific journal.

00:51:31And you never, under any circumstances in a scientific journal, state conclusions that

00:51:37you know to be unsound.

00:51:39That represents scientific misconduct.

00:51:42It represents scientific misconduct up to and including fraud.

00:51:47The paper in question, the proximal origin paper, has been recommended for review of

00:51:52retraction.

00:51:53Two requests, one in 2023 and one in 2024, were submitted by teams of scientists to the

00:52:00journal in question, to the journal editors, asking them to add an editorial expression

00:52:05of concern and to initiate a review for retraction of the article.

00:52:11I know of no other example in modern scientific history or publications where a publication

00:52:16has come forward pronouncing with such authority that the lab leak is implausible, it is not

00:52:22a laboratory construct, while privately saying this is no friggin' conspiracy theory, looks

00:52:27like it.

00:52:28I'm 90-10, I'm 50-50.

00:52:30But no doubt in the paper, in fact we know that it went back and forth with Dr. Fauci

00:52:34and with editors who say we want the statements to be stronger, we want the conclusions to

00:52:39be stronger.

00:52:40That was actually coming from nature at the time.

00:52:41We want you to doctor it up and even be more strong because we're making a political point

00:52:45here.

00:52:46That's where we should have known we were off track, that these people were politicians

00:52:50and that they were pushing an idea because as Dr. Collins finally admitted in one of

00:52:55the emails, this is about the business of science with China, this will disturb our

00:52:59relations with China if anybody questions this.

00:53:02Dr. Kui, the idea that this came from the fish market I thought had been discredited

00:53:09by virtually all of the scientists.

00:53:11Now I'm really surprised it's still being presented here.

00:53:14I know that the Chinese, the CDC, George Gao over there, basically said that they no longer

00:53:21consider it.

00:53:22And actually if you think about it from their perspective, we're not sure if we can trust

00:53:25them, but at the same time, the Chinese, if they would rather have it come from a lab

00:53:29or the market, I think would choose the market over the lab.

00:53:31If anything, they would be, if we were going to think they were dishonest, would be dishonest

00:53:35towards saying, hey, we found some animals.

00:53:37But if you could review stepwise just a little bit slower some of the evidence for why it's

00:53:42not there.

00:53:43The amount of animals tested, the animal handlers compared to SARS-1.

00:53:47But also the idea of this genetic diversity that when SARS-1 came about the first time,

00:53:54I think it tried hundreds of times, because these animal viruses don't infect humans well

00:53:58in the beginning.

00:53:59It tried a hundred times, over and over again.

00:54:00And even in the end, SARS-1 didn't transmit between humans very well.

00:54:04That's why containment worked.

00:54:06And that's why quarantine worked, because it wasn't very infectious.

00:54:09But go through a little bit, step by step, the evidence of why anybody still maintaining

00:54:13that it came from the market is misguided.

00:54:15Sure.

00:54:16I mean, let me agree with Dr. Gary about SARS-1 being a spillover.

00:54:20And let me elaborate a little bit.

00:54:22There were 11 cities, 11 markets, three different lineages, and a 30 nucleotide difference among

00:54:29the initial cases and patients, which approximately is about a year of post-year diversity, it

00:54:34is called.

00:54:35SARS-2, of course, it's either in one market or it's in no markets.

00:54:39There's no other proposal for a market origin from it.

00:54:43457 animals were tested in the market.

00:54:46Zero were found to be infected.

00:54:48SARS-1, 92 animals, 100% infected.

00:54:53The vendors, the wildlife vendors in SARS-1 were all infected.

00:54:56We have 10 vendors here.

00:54:57None of them are infected.

00:54:59One vendor had bamboo rats from southern China, where the backbone comes from.

00:55:05He wasn't infected.

00:55:06His animals weren't infected.

00:55:08SARS-2 has no post-year diversity.

00:55:11So it really, as Dr. Anderson said, it's one jump from one animal to one human.

00:55:15The most likely place that happens is in a laboratory.

00:55:18And again, to be clear, when you say an animal, it could be a petri dish.

00:55:21It could be animal cells in a petri dish.

00:55:24The question of where the origins came from is the question of where the animal is.

00:55:28And they've tested 96 animals in nature.

00:55:31And they've tested zero animals at Wuhan Institute of Virology.

00:55:34That's where we need to look.

00:55:36Thank you.

00:55:37I'll reserve the rest for a second round.

00:55:41Senator Hassan, you're recognized for your questions.

00:55:43Well, thanks, Chair Peters and Ranking Member Paul for holding this hearing.

00:55:47Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today.

00:55:49Dr. Koblentz, one of the areas of inquiry in this hearing is obviously whether research

00:55:56funded by the United States government has appropriate oversight.

00:56:00However, private companies, universities, and independent research institutions are

00:56:04also engaging in cutting-edge research.

00:56:08While their research has the potential to cure diseases and boost our economy, unless

00:56:12they accept federal funding, there is very little federal oversight to ensure that private

00:56:17labs are engaged in safe and ethical research.

00:56:21What safety procedures are in place for research facilities that don't receive government

00:56:26funding?

00:56:27And are there oversight measures that either government or independent authorities should

00:56:31put in place to monitor work at these labs, including labs working on gene synthesis?

00:56:39Thank you, Senator.

00:56:42The oversight of privately funded research is much less than that of federally funded

00:56:46research in terms of both biosafety, biosecurity, and dual-use research oversight.

00:56:52What we've seen in the area of dual-use research oversight, for example, in the most recent

00:56:57policy that the Biden administration released, only applies to federally funded research.

00:57:02However, there is the ability for federal agencies to require their grant recipients

00:57:08to apply this new policy to all research, including that's privately funded, but that

00:57:14requires special authority that some agencies may have, but others would need legislation

00:57:19to give them that ability.

00:57:21That wouldn't cover research that's only conducted by privately funded entities, but it would

00:57:25expand the scope of research that that is.

00:57:28In order to expand the scope of oversight to all privately funded research would require

00:57:34legislative action.

00:57:36And along the lines of the proposals I included in my written statement for the establishment

00:57:40of a national biorisk management agency, that would have authority over biosafety, biosecurity,

00:57:45and dual-use research oversight, regardless of source of funding.

00:57:49Because at the end of the day, it shouldn't matter where the funding comes from in terms

00:57:52of making sure this research is being done safely, securely, and responsibly.

00:57:56Thank you for that.

00:57:58Another question to you, Dr. Koblentz.

00:58:00We've heard a great deal about the risks of certain types of research involving dangerous

00:58:04pathogens and the need for robust oversight on the type of experiments that are performed.

00:58:09We've heard less about the potential risks from researchers performing off-the-books

00:58:14or unsupervised experiments that may be risky or unethical.

00:58:19How serious are the risks posed by malicious or unethical insiders, and are the United

00:58:24States and international authorities equipped to sufficiently mitigate these risks?

00:58:31So following the revelations that Bruce Ivins was responsible for the anthrax letter attacks,

00:58:37which happened in 2009, the United States took a much stronger stance on trying to prevent

00:58:44insider threats at facilities.

00:58:46And so the Federal Select Agent Program, which focuses on biosecurity, included a number

00:58:51of measures to try and better monitor scientific access to pathogens in terms of ensuring that

00:58:56they remain – they do not become security risks.

00:59:01That kind of efforts to mitigate insider threats does not exist in the side of the dual-use

00:59:07research oversight.

00:59:09There is a lot of emphasis on self-governance by research institutions and by PIs to basically

00:59:16govern their own labs and make sure that work is not being done that is, as you said, off-the-books

00:59:21or is in any way unethical.

00:59:23But so it is really at this point on the onus is on research institutions to make sure that

00:59:27the work activity being done on their facilities is in compliance with all relevant laws and

00:59:33regulations.

00:59:34So that is an area that is currently a gap in our oversight of this kind of research.

00:59:38Okay.

00:59:40Thank you.

00:59:41One more question for you.

00:59:42When it comes to biosecurity, the U.S. domestic security is obviously tied to international

00:59:46efforts.

00:59:47What happens halfway across the globe can clearly impact us in the United States.

00:59:52Doctor, you are involved in the Global Biolabs Initiative, which is an organization that

00:59:57tracks all the highest biosecurity-level labs in the world.

01:00:01Are there labs that are of particular concern?

01:00:04And if so, what action should Congress and the executive branch take to improve their

01:00:08safety and thus our national security?

01:00:12As we documented in our report last year on Global Biolabs, there has been a building

01:00:17boom in BSL-4 labs since the start of the pandemic.

01:00:21And so there are a number of countries that are now building their first BSL-4 labs that

01:00:25don't actually have their national biosafety and biosecurity legislation regulations in

01:00:30place.

01:00:31Countries like the Philippines, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia are trying to construct facilities,

01:00:39but they don't yet have the regulatory infrastructure that they need to make sure those labs can

01:00:43operate safely, securely, and responsibly.

01:00:46In addition, countries like China and India, who already operate BSL-4 labs, are planning

01:00:50on building additional labs as well.

01:00:53And so in all of these cases, there's a need for making sure that these – you know, at

01:00:58the national level, that the right virus management policies are in place, and at

01:01:02the laboratory level, that these policies are being followed properly.

01:01:07And there are a number of measures that both the U.S. and internationally through WHO and

01:01:11other entities could take to try and ensure that these regulations are in place and are

01:01:17being followed properly.

01:01:19And can you elaborate on what those steps would be?

01:01:21Sure.

01:01:23There is an international standard for biorisk management that creates a framework for how

01:01:31do you ensure that safety and security is prioritized across your laboratory and your

01:01:36research enterprise.

01:01:37It's called ISO 35001.

01:01:39It was negotiated at the end of 2019, but has not been widely adopted yet by labs around

01:01:45the world.

01:01:46Having that kind of international standard is very useful because it provides the best

01:01:49practices for biosafety and biosecurity, and it includes a process by which you need

01:01:55to document how you're complying with that standard.

01:01:58That documentation then becomes available for audit in the event that you need to have

01:02:03any kind of investigation by local, national, or international authorities to ensure that

01:02:08the facility is operating properly and is operating safely and securely.

01:02:11So that kind of standard provides an international metric for measuring whether or not a lab

01:02:17is operating to the international standards that we would hope they would be.

01:02:22Thank you very much.

01:02:23Thank you, Mr. Chair.

01:02:26Thank you.

01:02:27Senator Johnson, you're recognized for your questions.

01:02:28Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

01:02:29I want to thank you and the Ranking Member for holding this very important hearing.

01:02:33We need a lot more of these.

01:02:35I want to thank all the witnesses for your very detailed testimony, and I'd encourage

01:02:38anybody viewing this hearing to go online and read the detailed testimony.

01:02:43I think you'll find it very difficult to not come away after reading that, that we

01:02:49may not have a smoking gun, but the circumstantial evidence is strong that this was a man-made

01:02:55virus and that it was probably leaked from a lab, probably at the Wuhan Institute of

01:03:00Virology.

01:03:03One thing that's convinced me very early on, I've been convinced this quite some time,

01:03:07is just the cover-up.

01:03:08I mean, the fact that Chinese took down datasets, so all of a sudden you couldn't find a smoking

01:03:13gun because it no longer exists, and we'll probably never know that, but also the cover-up

01:03:18here within the U.S. government.

01:03:20I've been doing oversight on our response to COVID, which, by the way, was a miserable

01:03:25failure.

01:03:26We're 4% of the world's population.

01:03:28We apparently experienced 16% of the deaths, supposedly the most modern medical system

01:03:34in the world.

01:03:35That's a miserable failure.

01:03:37And so we need to do a lot of oversight, not just on the origin, which is an important

01:03:41aspect of this, but on everything, okay?

01:03:46If we're serious about this, by the way, we've got to start letting subpoenas start flying.

01:03:51I'll do this one more time.

01:03:52I've done this multiple times.

01:03:53This is the 50 final pages of Fauci's emails.

01:03:56By the way, the only reason we realize that Fauci was engaged in a cover-up with Dr. Gary

01:04:03is the fact that we had to FOIA these.

01:04:05They didn't turn these over, which they should have.

01:04:07We had to FOIA them.

01:04:08We had to go to court.

01:04:10Our staff has taken the 4,000 pages that we got that were redacted, narrowed those

01:04:15down to 400 pages, and they allowed us to look at these things unredacted in a reading

01:04:20room.

01:04:21350 pages, but not the final 50.

01:04:26In terms of the cover-up, my guess is the smoking gun exists somewhere under these heavy

01:04:34redactions.

01:04:36My suggestion, actually, my plea to the chairman is to issue a subpoena to get these final

01:04:4450 pages.

01:04:45Then maybe we'll get a full extent of the extensive cover-up.

01:04:48Dr. Gary, I don't know, have you ever used the word conspiracy theory when it relates

01:04:55to the lab leak?

01:04:56Have you ever accused people who put that thing forward that they're a bunch of conspiracy

01:05:01theorists?

01:05:03Not in my public.

01:05:04Okay, well, I'll tell you who has, is the editor-in-chief of Nature magazine that published

01:05:09the proximal origin.

01:05:11He said, talking about your study, your cover-up, great work.

01:05:16We'll put conspiracy theories about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 to rest.

01:05:22Will you at least admit that people who are raising the possibility of a lab leak were

01:05:27not conspiracy theorists, that they were a legitimate concern about gain-of-function

01:05:33research creating this chimeric virus?

01:05:37Of course, sir.

01:05:38I mean, that would include us at the very beginning.

01:05:40That's progress, because again, an awful lot of people's reputations were ruined by this

01:05:45cover-up and by the accusations of people being conspiracy theorists.

01:05:49Now, Dr. Ebright, the purpose of this hearing really is to talk about the danger of gain-of-function

01:05:55research.

01:05:56Yeah, right now, we're about ready to be scaremongered.

01:05:59I think we're already being scaremongered on H5N1.

01:06:03Back in late 2011, the world learned of two scientific teams, one in University of Wisconsin-Madison,

01:06:11one in the Netherlands, that had apparently said each of these labs create H5N1 viruses

01:06:19that had gained the ability to spread through the air between ferrets.

01:06:23The animal model used to study how flu viruses might behave in humans.

01:06:28That's pretty darn dangerous stuff, right?

01:06:30That is primarily what led to the moratorium on gain-of-function, correct?

01:06:35That is correct.

01:06:36What possible reason is there to be producing what nature probably couldn't produce?

01:06:44Why are we doing this?

01:06:47It's important to emphasize that the research in question has no, zero, civilian practical

01:06:55applications.

01:06:57Gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens is not used and does not contribute

01:07:02to the development of vaccines and is not used for and does not contribute to the development

01:07:09of drugs.

01:07:10So, again, the rationale for all this research is exactly that.

01:07:14In case we have to respond ...

01:07:15It's not.

01:07:16But that's the rationale.

01:07:17In case we have to respond to a bioweapon attack, we need a defense mechanism.

01:07:23So that's the reason, for example, the Defense Department has spent $42 million or funded

01:07:29EcoHealth Alliance for $42 million and USAID for $53 million, correct?

01:07:33So the current definition is research that is reasonably anticipated to increase either

01:07:40the transmissibility or the virulence of a potential pandemic pathogen.

01:07:45That research does not contribute to developing countermeasures against potential pandemic

01:07:51pathogens.

01:07:52But again, that's the rationale they use.

01:07:53The thing they really scare the public on was the 1918 flu pandemic, correct?

01:07:59Even Anthony Fauci has admitted most people who died of the flu pandemic died of pneumonia

01:08:05because we didn't have antibiotics, correct?

01:08:07Bacterial pneumonia.

01:08:08I think one of the things we have to provide oversight is the sabotage of early treatment

01:08:15using widely available cheap and safe generic drugs.

01:08:18We didn't do that.

01:08:19I mean, from my standpoint, the first thing we ought to be doing in any kind of pandemic

01:08:23is there's some way to treat this and let doctors be doctors.

01:08:26Let them practice medicine.

01:08:27Yeah, I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of Miller's ratchet, correct?

01:08:32Of what?

01:08:33Miller's ratchet.

01:08:34Okay, well, it's basically what viruses generally do is they'll become more transmissible but

01:08:41less pathogenic.

01:08:43Okay, because again, it doesn't do, a virus snuffs itself out.

01:08:47MERS snuffed itself out, SARS snuffed itself out, except there were a couple lab leaks

01:08:52that produced SARS outbreaks, correct?

01:08:56So again, my point is, are we making things worse with human intervention?

01:09:02Producing vaccines that are not sterilizing, that allow variants to be produced in things

01:09:07like antibody dependent enhancement.

01:09:10Again, there's an awful lot of concern that we don't even consider here because we're

01:09:13on this quest to have a vaccine for everything and produce vaccines for viruses that haven't

01:09:20even been created yet in the lab.

01:09:22Again, that's the question we ought to be asking this committee is, what in the world

01:09:26are we doing?

01:09:27What's the rationale for doing this and are we actually causing more harm than good?

01:09:33With vaccine development, I would disagree.

01:09:36The vaccines in general do not pose significant harms and offer significant benefits.

01:09:45With respect to the gain of function research, which creates new threats, biological threats

01:09:51that do not exist currently and might not naturally come into existence in a decade,

01:09:56a century, or a millennium, that research creates threats and those threats are existentially

01:10:03risky threats.

01:10:04And that research is being conducted without a justifiable rationale.

01:10:09There is no rationale in terms of development of countermeasures.

01:10:13Industry develops vaccines and therapeutics against diseases currently in humans, not

01:10:19against diseases that don't yet exist and need to be made in a lab.

01:10:24We could use a public debate regarding all things vaccine, the profit motive of it, and

01:10:29everything else, but that's for another day.

01:10:31Thank you, Senator Johnson.

01:10:32Senator Marshall, you're recognized for your questions.

01:10:34Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

01:10:37I think it's, first of all, it's important to remember why we're here today.

01:10:40We're here today because we don't want to have another pandemic like this.

01:10:45I think it's important that we recognize that a million Americans have lost a loved one

01:10:50and they're still looking for closure.

01:10:53We have 15 million Americans with long COVID and perhaps if we knew the origin of COVID

01:10:58and the development, maybe that would give us a clue how to treat us.

01:11:02I want to start with Dr. Quay and go back to the diffuse grant for just a second.

01:11:10This is a grant by EcoHealth and Peter Daszak.

01:11:15Recall that Peter Daszak is David Moran's BFF.

01:11:21And that grant was denied, but yet it lays out a framework for the development of COVID-19

01:11:29and you went through six or seven, several reasons that are absolutely consistent.

01:11:33That they said they would do X and they did X.

01:11:36And what are the chances of all those things ending up in a COVID virus?

01:11:41Yeah, well, again, just as a reminder, so they said they were going to go to a particular

01:11:45spot in Southern China to get a virus.

01:11:48They were going to make sure that it had diversity from SARS-1 of about 25%.

01:11:54They were going to put it into humanized mice to enhance its ability to recognize the receptor

01:11:59binding domain.

01:12:00They're going to put furin cleavage site in a very particular spot.

01:12:03Out of 13,000 letters in the spike protein, they said in the grant, they were going to

01:12:08put it at a spot called the S1, S2 junction.

01:12:13And so all of those were found in SARS-CoV-2.

01:12:16Its nearest neighbor is from the same area.

01:12:20It has a 99% binding affinity for the human receptor.

01:12:24SARS-1 jumped into humans, it only had 15% of the epidemic changes it needed to become

01:12:30epidemic.

01:12:31What do you think the chances of all six or seven?

01:12:33I've quantified it because I like statistics and it's one in 1.2 billion.

01:12:37So one in a billion chance, all that comes to fruition.

01:12:40There were some comments on that grant in the margin.

01:12:43So Dr. Barrick, North Carolina developed the technology for the protein spike.

01:12:48He taught Dr. Xi.

01:12:50He gave them humanized mice.

01:12:51Again, this was all funded with USAID grant money as well.

01:12:55What were some of the comments in the margin you think that are significant?

01:12:57Well, this is important because the folks told DARPA, we're going to do this research

01:13:02in North Carolina under very high safety conditions in the grant.

01:13:06That's what they wrote.

01:13:07The marginal comments in drafts that were only obtained through FOIAs said a different

01:13:11thing.

01:13:12Dasik said, hey, we're going to shift this over to Wuhan because it'll be cheaper, faster.

01:13:17We'll get a lot more done that way.

01:13:18Barrick says, boy, if US scientists knew this was going on, they would think this is crazy.

01:13:23This is in the marginal comments.

01:13:24So in a way, they weren't truthful with DARPA in the grant.

01:13:27So Dr. Barrick, along with Dr. Fauci, or the father of gain of function, knew that other

01:13:32scientists in America would have a fit if this was being done here.

01:13:36Yeah.

01:13:37And again, so fast forward to January 2020.

01:13:39These two scientists, Dasik and Barrick, sitting down with a sequence of SARS-CoV-2 and a computer

01:13:45would know within one hour, this thing has all the features of what we proposed in that

01:13:50grant.

01:13:51And the fact they either didn't tell anybody or the people they told didn't do anything

01:13:54about it meant that human-to-human transmission, we were not aware of that, and asymptomatic

01:14:01transmission we were not aware of.

01:14:02This is the first new respiratory virus that's asymptomatic.

01:14:05Right.

01:14:06Those two features.

01:14:07Let's come back.

01:14:08I'm going to use that and come back to that point in just a second.

01:14:10We went through what I call the smoking guns that really show beyond a reasonable doubt

01:14:14that this virus was made in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

01:14:17It was synthetic.

01:14:18You know, everywhere from the geography of where it shows up for the first time to the

01:14:23fact that there was virus already spread to multiple continents by the time the wet market

01:14:27outbreak occurs.

01:14:29They never have found the intermediate species.

01:14:31With SARS and MERS, it took months to find an intermediate species.

01:14:34Anyone that says the raccoon dog is the intermediate species is just laughable science.

01:14:40No progenitor viruses.

01:14:43The timeline, they were developing a vaccine already, November 2019, Dr. Shi is taking

01:14:48down the DNA lab banks in September 2019.

01:14:51She takes down another lab bank here in this country, maybe March of the next year as well.

01:14:57But of all the smoking guns, and this is the hardest to explain to people, is just the

01:15:03genetic makeup of this virus.

01:15:05And you pointed out the protein spike.

01:15:07The protein spike alone would be like a person.

01:15:10The protein spike that fits into a lung cell would be like the chances of a person walking

01:15:14in the room with a key that fits the lock on those doors.

01:15:17I mean, it was a perfect protein spike.

01:15:19You mentioned the furin cleavage site.

01:15:22There's other spots.

01:15:23But I wanted to talk about the ORF8 site for just a second.

01:15:27Dr. Quay, what's the significance of this ORF8 site?

01:15:31So ORF8 is a protein that's down near the right-hand side of the virus.

01:15:35It is not in the final virus.

01:15:37It is secreted into the bloodstream, and it does two things.

01:15:41Early in the infection, it blocks interferon expression.

01:15:44So you don't sweat.

01:15:45You don't have a fever.

01:15:46You don't show the symptoms of an infection.

01:15:49And later in the infection, it blocks what's called antigen MHC presentation.

01:15:54So we learn from HIV that a virus that can block the ability of pieces of the virus to

01:15:59be presented to the immune system is a virus that is very hard to make antibodies against,

01:16:04very hard to fight against it.

01:16:06Two master's theses during 2015 that have only been published in Chinese, no papers

01:16:10came from it, at the Wooten Institute of Virology, created a synthetic cloning system for ORF8.

01:16:17So gain-of-function research around things that make viruses asymptomatic and things

01:16:21that make them not be able to make antibodies to are beyond the pale of what Dr. Ebright

01:16:28has said in terms of the civilian use.

01:16:31So really, this ORF8 is a synthetic link sequence, never found in nature.

01:16:38And they place it in here, right?

01:16:41They place this link in here for the purposes of the two cardinal sins, the cardinal sin

01:16:46of asymptomatic virus, and then transmission without that symptom as well, and the inability

01:16:52to make an immune response.

01:16:53I mean, that's the cardinal sins of gain-of-function research.

01:16:57What purpose would there be if you're wanting to develop vaccines?

01:17:01Is there any civilian purpose, or is this, in fact, a bioweapon?

01:17:05I can't say it's a bioweapon, because that's in the mind of the person that made it.

01:17:09But it is highly unusual, highly synthetic.

01:17:12They were doing synthetic biology around it.

01:17:15And its two functions are quite remarkable with respect to what kind of research you

01:17:20would do in the civilian world.

01:17:21Dr. Ebright, is there a possibility that it could have been a dual purpose, that it could

01:17:24have been used as a bioweapon?

01:17:29So the original SARS virus, SARS-CoV-1, is a Tier 1 select agent in the United States.

01:17:38So it is in the group of pathogens and biological toxins that our federal government has identified

01:17:45as having high potential for use as a bioweapon in biowarfare, bioterrorism, or biocrime.

01:17:54It by definition, therefore, according to our federal government, is a bioweapon agent.

01:18:00It is not a bioweapon, but it is an agent that potentially could be used.

01:18:05Is there any good reason to put this in the virus, if you're developing a vaccine?

01:18:10I would return to my general comment on gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens.

01:18:17That research has no civilian practical application.

01:18:23Researchers undertake it because it is fast, it is easy, it requires no specialized equipment

01:18:31or skills, and it was prioritized for funding and has been prioritized for publication by

01:18:37scientific journals.

01:18:39These are major incentives to researchers worldwide, in China and in the U.S.

01:18:45The researchers undertake this research because it's easy, they get the money, and they can

01:18:50get the papers.

01:18:51Thank you, Senator Marshall.

01:18:54Senator Scott, are you recognized for your questions?

01:18:55First, I want to thank the Chair and the Ranking Member for hosting this hearing.

01:19:00We should do this a lot.

01:19:01I think there's a lot that we still need to learn.

01:19:04The COVID pandemic was devastating for our country, as we all know.

01:19:07The response by the Biden administration and the media has done nothing but amplify the

01:19:10consequences of this crisis and erode trust in our federal government.

01:19:16Not long ago, anyone asking questions about the origins of COVID and the possibility of

01:19:20this virus resulting from a lab leak were branded as conspiracy theorists.

01:19:24Just like the Hunter Biden laptop story, the experts said this was disinformation and waged

01:19:29a campaign against members of Congress, medical professionals, and everyone else asking questions

01:19:34to discredit them as liar and extremist.

01:19:38Anthony Fauci led the charge in this public smear campaign, and I think it's great that

01:19:41he's not there anymore.

01:19:44We know that this is not only a credible theory, but the most likely cause of the pandemic.

01:19:50Common China can't be trusted, and because the Biden administration has chosen weak appeasement

01:19:55of the CCP, we still haven't enforced accountability or gotten the answers the American public

01:20:00deserve.

01:20:01HHS's Office of the Inspector General did a review of the EcoHealth Alliance and its

01:20:05management of the grant contract.

01:20:08EcoHealth received funds and had the Wuhan in-suit as a subcontractor.

01:20:12It's my understanding that NIH requires annual data reporting for what we spend money on

01:20:16and the research data.

01:20:18The Wuhan in-suit never, never provided or only provided partial data.

01:20:24EcoHealth either failed to submit or submitted incomplete data.

01:20:27NIH failed to police their own grant program and allowed this to slide for years.

01:20:33About 85% of EcoHealth's budget comes from federal research grants.

01:20:38I have no idea why NIH would think it's a good idea to give U.S. tax dollars to Communist China.

01:20:44Seems like a pretty poor idea to me.

01:20:46Dr. Ebright, would it make sense to hold grant recipients accountable for the failure to

01:20:50comply with the terms of their grants?

01:20:53Why not require the prime grantee to fully reimburse the government if they or one of

01:20:57their subcontractees fail to fully comply with the terms of the grant?

01:21:02Seems like we do that with our personal life.

01:21:04If somebody does the wrong thing, they owe us the money back.

01:21:06So what do you think?

01:21:08We do currently hold the grantee responsible, not only for the primary award, but for subawards,

01:21:14for subcontracts.

01:21:16When a researcher submits a grant proposal to NIH, when a researcher submits each annual

01:21:22grant progress report to NIH, the researcher signs a certification box, and that certification

01:21:28box says that the researcher will comply with the terms and condition of the grant and will

01:21:33provide full and factual information upon request subject to administrative, civil,

01:21:40and criminal penalties.

01:21:41So the basis for accountability exists.

01:21:46Has EcoHealth been held accountable?

01:21:48Have they given us any money back?

01:21:51To my knowledge, there has been no clawback of funding from EcoHealth.

01:21:55There has, however, been an immediate suspension that went into effect a month ago.

01:22:02Both of the EcoHealth Alliance, and then this month of its president, a suspension

01:22:06of eligibility for federal funding of all forms, and a referral for debarment from eligibility

01:22:14for federal funding from all sources.

01:22:18Have you, do you know any instances where NIH has ever held anybody accountable and

01:22:22gotten the money back?

01:22:23Yes.

01:22:24So this has happened in a number of cases.

01:22:26Examples include data fraud.

01:22:29Other examples include sexual harassment or other forms of abuse that are outside the

01:22:35terms and conditions of the grant.

01:22:37So why do you think they haven't gotten the money back from EcoHealth?

01:22:40Why haven't they been held accountable?

01:22:43I would place that burden on Congress and on the White House in that the NIH is unlikely

01:22:50to move toward clawback without motivation from either Congress or the White House.

01:22:56But it's their job.

01:22:58It is their job, but it is also the job of our legislative branch through its oversight

01:23:03responsibility and our executive branch through its primary responsibility to ensure that

01:23:10jobs are carried out.

01:23:11Do you know anybody at NIH that's ever been fired for failure to do their job?

01:23:16You mean an NIH staffer?

01:23:18Yeah.

01:23:19As part of the administrative staff at NIH.

01:23:22Have you heard of anybody?

01:23:23I do not.

01:23:24Has anybody you know ever been fired from NIH over what they did by not enforcing the

01:23:31EcoHealth grant program?

01:23:33Not to my knowledge.

01:23:34Okay.

01:23:35So as you said, EcoHealth has been suspended by further funding with possible disbarment,

01:23:41but they're currently appealing it.

01:23:42Do you think it's right to debar them?

01:23:44Absolutely.

01:23:46So how long should they be debarred for?

01:23:48The debarment term specified by law typically is three years.

01:23:53The debarment proceedings determine first whether a debarment will occur and then determine

01:23:59the duration, the term of the debarment.

01:24:01I would recommend a permanent debarment given the number of terms and conditions of the

01:24:06EcoHealth Alliance grants that were violated and the severity of those violations.

01:24:13So Wuhan Institute of Virology has been debarred for 10 years.

01:24:18Do you think it should be permanent?

01:24:20And why hasn't it been?

01:24:23Yes, I do.

01:24:24I do not know why.

01:24:25Why do you think it wasn't permanent?

01:24:29I do not know.

01:24:32So does anybody else have any background on why NIH doesn't enforce their own?

01:24:39It's their own rules.

01:24:41Have you heard of people, anybody from NIH being reprimanded, fired, or anything over

01:24:48the EcoHealth?

01:24:49No.

01:24:50Why do you all think?

01:24:54I think the retired head of the NIAID should be asked that question.

01:25:03Thank you.

01:25:05Thank you, Senator Scott.

01:25:06Senator Romney, you're recognized for your questions.

01:25:07Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, for the hearing.

01:25:11I'd like to get a sense of, there's a lot of energy and passion around, was it from

01:25:18an animal or was it a lab leak?

01:25:21And I must admit, I don't understand why there's so much energy around that.

01:25:25It strikes me that we'll never be 100% sure, I presume, about one or the other.

01:25:30We might be 98% or something, but we'll always be a little uncertain.

01:25:35And given the fact that it could have been either, we know what action we ought to take

01:25:40to protect from either.

01:25:44So why there's so much passion around it makes me think it's more political than scientific,

01:25:49but maybe I'm wrong.

01:25:50So the action, it strikes me that, based on what I've heard, we shouldn't be financing

01:25:55gain-of-function research.

01:25:57What I heard was there's no particular reason for it, other than military warfare, we shouldn't

01:26:03do that anyway.

01:26:04So one, we know that.

01:26:06Whether it came from an animal or not, we shouldn't be financing gain-of-function research.

01:26:11Number two, we should insist that any place we send money follows the international ISO

01:26:16standards.

01:26:17I didn't get the number, Dr. Kobelinks, but you had a number there that suggested that

01:26:23people have to follow.

01:26:25So we shouldn't be getting money or going to labs that don't follow those international

01:26:29standards.

01:26:30And number three, whether it was from a wet market or the Wuhan lab, China's to blame.

01:26:39Both those things were in China.

01:26:41And so if we're looking for someone to blame, we know who it is, it's the Chinese, and they

01:26:46should take responsibility for it and should have opened themselves up to complete disclosure.

01:26:52So am I wrong here?

01:26:54Is there a reason there's so much energy around whether it came from a wet market or a lab?

01:27:02In both cases, the action is simple.

01:27:04We should clean up the wet labs, and number two, we should tighten the wet markets, and

01:27:08number two, we should tighten the labs.

01:27:11Please, go ahead, Dr. Quay.

01:27:14Well, I'll just say briefly, I mean, I think the energy is around the fact that paychecks,

01:27:21salaries, careers are based on continuing gain-of-function research by some of the most

01:27:27vocal people in this debate.

01:27:30And I think if you follow the money, you'll see the answer.

01:27:33Thank you.

01:27:34Dr. Gary, what's your thought?

01:27:36Well, you know, a lot of the talk around gain-of-function research depends on how you define it, and

01:27:42the definition is very important.

01:27:43I mean, there are some informal definitions, there are very technical definitions, and

01:27:48we have to get that part right.

01:27:50Because if you define it in a way that basically interferes with a lot of biomedical research

01:27:56on viruses and on other things, too, cancer research, everything, you're going to really

01:28:01cripple the biomedical research enterprise.

01:28:04So let's get that right.

01:28:06I don't think, you know, just blanket we should stop funding all gain-of-function research

01:28:12because some of that is important, like, you know, for developing animal models of new

01:28:16diseases as they come forth.

01:28:17You have to select for a virus that can actually replicate in a distinct animal that you can

01:28:24use in the lab.

01:28:25So if you don't permit gain-of-function research, we won't be able to respond to a new threat

01:28:30because we won't be able to make animal models.

01:28:32So getting that right, getting that definition right, is very important.

01:28:35I think that the Office of Science and Technology Policy new guidelines for this type of research

01:28:42is very clear.

01:28:43It's a good step forward.

01:28:46You should look at that and see what you can do best to, you know, to codify that into

01:28:50some kind of legislation.

01:28:51Yeah, Dr. Ebright, do you concur with that point of view, that we need to define exactly

01:28:57what kind of research is okay and which is not, which has a beneficial purpose, and which

01:29:02has only malevolent purpose?

01:29:04The definition of gain-of-function research has been clear.

01:29:08There is a legally controlling official definition from the U.S. policy that was in effect from

01:29:142014 to 2017, and there has been an official legally controlling definition in the U.S.

01:29:20policy that has been in effect from 2018 to the present.

01:29:25The definitions have never been in question, but the intensity that you asked about at

01:29:29the start of your series of questions, the intensity comes from those who are practitioners

01:29:36of gain-of-function research and related high-risk research on potential pandemic pathogens who

01:29:43have for two decades successfully resisted federal oversight of their activities, for

01:29:50two decades who have insisted on self-regulation without external oversight, and who would

01:29:58like this to continue, despite the very real possibility, even though, as you say, not

01:30:04a certainty of the fact, the very real possibility that SARS-CoV-2, a pandemic that killed 20

01:30:10million and cost $25 trillion, may have come from precisely that category of research.

01:30:16That is the basis of the intensity.

01:30:19Only after there is an acknowledgment, and I see this acknowledgment today in a bipartisan

01:30:25fashion among members of this committee from both parties, only after there is an acknowledgment

01:30:31that there is a very real possibility, not a remote possibility, but a very real possibility

01:30:37of a lab origin, will there be the political will to impose regulation on this scientific

01:30:44community that has successfully resisted and obstructed regulation for two decades.

01:30:51Every other component of biomedical research that poses risks or has significant consequences

01:30:57has regulation, federal regulation, with force of law in place.

01:31:01There's regulation of human subjects research.

01:31:03There's regulation of vertebrate animal research.

01:31:07There's regulation of embryonic stem cell research.

01:31:10But in this category of research, which is the most significant in terms of consequences

01:31:16and potentially existential risk, there is almost no regulation with force of law.

01:31:22No regulation with force of law for biosafety, for any pathogen other than the smallpox virus,

01:31:28and no regulation with force of law for bio-risk management for any pathogen.

01:31:34That needs to change.

01:31:35That's what produces this intensity.

01:31:38And it strikes me that whether COVID came from a lab or it came from a wet market, that

01:31:47issue still has to be addressed.

01:31:48Absolutely.

01:31:49And so I'm not going to get so excited about where COVID happened to come from.

01:31:54What I know is that something very dangerous could come from gain-of-function research

01:31:58if it's not properly regulated.

01:31:59How to define where those boundaries are and what one can do and one can't do, that's something

01:32:05that we ought to be focused on.

01:32:07Even if we became 98% sure it came from a wet market, that wouldn't mean that gain-of-function

01:32:12research could by itself become a huge danger to humanity, and therefore we ought to regulate it.

01:32:17Is that something you gentlemen agree with, or am I making a mistake?

01:32:20I completely agree with you, Senator Romney.

01:32:22That's well stated.

01:32:23Thank you.

01:32:24Thank you, Senator Romney.

01:32:25Senator Hall, you're recognized for your questions.

01:32:27Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

01:32:29Thanks for holding this hearing.

01:32:30Thanks to the witnesses for being here.

01:32:32I have to say, I think one of the worst things that happened in the COVID era is that our

01:32:38own government deliberately withheld information from us, from the American people, tried to

01:32:45propagandize the American people, used the arms and agencies of government to actively

01:32:52censor Americans who dared to question the propaganda, and they're still lying to us.

01:32:57And I'll give you the proof of it.

01:32:59I wrote the bill that requires the administration to declassify the intelligence assessments

01:33:06and reports related to the origins of COVID-19.

01:33:08Now listen, I just want to say, everybody sitting on this dais has read these.

01:33:13I've read them.

01:33:14I guarantee you my colleagues have read them.

01:33:16I know what the Energy Department concluded.

01:33:18I know what the FBI concluded.

01:33:20I knew what they concluded years ago because we could read them when people like Dr. Fauci

01:33:24were out there saying the lab leak hypothesis was totally discredited and nonsense.

01:33:29You could go read the intelligence and know our own government thought otherwise.

01:33:34And at this late hour, this government still refuses to release the intelligence.

01:33:40They are blatantly disregarding, blatantly disregarding the law that this body passed,

01:33:46the Senate passed, unanimously, unanimously.

01:33:50The propaganda involved in the origins of COVID-19 is astounding to me.

01:33:55It recalls the worst of the wartime propaganda in years past when the government would deliberately

01:34:00lie to people.

01:34:02And here that's what they have been doing with COVID-19 and are still doing it.

01:34:06You know, you had this whole cabal led by Dr. Fauci and others who, as soon as the lab

01:34:11leak hypothesis that we now know is a lot more than a hypothesis, as soon as it's mentioned,

01:34:16what did Fauci do?

01:34:17We know because this has all been litigated in the federal district court, in fact, in

01:34:21multiple federal courts.

01:34:22I've got the finding of fact from the court right here.

01:34:25They lay it all out.

01:34:26Fauci goes to the WHO, asks the WHO to intervene to discredit the lab leak.

01:34:33He then speaks against it multiple times from the podium at the White House.

01:34:38He then does countless media interviews.

01:34:40I mean, my gosh, what show has he not been on?

01:34:43He's still on TV spewing this misinformation, as he would call it.

01:34:48But he did these multiple interviews where he says, no way, no how, lab leak not possible

01:34:52at all.

01:34:54And then he coordinates and the whole federal government coordinates with the biggest tech

01:34:58companies in the world to suppress, and media companies to suppress any American who would

01:35:03ask questions about it.

01:35:05It's absolutely disgraceful.

01:35:07Dr. Geary, you were part of this propaganda effort.

01:35:11I mean, you were right at the center of it.

01:35:13It's astounding.

01:35:15You wrote this piece, this Nature magazine piece, or whatever it was, that we've heard

01:35:21testimony here today, Nature Medicine, March 17th, 2020.

01:35:24We've heard testimony here today from other scientists on the panel that it's basically

01:35:28an opinion piece.

01:35:30You said at the time that definitively SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct, is not a laboratory

01:35:38construct.

01:35:40Of course, our own government, key agencies have concluded otherwise.

01:35:44And on the basis of this, Dr. Fauci and others cited this piece and went out to use it to

01:35:50mobilize our own government to censor people who ask questions about it.

01:35:55People lost their jobs because of this.

01:35:58They lost their jobs.

01:35:59They lost their standing.

01:36:00They were kicked off Facebook.

01:36:02They were kicked off Twitter.

01:36:03Do you regret being part of this effort, this propaganda effort?

01:36:06Sir, I was simply just writing a paper about our scientific opinions about where this virus came from.

01:36:13Oh, no, you weren't.

01:36:14You said in an email that we now have that you tried to withhold, but that we have February

01:36:172nd, 2020, you wrote, I really can't think of a plausible natural scenario where you

01:36:22can get from the bat virus, or one very similar to it, to this.

01:36:27I'm quoting you.

01:36:28I just can't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature.

01:36:30It's stunning.

01:36:31Of course, in a lab, it would be easy.

01:36:33Well, of course.

01:36:34And I actually figured it out.

01:36:36That's the whole point of that.

01:36:37You figured it out?

01:36:38You wrote this while you were writing your propaganda piece, while you were writing the

01:36:41paper.

01:36:42I wrote that somewhere around February 2nd.

01:36:43Yeah, it was exactly February 2nd.

01:36:45And you testified that you were writing your proximal origin paper in early February.

01:36:50So you're saying that, what, did it come to you overnight?

01:36:54There was new data that came in.

01:36:55Like a revelation from God.

01:36:57No.

01:36:58It's simply the scientific method.

01:36:59Overnight, you concluded, I got it.

01:37:00I got it.

01:37:01I figured it out.

01:37:02I figured it out.

01:37:03And now I can definitively rule out.

01:37:04It's amazing.

01:37:06Is that what happened?

01:37:07It's just the scientific method.

01:37:08Oh, it's just science.

01:37:09Oh, it's the scientific method that happened.

01:37:11And lightning speed.

01:37:12And then was used to propagandize and lie to and shut down.

01:37:18As a scientist who's supposedly supposed to follow facts, do you regret the fact that

01:37:24your work was used to censor your fellow scientists?

01:37:30It was used to censor ordinary Americans who ask questions about the virus?

01:37:34Do you regret that?

01:37:35When you write a paper, I mean, you get it in the journal.

01:37:38We can't control what happens after.

01:37:39Oh, I see.

01:37:40So you're not responsible at all.

01:37:42It's amazing.

01:37:43Nobody who is involved in any of this is responsible.

01:37:46Never.

01:37:47They're not responsible.

01:37:48People have lost their jobs.

01:37:51People have lost probably their health care associated with their jobs.

01:37:54People have been run out of public, available in polite society.

01:38:00You can't show your face because, my gosh, you questioned.

01:38:03But you don't have anything to do with it.

01:38:05Why so many of your papers, your other papers, been retracted or subjected to formal expressions

01:38:10of concern?

01:38:11Yeah.

01:38:12Well.

01:38:13Why is that?

01:38:14There's a long story behind that.

01:38:15Four of them, right?

01:38:16I mean, you've had, in July 26, 2021, Virology retracted a paper of yours.

01:38:21Also in 2021, the Journal of General Virology retracted another of your papers.

01:38:25In March of 2022, an expression of concern was added by an editor of yet another journal

01:38:30to another of your papers.

01:38:32On April 4th of 2024, a third scientific paper of yours was retracted from the Journal

01:38:37of Medical Virology.

01:38:38Yeah.

01:38:39Is this normal?

01:38:40Those papers didn't come from my lab.

01:38:41But, you know, I'm certainly helping.

01:38:43They're not yours?

01:38:44They're not mine.

01:38:45Yeah.

01:38:46Oh.

01:38:47So your work is.

01:38:48I'm on the paper, but they did not come from my lab.

01:38:49The work that God gave you in a flash of inspiration remains absolutely unimpeachable, unimpeached.

01:38:54We stand by that.

01:38:55Do you stand by your assertion and your nature piece that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory

01:39:04construct?

01:39:05Could not.

01:39:06We do.

01:39:07And that's exactly the same.

01:39:08Couldn't possibly be.

01:39:09Conclusion that the intelligence community came to.

01:39:11Oh, no.

01:39:12That is a lie.

01:39:13Let's stop right there.

01:39:14That is a lie.

01:39:15I have read the intelligence.

01:39:17The intelligence community did not come to that conclusion.

01:39:22Shameful intelligence community agents and components have concluded it was likely a

01:39:27lab leak.

01:39:28And they concluded that at the same time that you and your people were propagandizing the

01:39:33American public and using the channels and influence of the American government to censor

01:39:39ordinary Americans.

01:39:40That is the truth.

01:39:41I'm not going to sit here and allow you to lie any further.

01:39:44Dr. Gary, you have disgracefully participated in shameful propaganda that has been one of

01:39:50the worst chapters in this country's history with the government propagandizing its own

01:39:54people.

01:39:55And you know what?

01:39:56You may be right about the lie.

01:39:57I'm not a scientist.

01:39:58I don't know.

01:39:59But what I do know is, what I do know is, it is wrong, it is wrong to censor and lie

01:40:04to the American public.

01:40:05It is wrong to withhold critical information from them.

01:40:08And it is wrong to countenance that and say, oh, I just had nothing to do with it.

01:40:12Gee, I wish we could have done better.

01:40:14You should have done better, sir.

01:40:16You should have done better.

01:40:17And because you didn't, people have suffered.

01:40:19Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

01:40:20Could I?

01:40:21Dr. Gary, if you'd like to respond, I think you can respond to your question.

01:40:25So actually, Senator Hawley, I'm going to agree with you about something.

01:40:30I do think that we should learn more information from the intelligence community, what they

01:40:35found.

01:40:36I agree with you that they should be more open and tell where those conclusions came

01:40:43from, you know, at the FBI and at the Energy Department.

01:40:48All the agencies should come forth with more information.

01:40:51So there's a point we can agree with.

01:40:53I mean, that was an interesting exchange.

01:40:55But you know, all we did was write a paper, Nature Medicine, and 3,000 words.

01:41:01It's been one of the most scrutinized papers in history.

01:41:05It's held up very well.

01:41:07It wasn't an attempt to, you know, distort things and to mislead the American public.

01:41:13It was just simply a paper, like the many other scientific papers that I've written

01:41:17in my career.

01:41:18Very good.

01:41:19Let's, we'll move on to a second round.

01:41:22We, I'll tell the members we have a vote that I believe has already been called.

01:41:25We also have a hard stop at, a little after 12.

01:41:28So the second round will be five minutes.

01:41:30And I'll start, actually, Dr. Gary, I'll just pick up from your answer there.

01:41:35A lot has been directed towards the paper that you wrote and the research that went

01:41:40in into that.

01:41:41Does the science sense the paper came out strengthen your argument or weaken it?

01:41:48What does the science show?

01:41:49It absolutely strengthens it.

01:41:51I mean, we published a series of papers after the proximal origins paper, all of them, you

01:41:56know, conclusively moving towards the, you know, the natural origin hypothesis.

01:42:02So nothing, you know, we stand by that paper.

01:42:04It was a good paper.

01:42:08We are, we're currently seeing enormous changes in technology in the biological sciences from

01:42:14artificial intelligence to biological design tools, even robot laboratories where experiments

01:42:22can be conducted from really anywhere on the globe.

01:42:25Dr. Koblenz, my question for you is, in your opinion, will these types of technological

01:42:31changes make it easier or harder for us to determine the origins of future pandemics?

01:42:41The advances you just discussed will definitely make it more complicated to do that.

01:42:46On the one hand, we are going to have much more sophisticated capabilities to analyze

01:42:50viral genomes and do the kind of analyses that are some of the feature of Dr. Gary's

01:42:55work to understand the evolution of these pathogens and where they come from.

01:42:58And so that will be incredibly useful investigating any future outbreak.

01:43:03On the other hand, the fact that these technologies are going to be globally diffused, the fact

01:43:07that there are a growing number of high and maximum containment laboratories that conduct

01:43:10high consequence research will make it a more complicated process because there'll be more

01:43:14potential sources for outbreaks, whether they're naturally occurring or from laboratories.

01:43:20So the technologies are not a net negative, but they're not a panacea, but it's definitely

01:43:26going to be a much more complicated endeavor to go through this exercise in the future.

01:43:30Very good.

01:43:31Dr. Cray, a question for you.

01:43:36We know the U.S. intelligence community has reported that a few scientists at the Wuhan

01:43:42lab got sick in December, the fall of 2019, but it's not clear that any of them had COVID-19.

01:43:53My question for you, sir, is what evidence do we have that someone at the Wuhan lab got

01:43:58COVID-19 before anyone else did?

01:44:01And do you know if these scientists actually got tested for COVID-19?

01:44:04No, I don't.

01:44:06All of my data around that relies on the State Department statement.

01:44:10There were three individuals.

01:44:12We believe we know one of them, at least, Ben Hu, was responsible for some of the synthetic

01:44:17work in the laboratory, a reasonably young person who was said to have been hospitalized

01:44:23with an X-ray-confirmed disease consistent with COVID-19, but not blood testing.

01:44:31We do know also that in March of 2020, Dr. Xi reported that no one at the Wuhan Institute

01:44:39of Virology had SARS-CoV-2, and with another individual, we did a statistical analysis

01:44:45of the probability of that with the incidents in Wuhan, and that is not a truthful statement

01:44:51because of that.

01:44:52So, those are the two facts I have.

01:44:55Dr. Gary, you want to respond?

01:44:57Senator Peters, could I read from the Intelligence Committee, the Director of Office of National

01:45:03Intelligence about these three supposed sick workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

01:45:09And they write, while several WIV researchers fell mildly ill in fall 2019, they experienced

01:45:17a range of symptoms consistent with colds or allergies with accompanying symptoms typically

01:45:23not associated with COVID-19, and some of them were confirmed to have been sick with

01:45:28other illnesses unrelated to COVID-19.

01:45:32So those three sick workers at the WIV is simply a myth.

01:45:38Dr. Kouei, what specific hard evidence proves that the Wuhan lab did experiments that created

01:45:46the virus?

01:45:47Do we have specific hard evidence?

01:45:48No, one of our biggest challenges is we don't know what they've done inside there.

01:45:53We know what they were doing in the past.

01:45:56We know what they did in the fall of 2019, all consistent with the things you would do

01:46:00if there had been a laboratory accident there.

01:46:03Filing a patent, the first patent out of 600 patents for a device to prevent a coronavirus

01:46:09infection in an infected worker.

01:46:12One of the inventors on that patent is a PLA military doctor-scientist.

01:46:17The head of the laboratory was dismissed, and a PLA soldier was put in charge of the

01:46:23laboratory December 2019.

01:46:26So we don't have access inside the laboratory.

01:46:29We probably will never have it.

01:46:31But the genome inside the virus comports to the diffuse grant in such a way that it's

01:46:38inconsistent.

01:46:39I mean, in a court of law, you find someone criminally for 95% or greater probabilities,

01:46:46and this is one in a billion, which is greater than that, that this is a synthetic virus.

01:46:51So I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I mean, a lot of this is, these are assumptions

01:46:54that you're making, not hard evidence.

01:46:58The hard evidence is the incidence of the features of SARS-CoV-2 can individually be

01:47:03looked at in nature.

01:47:04They can be identified with the frequency in nature, and then you can say, what is the

01:47:09chance that each of these were combined in one virus at the same time?

01:47:13This is what virologists do all the time in looking for origins, and when you do that,

01:47:19you conclude that it has a one in a billion chance of coming from nature, and it meets

01:47:23all seven criteria of the diffuse grant.

01:47:27Thank you.

01:47:28Thank you.

01:47:29I recognize for questions.

01:47:30Dr. Gary indicated that the intelligence community was somewhat unified, or a lot of them believe

01:47:36this came from animals, and that's just not true.

01:47:39The ones that have been vocal about this and talked a lot about it have been the DOE, which

01:47:42has more scientists than any other agency in Washington, probably other than NIH.

01:47:48They've concluded that it did come from the lab.

01:47:50FBI concluded it came from the lab, and we asked a whistleblower from the CIA that says

01:47:54the scientists that were convened to study this voted six to one to say it came from

01:47:59the lab, and then they were overruled by superiors for political reasons, so there's a lot of

01:48:03evidence that people within the intel agencies actually do believe that there is evidence

01:48:07that it came from the lab.

01:48:08In addition to people getting sick, there's also about a week in October where they do

01:48:13imagery of who's using a cell phone, and nobody's using a cell phone in the lab for about a

01:48:17week, so the lab's completely empty for about a week, and some people think that was during

01:48:21a cleanup period.

01:48:23But if you're sitting at home and you're sort of an independent, you hear scientists over

01:48:26here saying gain of function's the best thing since sliced bread, and over here you're saying,

01:48:30well, we really haven't developed any meaningful vaccines or technology from this, you're like,

01:48:36who do I believe?

01:48:38And who you believe does go to character, and so we have to look at some of the statements.

01:48:42Like I say, I've never seen anything like this between public and private statements.

01:48:46So Christian Anderson, early on in this, sends an email to Fauci, and his Fauci says, Bob,

01:48:53Gary, and a couple of the other virologists, we think it's inconsistent, this virus, this

01:48:58genetic sequence of COVID is inconsistent with the expectations of evolutionary theory.

01:49:05So they believed it didn't come from nature.

01:49:07They had looked at this.

01:49:08These are smart people that when they were not looking at it, when they were trying to

01:49:11look at it through an objective lens, concluded one thing, until they came to another conclusion

01:49:15that it might hurt the business of science and the arrangements they had going on with

01:49:20China and concluded opposite.

01:49:22But with Christian Anderson, it's stark because he says, oh, Bob, and all these, oh, we all

01:49:26believe it's inconsistent with the expectations of evolutionary theory.

01:49:30A week later, Christian Anderson is saying, what I like to use when I talk to the public

01:49:34is I like to tell them it's consistent with the expectations of evolutionary theory.

01:49:39So he goes from inconsistent to consistent, complete opposite approach within days, maybe

01:49:44even simultaneously as these papers are being written.

01:49:47So really the hypocrisy of those involved and those who are saying not a laboratory

01:49:51construct, if you want to know who to believe, look at their private statements versus their

01:49:55public statements.

01:49:57So we have gain of function's the best thing since sliced bread or gain of function's a

01:50:00real problem.

01:50:01Now, Senator Romney's like, well, why does it matter if there's a chance we should do

01:50:05something?

01:50:06I think he's right.

01:50:07If you believe there's a 1% chance we should do something.

01:50:09But if you think there's a 1% chance or you want to sort of glad hand people at the end

01:50:13and say, well, we should do something, their argument for the people who think it's not

01:50:17likely to happen is going to be, oh, the administration's already fixed this.

01:50:21It's already done.

01:50:22All we need is a few little regulatory things.

01:50:24We don't need legislation.

01:50:25We don't need independent oversight.

01:50:27We don't need people looking at this who aren't on the receiving end of the money.

01:50:30This is the whole problem of NIH.

01:50:32The people regulating themselves aren't getting the money.

01:50:36So the administration has put in place some regulations to try to help with the buying

01:50:40of select agents.

01:50:41And Dr. Quay, if you could explain to us what a few MIT scientists did recently and how

01:50:46well the administrative regulations are working without actual congressional legislation.

01:50:51Sure.

01:50:52So three scientists at MIT said they were going to be a red team.

01:50:54And they contacted the FBI, because what they were going to do was about to be potentially

01:50:58illegal.

01:50:59And they put together ricin and the 1918 influenza.

01:51:05Those two are select agents, and they're highly lethal.

01:51:09And they broke the genes up in a particular way.

01:51:13They added some benign genes.

01:51:15And then they put out test orders, roughly following the White House guidelines, test

01:51:21orders to see if laboratories would send them the pieces they needed to build these viruses

01:51:27or ricin, or they would stop them.

01:51:30And in fact, in 94% of the time, they sent the pieces right to them.

01:51:35They purposely didn't make the active strain of the RNA.

01:51:38They made the inactive strain to show that they could do it.

01:51:41But they proved they could make ricin.

01:51:42They proved they could make the 1918 influenza, under the guidance that had just come out

01:51:46of the White House, in a way that is-

01:51:49This gets at where we go forward.

01:51:50Our next hearing, or one of our next hearings, is going to be, what do we do for gain-of-function

01:51:54reform?

01:51:55What kind of committee do we set up to look at this?

01:51:57And if the answer is, from the other side, oh, it's already done.

01:51:59The White House did it.

01:52:01This is showing you what the White House did, even if it was well-intentioned.

01:52:04Didn't work.

01:52:05These scientists got the material off the internet to create the Spanish flu that killed

01:52:1050, 100 million people.

01:52:13This is not something we should scoff at and say, oh, it's not a laboratory construct.

01:52:17Don't do anything here.

01:52:18Let the administration do this.

01:52:20And I would say this if it were a Republican administration.

01:52:21I don't care which party it's in.

01:52:23I agree with scientists like Kevin Esvelt, who equate this with nuclear weapons.

01:52:28This is incredibly important and needs congressional oversight on the select agents, but also on

01:52:34the gain-of-function.

01:52:35Now, some people think this just started.

01:52:37It's incredibly partisan.

01:52:39Now, just for a quick answer, then a more extensive answer, Dr. Ebright, are you part

01:52:43of the right-wing conspiracy?

01:52:45Are you somehow some kind of crazy Republican partisan?

01:52:48I'm a registered Democrat.

01:52:49I voted for Biden.

01:52:50I had a Biden sign on my lawn and had a Biden bumper sticker on my car.

01:52:54All right.

01:52:55That's enough of that.

01:52:56That's enough of that.

01:52:57But the main point I wanted to make is this isn't a partisan thing.

01:53:00In fact, when I've talked to Dr. Ebright, he says he got involved with this after 9-11,

01:53:04when the anthrax attacks came.

01:53:08But then more involved in 2010 as it heated up, and everybody was talking about in the

01:53:12scientific community, when scientists took the avian flu, which is very, very deadly

01:53:18in humans, but like most animal virus, not very transmissible in humans, and they mutated

01:53:23it, Fouchier and others in Netherlands, to make it spread through the air and to spread

01:53:28to mammals.

01:53:30That's a crazy thing.

01:53:31And if people think that's a benign use of gain-of-function, we should never, ever listen

01:53:35to people like that.

01:53:37Who else thinks it was benign and we didn't need to do anything?

01:53:40Anthony Fouchier.

01:53:41There have been these two camps.

01:53:43There has been this debate going on for a decade.

01:53:46I think this is a very good debate.

01:53:49It should be an intellectual debate, but realize these are the people, Collins and Fouchier,

01:53:55who were saying, take these people down.

01:53:58Take down the people we disagree with.

01:54:00This is not scientific debate.

01:54:01They were taking us off the internet.

01:54:03These are people who are not playing under the American rules, not playing under the

01:54:07scientific method, and they should be discounted.

01:54:10But we have to have a real debate over this.

01:54:13So as we move forward, and I'd like to ask you, Dr. Ebright, on this, how important is

01:54:21it that we actually have a law passed and that we actually have regulators that are

01:54:27scientists, but that are outside of the supply of money, outside of the exchange of grant

01:54:32money?

01:54:33I think it's a matter of survival.

01:54:35It's that important.

01:54:38There needs to be an entity that is independent of agencies that fund research and perform

01:54:44research to eliminate the structural conflict of interest that has existed with current

01:54:49self-regulation by agencies that perform and fund research.

01:54:54Thank you.

01:54:55Thank you, Senator Johnson.

01:54:56We're going to answer your questions.

01:54:57Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

01:54:58In Eisenhower's very prescient farewell speech, he not only warned us about the military-industrial

01:55:04complex, he warned us about government funding of research.

01:55:08He said, to do that, scientists are going to be more interested in their grant, in obtaining

01:55:13a grant, than pursuing truthful science.

01:55:16He said you end up with a scientific and technological elite that would drive public policy, and

01:55:22I think we witnessed that during COVID.

01:55:23They drove it in a very bad direction.

01:55:26So I want to talk about the cover-up again.

01:55:29Dr. Gary, how much have you received in government grants over your career?

01:55:34Do you have any figure in that, a ballpark?

01:55:38Sir, I'm not sure.

01:55:41Hundreds of millions?

01:55:44Not hundreds.

01:55:46So I have information that between you and Dr. Kirsten Anderson, since 2020, between

01:55:522020 and 2022, you received $25.2 million in grants from the NIH.

01:55:57That's possible.

01:55:58That's accurate?

01:55:59Could be.

01:56:00So after you write the proximal origin theory, you've been working with Dr. Fauci how many

01:56:04years?

01:56:05Well, I don't actually work directly with Dr. Fauci, but he's...

01:56:10You've been, you've certainly come to his aid and testified kind of in his support during

01:56:16AIDS.

01:56:18But the fact is, you cashiered $25.2 million in government grants after writing the proximal

01:56:25origin paper, didn't you?

01:56:27$25.2 million in grants, and again, it's Anthony Fauci.

01:56:30It wasn't because of grants.

01:56:31Anthony Fauci has let out billions of dollars worth of grants, right?

01:56:34He controls an awful lot of information.

01:56:36Again, the point being, why were they covered up?

01:56:40December, or January 27, 2020, Dr. Fauci is informed via email that NAID has been funding

01:56:46coronavirus project in China for the last five years.

01:56:51Okay, so he's given...

01:56:52These are the emails that were FOIAed.

01:56:54They weren't given to us, and they're heavily redacted.

01:56:57January 31st, he starts conversations with Dr. Anderson and et al., Dr. Gary.

01:57:05February 1st, Dr. Fauci emails, and my screen went dead on me here, rats.

01:57:13Do you have that?

01:57:16Fauci emails his principal deputy director, Hugh Auschenslotz, and here is the...

01:57:27He said, Hugh, it is essential that we speak this a.m.

01:57:31Keep your cell phone on.

01:57:33I have a conference call at 7.45.

01:57:35They will likely be over at 8.45.

01:57:38Read this paper, as well as the email that I will forward to you.

01:57:41You will have tasks today that must be done.

01:57:44Now, that is somebody who's scrambling to cover up his backside for funding dangerous

01:57:51research at the Wuhan lab for five years.

01:57:55Is that correct?

01:57:56Dr. Ebright, I'll ask you that question, but in addition, you basically accused Dr. Gary

01:58:03of scientific misconduct, possibly as serious as fraud.

01:58:06Why don't you address that, because I would agree with you.

01:58:10So, both on the proximal origin paper, I have signed two letters by teams of scientists requesting

01:58:21an editorial review of that paper for retraction for misconduct.

01:58:26And then on two of the market papers, there are only four published...

01:58:31Sorry, only two published...

01:58:32But again, what was the misconduct you're...

01:58:35Okay, you've accused him, but what was the misconduct you're...

01:58:38The primary misconduct.

01:58:39The misconduct of highest importance was stating conclusions the authors knew at the

01:58:46time, contemporaneously, while writing the paper, submitting the paper, and publishing

01:58:51the paper were untrue.

01:58:54This is the most egregious form of scientific misconduct, publishing a paper where you know

01:59:00the conclusions are untrue.

01:59:02And of course, the reason we didn't get those emails, other than through a court order,

01:59:08is that the emails themselves were so unbelievably incriminating that they thought one thing

01:59:17and wrote the exact other for an article that was quoted like 5,800 times.

01:59:21I mean that, again, as Senator Hall and others have pointed out, destroyed people's careers.

01:59:26They were ridiculed.

01:59:27They were vilified.

01:59:30That is scientific misconduct and fraud, and Dr. Gary, I have to say, if people are bemoaning

01:59:36the fact that people no longer trust science or that we don't trust our federal health

01:59:41agencies, the reason the American public legitimately don't trust scientists and federal health

01:59:48agencies are because of people like you.

01:59:52You bear that responsibility for violating the public's trust from your scientific misconduct

01:59:58and fraud.

01:59:59Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

02:00:00Thank you.

02:00:01Dr. Gary, you can...

02:00:02Thank you so much.

02:00:04So I would just encourage people to go and read the Nature Medicine article, The Proximal

02:00:10Origins of SARS-CoV-2.

02:00:12We didn't put anything in that paper that we didn't believe was true.

02:00:16The conclusions of that paper have held up very well.

02:00:19In fact, there's been an abundance of scientific evidence that has come forward since then

02:00:23to support all the conclusions, everything we wrote in that paper.

02:00:27So there's no fraud.

02:00:29Yes, indeed, some of the authors changed their mind during the course of writing that paper

02:00:34over a period of weeks.

02:00:36That's not fraud, sir.

02:00:38That is just the way that the scientific method works.

02:00:40So, Mr. Chairman, I would ask consent to enter all these Slack messages from this, you know,

02:00:45Dr. Anderson et al., that group, that have all these quotes, into our hearing record,

02:00:50and we'll provide them to you.

02:00:51Thank you.

02:00:52No objection.

02:00:53Senator Marshall, you're recognized for your questions.

02:00:54All right.

02:00:55Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

02:00:56Dr. Gary, I think it's also important to point out a couple things, and one is that you've

02:00:59received $60 million of grants from the NIH over the years, and you have your own vaccine

02:01:04company, and that obviously is a bit of a conflict of interest, and I don't think the

02:01:09scientific world really agrees with your conclusion that it stood up to the test of times.

02:01:13I think the Proximal Origin article is literally an editorial, literally an editorial, an opinion

02:01:20page.

02:01:21But unfortunately, our intelligence community took it as the gospel.

02:01:24I think it's also interesting to me that within the scientific community that two agencies,

02:01:30the Department of Energy and FBI, said they lean towards a lab leak origin of this, that's

02:01:35public knowledge, and that they had the scientists to actually understand what the heck we're

02:01:40talking about.

02:01:41They're realizing that there's no way you can, that nature could have made this virus.

02:01:46There's so many things wrong with your theory, and all you come back to is, oh, it started

02:01:52in the wet market, but you've yet to show us an intermediate host, you've yet to show

02:01:57us progenitor species, all the farms that farm these animals outside of the market,

02:02:03how many of those animals were positive?

02:02:04I think the answer is none.

02:02:07I want to go down this ODNI route for just a sec, and it's a fact that the ODNI has not

02:02:13complied with the law.

02:02:15Congress has passed legislation to declassify information related to COVID origins.

02:02:20ODNI has not complied, placing, leaving ODNI in charge ensures a total monitoring control

02:02:28of the information, the misinformation, that's why we have to move this investigation outside

02:02:32of the ODNI.

02:02:33Additionally, it's a fact that our current grant research process hides the ultimate

02:02:38beneficiaries of U.S. grant research and bypasses all export controls.

02:02:43All of that has to be changed.

02:02:45This is why we need a 9-11 style investigation, outside of cameras, outside of the politics

02:02:51here on Capitol Hill, to find out where this virus came from, what did the U.S. do to contribute,

02:02:57and how do we keep this from happening again?

02:02:59Dr. Cui, I want to go back to some line of question we were going down earlier, just

02:03:04the research being done in Wuhan, China.

02:03:05I think that there's a naivety upon Americans to think that the Chinese military's in one's

02:03:10place doing research, and the web is doing research, and the CCP is not involved.

02:03:16What's it like to work in labs in Wuhan and the interaction between the CCP and those

02:03:22entities?

02:03:23What does their day usually start with?

02:03:24Well, I think one of the telling ways to see that is, without visiting them, is to go through

02:03:28the minutes of laboratory meetings, which you can get a hold of.

02:03:32They're in Chinese.

02:03:33You can translate them.

02:03:35Unlike laboratory meetings in the U.S., which are pretty much you start out, you start presenting

02:03:39your data, you challenge your data, and that, they start with a recitation of what the Communist

02:03:44Party's missions are with respect to their position in the world and the role of their

02:03:50research, and it goes down a litany, and these are by Communist Party members who are part

02:03:55of every lab meeting at present, and then they finally start talking about the research

02:04:01into the lab, but not at the beginning.

02:04:03And the military takes over the web in December as well to promote the cover-up.

02:04:09How does the interaction between the Chinese military and the web scientists?

02:04:12Well, so the woman that took over was the one that was most responsible for the response

02:04:17to the SARS-CoV-2.

02:04:20And interestingly, if you look at the closest viruses to SARS-CoV-2, so you got RATG13,

02:04:26which is inside the WIV.

02:04:28You've got the Baynell viruses from Laos.

02:04:32We know WIV is sampling there.

02:04:33The next one down are two viruses that were collected by the PLA Army.

02:04:38And we began studying in 2017.

02:04:41The S2 region of the spike protein is almost identical to those viruses that were originally

02:04:46collected by the PLA Army.

02:04:49The first genetic cluster of patients that had both lineage A and lineage B were in the

02:04:54PLA hospital three kilometers from the WIV.

02:04:57Okay.

02:04:58You know, I think we've debated back and forth about the benefits and risk of viral gain

02:05:03of function research, and I'm just going to say viral manipulation, viral manipulation,

02:05:07so we don't have to worry about your silly definitions that are used to obscure what's

02:05:12really happening here.

02:05:14I'm going to ask each one of you, do you feel comfortable funding any type of viral manipulation

02:05:19research with foreign entities that are hostile towards America, like the CCP?

02:05:26Dr. Ebright?

02:05:31I think there are strong reasons for international collaboration in science with both allied

02:05:38nations and adversary nations.

02:05:41However, there's a line that never should be crossed, and that is research that has

02:05:47weapons implications.

02:05:49And research on discovery and enhancement of bioweapons agents, like the research on

02:05:55SARS viruses in Wuhan, most surely is an example of such research.

02:06:00I'd like to go through the questions, but I think I should be respectful of everyone's

02:06:03time.

02:06:04And thank you so much, Chairman, for giving us the second round.

02:06:06Thank you.

02:06:07Thank you.

02:06:08Thank you, Senator Marshall.

02:06:09One quick question came up for me.

02:06:11Dr. Krajewa, you talked about the genetic features could only happen in a lab.

02:06:17And I'd just like to ask Dr. Gehry, do the genetic features, could those only come from

02:06:24lab experiments, or is there a natural evolution?

02:06:28Of course not.

02:06:29I mean, Dr. Quay mentioned the virus called banal-2052.

02:06:34That virus is extremely close to SARS-CoV-2.

02:06:36In fact, if we isolated both of those viruses out in nature and didn't know anything about

02:06:42a pandemic, you would say those are in the same very close family together.

02:06:49So banal-52 is essentially a very close member of SARS-CoV-2.

02:06:54It's got all the genetic features of SARS-CoV-2.

02:06:58Certainly the fact that that virus is in nature shows that SARS-CoV-2 could have arisen through

02:07:04a natural process.

02:07:05Dr. Eber?

02:07:06That virus has no furin cleavage site, as Dr. Gehry is aware.

02:07:12I mean, the furin cleavage site is not the only feature of the virus that makes it a

02:07:17virus that's able to cause a pandemic.

02:07:20There are dozens, maybe hundreds of other changes that the virus has to go through before

02:07:24it can have that potential.

02:07:28Nobody in a laboratory would know how to put those features into any virus, let alone one

02:07:33that's 97% or 96% similar to SARS-CoV-2.

02:07:38Dr. Quay?

02:07:40When you passage a virus, when you do serial passage of a virus, Darwin and evolution selects

02:07:47for the right position.

02:07:49When you look at 3,800 possible changes in the amino acid and the receptor binding domain,

02:07:56all but 17 changes are not improvements.

02:08:01SARS-CoV-2 is at 99% perfected for the receptor binding domains of humans.

02:08:07SARS-1, when it first jumped to humans, had 15% and evolved over a couple of years to

02:08:12get to the pandemic stage.

02:08:14He started out with a 99% perfect virus, which is serial passage.

02:08:19So Dr. Quay, the banal 52 virus, the receptor binding domain is 50 amino acids long.

02:08:2749 of those 50 are the same as in SARS-CoV-2.

02:08:32You don't have to create any kind of scenario where you're passing viruses in a lab.

02:08:38That RBD, the receptor binding domain, is already in nature, essentially fully formed.

02:08:44Very good.

02:08:45So Ranking Member Paul and I are holding these hearings, and we want to be thinking about

02:08:51the future.

02:08:52How do we make sure that we handle pandemics or potential pandemics much better in the

02:08:58future?

02:08:59So I'm going to ask each of you a brief question.

02:09:02In the event that we never get to the bottom of how this pandemic started, both Ranking

02:09:08Member Paul and I believe that we've got to do everything we can to put forward policies

02:09:13that will hopefully prevent a future pandemic.

02:09:16So I'd like each of you to identify, I'm going to go down, I'll start with Mr. Koblentz and

02:09:21then go down, just to identify briefly in the remaining time here, one or two priority

02:09:25actions that we should take to help us prevent the next pandemic.

02:09:30If there's one or two thoughts that this committee should take to heart, what would that be?

02:09:35Dr. Koblentz?

02:09:37So in order to address the threat of the natural zoonotic spillover pandemic, there really

02:09:43needs to be a One Health approach to biosurveillance and preventing spillover in key countries

02:09:48that have, you know, ecologically are prime for disease emergence.

02:09:54For the lab origin possibilities, we need a much stronger global architecture for biorisk

02:10:01management.

02:10:03And underlying all that, we need a much stronger biosurveillance system, both domestically

02:10:06and internationally, that detect these outbreaks as soon as possible and guide the medical

02:10:10and public health response that we need to prevent outbreaks from becoming pandemics.

02:10:14Dr. Gary?

02:10:15I mean, I guess my recommendation would be a very practical one.

02:10:20I mean, we have bird flu in our dairy cattle in the United States, as we're speaking here.

02:10:27That's a very dangerous virus.

02:10:28I would take a look at that and see what we can do to, you know, keep the unthinkable

02:10:33from happening in that virus, acquiring extra features, maybe recombination of the virus

02:10:38from a pig, maybe recombination of the virus from human, to turn that into a virus that

02:10:43would be very difficult to control its spread right now with our current technologies.

02:10:50Thank you.

02:10:51Dr. Gray?

02:10:52Four recommendations.

02:10:53One is to move the oversight of select agent research and gain a function outside of NIH

02:10:58and IAID and into some independent institutional review board.

02:11:02You could model it after human research boards, institutional review boards, number one.

02:11:08Number two is taking Western biotechnology equipment, which right now is the superior

02:11:15equipment, U.S., U.K. primarily, and putting it under export control so at least we know

02:11:20where the machines are going and perhaps we could put some controls over it.

02:11:24Number three is simple.

02:11:28Don't put these next to lines, you know, subways where accidents can happen.

02:11:33And number four, gain of opportunity where you don't necessarily do viral research but

02:11:38you go out and try to collect a virus that has, it's in a cave, it has no chance of running

02:11:42into a human, you bring it back to a city with 11 million people, you purify it out

02:11:47of a sample for a feces where there's, you know, 200 other viruses, you make it pure,

02:11:51you make it 10 to the 4th, 10 to the 5th, you know, a million more copies of it, setting

02:11:56up a laboratory accident.

02:11:58Gain of opportunity has the same risks as gain of function.

02:12:03We should look at those.

02:12:04Thank you.

02:12:05Thank you.

02:12:06Dr. Ebert?

02:12:08Legislation should address three subjects.

02:12:11The first is establishing a review entity that is independent of agencies that fund

02:12:18biomedical research and perform biomedical research to eliminate the conflict of interest

02:12:22that exists today.

02:12:24Two, the oversight must cover all forms of research irrespective of funding source, not

02:12:34only federally funded research but also other funded research, and must cover research both

02:12:40unclassified and classified in character.

02:12:45And three, these improvements in oversight need to be codified in law so that they are

02:12:57enforceable with rule of law.

02:13:00Voluntary self-regulation, voluntary guidance and best practices have not worked and they

02:13:08will not work in the future.

02:13:11So legislation for an independent review, legislation for a comprehensive review irrespective

02:13:16of funding source and classification status, and legislation for enforceable oversight

02:13:23with force of law.

02:13:25Thank you.

02:13:26Well, thank you.

02:13:27And I'd like to thank each of our witnesses here for joining us today, for your testimony,

02:13:32for your expertise.

02:13:33Appreciate your concrete solutions as to next steps going forward, and we'll likely reach

02:13:38out to you again and again to continue to flesh out these ideas.

02:13:45Pandemics and other infectious disease outbreaks will unfortunately be an enduring threat to

02:13:51our country and to our world.

02:13:53And while the question of the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic remains unresolved, I think

02:14:01it's clear that there are things that we can and must pursue to reduce biological risk

02:14:07here at home and abroad.

02:14:11I hope this committee's work will also result in restoring and maintaining the trust in

02:14:15public health agencies and the scientific process, as we will need to make sure we're

02:14:22doing that to prevent future pandemics in this country.

02:14:26I look forward to our continuing work together to improve the federal government's ability

02:14:30to prevent, to detect, and to respond to biological threats.

02:14:35The record for this hearing will remain open for 15 days until 5 p.m. on July 3rd of 2024

02:14:41for the submission of statements and questions.

02:14:44For the record, this hearing is now adjourned.

BREAKING NEWS: COVID-19 Lab-Leak Theory 'Cover-Up' Probed In Senate Homeland Security Committee

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