Lab leak in Spain? A wake-up call for global biosafety

By ⁦⁦@AndrewNoymer⁩ ocregister.com/2025/12/23/lab… “pigs don’t fly. So where did the infection come from? The initial hypothesis, as implausible as it may seem, was that a wild pig ate a ham sandwich that had been discarded by a long-range truck driver”

🧵DID YOU KNOW?

on Dec 30, 2011, The Washington Post published: “A flu risk worth taking” by Anthony Fauci, Gary Nabel, & Francis Collins, which argued: “important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory.”

(1/5) and, on Oct 9, 2012, mBio published: “Research on Highly Pathogenic H5N1 Influenza Virus: The Way Forward” by Anthony Fauci which stated: “In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events...

(2/5)

🧵1/ Unfortunately Timed Screenshots: Ralph Baric Edition

"It paid off for the American people" 2/ "And we need to figure out how to deal with misinformation"

1/ 🧵The harms of not holding virologists accountable for their lies, fraud, harassment and bullying.

Various examples of despicable behavior by virologists. These examples reveal that virologists are not victims of anti-science, they are perpetrators of anti-science. 2/ The dark side of virology (part 1)

https://x.com/Bryce_Nickels/status/1761587417285345780

🧵Things that did not age well: Ralph Baric edition 🧵

Is regulation preventing the development of therapeutics that may prevent future coronavirus pandemics?

by Timothy P. Sheahan & Ralph S. Baric

Future Virology; March 2018

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P… 2/ Given the massive amount of morbidity and mortality associated with EIDs over the past 30 years, the balance between public health risk and inaction is clear.

🚨RESOURCE: Yoshihiro Kawaoka's Top 10🚨

10 highlights from talks given in 2018 by GOFROC enthusiast, Yoshihiro Kawaoka (Prof Virology, Univ Wisc)

#10 - slide containing these words:

Airborne transmission
We cannot use humans… 🚨RESOURCE: Yoshihiro Kawaoka's Top 10🚨

10 highlights from talks given in 2018 by GOFROC enthusiast, Yoshihiro Kawaoka (Prof Virology, Univ Wisc)

#9 - slide containing these words:

The Spanish influenza virus did not exist, but...

🧵1/Upholding Scientific Inquiry & Accountability by ChatGPT
The article "The harms of promoting the LL hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 origins w/o evidence" dismisses the lab leak hypothesis prematurely & overlooks the necessity of transparency & accountability in scientific inquiry. 2/The Need for Comprehensive Investigation
While the article emphasizes the importance of adhering to scientific evidence, it is crucial to recognize that scientific conclusions are not static. They must be continually reassessed in light of new data.

🧵Three critical times in the past 18 months when "biosafety allies" have let us down

#1. Biosafety Now launch
#2. Wisconsin bill to ban ePPP research
#3. Rand Paul’s Risky Research Review Act 🧵Three critical times in the past 18 months when biosafety "allies" have let us down

#1. Opposition by David Relman to Biosafety Now's mission (Feb 2023)

On Feb 6, 2023, Biosafety Now (the non-profit I co-founded) launches with a clear mission: “demand national- and international-level restrictions, regulations, and oversight to reduce the risks to the public posed by enhanced potential pandemic pathogens research.”

On the day it launches, Science magazine publishes an article in which David Relman is quoted as saying he objects to Biosafety Now’s “heavy top-down approach” and the lack of involvement from scientists who do research on dangerous human pathogens.

Relman goes on to say in the article that his initiative is the right way to do things: [Relman] says guidelines crafted with input from scientists are more likely to change behavior without impeding research than rigid, punitive laws. Relman co-chairs a similar effort, the Pathogens Project, launched in September 2022 by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to consider how to conduct responsible research with high-risk microbes. The Pathogens Project, he says, has a more “bottom-up” approach that incorporates the views of scientists working in the field.
science.org/content/articl…

🧵BIOSAFETY OVERSIGHT: "individuals with particular agendas"

@davidrgillum, earlier today on the @ABSAOffice listserv, you wrote you were concerned about @RandPaul's "Research Review Act," because:
"Congress is receiving input from individuals with particular agendas...

(1/n) ..and may not fully realize how the new bill would impact research at your institutions, the practical challenges of implementation, or the unintended consequences for ongoing and future research projects."

(2/n)

🧵Gain-of-Function Research: "A Very High-Risk Proposition"

In Jan 2021, Dr. Ali Nouri @AliNouriPhD, fmr Asst Sec of the US DoE & fmr Pres of the Federation of American Scientists discussed his concerns with gain-of-function.

clip 1: "We're humans, we make errors all the time" 🧵Gain-of-Function Research: "A Very High-Risk Proposition"

In Jan 2021, Dr. Ali Nouri @AliNouriPhD, fmr Asst Sec of the US DoE & fmr Pres of the Federation of American Scientists discussed his concerns with gain-of-function.

clip 2: A "Recipe" For Disaster

🧵RESOURCE: 8 clips that confirm everyone's worst fears about bioweapons (from a 2020 interview with Tara O'Toole)

clip 1: "Just a fact of life today" 🧵RESOURCE: 8 clips that confirm everyone's worst fears about bioweapons (from a 2020 interview with Tara O'Toole)

clip 2: "you don't need a secret lab...It's all dual-use from stem to stern"

🧵22 Highlights from Day 1 of the 2020 NSABB meeting (January 23, 2020)

#1. “nothing’s ever eradicated as long as you have the sequence, right?” - Vincent Racaniello 🧵22 Highlights from Day 1 of the 2020 NSABB meeting (January 23, 2020)

#2. “this is a panel to look at flu proposals, essentially” - Vincent Racaniello

🧵13 jaw dropping moments from Vincent Racaniello's conversation with Paul Offit about Alina Chan's NY Times OpEd

Moment 1 - "I think it's much easier to be in the misinformation business than in the information business"

(1/13) 🧵13 jaw dropping moments from Vincent Racaniello's conversation with Paul Offit about Alina Chan's NY Times OpEd

Moment 2 - "personally I think its an indictment of science education in the US"

(2/13)

🚨RESOURCE🚨

Comments by Steven Quay @quay_dr at The Capitol Hill Lecture Series (June 18, 2024)

Clip 1 - Dr Quay discusses the science behind why SARS-CoV-2 did not come from a wet market

(1/9) Comments by Steven Quay @quay_dr at The Capitol Hill Lecture Series (June 18, 2024)

Clip 2 - Dr Quay discusses the furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2

(2/9)

🚨RESOURCE🚨

Comments by Richard Ebright at The Capitol Hill Lecture Series (June 18, 2024)

Clip 1 - Richard discusses the differences between the SARS-1 and SARS-2 outbreaks

(1/5) Comments by Richard Ebright at The Capitol Hill Lecture Series (June 18, 2024)

Clip 2 - Richard discusses lab accidents with SARS-1

(2/5)

1/🚨RESOURCE: FOUR UNREDACTED PAGES FROM DoD OIG REPORT🚨

Review of DoD Funds Provided to the People’s Republic of China and Associated Affiliates for Research Activities or Any Foreign Countries for the Enhancement of Pathogens of Pandemic Potential (DODIG‑2024‑099)

p.5 2/

p.6

1/🧵RESOURCE: summary of @RandPaul's comments on the June 13 X Space about:

• Anthony Fauci
• David Morens and the FOIA lady
• the NIH
• Donald Trump
• Gain-of-Function (GOF)
• Bioweapons
• Nuclear Weapons
• COVID origin politics
• Senate Hearings
• GOF Legislation 2/ On Anthony Fauci:
Senator Paul discussed Fauci’s attempts to distance himself from his long-time special advisor at the NIAID, David Morens. Paul noted, "He immediately, through his assistant of 20 years, his special adviser of 20 years, under the bus," suggesting Fauci was trying to avoid being implicated in Morens’ actions. Paul added, "I think when someone protests that much…you wonder if the distancing has a purpose."

🚨This Week in the COVID Cover-Up🚨

A 90-min discussion of the latest in COVID origins & biosafety.

Set a reminder to join @DrJBhattacharya and me next Wednesday, 1 day after the historic Senate hearing on COVID origins.

(see below for prior episodes)

x.com/i/spaces/1gqxv… June 13
cohost: Jay Bhattacharya
featured speaker: Senator Rand Paul
with special appearances by: Sam Husseini and Justin Goodman
x.com/i/spaces/1OdJr…

🧵RESOURCE: AUDIO & TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR RAND PAUL

June 13, 2024 (~9:15 - 9:55 AM EDT)

@DrJBhattacharya and I were joined on today's @X space by @RandPaul to discuss the COVID cover up.

This post contains the complete audio, see below for transcript.

(1/4) (2/4) ***GENERATED BY NOTTA - MAY CONTAIN TRANSCRIPTION ERRORS, PLEASE CHECK VIDEO ABOVE TO CONFIRM***

Senator Rand Paul 00:00
Good morning, guys. Glad to be with you.

Bryce Nickels 00:03
Good morning. Um, so I have already given you an introduction. So I wanted to kind of just jump right in because I know we have a limited amount of time with you. Um, we were just talking about Anthony Fauci.

Bryce Nickels 00:15
Um, I don't know if you heard a little bit of that and I wanted to begin by asking you what you thought about the Fauci hearing that we had on the third of June.

Senator Rand Paul 00:27
You know, I think he gave us very little new information, but what I was struck most by was that he immediately, through his assistant of 20 years, his special adviser of 20 years under the bus, you know, this David Marens, and when asked about Marens, he says, I barely knew him.

Senator Rand Paul 00:43
He didn't come to meetings. He wasn't part of the policy team. He didn't have access to my office, and furthermore, he didn't even have an office in my building. And so I think when someone protests that much, you wonder if the protestations are to the distancing has a purpose, you know, if he's really worried about being caught up in David Marens' web.

Senator Rand Paul 01:07
And Marens was pretty explicit. He's pretty much dead to rights in the sense that he said to many people, don't use my government email, use my Gmail, use my private phone, if you need to get messages to Tony Fauci, I can hand carry them like a courier, and I can give him notes, I can call his private phone.

Senator Rand Paul 01:27
I've talked to the FOIA lady, the FOIA lady's explained to me how to delete searches even after they've been requested legally. He changed people's names. They used to take Christian Anderson's name and change one of the vowels to a dollar sign, which I think there's a certain irony there, but all of this Marens' testimony was so damning that Fauci felt necessary to completely disassociate himself from that.

Senator Rand Paul 01:51
And I guess the conclusion I took from this, that if I were in charge of this hearing, and my private advice has been to those in charge of the hearing, I would ask Marens to come back in. And it can be done as a private deposition, but the main reason I'd ask him to come back in is that he basically is out on an island by himself.

Senator Rand Paul 02:07
Fauci pretty much says, you know, I don't know the guy, I never did any of those things, I didn't delete any of my emails. So if Marens now doesn't like Fauci calling him a liar, maybe they get better testimony from Marens on a second go round.

Senator Rand Paul 02:20
I've also suggested that the FOIA lady be brought in, and I think she is scheduled for a deposition. And the idea that someone whose job is to facilitate Freedom of Information Act and to comply with it was actively teaching people how to evade the Freedom of Information Act and to destroy evidence.

Senator Rand Paul 02:39
These are felony crimes. And I think if you really had a prosecutor worth their salt, Marens would have already been indicted and charged, and the FOIA lady in all likelihood would. But from that, you might be able to get the truth of the matter about Fauci.

Senator Rand Paul 02:55
I don't think he's been honest. I don't think he's telling the truth. I think in all likelihood, yes, emails were deleted. The main question I would ask the FOIA lady is, I suspect someone like Fauci didn't take the time to delete his emails, but I would ask her point blank, under oath, did you facilitate or help him to delete emails?

Senator Rand Paul 03:14
The thing about the deleted emails, were they any big deal? Well, you have emails from David Marens, Fauci's assistant, saying, well, I think we're safe now. I deleted all those earlier emails. I think we're safe now.

Senator Rand Paul 03:27
And it's like, that sounds like the whole language of people committing crimes. I mean, that sounds incredibly indicting of his behavior. So I don't know that Fauci necessarily told as much. He did deny all the allegations, though.

Senator Rand Paul 03:41
So I guess the only way we know if he is lying is either to subpoena his records, which I would have done a year ago, his private phone records and his private email records, because I don't think I've taken at face value that he didn't conduct business on his private email.

Senator Rand Paul 03:55
I think it should be, we should check that to see if he's telling the truth.

Bryce Nickels 04:00
Jay, before you ask a question, just to follow up on that, it's interesting you mentioned the David Morin's piece. Is that the piece that you think will resonate the most with the public, that he threw his long -term close associate under the bus?

Senator Rand Paul 04:18
I think it resonates only if Marens were indicted. I think the Democrats, the Democrats on the committee, though, were very hard on Marens. They played kid gloves with Fauci and still treat him as a saint, and that was another striking aspect of the hearing is that to a person, the Republicans were pretty hardcore in drilling down on Fauci and malfeasance and cover -up, and to a person, the Democrats were all bending the knee, kissing the ring, and extolling his greatness.

Senator Rand Paul 04:50
It wasn't the same for Marens. They all criticized Marens pretty much, and so you would think that the best chance of getting further to the truth is that Marens doesn't like being the fall guy, but then again, he's still sort of – they say he's on unpaid leave.

Senator Rand Paul 05:07
Some people say he's on paid leave. They really won't give us a direct answer, but the fact that he hadn't been fired and he maintained that he's been absolved by the investigation over there makes us think that there needs to be a housecleaning from a new president, because if the NIH thinks the things he did were okay and that he doesn't – he just gets a slap on the wrist, I hope that's not the NIH's conclusion, but if it is, we've got bigger problems at the NIH.

Jay Bhattacharya 05:34
I mean, it's striking that you have an environment at the NIH that seems to applaud this kind of hiding of basic functions. I remember there was a FOIA of the 2020 research agenda of the NIAID, Fauci's organization.

Jay Bhattacharya 05:52
And literally every single page of that document, which should be a public document, was blanked out with a B4, B5 redaction for FOIA so the public can't know what the NIH was up to or planning to do in 2020.

Jay Bhattacharya 06:07
And just as a member of the public, it's extremely frustrating. We taxpayers pay the taxes, we pay for David Moran's time, we pay for Tony Fauci's time, and they're acting as if they are above the law.

Jay Bhattacharya 06:22
And I also, Senator Powell, just that makes no question, why is it that the Democratic Party seems to be so much like the protective of Tony Fauci rather than critical? Like it seems so clear and obvious that he has important things he should be saying.

Jay Bhattacharya 06:41
And I mean, I'm so glad to see that the hearing you're gonna have next week is joint with Senator Peters. Cause I think this really should be something that's beyond partisan politics. It's something that the pandemic has affected every single human life.

Jay Bhattacharya 06:58
How can it be that one political party wants to not look into it?

Senator Rand Paul 07:04
You know, it is perplexing. The Democrats historically, as a party, have been a party that's always interested in anything that leads to death. You know, pollution, plastic in your baby bottles, plastic in, you know, but all kinds of things that might cause cancer might be a problem.

Senator Rand Paul 07:22
Democrats, we wanna investigate them to in excess, probably. But here, we have a million people died in the United States from a virus. There's a lot of evidence that came from a lab that we were funding, and yet there's a complete disinterest.

Senator Rand Paul 07:34
We've gotten a little bit of cooperation, mostly with a little bit of duress, frankly. We trade things back and forth. We trade approval of other pieces of legislation for signatures to get records, and so we pushed on and on.

Senator Rand Paul 07:48
But to give you an example of the resistance, you mentioned a document. We have two 250 -page documents that are completely redacted, and we can't get a copy of them. Even though the Senate and the House voted unanimously to declassify everything, the problem is these aren't even classified, and yet they refuse to give them to us.

Senator Rand Paul 08:05
To me, the most important bit of information that they've refused to give us is concerning the determination of whether or not the research in Wuhan was gain of function. So under the law, it should have gone to a safety committee called the P3CO committee, but it never made it there.

Senator Rand Paul 08:22
And so the P3CO committee would have made the judgment whether it was gain of function or not. But in committee, when I challenged Fauci on this, Fauci responded and said, all of my scientists up and down the line, they have all said it's not gain of function.

Senator Rand Paul 08:36
And so my question to them is, we'd like to see the deliberations. There's a meeting, and we only know this because of Freedom of Information Act, but there's a weekly meeting called the Dual Use Research of Concern slash gain of function meeting.

Senator Rand Paul 08:49
So there are discussion of these projects. We'd like to hear the arguments because we think they made a grave error that let's say there were three scientists on one side and two on the other. Let's hear their arguments for the scientists who believed it was gain of function.

Senator Rand Paul 09:03
And if they thought it wasn't, let's hear the arguments for why it wasn't. And the reason why this is a grave error is that the virus in all likelihood did leak out and all likelihood was gain of function and caused a pandemic that 15 million people died from.

Senator Rand Paul 09:18
So that's not a small error. You would think it would be primary among the things we would wanna know would be what were the deliberations? What were the arguments? Because the people who made those arguments now need to be challenged and those arguments need to be challenged and then the process needs to be challenged.

Senator Rand Paul 09:36
So we have gotten some cooperation now from Chairman Peters, Democrat. He's allowing some of these investigations to go forward. And our hope is we've written a bill that we've sent to him. Our hope is to have a bill that sets up a commission, presidential commission that oversees all gain of function research, classified, unclassified, throughout all of government, throughout all the agencies.

Senator Rand Paul 10:00
Because this stuff is hidden under bushel and basket throughout the entire six trillion dollar government. There's a lot of places you can be doing this research including classified areas. But this commission would overlook all of that and we would define what gain of function is and then it would be their job and their ability to reach out and into any portion of government to look for this research.

Senator Rand Paul 10:25
The big reform is the people doing this would not be the people dispensing the funds. There's too much of a cozy relationship between the recipient of the funds and the dispensers of the funds. And so those people cannot make objective decisions anymore.

Senator Rand Paul 10:41
And it's got even worse at NIH. Now that they get $450 million from Moderna, how can NIH be objective with determining things with regard to grants that involve Moderna since they're recipients of so much money?

Senator Rand Paul 10:56
So there's a lot of things that have to be done. We think the bill would go a long way towards this. I think why the resistance from the Democrats is perplexing but I think the Democrat philosophy in general is that central planning is acceptable, that healthcare would be better dispensed if we had like a czar or a king or a dictator of health.

Senator Rand Paul 11:16
And they just don't have a problem with that. They think that experts know better than the common man. They think the common man is not smart enough to make a decision whether they get a vaccine or not.

Senator Rand Paul 11:26
And frankly, I reject all of that. And I'll give you one quick example before we get to the next question. For the most part, over age 65, vaccines were voluntary. If you were still working with the government or in the military, it wasn't voluntary.

Senator Rand Paul 11:37
But over 65, most people is voluntary. It's like 97% of people voluntarily chose to get it over 65. Because they read the newspaper and they saw the people dying were over 65. The people under age 15 that have gotten this vaccine, it's like three or 4%.

Senator Rand Paul 11:53
People are a lot smarter than you think. They've, you know, moms have addressed and dads have addressed the risk of the vaccine versus the risk of the disease for a kid. And 80 -year -olds have made this risk assessment.

Senator Rand Paul 12:04
And by and large, the voluntary assessments, I think are actually pretty smart. But the government doesn't want that. The government wants to mandate that your six -month -old kid take three vaccines, which I think is actually malpractice.

Senator Rand Paul 12:15
But it is a philosophy of difference where we respect the individual and think the individual can make rational, reasonable decisions and should be allowed to voluntarily. And the other side, which really doesn't care much for individual freedom, medical freedom, and thinks that experts know best.

Senator Rand Paul 12:31
And because of that, I think they've defended Fauci to the bitter end.

Bryce Nickels 12:37
Can I sort of, there's a lot to unpack there. I guess what I would ask is you seemed actually to be adopting, and you even mentioned this, you're really adopting what I consider a classical democratic position of protecting the public from the dangers of scientific research.

Bryce Nickels 12:55
So in a way, there has been a bit of a pivot in a sense where Republicans are favoring issues that would be traditionally democratic issues. I do actually think that there will be cooperation. I mean, you are working now with bipartisan hearing and with respect to what happened in the House, the Democrats remarkably did come together to defund eco -health.

Bryce Nickels 13:23
So in a way, I think this is a remarkable opportunity for a lot of bipartisan initiatives because it's sort of a flipped situation. Are you, I guess, can you just state your view of the NIH? Because I think a lot of, you know, my perception from talking to staffers, Republican staffers is that they're all very supportive of science.

Bryce Nickels 13:48
They just want the truth. Is that, what is your vision for a future of the NIH?

Senator Rand Paul 13:57
I think that there needs to be more transparency. I'm troubled by an NIH director, Francis Collins, who basically sent an email to Fauci saying, take them down, and referring to Jay Bhattacharya and referring to, I think, Martin Koldorf and others, take them down.

Senator Rand Paul 14:14
The mafia, mafiosa kind of language, the idea that couriers go back and forth with handwritten messages to avoid discovery by the public, the idea of deleting emails now are safe. I mean, the whole thing doesn't sound like science.

Senator Rand Paul 14:30
The arrogance, as you mentioned earlier, of someone saying that they are the science. Some of that is tenure, and I think the length of tenure goes to the head of that person sometimes. So having one person there for 40 years is a huge mistake, and I have actually written an op -ed comparing Fauci to J.

Senator Rand Paul 14:49
Edgar Hoover and the abuses. And I think really the abuses of civil liberties are similar, and the arrogance of his long reign is apparent, the problems of it. So I would actually take Fauci's position and divide it into three.

Senator Rand Paul 15:05
It's allergy, immunology, and infectious disease. I'd have three people take that position instead of one, and I would term limit them all, either two four -year terms or two five -year terms, so they don't last generation after generation.

Senator Rand Paul 15:20
I think he just accumulated too much power, and he became above all of it. And so those are some of the reforms that have to happen at NIH. I also have a bill that did pass unanimously with bipartisan support in committee, and that is to put on their financial release form for all the NIH scientists and all these people populating these vaccine committees.

Senator Rand Paul 15:41
They're going to have to release their royalties. And this was probably one of the most insulting things, responses from Fauci was that when he responded to me is, I don't have to tell you, we don't have to tell you, it's basically none of your business, the law protects us, we don't have to reveal royalties.

Senator Rand Paul 15:58
That to me is a smugness that I will not let go and will not let go until they are finally forced to put this on their disclosure agreements. There's no way you should be on the vaccine committee voting for Pfizer or Moderna's vaccine if you're receiving royalties from those companies.

Senator Rand Paul 16:14
I don't know that they are, but if they aren't, they should have immediately released. I mean, if I'd have been charged those committees, so the committees would not be besmirched and they would not be criticized, if nobody on there was receiving royalties, I would put a press release out the same day.

Senator Rand Paul 16:28
But the fact that they respond that they don't have to tell us makes us think they have something to hide. I don't know what we'll find, whether any of them are getting royalties from those two companies, but it is pretty important.

Senator Rand Paul 16:39
The decision making, look, the committees essentially recommended, the FDA committee and I think the CDC committee recommended that people at risk take a booster. And that's not an unreasonable thing, particularly if it's voluntary.

Senator Rand Paul 16:55
Over 65 take a booster. I have no real object to the advice. But then it was changed by Rochelle Walensky, a Biden appointee, and she changed it to everybody above six months and older should get a booster.

Senator Rand Paul 17:08
And so that kind of thing, we've really got to do something about that. And there have to be reforms about who runs the NIH, what are the checks and balances, there needs to be more transparency, is my contention that the NIH is at least as secretive, if not more secretive, than the CIA.

Senator Rand Paul 17:27
That's crazy. They will not release thousands of pages of documents, but specifically, I want the NIH deliberations on what is or is not gain of function with regard to specific experiments in Wuhan and otherwise, and they will not give that to us.

Senator Rand Paul 17:43
And that is something that, you know, if we had a good appropriations process, if Congress had any kind of spine, they should zero them out tomorrow and say, don't get another penny. Everything stops, your salaries, everything will stop until you send us the documents and we'd get them in a week.

Senator Rand Paul 17:58
That's the power of the purse, but we don't use it. And the appropriators just are there, they think their job is appropriating, not, you know, refusing to appropriate. So we really don't have the leverage.

Senator Rand Paul 18:09
Typically, in times past, Republicans and Democrats in the legislature were united to get information out of an executive branch. But now it's become much more partisan and Democrats in Congress defend the Biden administration.

Senator Rand Paul 18:24
And I keep telling them, this is nothing about the Biden administration. Most of the information I want actually happened during the Trump administration, not by political appointees, by long term people who are at the NIH.

Senator Rand Paul 18:35
But there are real problems and something's going to have to change.

Bryce Nickels 18:39
But just to be clear, you do support the NIH because I, my impression is you do, but I like the anger, your rightful anger at the lack of transparency is something that I've been equally angry about as someone that receives NIH funding, but you do think it's a valuable entity for the country, correct?

Senator Rand Paul 19:00
I'm a senator who's voted for very very little federal spending, but I have voted for NIH funding So that tells you something because I have a high degree of scrutiny for what we do But yes, I have voted for NIH funding and would say that I'm generally supportive But I'm so unhappy with what they're doing now that if I had my druthers I wouldn't give them another penny in fact, I'd zero them out completely I'd say you get nothing not that that's the end result you get nothing until you cooperate with the investigation and You know I haven't decided to get involved in the presidential race But ultimately when I do talk to Donald Trump part of whether I not not I get involved in that is going to be whether or not he's going to release every scrap of paper and Appoint someone to be head of NIH and HHS that will reveal all the documents and will have an honest appraisal of whether there was a Cover -up and heads will roll, you know, he talks about draining the swamp He's gonna need to drain the swamp but last time around he appointed Scott Gottlieb to be head of the FDA and the revolving door sent him right back to Pfizer and At Pfizer's perch on their board.

Senator Rand Paul 20:03
He's over there calling Twitter trying to take down anybody critical of vaccines And so that's the part of the swamp that didn't get adequately drained and needs to be drained the next go -round

Bryce Nickels 20:14
But there's another, okay, so, and I certainly want to work, actually, I've even told members of your staff, I really want to work on this issue about transparency. I've spoken to my colleagues about us as NIH funded researchers need to take accountability, need to, we need to clean our own house if we're going to expect to get more money.

Bryce Nickels 20:34
And I actually, I do, I understand very clearly, you're not the only one that said no more money for the NIH if they don't act in the best interest of the public and be transparent. I think we can fix that.

Bryce Nickels 20:48
Jay and I have talked about that, but I understand. I mean, I think it's actually perfectly reasonable, but I do feel that your efforts are pointing towards a future where we will get a much better NIH.

Bryce Nickels 21:00
Jay, did you have a question?

Jay Bhattacharya 21:01
I mean, just a quick note on that point, science requires transparency. If you're going to have science done in the public interest, if it's going to meet up to the name of what science is about, it absolutely requires transparency.

Jay Bhattacharya 21:13
So to that extent, when the NIH acts as if it should hide the activities it has doing, it is no longer really truly a scientific organization. It's science and public interest will show us that it's in public interest.

Jay Bhattacharya 21:27
And I totally understand, again, as an NIH -funded researcher myself, why the public distrust the NIH now. I share your outrage over this, Senator Paul. And to me, the key thing is checks and balances, oversight, transparency.

Jay Bhattacharya 21:44
Any legislation or pressure on the NIH to become the kind of organization it really should be, I think the entire scientific community should be welcome.

Senator Rand Paul 21:55
I think one of the things that could get this beyond sort of a partisan plane to recognize is I try to inform people that the debate over gain of function didn't start with COVID. It started really in 2010 or heated up in 2010 when the avian flu was purposely mutated to become more transmissible among mammals and to become aerosolized.

Senator Rand Paul 22:18
This is a virus, an animal virus, but in humans can be have as high mortality as 50% but fortunately is not very contagious like many animal virus doesn't transmit well from human to human. When they did that there was a huge debate and this had nothing to do with politics.

Senator Rand Paul 22:36
Many of the people, in fact I've met many of the people that argued against Anthony Fauci who was for the wild wild west and said basically even if a pandemic occurs the knowledge would be worth it but there were many many scientists on the other side most of whom are not Republicans.

🧵TONE-POLICED EDITION
Resource: "Peer-Reviewed" Papers About The Origin Of COVID-19 That Deliberately Misrepresent The Truth

Anders$n et al., "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2," Nature Medicine, 2020.

(1/n) Liu et al., "No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2," Emerging Microbes & Infections, 2020.

(2/n)

ANNOUNCEMENT: Letter to Bob Garry & Eddie Holmes

Today, at 2:30 PM EDT, I sent an email requesting Garry and Holmes acknowledge they violated Nature Medicine's competing interests policy when they published "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2."

(1/n) second part of email

(2/n)