Nevermind that Man in the Lab Coat Behind the Curtain

[abbey1227]

National Review
Rand Paul Accuses Fauci of Lying to Congress about Gain-of-Function Research Funding
Zachary Evans  Tue, July 20, 2021, 10:28 AM·2 min read

Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) and Dr. Anthony Fauci again clashed over alleged U.S. government funding of gain-of-function research on bat coronavirus in Wuhan, China, during testimony before a Senate committee on Tuesday.

Paul implied that Fauci misled Congress during May testimony, in which Fauci said the U.S. had never funded gain-of-function projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Gain-of-function research involves making viruses more contagious or deadly in a laboratory.

Paul said that in May 11 testimony, Fauci “stated that the NIH has never and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And yet, gain-of-function research was done entirely in the Wuhan institute by Doctor Shi [Zhengli] and was funded by the NIH.”

Paul cited a paper by WIV scientists entitled “Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus”, which describes efforts to produce “chimeric” coronaviruses, i.e. altered by man. The paper lists the NIH as a source of funding, and Paul asserted that the research recorded in the paper “explicitly matches the definition of gain-of-function research.”

“Knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress…do you wish to retract your May 11 claim that the NIH never funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan?” Paul asked Fauci.

“Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement,” Fauci answered. “This paper was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain-of-function.”

Paul interjected, “When you take an animal virus, and you increase its transmissibility to humans—you’re saying that’s not gain-of-function research?”

Fauci said, “That is correct, and Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly.”

news.yahoo.com/rand-paul-accuses-fauci-lying-152837337.html

[Prometheus]

Dear Senator Paul,

Your attempted deflection from the real issue of who is responsible for the deaths of over 600,000 Americans is revolting.


Sincerely,

Rational People

[abbey1227]

Jul 21, 2021 0:22:00 GMT Prometheus said:

Dear Senator Paul,

Your attempted deflection from the real issue of who is responsible for the deaths of over 600,000 Americans is revolting.


Sincerely,

Rational People

Is this hedging? goal post moving? redefining? or just plain lying?

Dr. Anthony Fauci Tells CNN Funding China’s Wuhan Lab Research Was Necessary
By Bruce Haring   July 25, 2021 10:36am

deadline.com/2021/07/anthony-fauci-cnn-state-of-the-union-jake-tapper-wuhan-lab-research-funding-1234799663/?fbclid=IwAR2F_3jSI6YzkFDSxiWvdUF1pmZtBVAGV5AizbBPWhgltpL1Mqvi0A5hwAo

[abbey1227]

National Review
If You Don’t Want to Get Into the Details, You’re Part of the Problem
Isaac Schorr & Brittany Bernstein Mon, July 26, 2021, 12:05 PM

Welcome back to “Forgotten Fact-Checks,” a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we take aim at Jake Tapper’s openly unsubstantive defense of Anthony Fauci, the anti-Cuba Libre Right, and more media misses.

Anthony Fauci Deserves Scrutiny from More than Just the ‘MAGA Media’

Dr. Anthony Fauci is the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the highest paid employee in the United States federal government. He’s also been at the forefront of the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, acting as both a top adviser to the Trump and Biden administrations behind the scenes, as well as as an ever present evangelist for top-down restrictions on the television.

That means that when he plays word games and obfuscates the truth from the American people, journalists have not only a right, but an obligation to point it out. It’s odd, then, that CNN’s Jake Tapper not only ignored the substantive criticisms of Fauci levied by Senator Rand Paul last week regarding gain of function research conducted in China with American taxpayer dollars, but proudly announced his intention to do so.

The National Institutes of Health, the department in which the NIAID is housed, has funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that by any reasonable definition should be categorized as gain of function research. As Dr. Richard Ebright, an expert on laboratory safety put it:

The Wuhan lab used NIH funding to construct novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses able to infect human cells and laboratory animals. This is high-risk research that creates new potential pandemic pathogens (i.e., potential pandemic pathogens that exist only in a lab, not in nature). This research matches — indeed epitomizes — the definition of ‘gain of function research of concern’ for which federal funding was ‘paused’ in 2014-2017.

For some reason though, Fauci continues to deny that any NIH funding was used to perform gain of function research in China in committee hearings, relying only upon tenuous word games and appeals to authority rather than scientific arguments to back up his claim. Tapper used a similar strategy to defend the bureaucrat, bringing on a guest to discuss “another kind of misinformation, the constant MAGA media and Republican lawmaker attacks on health experts and especially Dr. Anthony Fauci.”

“I don’t want to get into the details of what Senator Paul was attacking there and all that,” Tapper explained before going on to decry the effort “to make Fauci a COVID bogeyman.” In other words, Tapper believes that the big story here is not that the federal government may be making irresponsible investments overseas, but the criticism of those investments. Contesting Fauci — regardless of the merits of his or his opponents’ arguments — is prima facie evidence of bad-faith and wrongheadedness, “details” be damned.

Tapper did manage to ask on his Sunday show whether Fauci believed future funding of similar projects in China to be prudent, but declined to press him on the research that Paul had.

When journalists understand themselves as narrative builders rather than fact-finders, they end up only further corrupting the very institutions they seem to think they’re protecting.

www.yahoo.com/news/don-t-want-details-part-170531556.html

[Prometheus]

Jul 27, 2021 2:55:49 GMT abbey1227 said:

National Review
If You Don’t Want to Get Into the Details, You’re Part of the Problem
Isaac Schorr & Brittany Bernstein Mon, July 26, 2021, 12:05 PM

Welcome back to “Forgotten Fact-Checks,” a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we take aim at Jake Tapper’s openly unsubstantive defense of Anthony Fauci, the anti-Cuba Libre Right, and more media misses.

Anthony Fauci Deserves Scrutiny from More than Just the ‘MAGA Media’

Dr. Anthony Fauci is the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the highest paid employee in the United States federal government. He’s also been at the forefront of the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, acting as both a top adviser to the Trump and Biden administrations behind the scenes, as well as as an ever present evangelist for top-down restrictions on the television.

That means that when he plays word games and obfuscates the truth from the American people, journalists have not only a right, but an obligation to point it out. It’s odd, then, that CNN’s Jake Tapper not only ignored the substantive criticisms of Fauci levied by Senator Rand Paul last week regarding gain of function research conducted in China with American taxpayer dollars, but proudly announced his intention to do so.

The National Institutes of Health, the department in which the NIAID is housed, has funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that by any reasonable definition should be categorized as gain of function research. As Dr. Richard Ebright, an expert on laboratory safety put it:

The Wuhan lab used NIH funding to construct novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses able to infect human cells and laboratory animals. This is high-risk research that creates new potential pandemic pathogens (i.e., potential pandemic pathogens that exist only in a lab, not in nature). This research matches — indeed epitomizes — the definition of ‘gain of function research of concern’ for which federal funding was ‘paused’ in 2014-2017.

For some reason though, Fauci continues to deny that any NIH funding was used to perform gain of function research in China in committee hearings, relying only upon tenuous word games and appeals to authority rather than scientific arguments to back up his claim. Tapper used a similar strategy to defend the bureaucrat, bringing on a guest to discuss “another kind of misinformation, the constant MAGA media and Republican lawmaker attacks on health experts and especially Dr. Anthony Fauci.”

“I don’t want to get into the details of what Senator Paul was attacking there and all that,” Tapper explained before going on to decry the effort “to make Fauci a COVID bogeyman.” In other words, Tapper believes that the big story here is not that the federal government may be making irresponsible investments overseas, but the criticism of those investments. Contesting Fauci — regardless of the merits of his or his opponents’ arguments — is prima facie evidence of bad-faith and wrongheadedness, “details” be damned.

Tapper did manage to ask on his Sunday show whether Fauci believed future funding of similar projects in China to be prudent, but declined to press him on the research that Paul had.

When journalists understand themselves as narrative builders rather than fact-finders, they end up only further corrupting the very institutions they seem to think they’re protecting.

www.yahoo.com/news/don-t-want-details-part-170531556.html

I don't think a congressional hearing is the right time and place for a science lesson, do you?

[abbey1227]

Jul 27, 2021 4:06:04 GMT Prometheus said:

Jul 27, 2021 2:55:49 GMT abbey1227 said:

I don't think a congressional hearing is the right time and place for a science lesson, do you?

I don't think most of the lawyers in Congress would pass a typical science exam.

But this argument was between 2 doctors, so maybe they'd do better than most?

I do remember your line about the lowest member of a graduating class of medical students, though.

Science has no doubt been politicized, too.

[Prometheus]

Jul 27, 2021 4:16:25 GMT abbey1227 said:

Jul 27, 2021 4:06:04 GMT Prometheus said:

I don't think a congressional hearing is the right time and place for a science lesson, do you?

I don't think most of the lawyers in Congress would pass a typical science exam.

But this argument was between 2 doctors, so maybe they'd do better than most?

I do remember your line about the lowest member of a graduating class of medical students, though.

Science has no doubt been politicized, too.

You think that chemistry professors are teaching their students to view certain compounds as being left wing or right wing?

[abbey1227]

Jul 27, 2021 5:23:58 GMT Prometheus said:

Jul 27, 2021 4:16:25 GMT abbey1227 said:

You think that chemistry professors are teaching their students to view certain compounds as being left wing or right wing?

I think the greatest power tool they have these days is approving or denying funding ..........and those applying for said funding better know what the agenda requires.

[Prometheus]

Jul 27, 2021 5:27:03 GMT abbey1227 said:

Jul 27, 2021 5:23:58 GMT Prometheus said:

You think that chemistry professors are teaching their students to view certain compounds as being left wing or right wing?

I think the greatest power tool they have these days is approving or denying funding ..........and those applying for said funding better know what the agenda requires.

Ahhhh.

So it's the same as writing a college application essay or job application cover letter?

Duh