Fauci’s Gain-of-Function Funding Faces New Congressional Scrutiny

The column argues that no 2019 U.S. law barred gain-of-function work, highlighting a pending bill that seeks to close the loophole that allowed NIH-funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute.

In this opinion piece the writer maintains that U.S. law never outright prohibited gain-of-function studies in 2019, pointing out that the Obama-era moratorium was lifted in 2017 and that NIH’s narrow definition allowed Wuhan Institute of Virology work to receive American funding. The author notes that Dr. Anthony Fauci, as head of NIAID, oversaw the subgrant to EcoHealth Alliance that supported the creation of chimeric coronaviruses designed to infect human airway cells.

Senators Rand Paul, Joni Ernst, Tommy Tuberville, Marsha Blackburn, Bill Hagerty, Mike Braun, James Lankford, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton have co-sponsored S3012, a bill aiming to impose a blanket moratorium on such research, but it remains stalled in committee. Admiral Brett Giroir and other experts have called the Wuhan experiments “Frankenstein viruses,” while Fauci’s defense relies on a technicality that the work did not increase transmissibility in humans.

The column argues that the real concern is the moral responsibility for funding and enabling research that could be weaponized, especially given China’s alleged bioweapon capabilities. It concludes that placing Fauci in charge of the pandemic response creates a conflict of interest and that the left’s defense of him is indefensible.