Top government epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Fauci and Sen. Rand Paul traded accusations of “lying” about gain-of-function research at a Tuesday Senate hearing, continuing the long-running feud between the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director and the Kentucky senator.
Fauci and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky are also likely to face questions at a on whether the U.S. should bring back health measures like mask mandates as the delta COVID variant spreads around the country.
In his questioning of Fauci, Paul stepped close to the line of accusing Fauci of lying to Congress in previous testimony in which he said that the NIAID had never funded gain-of-function reasearch in China. Citing a paper on research about bat coronaviruses, Paul said that U.S. money had essentially gone to the hazardous and controversial reasearch – an assertion Fauci strongly objected to.
“I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement,” Fauci said. He added that the research Paul referenced was “judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function.”
Fauci added: “You do not know what you are talking about quite frankly and I want to say that officially.”
Paul’s response was that the NIH’s judgment “defines… away” work that essentially was gain-of-function.”
“You’re dancing around this because you’re trying to obscure responsibility,” Paul added
Walensky and Fauci – who is President Biden’s top medical adviser – are appearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee. They each emphasized the imporance of vaccines for stopping the delta variant in their opening remarks.
“The message from CDC remains clear… vaccination is the most powerful tool we have,” Walensky said.
“The sobering news that you’ve already heard of is the fact that we are not challenged with a very difficult and problematic variant referred to as the Delta variant,” Fauci said. “The fact is that, however… is that our vaccines… are very effective against this variant.”