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Scalise Reacts to Fauci's Refusal to Testify About the Origins of Wuhan Coronavirus

Katie Pavlich
Katie Pavlich  |  June 29, 2021 11:30 AM

Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Steve Scalise is reacting to Dr. Anthony Fauci's refusal to show up to a congressional forum Tuesday afternoon to discuss the origins of Wuhan coronavirus. 

“It’s disappointing that Dr. Fauci chose not to testify at our forum on the origins of COVID-19. Dr. Fauci’s recently released emails reveal the very alarming concerns raised by medical experts about a lab leak in February 2020, and that the virus appeared to be engineered. Dr. Fauci needs to testify so we can find out what he knows about the COVID origins investigation, and we hope he will come before Congress soon to provide the American people with much needed answers," Scalise tells Townhall. 

Specifically, an email sent to Fauci in early 2020 explained the virus' sequencing was not natural and looked like it was engineered in a lab. 

"On a phylogenetic tree the virus looks totally normal and the close clustering with bats suggest that bats serve as the reservoir. The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered," NIH scientist Kristian Andersen wrong to Fauci on January 31, 2020. 

Fauci has been a long time supporter and advocate for frankstein-like gain of function research. In 2012 he said that although the dangerous research risks causing a pandemic, it should still be pursued. 

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In previously unreported remarks, Dr Fauci supported the contentious gain-of-­function experiments that some now fear might have led to an escape from a Wuhan laboratory causing the Covid-19 pandemic, calling them “important work”.

An investigation by The Weekend Australian has also confirmed Dr Fauci, the director of the Nat­ional Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, did not alert senior White House officials before lifting the ban on gain-of-function research in 2017.

Writing in the American Society for Microbiology in October 2012, Dr Fauci acknowledged the controversial scientific research could spark a pandemic.

“In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?” he wrote. “Many ask reasonable questions: given the possibility of such a scenario – however remote – should the initial experiments have been performed and/or published in the first place, and what were the processes involved in this decision?

“Scientists working in this field might say – as indeed I have said – that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks.

Democrats, including President Joe Biden, continue to praise Fauci.