Newly-obtained documents show that the National Institute of Health (NIH) may have a hand in funding a gain-of-function (GOF) research to make the coronavirus more dangerous to humans.
According to Richard Ebright, laboratory director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, these documents reveal that NIH grants were used to institute and sustain coronavirus GOF research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
Moreover, Ebright, who’s also a board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, pointed out that these documents also “unequivocally” prove that the research conducted at Wuhan led to the creation of at least three lab-generated viruses. In addition, these viruses exhibited significantly “higher viral loads in humanized mice.”
And what’s even more interesting is that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which forms part of the NIH, notably denied that the NIH funded or supported coronavirus GOF research at Wuhan in any way.
During a congressional hearing last May, Fauci stressed that the NIH has “not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
However, according to Ebright, this does not seem to be the case with the new documents that recently surfaced. He emphasized that Fauci’s and NIH director Francis Collins’s assertions that the NIH did not support the coronavirus GOF research “was untruthful.”
“Multiple sections of the grant proposals and grant progress reports make it clear that the grants funded gain-of-function research of concern in Wuhan,” Ebright added. He also highlighted sections of two grants, namely 1R01-AI110964 a 2R01-AI110964, which detailed the blending of different types of coronaviruses to create a “mutant SARS-related” variety that could easily infect human cells.
When Dr. Fauci was asked to comment about these documents alluding to the coronavirus GOF research, he responded that “NIH has never approved any research that would make a coronavirus more dangerous to humans.”
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director also stood his ground that he “never lied before the congress.”
