FULL Senate Hearing on the Origins of COVID-19

the uh committee uh will come to uh order the uh covid-19 pandemic was one of the worst Public Health crises that our country has ever faced we lost more than 1 million Americans to the virus family members and neighbors friends and colleagues and millions more died around the world the covid-19 pandemic led to a once in a generation event that not only threatened our Public Health but also created unprecedented challenges to our economic and Homeland Security as well as our very Way of Life As Americans navigated the covid-19 pandemic they endured Challen changing Health Care guidance uh uncertainty and misinformation about how to best protect themselves and their families from this deadly virus today's hearing is intended to examine the available scientific evidence related to the virus that causes covid-19 and provides some transparency to Americans who are continuing to have to navigate their exposure to the virus as chairman of this committee I led an investigation into the federal government's initial pandemic response the report was called historically un prepared and included recommendations on how we can ensure that we're better prepared to prevent and respond to Future pandemics this March I also launched a bipartisan biocurity and life science research investigation with ranking member Paul to look into a wide range of constantly evolving biological risk and threats to better enhance our preparedness for future incidents this morning we're going to hear from academic experts who can discuss how covid-19 pandemic may have started and how we can learn from this outbreak to better address future potential infectious disease outbreaks and protect human life better understanding of the possible origins of covid-19 pandemic is not only important to our Public Health it is also a matter of Homeland Security we must learn from the challenges faced during this pandemic to ensure we can better protect Americans from future potential biological incident our government needs the flexibility to determine the origins of naturally occurring outbreaks as well as potential outbreaks that could arise from mistakes or malicious intent all that said the history has shown us it is seldom simple or straightforward to identify the singular cause of an infectious disease outbreak it can take months or years to pinpoint An Origin and in some cases we may may never find the answer this is also the case with covid-19 there are theories that indicate that covid-19 began either by entering the human population through an entirely natural means or possibly through a lab incident or accident given the likelihood that the Chinese government may never fully disclose all the information they have about the initial covid-19 outbreak we must use the scientific information available to better prepare for future potential pandemics we must not only examine the scientific information we have about covid-19 but also the tools and procedures the government has in place to understand such viral outbreaks and how we can prevent them from becoming widespread in the future today's hearing and our panel of expert witnesses will help us understand how the most recent pandemic began so that we can take necessary steps to protect the American people from future biological threats now like to recognize ranking member Paul for his opening remarks today we are here to examine one of the most critical and debated questions of our time did covid-19 originate in a lab to answer this question let's revisit the early days of the pandemic and examine what some of Dr Anthony F's Inner Circle said privately about the origins of the virus discussions that that were only revealed through foia litigation Christian Anderson wrote The Lab Escape version of this is so fraking likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario Ian Lipkin stressed the nightmare of circumstantial evidence to assess regarding the possibility of inadvertent release given the scale of bat coronav virus research pursued in Wuhan but Gary said I really can't think of a plausible national natural scenario where you get from the bad virus or one very similar to it to covid-19 where you insert exactly four amino acids 12 nucleotides and all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function I just can't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature according to Gary it's not crackpot to suggest this could have happened given the gain of function research we know was happening at Wuhan these are all private statements which you'll discover today differ greatly from their public statements even Ralph baric world famous gain of function researcher and collaborator with wuhan's Dr shei admitted so they the Wuhan Institute of orology have a very large collection of viruses in their laboratory and so as you know proximity is a problem it's a problem federal court orders reveal that even Dr fouchy himself privately acknowledge concerns about gain of function research in Wuhan and mutations in the virus that suggest it might have been engineered just days before he commissioned the proximal origin paper despite these private doubts publicly these so-called experts and their allies were dismissing the labl theory as a conspiracy within days Anderson Lipkin and Gary were putting final touches on what would be remembered as one of the most remarkable reversals in modern history in their proximal origin paper these scientists concluded we do not believe that any type of laboratory based scenario is plausible privately they were saying one thing publicly they were saying another media pundants pared The Narrative while social media platforms censored discussion about the lab leak labeling it as misinformation and stifling open discourse about the virus's origins the coverup went beyond publicate statements federal agencies and key officials withheld and continue to conceal crucial information from both Congress and the public for instance David morens Dr David morens of the NIH deleted emails that could have contained valuable insights into early discussions when he deleted them he made the comment I think we're safe now he deleted emails he said the early emails I've deleted to Peter deac at Eco health I think we're safe now the odni failed to comply with a law that was passed unanimously one of the Senators on this committee got it passed we were going to declassify all this and revealed it and the Administration has refused HHS and NIH have not produced documents related to the gain of function research that the chairman and I requested nearly a year ago I've been asking for two or three years as an individual member with some other Republican members and have not gotten these records I've now asked with the Democrat chairman over a year and they're still resisting they say it's not gain of function well let's hear the debate did they debate at NIH whether it was gain of function in Wuhan if there's a debate let's hear the scientific arguments on both sides they will not give us that information this has been a deliberate prolonged effort to deceive the committee about certain gain of function research experiments that the agencies have been withholding what we have found as we've gone through this is that at every step there's been resistance so the hearing today is to try to find out whether or not we can get to the truth do we know for certain it came from the lab no but there's a preponderance of evidence indicating that it may have come from the lab do we know viruses have come from animals in the past yes they've come from animals in the past but this time there's no animal Reservoir there's no animal handlers with antibio ICS there's a lot of reasons why there are indications that this could well have come from the lab this is what the discussion we'll have today this is a discussion that's long and coming it's been over three years that we've been asking for this but this is great this is good we'll have scientists on both sides of this issue and I hope we have a spirited debate thank you thank you uh Ricky member Paul it is the practice of this committee to swear in Witnesses so if each of you would please stand and uh Raise Your Right hands do you swear the testimony that you will give before this committee will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God I do thank you you may be seated our first witness is uh Dr Gregory cetz he is an associate professor and director of the biod defense graduate program at George Mason University's Shar School of policy and government he serves as editorinchief of the Pandora Pandora report an online newsletter that covers Global Health security and as co-director of the global biolabs initiative that tracks high security labs and biorisk management policies uh around the world Dr Kitz you are now recognized for your opening statement uh thank you chairman Peters ranking member Paul and other members MERS of the committee thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today about the origins of covid-19 and its implications for us biod defense and Global Health security um I've been conducting research and teaching on biod defense Global Health security and bio risk management for the last 25 years uh both at um the Char school at George Mason as you as you indicated I come before you today my personal capacity um and My Views not represent those of George Mason the or orations with which I am Affiliated I've submitted a lengthy written statement to you uh which I will not go over today in in detail but I happy to answer any questions you have about it uh during the the rest of the hearing uh what I like to do is just highlight some key points uh first let me directly address the main topic of the hearing today the available evidence on the origins of covid-19 more than four years after the start of the pandemic the origin of the SARS CO2 virus remains a subject of debate there are two pandemic Pathways have been widely discussed to explain how SARS could be to emerge in Wuhan in 2019 a natural spillover event um from animals to humans or an actual release of a pathogen from a laboratory the possibil that SARS Cy 2 was deliberately developed as a biological weapon has been unanimously rejected by all us intelligence agencies while the intelligence Community is divided on the origin of the pandemic most of the agencies uh have determine that the virus was not genetically engineered I believe available evidence uh points most strongly to a natural zuno spillover event as the origin of the pandemic however a research related accident can't be ruled out at this time a key obstacle to more uh definitive conclusion is the lack of transparency exercised by the Chinese government which affects assessments of both potential Pathways to the pandemic until there's an independent International and transparent investigation uh it's unlikely we will be come up be able to come up with a more definitive conclusion that'll satisfy both sides of the debate uh it's not my intention to review this debate today instead of looking backwards I prefer to look forwards uh and plan for the future the reality is that we're not as well prepared to prevent detect uh respond to or recover from a biological incident or pandemic as we should be regardless of its origin the growing h5n1 outbreak in the United States is a test the challenges we currently face and the urgency of addressing them the difficulty in determining the origin of covid-19 Is Not Unusual among the outbreaks and pandemics we've already experienced a century it's taken years to identify the origin of a novel pathogen sometimes in only general terms rarely is it possible to identify the exact sequence of events that led to the first human infection that sparked a pandemic determining the origin of a outbreak or pandemic divided into four stages detection identification characterization and attribution understanding how a specific pathogen entered and spread in a population to cause an outbreak is a multidisiplinary undertaking uh that requires expertise in epidemiology human medicine veterinary medicine biology genetics bioinformatics ecology anthropology and related fields seeking the origin of an outbreak requires collecting and analyzing a large amount of data collected from diverse sources by a range of agencies with a variety of scientific capabilities and disciplinary specializations the quality of the data and the rigor of the epidemiological and scientific investigation will affect the level of confidence we have in these determinations uh determinations the origin of a pandemic or an outbreak are rarely definitive and need to be carefully qualified to reflect the strength of available evidence as well as gaps and uncertainties determining the origin of an outbreak can uh improve the effectiveness of response to an ongoing incident reduce the likelihood of uh or magnitude of future uh incidents or even prevent future outbreaks altogether making this termination however is not always straightforward or successful the process of investigating the source of an outbreak is like putting together a puzzle where you don't what the final picture will look like uh the pieces change shape and move around and pieces are added and moved as you're trying to solve the puzzle uh there are also several factors that can influence the success of An Origin investigation uh including the passage of time the biology epidemiology of the specific pathogen um limited scientific knowledge about novel pathogens local National politics economic considerations we saw each of these factors at play in Wuhan in 2019 and 2020 indeed we see similar factors at play uh in the response to the current h5n1 outbreak in the United States as well the key point is that determine the origin of an outbreak or biological incident is scientifically complex but can also be politically fraught and subject to counterveiling pressures by other actors with an interest in obscuring or delaying or halting the outcome of Investigation so what should be done to improve our ability to determine the origins of a biological incident I Rec that this Congress working with the Biden Administration invest in strengthening bios surveillance and biorisk management in the United States and internationally this would not only enhance our ability to determine the origins of future incidents uh but also improve our capabilities to prevent them uh and respond more successfully to prevent an outbreak from becoming a pandemic biosurveillance United States suffers from fragmentation a chronic underinvestment in state and local public health capacity uh and the lack of capacity to rapidly develop and deploy Diagnostics um in my written statement I provideed fur recommendations about bios surveillance interest of time I'll get just to the uh uh recommendations on biorisk management uh and this is a field that encompasses field and laboratory bios safety laboratory biocurity and oversight of du use research even if the origins of covid-19 is uh proven to be the result of a natural zuntic spillover event the pandemic raised important questions about the efficacy of our oversight of du research of concern including uh with pathogens with enhanced transmissibility or um ver uh the pandemic has also dramatically Illustrated the consequences if such a pathogen escapes from a lab and Sparks a pandemic regardless of one's views and the origin of the pandemic we should all be able to agree that we want to minimize the risk that a future pandemic could be caused by a laboratory accident last month the B Administration released a new US government policy for oversight of duu research of concern which represents a significant step forward in oversight of um High consequence research there are two immediate steps that Congress could take to enhance implementation of this policy first Congress could support the B administration's efforts to provide Education and Training to the um wide array of stakeholders who are now going to be affected by this policy this policy uh now covers 95 biological agents and toxins up from 14 and so there's a much wider swath of biological community that's now going to be subject to oversight and they need to understand this policy in order to implement it effectively uh Congress also needs pass legislation to close a loophole in the current policy that um uh allows privately funded research including that with uh uh engineering of of pathogens uh to continue without any oversight uh and I think it's in the power of congress to solve that fairly uh easily over the longer term Congress needs to modernize the US bio risk management um system um I think the most effective way to do that would be creation of an independent F agency that would be responsible for Bio risk management uh across both um publicly and privately funded um Enterprises um in conclusion we have we know enough about the two different Pathways uh to a pandemic both the demonstrated route of natural transmission the tental laboratory accident uh that we have enough information now that we can take action that will significantly reduce the risk posed by both types of risks thank you thank you Dr Goetz um our second W witness is Dr Robert Gary he is a professor of microbiology in immunology and an associate Dean for biomedical Sciences at Tain School of Medicine Dr Gary has been a professor of Urology for over 40 years and has performed ground groundbreaking work in diagnostics for emerging pathogens including the Ebola virus Dr Gary welcome to the committee you uh are now recognized for your opening statement thank you very much uh chairman Peters ranking member Paul distinguished members of the homeland security and government Affairs committee thank you for inviting me to testify today as uh chairman Peter says I'm a professor and Associate Dean at tan School of Medicine in New Orleans and the reason you may know me is because I'm an author on a peer-reviewed paper that appeared in nature medicine entitled the proximal origin of SARS Kobe 2 in the proximal Origins paper my co-authors and I discuss several different possible origins of SARS Kobe 2 the three possible Origins for the virus that are most relevant to today's discussion are one direct spillover from a bat to a human two spill over from a bat to an intermediate animal and then to a human and three lab origin at the time of writing the proximal origin paper in early February to mid-march 2020 we did not rule out any of these three Pathways based on the current available evidence I believe that the most plausible origin of SARS K2 is spill over from a bat to an intermediate animal and then to a human I further believe believe the available evidence indicates that the spillover happened naturally likely at the non seafood market in muhan China I do not believe that the available scientific evidence when considered holistically supports that the virus was created in the lab at the Wuhan Institute of veraly however I am first and foremost a scientist and I will adhere to the scientific method so I will continue to to evaluate new evidence and reassess the validity of my scientific hypotheses regarding the origins of SARS KOB 2 I look forward to continuing the scientific debate in peer-reviewed materials with other scientist including those here today regarding our different perspectives and interpretations of the evidence that said I'm heartened by the attention of this committee this committee is giving to a very timely and important topic gain and function research I welcome this opportunity to engage in an open and constructive conversation about the risk and benefits and appropriate safeguards and restrictions on This research as chairman Peters mentioned again before I've been a virology Prof Professor for over 40 years I've seen firsthand the damage that emerging viruses can cause I researched HIV before we knew the profound impacts this emerging virus would have on all society and while the American public was still fearful of blood transfusions I was present in sier Leon at the outbreak of Ebola in 2014 and witnessed the death tollen heartbreak including many close friends and colleagues who succumbed I currently developing countermeasures to Lassa virus a deadly hemophages virus with up to a 70% case fatality so I understand perhaps better than most the importance of assuring appropriate safeguards for research including adequate oversight of funding rules and guidelines regarding study design including the types of viruses that require oversight and Universal standards for the use of appropriate protective gear when handling highly transmissible or pathogenic and viruses viruses in the laboratory or in field studies but I also know the vital role of responsibly performed research including on highly transmissible and pathogenic viruses it advances public he health and National Security without gain of function research we'd have no tlu without gain of function research we wouldn't have a vaccine to prevent cancer caused by infection by the human papiloma virus and without gain of function research we won't be able to identify how novel viruses infect us and if we don't know how they infect us we cannot develop appropriate treatments and cures for the next potential pandemic creating virus so I ENC I also encourage the committee to empower the scientific Enterprise to address the certainty of viral threats that emerge from nature in the future for example potential pandemic viruses can infiltrate commercial animal farming Industries the wildlife trade in China was the only Enterprise in the world comparable sized the United States cattle industry multiple spillovers of SARS Cove the first SARS occurred in 2002 through 2004 and they came from the Chinese Wildlife trade evidence similarly indicates that this likely happened again with SARS k 2 in 2019 I hope we treat these instance as a stark And Timely reminder that this can happen anywhere in the world in fact it's happening right in our backyard with the serious threat from bird flu that it poses to our United States cattle industry as a member of niid Center for research and emerging infectious diseases or Creed Network I know that gain of function research can be done responsibly and safely the new guidance from the office of science technology policy shows that research with high-risk pathogens and the types of experiments that require review can be clearly defined in a way that does not obstruct lowrisk research I'm honored to be a part of this important conversation that will help Define the future of a vitally important area of biology and I urge the members of this committee to find a path forward that permits appropriate gain of function research to continue to help ensure our public health and National Security thank you uh Dr Gary our next two witnesses will be introduced by ranking member Paul stepen Quay is an mdphd he's the CEO of aosa Therapeutics a clinical Stage biopharmaceutical Company developing novel Therapeutics for oncology Dr qu authored 400 Publications in the field of medicine including 32 on the origin of SARS covid 2 his work has been cited over 12,000 times placing him in the top 1% of scientists worldwide his paper a basian analysis concludes Beyond a reasonable doubt that SARS CO2 is not a natural zoonosis but instead is laboratory derived this article has been viewed over 206,000 times Dr Quay holds 238 us patents and patent applications in 22 areas of medicine including RNA chemistry coronavirus Therapeutics before his current role he was a member of the Department of pathology at the Stanford University School of Medicine Dr Quay welcome to the committee you are now recognized for your opening statement committee chair Senator Peters ranking member senator Paul committee members invited participants ladies and gentlemen I am a physician scientist and have a 50-year career spanning academic medical research biotech techology and scientific fraud investigation my biography summarizes my career I speak today however as an independent scientist I do not receive any NIH or niid funding scientists dependent on NIH or niid funding may have pressure to publicly agree with orthodoxies that privately they admit are wrong my approach to the covid pandemic origin that killed 20 million plus people caused 20 trillion dollars in economic damage is based on six approaches to the data and the events I'll start with something Dr Gary said privately quote someone should tell nature meaning the British Journal that the fish market probably did not start the outbreak end quote I agree with Dr Gary unfortunately one reason we are having these hearings is that the public statements of many virologists have not been congruent with their private conversations in any case I'll describe the six appro approaches to the question that all support a lab leak as a source and can go deeper into each of those with questions first the virus was spreading in Wuhan and around the world in the fall of 2019 months before the first case in the Hunan seafood market this is supported by 14 observations or evidence the evidence includes the calculation of the time to the most recent common ancestor Hospital overloads in Wuhan antibodies and patients from Italy Spain and the US Wastewater samples from Brazil sick athletes at the October Wuhan military games school closings in Wuhan and dozens of documented patients this dismisses out of hand the market as the origin but second let's look at the market data the human infections the animal samples and the environmental specimens these generate eight observations no infected animals in the market or the supply chain were infected no infected Wildlife vendors were had SARS all human infections are the non-ancestral lineage B the environmental specimens with animal DNA have no SARS 2 one vendor had animals from Southern China where SARS 2 came from but this vendor and his animals are negative for SARS 2 now only one of 14 environmental samples with raccoon dog DNA contains SARS reads and that contains one re out of 210 million 133 of the 14 raccoon dog DNA specimens had no SARS 2 with SARS one literally 100% of the market animals were infected I frankly think it is shameful for scientists to mislead journalists in the public saying these data I just described are evidence raccoon dogs were infected with SARS 2 this is why trust in science is broken none of these data are consistent with an infected animal passing SARS to to a human at the market the 1500 km distance to the nearest SARS to related virus is like the distance from Washington DC to the Florida ever grades imagine you're at dinner at a restaurant in North Bethesda near the niid labs you get sick and you are told that the virus you caught is only found in bats from the Everglades but it also happens to be under study at the Laboratories you you see outside the restaurant window that's what the market origin people are asking you to believe third documented events at or related to Wuhan Institute of orology beginning in March 2019 are consistent with the expected activities when a lab acquired infection has occurred this timelines include unusual attention from the Chinese Communist party uh leading to the pla physician Soldier being put in charge large tender requests to repair bios safety equipment a virus database disappearing in the middle of the night large tender requests for a lab security Force to quote handle foreign Personnel end quote patents for a device to prevent a lab acquired infection Rumors in the virology community of a new SARS virus in the lab 30 vials of the three most dangerous viruses on the planet being shipped illegally from a lab in Canada to Wi in March and then one of those pathogens being found as a major contaminant in a bla lab in December these events taken together are a classic example of closing the Barn Door after the hores left fourth the evidence that is found in a natural zoos with respect to the animal host the virus and the human are missing with covid 96,000 animals were tested and are negative for SARS too 43,000 blood samples from blood donors in Wuhan were tested a natural over like SARS 1 would have produced about 260 positives a lab a lab accident would be would be zero and of course zero is what is found with respect to the virus a spill over produces posterior diversity in the virus genome a lab leak does not SARS 2 has no posterior diversity natural spillovers as Dr Gary indicated this morning involve multiple markets SARS one began in southern China had 11 spillovers in 11 different markets in nine different cities Christian Anderson the proximal origin in SARS 2 SARS 2 said SARS 2 was one person being infected with one animal I agree fifth the Genome of SARS 2 has eight features found in a synthetic virus that are not found in natural viruses the probability that SARS to came from nature based on these features is one in a billion these features are the backbone the receptor binding domain the fur and cleavage site the genetics of the fur and cleavage site the number location and pattern of clothing clothing cloning sites in SARS 2 that used the baric cloning method and the orate gene based on SARS 2 cloning sites I predicted how SARS 2 could be made in the laboratory a year later baric used the predicted steps to make an infectious clone of SARS 2 these same features were described in a 2018 DARPA Grant by wi and US scientists with respect to the grant SARS 2 had the proposed back backbone from the proposed region in China the proposed adaption to human killing the proposed University from SARS 1 the proposed Noam cleavage site number location and pattern the pro proposed human cleavage site at the proposed S1 S2 Junction let's close with a thought experiment it's 2018 do you think a market spill over of a coronav virus could have happened in Wuhan Dr dasik and she have studied coronov viruses for a decade and they said no how do I know that because they used Wuhan residence as control for a study looking for antibodies and Corona viruses and people living near bat caves in southern China the rural residents had a 3% rate Wuhan residents had zero let's flip that and and ask the the reverse question do you think a lab acquired infection could begin in Wuhan a city with the world's leading laboratory collecting Corona virus from nature doing synthetic biology on Corona viruses doing petri dish and animal research on Corona virus with a bat Colony for testing and they had written a blueprint to make a Corona virus that had seven unique features found in cus kov 2 I I'll let you answer that question yourself I have a number of specific reforms I believe should be implemented and I would be happy to discuss them during the questioning what happens if we have these hearings and nothing happens the Wu ins of rology right now is testing a NEPA virus uh in a synthetic clone this is a US CDA uh CDC biot terrorism agent it kills three out of four people a lab Leak with an Airborne NEPA virus would quickly within weeks disrupt food and energy distribution fire and police services medical care my analysis of this Tipping Point event is that it would set back civilization about 250 years the work of this committee is critical if we Now fail to act with the knowledge we have history if it can still be recorded will judge us poorly thank you for your time Governors thank you professor of chemistry and chemical biology at ruers University he also serves as the laboratory director for the wax Institute of microbiology a position he has held for 37 years Dr ebite has authored over 185 peer-reviewed Publications and holds more than 45 issued and pending us patents he's the co-founder of biosafety now and a member of The Advisory Board of the global biolabs project and the institutional bios Safety Committee at ruter University previously he served as on the antimicrobial resistance committee for infectious disease Society of America the controlling dangerous pathogens project Pro and the path pathogen security working group for the state of New Jersey Dr ebite welcome to the committee you are now recognized for your opening statement chairman Peters member Paul ranking member Paul and members of the committee thank you for inviting me to discuss the origins of covid-19 I'm Board of Governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology at rector's University and laboratory director at the Waxman Institute of microbiology in my statement I will present my assessment of the origin of covid and will summarize key lines of evidence that support my assessment I assess that a large preponderance of evidence indicates SARS K2 the virus that causes covid entered humans through a research incident I based this assessment on information in publicly available documents press reports and scientific papers on my research experience in microbial genomics microbial genetics DNA synthesis technology and recombinant DNA technology and on my knowledge of of an experience with bios safety biocurity and biorisk management for work with pathogens four key facts support my assessment First Co emerged in Wuhan a city that is 800 miles from the closest bats harboring SARS K2 like viruses that could have served as progenitors of SARS K2 but that contains lab that prior to the outbreak were conducting the world's largest research program on bat SARS viruses possessed the world's largest collection of bat SARS viruses and possess the virus most closely similar to SARS K2 the large distance between Wuhan and bats harboring SARS K2 like viruses points away from a natural origin of covid and wuhan's status as the global epicenter of research on bat SARS viruses points toward a research origin of Co second in the four years preceding the outbreak Wuhan Labs performed research that placed them on a trajectory to obtain SARS virus having high pandemic potential and in 2018 one year before the outbreak Wuhan Labs proposed research to obtain SARS viruses having even higher pandemic potential and features that match in detail the features of SARS K2 Wuhan Labs performed high-risk virus Discovery and gain of function research on bat SARS viruses in their virus Discovery research Wuhan researchers search for new bat viruses in caves in southern China brought samples to Wuhan and sequence cultured and characterized new viruses in Wuhan in their gain of function research Wuhan researchers genetically modified bat SARS viruses constructing viruses having enhanced ability to infect human cells and having enhanced viral growth and enhanced lethality in mice engineered to possess human receptors for SARS viruses so-called humanized mice already in 2015 scientists expressed concern that the Wuhan Institute of ology was conducting research that posed unacceptably high risk at a 2015 Royal Society and National's meeting on Gaya function research and its oversight the research on bat sar's viruses by the Wuhan Institute of virology and its collaborators was singled out as the research most likely of all research in the world to trigger a pandemic in 2017 to 2018 with NIH funding the Wuhan Institute of virology constructed genetically modified SARS virus that combine the spike Gene from one bat SARS virus with the rest of the genetic information from another bat SARS virus obtaining new viruses that efficiently infected human cells and obtaining at least one new virus that exhibited 10,000 times enhanced viral growth in lungs and 1 million times enhanced viral growth in brains and three times enhanced lethality in humanized mice in 2008 18 just one year before the outbreak in an NH Grant proposal the Wuhan Institute of Urology and collaborators proposed to construct additional genetically modified SARS viruses proposing to construct viruses having spikes with even higher binding affinities for human SARS receptors seeking viruses having even higher pandemic potential also in 2018 just one year before the outbreak in a DARPA Grant proposal the Wuhan Institute of Urology and its collaborators proposed to construct genetically modified SARS vir us is having a furin cleavage site a feature associated with increased viral growth and increased transmissibility they proposed to insert the furrian cleavage site at the spike Gene S1 S2 border and to construct the viruses by synthesizing six nucleic acid building blocks and assembling them using the reagent BSM B1 third Wuhan Labs performed This research on SARS viruses using an inadequate bios safety standard just bio safety level two an inadequate personal protective equipment just gloves and a lab coat lab accidents that result in infection or release are common even at bios safety levels higher than biosafety level two for context the original SARS virus SARS K1 caused lab acquired infections in Singapore at biosafety level three in Beijing twice at bios safety level three and in taipe at biosafety level 4 for further context SARS kv2 itself caused lab acquired infections in Beijing in 2020 at bios safety level three and in Taipei in 2021 at bios safety level 3 the Wuhan lab's use of BIOS safety level two for research on bat SARS viruses would have posed a high risk a very high risk of infection of lab staff upon encountering a virus having the aerosol transmission properties of SARS K2 fourth in 2019 a novel SARS virus having a spike with extremely high binding affinity for human SARS receptors a furrian cleavage site inserted at the spike S1 S2 border and a genome sequence with features enabling assembly from six synthetic nucleic acid building blocks using the reagent BS smb1 a virus having the exact features proposed in the 2018 NIH and darer proposals emerged on the doorstep of Wuhan Institute of Urology SARS K2 is the only only one of more than 800 known SARS viruses that possesses a fury and cleavage site mathematically this observation alone implies that the probability of finding a natural SARS virus possessing a furian cleavage site is less than one in 800 taken together the presence of a spike having an extremely high affinity for human SARS receptors the presence of a furing cleavage site inserted at the spike S1 S2 border the genome sequence enabling assembly from six synthetic nucleic acid building blocks using the reagent BS smb1 and the 141 match between these features and the features proposed in the 2018 NIH and darer proposals make an extremely strong case a Smoking Gun for a research origin in summary multiple lines of secure evidence point to a research origin by contrast as I hope I will have the opportunity to review in response to questions no zero secure evidence points toward a natural origin thank thank you thank you and thank you to to each of our Witnesses uh Dr Gary my first question is going to I'm going to direct it towards you of the the evidence that's been presented so thus far it it's still not clear to me how much is concrete documented information and how much uh is uh speculation uh or perhaps just filling uh in the gaps with assumptions uh based on what's what's out there so my question for you Dr Gary is could you elaborate more on the specific hard evidence that supports your claim that the Chinese market in Wuhan was the most likely source of the virus certainly and thank you for the question um there is a lot of evidence that this virus emerged from the um Hanan seafood market in muhan but let me just focus on three points uh epidemiology molecular forensics and genetics first the epidemiology the early cases from December 2019 before the disease was even described all centered around in fact they painted a bullseye on the non seafood market the molecular forensics environmental samples were collected from the market after it was closed the hotspot of SARS CO2 positivity the RNA was in the southwest corner of the market in those very same samples our and DNA from raccoon dogs and mass Palm civets was found in these samples comingling with the SARS kobe2 RNA genetics the SARS K2 spilled over at least twice in the market the phog genetics the genetics of the virus are very clear about that that is not compatible with a lab leak Dr G um do we know that the virus that caused covid-19 existed in the Wuhan lab before the pandemic and if not how how could we find that out in fact we don't know um the intelligence Community has looked at that point very um intently and has not been able to determine that uh Wuhan had the virus um uh we don't have the evidence from the Chinese it's just one of the many things that we're missing that that we would like to get from from the Chinese government based on uh uh the bat Corona virus that we uh we know that U researchers in the Wuhan lab were working on would would it have been possible for them to create this virus is it possible not from a bat Corona virus um if you take the time to read my written testimony I'm going to uh in that document I went through a lot of evidence that this virus did not spill over directly from a bat to a human being um there it had to go through an intermediate animal and it's not just the the evidence from the non-market there's other uh genetic evidence the the bat Corona viruses are viruses that are spread by the gas gastrointestinal route uh for a a virus like this to become a respiratory virus is just going to require too many mutations too many changes uh for a bat virus to spill directly over to human being that could only really happen in nature uh with replication through an intermediate animal very good Dr Co next questions for you you uh I'm aware that through Foy our request a lot of information from US Agencies and us-based organizations have been obtained by uh people uh investigating the covid-19 origins however it seems as though we've gotten uh relatively little or or nothing from Chinese agencies or the Wuhan Institute uh of phology specifically so my question for you sir is what specific information from China would be most helpful in settling this origin debate um thank you Senator um there's a range of information that would be useful for uh furthering our um investigation the origins of of the pandemic um the uh trans comp has collected lots of information about the um uh uh the samples that were both at Hunan market and and elsewhere in Wuhan uh and in other provinces where they sampled um animals um but they haven't released the raw data they provided information but not the data that epidemiologist forist have wanted to see in order to do their own uh analyses um just last year they did release uh more information U through Publications but this information they've been sitting on for quite a while so there is more information that should be released and should be made the raw data available to Independent outside experts to make their own um assessments um in terms of um the one in rology um there should be records about the research they're conducting there should be records about the medical surveillance they're performing on their research um records on the U maintenance operation of their biocontainment equipment um and all that those documentations um would be um uh could be reviewed by outside experts to determine um if there's any signs that there was any um accidents or any U indications that there was um you know the the virus was um uh you know made an escape of from the lab so there is quite a bit information that that's available um but obviously the Chinese government has chosen to be um opaque about uh what they have and what they know in a way that has frustrated um uh people involved with looking at this in terms of assessing both the um natural zuntic spillover um pathway and also looking at the the lab accident pathway Dr Gary you talked about the virus jumping from a from an animal into a human and we've heard the term spillover for the for the benefit of this committee could you explain uh spillover sure in fact most human diseases have come to us from animals um when we were talking about a spillover we're talking about a cross- species transmission from one animal species uh to another I mean it could be another animal but you know usually when we talk about spill over we're talking about from an animal to a human so animals have their own viruses just like we do um the ones that are dangerous in the animals though are the ones that that have the the capacity to infect more than one species you can think about a virus like rabies that can infect you know a wide range of M Milan host so do we know what U animal or animals could have carried uh this uh virus and were they at the uh at the market if explain uh that more fully please sure um we don't know that for sure uh what we do know is is that uh when you look for the virus in the market on environmental surfaces and um various places you found it mostly in the southwest corner of the market this is where the wildlife was sold um the animals like the raccoon Don of the mass pal civits and in fact there many of the samples there had SARS Kobe 2 and the DNA and RNA from those animals right there in the same sample there's there's you could imagine somebody maybe came and you know sneezed on that sample but the the most likely explanation is is that animals were in fact infected themselves with SARS kobe2 when you look at the drains outside of that one stall that had the most SARS scob 2 um that drain also had uh had virus so it's um you know we don't have the Smoking Gun evidence that you know there was actually an infected animal in the market but I think we have the next best thing with this uh forensic molecular biology very go thank you uh ranking member Paul you're recognize for your questions Mr chairman I ask unanimous consent to submit statements for the record from us right to know open the books America First legal frontiers of freedom and Dr Alina Chan without objection so just in the last few minutes Dr Gary has told us that this couldn't have come from bats it had to go through an intermediate host that may well be true but arguing against that is they tested 990,000 some OD animals and there is no animal host that's been found but what he also doesn't tell you is the animal host could be a laboratory animal it could be passed serially through that and that's one way of quick L adapting and pushing natural selection to adapt a virus towards humans Dr Alina Chan has written extensively about this how this virus didn't show up clunky and poorly transmissible this virus showed up immediately very transmissible in humans as if it had been pre-adapted in a lab Dr ebite Dr Gary tells us that he's wedded to the scientific method and that uh he considered all the different possibilities in proximal Origins I know you're a professor and I'm assuming you've been the senior author on many papers I assume that you teach your younger uh researchers what is good scientific method and not good scientific method in the abstract of proximal Origins Dr Gary and his fellow authors State categorically that the virus is not a laboratory construct that doesn't sound to me like open-mindedness and I wonder what you would tell a younger researcher or someone you're instructing in the scientific method about putting uh categorical statements into a scientific paper well it's important to emphasize that the paper in question proximal origin of SARS K2 published in March 2020 was not a research article it was an opinion piece it was published as a commentary which is the section in the journal that holds opinion pieces and editorials so it was an opinion piece the authors were stating their opinion but that opinion was not well founded in March of 2020 there was no basis to state that as a conclusion as opposed to Simply being a hypothesis moreover we know we know that compelling evidence has been presented as a result of congressional inquiry in the house that four of the authors of that paper Dr Anderson Dr Gary Dr Holmes and Dr rambau in their private Communications show clearly that they knew the conclusion that they stated in that article was invalid so in terms of what I would tell a younger scientist I would be mentoring I would tell a younger scientist that you do not State a conclusion without evidence even in an opinion piece in a scientific journal and you never under any circumstances in a scientific journal State conclusions that you know to be unsound that represents scientific misconduct it represent scientific misconduct up to and including fraud and the paper in question the proximal origin paper has been recommended for review of retraction two requests one in 2023 and one in 2024 were submitted by teams of scientists to the journal in question to the journal editors asking them to add an editorial expression of concern and to initiate a review for retraction of the article I know of no other examp example in modern scientific history or Publications where a publication has come forward pronouncing with such Authority that the lab leak is implausible it is not a laboratory construct while privately saying this is no fraking con conspiracy theory looks like it did I'm 9010 I'm 5050 but no doubt in the paper in fact we know that it went back and forth with Dr fouchy with editors who say we want the statements to be stronger we want the conclusions to be stronger that was actually coming from nature at the time we want you to doctored up and even be more strong because we're making a political Point here that's where we should have known we were off track that these people were politicians and that they were pushing an idea because as Dr Collins finally admitted one of the emails this is about the business of science with China this will disturb our relations with China if anybody questions this Dr Quay the idea that this came from the fish market I thought had been discredited by virtually all of scientists now I'm really surprised still being presented here I know that uh the Chinese the CDC George G over there uh basically said that they no longer consider it and actually if you think about it from their perspective we're not sure if we can trust them but at the same time the Chinese if they would rather have it come from a lab or the market I think we choose the market over the lab if anything they would be if we were going to think they were dishonest it' be dishonest toward saying hey we found some animals but I if you could revie stepwise just a little bit slower some of the evidence for why not there the amount of animals tested the animal handlers compared to SARS one but also the idea of this uh genetic diversity that uh you know when SARS 1 came about the first time I think it tried hundreds of times because these animal viruses don't infect humans well in the beginning I tried hundred times over and over again and even in the end SARS one didn't transmit between humans very well that's why containment worked and that's why quarantine worked because it wasn't very infectious but go through a little bit step by step the evidence of why anybody still maintaining that it came from the market is is misguided sure I mean let me let me agree with Dr Gary about SARS one being a spillover and let me elaborate a little bit there were 11 cities 11 markets three different lineages and a 30 nucleotide difference among the initial cases in patients which approximately it's about a year of posterior diversity it's called SS two of course there's there's it's either in one market or it's in no markets there's no other proposal for for a market origin from it 457 animals were tested in the market zero were found to be infected SARS 1 92 animals 100% infected the the the uh the vendors the wildlife vendors in SARS one were all infected we have 10 vendors here none of them are infected one vendor had bamboo Rats from from Southern China where the backbone comes from he was he wasn't infected his animals weren't infected uh SARS 2 has no posterior diversity so it really as as Dr Anderson said it's one jump from one animal to one human the most likely place that happens is in a laboratory and again to be clear when you say an animal it could be could be a petri dish it could be animal cells in a Petri dish the the question of where the origins came from is the question of where the animal is and they've tested 96 animals in nature and they've tested zero animals at Wuhan Institute of rology that's where we need to look thank you I'll reserve the rest for a second round Senator hasson your recognize for your questions well thanks chair Peters and re member Paul for holding this hearing thank you to all of our Witnesses for being here today um Dr cin one of the areas of inquiry in this hearing is obviously whether research funded by the United States government has appropriate oversight however private companies universities and independent research institutions are also engaging in cuttingedge research while their research has the potential to cure diseases and boost our economy unless they accept Federal funding there is very little Federal oversight to ensure that private labs are engaged in safe and ethical research what safety procedures are in place for research facilities that don't receive Government funding and are there oversight measures that either government or independent authorities should put in place to monitor work at these Labs including Labs working on Gene synthesis thank you Senator um the uh the oversight of privately funded research is much less than that of federally funded research in terms of both biosafety biocurity and du research oversight um what we've seen in um the area of dual use research oversight for example and the most recent um policy that the bid Administration released uh only applies to federally funded research um however there is the ability for federal agencies to require their their Grant recipients to apply this new policy to all research including that's privately funded uh but that requires special Authority that some agencies may have but others would need um legislation to give them that that ability that wouldn't cover research that's only conducted by privately funded entities but it would expand the scope of of of research that that is uh in order to expand the scope of of oversight to all privately funded research would require um legislative action um and um along the lines of the The Proposal I include in my written statement for the establishment of a national bi risk management agency that would have authority over bios safety biocurity and Jus research oversight regardless of source of funding because at the end of the day it shouldn't matter where the funding comes from in terms of making sure this research is being done safely securely and responsibly thank you for that um another question to you Dr copin we've heard a great deal about the risks of certain types of research involving dangerous pathogens and the need for robust oversight on the type of experiments that are performed we've heard less about the potential risks for from researchers performing off the books or unsupervised experiments that may be risky or unethical how serious are the risks posed by malicious or unethical insiders and are the United States and international authorities equipped to sufficiently mitigate these risks um so um following the the revelations that Bruce Ivans was responsible for the anthrax letter tax um which happened in 2009 um the United States took a much uh stronger stance on trying to prevent Insider threats at at facilities and so the federal select agent program which focus on biocurity uh included a number of measures to try and better monitor science who have access to to pathogens in terms of ensuring that they remain um uh they they do not become security risks right um that kind of um uh efforts to mitigate Insider threats does not exist in in the side of the julus research oversight um there is a lot of um empasis on self-governance by research institutions and by P to basically govern their own labs and make sure that work is not being done that is um as you said off the books or or is any way unethical but so it is really at this point on the onuses on Research institutions to make sure that the work activity being done on their facilities is in compliance with all relevant um laws and regulations so that is an area that um is currently a gap in our oversight of this kind of research okay thank you uh one more question for you when it comes to biocurity the US domestic security is obviously tied to International efforts what happens halfway across the globe can clearly impact Us in the United States Dr you're involved in the global biolabs initiative which is an organization that tracks all the highest biocurity level labs in the world are there Labs that are of particular concern and if so what action should Congress and the executive branch take to improve their safety and thus our national security um as we documented in our report last year on um Global biolabs um there's been a building boom in bsl4 Labs since the start of the the pandemic and so there are a number of countries that are now building their first bsl4 Labs um that don't actually have their National biosafety and bio legislation regulations in place and so countries like the Philippines uh Kazakhstan um Saudi Arabia um are trying to um construct facilities but they don't yet have the regulatory infrast structure that they need to make sure those labs can operated safely securely and responsibly uh in addition um countries like China and India who already operate PS4 labs are planning on building additional Labs uh as well um and so in all of these cases uh there's a need for uh making sure that these you know at the national level that the right um virus management policies are in place and then at the laboratory level that these um policies are being followed properly uh and there are a number of of measures that the both the US and internationally through who and other entities could take to try and ensure that these regulations are um in place and are being followed properly and and can you elaborate on what those steps would be sure so um there is a um a international standard for biorisk management um that um uh creates a a framework for how do you ensure that Safety and Security is prioritized across your laboratory and your research Enterprise it's called ISO 35001 um it was negotiated end of 2019 but has not been widely adopted yet um by labs around the world having that kind of international standard is very useful because it provides the best practices for bios safety and biocurity and it includes a um a process by which you need to document how you're complying with that standard that documentation then becomes available for audit in the event that you need you need to have any kind of Investigation um by local national International authorities to to ensure that the facility is operating properly and is is operating safely and securely so that kind of standard provides an international um metric for measuring whether or not a a lab is is operating to the international standards that we we would hope they would be thank you very much thank you Mr chair thank you Senator Johnson you recognized for your questions thank you Mr chairman I want to thank you and the ranking member for holding this uh very important hearing uh we need a lot more of these um I want to thank all the witnesses for your very detailed testimony and I'd encourage anybody viewing this hearing to go go online and and read the detailed testimony I think you find it very difficult to not come away after reading that that you know we may not have a Smoking Gun but the circumstantial evidence is strong that this was a man-made virus and that it was probably leaked from a lab probably at the Wuhan Institute of biology um you know one thing that's convinced me very early on I've been convinced this quite some time is just the cover up I mean the fact the Chinese took down data sets so all of a sudden you couldn't find a Smoking Gun because it no longer exists and we'll probably never know that but also the cover up here within the US government I've been doing uh oversight on our response to co which by the way was a miserable failure where 4% of the world's population we apparently experien 16% of the deaths supposing the most modern Med you know medical system in the world that's a miserable failure and so we need to do a lot of oversight not just on the origin which is an important aspect of this but on everything okay um if we're serious about this by the way we we have start letting subpoena start flying I'll do this one more time I've done this multiple times this is the 50 final pages of Fouch emails by the way the only reason we realize that fouchi was engaged in a cover up with Dr Gary is the fact that we had to foyer these that they didn't turn these over which they should have we had to foyer them had to go to court uh our staff is take the 4,000 pages that we got that were redacted narrowed those down to 400 pages and they allowed us to look at these things unredacted in a reading room 350 pages but not the final 50 in terms of the cover up my guess is the Smoking Gun exists somewhere under these heavy redactions so my my suggestion actually my my uh plea to the chairman is to issue subpoena to get these final 50 pages then maybe we'll get a full extent of of the extensive cover up uh Dr Gary I don't know have you ever used the word conspiracy theory as it relates to the lab leak have you ever accused people who put that thing forward there bunch of conspiracy theorists not in not in my public okay well I'll tell you who I tell you who has is the chief editor-in chief of nature ma magazine that published the proximal origin he said talking about your study your cover up great work will put conspiracy theories about the origin of SARS K2 to rest will you at least admit that people who are raising the possibility of a lab leak were not conspiracy theorists that there were legitimate concern about gain function research creating this chimeric virus of course sir I mean that would include us at the very beginning that's that's prog that's progress because again lot awful lot of people's reputations were ruined by this coverup and by the accusations of people being a conspiracy theorists now Dr ebite you know the purpose of this hearing really is to talk about the danger of gain of function research you know right now we're we're about ready to be scare mongered I think we're already being scare mongered on h5n1 uh back in 2000 late 2011 the world learned of two scientific teams one in University of Wisconsin Madison uh one in the Netherlands uh that had apparently it said each of these labs create h5n1 viruses that gained the ability to spread through the air between ferrets the animal mod used to study how flu viruses might behave in in humans that's pretty darn dangerous stuff right that is primarily what led to the moratorium and gain and function correct that is correct what possible reason is there to be producing what nature probably couldn't produce why are we doing this it's important to emphasize that the research in question has no zero civilian practical applications gain of function research on potential pandemic pathogens is not used and does not contribute to the development of vaccines and is not used and for and does not contribute to the development of drugs so so so again the that rationale for all this research is exactly that in case we have to respond in case but that's the rationale in case we have to respond to a bioweapon attack okay uh we need a defense mechanism so that's that's the reason for example the defense department has spent $42 million or funded Eco Health Alliance for $42 million in US aid for 53 million correct so the current definition is research that is reasonably anticipated to increase either the transmissive ability or the veilance of a potential pandemic pathogen that research does not contribute to developing countermeasures against potential P that's the rationale they use you know the thing they really scared the public on was the 1918 flu pandemic correct uh even Anthony fou admit most people who died of the flu pandemic died of pneumonia because we didn't have antibiotics correct bacterial pneumonia I think one of the things we have to provide site is the sabotage of early treatment using widely available cheap and safe generic drugs we didn't do that I mean from my standpoint the first thing we ought to be doing in any kind of pandemic is is there some way to treat this and let doctors be doctors let them practice medicine yeah I'm I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of Miller's ratchet correct of what Miller's ratchet okay well it's it's it's basically what viruses generally do is they'll become more transmissible but less pathogenic okay because again it doesn't do a virus snuffs itself out Ms snuffed itself out sarus snuffed itself out except there were a couple lab leaks that produced Cyrus outbreaks correct so again my point is are we making things worse with human intervention producing vaccines that are that are not sterilizing that allow variants to be produced and things like antibod dependent enhancement again there's an lot of concern that we don't even consider here because we we're on this Quest to Have a vaccine for everything produce vaccines for viruses haven't even been created yet in a lab again that's the question we ought to be asking this committee is what in the world are we doing what's the rationale for doing this and are we actually causing more harm than good with vaccine development I would disagree the vaccines vaccines in general do not pose significant harms and offer significant benefits with respect to the gain of function research which creates new threats biological threats that do not exist currently and might not naturally come into existence in a decade a century or a millennium that research creates threats and those threats are existentially risky threats and that research is being conducted without a justifiable rationale there is no rationale in terms of of development of counter measures industry develops vaccines and Therapeutics against diseases currently in humans not against diseases that don't yet exist and need to be made in a lab we could use a public debate regarding all things vaccine the profit motive of it and everything else but that's for another day thank you Senator Johnson Senator Marshall you recognized for your questions thank you Mr chairman I think it's first of all it's important to remember why we're here today we're here today because we don't want to have another pandemic like this I think it's important that we recognize that a million Americans have lost a loved one and they're still looking for closure we have 15 million Americans with long Co and perhaps if we knew the origin of Co and the development maybe that would give us a clue how to treat us um I want to start with Dr Quay and go back to the diffuse grant for just a second uh this is a Grant by Eco health and Peter dassk recall that Peter dasic is David Moran's BFF um and that Grant was denied but yet it lays out a framework for the development of of covid-19 and you went through six or seven several reasons that are absolutely consistent that they said they would do X and they did X and what are the chances of all those things ending up in a covid virus yeah well again just as a reminder so they they said they were going to go to a particular spot in southern China uh to get a virus they were going to make sure that it had diversity from sarwan of about 25% they were going to put it into uh humanized mice to enhance its ability to recognize the receptor binding domain they're going to put fur in cleavage site in a very particular spot you know out of 13,000 letters in the spike protein they said in the grant they're going to put it at a spot called the S1 S2 Junction they uh they they said uh and so all of those were found in SARS K2 its nearest neighbor is from the same area it's it has a 99% binding affinity for the for the human receptor SARS one jumped into humans it only had 15% of the epidemic changes it needed to become epidemic you think the chances of all six or I Quantified it because I like statistics and it's one in 1.2 billion so a one in a billion chance all that comes to fruition there were some comments on that Grant in the margin so Dr baric North Carolina developed the technology for the the protein Spike he taught Dr she he gave them humanized Mist again this was all funded with usaid grant grant money as well what were some of the comments in the margin you think that are significant well this is important because the the the PO the folks told DARPA we're going to do this research in North Carolina under very high safety conditions in the grant that's what they wrote the marginal comments in drafts that were only obtained through foas said a different thing daic said hey we're gonna we're going to shift this over to Wuhan because it'll be cheaper faster uh we'll get a lot more done that way Barrick says boy if us scientists knew this was going on they would think this is crazy this is in the marginal com so they in a way they weren't truthful with DARPA in the so Dr bar who you along with Dr fer the father of gain a function knew that that other scientists in America would have a fit at this was being done here yeah and again so fast forward to January 2020 these two science SCI dasic and baric sitting down with the sequence of SARS kovi 2 and a computer would know within one hour this thing has all the features of what we proposed in that Grant and the fact they either didn't tell anybody or the people they told didn't do anything about it meant that they that human to human transmission was not a we were not aware of that and asymptomatic transmission we were not aware of this is the first new respiratory virus that's asymptomatic great let's come back I'm going to use that and come back to that point in Ju in just a second you know we went through what I call the smoking guns that really show Beyond a reasonable doubt that this virus was made in laboratory move on China it was synthetic uh you know everywhere from the geography of where it shows up for the first time to uh the fact that there was virus already spread to multiple continents by the time the wet Market break occurs they never have found the intermediate species with SARS and Ms it took months to find an intermediate species anyone that says the raccoon dog is the intermediate species is just laughable science uh no progen genitor viruses um and the timeline they were developing a vaccine already November 2019 Dr she has taken down the DNA lab banks in September 2019 she takes down another the lab bank here in this country I maybe March of the next year as well but of all the smoking guns and this is the hardest to explain to people is just the the genetic makeup of this virus and you pointed out the protein Spike the protein Spike alone be like a person that the protein Spike that fits into a lung cell would be like the chances of a person walking in the room with a key that fits the lock on those doors I mean it was a perfect protein Spike you mentioned the fur and cleavage site there's other spots but I wanted to talk about the orf8 site for just a second uh Dr qu what's the significance of this o rf8 site so orf8 is a protein that's down near the right hand side of the of the virus uh it is not in the final virus it is secreted into the bloodstream and it does two things early in the infection it it blocks interferon expression so you don't you don't sweat you don't have a fever you don't show the symptoms of an infection and later in the infection it blocks what's called antigen MHC presentation so we learn from HIV that a virus that can block the ability of pieces of the virus to be presented to the immune system is a virus that is very hard to make antibodies against very hard to fight against it uh two Master's thesis uh during 2015 that have only been published in Chinese no papers came from it at the W in of rology created a synthetic cloning system for ORF eight so gain of function research around things that make viruses asymptomatic and things that that make them not be able to make antibodies to are are Beyond The Pale of what what uh you know Dr ebite has said in terms of the civilian use Dr so really this orf8 is a synthetic link sequence never found in nature and they place it in here right they place this link in here for the purposes of the two cardinal sins the cardinal sin of asymptomatic uh virus and then transmission with without that symptom as well and the inability to make an immune response I mean that's the cardinal sins of gain of function research what what purpose would there be if you're wanting to develop vaccines is there any civilian purpose or is this in fact a bioweapon I can't say it's a bioweapon because that's in the mind of the person that made it but but it is it is highly unusual highly synthetic they were doing synthetic biology around it and its two functions are quite remarkable with respect to uh what kind of research you would do in the civilian World Dr abber is there a possibility that it could have been a dual purpose that there could have been used as a bioweapon so the original SARS virus SARS kov1 yeah is a tier one select agent in the United States so it is in the group of pathogens and biological toxins that our federal government has identified as having high potential for use as a bioweapon in biowarfare biot terrorism or biocrime it by definition therefore according to our federal government is a bioweapon agent it is not a bioweapon but it is an agent that potentially could be used is there any good use any good reason to put this in the vi in the virus if you're developing a vaccine I would return to my general comment on gain of function research on potential pandemic pathogens that research has no civilian practical application researchers undertake it because it is fast it is easy it requires no specialized equipment or skills and it was prioritized for funding and has been prioritized for publication by scientific journals these are major incen to researchers worldwide in China and in the US the researchers undertake This research because it's easy they get the money and they can get the papers than Senator Marshall Senator Scott you recognized for your questions first I want to thank the chair and the raike member for ho hosting this hearing um we she did this a lot I think we there's a lot that we still need to learn the co pandemic was devastating for our country as we all know the response by the Biden Administration the media has done nothing but amp amplify the consequences of this crisis and erode trust in our federal government not long ago anyone asking questions about the origins of Co and the possibility of this virus resulting from a Lad Leak were branded as conspiracy theorists just like the hunter Biden laptop story The Experts said this was disinformation and waged a campaign against members of Congress medical professionals and everyone else asking questions to discredit them as liar and extremist Anthony FY led the charge in this public smear campaign and I think it's great that he's not there anymore we know this is that that this is not only a credible Theory but the most likely cause of the pandemic common shine it can't be trusted and because the Biden Administration has chosen weak appeasement of the CCP we still have enforced accountability or got the answers the American public deserve HSS Office of the Inspector General did a review of the Eco Health Alliance and his management of the grant contract Eco Health received funds and had the Wuhan in suit as a subcontractor is minor Senator that NIH requires annual data reporting for what we spend money on and the research data the Wuhan Institute never never provided or only provided partial data Eco health either failed to submit or submit incomplete data NH failed to police their own grant program and allowed this to slide for years about 85% of eal Health budget comes from federal research grants I I have no idea why NIH would think it's a good idea to give us tax dollars to communist China seems like a pretty poor idea to me Dr E eite would it make sense to hold Grant recipients accountable for the failure to comply with the terms of their grants why not require the prime grantee to fully reimburse the government if they are one of their subcontract sees fail to fully comply with the terms of the grant seems like we do that with our our personal life if somebody does the wrong thing they owe us the money back so what do you think we do currently hold the grantee responsible not only for the primary award but for sub awards for subcontracts when a researcher submits a grant proposal to NIH when a researcher submits each annual Grant progress report to NIH the researcher signs a certification box and that certification box says that the researcher will comply with the terms and condition of the Grant and will provide full and factual information upon request subject to administrative civil and criminal penalties so the basis for accountability exists has Eco Health been held accountable have they given us any money back uh to my knowledge there has been no clawback of funding from Eco Health there has however been an immediate suspension that went into effect uh a month ago both of eal Health Alliance and then this month of its president a suspension of eligibility for federal funding of all forms and a referral uh for debarment from eligibility for federal funding from all sources have you do you know any instances where NIH has ever held anybody accountable and gotten the money back yes so this has happened in a number of cases examples include data fraud other examples include sexual harassment or other forms of abuse that are outside the terms and conditions of the grant so why do you think they haven't gotten the money back from Eco Health why have they've been held accountable I would place that burden on Congress and on the White House in that the NIH is unlikely to move toward clawback without motivation from either Congress or the white house it's their job it is their job but it is also the job of our legislative branch through its oversight responsibility and our executive branch through its primary responsibility to ensure that jobs are carried out do you know anybody at NIH ever been fired for failure to do do their job you mean an NIH staff yeah as part of the administrative staff at NIH you have you heard of anybody I do not has anybody you know of ever been fired from NIH over what they did with by not uh enforcing um the Eco Health uh grant program not to my knowledge good so as you said Eco Health has been suspended by further funding with possible dment but they're currently appealing it do you think it's right to debar them absolutely so when you so how long should they be debarred for the debarment term specified by law typically is three years the dearment proceedings determine first whether a debarment will occur and then determine the duration the term of the debarment I would recommend a permanent debarment given the number of terms and conditions of the Eco Health Alliance grants that were violated and the s ity of those violations so Wuhan Institute of V virology has been debarred for 10 years do you think it be should be permanent and why hasn't it been yes I do I do not know why why do why do you think it had wasn't permanent uh I do not know okay so does anybody else have any any background of why NIH doesn't enforce their own I mean it's their it's it's it's their own rules have you guys have you heard of people anybody from NIH being being dis being reprimanded fired or anything over the Eco health no why do yall think I think the retired uh head of the niid should be asked that question okay all right thank you thank you Senator SC Senator Romney you're recognized for your questions thank you Mr chairman ranking member for the hearing um I I'd like to get a sense of um there's a lot of energy and passion around was it at from an animal or was it a lab leak uh and and I must admit I don't understand why there's so much energy around that strikes me that we'll never be 100% sure I presume about one or the other we might be 98% or something but we'll always be a little uncertain and given the fact that it could have been either we know what action we ought to take to protect from either and and so why there's so much passion around it makes me think it's more political than scientific but maybe I'm wrong so the action it strikes me that based on what I've heard we shouldn't be financing gain to function research what I heard was there's no particular reason for it uh other than military Warfare we shouldn't do that anyway so one we know that uh whether it came from an animal or not we shouldn't be financing gain of function research number two we should insist that any place we send Money Follows the international ISO standards I I didn't get the number uh Dr coalin but I I you had a number there that suggested that people have to follow so we shouldn't be getting money or going to Labs that don't follow those International standards and number three uh whether it was from a wet Market or the Wuhan lab China's to blame uh both those things were in China and uh and so if we're looking for someone to blame we know who it is it's the Chinese and they should take responsibility for it and should have opened themselves up to complete disclosure um so am am I wrong here is there a reason there's so much energy around whether it came from uh a wet Market or a lab in both cases the actionist simple we should clean up the wet labs and number two we should tighten excuse me the wet markets and number two we should tighten in the labs what please go ahead Dr Quay well I'll just say briefly I mean I think I think the energy is around the fact that paychecks salaries careers are based on continuing uh gain of function research by some of the most vocal people uh in this in this debate and I think if you follow the money you'll see the answer thank you Dr Gary what's your thought well I you know a lot of the talk around gate and function research depends on how you how you define it and the definition is very important I mean there's some informal definitions they're very technical definitions and we have to get that part right because if you define it in a way that basically interferes with a lot of biomedical research on viruses and on other things too cancer research everything um you're going to really the biomedical research Enterprise so let's get that right um I don't think you know just blanket we should stop funding all gain and function research because some of that is important like you know for developing animal models of new diseases as they come forth you have to select for a virus that can actually replicate in a a a stinct animal that you can use in the lab so if you don't permit gain of function research we won't be able to respond to a new threat because we won't be able to make animal models so getting that right getting that definition right is very important I think that the office of Science and Technology policy um new guidelines for this type of research is very clear uh it's a good step forward um you should look at that and see what you can do best to uh you know to codify that into some kind of legislation yeah Dr eite do you concur with that point of view that that we need to Define exactly what kind of research is okay and which is not which has a beneficial purpose and which has only malevolent purpose the definition of gain a function research has been clear there is a legally controlled in official definition from the US policy that was in effect from 2014 to 2017 and there has been an official legally controlling definition in the US policy that has been effect in effect from 2018 to the present the definitions have never been in question but the intensity that you asked about at the start of year series of questions the intensity comes from those who are practitioners of gain of function research and related high-risk research on potential pandemic pathogens who have for two decades successfully resisted Federal oversight of their activities for two decades who have insisted on self-regulation without external oversight and who would like this to continue despite the very real possibility even though as you say not a certainty of the fact the the very real possibility that SARS K2 a pandemic that killed 20 million and cost 25 trillion may have come from precisely that category of research that is the basis of the intensity only after there is an acknowledgement and I see this acknowledgement today in a bipartisan fashion among members of this committee from both parties only after there is an acknowledgement that there is a very real possibility not a remote possibility but a very real possibility of a lab origin will there be the political iCal will to impose regulation on this scientific community that has successfully resisted an obstructed regulation for two decades every other component of biomedical research that poses risks or has significant consequences has regulation Federal Regulation with force of law in place there's regulation of human subjects research there's regulation of vertebrate animal research there's regulation of embryonic stem cell res research but in this category of research which is the most significant in terms of consequences and potentially existential risk There is almost no regulation with force of law no regulation with force of law for bios safety for any pathogen other than the smallpox virus and no regulation with force of law for biorisk management for any pathogen that needs to change that's what produces this intensity and and it strikes me that that uh whether covid came from a lab or it came from a wet Market that issue still has to be addressed absolutely and so I'm I'm not going to get so excited about where Co happened to come from what I know is that something very dangerous could come from gain of function research if it's not properly regulated how to define where those boundaries are and what one can do and one can't do that's some something that we ought to be focused on even if we became 98% sure it came from a a a wet Market that wouldn't mean that gain of function research could it by itself become a huge danger to humanity and therefore we ought to regulate it is that is that something you gentlemen agree with or am I making a mistake I completely agree with you Senator Romney that's well stated thank you thank you Senator Romy Senator Hol you recognized for your questions thank you very much Mr chairman thanks uh for holding this hearing thanks for the witnesses for being here you know I have to say I think one of the worst things that happened in the co era is that our own government deliberately withheld information from us from the American people tried to propagandize the American people used the arms and agencies of government to actively censor Americans who dared to question the propaganda and they're still lying to us and I'll give you the proof of it I wrote the Bill that requires the administration to declassify the intelligence intelligence assessments and reports related to the origins of covid-19 now listen I just want to say everybody sitting on this dis has read these I've read them I guarantee you my colleagues have read them I know what the energy Department concluded I know what the FBI concluded I knew what they concluded years ago because we could read them when people like Dr fouchy were out there saying the lab leak hypothesis was totally discredited in nonsense you could go read the intelligence and know our own government thought otherwise and at this late hour this government still refuses to release the intelligence they are blatantly disregarding blatantly disregarding the law that this body passed the Senate passed unanimously unanimously the propaganda involved in the origins of covid-19 is astounding to me it recalls the worst of the wartime propaganda in years past when the government would deliberately lie to people and here that's what they have been doing with covid-19 and are still doing it you know you had this whole cabal of led by Dr fouchy and others who as soon as the lab leak hypothesis that we now know is a lot more than a hypothesis as soon as it's mentioned what what did fouchy do we know because this has all been litigated in a federal district court in fact in multiple federal courts I've got the finding of fact from the court right here they lay it all out fouchy goes to the who asks the who to intervene to discredit the lab leak he then speaks against it multiple times from the podium at the White House he then does countless media interviews I mean my gosh what show has he not been on he's still on TV spewing this misinformation as he would call it but he did these multiple interviews where he says no way no how lab leak not possible at all and then he coordinates and the whole federal government coordinates with the biggest tech companies in the world to suppress and media companies to suppress any American who would ask questions about it it's absolutely disgraceful Dr Gary you were part of this propaganda effort I mean you were right at the center of it it's astounding you wrote this piece this nature magazine piece or whatever it was that we've heard testimony here today nature medicine March 17th 2020 we've heard testimony here today from other scientists on the panel that it's basically an opinion piece you said at the time that definitively SARS Co 2 is not a laboratory construct is not a laboratory const construct of course our own government key agencies have concluded otherwise and on the basis of this Dr fouchy and others cited this this piece and went out to use it to mobilize our own government to censor people who ask questions about people lost their jobs because of this they lost their jobs they lost their standing they were kicked off Facebook they were kicked off Twitter do you regret being part of this effort this propaganda effort sir I I was I was simply just writing a paper about our scientific opinions about where this virus came from oh no you weren't you said in an email that we now have that you tried to withhold but that we have February 2nd 2020 you wrote I really can't think of a plausible natural scenario where you can get from the bat virus or one very similar to it to this I I'm quoting you I just can't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature it's stunning of course in the lab it would be easy well of course and I actually figured it out that's the whole point of that you figured it out you you wrote this while you were W in your propaganda piece while you writing wrot that somewhere around February 2 it was exactly February 2 and you testified that you were writing your proximal origin paper in early February so you're you're saying that what did it come to you overnight there was new data that came like uh a revelation from God no overnight you concluded I got it I got it I figured it out I've figured it out and now I can definitively rule out it's amazing is that what happened it's just the scientific method oh it's just SCI oh it's a scientific method that happened and lightening speed and then was used to propagandize and lie to and shut down as a scientist who supposedly supposed to follow facts do you regret the fact that your work was used to censor your fellow scientists it was used to censor ordinary Americans who ask questions about the virus do you do you regret that when when you write a paper I mean you get it in the journal I we can't control what happens after oh I see so you're not responsible at all this is It's amazing nobody who is involved in any of this is responsible never they're not responsible people have lost their jobs yeah people have lost probably their health care associated with their jobs people have been run out of public they're not available in polite Society you can't show your face because my gosh you question but you you don't have anything to do with it why is so many of your papers your other papers been retracted or subjected to formal expressions of concern yeah well that there's a long story behind that um four of them right I mean you you've had in July 26 2021 virology retracted a paper of yours also in 2021 the Journal of General veraly retracted another of your papers and March of 2022 an expression of concern was added by an editor of yet another journal to another of your papers and April 4th of 2024 a third scientific paper of yours was retracted from the Journal of medical virology is this normal papers didn't come from my lab but you know I'm certainly helping they're not yours they're not mine yeah oh so so your I'm on the paper but they did not come the work that God gave you in a flash of inspiration remains absolutely un unimpeachable unimpeached I I we stand by that do you stand by your your assertion and your nature piece that uh SARS Co 2 is not a laboratory construct could not be uh we do and that's exactly the same could possibly be concl that the intelligence Community came to oh no that is a lie let's stop right there that is a lie I have read the intell the intelligence community did not come to that conclusion multiple intelligence Community agents and components have concluded it was likely a lab leak and they concluded that at the same time that you and your people were propagandizing the American public and using the channels and influence of the American government to censor ordinary Americans that is the truth I'm not going to sit here and allow you to lie any further Dr Gary you have disgracefully participated in shameful propaganda that has been one of the worst chapters in this country's history with the government propagandizing its own people and you know what you may be right about the I'm not a scientist I don't know but what I do know is what I do know is it is wrong it is wrong to censor and lie to the American public it is wrong to withhold critical information from them and it is wrong to countenance that and to say oh I just had nothing to do with it gee I wish we could have done better you should have done better sir you should have done better and because you didn't people have suffered thank you Mr chairman could I I Dr G if you'd like to respond I think you can respond to your question yeah so I actually Senator Harley I'm gonna agree with you with about something I I do think that that we should learn more information from the intelligence Community what they found uh I agree with you that they should be more open uh and tell where those conclusions came from you know at the FBI and at the energy Department all the agencies should come forth with with more information so there's there's a point we can agree with I mean that was an interesting exchange but you know I all we did was write a paper nature medicine and 3,000 words it's been one of the most uh scrutinized papers in history it's held it very well it wasn't an attempt to to uh you know distort things and to mislead the American public it was just simply a paper like the many other scientific papers that I've written in my very career Let's uh we'll move on to a second round we I'll tell the members we have a vote that I believe has already been called we also have a hard stop at u a little after 12 so the second round will be uh five uh minutes um and I'll start actually Dr I'll just pick up from your answer there A lot has been directed towards the the paper that you wrote in the research that went in into that uh does the science sense the paper uh came out to strengthen your argument or weaken it uh what does the science show it absolutely strengthens it I mean we published a series of papers after the proximal Origins paper all of them you know conclusively moving towards the the uh you know the natural origin hypothesis so nothing you know we stand by that paper it was a good paper we uh we're currently uh seeing enormous uh changes uh in technology in the biological sciences from artificial intelligence to biological design tools uh even uh robot Laboratories where experiments can be conducted from really anywhere on the globe Dr uh coblence my my question for you is in your opinion will these types of technological changes make it easier or or harder for us to determine the origins of future future pandemic uh the the advances you just discussed will definitely make it more complicated to do that uh on the one hand we are going to have much more sophisticated capabilities to uh analyze viral genomes and do the kind of analyses that are are some of the feature of Dr Gary's work to understand the evolution of these pathogens and where they come from and so that will be incredibly useful investigating any future um outbreak uh on the other hand the fact that there these Technologies are going to be globally diffused the fact that there are a growing number of high Max containment Laboratories that conduct High consequence research will make it uh a more complicated process because there will be more potential sources for uh outbreaks whether they're they're naturally occurring or or from laboratory so um the Technologies are not a net negative but they're not a Panacea and but it's definitely going to be a much more complicated Endeavor to to go through this exercise in the future very good Dr Cay a question uh for for for you uh we we know the the US intelligence Community has reported that that a few scientists at the wam lab got sick uh in December uh the the fall of 2019 uh but it's not clear that any of them had covid-19 so my my question for you sir is what evidence do we have that someone at the wahon lab got covid-19 before anyone else did and you know if these scientists actually got tested for covid-19 uh no I don't I all of my data around that relies on this the state Department uh statement there were three individuals uh we believe we know one of them at least Ben who was responsible for some of the synthetic work in the laboratory uh reasonably young person who was hospitalized uh who was said to have been hospitalized with a uh uh x-ray uh confirmed disease consistent with covid-19 but not blood testing uh we do know also that in in May of uh March of 2020 uh Dr shei reported that no one at the in of orology had SARS kov 2 and with another individual we did a statistical analysis of the probability of that with the incidents in Wuhan and that is not a truthful statement uh because of that so those are those are the two facts I have Dr Gary you want to respon Senator Peters could I um read from the uh intelligence committee the off director of office of National Intelligence about these three supposed sick uh workers at the Wuhan biology and they write while several wi research researchers fell mildly ill in Fall 2019 they experienced a range of symptoms consistent with colds or allergies with accompanying symptoms typically not associated with covid-19 and some of them were confirmed to have been sick with other illnesses unrelated to covid-19 so those the three sick workers at the web is simply a myth Dr Quay um what specific hard evidence proves that the Wuhan lab did experiments that that created the virus do we have specific hard evidence no one of our biggest challenges is we don't know what they've done inside there we we know what they were doing in the past we know what they did in the fall of 2019 all consistent with the things you would do if there had been a laboratory accident there you know filing a patent the first patent out of 600 patents for a a device to prevent a Corona virus infection in an infected worker one of the inventors on that patent is a pla military doctor scientist um the head of the the head of the laboratory was dismissed and a pla uh Soldier was put in charge of the laboratory December 2019 so uh we don't have access inside the laboratory we probably will never have it but the genome inside the virus comports to the diffused Grant in such a way that it's uh it's in consistent I mean in a court of law you find someone criminally for 95% or greater probabilities and this is one in a billion which is greater than that that this is a synthetic virus so I I don't want to put words in mouth I mean a lot of this is these are assumptions that you're making uh not not hard evidence the hard evidence is the incidence of the features of SARS K2 can individually be looked at in nature they can be identified with the frequency in nature and then you can com you can say what is the chance that each of these were combined in one virus at the same time this is what this is what virologists do all the time in looking for Origins and when you do that you conclude that it has a one in a billion chance of coming from nature and it meets all seven criteria of the diffused Grant okay thank you rank member Paul you recognized for questions Dr Gary indicated that the intelligence Community was um somewhat unified or a lot of them believ this came from animals and it's just not true the ones that have been vocal about this and talked a lot about have been the doe which has more scientists than any other agency in Washington probably other than NIH uh they've concluded that it did come from the lab FBI concluded it came from the lab and we have a whistleblower from the CIA that says the scientists that were convened to study this voted six to1 to say it came from the lab and then they were overruled by superiors for political reasons so there's a lot of evidence that people within the Intel agencies actually do believe that there is evidence that it came from the lab in addition to people getting sick there's also about a week in October where they do uh imagery of who's using a cell phone and nobody's using a cell phone in the lab for about a week so the the lab's completely empty for about a week and some people think that was during a cleanup period but if you're sitting at home and you're sort of an independent you hear scientists over here saying gay of functions the best thing since sliced bread and over here you're saying well we really haven't developed any meaningful uh vaccines or technology from this you're like who do I believe and who believe does go to character and so we have to look at some of the statements like I say I've never seen anything like this between public and private statements so Christian Anderson early on in this sends an email to fouchy and his fouchy uh says Bob Bob Gary and a couple of the other virologists we think it's inconsistent this virus this genetic sequence of covid is inconsistent with the expectations of evolutionary theory so they they believed it didn't come from nature they had looked at this these are smart people that when they were not looking at it when they were trying to look at it through an objective lens concluded one thing until they came to another conclusion that it might hurt the business of Science and the arrangements they had going on with China and concluded opposite but with Christian Anderson it's star it's St because he says oh Bob and all these we all believe it's inconsistent with the expectations of evolutionary 30 a week later Christian Anderson is saying what I like to use when I talk to the public is I like to tell them it's consistent with the expectations of evolutionary theory so he goes from inconsistent to consistent complete opposite approach within days maybe even simultaneously as these papers are being written so really the hypocrisy of those involved and those who are saying not a laboratory construct if you want to know who to believe look at their private statements versus their public statements so we have gain of function is the best thing since sliced bread or gain of function is a real problem now Senator Romney's like well what does it matter if there's a chance we should do something I think he's right if you believe there's a 1% chance we should do something but if you think there's a 1% chance or you want to sort of glad hand people at the end and say well we should do something their argument for the people who think it's not likely to happen is going to be oh the administration's already fixed this it's already done and all we need is a few little regulatory things we don't need legislation we don't need independent oversight we don't need people looking at this who aren't on the receiving end of the money this is the whole problem of NIH the people regulating themselves are getting the money so the Administration has put in place some regulation to try to you know help with the buying of Select agents and Dr Quay if you could explain to us what a few MIT scientists did recently and how well the administrative regulations are working without actual Congressional legislation sure so three scientists at MIT said they were going to be a red team and they contacted the FBI because what they were going to do was about to be potentially illegal uh and they put together ryson and the n and the 1918 influenza um th those two are select agents and they're they're you know highly lethal um and they broke up they broke the genes up in a in a particular way they added some benign genes and then they put out test orders uh following roughly following the the White House guidelines test orders to see if if Laboratories would send them the pieces they needed to build these viruses or Ryon um you know or or they would stop them uh and in fact in 94% of the time they they sent the pieces right to them they purposely didn't make the active strain of the they made the the inactive strain to show that they could do it but they proved they could make rice and they proved they could make the 1918 influenza under the guidance of just come out of the White House in a way that uh that this gets out where we go forward our next hearing or one of our next hearings is going to be what do we do for gain of function reform what kind of committee do we set up to look at this and if the answer is from the other side oh it's already done the White House did it this is showing you what the White House did even if it was well intentioned didn't work these scientists got the material off the internet to cre create the Spanish Flu that killed 50 100 million people so this is not something we should scoff at and say oh it's not a laboratory construct we do anything here let the administration do this and I would say this if it were a republican Administration I don't care which party it's in I agree with Scientists like Kevin eseld who equate this with nuclear weapons this is incredibly important and needs Congressional oversight on the select agents but also on the gain of function now some people think this just started it's incredibly uh partisan I just for a quick answer then a more extensive answer uh Dr ebite are you part of the right-wing conspiracy are you uh somehow some kind of crazy Republican partisan I'm a registered Democrat I voted for Biden I had a Biden sign on my lawn and had a Biden bumper that that's enough of that but the the main the main point I wanted to make is this isn't a partisan thing in fact when I've talked to Dr ebite he says he got involved with this after 911 when the anthra anthrax attacks came um but then more involved in 2010 as it heated up and everybody was talking about in the scientific Community when scientists took the Aven flu which is very very deadly in humans but like most animal virus not very transmissible in humans and they mutated it Fu and others in in in Netherlands to make it spread through the air and to spread to mammals that's a crazy thing and if people think that's a benign use of gain of function we should never ever listen to people like that who else thinks it was benign and we didn't need to do anything Anthony fouchy there have been these two camps there has been this debate going on for a decade I think this a very good debate it should be an intellectual debate But realize these are the people Collins and and fouchy who were saying take these people down take down the people we disagree with this is not scientific debate they were taking us off the internet these are people are not playing under the American rules not playing under the scientific method and they should be discounted but we have to have a real debate over this so as we move forward and I'd like to ask you Dr ebite on this how important is it that we actually have a law passed and that we actually have Regulators that are scientists but that are outside of the uh supply of money outside of the exchange of grant money I think it's a matter of survival it's that important there needs to be an entity that is independent of agencies that fund research and perform research to eliminate the structural conflict of interests that has existed with current self-regulation by agencies that perform and fund research thank you thank you uh Senator Johnson where can answer your questions thank Mr chairman you know in Eisenhower's very preent uh farewell speech you only warned us about the military and Desa complex he warned us about government funding of research he said uh you do that scientists are going to be more interested in their Grant in obtaining a grant than pursuing truthful science he said you end up with a scientific technological Elite that would drive public policy and I think we witnessed that during Co they drove it in a very bad Direction so I want to talk about the cover up again Dr Gary how much have you received in government grants over your career do you have any figure in that a ballpark sir I'm not sure um hundreds of millions not hundreds so so I have information that between you and Dr Christian Anderson since 2020 between 2020 and 2022 you received $25.2 million in Grants from the NIH that's possible that's accurate okay so so after you write the proximal origin Theory you've been working with Dr fouchy how many years well I don't actually work directly Dr fou well I mean you but you've been you've certainly come to his Aid and testified kind of in his uh support during during AIDS um but the fact is you you you you cashiered $25.2 million in government GRS after writing the proximal origin paper didn't you $25.2 million in Grants and again this an it wasn't because we wrot an fouchi has let out billions of dollars wor of Grants right he controls an awful lot of information again the point being you know why would they cover it up December or January 27 2020 Dr Fouch is informed via email that niid has been funding Corona vir coronavirus project in China for the last five years okay so he's again these are the emails that were foed they weren't given to us and they're heavily redacted uh January 31st he starts conversations with Dr Anderson you and at all U Dr Gary February 1 Dr fouchi emails and my screen went dead on me here uh rats do you have that fouchi emails his uh principal deputy director Hugh Asen slots and here's the he said is Hugh it is essential that we speak this am keep your cell phone on I have a conference call at 7:45 the are will likely be over at 8:45 read this paper as well as the email that I will forward to you you will have tasks today that must be done now that that is somebody who's scrambling to cover up his backside for funding dangerous research at the W Wuhan lab for five years is is that correct Dr ebite I'll let ask you that question but in addition You' basically accused Dr Gary of scientific misconduct possibly serious as fraud why why don't you to address that because I would agree with you uh so uh both on the proximal origin paper I have signed two letters by teams of scientists requesting an requesting an editorial review of that paper for retraction for misconduct and then on two of the market papers there are only four published sorry only two what was the misconduct your because you've accused him but what was the misconduct your the primary misconduct the misconduct of highest importance was stating conclusions the authors knew at the time contemporaneously while writing the paper submitting the paper and Publishing the paper were untrue this is the most egregious form of scientific misconduct publishing a paper where you know the conclusions are untrue and of course the reasons the reason we didn't get those emails other than through a court order is that the emails themselves were so unbelievably incriminating that is cor they they thought one thing and wrote the exact other for an article that that was quoted like 5,800 times I mean that again as Senator Hall and others have point out destroyed people's careers they were ridiculed they were vilified yes that that is scientific misconduct and fraud and and and Dr Gary I have to say if people are boning the the fact that people no longer trust science or that uh we don't trust our federal health agencies the reason the American public legitimately don't trust scientists and fed Health agencies are because of people like you you bear that responsibility for violating the Public's trust from your scientific misconduct and fraud thank you Mr chairman Dr G you can thank you so much so I would just encourage people to go and read the nature medicine article the proximal Origins SARS K2 we didn't put anything in that paper that we didn't believe was true the conclusions of that paper have held up very well in fact there's been an abundance of scientific evidence that has come forward since then to support all the conclusions everything we wrote in that paper so there's no fraud yes indeed some of the authors changed their mind during the course of writing that paper over a period of of weeks that's not fraud that is just the way that the scientific method work so Mr chairman I would ask consent to enter all these slack messages from this you know dror Anderson at all that group uh that have all these quotes into our hearing record and we'll provide them to you thank you no objection Senator Marsh I can answer your questions all right thank you Mr chairman Dr Gary I think it's also important to point out a couple things and one is that you've received $60 million of Grants from the NIH over the years and you have your own vaccine company and and that obviously is a bit of a conflict ICT of interest and I don't think the scientific world really agrees with your conclusion that it stood up to the test of times I I think the proximal origin article is literally an editorial literally an editorial an opinion page but unfortunately our intelligence Community took it as the gospel I think it's also interesting to me that in within the scientific community that two agencies the department of energy and FBI said they lean towards a lab origin of this that's public knowledge and that they have the science is to actually understand what the heck we're talking about to realizing that there's no way you can that nature could have could have made this virus there's so many things wrong with your uh your your theory and all you come back to is though it started in in uh the wet Market but you've yet to show us um the an intermediate host you've let yet to show us progenitor species all the the Farms that farm these animals outside of the market how many of those animals were positive I think that you know the answer is none I want to go down this odni route for just a sec and it's a fact that the odni um has not complied with the law Congress has passed legislation to declassify information related to co Origins odni has not complied placing leaving odni in charge ensures a total uh monitoring control of the information the misinformation that's why we have to move this investigation outside of the odni additionally it's a fact that our current Grant research process Ides the ultimate beneficiaries of us Grant research and bypasses all export controls all of that has to be changed this is why we need an 911 style investigation outside of cameras outside of the politics here on Capitol Hill to find out why where this virus came from uh what did the US do to contribute and how do we keep this from happening again Dr Quay I want to go back to some line of question we were going down earlier that just the research being done in Wuhan China I think that there's a naivity of on Americans to think that the Chinese military is in one's Place doing research and and the whv is doing research and the CCP is not involved what's it like to work in in labs and Wuhan and the interaction between the CCP and those entities what does their day usually start with well I think one of the the telling ways to see that is without visiting them is to go through the minutes of laboratory meetings which you can you can get a hold of there in Chinese you can translate them uh and unlike uh laboratory meetings in the US which are pretty much you start out you start presenting your data you're challenging your data and that they start with a recitation of what the Communist party's missions are with respect to their their their position in the world and the role of their research and it goes down a litany uh and these are by Communist party uh members who are part of every lab meeting uh present uh and then and then they finally start talking about the the research uh into the lab but not at the beginning and then the military takes over the wh in December uh as well to to to promote the the cover up what is the interaction between the Chinese military and the whiv scientists well so the woman that took over was the one that that was most responsible for the response uh to the SARS one uh and interestingly if you look at the closest viruses to SARS K2 so you got rg13 which is inside the wi you've got you've got uh the banel viruses from La we know WV is sampling there the next one down are two viruses that were collected by the CLA Army and we began studying in 2017 the S2 region of the spike protein is almost identical to those viruses that were originally collected by the pla Army the first genetic cluster of patients that had both lineage a lineage B were in the pla Hospital three kilometers from the wi okay you know I think we've debated back and forth about the benefits and risk of viral gain of function research and I'm just going to say viral manipulation viral manipulation so we don't have to worry about your silly definitions that are used to obscure uh the what's really happening here I'm going to ask each one of you do you feel comfortable funding any type of biomanipulation research with foreign entities that are hostile towards America like the CCP Dr AB bright I think there are strong reasons for international collaboration in science with both Allied Nations and adversary Nations however there's a line that never should be crossed and that is research that has weapons implications and research on Discovery and enhancement of bioweapons Agents like the research on SARS viruses in Wuhan most surely is an example of such research I'd like to go through the questions but I I think I should be respectful of everyone's time and thank you so much chairman for giving us a second round thank you uh thank thank you thank you Senator Marshall U one one quick question came up for me Dr C you you talked about the genetic features could only happen in in a lab and I'd just like to ask Dr Gary um um do the genetic features do those could those only come from lab experiments or is there a natural uh evolution of course not I mean Dr Quay mentioned the the virus called Bal 2052 that virus is extremely close to Saros scopy 2 in fact we isolated both of those viruses out in nature and didn't know anything about a a pandemic you would say those are you know in the same very close family together so Bal 52 is essentially a very close member of of SARS KOB 2 it's got all the genetic features of SARS KOB 2 uh certainly the fact that that virus is in nature shows that SARS K2 could could have Arisen through a natural process Dr Ebert a virus has no furing cleavage site as Dr Gary is aware I mean the furing cleavage site is not the only feature of the virus that that makes it um a virus that's able to to cause a pandemic there there are dozens maybe hundreds of other changes that the virus has to go through before it can um you know have that potential nobody in a laboratory would know how to put those features into any virus um let alone one that's U you know 97 or 96% similar to to SARS cob to Dr when you passage a virus when you do serial passage of a virus Darwin and evolution uh selects for the right positions so when you look at 3,800 possible changes in the amino acids in the receptor binding domain all but 17 changes are are not improvements so SARS CO2 is at 99% perfected for the receptor binding domains of humans Stars One when it first jumped to humans had 15% and evolved over a couple years to get to the pandemic stage uh you started out with a 99% perfect virus which is serial passage so Dr Quay the banal 52 virus the receptor binding domain is uh 50 amino acids long 49 of those 50 are the same as in SARS K2 you don't have to you know create any kind of scenario where you're passing viruses in the lab you know that that RBD receptor binding domain is already in nature essentially fully formed very good um so rank M Paul and I uh are holding these hearings and we want to be thinking about the future uh how do we uh make sure that we handle pandemics uh or potential pandemics much better uh in the future so I'm going to ask each of you um a brief question in in the event that we never get to the bottom of uh how this uh pandemic started uh both ranking member Paul and I believe that we've got to do everything we can uh to put forward policies that will hopefully prevent a future uh pandemic so I'd like each of you to identify I'm going to go down I'll start with uh Mr coin and then go down just to identify briefly in the remaining time here one or two priority actions that we should take to help us prevent the next pandemic if there's one or two thoughts this committee should take to heart what would that be Dr ctz so uh in order to address the threat of the natural xotic spillover pandemic uh there really needs to be a one health approach to to biosurveillance and preventing spillover in key countries that have um you know um ecologically are prime for for disease emergin for the um uh lab origin possibilities we we need a much stronger Global architecture for biorisk management uh and underlying all that we need a much stronger biosurveillance system both domestically internationally to detect these outbreaks as soon as possible uh and guide the medical and public health responses we need to prevent outbreaks from becoming pandemics Dr Gary I mean I guess my recommendation would be would be a very practical one I mean we have um bird flu in our dairy cattle in the United States as we're speaking here um that's a very dangerous virus I would I would take a look at that and see what we can do to um you know keep the unthinkable from happening in that virus acquiring extra features maybe recombination with a virus from a pig maybe recombination with a virus from Human to turn that into a virus that would be very very difficult to um control its spread right now with our current Technologies thank you Dr gr uh four recommendations one is to move the oversight of Select agent research uh and gain a function outside of NIH niid uh and into some independent uh institutional review board you could model it after uh human research boards institution review boards number one number two um is is uh taking Western biotechnology equipment which right now is the Superior Equipment us UK primarily and putting it under export control so at least we know where the machines are going and perhaps we could put some controls over it uh number uh three is is uh simple uh don't put these next to line you know Subways where where accidents can happen uh and number four gain of opportunity where you don't necessarily do viral research but you go out and try to collect a virus that has it's in a cave it has no chance of running into a human you bring it back to a city with 11 million people uh you purify it out of a sample for a feces where there's you know 200 other viruses you make it pure you make it 10 to the fourth 10 to the 5th you know a million more copies of it setting up a a laboratory accident gain of opportunity has the same risks as gain of uh of gain of function we should look at those thank you thank you Dr Ebert legislation should address three subjects the first is establishing a review entity that is independent of agencies that fund biomedical research and perform biomedical research to eliminate the conflict of interests that exists today two the oversight must cover all forms of research irrespective a funding source not only federally funded research but also other funded research and must cover research both unclassified and classified in character and three these uh these these improvements in oversight need to be codified in law so that they are enforcable with rule of law voluntary self-regulation voluntary guidance and best practices have not worked and they will not work in the future so legislation for an independent review legislation for a comprehensive review irrespective of funding source and classification status and legislation for enforceable oversight with force of law thank you well thank you and I I'd like to thank each of our Witnesses here for joining us today for your testimony for your expertise appreciate your Concrete Solutions as to next steps going forward and we'll likely reach out to you again and again to continue to flesh out uh these uh these ideas pandemics and and other infectious disease outbreaks um will unfortunately be an enduring threat to our country uh and to our world and while the question uh of the origin of the covid-19 pandemic uh remains unresolved I think it is it's clear that there are things that we can and must pursue to reduce biological risk here at home uh and U and abroad I hope this committee's work will also result in restoring and maintaining uh the trust in public health agencies and the scientific process as we will need to make sure uh uh we're doing that to prevent future pandemics in this country I look forward to our continuing work together to improve the federal government's ability to prevent to detect and to respond to biological threats uh the record for this hearing will remain open for 15 days until 5:00 p.m. on July 3rd of 2024 for the submission of statements and questions for the record of this hearing is now adjourned hey you do okay did great

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Length: 135min 28sec (8128 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 19 2024