In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the mainstream media was pushing the narrative that coronavirus came from bats in a wet market. President Trump and other conservative voices defied that narrative and stated that the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The lab leak theory, in its beginning stages, was deemed as an “alt-right conspiracy theory.” However, after Fauci emails were released and videos of bats being mishandled within the Wuhan Lab also went viral, the idea that coronavirus was leaked from a lab doesn’t sound that bizarre to some members in Biden’s camp.
Facebook stopped censoring certain COVID-19 origin claims the same day the Biden Administration said it would investigate the Wuhan lab leak theory. pic.twitter.com/d0aVm2ZwUD
— Rep. Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) July 17, 2021
According to a report from CNN, several senior Biden officials are now finding that the lab leak theory is starting to sound credible. Biden has even issued a probe into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and is now starting to be accepted by those on the left.
Sen. Rand Paul Blasts Fauci for “Knowing” U.S. Government Funded Gain of Function Research in China
Before Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails were released through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act), Sen. Rand Paul grilled Fauci over his alleged knowledge that NIH was funding gain of function research in Wuhan, China.
During a House Appropriations Committee meeting, Sen. Rand Paul even got Fauci to admit that the NIH (National Institutes of Health) gave the Wuhan Institute of Virology $600,000 over a five-year period.
This funding was to study whether or not bats’ coronaviruses can be transmitted to human beings. Fauci denied, however, that the U.S. was funding any gain of function research in China, though.
SENATE: The Senate chamber erupts into cheers after an amendment proposed by @RandPaul that bans US funding of gain-of-function research in China is passed by unanimous voice vote pic.twitter.com/8fQ6hAWpuW
— Forbes (@Forbes) May 25, 2021
Gain of function research is when you take viruses that infect humans and then modify the viruses so they will be even more transmissible for humans. Although Fauci denied the U.S. funding of gain of function in the House Committee, his emails reveal another story.
Fauci’s Emails Revealed He Knew About Gain of Function Research
BuzzFeed News, along with the Washington Post, obtained over 3,200 pages of messages from Dr. Fauci through the Freedom of Information Act. In one of the emails that were released, Fauci sent out an emergency email that had the attachment of a PDF explaining how the coronavirus can be transmissible to humans in a PFD that was dated from 2015.
The 2015 document was written by Dr. Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Lab of Virology. Fauci sent the document to the head of the NIH too; Fauci also seemed as if he was worried that the Wuhan Institute of Virology took the NIH’s funding to fund gain of function research.
Gain of Function Research on Coronaviruses Was Happening Right Here in the States
Gain of function research was being carried out in 2014 at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. The research was being led by virologist Ralph Baric; Baric was studying MERS and SARS before the Obama administration halted all gain of function research in the United States.
It’s reported that the lab at Chapel Hill still had interactions with the Wuhan Institute of Virology involving the topic of coronaviruses during the ban. The NIH lifted their ban against gain of function research in December 2017, but only to be banned again by President Trump in 2020
