Dr. Anthony Fauci, the physician-scientist who was appointed as one of the people to lead the government’s COVID-19 pandemic response, was called to testify at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on July 29 examining the origins of the virus, U.S. funding of coronavirus research in Wuhan, China, and gain-of-function research.
Gain-of-function research refers to experiments that intentionally alter an organism or pathogen to give it new or enhanced biological properties.
Dr. Fauci served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1984 to 2022 and as President Biden’s chief medical advisor from 2021 to 2022.
According to multiple sources, including Worldometers.info, approximately 1.2 million Americans died from the virus during the pandemic. Dr. Fauci was pressed for answers during the hearings.
Republican senators, led by Committee Chair Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), grilled Dr. Fauci on his research in Wuhan and his response to COVID-19. They accused him of funding research that they alleged may have led to a laboratory origin of COVID-19, improperly handling federal records and resources and concealing information about vaccine-related adverse effects.
Dr. Fauci refused to answer all questions posed by the Senate during the nearly three-hour hearing, stating that on the advice of his attorneys, he was exercising his constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment, which protects people against self-incrimination.
Senate Republicans criticized his refusal to testify. Senate Democrats argued that the hearing was a political exercise, stating that Dr. Fauci had already testified before Congress numerous times. One of Dr. Fauci’s attorneys attempted to intervene during questions, leading Sen. Paul to order security to remove the attorney from the room.
Sen. Paul also announced plans for the committee to consider holding Dr. Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions.
Questions asked during the hearing directed to Dr. Fauci pertained to: gain-of-function research; Dr. Fauci’s private communications and federal recordkeeping; why NIH-funded research involved the Wuhan Institute of Virology; laboratory safety oversight and NIH oversight of Chinese laboratories; vaccine safety and suppression of alternative COVID-19 treatments.
Regarding vaccine-related injuries and adverse effects, the senators brought up more than 1.6 million submitted reports from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (published weekly on page 8 of The Final Call), including more than 39,000 reports involving deaths. They also referenced individuals who reported suffering serious injuries after receiving COVID-19 vaccines.
In his July 4, 2020, message, titled “The Criterion,” the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, warned Black people not to take the vaccine. Regardless of the physical origins of COVID-19, he described the virus as a “pestilence from heaven.”
“Don’t take the vaccines. There are 14 therapies that are in the world today that we can use to fight against the COVID virus. America, you won’t solve it. The scientists of the world, you won’t solve it,” he said. “I want to tell you what will solve it. This virus is a pestilence from heaven so scholarship from hell can’t deal with a pestilence that came from heaven.”
—Anisah Muhammad, Staff Writer
