Get ready, folks. Sen. Rand Paul and former COVID-19 kingpin Dr. Anthony Fauci are preparing to go toe-to-toe yet again for old time’s sake. The Thrilla in Manila it ain’t. But the inevitable nasty confrontation is liable to result in more fireworks than the 4th of July.
It’s Javert pursuing Jean Valjean all over again. Paul, R-Bowling Green has spent the past six years belittling and disparaging Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who emerged as the leader of the nation’s pitched battle against the COVID-19 pandemic in the early part of the decade.
Fauci received relatively glowing reviews for his conduct during that depressing time. Not from Paul, who, in that sneering fashion he has mastered over the years, sought to manhandle him for a boatload of sins, both real and perceived, from requiring folks to wear masks to fend off COVID contagion during the early stage.
The exchanges between the two at various Senate committee meetings, which generally devolved into accusations and shouting matches, attracted significant public attention. Now the two warhorses are ready to go at it again.
Paul, who has risen to chair the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has subpoenaed Fauci to appear before the panel sometime this month to answer questions about some of his actions during the pandemic. Paul took the unusual move after Fauci, at 85, rejected an invitation to voluntarily appear given his past confrontations with Paul which, and most would concur, did not result in a pleasant experience.
Paul is chomping at the bit to get another crack at Fauci, convinced he has the goods to establish that he is a modern Dr. Moreau who bears some responsibility for the spread of COVID-19, which resulted in the deaths of about 7 million worldwide earlier this decade, including 1.2 million in the United States.
Paul is confident that the origins of the pandemic, first reported in 2019, resulted from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, the primary lab involved in coronavirus research. Fauci, and a reported majority of experts, maintain the epidemic developed through a process called zoonotic transfer, that the virus jumped from an unknown species to humans, most likely at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, 10 miles from the Wuhan lab and across the Yangtze River.
The World Health Organization has determined that both claims are plausible and that a more conclusive finding lies with a Chinese government that has more solid information at its disposal. But Beijing, as you might expect, is not playing ball.
Paul is dismissive of the zoonotic transfer theory despite a historical record providing instances of virus transfers from animals to human. Such zoonotic transfers — meaning transmission of a virus from an animal to a human — occurred in 2003 and 2012 with the SARS and MERS coronaviruses, resulting in global outbreaks. It was reported that both viruses originated in horseshoe bats and ultimately transferred to humans through infected animals –- civets and raccoon dogs in the case of SARS and camels for MERS.
Those results carry little weight with Paul, who remains confident that a lab leak occurred at the Wuhan Institute. Appearing on Fox News (where else?) recently, Paul said an initial CIA intelligence assessment determined that the pandemic resulted from a lab leak but that Fauci ultimately convinced the agency to declare otherwise. Furthermore, virologists “that he (Fauci) handpicked’’ initially thought the virus in question had been manipulated. Yet Fauci “was able to convince them’’ zoonotic transfer was more likely.
“This was all misdirection,’’ Paul said. “This was a conspiracy. This was a cover-up and he has not really gotten his just deserts on this.’’
Or it could be Fauci was simply able to persuade most people to his view with the information at hand. In February 2024 the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute surveyed 168 virologists, infectious disease epidemiologists and other scientists from 47 countries and found that 77 percent embraced the spillover theory while 21 percent went with the lab leak. Scientific papers published in wake of the pandemic have cited epidemiological evidence that shows the plague probably began at the aforementioned seafood market.
While both theories remain plausible, and with vital information unavailable and in the hands of uncooperative Chinese officials, the preponderance of the evidence seems to tilt toward zoonotic transfers. For one thing no proof exists that the Wuhan lab even possessed SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, although it is confirmed that bat coronaviruses with the potential for initiating a pandemic were maintained and tested in Wuhan. The lab can’t leak what it doesn’t have. It’s not outside the realm of possibilities that it did maintain the virus – it’s a coronavirus research facility after all – but it can’t be confirmed as fact and the Chinese ain’t talking.
In a February article for the journal Nature, 23 of the 27 original members of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens for the World Health Organization wrote: “…we determined that most of the peer-reviewed scientific evidence supports the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 has a zoonotic origin, meaning that it came from an animal. But until requests for additional information are met or more data become available, there can be no certainty about when, where and how SARS-CoV-2 entered the human population.’’
Regardless, it’s not clear how Fauci might benefit from a cover-up, as Paul characterized it, by supporting the zoonotic transfer over a lab leak. Fauci, in fact, told one House committee, “I have repeatedly stated that I have a completely open mind to either possibility and that if definitive evidence becomes available to validate or refute either theory, I will readily accept it.’’
Sounds fair enough. But Paul is out for blood and he’s determined to pile on to the extent possible.
It could be – speculating here – that Paul believes Fauci supports zoonotic transfer as a diversion so people like him don’t look too closely at the funding provided to the Wuhan lab by the United States government and how that funding was used.
Paul appears determined to show that the COVID virus unleashed on the public was the result of deadly manipulation in the Wuhan lab through a process called gain- of-function, ultimately resulting in the development of SARS-CoV-2, leading to the pandemic.
The narrative could go something like this, with the understanding that I’m neither a virologist nor a scientist (I barely passed chemistry at Dunellen High School in New Jersey, where the elderly instructor, George Barstow, would greet my plethora of dubious answers by responding, “You’re right, Mr. Straub, it’s the rest of the world that’s wrong.’’). I wouldn’t know gain-of-function from a hole in the ground.
Let’s first note that the U.S. funding afforded the Wuhan lab is more modest than popularly thought – about $600,000 between 2014 and 2019. The stated purpose of the money was to help fund a six-year project to study the risk of any future emergence of coronaviruses from bats, an area of expertise Wuhan was thought to possess. The money came from two federal agencies – the National Institute of Health, controlled at the time by Fauci, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The funds were routed to Wuhan through the EcoHealth Alliance, a private organization.
The funds were specifically not supposed to fund gain-of-function, a type of research the U.S. government generally defined in 2014 as aiming to “increase the ability of infectious agents to cause disease by enhancing its pathogenicity or by increasing its transmissibility.”
The federal government had ordered a pause in gain-of-function research at the time of the initial Wuhan grant. The website LegalClarity explains the government ordered the pause in October 2014 after biosafety failures at federal labs raised alarms about the risks of manipulating dangerous pathogens.
Fauci insists the funding did not support gain-of-function at Wuhan. Paul maintains Fauci is lying and that he has the proof through documents related to the funding. He also stated during a Senate hearing that the Wuhan research was tied to “4 million people dying around the world.”
“When the money trail showed that taxpayer dollars had likely funded coronavirus gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Fauci stood before the Senate and told us in no uncertain terms that we were incorrect, even though information continues to point to a likely lab leak origin,’’ Paul said in a statement.
Paul’s job, ultimately, is to establish in everyone’s minds that the lab leak theory is all but proven, a high mountain to climb given the lack of information. Failing to do so would mean the argument about gain-of-function research is inconsequential as it regards the COVID-19 pandemic.
But if you’re a fan of vendettas, stay tuned. . .