Political Posturing, Defending Fauci and Redfield Finally Uses His Voice, Yet Still No Additional Evidence to Support Either Hypothesis of SARS-CoV-2 Origins-Part 1
Congressional Committee Hearing Investigating the Origins of COVID-19 March 8, 2023; an Investigation Based on Facts and Professional Opinions
This was a three hour long hearing to allow the sixteen committee members to ask witnesses questions to gain insight into the origin of SARS-CoV-2. The following is a summary of key points from the hearing and important insights. Time stamp of key information is in parentheses. My comments are denoted by two asterisks (**) before each statement. Called to order at 15:50 on the streamed video.
Source: https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/investigating-the-origins-of-covid-19/
Republicans invited three witnesses: Dr. Robert R. Redfield, who served as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under President Donald J. Trump; Jamie Metzl, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council; and Nicholas Wade, who served as science editor for The New York Times in the 1990s and left the news organization at the end of 2011.
Also present was Paul G. Auwaerter, MD, MBA (Minority Witness) Clinical Director, Division of Infectious Diseases; Sherrilyn and Ken Fisher Professor of Medicine; Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Past President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Purpose of the First Congressional Origins of COVID Committee Hearing
Representative Dr. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, is the chairman of the Congressional Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and leads the panel’s hearing on the origins of the virus. Dr. Wenstrup made an opening statement to outline the goal of the hearing, to ask the fundamental question that this body has failed to ask three years ago, “where did COVID-19 come from?”
Wenstrup seems to have a bias towards the lab leak theory based on evidence collected to date and lists facts collected so far including the science behind COVID-19, known research occurring in China, and:
According to a State Department fact sheet, multiple researchers at the Wuhan Institute were sick with COVID-19 like symptoms in the fall of 2019 before the Chinese officially announced the outbreak.
He believes (26:15) discovering the origins of COVID is vital; stating that it matters for the future of the world.
Political Posturing by Ranking Member Ruiz
Ranking member Raul Ruiz was given an opportunity to make an opening statement (26:48) and used his five minutes of allotted time to make a personal attack on one of the witnesses, Mr. Nicholas Wade. He attacked (28:25) Wade for his book “A Troublesome Inheritance” as being racist. He claimed that white supremacist David Duke used this book to tout his racist agenda. Ruiz was trying to use this tie to the white supremacy movement to discredit Wade as a witness and claimed that Wade’s participation as a witness damages the credibility of the hearing.
He stated he wants to allow the gathering of evidence without politicization, partisan rhetoric or conspiratorial accusations. Ruiz asked that they conduct the hearing in a bipartisan way based on evidence and wants to put people over politics yet, he used his time to make a purely political statement about something that is completely unrelated to the purpose of the hearing.
Wenstrup reminded Ruiz and other committee members to stick to the topic at hand and not deviate from it.
Ruiz believes the facts so far suggest the evidence remains inconclusive for either hypothesis, lab leak or natural origin. He wants to introduce policies to prevent and reduce the harm of future viruses and pandemics.
“Proximal Origins” Letter Discrediting Lab Leak Theory
The focus of the hearing centers on a letter published in March 2020 in the Lancet “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” by four scientists who initially suspected the virus had come from a laboratory.
Three days after emailing Dr. Fauci, “we all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory,” these scientists took action to attempt to convince the world that they should not take the lab leak theory seriously. This article was prompted by Fauci to direct attention away from the lab leak origin theory discrediting it as a conspiracy theory.
Wenstrup Introduced the Witnesses and Swore Them In
Each of the four witnesses was allotted five minutes to make an opening statement. Opening statements can be read in full on the House Oversight website.
Dr. Metzl gave his opening statement (35:20)
Metzl would like the committee to make the hearings evidence-based, probing, and solutions-oriented as possible. Understanding what went wrong and how we can do better must be the ultimate bipartisan and nonpartisan issues.
He goes on to lay out six key points (37:00):
Approximately 20 million people, including over a million Americans, have died as a results of COVID-19, we owe every one of these victims and ourselves the fullest possible investigation as in to how this avoidable tragedy unfolded and our best efforts to ensuring that a catastrophe like this never happens again.
The question of pandemic origins remains open; there can be no doubt that a research related origin remains a very serious possibility if not a distinct probability.
A research-related origin remains a very serious possibility, if not a distinct probability. There is no smoking gun proving a laboratory origin hypothesis but the growing body of circumstantial evidence suggests at the very least a gun that is warm to the touch.
It is inconceivable that over three years after this deadly pandemic began no comprehensive and unfettered investigation into its origins has been carried out nor is one currently planned. This injustice is an insult to every victim of this crisis and a clear threat to future generations.
Every person on earth must demand accountability from China! (38:52)
Although scientific collaboration including with Chinese scientists remains critical to building a safer future, we cannot purchase these relationships by our silence. We must at least match the courage of brave Chinese citizens. There is no possible way to establish the principle of transparency and accountability tomorrow without fearlessly and unequivocally establishing that principle today.
Even if China continues to stonewall, there are critical steps we can and must take in the US and elsewhere to move this process forward including establishing a bipartisan US national COVID-19 commission to examine the origins issues and develop bold recommendations for next steps.
Upgrade the World Health Organization (40:23). He believes WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is an unsung hero of this process.
Mr. Nicholas Wade gave an opening statement (41:24)
Mr. Wade began by responding to Mr. Ruiz’s attempt to discredit his testimony by disparaging his book on the biology of race.
“My book was as welcome to them as pictures of the earth from space is to flat earthers. I have nothing be ashamed of about my book.”
Why are taking lab leak seriously only now instead of three years ago? (43:15)
He states that no telltale signs of natural origins have appeared in the environment over the last three years however, for lab leak, the evidence has been building.
He presented two of the three strongest pieces of evidence in favor of the lab leak.
The epidemic broke out in Wuhan, home of Wuhan Institutes of Virology where we know that scientists there were genetically manipulating coronaviruses under seriously inadequate safety conditions.
**He claimed that we know that viruses escape from labs all the time. I am not sure what evidence there is to make such a statement and it is troubling to hear as someone who has worked in and managed a high containment biosafety level 3 laboratory.
Lab leak possibility became much more concrete with the surfacing of a grant proposal by the Wuhan researchers and others. They applied in 2018 for a $14 million dollar pentagon grant from a project called Project DEFUSE. The proposal was declined but a year later the SARS-CoV-2 virus appeared on the scene.
Why should evolution produce at that very time and at that very place a virus of that exact type described (with regards to the furin cleavage site at the S1 and S2 junction in the spike protein) in the DEFUSE proposal?
He posited, “If evidence for lab leak is so strong, why do so many people still believe the virus came from nature?” The natural origin camp got their story out first, successfully painting the lab leak as a conspiracy theory.
The natural origin theory was promoted by science administrators in the US and England. Drs. Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci were most prominent leaders of NIH at the time and well known to the public and on capitol hill.
It’s hard to believe that in the twilight of their long careers they would seriously mishandle an issue as important as the origin of the COVID virus, yet that is what the evidence seems to point to (47:02).
Dr. Auwaerter gave an opening statement, Speaking on behalf of IDSA (48:28)
Auwaerter stated that there is no consensus on the viruses origins and we may never know the origin conclusively. He asserted, “Many virologists believe compelling evidence points to an animal origin. They conclude the coronavirus most likely jumped from a caged wild animal into people at the seafood market(49:38).”
**I believe this statement to be inaccurate as, I and other virologists I know, have always suspected the virus originated from the lab.
He spoke mainly to the public health infrastructure stating that a robust public health infrastructure and global coordination are essential for surveillance to identify, track and contain potential threats.
Greater transparency about science, decision-making and public health will help improve health literacy and rebuild trust in science and public health. If people are better prepared to understand science, they will be more comfortable deciding how to protect themselves and their loved ones best (50:46).
As we consider our preparedness infrastructure, the US should invest in an expert workforce to leverage preparedness tools to benefit all communities. Meaning recruiting and training. Significant shortages in public health professionals, laboratory scientists, researchers and infectious disease physicians persist. Federal investments are urgently needed to fill these gaps.
**I wholeheartedly agree. A major failing of public health throughout this response has been the failure to educate the public and give them information they need to empower themselves and make the best decision for themselves and their families. In addition, the public health workforce has been under-resourced even prior to the pandemic. With low pay it is difficult to get highly educated and trained staff to take these positions. And then public health professionals were sidelined, silenced, censored and fired during the pandemic. We are now left even more woefully unprepared for the next major public health threat.
Auwaerter believes that investments in our infectious diseases research capacity and significant improvements to biosafety are essential. He proposes that new BSL4 labs should be strategically placed throughout our nation (52:05). He goes on to say the federal government should support biosafety studies including why laboratory accidents happen, their frequency, and other data to create and update evidence-based mitigation measures.
**I would assert that there are already too many BSL4 labs in the US currently. His suggestion of a study to understand laboratory accidents and create mitigation measures should be completed before investing in any new laboratories. In my professional opinion, we need more training of researchers and stricter regulation of these facilities.
Dr. Redfield gave an opening statement (54:05)
Dr. Redfield has the most insight into the pandemic as an insider working as Director of the CDC at the time. His statements were the most damning. From the earliest days of the pandemic, his view was that both theories about the origin of COVID-19 needed to be aggressively and thoroughly examined. However, he believes that COVID-19 more likely was the result of an accidental lab leak than the result of a spillover event from nature (57:27).
Gain-of-function has long been controversial within the scientific community, and, in my opinion, the COVID-19 pandemic presents a case study on the potential dangers of such research (58:40). While many believe that gain-of-function research is critical to get ahead of viruses by developing vaccines, in this case, I believe it was the exact opposite, unleashing a new virus on the world without any means of stopping it and resulting in the deaths of millions of people. Because of this, it is my opinion that we should call for a moratorium on all gain-of-function research until we can have a broader debate and come to a consensus as a community about the value of gain-of-function research.
**I wholeheartedly agree that a moratorium on gain-of-function is again necessary. All work with these viruses should have ceased and funding for such projects should have been frozen in 2020 when the pandemic began until such time as a thorough investigation could be completed and necessary safeguards can be implemented for this type of research.
Key Bits of Information Gleaned Thus Far
There is not much that was revealed thus far in this hearing that I didn’t already know. One key piece of information that was mentioned that I was not aware of was the revelation that not only did Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) have poor biosafety measures but, scientists were conducting gain-of-function research with SARS-like viruses at only biosafety level 2 (BSL-2; 22:25) standards. While I have always believed without a doubt that SARS-CoV-2 came from the laboratory, this bit of information cemented the lab leak theory for me. These types of viruses as well as, any work on gain-on-function must be performed at a minimum of biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) standards.
BSL-3 is used to study infectious agents or toxins that may be transmitted through the air and cause potentially lethal infections through inhalation and/or pose a serious threat to the environment. At this level, laboratory staff must possess a certain set of skills and training for handling potentially dangerous material. BSL-3 laboratories must have separate exits with self-closing doors for entry to and exiting from the facility. Aerosols forming during standard lab procedures like pipetting, mixing, and centrifuging pose the greatest potential risk for infection. To minimize the risk of infection from bioaerosols, all open manipulations of biological material must be done under a biosafety cabinet (preferably Class II or Class III) or in a closed containment system, and special protective clothing must be worn. Moreover, an air-ventilation system providing negative air flow is required that does not recirculate exhaust.
Conducting research at a lower biosafety level is a clear explanation for how scientists became ill in the fall of 2019 with the SARS-like illness as well as the accidental release of the agent from the laboratory.