By Mark Moore
Republican lawmakers are calling for Dr. Anthony Fauci to be fired, amid his litany of shifting opinions on the coronavirus, its origin and his stance on an investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Fauci is coming under fire from congressional Republicans who point to his admission that the NIH earmarked $600,000 for the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study the possibility that bat coronaviruses could be transmitted to humans.
He told members of a House Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday that the money was provided to the lab through the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance and funded a âmodest collaboration with very respectable Chinese scientists who were world experts on coronavirus.â
But Fauci emphatically denied that the money went toward so-called âgain of functionâ research, which he described as âtaking a virus that could infect humans and making it either more transmissible and/or pathogenic for humans.â
Fauci clashed with Sen. Rand Paul earlier this month when the Kentucky Republican pushed him on whether the federal agency he heads helped fund âgain of functionâ research at the Wuhan lab.
âSen. Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely, entirely and completely incorrect ⊠the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute,â Fauci said during the May 11 hearing on Capitol Hill.
Paul began to say: âGovernment scientists like yourself who favor gain function,ââ but Fauci interrupted, âI donât favor gain-of-function research in China.
You are saying things that are not correct,â Fauci said.
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) introduced the Fauci Incompetence Requires Early Dismissal Act around the same time, saying in a statement, âDr. Fauci represents everything that President Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell address: the scientific-technical elite steering the country toward their own ends.â
âUnder Dr. Fauciâs guidance, Americans have lost confidence in the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, leading to confusion and serious government overreach that has threatened Americansâ livelihoods and freedoms,â Davidson said in the statement.
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) said this month that he discovered that the Obama administration funneled $1.1 million to the Wuhan lab through the EcoHealth Alliance, also calling for the top scientistâs dismissal.
Reschenthaler also said heâs bothered by Fauciâs mixed messaging on mask-wearing and his dubious reports on pandemic safety precautions and believes the doctor should step down.
âHe has been wrong, intentionally deceptive, and inconsistent throughout this entire pandemic. A few examples of Fauciâs failures include: claiming there was very little risk to Americans in January of 2020, opposing President Trumpâs China travel ban then crediting it with saving lives, and wrongly predicting an explosion of cases in Texas after Gov. Abbott lifted the state mask mandates,â Reschenthaler told Fox News on Tuesday.
âIt is long past time for Dr. Fauci to stop talking to the American public. Fauci should resign or be fired immediately.â
On Monday, a CBS News reporter tweeted that Fauci told her that his belief about the natural origin of COVID hasnât changed but that he supports a conclusive investigation.
âHe believes that it is âhighly likelyâ that it first occurred naturally before spreading from animal to human. Since no one is 100% sure, heâs open to a thorough investigation,â Weijia Jiang wrote on her Twitter account.
Fauci, a top adviser to President Biden on the coronavirus, speaking at a Poynter event over the weekend, was asked if he was confident that the coronavirus developed naturally.
âNo, actually. I am not convinced about that. I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened,â Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the interviewer at âUnited Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking.â
âCertainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, thatâs the reason why I said Iâm perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus,â he continued.
This is a change of tune from May 2020, when Fauci dismissed the theory that the coronavirus was created in a Chinese lab.
âIf you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and whatâs out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated,â Fauci told National Geographic in an interview at the time.
He added that he doesnât believe âan alternate theory â that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped.â
âEverything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,â the doctor said.
Chinese state media is reacting to Fauciâs pivot, saying he is now responsible for ârumors and slanderâ against the Chinese Communist government.
âFauci attempted to hype the old and groundless narrative that the virus was leaked from a lab in Wuhan,â editor-in-chief Hu Xijian wrote in the Global Times on Tuesday.
âFauci says ambiguously, but he knows he is fanning a huge lie against China. Rumors and slander against China can be seen everywhere in the US media, and politicians lie about China without any bottom line,â Hu continued in the opinion piece.
The piece also noted the timing of Fauciâs comments and a report by the Wall Street Journal that three workers at the Wuhan lab were hospitalized in November 2019 with symptoms  âconsistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.â
The first reports of an outbreak of coronavirus came from Wuhan in December 2019.
âThis is a blatant lie, a conspiracy created by US intelligence agencies and the media outlet to slander China, and China has denied it. Is it a coincidence that Fauci repeated such lines?â Huâs piece said.