Fauci Once Argued That Gain-of-Function Research Was Worth Risking a Pandemic

Person in green protective gear in lab with safety glasses and mask on

Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci argued in 2012 that the benefits of gain-of-function research were worth the risk of causing a pandemic through a lab accident.

In a paper for the American Society for Microbiology, unearthed by the Australian, Fauci wrote, “the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks.” He also wrote, “it is more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature.”

Gain-of-function research involves “juicing up” viruses to make them more infectious and deadly in humans.

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Commentary: Military, Science, and the Law Are Losing the Trust of Middle America

two individuals holding an American flag on a bridge to honor Sun Prairie’s fallen firefighter as the procession passed underneath.

Americans mostly have given up on familiar institutions for entertainment, guidance, or reassurance. What now do Hollywood, network news, the media in general, Silicon Valley, the NBA, NFL, MLB, or higher education all have in common? 

A propensity to lecture Americans on their moral inferiorities, a general ethical decline in their own disciplines, and a strange obsession to acquire great wealth while living in contrast to what they advocate for others. Add also incompetence. Movies are mostly bad now. The network news is blow-dried groupthink. There is no “paper of record” anywhere. Twitter and Facebook no longer even try to hide their politicized contortions of warped rules and twisted protocols. 

Professional athletes are now reminders of why no one ever wants to be “enlightened” by multimillionaire quarter-educated narcissists. The public a half-century ago lost faith in academia. It wasn’t just that most new bad ideas could be traced to the campus or that hothouse professors increasingly seemed both ignorant and arrogant, but rather their product—educating students—was defective. No one believes anymore a BA is synonymous with knowledge. More likely, it is a euphemism for incurring $100,000 in debt. 

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Fauci’s Agency Spent over $400k on Experiments Grafting Aborted Fetal Scalps onto Mice and Rats

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the federal health agency run for decades by celebrated White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, has spent over $400,000 funding a series of experiments that grafted the scalps of aborted fetuses onto living mice, studies that were meant to investigate the human skin’s propensity for developing infections.

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US Grant to Wuhan Lab to Enhance Bat-Based Coronaviruses Was Never Scrutinized by HHS Review Board, NIH Says

An oversight board created to scrutinize research that would enhance highly dangerous pathogens did not review a National Institutes of Health grant that funded a lab in Wuhan, China, to genetically modify bat-based coronaviruses.

Experts say the NIH grant describes scientists conducting gain-of-function research, a risky area of study that, in this case, made SARS-like viruses even more contagious. Federal funding for gain-of-function research was temporarily suspended in 2014 due to widespread scientific concerns it risked leaking supercharged viruses into the human population.

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GOP Rep. Greene Introduces Bill to Cut Fauci’s $400,000 Salary to Zero Until He Is Replaced

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Thursday said she is introducing a bill to strip Dr. Anthony Fauci of his government salary.

In a press release Greene posted on Twitter, the controversial Georgia Republican said her “Fire Fauci Act” would decrease “Dr. Always Wrong’s pay to $0 and the ‘We Will Not Comply Act’ will ‘prevent discrimination against the unvaccinated.’ “

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Michigan County Experimenting with Social Distancing Guidelines in Schools

After a damning New York Times report in which a Virginia Tech virologist said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) six-foot social distancing guidelines appeared to be pulled out of “thin air,” one Michigan county is experimenting with three feet of social distancing in schools.

“The Kent County Health Department is in the middle of a study that officials hope will reduce the social distance requirements in all pre-k through 8th grade classrooms,” a WZZM report said. “During the six-week pilot study, any student that has been within three feet of a COVID-positive student for 15 minutes or more — within 48 hours — must quarantine at home for 10 days. Before that, quarantine was triggered at a distance of six feet.”

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Fauci: Daily New Cases Should Be Below 10,000 Before U.S. Lifts Pandemic Restrictions

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that the U.S. should not relax restrictions that have been put in place to slow the spread of coronavirus until new infections are under 10,000 per day, a number that is about 85% lower than current case levels.

Fauci said that the case levels may have to be “considerably less” than 10,000 per day for him to support rolling back mask and social distancing mandates in place in many U.S. cities and states.

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Fauci: ‘Close the Bars and Keep the Schools Open’

Dr. Anthony Fauci said “close the bars and keep the schools open” during a Sunday interview on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.”

“Martha, that’s a good question. We get asked it all the time. We say it not being facetiously as a sound bite or anything, but you know, close the bars and keep the schools open is what we really say,” Fauci told ABC’s Martha Raddatz.

Fauci was specifically referring to how President-elect Joe Biden’s future administration can have a collective plan to reopen schools. Fauci also specifically referred to New York City schools closing in November.

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FDA Revokes Emergency Use of Malaria Drugs to Treat Coronavirus, Cites ‘Potential Risks’

U.S. regulators on Monday revoked emergency authorization for malaria drugs promoted by President Donald Trump for treating COVID-19 amid growing evidence they don’t work and could cause deadly side effects.

The Food and Drug Administration said the drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are unlikely to be effective in treating the coronavirus. Citing reports of heart complications, the FDA said the drugs’ unproven benefits “do not outweigh the known and potential risks.”

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Commentary: Wisdom In a Time of Botched Models, Bad Advice, and Deadly Illness

The virus will teach us many things, but one lesson has already been relearned by the American people: there are two, quite different, types of wisdom.

One, and the most renowned, is a specialization in education that results in titled degrees and presumed authority. That ensuing prestige, in turn, dictates the decisions of most politicians, the media, and public officials – who for the most part share the values and confidence of the credentialed elite.

The other wisdom is not, as commonly caricatured, know-nothingism. Indeed, Americans have always believed in self-improvement and the advantages of higher education, a trust that explained broad public 19th-century support for mandatory elementary and secondary schooling and, during the postwar era, the G.I. Bill.

But the other wisdom also puts a much higher premium on pragmatism and experience, values instilled by fighting nature daily and mixing it up with those who must master the physical world.

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Fauci Says US Could Potentially Have 200,000 Coronavirus Deaths but Cautions Projections Are A Moving Target And Could Easily Mislead People

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top expert on infectious diseases, predicted Sunday that the United States will end up with “millions” of cases of coronavirus and up to 200,000 deaths by the time the pandemic ends, though he cautioned that any projection of mortality statistics could “easily” end up being wrong.

“Looking at what we’re seeing now, I would say between 100,000-200,000 [deaths],” Fauci said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“We’re going to have millions of cases.”

As of Sunday, the United States has more than 125,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, and nearly 2,200 deaths. Fauci and other health officials expect those numbers to rise dramatically over the next few weeks as people infected with coronavirus begin showing symptoms and going into the hospital.

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Americans Could Face More Restrictions Due to Coronavirus

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning that more needs to be done to reduce personal interactions throughout the country.

“I would like to see a dramatic diminution of the personal interaction that we see in restaurants and in bars,” Fauci said. “Whatever it takes to do that, that’s what I’d like to see.”

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