You're ridiculous, jem, you didn't even read Fauci's Testimony that you quoted. I'll post it again for you here. Please read it. All of it. Do you think that if we don't fund and do this research that no one else will? TESTIMONY OF ANTHONY S. FAUCI, M.D.,\1\ DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Dr. Fauci. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Senator Collins. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the NIH mission of performing biomedical research for the purpose of preparing for and responding to naturally emerging and reemerging infectious diseases and the relationship of this type of research to biological security. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Fauci with attachments appear in the Appendix on page 34. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you mentioned in your statement, the issue at hand is the ongoing threat of the emergence of an H5N1 pandemic influenza and the research that was supported by the NIH to address this threat. The publication of the results of such research in the form of the two manuscripts that you mentioned has focused considerable public attention on the issue of dual- use research, namely research that is directed at providing new information critical to the public health, but at the same time has the potential for malevolent applications. My written testimony is submitted for the record, and in my few minutes of time, I will highlight just a few important aspects of this issue. First, the public health challenge. Seasonal influenza is an ongoing threat to public health worldwide and is among the leading global causes of death due to infectious diseases. Each year, influenza causes more than 200,000 hospitalizations and up to 49,000 deaths in the United States and up to a half-a- million deaths globally. Yet influenza has animal reservoirs, especially in birds, and these viruses can undergo extensive genetic changes and jump species, resulting in an influenza virus to which humans are highly vulnerable. Such an event can and historically has led to global disasters, such as the one you mentioned, the prime example being the 1918 global influenza pandemic that killed up to 100 million people worldwide and caused enormous social and economic disruption. There is a clear and present danger that we will have another influenza pandemic, since these viruses continue to circulate in the world and are constantly evolving toward pandemic capability, as we have seen in 1957, 1968, and 2009. Over the last decade, a highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza has emerged among chickens. Rarely, the virus spreads to humans. Since 2003, approximately 600 confirmed cases have occurred in humans in more than a dozen countries shown in red on this poster.\1\ Nearly 60 percent of those reported cases have resulted in death. Should the virus mutate to transmit more efficiently to and among people, a widespread influenza pandemic could ensue. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The poster referenced by Dr. Fauci appears in the Appendix on page 48. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Indeed, nature itself is the most dangerous bioterrorist, and even as we meet today, H5N1 and other influenza viruses are naturally mutating and changing with the potential of a catastrophic pandemic. This is not a theoretical danger. It is a real danger. For decades, NIH has supported basic influenza research included on transmissibility, host adaptation, and virulence. The goal is to anticipate what the virus is continually trying to do on its own in the wild and to prepare for it. Such goals were pursued by the NIH-funded scientists Kawaoka and Fouchier and could have important positive implications for pandemic influenza prediction, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Kawaoka and Fouchier constructed variants of H5N1 avian influenza in order to identify which genetic mutations might alter the transmissibility of the virus. In their studies, they employed a standard influenza animal model, namely the ferret. This poster shows the basic design of the experiments,\2\ in which the virus was modified to allow for aerosol transmission from one ferret to another. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \2\ The poster referenced by Dr. Fauci appears in the Appendix on page 50. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I might point out that one of the causes of the public misunderstanding was the widespread belief that the virus that was transmitted by aerosol from one ferret to another actually killed the ferrets when, in fact, that was not the case. We feel that these studies provide critical information and it was important to determine if H5N1 virus that has this enhanced transmissibility would remain sensitive to existing anti-influenza drugs and vaccines. In addition, and importantly, knowledge of the genetic mutations that facilitate transmission may be critical for global surveillance of emerging influenza viruses. Yet since transmissibility of a virulent virus was increased, this constitutes dual-use research of concern (DURC), which is shown on this poster.\1\ If a particular research experiment is identified as DURC, that designation does not necessarily mean that such research should not be published, nor should it even be prohibited in the first place. However, it does call for us, as you mentioned, to balance carefully the benefit of the research to the public health, the biosafety and biosecurity conditions under which the research is conducted, and the potential risk that the knowledge gained from such research might fall into the hands of those with ill intent. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The poster referenced by Dr. Fauci appears in the Appendix on page 51. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- In this regard, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity was asked to advise the U.S. Government on the publication of these manuscripts. You will hear in detail from Dr. Paul Keim, the Chair of that group, about the Board's deliberations. Importantly, the public attention and concern generated by this issue has triggered a voluntary moratorium or pause on this type of research on the part of the influenza research community as well as a fresh look at how the U.S. Government handles DURC, as manifested by a formalization of a government-wide policy to address the issue. This policy, which was released on March 29, strengthens and formalizes ongoing efforts in DURC oversight and is described in my written testimony. The ultimate goal of the NIH in its embrace of this new policy is to ensure that the conduct and communication of research in this area remain transparent and open at the same time as the risk-benefit ratio of such research clearly tips towards benefitting society. The public, which has a stake in the risks as well as in the benefits of such research, deserves a rational and transparent explanation of how these decisions are made. The upcoming dialogue related to this policy certainly will be informative and, hopefully, productive in its goal of benefiting the public with the fruits of such research while ameliorating the associated risks. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Dr. Fauci. That was an excellent introduction to the topic and I look forward to asking you some questions.
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WHY DID OBAMA ADMINISTRATION BAN THIS DUAL USE RESEARCH.... Piezoe...apparently you can not comprehend that it's dual use research...meaning that even though it could be useful for terrorist or bio weapons...they wish to study it anyway...that was 2012. Then the Obama administration banned it.
Anthony Fauci And Deborah Birx Warned Top Officials About The “Dangers” Of Scott Atlas Last Summer, Emails Show “I am more convinced than ever the dangers of Dr. Atlas’ views on the pandemic,” Birx wrote in an August 2020 email to Fauci and others. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/fauci-birx-emails-scott-atlas-covid It only took a few days for Scott Atlas to alarm top US health officials after he became a White House COVID-19 adviser in mid-August of last year. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx had already been sidelined and were struggling to combat falsehood after falsehood spread by former president Donald Trump. Yet the pair quickly realized that Atlas — a senior fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution who routinely downplayed the pandemic on Fox News — was about to make their fight against the virus even harder, according to emails obtained through a public records request and shared with BuzzFeed News. “I am more convinced than ever the dangers of Dr. Atlas’ views on the pandemic,” Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator at the time, wrote to Fauci and other top health officials in an Aug. 21, 2020, email — 11 days after Trump had announced that Atlas, a neuroradiologist, would be his newest adviser. She accused Atlas of “providing information not based on data or knowledge of pandemics — nor pandemic responses on the ground but by personal opinion formed by cherry picking data from nonpeer reviewed COVID publications.” “This is dangerous and a true threat to a comprehensive and critical response to this pandemic,” she added. “Dr Atlas views appeal to a subsection of American citizens and if allowed to gain traction will reverse months of incredibly hard won gains.” “I agree and share your concerns,” Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease scientist, responded on a thread that included former FDA head Stephen Hahn and former CDC chief Robert Redfield. He added, “He is a very clever guy and knows the literature (in his own way). It is in the interpretation of the literature that we differ.” The emails — obtained by Charles Seife, a New York University journalism professor — show how alarmed Fauci and Birx were about Atlas, who became one of Trump’s most influential advisers and one of the loudest sources of COVID-19 misinformation in the US. He infamously advocated for a controversial approach to the deadly virus: letting it spread unchecked among non-elderly people in the absence of a vaccine so that the population at large could develop immunity. Infectious disease experts at the time argued that this strategy would be incredibly dangerous, inevitably leading to large numbers of unnecessary hospitalizations and deaths. But the idea held sway with the president: Weeks after Atlas started on the job, Trump proclaimed on TV that the virus would “go away” once people developed “a herd mentality.” Fauci and Birx, meanwhile, were almost entirely shut out of the Oval Office, according to their correspondence at the time. “I don’t see the President so I don’t have a counter balance opportunity to this Atlas Dogma,” Birx wrote. “Tony and I did not brief the President nor speak to the President between 22 April and the end of July beyond one vaccine briefing in July.” Atlas joined the White House team with no background in infectious diseases or public health. He promoted a steady stream of unscientific views about how the virus spread, who it harmed, and how to control it — views that were widely condemned by the scientific community, including by dozens of his faculty peers at Stanford. In August, the US death toll was climbing past 170,000, and it was unclear when any of the vaccines under development would prove effective. In her emails at the time, Birx expressed frustration over Atlas’s unscientific stances. “He is convince[d] that we have reach[ed] herd immunity in the NE. Midwest and now the Sunbelt,” she wrote. Atlas has denied that he was pushing a “herd immunity” strategy to the virus, but he consistently championed the approach in public, even if he didn’t always use the exact term. And he repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of masks, social distancing, stay-at-home policies, and other public health measures to help slow the virus’ spread. Atlas and Fauci did not return requests for comment for this story. Birx declined to comment. In their correspondence, Fauci and Birx discussed Atlas’s repeated claims that the only people who needed to be isolated were the nation’s 1.3 million elderly nursing home residents. What his claims left out, they said, were that the 81 million people with underlying conditions also needed protection, and that if the virus was spreading at high levels, it would certainly find its way into nursing homes in those communities, too. Fauci noted that when he raised the risks faced by vulnerable people with underlying health conditions to Atlas, the Stanford physician was dismissive. He “passes over the obvious connection between letting the pandemic play out and the likelihood that we will be killing a lot of people (not just nursing home inhabitants) along the way,” Fauci wrote. At the time, with a new academic year approaching, there was a lot of uncertainty around how much the coronavirus could spread among children and in schools. Even before he joined the White House, Atlas was resolute in his calls to reopen schools because, he asserted, children “almost never” transmit the virus, despite studies at the time that strongly indicated that kids can carry, spread, and, in rare cases, die from COVID-19. Fauci and Birx were more cautious, wanting to first see the results of studies about transmission risk within schools before offering policy recommendations. “We are only now collecting data that children actually do get readily infected. We need to do the phylogenetic studies to show (or not) just where they get infected,” Fauci wrote. “However, we cannot assume right now that school is not a source of super spread. That is a dangerous and irrevocable assumption.” Fauci stressed that they needed to discuss this and other issues with Atlas in person: “As I mentioned to you over the phone, we need to sit down with him in a (hopefully) non-confrontative discussion [to] go over in detail the basis of his claims.” Whether that particular meeting ended up happening is unclear. But Atlas’s views of the pandemic would remain unchanged and reportedly continued to spark fierce disagreement among members of the coronavirus task force. Before he stepped down in November, he and Alex Azar, then the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, met with a group of scientists who authored the Great Barrington Declaration, a hotly contested petition that criticized lockdowns and promoted the idea that the virus should spread to increase the number of people who are immune. Fauci and Birx have since made it publicly known that they took deep issue with Atlas’s views. In a mid-November appearance on the Today show, Fauci said, “I don’t want to say anything against Dr. Atlas as a person, but I totally disagree with the stand he takes. I just do, period.” In a January interview after leaving the White House, Birx said that while she was providing data about the coronavirus to Trump, the president was receiving “a parallel set of data” from other sources, likely including Atlas. And in a new book, Andy Slavitt, a former COVID-19 adviser to President Joe Biden, wrote that Birx told him last year: “Fighting the virus and Scott Atlas together is the hardest thing I’ve had to do.”