Washington Post columnist says scientists are too afraid of Dr. Fauci's influence to freely criticize his research that may have been connected to the COVID-19 outbreak
A columnist for the Washington Post is taking the media to task for ignoring Dr. Anthony Fauci's ties to research that may have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic.
Josh Rogin appeared on Megyn Kelly's podcast Wednesday, where he countered the public love for Fauci since the start of the pandemic last year.
'I often talk to scientists who say the same thing, who say, "Listen, we really want to speak out about this, but we can't do it," Rogin said on the podcast.
'Why can't we do it? Well, we get all of our funding from NIH, or NIAID, which is run by Dr. Fauci.'
Josh Rogin said on a recent podcast that scientists can't speak up certain issues related to Dr. Anthony Fauci because of his position of power leading an organization that controls funding
Rogin said Dr. Anthony Fauci is the 'godfather' of gain-of-function research, which has sometimes been linked to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic
'So we can't say anything like 'Oh, gain-of-function research might be dangerous, or it might have come from a lab, because we're going to lose our careers, we're going to lose our funding, we're not going to be able to do the work.''
Gain-of-function research involves looking at enhancing the ability for the transmission of pathogens through artificial processes.
Newsweek reported last April that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting some of that research.
Their research was funded by a ten-year, $200 million international program named PREDICT. That program, in turn, was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, along with other countries.
Pictured: Anthony Fauci testifying during a hearing in Washington D.C. on Thursday
'The head of the funding, the head of the entire field, really, is Anthony Fauci,' Rogin continued. 'He's the godfather of gain-of-function research as we know it.'
'That, what I said right there, is too hot for TV, because people don't want to think about the fact that our hero of the pandemic…might also have been connected to this research, which might also have been connected to the outbreak.'
Rogin did not accuse Fauci - who spent his Thursday clashing with Congressman Jim Jordan - of doing anything illegal.
He did, however, note that he believed Fauci's research may have played a hand in the COVID-19 pandemic.
'People can't get it through their heads, but that's the reality,' Rogin said on The Megyn Kelly Show. 'We don't have a media environment where we can have that kind of discussion.'
Rogin has previously feuded with a reporter from The New York Times after the newspaper claimed the Wuhan lab origin theory was 'debunked.'
That came after ex-CDC chief Robert Redfield stated his belief that the COVID-19 pandemic began in a Wuhan lab.
The first cases of COVID-19 were identified in Wuhan, but a definitive cause of the pandemic has never been given by officials.
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, there have been 31,231,869 cases of COVID-19 in the United States, with 561,356 deaths.
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