Nearly five years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, political leaders continue to provide answers about the origin of the new coronavirus, hoping to save the next global public health crisis.
Twenty-one days after the World Health Organization first reported through Chinese officials several cases of pneumonia of unknown cause in the city of Wuhan, the first case of COVID-19 has been detected in the United States through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Prevention.
The virus would continue to claim about 7 million lives worldwide over the next three years, totaling 1. 2 million Americans, the most in any country.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), who led the House Special Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic’s investigation into the origins of the virus, said it is “incredibly disappointing” that we still don’t know for sure how SARS appeared. -CoV-2. be.
“The biggest sadness I take away from everything I’ve learned is the sadness of human behavior, and that can’t be eliminated by legislation,” Wenstrup told the Washington Examiner. “China covered up the situation. Our government covered up the situation. International scientists covered up their situation, some with the same motivations, others with other motivations. »
The subcommittee’s nearly 600-page final report, published in December, found on a bipartisan basis that the possibility that the virus emerged as a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, instead of at the seafood market as initially postulated in 2020, is not a conspiracy theory.
And although the subcommittee found evidence of U.S.-funded, possibly dangerous genetic manipulation of viruses at the Wuhan lab, it was unable to find incontrovertible proof that this experimentation sparked the pandemic.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) intends to pick up where Wenstrup left off, his new leadership position on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs to delve deeper into the nature of the experiments being conducted at the Wuhan lab.
Paul, who led the Senate investigations into the origins of the pandemic, proposed the Risky Research Review Act in June, which would create a status committee within the Department of Health and Human Services to review draft studies based on their spot. biosecurity before receiving federal funding.
Gain-of-function studies address the genetic manipulation of a pathogen by giving it new talents to cause other symptoms or make it more infectious to humans.
There was a brief federal ban on gain-of-function studies from 2014 to 2017, over fears that the practice would create a public fitness crisis. Although an oversight committee was established to review the protection protocols of US-funded gain-of-function projects, this committee did not typically review US-funded studies conducted in the Wuhan laboratory.
Paul’s bill advanced out of committee with bipartisan support in September, but Paul told the Washington Examiner that he anticipates most of the recommendations in the legislation will be taken up by President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration even if the bill does not pass.
“I’m literally excited about the other people the new president has appointed to the [National Institutes of Health], [the Food and Drug Administration and] the CDC,” Paul said. “A lot of things I care about, and to try to save them from another pandemic, a lot of those agencies will now be housed through other people who, in my opinion, are some of the most productive people available. ”
Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University and a longtime advocate for greater biosafety in studies of harmful pathogens, told the Washington Examiner that he believes there is still a wonderful public preference for continuing research into the origins of COVID-19 and fundamentally. Studies funded by the United States to save this type of crisis in the future.
“As soon as the data is released, conclusions are drawn from that data, and accountability begins, other Americans will have a huge appetite for disclosure, conclusions, and accountability,” Ebright said.
Ebright, who called through Paul as a witness to testify about pathogen studies before the Senate, predicts that Trump’s nominee for HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , will announce a suspension of pathogen studies obtained early in 2025.
Wenstrup said there is an absolute need to reconstruct what is true in public health, and especially in government officials.
“We can only move at the speed of accepting it as true,” Wenstrup said. “And that’s why I think accepting as true the desires to be developed, and that determines the timeline. “
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Paul hoped that Trump, Kennedy and other health care seekers would “get it right” when it came to restoring acceptance in science and government.
“I think we’ll find the truth, the honesty and the clinical integrity, it’s going to be a big deal and it’s the only way to get more people involved in some of the things that are smart for them and what the government talks about,” Paul said. “But to achieve this, the government will have to stop being a partner with big pharmaceutical corporations and start telling the truth. »