Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday called for the United States to stop funding gain-of-function research at biolabs around the world.
Gabbard made the comments during an interview with podcast host Megyn Kelly, as they discussed the likelihood that the United States directly funded the research that led to the creation of COVID-19 and the state of the ongoing probe into the lab leak that released the virus. It is now widely accepted by American officials that a lab leak stemming from gain-of-function research triggered the 2020 pandemic.
“The reason why this is so important is not just what has happened in the past, it’s because this gain-of-function is happening in biolabs around the world,” Gabbard said, pointing to her previous warnings about U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
“In order to prevent another COVID-like pandemic or another major health incident that could effect us in the world, we have to end this gain-of-function research and provide the evidence that shows exactly why and how it’s in our best interests, the American people’s best interest, to bring an end to it,” she added.
Gain-of-function research is a process in which scientists genetically alter an organism to study how it responds under specific conditions. It can involve increasing transmissibility, virulence, and other characteristics of a pathogen.
Gabbard did not specifically name which American-funded labs she said were performing gain-of-function research.
Gabbard told Kelly that she still had an intelligence team working with National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya and Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to investigate direct links between U.S.-funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, and the pandemic.
Kelly asked when the public could expect to find out the “exact experiment” that led to COVID. Gabbard replied that her team was working on it with Bhattacharya and would release the information “hopefully very soon.”
Based on the increasing consensus that the lab leak was the cause, Gabbard said she was not surprised that Dr. Anthony Fauci had been pardoned preemptively as President Joe Biden left office. “Is it any wonder that he sought a preemptive pardon for anything during a certain period of time by President Biden before he left office?” she said.
In May 2021, Fauci said that the NIH “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” However, later evidence from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic determined that the EcoHealth Alliance used NIH dollars to fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan. EcoHealth is currently under investigation by the Justice Department and has been barred from receiving any further federal grant dollars.
Gabbard said that much of the research her team has conducted can be found at COVID.gov, where the Trump administration has compiled a page explaining how the coronavirus is believed to have originated in a Chinese lab.
In addition to the COVID investigation, Gabbard said that her team was looking at other instances of the United States funding “dangerous” gain-of-function research that “in many examples has resulted in either a pandemic or some other major health crisis.”
