 Dr. Fauci, we don't know whether the pandemic started in a lab in Wuhan or evolved naturally, but we should want to know. Three million people have died from this pandemic and that should cause us to explore all possibilities. Instead, government authorities, self-interested in continuing gain of function research, say there's nothing to see here. Gain of function research, as you know, is juicing up naturally occurring animal viruses to infect humans. To arrive at the truth, the U.S. government should admit that the Wuhan Virology Institute was experimenting to enhance the coronavirus's ability to infect humans. Juicing up superviruses is not new. Scientists in the U.S. have long known how to mutate animal viruses to infect humans. For years, Dr. Ralph Berick, a virologist in the U.S., has been collaborating with Dr. Xi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virology Institute, sharing his discoveries about how to create superviruses. This gain of function research has been funded by the NIH. The collaboration between the U.S. and the Wuhan Virology Institute continues. Drs. Berick and Xi worked together to insert bat virus spike protein into the backbone of the deadly SARS virus and then used this man-made supervirus to infect human airway cells. Think about that for a moment. The SARS virus had a 15% mortality. We're fighting a pandemic that has about a 1% mortality. Can you imagine if a SARS virus that's been juiced up and had viral proteins added to it to the spike protein if that were released accidentally? Dr. Fauci, do you still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan? Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Do they fund Dr. Berick? We do not fund gain of function research. Dr. Berick does not doing gain of function research, and if it is, it's according to the guidelines and it is being conducted in North Carolina. You don't think concerning a bat virus spike protein that he got from the Wuhan Institute into the SARS virus is gain of function? That is not. You would be in the minority because at least 200 scientists have signed a statement from the Cambridge Working Group saying that it is gain of function. Well it is not. And if you look at the grant and you look at the progress reports, it is not gain of function despite the fact that people tweet that. So do you still support sending money to the Wuhan Virology Institute? We do not send money now to the Wuhan Virology Institute. Do you support sending money? We did. Under your tutelage, we were sending it through EcoHealth. It was a sub-agency and a sub-grant. Do you support the money from NIH that was going to the Wuhan Institute? Let me explain to you why that was done. The SARS-CoV-1 originated in bats in China. It would have been irresponsible of us if we did not investigate the bat viruses and the serology to see who might have been infected. Or perhaps it would be impossible to send it to the Chinese government that we may not be able to trust with this knowledge and with this incredibly dangerous viruses. Government scientists like yourself who favor gain of function research that are not correct. Government defenders of gain of function, such as yourself, say that COVID-19 mutations were random and not designed by man. But interestingly, the technique that Dr. Barak developed forces mutations by serial passage through cell culture that the mutations appear to be natural. In fact, Dr. Barak named the no-seum technique because the mutations appear naturally. Nicholas Baker in the New York magazine said nobody would know if the virus had been fabricated in a laboratory or grown in nature. Government authorities in the U.S., including yourself, unequivocally deny that COVID-19 could have escaped a lab. But even Dr. Xi in Wuhan wasn't so sure. According to Nicholas Baker, Dr. Xi wondered, could this new virus have come from her own laboratory? She checked her records frantically and found no matches. That really took a load off my mind. She said, I had not slept for days. The director of the gain of function research in Wuhan couldn't sleep because she was terrified that it might be in her lab. Dr. Barak, an advocate of gain of function research, admits, the main problem that the Institute of Virology has is the outbreak occurred in close proximity. What are the odds? Dr. Barak responded, could you rule out a laboratory escape? The answer in this case is probably not. Will you in front of this group categorically say that the COVID-19 could not have occurred through serial passage in a laboratory? I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done, and I'm fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China. However, I will repeat again, the NIH and NIAID categorically has not funded gain of function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. If you support it in the U.S., we have 11 labs doing it, and you have allowed it here. We have a committee to do it, but the committee has granted every exemption. You're fooling with mother nature here. You're allowing superviruses to be created with a 15 percent mortality. It's very dangerous, and it was a huge mistake to share this with China, and it's a huge mistake to allow this to continue in the United States, and we should be very careful to investigate where this virus came from. I fully agree that you should investigate where the virus came from, but again, we have not funded gain of function research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology no matter how many times you say it did happen. There was research done with Dr. Shi and Dr. Barrick. They have collaborated on gain of function research where they enhanced the SARS virus to infect human airway cells, and they did it by merging a new spike protein on it. That is gain of function. That was joint research between the Wuhan Institute and Dr. Barrick. You can't deny it. Senator Paul, your time has expired. Dr. Fratsche, I will let you respond to that when we need to move on. Excuse me? I will allow you to respond to that, and then we'll move on. Yeah, I mean, I just wanted to say, I don't know how many times I can say it, Madam Chair, we did not fund gain of function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Thank you. Senator Schmidt.