Fauci Pushed for ‘Gain-of-Function’ Research in 2012, Said It Was Worth the Risk of Pandemic

May 28, 2021

By Matt Margolis

Reprinted from PJ Media

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director and medical advisor to Joe Biden, defended controversial “gain-of-function” research in 2012, and said the research was worth the risk of a pandemic.

“In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?” Fauci wrote in an article in the American Society for Microbiology in October 2012—which was first reported by The Australian. “Scientists working in this field might say — as indeed I have said — that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks.”

Gain-of-function research involves extracting natural virus samples from animals and engineering them to infect humans for the development of therapeutics and vaccines.

This stunning revelation comes on the heels of researchers raising new questions about the origins of the COVID-19 virus. It also comes after Dr. Fauci’s recent admission that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sent $600,000 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for research into the transmissibility of bat coronaviruses to humans, and his concession that COVID-19 may not have been naturally occurring after insisting for over a year that it was. Earlier this week, Facebook made an unusual reversal of its policy banning posts suggesting that COVID-19 may have originated in a Chinese laboratory. A House GOP report also found that “significant circumstantial evidence raises serious concerns that the COVID-19 outbreak may have been a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” and that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s NIAID funded work there that “appeared to directly or indirectly involve controversial ‘gain of function’ research.”

Gain-of-function research is not only controversial, but two years after Fauci defended it, the U.S. government banned the practice on account of it being too dangerous. But it seems Fauci found a loophole and used NIH grant money to fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Fauci may be trusted by Joe Biden and many other Americans, but he may have been directly involved in funding the research that ultimate caused the COVID-19 pandemic.