[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                 INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF COVID-19

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS 
                                 PANDEMIC

                                 OF THE

               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             MARCH 8, 2023

                               __________

                            Serial No. 118-4

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
  
  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABITY IN TIFF FORMAT]


                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                             
               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Ro Khanna, California
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Cori Bush, Missouri
Byron Donalds, Florida               Shontel Brown, Ohio
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota        Jimmy Gomez, California
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina      Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Becca Balint, Vermont
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Greg Casar, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Dan Goldman, New York
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina        Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nick Langworthy, New York
Eric Burlison, Missouri

                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
             Mitchell Benzine, Subcommittee Staff Director
                        Marie Policastro, Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                Miles Lichtman, Minority Staff Director

            Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Pandemic

                     Brad Wenstrup, Ohio, Chairman
Nicole Malliotakis, New York         Raul Ruiz, California, Ranking 
Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa           Minority Member
Debbie Lesko, Arizona                Debbie Dingell, Michigan
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
John Joyce, Pennsylvania             Deborah Ross, North Carolina
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Robert Garcia, California
Ronny Jackson, Texas                 Ami Bera, California
Rich Mccormick, Georgia              Jill Tokuda, Hawaii
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on March 8, 2023....................................     1

                               Witnesses

Dr. Jamie Metzl, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, The Atlantic Council
Oral Statement...................................................     6

Nicholas Wade, Former Science and Health Editor, The New York 
  Times; Former Editor, Science; and Former Editor, Nature
Oral Statement...................................................     8

Paul G. Auwaerter, MD, MBA, Clinical Director, Division of 
  Infectious Diseases; Sherrilyn and Ken Fisher Professor of 
  Medicine; Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; Past President, 
  Infectious Diseases
Oral Statement...................................................    10

Dr. Robert Redfield, M.D., Former Director, U.S. Centers for 
  Disease Control and Prevention
Oral Statement...................................................    12


 Opening statements and the prepared statements for the witnesses 
  are available in the U.S. House of Representatives Repository 
  at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

David Duke Statement and article, ``Jews, Race, and Nicholas 
  Wade: How Jewish Supremacism Attempts to Guard the Gates of 
  Science''; submitted by Rep. Mfume.

Article, The New York Times, ``Charging Into the Minefield of 
  Genes and Racial Difference''; submitted by Rep. Mfume.

Article, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), ``Troublesome 
  Sources: Nicholas Wade's Embrace of Scientific Racism''; 
  submitted by Rep. Mfume.

Letter to the Editor, The New York Times, ``Letters: A 
  Troublesome Inheritance''; submitted by Rep. Tokuda.

Testimony of Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Chair of the Lancet COVID-
  19 Commission; submitted by Chairman Wenstrup.

The documents listed above are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
                 INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF COVID-19

                              ----------                              


                        Wednesday, March 8, 2023

                   House of Representatives
          Committee on Oversight and Accountability
            Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:03 a.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brad R. Wenstrup 
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Wenstrup, Malliotakis, Miller-
Meeks, Lesko, Cloud, Joyce, Greene of Georgia, Jackson of 
Texas, McCormick, Ruiz, Dingell, Mfume, Ross, Robert Garcia, 
Bera, and Tokuda.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Good morning, everyone. The Select 
Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic will come to order. I 
want to welcome everyone who's here today, as well as our 
witnesses. Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at 
any time. Pursuant to rule 7(d) of the Committee on Oversight 
and Accountability, and at the discretion of Chairman Comer, 
Mr. Jordan, a member of the full committee, may participate in 
today's hearing for the purposes of questions. I now recognize 
myself for the purpose of making an opening statement.
    Welcome to our first of many hearings concerning the 
coronavirus pandemic. We are tasked to review all the effects 
of the pandemic, as well as decisions made during the pandemic, 
not just the origins of COVID-19. However, we are here today at 
our first hearing to ask the fundamental question that this 
body has failed to ask three years ago: Where did COVID-19 come 
from? Did it come from a natural spillover, transferred from a 
bat to an intermediate source to human? In other words, did it 
come from nature? Or was it the result of a laboratory or 
research-related accident? In other words, did it come from a 
lab?
    This question is fundamental to helping us predict and 
prevent future pandemics, protecting our health and national 
security, and preparing the United States for the future. This 
question is not one that should be dismissed out of hand. It 
cannot be taken lightly. It must be investigated thoroughly, 
responsibly, and honestly, an investigation based on facts, 
expert opinions, and without intentional or unintentional bias.
    That is what the Select Subcommittee is tasked to do; 
follow the facts, conduct a fair investigation, and seek to 
deliver the truth to the American people. Ultimately, we will 
strive to produce a product that will serve future generations, 
enhancing our capabilities and operating procedures when we are 
faced with the threat of another pandemic. That is what is 
deserved. That is what Americans should expect from their 
government, and this is one more way we can provide for our 
defense.
    The work has already begun. Thus far, the Select 
Subcommittee has sent letters of inquiry to the Department of 
Health and Human Services, the White House, and Dr. Francis 
Collins of the National Institute of Health, the Office of the 
Director of National Intelligence, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the 
former Director of National Institutes of Allergy and 
Infectious Diseases and Chief Medical Advisor to the President; 
EcoHealth Alliance, recipient of NIH funding grants to perform 
coronavirus research, the Department of Energy, Department of 
State, and the FBI, concerning their intelligence and 
investigations surrounding the evolution of COVID-19 and any 
forensic findings they may have discovered.
    Over the weekend, we released a memo highlighting new 
evidence that suggests that Dr. Fauci prompted the drafting of 
a publication that would disprove the lab leak theory, that the 
author skewed evidence to achieve that goal, and that the 
current chief scientist of the World Health Organization was an 
uncredited coauthor even though he appears to have contributed 
to the piece entitled, ``Proximal Origins.''
    I think we've already established that the Select 
Subcommittee will try to leave no stone unturned to try to find 
the truth. Unfortunately, the question of the origins has been 
politicized. That's no secret. It has driven most people to 
their corners rather than driving apolitical scientific debate 
or discussion. Some say the virus came from nature that, 
according to recent papers discussed in New York Times, the 
science is dispositive.
    Some say it's too unique, too primed for human 
transmission, that there's too much circumstantial evidence 
that points to COVID-19 coming from a lab. As well, in three 
years, there's been no track found to prove that COVID-19 
evolved naturally from an animal or a mammal or a tick to 
become highly infectious to humans. The truth is we don't know 
the origins of COVID-19 yet for sure. We don't have a smoking 
gun.
    First, the science behind COVID-19: the genome of COVID-19 
is inconsistent with expectations, and is unique for its group 
of viruses. COVID-19 has both a binding domain optimized for 
human cells, and a furin cleavage site, or a small part of the 
virus that makes it so infectious. That has never been seen 
before in a SARS-related virus. In other words, COVID-19 has 
unique characteristics that made it very infectious to humans. 
These have never been seen before in any other viruses of its 
type.
    Most viral outbreaks are slow and small. CDC data shows 
SARS infected approximately 8,000 people worldwide, and eight 
in the U.S. Similar with MERS, which infected approximately 
2,000 people worldwide. But COVID-19 was primed for human 
transmission. It has infected more than 750 million people 
worldwide. Dr. Redfield, one of our witnesses here today and a 
virologist, has even said that he believes COVID-19 had a 
detour from nature to be educated how to infect humans.
    Second, the known research occurring in China: We know the 
Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting gain-of-function 
research on novel bat coronaviruses by creating chimeric 
viruses, combining two viruses together to test infectivity and 
infecting mice with these viruses, work that former COVID-19 
task force coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx confirmed was, in 
fact, gain-of-function, contrary to statements by Dr. Fauci. We 
have learned that the Wuhan Institute has poor biosafety and 
was conducting this research at only Biosafety Level 2, 
described as the ``Wild West'' by Dr. Jeremy Farrar, a 
virologist from the U.K., now Chief Scientist for the WHO.
    We have learned through a leaked DARPA grant application 
that with U.S. taxpayer backing, the Wuhan Institute proposed 
inserting furin cleavage sites into novel coronaviruses, the 
same unique genetic aspect of COVID-19. And we know, according 
to a State Department fact sheet, the multiple researchers at 
the Wuhan Institute were sick with COVID-19-like symptoms in 
the fall of 2019, before the Chinese officially announced the 
outbreak.
    Third, concerning the actions of NIH and EcoHealth 
Alliance, records show that the National Institutes of Health 
while the U.S. was under a moratorium on gain-of-function 
research, exempted EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute 
from this very ban. Records show that the National Institutes 
of Health allowed EcoHealth to conduct risky research on novel 
coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute without going through the 
potential pandemic pathogen department level review board. 
Records show that EcoHealth violated Federal grant policy, and 
failed to file its five-year progress report for more than two 
years.
    Records show that EcoHealth violated the terms of its grant 
and failed to report an experiment that resulted in gain-of-
function of a coronavirus at the Wuhan Institute.
    Fourth, for some reason that we do not yet know, leaders in 
the scientific community took action to attempt to convince the 
world that they should not take the lab leak theory seriously. 
Dr. Francis Collins stated he was more concerned with harm to 
``international harmony'' than he was with investigating the 
lab leak. Dr. Fauci said the lab leak theory was a ``shiny 
object that will go away in time.''
    The president of EcoHealth, Dr. Peter Daszak orchestrated a 
letter in The Lancet that called the lab leak a ``conspiracy 
theory,'' a statement that directly benefited Dr. Daszak 
himself. And four scientists, after a conference call with Dr. 
Fauci, completely reversed their position. Dr. Kristian 
Andersen said he found ``the genome inconsistent with 
evolutionary theory.'' And Dr. Robert Garry said he ``really 
can't think of a possible natural scenario.'' But a few days 
later, published a paper saying the exact opposite, a paper 
based on the new emails we released claim to be prompted by Dr. 
Fauci himself.
    Fifth, the intelligence: FBI Director, Christopher Wray, 
confirmed publicly that the FBI assessed COVID-19 most likely 
originated from a lab incident in Wuhan. The Wall Street 
Journal reported the Department of Energy now also believes a 
lab leak is the most likely origin. These aren't run-of-the-
mill agencies. The FBI used experts in biological threats and 
is reportedly supported by the National Bioforensic Analysis 
Center and the Department of Energy used its own Z Division, 
experts in investigating biological threats. These are some of 
the facts as we know them, but there's so much more to do. We 
are here today to try and understand what and why.
    It's important to conduct this investigation. Discovering 
the origins is vital. It matters for the future of the world, 
and we aren't finished. We're just beginning. There will be 
more hearings and more inquiries and more documents discovered, 
and we will follow every lead. I look forward to hearing from 
our expert witnesses today, and I thank them for joining us 
today. Thank you.
    I would now like to recognize Ranking Member Ruiz for the 
purpose of making an opening statement.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Today, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic 
convenes for its first hearing to discuss the origins of the 
COVID-19 pandemic, an issue of vital importance to our Nation's 
public health. Since the first outbreak of COVID-19, 
researchers in the scientific community have worked tirelessly 
to evaluate the virus and advance our understanding of its 
origins. Dozens of studies have been conducted, or are 
currently underway, to evaluate this question. And under 
President Biden's direction and leadership, the intelligence 
community initiated a sweeping assessment to get to the bottom 
of the virus' origins.
    The facts are the evidence remains inconclusive. Therefore, 
we must allow our scientists and intelligence communities to 
gather evidence without politicization, extreme partisan 
rhetoric, or conspiratorial accusations that vilify our 
Nation's public health experts.
    Instead, we should focus on developing policies that 
prevent and reduce the harm of future viruses and pandemics. As 
Ranking Member of this select subcommittee, it is my sincere 
hope that we can conduct this work in an objective, bipartisan 
way, based on evidence to save lives.
    However, today's hearing marks a concerning step down the 
path of letting extremism get in the way of an inquiry that 
should be led by science and facts. When House Republicans 
announced this hearing with their slate of handpicked 
witnesses, I was alarmed to see someone who wrote a book 
applauded by white supremacists. Mr. Nicholas Wade's 2014 book, 
``A Troublesome Inheritance,'' suggests that different racial 
and ethnic groups have evolved to possess genetic variations 
and traits and behaviors tied to whether they prosper or not.
    For example, Mr. Wade speculates that certain populations 
have evolved to develop greater innate intelligence. He writes 
that quote, ``Intelligence can be more highly rewarded in 
modern societies because it is in far greater demand,'' end 
quote, and conversely, he claims that certain populations have 
been slower to experience an evolutionary change he has 
described as quote, ``the transformation of a population's 
social traits from the violent, short-term, impulsive behavior 
typical of many hunter, gatherer, and Tribal societies into, 
quote, `the more disciplined future oriented behavior observed 
in other populations.'"
    The notion that people of different racial or ethnic groups 
are more successful or intellectually superior to another 
because of predisposed genetic makeup is grossly inconsistent 
with the consensus of scientific and medical scholarship. That 
is why I sent a letter to my Republican colleagues this morning 
strongly urging them to disinvite Mr. Wade as a witness so as 
not to give legitimacy to a man of such discredited, 
unscientific, and harmful views.
    These views are dangerous and have no place in a hearing 
examining the origins of a pandemic that has disproportionally 
and overwhelmingly harmed communities of color in the United 
States. I'm concerned that Mr. Wade and his views have been 
elevated by his participation on today's panel, giving him a 
platform reaching millions of Americans. His participation 
hurts the credibility of this hearing. Answering the question 
of how the novel coronavirus came to be one that should be 
driven by the need for thoughtful policy solutions. Whether the 
novel coronavirus emerged naturally or as a result of a lab 
leak does not change this.
    And as our expert communities work to advance our 
understanding of the virus' origins, Congress should be focused 
on developing commonsense solutions to put people over politics 
and protect our Nation from the threat of a future public 
health crisis.
    There is still time for this select subcommittee to change 
course, to reject extreme partisan rhetoric, discard 
conspiratorial accusations and work constructively to save 
lives. The American people deserve nothing less.
    I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I thank the Ranking Member.
    I would like to remind the Ranking Member, and all those 
here, that the Ranking Member was informed of our witnesses 
seven days ago yet objected this morning. Now, I understand 
that they had some problems getting their witness because of 
COVID, but we just received who their witness was today. Also, 
I'd like to point out that Mr. Wade is here as he was the 
editor of Nature Magazine and Science Magazine. Nature Magazine 
is the magazine--not while he was there, but is the magazine 
that produced and printed ``Proximal Origins.''
    We will proceed, and I expect that our witnesses will 
proceed in sticking to the topic at hand today as opposed to 
trying to deviate from it.
    Mr. Wade. Mr. Chairman, may I respond?
    Dr. Wenstrup. You'll have a chance. You'll have your 
opening statement.
    Our witnesses today are Dr. Jamie Metzl. Dr. Metzl served 
on the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, 
the State Department under Secretary Madeline Albright, and as 
Deputy Staff Director for Senator Joe Biden on the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee. He's currently a senior fellow at 
the Atlantic Council. Mr. Nicholas Wade. Mr. Wade has worked in 
field of health and science journalism for more than 40 years. 
He worked for Nature Magazine, Science Magazine, and was then 
the science editor for The New York Times. He is now a 
freelance journalist and author writing extensively about 
COVID-19.
    Dr. Paul Auwaerter--did I say that correctly, sir?
    Dr. Auwaerter. You did.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Dr. Auwaerter was the President of the 
Infectious Diseases Society of America, the largest 
professional society worldwide related to infectious diseases. 
He is currently a Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins 
University School of Medicine, serving as the Clinical Director 
for the Division of Infectious Diseases.
    Dr. Robert Redfield. Dr. Redfield spent more than 45 years 
in medicine and is a virologist by training. He served as Chief 
of the Department of Retroviral Research at the Walter Reed 
Army Institute of Research, co-founded the Institute of Human 
Virology at the University of Maryland, and was the Director of 
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2018 
to 2021, serving during the pandemic itself.
    Pursuant to Committee on Oversight and Accountability rule 
9(g), the witnesses will please stand and raise their right 
hands.
    Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you 
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help you God?
    Thank you. Please be seated. Let the record show that the 
witnesses all answered in the affirmative.
    The Select Subcommittee certainly appreciates you all for 
being here today, and we do look forward to your testimonies. 
Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written 
statements, and they will appear in full in the hearing record. 
Please limit your oral statements to five minutes.
    As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in 
front of you so that is on and Members can hear you. When you 
begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn green. 
After four minutes, the light will turn yellow. When the red 
light comes on, your five minutes has expired, and we would ask 
that you please wrap up.
    I now recognize Dr. Metzl to give an opening statement.

                  STATEMENT OF DR. JAMIE METZL, PH.D.

                  SENIOR FELLOW, THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL

    Mr. Metzl. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Ruiz, and 
members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, 
it is my great honor to join you today. We are primarily here 
because the Chinese government has done everything in its power 
to prevent the type of investigation into the origins of the 
COVID-19 pandemic that is three years overdue and still 
urgently required. We are also here because there is more that 
we in the United States can and must do to push forward, even 
if China continues to stonewall. This includes establishing a 
bipartisan U.S. national COVID-19 commission.
    I have waited more than three years for these hearings to 
be held. Getting to this point has required a great deal of 
effort by a small but tireless, self-motivated, and highly 
capable community of experts from around the world who have 
refused to be bullied into silence. Because so many of us have 
worked so hard for so many years against such ferociously 
strong headwinds to help lay the groundwork for these hearings, 
I join you today with a deep and sincere request that your 
committee honor our work by making these hearings as evidence-
based, probing, and solutions-oriented as possible.
    Understanding what went wrong and determining how we can do 
better must be the ultimate bipartisan and nonpartisan issue. I 
happen to be a Democrat, which is irrelevant to our work 
together. Since the start of the pandemic, I have been in close 
contact with officials in the Trump and then the Biden 
administrations and have worked with Members of Congress of 
both parties on the pandemic origins issue. Although my views 
are laid out more fully in my written testimony, I'd like to 
quickly highlight my key points.
    First, and most importantly, approximately 20 million 
people, including over 1 million Americans, have died as a 
result of COVID-19. These are our parents, partners, children, 
relatives, colleagues, and friends. We owe every one of these 
victims and ourselves the fullest possible investigation into 
how this avoidable tragedy unfolded and our best efforts 
ensuring that a catastrophe like this never happens again.
    Second, while the question of pandemic origins remains 
open, there can be no doubt that a research-related origin 
remains a very serious possibility, if not a distinct 
probability. There is no smoking gun proving a laboratory 
origin hypothesis, but the growing body of circumstantial 
evidence suggests a gun that is at very least warm to the 
touch. Those feeling otherwise also deserve to have their 
perspectives and research carefully considered. We should all 
be open to evolving our views as new evidence emerges. Everyone 
working in good faith to follow the evidence wherever it leads 
is on the same side. Those working to prevent this type of 
investigation are not.
    Third, it is inconceivable that over three years after this 
deadly pandemic began, no comprehensive and unfettered 
investigation into pandemic origins has been carried out, nor 
is one currently planned. This injustice is an insult to every 
victim of this crisis, and a clear threat to future 
generations. The primary reason there has been no comprehensive 
investigation into COVID-19 origins is the reprehensible 
actions of the Chinese government.
    Since the early days of the pandemic, China's government 
has destroyed samples, hidden records, imprisoned brave Chinese 
journalists, gagged Chinese scientists, actively spread 
misinformation, and done pretty much everything possible to 
prevent the kind of unfettered, evidence-based investigation 
that is so urgently required. Every person on Earth must demand 
accountability from China. Calling for a full investigation of 
pandemic origins in China does not at all mean we shouldn't 
carefully examine our own behavior and that of our friends and 
allies. In fact, we must.
    Fourth, although scientific collaboration, including with 
Chinese scientists remains critical to building a safer future, 
we cannot purchase these relationships by our silence. We must 
at least match the courage of brave Chinese citizens, like 
Zhang Zhan who is rotting away in a Chinese prison for asking 
the same questions many foreigners seem somehow afraid to ask. 
There is no possible way to establish the principle of 
transparency and accountability tomorrow without fearlessly and 
unequivocally establishing that principle today.
    Fifth, even if China continues to stonewall, there are 
critical steps we can and must take in the United States and 
elsewhere to move this process forward. This includes 
establishing a bipartisan U.S. national COVID-19 commission to 
examine the origins issue, as well as other failings and 
shortcomings on the national and international levels and 
develop bold recommendations for next steps.
    Sixth, because the pandemic has taught us, at least I hope, 
that in our increasingly interconnected world, we are all only 
as safe as the most vulnerable among us, making us more secure 
here in America requires we do everything possible to help 
build a safer world, including by helping upgrade the World 
Health Organization. Although some people have criticized the 
WHO for how it has dealt with the origins issue, it is my view 
as outlined in my written testimony that WHO Chief Doctor 
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been, in many ways, an unsung 
hero of this process.
    Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Ruiz, and members of the 
subcommittee, our world is entering a new era of globalization, 
where risks are increasing across the board, including the risk 
of pandemics far deadlier than COVID-19. If we do not get to 
the bottom of what went wrong with the COVID-19 pandemic, if we 
fail in our efforts to fearlessly understand all shortcomings 
and shore up the vulnerabilities this crisis has so clearly 
exposed, the victims of the next pandemic, our children and 
grandchildren, will ask us why we failed to protect them when 
we knew what was at stake and had the chance.
    Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Wade to give 
an opening statement.

                       STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS WADE

                    FORMER SCIENCE AND HEALTH EDITOR

                           THE NEW YORK TIMES

    Mr. Wade. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Although it's a gigantic distraction from the work of your 
committee, I think I should briefly try to respond to the 
attempt by Ranking Member Ruiz to discredit my testimony by 
saying a number of untrue things about the book I wrote 10 
years ago on the biology of race. This was a determinately non-
racist book. It has no scientific errors that I am aware of. It 
has no racist statements, and it stresses the theme of unity 
that we are all variations on the same human genome. My book 
was vigorously attacked by obscure academics who want everyone 
else to believe that there is no biological basis to race. And 
my book was as welcomed to them as pictures of the earth from 
space are to flat-earthers.
    I have nothing to be ashamed of in my book. It's the only 
place you can now read about what the genome says about human 
races, and I hope Mr. Ruiz, if he reads it, will be pleasantly 
surprised to find it says none of the things he says it said.
    With apologies for that digression, Mr. Chairman, I would 
like to thank you for inviting me to discuss the origin of the 
COVID virus and hope you will allow me a few extra minutes. I 
am a science writer, and I worked on two leading research 
journals, Nature and Science, and then for 30 years on The New 
York Times, where I was an editorial writer and a science 
editor. This background has given me some knowledge of how the 
scientific community works.
    I'd like to touch on two issues of interest to the 
committee: Where did the SARS-2 virus come from, and why are we 
taking the lab-leak idea seriously only now, instead of three 
years ago? When the epidemic first broke out in December 2019, 
natural origin and lab leak were two equally reasonable 
explanations. But if the virus had emerged naturally, it should 
have left many telltale signs in the environment. None has yet 
appeared, despite the Chinese government's keen interest in 
finding them.
    As each month passes without such evidence, the natural 
origins idea has grown steadily weaker, it seems to me. For lab 
leak on the other hand, the evidence has been building. Here 
are two of the three strongest pieces of evidence in favor of 
lab leak. First, the epidemic broke out not in some random 
Chinese city, but right in Wuhan, home of the Wuhan Institute 
of Virology. We know that scientists there were genetically 
engineering coronaviruses under seriously inadequate safety 
conditions, and we know that viruses escape from labs all the 
time. Clearly, lab leak has to be a strong possibility.
    Second, that possibility became much more concrete with the 
recent surfacing of a grand proposal by the Wuhan researchers 
and others. They applied, in 2018, for a $14 million grant from 
a Pentagon program called Project DEFUSE. The essential 
ingredient of SARS-2, as the Chairman has said, one which makes 
the virus so infected is a small genetic element called a furin 
cleavage site. Wuhan researchers said in their grant proposal 
that they would insert this very element into a group of 
coronaviruses. And not only that, they will place the element 
at a very specific point on the virus' genome called the S1/S2 
junction.
    Now, the DOD turned the proposal down. It was too risky 
even for them, but the researchers may have done much of the 
basic work already or could have find other ways to finance it. 
A year later, the SARS-2 virus appears on the scene, and guess 
what? It possesses a furin cleavage site, the only known member 
of its large family of viruses to do so. And the cleavage site 
is positioned right at the S1/S2 junction. Why should evolution 
produce, at that very time and at that very place, a virus of 
the exact type described in the DEFUSE proposal? It's surely 
much easier to believe that the Wuhan researchers did exactly 
what they proposed and generated the SARS-2 virus in their lab.
    But if the evidence for lab leak is so strong, why do so 
many people still believe the virus came from nature? The 
reason is that the natural origin camp got its story out first, 
always a big help. It very successfully painted lab leak as a 
conspiracy theory before anyone in the public proposed it. The 
national media swallowed the natural origin story unskeptically 
and once committed to it, failed to report important contrary 
evidence such as the DEFUSE Grant. Science journalists in 
particular, it seems to me, fell down on their job by failing 
to check out the virologists' self-serving claims.
    The natural origin theory did not prevail by accident. It 
was promoted by science administrators in the United States and 
England, including Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci of the 
National Institutes of Health. The NIH is a national treasure 
and Collins and Fauci's most prominent leaders at the time are 
well-known to the public and on Capitol Hill. It's hard to 
believe that in the twilight of their long careers, they would 
seriously mishandle an issue as important as the origin of the 
COVID virus. Yet, that is what the evidence seems point to.
    The campaign to discredit lab leak began on the evening of 
January 31, 2020, when Fauci received an email from four 
virologists led by Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research; they 
had all concluded that SARS-2, because of its furin cleavage 
site, could not been made in nature. Fauci was probably not too 
pleased to hear that the virus might have escaped from research 
that his agency had funded.
    A strange thing happened to the virologists' conclusion. 
Within four days, Andersen, in an email of February 4, 
repudiated, deriding lab leak as a crackpot theory. What made 
him change his mind? No new scientific evidence about the virus 
came to light between January 31 and February 4, but from that 
180-degree reversal, a whole campaign was able to be developed, 
including highly influential articles placed in Nature Medicine 
and the Lancet.
    I have some ideas about how this and other research should 
regulated, which I described in my written testimony. I'll stop 
there.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
    I now recognize Dr. Auwaerter to give an opening statement.

              STATEMENT OF DR. PAUL G. AUWAERTER, MD, MBA

                 (MINORITY WITNESS), CLINICAL DIRECTOR

                    DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES

             SHERRILYN AND KEN FISHER PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE

            JOHNS HOPKINS SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, PAST PRESIDENT

                 INFECTIOUS DISEASES SOCIETY OF AMERICA

    Dr. Auwaerter. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Ruiz, and 
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the 
opportunity to testify. Though I'm from the Johns Hopkins 
University School of Medicine, I speak on behalf of the 
Infectious Diseases Society of America, and my statements do 
not represent Johns Hopkins.
    Over 1 million Americans have died from COVID losses that 
magnify the tremendous suffering among countless families in 
our country. As a physician caring for patients with COVID for 
over three years, we need to deepen our understanding of the 
virus' origins and apply experience from the pandemic to 
improve our preparedness, prevent disease, and save lives.
    Investigations must be objective and driven by appropriate, 
scientific, and intelligence experts who present unbiased 
findings. Investigations are ongoing. There's no consensus yet 
about the virus' origins. The Department of Energy, with low 
confidence, determined the virus escaped from a laboratory in 
China based on classified information unavailable to the 
public. The FBI reached its conclusion with moderate 
confidence.
    On the other hand, many virologists believe compelling 
evidence points to an animal origin. They conclude that 
coronavirus most likely jumped from a caged wild animal into 
people at a seafood market. We may never know the origin 
conclusively. Making claims that cannot be supported 
sufficiently by available data only fuels confusion and 
mistrust. Regardless, we can learn valuable lessons from these 
investigations to prevent outbreaks and pandemics of any 
origin.
    A robust public health infrastructure and global 
coordination are essential for surveillance to identify, track, 
and contain potential threats. Pathogens respect no borders. We 
must collaborate internationally to foster an unsuspicious 
atmosphere where global information, sharing about infectious 
diseases is transparent, complete, and rapid.
    Twenty years ago, the SARS outbreak provides an instructive 
example of what can be achieved through multi-countries, 
scientific, and public health collaboration. Within six months, 
these collective efforts were successful in staunching the 
virus, and it has not reappeared. Greater transparency about 
science, decisionmaking, and public health will help improve 
health literacy and rebuild trust in science and public health, 
including understanding why recommendations evolve as knowledge 
grows.
    If people are better prepared to understand science, they 
will be more comfortable deciding how to protect themselves and 
their loved ones best. The U.S. should invest in an expert work 
force to leverage preparedness tools to benefit all 
communities, meaning recruiting and training. Significant 
shortages of public health professionals, laboratory 
scientists, researchers, and infectious disease physicians 
persist. Federal investments are urgently needed to fill these 
gaps. Basic translational and clinical research are crucial for 
our pandemic preparedness.
    For example, rapidly deploying tests for a new pathogen 
will enable quicker scaling of testing capacity when new 
threats emerge. Investments should also focus on developing 
therapeutics for anticipated pathogens, including viruses and 
bacteria, including multidrug resistant ones. Sufficient 
infectious diseases research capacity improvements to biosafety 
are essential. Access to BSL-4 facilities assists in bio-
security research. Therefore, a new BSL-4 lab should be 
strategically placed throughout our Nation.
    The Federal Government should support biosafety studies, 
including why laboratory accidents happen, their frequency, and 
other data needed to create and update evidence-based 
mitigation measures. Enhanced potential pandemic pathogens, 
ePPP research, a type of gain-of-function research has received 
renewed attention. Such efforts can help understand possible 
human pathogen interactions, assess the likelihood of emerging 
pandemics, and inform preparedness efforts, including 
surveillance and medical countermeasure developments.
    While such research is inherently risky requiring strict 
oversight, there are risks if we don't undertake this type of 
research, leaving us unprepared. Unbiased bodies with 
appropriate scientific expertise should perform this oversight. 
Last year, the U.S. Government charged the National Science 
Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) with reviewing policies 
regarding ePPP research and dual-use research of concern 
(DURC). In January, the NSABB released recommendations to 
strengthen the oversight of ePPP and DURC research in the U.S. 
and abroad, remove blanket exclusions, expand research types 
considered ePPP, strengthen guidelines, and increase 
transparency in the research review process.
    These guidances can facilitate achievements with improved, 
appropriate guardrails. I am grateful for your attention and 
for inviting me. The Infectious Diseases of Society also thanks 
you for your leadership and stands ready to partner with you to 
learn from the pandemic and to improve our readiness.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
    I now recognize Dr. Redfield to give an opening statement.

                 STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, M.D.

                            FORMER DIRECTOR

            U.S. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

    Dr. Redfield. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Ruiz, and 
members of the committee, I'm pleased to testify today in 
support of this subcommittee's important work to investigate 
the origin of COVID-19 that has resulted in the deaths of over 
1 million Americans. From 2018 to 2021, I served as the 18th 
Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
during the Trump Administration. As CDC Director, I oversaw the 
Agency's response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the earliest 
days of its spread, and I also served as a member of the White 
House Coronavirus Task Force.
    But perhaps more relevant for the purpose of this hearing, 
my 45 years in medicine have been focused on the study of 
viruses. I'm a virologist by training and by practice. Prior to 
my time at CDC, I spent more than 20 years as a U.S. Army 
physician and medical researcher at the Walter Reed Army 
Institute of Research where I served as the Chief of the 
Department of Retroviral Research, and I worked in virology, 
immunology, clinical research, at the forefront of AIDS 
epidemic, and other threats.
    In 1996, I cofounded the Institute of Human Virology at the 
University of Maryland in partnership with the state of 
Maryland, the city of Baltimore, and the University System of 
Maryland, where I served as the director of clinical research 
and care. And I also served as a tenured professor of medicine, 
microbiology, and immunology, chief of infectious disease and 
vice chair of medicine at the University. After my time at CDC, 
I served as the senior public health advisor to Governor Hogan 
in the state of Maryland.
    As COVID-19 began to spread across the world, there were 
two competing hypotheses about the origin of this virus that 
needed to be vigorously explored. The first hypothesis is the 
possibility that COVID-19 infections in humans were the result 
of a spillover event from nature. This is a situation in which 
the virus naturally mutates and becomes more transmissible from 
one species to another, in this case from bats to humans via an 
intermediate species. This is what happened in previous 
outbreaks of SARS and MERS and earlier coronaviruses that 
emerged from bats and spread through an intermediate animal.
    The second hypothesis is the possibility that the virus 
evolved in a laboratory involved in gain-of-function research. 
This is a type of research in which scientists seek to increase 
the transmissability or pathogenicity of an organism in order 
to better understand that organism and inform preparedness 
efforts and the development of countermeasures such as 
therapeutics and vaccines.
    Under this theory, COVID infected the general population 
after it was accidentally leaked from a lab in China. From the 
earliest days of the pandemic, my view of both theories about 
the origin needed to be aggressively and thoroughly examined. 
Based on my initial analysis of the data, I came to believe, 
and I still believe today, that it indicates that COVID-19 more 
likely was the result of an accidental lab leak than a result 
of the natural spillover event.
    This conclusion is based primarily on the biology of the 
virus itself, including the rapid high infectivity for human-
to-human transmission, which would then predict the rapid 
evolution of new variants as well as a number other important 
factors, which also include the unusual actions in and around 
Wuhan in the fall of 2019, all of which I'm happy to discuss 
today.
    Even given the information that surfaced in the three years 
since the COVID-19 pandemic began, some have contended that 
there's really no point in investigating the origin of this 
virus. I strongly disagree. There is a global need to know what 
we are dealing with in COVID virus because its effects how we 
approach the problem to try to prevent the next pandemic. The 
understanding of the origin of COVID is critical to future 
science research, particularly as it affects ongoing ethical 
debate around gain-of-function research.
    Gain-of-function research has long been controversial 
within the scientific community, and in my own opinion, COVID-
19 pandemic presents a case study on the potential dangers of 
such research. While many believe that gain-of-function 
research is critical to get ahead of viruses by developing 
vaccines, in this case, I believe it was the exact opposite; 
unleashing a new virus to the world without any means of 
stopping it and resulted in the deaths of millions of people.
    Because of this, it's my opinion that we should call for a 
moratorium on gain-of-function research until we have a broader 
debate, and we come to a consensus as a community about the 
value of gain-of-function research. This debate should not be 
limited to the scientific community. If the decision is to 
continue with gain-of-function research, then it must be 
determined how and where to conduct that research in a safe and 
responsible and effective way.
    I thank you for inviting me here today as we explore this 
important topic. I look forward to answering your questions. 
Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I thank you all.
    I now recognize myself for questions. I have said since we 
started this that the goal of this committee would be to come 
away with some capabilities or at least standard operating 
procedures in an effort to be able to predict the next 
pandemic, prepare for the next pandemic, protect ourselves from 
the next pandemic, and hopefully prevent the next pandemic.
    But first, I want to ask each of the witnesses, yes or no: 
Does the origin of COVID-19 matter to protect the globe from 
future pandemics? We'll go down the line. Dr. Metzl?
    Mr. Metzl. One-hundred percent, absolutely and completely 
yes.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Mr. Wade?
    Mr. Wade. Yes.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Dr. Auwaerter?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Yes.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Dr. Redfield?
    Dr. Redfield. Yes.
    Dr. Wenstrup. So, we're all on the same page there.
    Dr. Metzl, I have a question for you. You know we've heard 
the testimony, and we know, scientifically fact, that we have 
found in the past with these types of viruses, coronaviruses in 
particular, SARS, MERS, we found an intermediary.
    My question is: Do you feel that we, as a scientific 
community around the world, have robust capabilities to do that 
type of investigation to find an intermediary? Do we have the 
assets we need for that?
    Mr. Metzl. Technically, we do, and we know that the Chinese 
government has actually been very aggressive in trying to find 
that kind of intermediary host animal. They've sequenced about 
100,000 animals. They haven't found anything in SARS and MERS 
as you mentioned. Those intermediary hosts were found 
relatively quickly. And so, given that the Chinese government 
has every incentive to find an intermediate host, I think it's 
very significant that that hasn't been found, but we have that 
capability, and everybody has a reason to want to find it, 
particularly the Chinese government. I think it's very telling 
that after three years, we still haven't found it.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Dr. Auwaerter, I ask you the same question 
about those capabilities.
    Dr. Auwaerter. I would agree that we have the technical 
capabilities. What I would say, though, is with coronaviruses, 
they are highly mutable, which have--certainly we've seen over 
these past three years as the virus has evolved. Regarding 
finding intermediaries, there are examples, with the Ebola 
virus, where we have not yet found a clear intermediary despite 
looking very hard. No one thinks that came about from a lab 
accident decades ago.
    So, I think it's still an open question. I think everything 
does need to be explored, and there's always opposing points of 
view here that need to be weighed, and not all hypotheses are 
weighed equally.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I think it's interesting you talked about 
them being highly mutable. I assume they can be mutable in a 
lab.
    Dr. Redfield, are you an advocate for a moratorium on gain-
of-function research, particularly research on potential 
pandemic pathogens, and why?
    Dr. Redfield. Yes, I am. I think that, again, the people 
that are advocates for gain-of-function research do believe 
that by doing this research, they somehow get ahead of the 
curve. I'm of the point of view that we don't need to make 
pathogens more transmissible or more pathogenic in order to get 
ahead of the curve. We can begin to deal with those pathogens 
as they evolve. I don't think this should be a decision made by 
scientists alone. This is a societal decision. There should be 
a broad debate about whether this research is really necessary. 
And if so, we should decide how to do it safely and 
responsibly.
    I remind people that when I was CDC director, one of the 
most difficult things I had to do as a 20-something year Army 
vet was shut down Fort Detrick. It wasn't very popular. These 
people were my friends. I knew them. Our inspections showed 
that they were cutting corners in their biosecurity 
requirements and I felt that we weren't going to take that 
chance with the Frederick community and beyond. So, I shut the 
lab down for four to six months until they corrected their 
biosecurity.
    I think this is much more complicated than people think and 
if we are to go down that path, I would argue there are a few 
labs in the world that should be, with multiple redundancy, in 
containment to do this. But I'm not convinced it's to an 
advantage and this is why in The Wall Street Journal op-ed I 
did, I strongly recommended that we have a moratorium on gain-
of-function research, similar to what we had in the Obama 
Administration.
    Dr. Wenstrup. In one sentence, can you provide a definition 
of gain-of-function research? I say that because there becomes 
a little semantics sometimes I believe within the scientific 
community of what is a chimera and what is gain-of-function?
    Dr. Redfield. Yes. I think it's to take a pathogen, and try 
to increase one of two things or both, to increase its 
transmissability or its pathogenicity. I disagree with some of 
my colleagues at NIH to say the definition's restricted to a 
pathogen that's already a pathogen. If I make a nonpathogen 
pathogenic, that's gain-of-function.
    Dr. Wenstrup. So, in your expert opinion, was the Wuhan 
Institute conducting gain-of-function research on the 
coronavirus?
    Dr. Redfield. Absolutely.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. So, one other path of questioning 
for you, Dr. Redfield. Proponents of this research claim it may 
result in vaccines or maybe even stop a pandemic. Dr. Redfield, 
has gain-of-function created any lifesaving vaccines or 
therapeutics to your knowledge?
    Dr. Redfield. Not to my knowledge.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Has gain-of-function stopped a pandemic in 
your opinion?
    Dr. Redfield. No. On the contrary, I think it probably 
caused the great pandemic our world has seen.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Do you find any tangible benefits to gain-of-
function research at this time?
    Dr. Redfield. I personally don't. But I do want to stress, 
I think the men and women that support it are people of good 
faith, because they truly believe it's going to lead to a 
potential benefit. I disagree with that assessment.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
    I now recognize the Ranking Member, Dr. Ruiz, from 
California for his questions.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Select Subcommittee's first hearing should provide an 
opportunity for our Members to carry out credible, responsible 
oversight to prevent and prepare for future pandemics. Instead, 
House Republicans invited a writer whose extreme and dangerous 
views have been echoed by white supremacists to testify on the 
issue of the novel coronavirus' origins.
    In May 2014, David Duke, former grand wizard of the Ku Klux 
Klan, hosted a radio show praising Mr. Wade and his book, ``A 
Troublesome Inheritance.''
    Mr. Wade, are you aware of David Duke's praise of your 
views on his website?
    Mr. Wade. When my book first came out, Mr. Ruiz, I think 
the extreme right wing thought it would help their cause, but 
they very soon dropped referring to it because when they 
actually read it, as many people who talk about my book have 
not, they found that the book----
    Dr. Ruiz. David Duke did read your book. In fact, he had a 
whole radio talk show about it and described it in detail. And 
he did endorse your views. On a post, davidduke.com promoting 
his radio show, he states, quote, ``Hear Dr. David Duke speak 
on the former science editor for The New York Times who has now 
essentially embraced the scientific racial truth that Dr. Duke 
wrote extensively about in My Awakening, and has written about 
for more than 35 years.''
    You see, Mr. Wade's book deploys dangerous tropes and 
stereotypes about minority communities under the guise of 
science. His assertions define the overwhelming consensus of 
scientists and researchers, including those in the fields of 
population genetics and evolutionary biology.
    Dr. Redfield, as a former CDC director, do these views 
trouble you?
    Dr. Redfield. I'm sorry. I was distracted. I'm sorry. I was 
distracted.
    Dr. Ruiz. Would the views that I mentioned and David Duke's 
endorsements of Mr. Wade's book trouble you?
    Dr. Redfield. I'm not a fan of David Duke at all. I do 
think that Nicholas Wade--and I have followed his work over 30 
years--is an outstanding science reporter, and has contributed 
substantially, both in Nature, Science and, of course, leading 
The New York Times.
    Dr. Ruiz. You know, there are 140 faculty members and 
experts who strongly disagree with you. In fact, more than 140 
faculty members and experts jointly condemned Mr. Wade's book 
in a joint letter to The New York Times Book Review stating, 
quote, ``We reject Wade's implication that our findings 
substantiate his guess work. They do not. We are in full 
agreement that there is no support from the field of population 
genetics for Wade's conjectures.''
    Mr. Chairman, I'd like to enter this letter into the 
record.
    Dr. Redfield. My only comment----
    Dr. Ruiz. So, I'm sorry, Dr. Redfield.
    So, the point is inviting someone with discredited and 
dangerous views like Mr. Wade to testify on the origins of this 
pandemic, which has disproportionately harmed communities of 
color, is not responsible and credible oversight. Instead, it 
undermines the credibility of this select subcommittee.
    Now, let me turn to you, Dr. Auwaerter.
    You are a practicing physician, a professor of medicine, 
and the former president of the Infectious Disease Society of 
America, representing more than 12,000 physicians, scientists, 
and public health experts who specialize in infectious diseases 
like COVID-19. For the sake of putting people over politics, 
what credible steps can be taken to advance our understanding 
of the novel coronavirus' origins in order to prevent future 
pandemics?
    Dr. Auwaerter. I think building trust amongst scientists 
and public health communities is essential, because pathogens 
can emerge from where we least expect it. We need to have the 
tools available to rapidly analyze and then develop tests. I 
had dealt with patients very early in the pandemic where we 
were making educated guesses whether they had COVID-19. We need 
to have tests that can be widely dispersed quickly and 
treatments.
    Dr. Ruiz. Dr. Auwaerter, is it possible that we will never 
have the concrete evidence to determine with certainty the 
origins of COVID, whether it was a lab leak or animal 
transmission?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, I think that's entirely possible. And 
therefore, we need to focus more on also be forward-looking as 
well as looking back.
    Dr. Ruiz. So, having said that, and being forward-looking, 
would it be responsible to start coming up with solutions to 
deal with whether it was a lab leak or animal transmission? For 
example, is there an international body that promotes safety 
guidelines and has the authority to have inspections and 
incentivizes foreign nation labs to have transparency so that 
we can be assured that labs are safe in foreign country, 
especially in not-so-friendly foreign countries?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Yes. And I think as already been hinted, 
that, I think, is essential for general protection.
    Dr. Ruiz. In my research, I couldn't find one. Do you know 
of any such body that exists?
    Dr. Auwaerter. No, but I'm saying that's absolutely 
necessary.
    Dr. Ruiz. And what can we do, if it was an animal 
transmission, looking forward, to save lives? What can we do to 
better our ability to prevent that--I know it's difficult--
identify it early, and contain it in other countries before it 
spreads? What can we do?
    Dr. Auwaerter. You know, there were efforts a few years ago 
to build surveillance labs under prior administrations in an 
effort to anticipate and work with other countries.
    Dr. Ruiz. And what happened to those labs?
    Dr. Auwaerter. I believe they were dropped or discontinued 
due to lack of funding.
    Dr. Ruiz. OK. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. And I thank the Ranking Member for 
transitioning to questions germane to the hearing today.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. McCormick from Georgia 
for five minutes of questions.
    Dr. McCormick. Dr. Auwaerter, you said in your testimony 
that investigations into the origins of COVID-19 should be 
objective and driven by appropriate scientific and intelligence 
experts who present unbiased findings that are not politicized. 
According to evidence and previously released emails on 
February 8, 2020, Dr. Andersen who authored ``Proximal 
Origins'' stated, ``Our main work over the last couple of weeks 
has been focused on trying to disprove any type of lab 
theory.''
    Would you consider this statement objective and unbiased?
    Dr. Auwaerter. I really don't have enough of a frame of 
reference to really make a comment on a single statement.
    Dr. McCormick. All right. Let's switch then. You cited a 
couple papers last summer in Science that talked about the 
evidence of natural origin. These papers claim to show 
dispositive evidence against lab leak.
    Now, I went to medical school. I'm an ER doc. I served lots 
of patients during this pandemic until just recently and I know 
how viruses work. They are specific to species for the most 
part, correct?
    Dr. Auwaerter. They often are, but not always. There are 
some that are--coronaviruses are probably one of the most 
widely dispersed amongst the animal kingdom.
    Dr. McCormick. OK. And if we use the origins of a species 
that was in the wild and came to human contact and gave us the 
virus in question, wouldn't that virus still exist in that 
species in the wild?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, I think that it would be likely the 
case.
    Dr. McCormick. Right. Chances are--that's a good answer. 
Thank you.
    Dr. Auwaerter. Right.
    Dr. McCormick. So, how many species is in the wild have we 
captured that still have this coronavirus in them? Because that 
would be a very easy thing to do given its wide dissemination 
in human population and its proximity to Chinese wildlife. How 
many wild animals have been captured with this coronavirus 
present in them currently?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, the answer is no. But on the other 
hand----
    Dr. McCormick. Thank you. That's OK. I appreciate it. So, 
basically, I'm talking about from a scientific standpoint, we 
understand as a virologist and as a student of virology, a good 
professor taught me just like yourself, who just said that the 
evidence is that diseases just don't go away in populations 
that are contained in the wild. And yet, we've extensively 
tried to capture--the Chinese government would benefit greatly 
from showing us that this exists in the wild and came to human 
population. Yet, not one evidence of a certain species, whether 
it be dog or bat, has ever been shown to have this virus, that 
somehow or another transferred to human.
    Yet, that is our main evidence and theory to disprove that, 
albeit, the Wuhan lab that actually stated what they were going 
to do and then had the same problem occur, that's a less likely 
chance in your mind. Is that correct?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, I think the hypotheses remain very 
open at the moment.
    Dr. McCormick. So, which one do you think is more 
scientifically based, based on what we just discussed?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, I'm not privy to intelligence 
community information.
    Dr. McCormick. So, you don't have an opinion?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, I think it is more likely at the 
moment just based on my reading of a zoonotic, that is an 
animal based----
    Dr. McCormick. So, based on the fact----
    Dr. Auwaerter. But we need to attend to both.
    Dr. McCormick. So, you intend to favor the hypothesis even 
though it has no proof whatsoever that it actually exists in 
the animal genome, that you're going to favor that over the 
fact that a Wuhan lab that said they wanted to do this and then 
had an outbreak about the same time, that that's less likely. 
Got it.
    First of all, when you talk about having trust, that's the 
most important thing you just stated in answer to Mr. Ruiz's 
statement. The most important thing is trust.
    How do we build trust when there's no transparency from the 
CCP when it comes to investigating the origins of this disease? 
How do we build trust based on your statement?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, I think amongst scientific 
communities, that is probably not as high a barrier, but you 
know, for the politics, I'd have to leave to others.
    Dr. McCormick. But you just stated that's the most 
important thing.
    Dr. Auwaerter. Correct.
    Dr. McCormick. But yet, we don't have transparency on 
something that would be pretty easy to investigate if we had 
transparency, correct?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Again, I would leave to others foreign 
policy corridor.
    Dr. McCormick. But scientifically, right? We need to have 
transparency to investigate something, correct?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Absolutely.
    Dr. McCormick. OK. And we don't, right?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, I think this has been brought up and--
--
    Dr. McCormick. Yes. OK. So, we agree on that. That we have 
no transparency on the one thing that we need trust on to 
investigate the less likely cause of this disease. So, it's 
just totally coincidental.
    So, with that, I will state that he pretty much agrees with 
me when it comes to the origins, just doesn't want to admit it. 
Thank you very much. I yield.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize the ranking member of the 
full committee, Mr. Raskin from Maryland for five minutes of 
questions.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Chairman Wenstrup and Mr. Ruiz, for 
this important hearing.
    The COVID-19 pandemic came to America in 2020, of course, 
when Donald Trump was President. And that President's policy 
failures, magical thinking, and total recklessness caused, 
according to his own special advisor on COVID, Deborah Birx, 
the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
    Now, apart from the urgent question of how to improve our 
pandemic response from the debacle that he presided over is the 
question how the COVID-19 pandemic began. This, too, is a 
critically important question to answer to help us prevent and 
prepare for future pandemics. Answers must come from objective, 
fact-based investigations, informed by doctors, scientists, and 
public health experts. At President Biden's direction, the 
intelligence community is also taking sweeping action now to 
understand the origins of the virus and to bring all relevant 
facts to light.
    Whatever the origins of COVID-19, whether it is bats or 
bureaucrats, no finding will ever exonerate or rehabilitate 
Donald Trump for his lethal recklessness in mismanaging the 
crisis in America which cost us more than a million lives. 
Indeed, if COVID was actually the product of a lab leak or the 
worst bioweapon of mass destruction ever invented as some have 
argued--and obviously we don't have the scientific evidence to 
say any of this yet--it would not only not remove Donald 
Trump's culpability, it would only deepen his culpability in 
the most profound way.
    Now, why do I say that? Because over the course of the 
crisis beginning in January 2020 and lasting through the spring 
on more than 42 different occasions that we have identified so 
far, President Trump openly praised and defended the 
performance of Communist Party Secretary and Chinese President 
Xi in his handling of COVID-19 and boasted of how closely they 
were working together and boasted of Xi's openness and 
transparency.
    On January 22, 2020, when the first case of COVID was 
identified in the U.S., Trump stated, I quote, ``We have it 
totally under control.'' When asked if he believe the U.S. 
would, ``know everything we need to know from China,'' he said, 
and I quote, ``I do. I do. I have a great relationship with 
President Xi.'' January 24, he posted on Twitter, ``China has 
been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United 
States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It 
will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the 
American people, I want to thank President Xi.'' March 21, in a 
briefing, he assured us, ``China has been working very hard to 
contain the coronavirus.'' He added, ``The United States 
greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all 
work out well.''
    March 27, he posted on Twitter, ``just finished a very good 
conversation with President Xi of China, discussed in great 
detail the coronavirus that is ravaging large parts of the 
planet. China has been through much and has developed a strong 
understanding of the virus. We are working closely together, 
much respect.''
    Because of time, I'm just giving the committee a tiny taste 
of Donald Trump's fawning, star-struck, sycophantic embrace of 
everything the Chinese government was telling him in 2020, but 
I will happily offer a lot more for any colleagues who think 
that the hunt for the origins will somehow absolve the last 
administration for telling Americans that COVID would magically 
disappear at Easter time, or everybody should just take 
hydroxychloroquine, or refusing to wear a mask, or never 
developing a national plan to defeat the disease.
    Whether it was bats or leaks or bureaucrats who caused it, 
Donald Trump was the biggest apologist in the United States of 
America for President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party. He 
could have directed the intelligence community to lead a COVID-
19 origin investigation back in March 2020. Three years ago. He 
did not. He wasted precious time minimizing the risk of the 
virus and lavishing his praise on President Xi. He could have 
taken the origins of the pandemic seriously and held the CCP 
accountable. He could have pushed back against the CCP for 
interfering with the WHO's investigation into its origins, and 
he could have asked our intelligence community to intervene. He 
did none of those things, and everyone should remember that. 
Let's take the politics out of it, and let's get to the bottom 
of what happened.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Ms. Malliotakis from New York 
for five minutes of questions.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you, Chairman.
    For two years, myself and the other Republicans on this 
subcommittee connected the dots, we exposed the evidence 
supporting our strong belief that COVID was developed and 
leaked from the Wuhan lab. And during those same two years, the 
same Democrats that sit on this committee, they only hindered, 
they obstructed. They refused to hold hearings and get to the 
truth. Now, we see mounting evidence supporting that COVID-19 
originated from the lab in Wuhan, China, run by the Communist 
Chinese Party. And this hearing is about getting to the truth. 
I thank the Chairman for making this the very first hearing, 
because the American people who have seen just as many fellow 
Americans die from COVID, as nearly as many died from COVID, 
that died in every war since the American Revolution combined 
deserve to know the truth.
    Dr. Redfield, you pointed to the lab leak theory, even 
before we did. In mid-January 2020, you expressed concerns to 
Dr. Fauci, to Jeremy Farrar of U.K.'s Wellcome Trust, and to 
Dr. Tedros of World Health Organization that, quote, ``We had 
to take the lab leak hypothesis with extreme seriousness.'' And 
you urged Dr. Fauci to investigate both the lab and the natural 
hypotheses.
    Shortly thereafter on February 1, Farrar convened a meeting 
of a group of 11 top scientists across five time zones, and 
asked Dr. Fauci to join. And he wrote, ``My preference is to 
keep this group really tight. Obviously, ask everyone to treat 
in total confidence.''
    Dr. Redfield, you were excluded from this call, but up 
until then, you were included in every other conversation. What 
changed? Why do you think that you were excluded from these 
conversations?
    Dr. Redfield. Thank you very much. I think--just to 
emphasize--in early to mid-January, I did have multiple calls 
with Fauci, Farrar, and Tedros about how important I thought it 
was that science get engaged and aggressive pursuing both 
hypotheses. I also expressed, as a clinical virologist, that I 
felt it was not scientifically plausible that this virus went 
from a bat to humans and became one of the most infectious 
viruses that we have in humans.
    All viruses are not the same. When you look at 
coronaviruses, for SARS and MERS, for example, when they 
entered the human species, which they did via an intermediate, 
they never learned how to go from human to human. Even to this 
day, they don't know how to go human to human. So, you can't 
equate Ebola with a coronavirus.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Why do you think you were excluded from 
those calls?
    Dr. Redfield. Because it was told to me that they wanted a 
single narrative, and that I obviously had a different point of 
view.
    Ms. Malliotakis. OK. In emails following the conference 
call, four of the 11 scientists told Fauci that they all found 
a genetic sequence inconsistent with expectations from 
evolutionary theory, basically what you're saying. However, 
just three days later, these four scientists had drafted a 
paper arguing the exact opposite. And that's now the infamous 
``Proximal Origin of SARS COVID 2.'' Our investigations show 
this paper was prompted by Dr. Fauci among others with a goal 
to disprove the lab leak theory.
    What is the likelihood that these scientists came across 
additional information just three days after making these 
statements to conclude with such certainty that COVID-19 came 
from nature instead of the lab leak that they thought it was 
three days earlier?
    Dr. Redfield. Yes. I think it's unfortunate. Again, I've 
said this before, that this whole approach that was taken on 
February 1, and subsequently in the month of February, if you 
really want to be truthful, it's antithetical to science.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you.
    Dr. Redfield. Science has debate, and they squashed any 
debate.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you. Given what we know now and 
looking at all of the conversations in February 2020 and before 
the release of the paper, do you think that Dr. Fauci used this 
paper to hide that gain-of-function research created this 
virus?
    Dr. Redfield. I can't talk about Fauci's motivation.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Do you think that the paper does hide the 
truth?
    Dr. Redfield. I think it's an inaccurate paper that 
basically was part of a narrative that they were creating. 
Remember, this pandemic did not start in January at the seafood 
market. We now know there was infections all the way back into 
September. This was a narrative that was decided that they were 
going to say that this came from the wet market, and they were 
going to do everything they could to support it, to negate any 
discussion about the possibility that this came from a 
laboratory.
    Ms. Malliotakis. I've got 20 seconds left. Dr. Fauci was 
affirmatively told in an email that NIH had a monetary 
relationship with the Wuhan Institute through EcoHealth 
Alliance. He was told this on January 27, 2020.
    Do you think that Dr. Fauci intentionally lied under oath 
to Senator Paul when he vehemently denied NIH's funding of 
gain-of-function research?
    Dr. Redfield. I think there is no doubt that NIH was 
funding gain-of-function research.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Is it likely that American tax dollars 
funded the gain-of-function research that created this virus?
    Dr. Redfield. I think it did. Not only from NIH, but from 
the State Department, USAID and from DOD.
    Ms. Malliotakis. I'm out of time. Thank you very much.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mrs. Dingell from Michigan 
for five minutes of questions.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I found it very 
disheartening to see public health professionals across this 
country vilified and attacked for supporting COVID-19 
mitigation measures, basic safety measures and later vaccines. 
They were trying to keep people safe and prevent deaths. I want 
everyone to know, I take this committee very seriously. I want 
the facts.
    Dr. Redfield will confirm to you, I was one of the first 
people to call him about Wuhan, and had a lot of questions and 
never let up. So, I want the facts. But I hope and say to my 
colleagues on the other side, we cannot go down a dangerous 
path by pushing unfounded conspiracies about Dr. Fauci and 
other long-serving career public health officials. Here is the 
reality, like many of you, I am reading many articles, not just 
over the past weeks.
    Dr. Redfield knows I've been on this from the beginning, 
talked to researchers, doctors, frontline nurses, public health 
officials. They all agree on one fact. After the billions of 
dollars on pandemic era upgrades to labs and data and 
surveyance, after all the studies and white papers about 
emergency preparedness, the U.S. still lacks two things in the 
public health arsenal: people and trust.
    These continued smears on public health officials are 
destroying them. I strongly urge everyone on this committee, 
but my Republican colleagues specifically, from rehashing 
unfounded theories that Dr. Fauci and other public health 
experts have blocked investigations into the pandemic origins. 
Let's get the facts. Dr. Fauci has said we need to get to the 
bottom of how the novel coronavirus originated, and has said, 
and I've heard him say, like I talked to Dr. Redfield, he has 
an open mind about the virus' origins.
    To all of you and all of us in this room, I say it's 
critical to rebuild trust and that continued attacks on public 
health officials only serves to further discredit people's 
confidence in our public health institutions, makes it almost 
impossible and it's challenging to recruit workers in the 
field, and it undermines people's trust in science.
    We're seeing it. We know the basic things like washing your 
hands, covering your mouth when you cough, and immunizations 
save lives. And yes, because of all what we're doing, people 
aren't getting measles vaccines. They're not getting chicken 
pox. We're seeing the return of diseases we haven't seen 
before. We have to take seriously that this rhetoric is 
perpetuating people's distrust in flu shots and many other 
things. So, let's work together, all of my colleagues, to 
protect the American people. That's our job.
    Dr. Auwaerter, how does misinformation surrounding the 
possible origins of COVID-19 and its spread damage the 
relationship between doctors and patients?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, my sense is it's a very frequent 
question that, you know, patients ask me in the office, What do 
you think? And I don't have any direct knowledge, but it's 
obviously on a lot of people's minds. And I think, if it was 
handled objectively, it would be less political. And therefore, 
it sort of removes out of the realm of also dovetailing with 
other public health mitigation measures, which you so 
appropriately put forward. You know, for the first part of the 
pandemic, we all wore masks. I can tell you no one on my 
faculty got COVID-19 until people started to not wear masks as 
well.
    I think the efforts of trying to just help the public early 
on when we don't know a lot of information, we always tend to 
be more conservative. And then as we gain knowledge, 
recommendations evolve.
    So, I think the origin story is important to help, again, 
look forward and put forward measures to try to help anticipate 
whether it's a zoonotic infection or was a lab-derived virus.
    Mrs. Dingell. I'm going to have more questions for the 
record, Mr. Chairman.
    But I want to switch subjects. Today, there are a variety 
of views within the intelligence community and around the world 
on whether the virus originated in an accidental lab leak or 
whether it occurred from a leak to animals to humans. And I 
want to know that as much as anybody. But Dr. Auwaerter, is it 
normal for different agencies within the intelligence community 
to make different assessments of the likelihood of one origin 
theory over the other?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, I don't work in the government, but my 
understanding just reading the newspapers are that the CIA has 
not made any determination. Others have come to different 
levels of conclusions, so it seems to me that there is a 
difference of opinion.
    Mrs. Dingell. And it's normal for scientists to disagree?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Absolutely. I think debate there is always 
the case, very few things we know for certain.
    Mrs. Dingell. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize the Chairman of the full 
committee Mr. Comer, from Kentucky, for five minutes of 
questions.
    Mr. Comer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    One of the prevailing themes of the pandemic has been 
scientists' use of the media to downplay the lab leak theory.
    Mr. Wade, in your career you worked at Nature Magazine, 
Science Magazine, and The New York Times. Would you agree that 
the scientific establishment used the media to downplay the lab 
leak theory?
    Mr. Wade. That's a complicated issue, Mr. Comer. I think 
the media was used in this particular campaign to establish 
natural origin theory. The scientific community is very afraid 
to speak up on political issues. I think the reason is that the 
government grants are handed out through the system of peer 
review committees. So, you don't want any single scientist on 
your peer review committee to vote against you. Therefore--
because you won't get your grant it's so competitive. So, 
therefore, scientists are very reluctant to say anything that 
is politically divisive and might turn other scientists against 
them. This means that they cannot be relied upon in the way 
that I think we would like them to be independent and 
forthright and call it as they see it.
    Mr. Comer. OK. Well, we saw this first with the ``Proximal 
Origin'' paper that said, ``Our analysis clearly showed that 
COVID-19 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully 
manipulated virus.'' This was first published on February 17 of 
2020.
    Each witness, I have a simple question, yes or no, was 
there science available to make such an unequivocal statement 
against the possibility of a lab leak that early on, February 
2020?
    Dr. Metzl?
    Mr. Metzl. Absolutely, no.
    Mr. Comer. Mr. Wade?
    Mr. Wade. No, it was not.
    Dr. Auwaerter. Yes. I don't have sufficient frame of 
reference to give an answer.
    Dr. Redfield. No.
    Mr. Comer. Next, Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance 
orchestrated a letter in the Lancet, a prestigious journal, on 
February 19, 2020, that said, ``We strongly condemn conspiracy 
theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural 
origin.''
    Each witness, yes or no, is the possibility COVID-19 leaked 
from a lab a conspiracy theory?
    Mr. Metzl. Absolutely not.
    Mr. Wade. No.
    Dr. Auwaerter. I would say no, but also it has been 
approached as such.
    Dr. Redfield. No.
    Mr. Comer. Dr. Redfield, I want to stick with you. You have 
said before that you were locked out of conversations about the 
lab leak by Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins.
    Do you think they kept you out of the conversations because 
you believe COVID-19 may have come from a lab?
    Dr. Redfield. Yes. I think I made it very clear in January 
to all of them why we had to aggressively pursue this. And I 
let them know as a virologist that I didn't see that this was 
anything like SARS or MERS because they never learned how to 
transmit human to human, that I felt this virus was too 
infectious for humans. There was a lot of evidence that lab 
actually published in 2014 that they put the H2 receptor into 
humanized mice so it can infect human tissue. I think, you 
know, we had to really seriously go after the fact it came from 
the lab, and they knew that that was how I was thinking. 
Although, I thought we had to go after both hypotheses. I was 
told later, I didn't know I was excluded. I didn't know there 
was a February 1 conference call until the Freedom of 
Information came out with the emails, and I was quite upset as 
the CDC Director that I was excluded from those discussions.
    Mr. Comer. Why would they do this?
    Dr. Redfield. Because I had a different point of view and I 
was told they made a decision that they would keep this 
confidential until they came up with a single narrative, which 
I will argue is antithetical to science. Science never selects 
a single narrative. We foster, as my colleague here just said, 
we foster debate. And we're confident that with debate, science 
will eventually get to the truth. This was an a priori decision 
that there's one point of view that we're going to put out 
there, and anyone who doesn't agree with it is going to be 
sidelined. And as I say, I was only the CDC director, and I was 
sidelined.
    Mr. Comer. Well, I think Dr. Fauci, Dr. Collins got caught 
with their hand in the cookie jar. They got caught 
supercharging viruses in an unsecure Chinese lab. They wanted 
push the envelope, and so, they got together to cover 
themselves, cover up their story, and wipe their fingerprint of 
the virus that has killed more than one million Americans. Now 
to quote Jurassic Park, they were, ``so preoccupied with 
whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they 
should.''
    I look forward to the rest of the testimony today, and I 
look forward to the great work of this subcommittee. Mr. Chair, 
I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mr. Mfume from Maryland for 
five minutes of questions.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I want to 
thank you and the Ranking Member for convening us on this very 
important and difficult topic. One that all Americans, 
regardless of where they live, regardless of what they do are 
concerned about. And I had come to this hearing expecting, Mr. 
Chairman, that we would find a way to peel off the things that 
didn't matter so that we could get to the things that did 
matter, whether it was a lab leak, or an infection through 
animals. I think we've got to pursue both of those paths if we 
are ever to get the truth.
    However, I must go back to what my Ranking Member said, 
that I am a bit appalled that this hearing now gets layered 
over with the issue of race in a very strong way with the 
presence of Mr. Wade. Mr. Wade, I have read your book, and I'm 
appalled by it. I would hope that giving you this platform does 
not paint or taint the issue that we're trying to get to and 
deal with here. You're not a physician. You are not a 
physician's assistant. You are not a scientist. You have never 
done a peer-reviewed paper. And yet, you've got an opinion, 
which is fine, except that it's steeped in this conspiracy 
theory that somehow or another, minorities are so genetically 
different that they are culpable in some sort of way. I just 
don't like that at all.
    In your book, ``The Troublesome Inheritance,'' you talk 
about a number of different things--and David Duke talks about 
it--and says that he really endorses your position on Blacks 
and Jews. The book was championed by the infamous white 
supremacists, Jared Taylor, John Demarchar, and Steve Sailer. 
The book has been promoted on a neo-Nazi forum that is linked 
to almost 100 racially motivated attempted murders over the 
last five years. It troubles me that--and I'm going to ask 
unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, that The New York Times piece 
for which you wrote actually said that your theory has come off 
at the wheels, particularly, when you talk about east Asians 
and their genetic makeup.
    I would like to ask that the David Duke statement and the 
copy from his website be entered into the record. And I'd like 
that the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks these things 
annually, and their assessment, which is similar, be added to 
the record.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Without objection.
    Mr. Mfume. Now, I've got to tell you, I spent five terms in 
this body. I was so troubled by what I saw in the streets with 
bias and hate crimes that I actually gave up my seat in the 
Congress, and I went back to work in community groups. I ended 
up being the president of the NAACP so that, nationally, I 
could work against this sort of thing. It is repulsive. So, 
here I am back again hearing the issues that drove me out of 
here to begin with. I don't want to take away from this 
hearing. I don't want to take away from what I said earlier is 
that we've got to go down both paths. It just burns me that I 
would know that I'm doing that on a forum where somebody with 
these sort of beliefs is also a part of.
    Mr. Auwaerter, I want to go to you for minute. I know you 
don't represent Johns Hopkins, you are representing the 
Association on Infectious Diseases. I have a lot of----
    Mr. Wade. Excuse me, sir, do I get the chance to respond 
briefly.
    Mr. Mfume. It's my time. No, you do not.
    Mr. Wade. OK.
    Mr. Mfume. I have a lot of respect for Hopkins. I spent 10 
years on the board of trustees there. I'm a graduate of the 
institution. I know that you speak with a great deal of 
background. And even though, in this instance, you're speaking 
on the Association of Infectious Diseases, I take all of that 
very seriously. And I want to ask you one quick thing here 
about going down both of these paths. How much can you say, in 
a short period of time, does the information obtained through 
this hearing and other hearings and the intelligence community, 
how very important is that to bolstering the efforts to prepare 
for any future pandemics?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, I think, obviously, getting to the 
origins is on everyone's mind. But also understanding what 
happened should also help prepare us for moving ahead. And I 
can't overstate the needs in our public health, which have been 
generally less well-funded than other measures and other 
diseases to help protect our country.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you. I've got to reclaim the little bit of 
time that we have left. And, Mr. Wade, let me just say this, 
personally, for a race of people who have suffered, endured, 
and survived three centuries of slavery, oppression, 
deprivation, degradation, denial, and disprivilege, I'm 
absolutely offended that you would have the opportunity to take 
this platform and to add anything of significance to it. I 
yield back.
    Mr. Wade. Well, I don't have anything in common with the 
White supremacists.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Mr. Wade, hold on a second. Hold on a second. 
I do think that Mr. Wade deserves the opportunity to take two 
minutes to respond to accusations made. But I do want to get 
back to the topic at hand which is the origins of COVID-19.
    Mr. Wade. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry for this 
distraction from the work of the committee. I'm sorry, too, 
that Mr. Mfume did not like my book. I'm not a racist. I don't 
have anything in common with the views of White supremacists--
--
    Mr. Mfume. They love you, though.
    Mr. Wade [continuing]. Just because David Duke likes my 
book.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Mr. Mfume, would you please let him respond? 
He did not interrupt you.
    Mr. Mfume. I didn't know that he got time to respond.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Chairman's decision.
    Mr. Wade. It's a not very good argument that David Duke 
likes my book. He maybe he likes many things, but that doesn't 
mean to say they're all wrong. I did write my book for him. I 
also made the clearest possible distinction between writing 
about the biology of race, which is a purely scientific issue 
and racist statements, which I have absolutely no sympathy. My 
book is explicitly antiracist. I stress the fact that we are 
all variations on the same human genome, which I think is a 
very important and unifying fact. I think the arguments made 
against the book were for entirely political reasons. Various
    [inaudible] led to the 120 scientists who attacked my book 
in Science as well as a nice story about Einstein. Someone told 
him 100 scientists had written a book saying he was wrong. And 
he replied, ``Well, if I were wrong, one would have been 
enough.'' That's how science works, not on the number of people 
against it, it works on facts. And those letter writers had no 
good point and no mistake in my book. So, I don't think that 
their criticism should be taken carefully. I'm sorry for the 
disruption and unhappiness this issue has caused and let's get 
back to the issue of the hearing, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I now recognize Dr. Miller-Meeks 
from Iowa for five minutes of questions.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Thank you so much, Chair Wenstrup. And 
thank you to all of our witnesses who are here today. I'm both 
a doctor and former director of the Iowa Department of Public 
Health as well as a military veteran of 24 years. Like Dr. 
Metzl said, I have waited three years for this hearing. And I 
have, in fact, put people over politics and science over 
conspiracy. Our first inquiry on the Select Subcommittee on the 
Coronavirus Crisis--this is my third year on this committee--
was June 29, 2021, on origins of COVID-19, and the only people 
that attended were Republicans.
    We had a press conference at that hearing, and I was 
concerned that the public and the press weren't conveying that 
it wasn't partisan in trying to determine origins. It was, in 
fact, of utmost importance, and importance not just to 
Americans, but to the international community. At that press 
conference on June 29, 2021, I said: The reason we with need to 
know the origins of COVID-19 is to prevent and prepare for the 
next pandemic. We need to know, one, there are immediate 
disclosure rules. There was not immediate disclosure of a virus 
that would lead to a worldwide pandemic. Immediate disclosure 
and WHO has a vested interest in this in making sure there's 
compliance.
    Laboratory safety: it was known, even in the U.S., there 
are labs who have lab leaks, laboratory safety, biosafety lab 
for working being done in a biosafety lab too. It was known 
that this was occurring at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. So, 
lab safety. And, third, and I think Dr. Redfield has mentioned 
this--all of you have mentioned this--and that is, the ethics 
of gain-of-function research, or types of research. Often, we 
as scientists get ahead of the ethics. But the ethics of types 
of research, and again, the international community has a 
vested interest in discussing and debating these topics. I have 
published in journals before, peer-reviewed journals. I know 
how the editing and the peer-review process works. I also know 
very intimately of the disclosure requirements and conflicts of 
interest, including financial.
    Over the weekend, we released new emails and documents that 
suggested that Dr. Fauci prompted the drafting of a 
publication, ultimately, called ``Proximal Origins,'' that 
would disprove the lab leak theory. The authors of this paper 
skewed available evidence to achieve that goal. And Dr. Jeremy 
Farrar, now chief scientist for the World Health Organization, 
went uncredited despite significant involvement.
    Are you all aware of these documents? And just nod 
affirmatively. All of the witnesses except one have nodded yes. 
You know, many of you have been in journalism and in science 
writing for a long time. Dr. Metzl, can you explain the process 
briefly, because I have little time, of drafting, editing, and 
reviewing a publication in a science magazine.
    Mr. Metzl. Well, Mr. Wade is probably better at this than 
me because he was an editor of two science magazines. But what 
I will say is different people contribute, and it's normal 
practice, to attribute, to list the names of the people who 
have participated.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. And, then, Mr. Wade, given that 
acknowledgment, so do you think it's important that there is 
proper crediting and acknowledging of authors?
    Mr. Wade. I think the question of who is or is not an 
author of a paper is somewhat loose. So many people interpret 
it different ways. I think it's called honorary authorships 
where you talk to someone in an elevator and say, well, I'll 
add you to my paper. It's not a very--there are no hard-and-
fast rules for who should be author of a paper.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. But if an individual is the genesis of 
that paper, do you think they should be acknowledged.
    Mr. Wade. Well, if they make some important intellectual 
contribution to it, they should. I don't know that Farrar did 
or was in a position to. All we know is that he suggested a 
minor editing change to the paper.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. And Dr. Auwaerter, you mentioned that we 
know the intermediate host for SARS. How long did it take for 
us to find the intermediate host for SARS?
    Dr. Auwaerter. It did take a few years. It was not 
immediate.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. And MERS.
    Dr. Auwaerter. MERS also took sometime.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Are any of you aware of a furin cleavage 
site occurring naturally? Dr. Metzl, go ahead.
    Mr. Metzl. They occurred naturally, but not in SARS-like 
viruses, other than SARS-CoV-2.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. So, in other viruses, but not in SARS, 
and SARS-CoV-2 very similar to SARS-CoV-2.
    Mr. Metzl. Correct. In no SARS-like viruses, and it showed 
up for the first time in a SARS-like virus, in the SARS-CoV-2 
virus, which seemed to appear out of nowhere.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Yes. The endonuclease's fingerprint, how 
common does that occur? The repeating cycle CG-GC-GG and----
    Mr. Metzl. The furin cleavage sites.
    Mr. Wade. Well----
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. The point in that is that there is, as 
you said, Dr. Metzl, extraordinary circumstantial evidence that 
this came from a lab. I don't know why the authors didn't want 
to state this, they did not want to have the scientific 
conversation and dialog; why they wanted to obfuscate and 
suppress the truth, or even have a debate about the origins of 
COVID-19. Was it for personal financial gain? Was it to hide 
U.S. financial interest into the Wuhan Institute of Virology 
indirectly? Was it to suppress the revelation that there was, 
perhaps, gain-of-function research that had been prohibited in 
the United States? Or were they concerned that a conspiracy 
would develop that it was bioterrorism? And I would state that 
their suppression and obfuscation has led to the exact mistrust 
and distrust and conspiracy theories that they may have tried 
to avoid. Thank you so much. I'm so delighted to have this 
hearing, and I think we will be able to get to the bottom of 
this, have an open dialog. What they did is not science, and it 
will not prevent you from future pandemics----
    Dr. Wenstrup. Your time has expired. I now recognize Ms. 
Ross from North Carolina for five minutes of questions.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to 
be very clear to our distinguished panelists and to the folks 
who are watching this. My Democratic colleagues and I strongly 
support the experts' community's effort to determine the 
origins of the novel coronavirus. Because doing so is critical 
to preventing and preparing for future pandemics, plain and 
simple.
    And as stated, almost 1.2 million Americans have lost their 
lives due to COVID-19, and millions more around the world. It's 
very personal to each of us. More than 30,000 people in my home 
state have died because of this pandemic. And our goal here 
should be to prevent something like this from happening again, 
which is why science and facts should guide legitimate 
investigations into the pandemic's origins. And as has been 
said by my colleague on the other side of the aisle, we must 
put people over politics.
    So, Dr. Auwaerter, I just want to ask you my first 
question. How does promoting our understanding of the novel 
coronavirus' origins help us prevent and prepare for future 
pandemics?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, I think there are two main avenues. 
One is if it is of animal origin, we need to anticipate 
additional viruses, or even potentially bacteria. And 
therefore, having an advance notice, an early notice as 
possible, certainly is helpful for containment and also 
mitigation measures. This, no doubt, would need to be 
cooperation with other countries, public health agencies to 
build that infrastructure.
    On the other hand, if it's a lab-derived virus, then 
guidance in terms of proper research and guardrails is highly 
important to make sure, to the best of abilities, this never 
happens again. Much as we take great care with airline safety, 
nuclear weapons, and so on, all of that needs to be paid 
attention to.
    Mr. Ross. Thank you. Dozens of scientific research studies 
have been completed or are currently underway to promote our 
understanding of how the novel coronavirus came to be.
    Under President Biden's leadership--and we heard a little 
bit from our colleague Mr. Raskin about President Trump's 
initial response to this--but under President Biden's 
leadership, the intelligence community has taken decisive 
action to get to the bottom of the novel coronavirus' origins. 
And we have seen some new releases from different departments 
about their ongoing findings.
    Dr. Auwaerter, can you tell us about the importance of the 
objectivity of these investigations?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, as a clinician and someone that does 
research, I think the objectivity is very important. Obviously, 
not all information is available to us that has based the 
conclusions. Those are outside of my expertise as to whether 
that's the case. But I think the objectivity is highly 
important, and also the fact of how it's rated. You know, low 
confidence means exactly what I think it means, that there's a 
fair amount of uncertainty.
    Mr. Ross. OK. Final question, congressional investigations 
designed to villainize or discredit public health experts, 
undermine our public health institutions and sometimes can 
spread dangerous misinformation, which itself can metastasize.
    Dr. Auwaerter, instead of launching a partisan 
investigation or politicizing the pandemic's origin, what 
should Congress be doing to prevent something like this from 
happening again?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, outside of the political realm, I 
would just say an independent body would make the most sense 
that is not cueing, essentially, or have the ability to make 
much political hay, if that's possible. I'm not sure of the 
details of that. But to me, that seems to be the ideal.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you very much. I would like yield the 
remainder of my time to my colleague, Congressman Mfume.
    Mr. Mfume. Oh, thank you very, very much for that. I want 
to go back and underscore, if I might, how I began my comments 
because I don't want that lost on those who are here or those 
who are watching. This is designed--and again, I want to 
commend the Chair and the Ranking Member Ruiz for making sure 
that we move down a path together. Together, Democrats and 
Republicans trying to get answers for the American people, not 
just about what happened, but as has been said so that it never 
happens again. And if it does, we are prepared.
    And I put so much emphasis on science because I spent five 
years at the NIH, at the Institute for Minority Health and 
Health Disparities. I was the executive director of the 
National Medical Association. And up until two years ago, I 
have served as Vice President of Research America, the largest 
research advocacy organization in the country. This is real to 
me. This is very personal. And I just can't even fathom the 
thought of people still dying as a result of this until we have 
our work completed. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I now recognize Ms. Lesko from 
Arizona for five minutes of questions.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. In Rep. Ruiz's opening 
statement, he said he doesn't want the COVID-19 investigation 
to be political. I couldn't agree more. Yet in the next breath, 
he accused one of the witnesses of writing a white supremacist 
book, which is a political salvo designed to discredit the 
witness. Then his first question wasn't about COVID-19 at all, 
it was all about a non-COVID-related book that Dr. Wade wrote 
in the past. And a poster board was held over his head designed 
for political theatre. Then Rep. Raskin went after President 
Trump for five minutes instead of asking a question.
    With all due respect, I contend that some of my Democratic 
colleagues are the ones making the COVID investigation 
political. Why they don't want to investigate the origins of 
COVID-19 that killed millions of people, I will never 
understand.
    My first question is for Dr. Redfield. A witness in our 
roundtable last week said that it was a no-brainer that the 
virus came from the Wuhan lab. When you were Director of the 
CDC, did Dr. Fauci ever explain to you why he didn't believe 
the virus came from the Wuhan lab and why he actively worked to 
silence that theory?
    Dr. Redfield. Dr. Fauci's position as those who thought a 
spillover took the position that it was most likely a spillover 
event because that's what happened with SARS, and that's what 
happened with MERS. Alright. And I think it's important to look 
at, prior to 2012, we didn't really have another mechanism 
other than nature. We weren't doing gain-of-function research.
    I'm a clinical virologist. I tried to explain to Dr. Fauci, 
who's an immunologist, that this virus, SARS and MERS, when 
they infected man from the intermediate host, civic cat in the 
case of SARS and a camel in the case of MERS, they never 
learned how to go human to human. So, those original outbreaks 
are less than 1,000 people, and the epidemics died. When 
everyone thought this was SARS-like, well, it's going to die 
too. But this virus was immediately the most infectious virus--
not the most, I think probably right behind measles--virus that 
we've seen infect man.
    So, I immediately said, wait a second, this isn't natural. 
And then you go back and look at the literature and you find in 
2014 this lab actually published a paper that they put the H2 
receptor into humanized mice so it can infect human tissue. And 
then you learn that the new COVID, which came from bats, now 
can hardly replicate in bats.
    Mrs. Lesko. Yes.
    Dr. Redfield. So, how does that happen? So, I had said that 
my view as a virologist--again, my hypothesis--and I never 
discredit them for their hypothesis, the spillover--was that 
this was--most likely come from the lab. And we need to 
aggressively investigate both hypotheses.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have another 
question for you, Dr. Redfield. In a recent Energy and Commerce 
Oversight hearing, I asked the NIH acting director about the 
NIH's gross negligence in monitoring the EcoHealth Alliance 
grant and subgrant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He 
admitted that we might not have had all of the information and 
research reports from WIV and EcoHealth. He insisted, however, 
that he was sure that the coronavirus research at WIV was 
completely unrelated to SARS-COVID-2.
    With the information we know and the fact that China 
deleted data and asked NIH to delete data, do you believe that 
we can have certainty that the virus did not come from the 
Wuhan lab and that U.S. funding was not used for COVID-19-
related research?
    Dr. Redfield. Yes, absolutely, we can't do that. I will say 
if you go back and look--it's declassified now, and I'm sure 
you all have your classified briefings, but the declassified 
information now. In September 2019, three things happened in 
that lab: One is they deleted the sequences. That's highly 
irregular. Researchers don't usually like to do that. The 
second thing they did was they changed the command and control 
of the lab from the civilian control to the military control. 
Highly unusual. I've been involved in dual use labs when I was 
in the military. And the third thing they did, which I think is 
really telling, is they let a contractor redo the ventilation 
system in that laboratory.
    So, I think clearly there was strong evidence that there 
was a significant event that happened in that laboratory in 
September. It's now been declassified. You can read it. I'm 
sure there's more classified information around it.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you. Dr. Redfield, The New York Post 
reported that you stated: I could use the word ``coverup,'' but 
I don't know that, so I'm not going to speculate that. Do you 
believe there was a coverup? And if so, why would the Federal 
agencies work with legacy media to silence scientists and other 
Americans asking questions about the origins of SARS-CoV-2?
    Dr. Redfield. Yes, and I'm not a big fan of quoting The New 
York Post. I don't think I used the word ``coverup.'' OK. I 
think there was an attempt to misguide, redirect the debate, 
but I wouldn't have used the word ``coverup.''
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you very much. And I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Bera from California for 
five minutes of questions.
    Dr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, from day one 
of this pandemic, unfortunately, politics has kind of infused a 
lot of this. And I know this--you know, obviously, Dr. 
Redfield, you and I had many conversations. In my time in 
Congress, you know, one of my focus areas has been global 
health security pandemic preparedness. I've sat on national 
task forces at CSIS to prepare for global health securities. We 
put out a recommendation, but, unfortunately, in the fall of 
2019, and had pushed to put that framework in place.
    My colleagues, Congresswoman Dingell and Congressman Ross 
have equivocally said, as Democrats, we want to find out what 
the origins of COVID were.
    Early on in the pandemic, in January 2020, I pushed, 
personally, as hard as I could on the Trump Administration to 
do everything they could to get our scientists to the hot zone, 
to ground zero, to actually get a sense of what was going on. I 
am not going to defend how the Chinese Communist Party has 
handled this pandemic. They've stonewalled us. They've played 
politics. They've--you know, Dr. Metzl, you talked about the 
importance of WHO. They played politics with the WHO 
recommendations. And until we actually can get to the hot zone, 
until we--you know, I don't know that we'll ever get the data.
    This is not a partisan issue. In fact, on the Intelligence 
Committee, which the Chairman is on, we marked up a COVID-19 
Origins Act in a nonpartisan way. It passed out of markup with 
a voice vote. We will all get a chance to vote on that bill on 
Friday. I think you will see a strong bipartisan vote 
encouraging the intelligence community to declassify as much 
information as possible so the public can see the information 
that we have. It's not conclusive, but we've got to continue to 
try to find the COVID origins.
    I think it is reprehensible that we're disparaging some of 
our greatest public health individuals. Dr. Fauci, who I have 
known for a long time, and Francis Collins, who I've gotten to 
know, both are outstanding scientists, and so forth. They may 
have had a different hypothesis. We should entertain all 
hypothesis, and we should do it in an objective way to find the 
answers. I also hope we don't as a body take the wrong lessons 
from this.
    Dr. Metzl, you talked the importance of the WHO. I would 
like your opinion on--international collaboration is extremely 
important, not just in pandemic preparedness, but also in 
biosecurity work, and so forth. We have to have the systems in 
place to identify pandemics fairly quickly, to think about how 
we address it, because, you know, whether this was man-made or 
naturally occurring, bad actors are out there who just saw what 
a virus did to the entire planet. Those technologies are 
readily available. You come from a national security 
background. How important is it to work with our international 
partners here?
    Mr. Metzl. It's absolutely essential that we work with our 
international partners and with the WHO. And as it's been said 
repeatedly, when those international partners, or potential 
partners themselves are bad actors, which is absolutely the 
case with China, that makes things a lot more difficult. And 
then the World Health Organization, which is absolutely 
essential, is working with one hand tied behind its back. It 
doesn't have the mandate or the authority to do what it needs 
to do. It couldn't have its own independent surveillance 
capability in the beginning of the pandemic. When China was 
preventing the WHO investigators from going to Wuhan, there was 
nothing that they could do. And as I had said in my remarks, 
Dr. Tedros has actually really been at the forefront of 
fighting for the kind of open inquiry that the Chinese 
government has so aggressively blocked.
    If I can just say, just very quickly, I'm originally from 
Kansas City. I'm a Midwestern optimist and so, I hear some 
consensus in the room that it's critically important to 
understand how the pandemic started; that we have to fully 
examine all origin hypotheses.
    It's my view, as I have said before, that China must be the 
primary focus but we also have to look at everything, including 
ourselves.
    But if we make this process primarily about Dr. Fauci--even 
though we need to look at everything--if we make it primarily 
about Dr. Fauci, we would be inappropriately serving the 
Chinese government a propaganda coup on a silver platter.
    Dr. Bera. I couldn't agree with you more. Let's get to the 
facts. Let's discover the origins. Let's do what we can to 
prevent the next pandemic. Let's increase our biosafety and 
biosecurity. You know, we should debate gain-of-function 
research. I think that's totally appropriate. We should make 
sure if we are looking at that, that it is done in an absolute 
safe way with oversight, et cetera. We should also think about 
the private sector that can operate, you know, do this research 
on their own. We ought to think about how we also look at that 
and make that safer. Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Now I recognize Mr. Cloud for five minutes of 
questions.
    Mr. Cloud. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you all for being 
here. Thank you for your work in science and for yielding your 
wisdom in this effort to us today.
    Dr. Metzl, I wanted to ask you, you mentioned that there 
were scientists who refused to be silenced, insinuating that 
there were efforts to silence. And I was just wondering if you 
could kind of brief what some of those efforts were?
    Mr. Metzl. Sure. So, when a small handful of us, in the 
earliest days of the pandemic, began raising the possibility of 
possible lab origin, there was just, as I said, ferociously 
strong headwinds. There was this manufactured consensus. And I 
kept digging. And like I said before, I'm a lifelong Democrat. 
I consider myself a progressive person, but I kept digging. I 
couldn't find the justification for these strong arguments, 
calling people like me, investigating, looking into pandemic 
origins in good faith, conspiracy theorists. And it was very 
difficult. So, we had a small group that formed later in 2020 
that is--others have called the Paris Group--all of the members 
of that community were aggressively trying to place scientific 
papers with journals and had zero success.
    So, there was a wall that was extremely difficult to get 
over, which is why, what I said to this group is, look, we have 
to try to get around that wall. And that's why we published our 
four open letters that I believe played significant role in, 
along with other things, of starting to shift at this 
conversation. But it took more than a year of this kind of 
aggressive work to even start to begin that type of change.
    Mr. Cloud. And some of that pushback came from our 
government, too. Is that correct?
    Mr. Metzl. Well, it was mixed--I mean, certainly, from what 
we've heard, there were leaders of the U.S. Government who--Dr. 
Fauci had said he was open to all possibilities. But then the 
next sentence was the preponderance of science suggests a 
natural origin. I'm a fan of Dr. Fauci, but I would--I don't 
like to scream at the television, but when I heard those words, 
I would say, well, no, no, that's not the case. That's not what 
the science, at least as I'm reading it, is saying.
    Mr. Cloud. And to what you were just saying, Forbes 
mentioned you as one of the first as an ex-high official----
    Mr. Metzl. Yes.
    Mr. Cloud [continuing]. High-level staffer for Bill Clinton 
and then Senator Joe Biden to say that SARS coronavirus was 
likely a Wuhan lab escapee. Why did you think that?
    Mr. Metzl. So, in the early days of January 2020, like 
everybody, I was trying to figure out what was happening. And I 
read the news reports, and it said it comes from the market. 
And SARS-2 sounded kind of like SARS-1, and that seemed 
credible. But I had just been in Wuhan, China. So, I think a 
lot of Americans had this vision of Wuhan as some little market 
town where a bunch of yokels are eating bats for dinner every 
night. But Wuhan is China's Chicago. It's an incredibly 
sophisticated, highly educated, wealthy city. I knew that the 
Wuhan Institute of Virology was based there. I knew a lot about 
that background. I also had an understanding both of the 
science and of China. And then on January 24 of 2020, there was 
a Lancet paper written by Chinese scientists saying that more 
than a third of the earliest cases of infection were of people 
who had no connection to the market. So, in my mind, that was a 
pretty strong piece of evidence that the market was a super 
spreader place, which certainly is what I still believe. And 
that was when I started digging.
    And then in later February 2020, I had all of these ideas I 
was developing. I went to South Africa for the meeting of our 
World Health Organization expert advisory committee on human 
genome editing. And this is with some of the top scientists and 
others in the world. And then privately, I was telling people, 
like, here is my private view. Here is what I'm seeing in the 
evidence. And there was a part of me that was kind of hoping 
that they would say, Oh, no, you're crazy. Here is what you're 
missing. Because, you know, this is an uncomfortable hypothesis 
for many reasons. That wasn't--now, certainly, nobody was 
saying that. And that was why when I came back after those 
meetings, I became very, very public, and then I launched my 
website and wrote a number of editorials in March and early 
April.
    Mr. Cloud. I want to try to get another question in here. 
Your take on this, was that before or after ``Proximal 
Origins'' came out?
    Mr. Metzl. So, before----
    Mr. Cloud. And what was your take on that when you, I 
guess, read that----
    Mr. Metzl. Yes.
    Mr. Cloud [continuing]. And what impact do you think that 
had on the scientific community----
    Mr. Metzl. It's a----
    Mr. Cloud [continuing]. And the free discovery, so to speak 
of----
    Mr. Metzl. It's a great question. Just, I don't mean to be 
overly referenced in my own background, but I'm pro-science, 
pro-vaccine. I believe climate change is real. But when I saw 
that, I was monumentally--I won't use--I'll say, upset, angry. 
Because without the available evidence, these absolute claims 
were being made. And I was really digging, and there just 
wasn't the evidence to make those assertions.
    So, the right position in the beginning was what everybody 
is saying now. It could have been natural origin. It could have 
been a lab origin. And we need to actively and aggressively 
investigate all relevant hypotheses. And it's very unfortunate 
that wasn't the case.
    Mr. Cloud. And of course, the question we'll have to get to 
later is why was this--all the data deleted and everything.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mr. Garcia from California 
for five minutes of questions.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to 
thank, of course, all of our witnesses as well for being here. 
We all care deeply about the work of this select subcommittee. 
I think it's critical. And we all can agree that we learn as 
much as about the COVID-19 origins as we can. We know that 
preventing future pandemics saves lives. That's what this is 
all about. That's what this committee is all about.
    We have lost over 1 million American lives in this country, 
many more across the world. A lot of folks know I lost both my 
mother and my stepfather to the pandemic early on, so that I 
understand the human cost and tragedy of this virus.
    I'm very grateful that in May 2021, President Biden ordered 
the intelligence community to investigate the origins of COVID-
19. He specifically requested the Department of Energy be 
brought into as part of this important assessment. This has 
been discussed today. We know that this is critical work that's 
been happening. We also know that one way or another, we don't 
have clear proof about the origins of COVID-19. And this has 
been shared by our witnesses, and of course in the many reports 
that have been produced by our agencies.
    Now, we can make convincing cases, of course, for both 
potential lab leak, or if there was transmission from animals, 
but no one can say for certain where exactly the origins are 
today. And I think I want to repeat that so that it can be very 
clear to the American public as far as where we're actually at 
in this process and in these investigations. Multiple Federal 
agencies have supported both sides of the question and none 
with high confidence.
    One of the most important lessons that we can learn from 
the origins of COVID-19 is how we can better respond to future 
viruses and future pandemics, because there will be future 
pandemics. We've seen the mass death, the devastation this has 
caused our economy and the American public and the global 
public. And we also need to know and understand what mistakes 
were made in the past so that we can correct them in the 
future.
    We know, for example, that President Trump's own advisor on 
COVID-19, who we heard a lot from during the pandemic, Dr. 
Birx, had said that the previous administration's policies 
early in the pandemic possibly cost us hundreds of thousands of 
American lives.
    And I want to also note something that was said. We know 
that on more than 20 separate occasions, President Trump 
defended President Xi and his handling of COVID-19. We've been 
talking a lot about China and Chinese origins. But it's 
important to talk also about what the former President's 
comments were.
    So, even as we had concerns about China's lack of 
transparency early on in the crisis, President Trump would 
consistently praise President Xi, in fact, on 20 separate 
occasions.
    I want to quote something former President Trump said, 
``Last night, I spoke to President Xi. We talked about the 
experience that they had in China and of all the things that 
have taken place, and we learned a lot. They've had a very 
tough experience, and they're doing well, and he is doing well. 
President Xi is doing very well. But we learned a lot, and we 
have great communication together. We're going to be sent great 
data from China.''
    Now, it's very clear that that great data actually never 
came, and there was never really the cooperation that the 
President--that the former administration said that we were 
going to have. And over and over again, President Trump's 
Administration coddled the Chinese government and told us that 
this was all going to work out just fine, even though his 
doctors and scientists disagreed.
    If members of this subcommittee are as concerned about role 
of the Chinese government in the origins of the pandemic, then 
we also need to take a serious look at why the former President 
repeatedly praised China and downplayed a virus that has gone 
on to kill over a million Americans. That is the work that the 
subcommittee should also be focused on.
    Dr. Redfield, I know you mentioned in a New York Times 
interview that your greatest disappointment was lack of 
constant public health messages from civic leaders. And so my 
question is, is it fair to say that misinformation was a major 
public health threat?
    Dr. Redfield. I think that getting accurate information to 
the American public was really important. I was extremely 
disappointed as CDC Director that I was restricted from being 
able to communicate to the American public. I though that was a 
disservice.
    Mr. Garcia. And do you think that politicians who spread 
misinformation make the pandemic worse? And would it be fair to 
say that politicians who promote vaccine hesitancy actually 
cost lives?
    Dr. Redfield. I think there's a number of issues. Clearly, 
vaccine hesitancy is one of our greatest threats. As you know, 
as CDC Director, I took it on head on when I found out that, 
you know, we had over 360,000 people die of flu in the decade 
before I was CDC Director and less than 50 percent of American 
public takes the flu vaccine. So, I try to get over that.
    I do think--and this is different--I think one of the ways 
you promoted vaccine hesitancy, though, that wasn't the intent. 
I do think when we got into vaccine mandates, that helped 
reinforce vaccine hesitancy. So, vaccine hesitancy is a threat. 
We need to address it.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, sir. And I think that's 
important to also note vaccine hesitancy has been promoted 
actually by some members of this committee is actually very 
dangerous as has been said by you and many doctors across the 
country.
    Just quickly, Mr. Redfield, according to your March 17, 
2022, transcribed interview with the Select Subcommittee on the 
Coronavirus Crisis, you had a team of CDC investigators prepare 
to go to China in early January 2020. Is that correct?
    Dr. Redfield. Correct.
    Mr. Garcia. But President Trump was not successful in 
deploying this team to China. Is that also correct?
    Dr. Redfield. Correct.
    Mr. Garcia. Well, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I 
yield back.
    Mr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Joyce from Pennsylvania 
for five minutes of questions.
    Dr. Joyce. Thank you for yielding. And thank you to our 
witness panel for appearing here today.
    Dr. Redfield, thank you for appearing and discussing these 
important matters. One of the biggest problems for our country 
going forward has been the erosion of public trust in our 
public health authorities, both at a national and at an 
international level. I believe that the work this committee 
will do on getting to the bottom of the origins of this virus 
will be critical in restoring that trust. And to that end, the 
House of Representatives will be voting on legislation, this 
week, requiring that the Director of the National Intelligence 
Agency to declassify all information relating to the origins of 
COVID-19, especially if there is reason to believe that the 
Wuhan Institute of Virology is a source of this outbreak.
    Dr. Redfield, how important is this level of transparency 
to restore trust with the American public?
    Dr. Redfield. You know, I thought about this a lot of how 
we're going to get to the answer that you're striving to get 
to: What is the origin? I don't think that answer's going to 
come from the scientific community. I think that answer's going 
to come from the intelligence community. And we need to get the 
intelligence community--and you all have the way to do that--I 
would like to have you have each of them show what data they 
have, where they got it, who their informants were, and what 
their conclusions were. Because as you know, a number of them 
are on the fence. They don't say yes or no. You got the FBI and 
the Energy Department, which I have a lot of respect for. 
Because when you look at those two departments, the FBI and the 
Energy Department have the strongest scientific footprint of 
any of our intelligence agencies. And I think the way they got 
to the answers of low probability and moderate probability is 
their internal scientists did the science.
    Dr. Joyce. So, yes or no? Do you support the 
declassification of all information relating to the origins of 
the COVID virus?
    Dr. Redfield. I think declassification is very important. 
The only caveat that I would say is there are some method and 
sources issues that I think you guys are going to have to 
wrestle with to see if they're compromised by some of the 
declassification.
    Dr. Joyce. And I think that the erosion of the trust of the 
American people needs to be reestablished, and part of that is 
obtained.
    Dr. Redfield. I agree with you. I agree with you.
    Dr. Joyce. I also mentioned that there's a loss of trust on 
international levels. And I constantly hear that from my 
constituents back home in Pennsylvania over the issues, 
specifically, regarding the World Health Organization by 
kowtowing to the Chinese Community Party who showed, at every 
step, an unwillingness to be honest and transparent about the 
timing, the severity, and the origins of the outbreak. They 
badly damaged their reputation.
    Dr. Metzl, Article 6 of the International Health 
Regulations requires that the World Health Organization 
notifies within 24 hours of all events which may constitute a 
public health emergency of international concern.
    Do you believe that the Chinese Communist Party complied 
with this requirement given the reports that the CCP had 
identified COVID cases as early as November 2019?
    Mr. Metzl. There can be no doubt, whatsoever, that the 
Chinese government violated the IHR.
    Dr. Joyce. Do you feel that there's an opportunity from our 
group, our work here to reestablish potential trust in the 
World Health Organization?
    Mr. Metzl. Well, that's a separate issue. Certainly, in the 
earliest days of the pandemic, Dr. Tedros, by his own 
admission, was saying too many nice things about the--about the 
Chinese government, when the Chinese government was very 
clearly not providing the WHO the information that the WHO was 
privately asking for. But as I said earlier, Dr. Tedros, then 
was the essential voice after the deeply flawed Chinese 
International Joint Study in February 2021. If Dr. Tedros had 
not spoken up, basically condemning this deeply flawed report 
and then abolishing the entire--this entire group, we would be 
in a very different situation today.
    Dr. Joyce. The CCP was given full veto authority over those 
included on the investigation team. And coincidentally, the 
only American accepted was Peter Daszak who is CEO of 
EcoHealth. Sort of like having the fox in the hen house.
    With this information, do you believe that the conclusions 
of the report can be trusted? And is there a serious conflict 
by Daszak's inclusion in the investigation team?
    Mr. Metzl. So, as I've said many times, the entire process 
was flawed for the joint study. And that was a joint study not 
originated by the WHO Secretariat, but by the World Health 
Assembly, which is the governing body of states overseeing the 
WHO. So, this was forced on the WHO. The report of the Chinese 
International Group, in my view, was so deeply and 
fundamentally flawed that it's outrageous. But the WHO 
Secretariat, they were the ones who then--Dr. Tedros rejected 
the findings. And then the WHO Secretariat abolished that group 
and established a new group, the Scientific Advisory Group on 
the Origin of Novel Pathogens. And that group came out with 
this report that was saying that we have to fully investigate a 
lab origin, and they've called on China to be more cooperative. 
And China is again stonewalling.
    Dr. Joyce. I agree that that full investigation of a lab 
origin is the responsibility of this committee. I thank all of 
the panel members for being here today. And Mr. Chairman, I 
yield.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Ms. Tokuda from Hawaii for 
five minutes.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Following up on the 
gentleman from Maryland's comments, as an Asian American woman 
representing an ethnically diverse district that would find 
offense with Mr. Wade's work and conclusions in regards to 
race, I ask that the letter to the editor signed by more than a 
hundred geneticists and biologists opposing the use of their 
research in Mr. Wade's book be entered officially into the 
record. This speaks to his professional credibility and calls 
into question his very presence on this panel.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Without objection.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you. One thing the COVID-19 pandemic made 
clear is the need for reliable real-time public health data. 
Without it, people of color and the most vulnerable in our 
communities are disproportionately impacted. We don't have the 
infrastructure to get needed resources to them, and people die.
    We, in Congress, must continue to support our Federal 
public health agencies, not just in determining the origins of 
COVID-19, but in improving data and analytics technology so we 
can pinpoint and slow the spread of infectious disease.
    At the beginning of the pandemic, we observed difficulty 
scaling up the appropriate public health infrastructure to 
track and keep pace with COVID-19. This was a catastrophic 
wake-up call that we were grossly unprepared to deal with the 
pandemic. Coupled with the lack of action, admission, and 
leadership by the Trump Administration, people died.
    Dr. Auwaerter, let's focus on the facts, and let's put 
people first. We need to understand the origins of COVID-19--
there's no argument about that here--to prevent and prepare for 
future pandemics. What do public health agencies and 
researchers need to do now learning from this pandemic to 
ensure that we can quickly test and trace when faced with new 
pathogens of pandemic potential?
    Dr. Auwaerter. Well, my work as a clinician deals with 
public health departments. I'm not a public health department 
person, but each state has its own department, and then liaises 
with the Centers for Disease Control. And many--I know many of 
our state health departments don't have enough funds to 
accomplish what they want to. Each state is sort of self-
funding and has other Federal moneys, too. But there's just not 
enough resources. There's not enough people. And we have to go 
back to work force issues, trainees.
    We need to get people excited entering these careers. I'll 
mention that for infectious diseases, only 56 percent of our 
training programs filled in 2022. There are a number of reasons 
for that, including low compensation. I know in public health 
officials, clinical laboratories, we have trouble finding 
people that want to do that work and getting them into training 
programs. So, these are absolutely vital from both clinical 
laboratories, public health laboratories. These are sentinel 
findings for, you know, trying to see if there's an outbreak, 
is there something new impacting the health not only in our 
country, but then expand that internationally as well. Because 
these same efforts are just as important as keeping peace.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you. So, clearly the Federal Government 
needs to do more in terms of support and resources to support 
our state and local public health agencies in order for us to 
have a strong infrastructure set up.
    Regardless of how the novel coronavirus came to be, it is 
important we continue to invest in public health infrastructure 
and invest in research on pathogens of pandemic potential with 
appropriate guardrails and strict oversight and guidelines. To 
do nothing, quite frankly, is to have learned nothing from this 
tragedy and set us up for failure and more death in the future.
    Dr. Metzl, what would happen if Congress blocked Federal 
funding for BSL-3 AND BSL-4 laboratories because of 
misinformation and fear-mongering surrounding lab leaks? What 
would happen if there a moratorium on gain-of-function 
research, which includes developing medical capabilities, 
countermeasure and surveillance capacities.
    Mr. Metzl. Are you asking me? Are you asking me? I'm sorry?
    Ms. Tokuda. Sorry about that. Dr. Auwaerter.
    Mr. Metzl. OK.
    Dr. Auwaerter. Yes, thank you. So, I think we--you know, if 
we have very strict rules and shut down or halt research within 
the U.S., there may be others outside our borders carrying this 
out. As has already been mentioned that there are countries 
that may not participate with standard practices and 
agreements. So, this is not an area I labor in, but as a 
clinician, and from my infectious diseases perspective within 
the society, I think research that does examine these very 
carefully, and as you said with guardrails, with oversight, is 
important. And, you know, there can be debate about where you 
draw the line in terms of doing this research. But I think not 
to do it could leave us unprepared. And, of course, there's 
different points of view of this. And this has been going back 
and forth for a while. But I do think it needs to be vigorously 
reexamined.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you very much. And I know, Dr. Metzl, you 
have also concluded these things in your testimony as well, the 
support for this research.
    Mr. Metzl. Yes. We would be making a grave error if we shut 
down virology, if we shut down epidemiology. If we didn't have 
high containment virology labs, I think everybody agrees with 
that. The only question is, what are the guardrails? And when 
we have a situation, such as this, where it appears very likely 
that a lab error may have led to this whole pandemic, that 
forces us to be very careful and to do the kind of review that 
we all need to be working on together.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Ms. Greene from Georgia for 
five minutes of questions.
    Ms. Greene. If we're going to look into the origins of 
COVID and fully understand where this virus came from, this 
virus that has murdered so many people over the world, I think 
the most important thing we can do today is look at the 
timeline. And if we go back to early 2020 when this was just 
starting to kill so many people, we'll see something 
interesting. That while Dr. Fauci, Dr. Andersen, Dr. Collins, 
Peter Daszak from EcoHealth, who, by the way, had a grant for 
gain-of-function research, Dr. Auchincloss and others were 
doing everything possible to shut down the Wuhan lab theory, 
publicly, even though privately they told each other that 
COVID-19 looked engineered and discussed the reason to stop the 
theory.
    And if they were to, it's really interesting, they wanted 
to give reasons for not expressing this opinion to the public 
were that it would do great potential harm to science and 
international harmony, and do unnecessary harm to science in 
general, and science in China, in particular, even though their 
paychecks are funded by the American taxpayers.
    At the same time this was going on, the CCP was using its 
full weight and power to spread a propaganda campaign to 
conceal the origins of COVID, numbers of cases and deaths, and 
protect their own reputations while stockpiling medical 
supplies severely hurting the global supply chain and 
definitely hurting America.
    In the same way the CCP's silenced, censored and prisoned 
dissenters who tried to tell the truth, Dr. Fauci and his 
cohorts seemingly were running their own misinformation and, 
ultimately, censorship campaign to, in quotes from Dr. Collins 
to Dr. Fauci, ``put down this very destructive conspiracy about 
the lab leak theory.''
    But it's really interesting. I think we should revisit 
January 27, 2020. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the 
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases finds out 
that they have a financial relationship with the Wuhan 
Institute of Virology through EcoHealth Alliance, and that 
they've been working with novel coronaviruses.
    January 31, 2020, Dr. Fauci is warned by Dr. Kristian 
Andersen that some of COVID-19's features potentially look 
engineered and the genome is inconsistent with expectations 
from evolutionary theory.
    Dr. Redfield, did you agree, in your opinion, with Dr. 
Andersen's assessment at the time that this virus did look 
engineered?
    Dr. Redfield. I was concerned because of the presence of 
the furin cleavage site that we've talked about. And I think 
it's important to understand what that cleavage site does. That 
cleavage site totally changes the orientation of the binding 
domain of COVID. So it now, which could not see the H-2 
receptor, which is the human receptor, it totally changes the 
orientation now so it has high affinity for human receptors. 
So, that furin cleavage site bothered me. It didn't seem that 
it belonged there.
    And then when you look at the sequences that it uses beyond 
this committee, but I know many of you have looked into it, the 
sequences that they used in those 12 nucleotides for arginine 
were the arginine sequences nucleotide triplet coded for the 
human arginine? So, why did this virus have the arginine 
sequences for human there, not bat? It was very disconcerting 
to me. It looked like this virus was engineered.
    Ms. Greene. Was this--what you're observing and speaking 
of, is this something that would in line with gain-of-function 
research and the capabilities it would provide to the----
    Dr. Redfield. Right----
    Ms. Greene [continuing]. Virus.
    Dr. Redfield [continuing]. Yes. I mean, basically this lab 
published in 2014 that they accomplished in this--allowing the 
coronaviruses that they were working with in the lab to bind to 
the H-2 receptor and humanize mice. And the only way they did 
that was by reorienting the binding domain.
    Ms. Greene. And it was clear to them at this time that that 
was likely the issue in their private conversations. Yet, by 
February 4, a paper on the origins of COVID is drafted by four 
participants of the February 1 conference call. One of those 
participants, Dr. Andersen, completely reverses himself in an 
email to the President of EcoHealth, Peter Daszak, and says, 
``The main crackpot theories going around at the moment relate 
to this virus being somehow engineered, and that is 
demonstrably false.''
    My question to you, Mr. Redfield, did you know of any 
evidence that they had found within three days from February 1 
to February 4 to be able to confirm that it was not created in 
a lab?
    Dr. Redfield. As I mentioned earlier, unfortunately, I was 
excluded from those conversations, which I found retroactively 
very disappointed, since I was, obviously, a virologist and 
very engaged. And I actually had asked Jeremy Farrar, Tony 
Fauci, and Tedros to have these conversations. And then to be 
excluded I found unusual.
    I do think it illustrates one point that's worth really 
focusing on. When you have a group of people that decide there 
could only be one point of view, that's problematic. And I'll 
keep going saying it's antithetical to science. And 
unfortunately, that's what they did.
    Ms. Greene. I can tell you, Dr. Redfield, that is the case. 
That's very problematic because how people suffered in this 
country from those, what I would call, tyrannical decisions 
using their positions of power and shutting down the country in 
the way they did.
    Dr. Wenstrup. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. Greene. I think people definitely do feel that way. 
Thank you. I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Jackson from Texas for 
five minutes of questions.
    Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it. I 
want to thank all of our witnesses for being here. Dr. 
Redfield, I want to thank you, in particular, for your service 
as CDC Director. You were key in getting some of the 
meatpacking plants back up and running during the height of the 
pandemic in my district, and I appreciate that.
    I just want to say I agree with a few of the things that 
have been said on the other side of the aisle from my 
colleagues. And one of the things I want to talk about that 
hasn't really been addressed here from this side of the aisle 
is that, yes, I do believe that public health has been 
devastated by this COVID-19 pandemic. But, that is because 
public health officials in this country decided that they were 
going to consider the politics surrounding this issue when 
making statements and recommendations. That's the root of the 
problem with the public health here.
    And, yes, this must be repaired. We have to get our public 
health industry back. The only way that that will change, the 
only way that that will change is if we--and that we can regain 
the trust and confidence that we have to have in this country 
in our public health sector is to look back at what happened, 
who made what decisions, and why those decisions were made. 
And, most importantly, if public health authorities, such as 
Anthony Fauci, betrayed the trust of the American people, they 
must be held accountable. Period. Somebody has to be held 
accountable. This is a problem we have in government, 
throughout government. If there's no accountability, nothing 
changes.
    We're going to be doomed to repeat this whole disastrous 
period in American history again if we don't get the answers 
about what happened and why it happened.
    So, in addition, I just want to say that this continues to 
this very day. The WHO, China, the mainstream media, social 
media, they all need to be called out. They need be to held 
accountable for their part in this coverup. Millions of people 
died, and we need some answers to what's going on.
    And I'll say that we still have an issue with this today. 
We still have an issue with corrupt, politically driven advice. 
And this is evidenced by the misinformation regarding masks, 
natural immunity, the need for boosters, and most importantly 
and most important to me at this particular time, the 
inappropriate efforts to vaccinate our children.
    So, I would just say that we have to regain this trust in 
public health, and we have to do it quickly before something 
like this comes down the pike again, because the American 
people right now have zero trust and confidence in the public 
health sector in this country.
    So, I want to ask you real quickly, Dr. Metzl and Dr. 
Redfield, what do you think that we should and could do to 
regain that trust of our public health sector?
    Mr. Metzl. A number of things. First, we need to look 
objectively, honest, directly, fearlessly at the COVID origins 
issue. As I had said before, I think the primary culprit, if 
that's the right word, is China. But we also need to look at 
ourselves. We really need to look at everything. We need to 
follow the evidence. We also need to establish a bipartisan 
process for evaluating the entirety of our readiness. And 
that's why, in my remarks, I recommended establishing a 
bipartisan COVID-19 commission, kind of like being built on the 
model of the 9/11 Commission, because it's going to be very 
difficult to do it piecemeal. We really need comprehensively, 
in a bipartisan manner, to develop an action plan. And because 
health is international, that means exactly as you've said, we 
need to focus on the national and the international level.
    Dr. Jackson. Dr. Redfield, real quickly.
    Dr. Redfield. Yes, real quick. I think the first and 
foremost is we've got to tell the truth. When you don't tell 
the truth, you've got a problem. And I think if you go back, 
there were many times when public health officials packaged the 
message to what they wanted to say, but it wasn't necessarily 
truthful.
    The second thing, you have to have the courage when you're 
a public health official to say, I don't know, when you don't 
know. And I think the really fundamental--that's how we begin 
to lose it when people say that we're going to be OK once we 
get 30 percent immunity, and then later they say 50 percent, 
and then later they say 70 percent. And then the press says, 
well, why did you say 50 percent before, and now you're saying 
70 percent? And the guy says, well, I didn't think the public 
was ready to hear that.
    Dr. Jackson. Thank you, sir.
    Dr. Redfield. You've got to tell the truth.
    Dr. Jackson. I want to get a little bit of time here. I 
want to say, I did agree with some of the stuff that was being 
said on the opposite side of the aisle. One of the things I 
don't agree with, and I think that the way we have to fix this 
is we do have to get past the politics now. It's over, and it's 
done with. There's been a lot of damage done. We've got to get 
past that.
    And I'm disturbed that, you know, the people on the left in 
this committee can't talk about this at all without bringing up 
Trump, racism, or conspiracy theorists. And I just want to 
make--clear the record on one particular thing, President Trump 
on May 29, 2020, recognizing the failures of WHO, severed the 
U.S. relationship with WHO citing the need for serious reforms.
    And despite no reforms taking place, on his first day in 
office, President Biden rejoined the WHO, which was and 
continues to be nothing more than a puppet of the Chinese 
Government.
    I want to also say that on January 31, 2020, President 
Trump came under intense criticism when he banned travel from 
China, an order then-Presidential candidate Biden called 
xenophobic. A move that even the highly respected Dr. Fauci on 
the other side of the aisle praised as saying that Trump's 
actions saved thousands and millions of lives. So, thank you. 
With that, I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mr. Jordan from Ohio for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Jordan. I thank the Chairman. Look forward, the 
Democrats tell us. Focus on the future. It might have started 
in a lab. It might have happened in nature. But here is the 
question I keep coming up with. If it may have been a lab, it 
may have been nature we're supposed to look forward, then why 
did Dr. Fauci work so hard for just one of those theories? Why 
was it so important to push one over the other?
    Dr. Bera said, Oh, we should entertain all hypotheses. Dr. 
Fauci had his hypothesis, how this started. We should entertain 
all of them. But that's not what happened. That is definitely 
not what happened.
    Three years ago, if you thought it came from a lab, if you 
raised that, you were called a nutjob, you got censored on 
Twitter, you were blacklisted on Twitter. You were even called 
a crackpot by the very scientists who, in late January, sent 
emails to Dr. Fauci and said it came from a lab. They called 
you crackpot. Is that right, Dr. Redfield?
    Dr. Redfield. I think the most upsetting thing to me was 
The Baltimore Sun calling me a racist because I said this came 
from a Wuhan lab.
    Mr. Jordan. Dr. Redfield, you ran the CDC, and you were on 
the coronavirus task force. Is that right?
    Dr. Redfield. Correct.
    Mr. Jordan. That was formed on January 29, 2020. Is that 
right?
    Dr. Redfield. Correct.
    Mr. Jordan. Two days later, Dr. Fauci gets an email from 
Dr. Andersen which says what? Virus looks engineered. Virus not 
consistent with evolutionary theory. Is that accurate?
    Dr. Redfield. That's my understanding if you want to----
    Mr. Jordan. Yes, I know. Did he share that email with you, 
by the way, Dr. Redfield?
    Dr. Redfield. No.
    Mr. Jordan. As a member of the task force, as the head of 
CDC, did he share that email with you?
    Dr. Redfield. No.
    Mr. Jordan. OK. Next day, February 1, Dr. Garry sends Dr. 
Fauci another email. That email says: I don't know how this 
happens in nature, but it would be easy to do in a lab. Did he 
share that email with you, Dr. Redfield?
    Dr. Redfield. No, no.
    Mr. Jordan. You didn't see either one of those emails, even 
though you're head of CDC, even though you're on the 
coronavirus task force that had been formed just two days, 
three days earlier.
    Dr. Redfield. No.
    Mr. Jordan. Three days later, Dr. Andersen and Dr. Garry 
who told us it came from a lab in emails to Dr. Fauci that Dr. 
Fauci wouldn't let Dr. Redfield see, three days later they 
changed their position 180 degrees. The question is why?
    Mr. Wade, why would they change their position that fast 
when the only intervening event is a conference call with Dr. 
Fauci, the guy who wouldn't let Dr. Redfield see the very 
emails that they had sent him, Dr. Redfield head of CDC on the 
coronavirus task force, why would they change their position, 
Dr. Wade--or Mr. Wade?
    Mr. Wade. Well, this question does lie at the heart of the 
issue. What is pertinent seems to me is there's no new 
scientific evidence that we can see that became available 
between these dates of Jan 31st and Feb 4.
    Mr. Jordan. Right, there's no new--I think you're--go 
ahead.
    Mr. Wade. So, you have to ask if there were other kinds of 
influence available. Now it is true that Dr. Fauci and Dr. 
Farrar in London were very powerful research officials and 
between them they controlled----
    Mr. Jordan. I read your testimony. I saw that.
    Mr. Wade. OK.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes.
    Mr. Wade. So----
    Mr. Jordan. Why don't you cut to the chase and tell them 
what you really think was the reason.
    Mr. Wade. I don't know what the reason was. I just----
    Mr. Jordan. I know what it was.
    Mr. Wade. Go ahead, sir.
    Mr. Jordan. No, go ahead. Go ahead. I'll let you say it, 
because I read your testimony. I think you said it in your 
testimony, too. Maybe you're reluctant to say it here, but go 
ahead.
    Mr. Wade. Well, if you're looking at the timeline on May 
21, just a few weeks after the the Nature Medicine article had 
come out, two of the signatures of the original email to Dr. 
Fauci, that's Dr. Andersen and Dr. Garry, were awarded a $9 
million grant.
    Mr. Jordan. So, there's 9 million reasons why they changed 
their mind. I knew you would get to it. I read that last night. 
So, three days after they say it came from a lab, they changed 
their position. And the only intervening event, the conference 
call with Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins, again, a call that Mr. 
Redfield was not allowed to be on, the head of CDC and on the 
coronavirus task force. And then three months later, shazam. 
They get nine million bucks from Dr. Fauci.
    Well, isn't that something? Isn't that something? That's 
why we want to talk to these guys. That's why Chairman Wenstrup 
wants to bring in Dr. Andersen and Dr. Garry and ask them a 
series of questions so we can get to the bottom of this, so we 
can move forward and deal with this.
    Here is the key question. I'm just a commonsense guy from 
Ohio. Well, I majored in wrestling in college. I got a degree 
in economics. You're supposed to get a degree when you go to 
college. I got one in economics. And one of the things they 
tell you about is a thing called opportunity cost. So, when 
you're spending your time making sure that the country believes 
only one of these theories, you could have been doing what Dr. 
Redfield was doing in our government, trying to figure out how 
we deal with this virus. And what was Dr. Fauci doing? He was 
trying to cover his backside and everybody knows it. And that's 
the part that ticks us off, because this is the highest paid 
guy in our government, getting all kinds of money to tell us 
things that were not accurate. Because we now know U.S. tax 
dollars went to a lab in China, a lab that was not up to code, 
a lab that was doing gain-of-function research, and that's 
where this thing most definitely came from. And Dr. Fauci had 
to prove no, no, he can't have that news getting out. And 
that's why he did what he did to the exclusion of a brilliant 
guy running our CDC; kept him out of the loop. Keeping him out 
of the loop, probably potentially could have harmed America. 
That's the thing that ticks us all off.
    And that's why, Mr. Chairman, this hearing is so darn 
important that we get to the bottom of really what happened. I 
yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. At this point, I'm going to make a 
closing statement before--yes, you will follow me, and then I 
will yield to you for a closing statement.
    You know, this is very serious business, extremely serious 
business, apolitical serious business. And I believe that Dr. 
Ruiz, the ranking member on the subcommittee feels exactly the 
same way. You know, there's a difference between saying I 
disagree with you and here's why, as opposed to labeling 
something a conspiracy theory, or someone a conspiracy 
theorist. There's a huge difference. That's the politics that 
comes in. We need to get it out. No more. For this committee, 
and as a general discussion across America, I hope that that 
can change.
    I'm first a physician. I'm also a soldier, Iraq War 
veteran. I've served on the Intelligence Committee here for the 
last 10 years. I've had a security clearance since 1998 as a 
soldier.
    This subcommittee is about an after-action review, lessons 
learned through this process, finding truths, and building a 
path forward so that we can have readiness in the future. 
That's what we need to do.
    My life has been about trying to improve other lives to 
keep people healthy and also about the security of the United 
States of America. I'd love for this thing to be from nature. I 
would love that. Because that would be better for all of us. 
But I can't help but look at this and say, there's another 
possibility here. And when I think of that other possibility, 
it leads my mind with my experience in life to so many 
nefarious things that can happen to us as a people. This is a 
national security issue. This is a national health issue.
    Some things might start out as good. I don't think the 
Wright brothers ever intended for planes to be flown into 
buildings to kill thousands of people. That may be the case. We 
need to consider all those possibilities, the lessons learned. 
I can give you some lessons learned. You know, we're talking 
about trust and building trust. And I will tell you, going back 
to Secretary Azar, I made the suggestion, America needs to hear 
from doctors that are treating COVID patients. I think that 
would be the most helpful. That's who they know. That's who 
they trust. Those are the people in the trenches, not from 
politicians, and not from someone who's never at bedside who's 
just in the lab.
    The origins of this is important. Because when we talk to 
doctors who are treating patients, for example, though, this is 
where I think early on it was most important, because all they 
were concerned about, and all Americans were concerned about is 
whether they were going to live or die. And will you come up 
with a cure or a vaccine? That's all they worried about. But as 
we try to move forward, the origins of this is important, so 
that we don't have to struggle in the same way that we did 
through all of this. And trust is important.
    Dr. Redfield, I agree with you on the declassification. 
Hopefully, we will get there. It's important for transparency, 
for sunlight on all of this. Obviously, there's methods and 
other things we have to keep out. I get that. And you'd 
commented on another thing that I had written down before you 
said it, because to me it's important as a doctor to be honest 
about what we don't know. And when we don't know something, and 
we hypothesize something, and then we find out we're wrong we 
have to say we didn't know, and now we know better. That didn't 
happen.
    And I'll give you an example. You know, early on, people 
were saying, well, in the summer, it may dissipate like other 
coronaviruses have in the summer. That made sense, but it 
didn't happen. And we should have said, oh my gosh, that didn't 
happen. This thing isn't called novel for a reason, and we need 
to do a little more digging.
    I am open to various opinions, especially from experts in 
the arena, including doctors that are treating affected 
patients. That's where we have to go. This committee is going 
to deal with all aspects of the pandemic, but this is one 
that's very important and on the minds of every American.
    I want to thank you all for your testimonies today, for 
taking the time to be with us. We may have to see you again, 
we'll see. But at the same time, I do want to thank all of you 
for being here. And with that, I will turn it over to the 
ranking member for his final comments. Thank you.
    Dr. Ruiz. I, too, want to thank all the witnesses for 
coming today and testifying before this committee.
    Let me be clear, my Democratic colleagues and I take 
seriously the charge of determining the coronavirus' origins. 
And that is why we must allow scientists and intelligence 
experts to do their research without politicizations, or 
politicians politicizing the issue using extreme partisan 
rhetoric or making conclusions or accusations without concrete 
evidence. It seems like minds on the other side of the aisle 
are shut and made up on the origins, and they have chosen their 
villain.
    If we truly want to follow the evidence, the truth is that 
the evidence as we have it now is inconclusive. But 
villainizing our public health experts through conspiratorial 
accusations based on partisan suspicions and not concrete 
evidence does nothing to help us prevent and prepare for future 
pandemics.
    I, too, am a physician. I, too, have taken care of patients 
who have died due to dyspnea; in other words, they couldn't 
breath; they didn't get the oxygen. And I have intubated and 
kept people alive and resuscitated people over and over in the 
emergency department. These are not political ideas for the 
individual who's diabetic and lives in a poor neighborhood that 
doesn't have access to testing or to healthcare access.
    This is not political. They don't give two cents of who 
knew what and by when. They want to make sure that they stay 
alive, that they can get the medicines, that they can live in a 
country that doesn't have to politicize every single damn 
thing. And they want to see their government work for them, for 
the people, to do the right thing.
    And I do agree that we need to evaluate the evidence as it 
comes, just like when we had the lack of evidence of this novel 
virus, and we made, as Dr. Redfield and Dr. Auwaerter said, 
some conservative decisions in order to protect until we knew 
more, until we were able to have the resources to put shots in 
arms, students responsibly back into schools, people 
responsibly back into work.
    But villainizing our public health experts undermines our 
efforts to do so. You see it hurts the recruitment of public 
health servants in a time when we have a public health servant 
shortage. And it hurts trust. It hurts trust in basic public 
health measures like masks that reduces airborne transmission 
and vaccines that save lives.
    Congress has an important role in supporting the expert 
community's efforts to get to the bottom of the coronavirus' 
origins. We also have an important role to be forward looking 
in developing the policy solutions necessary to mitigate the 
threat of new viruses, no matter where they came from.
    You know, I saw each of the witnesses nod in agreement in 
my discussion with Dr. Auwaerter regarding constructive policy 
solutions like raising the international standards for pathogen 
research.
    There is still an opportunity for us to correct course. And 
this is a message on both sides of the aisle for this select 
subcommittee to be a constructive body that focuses on forward 
looking solutions; ones that save lives that matter to 
individuals who are at risk of dying today from this virus.
    So, let's debate gain-of-function research. Let's discuss 
what we can do to improve safety guidelines and transparency in 
foreign labs. Let's discuss how to increase trust in basic 
public health measures to save lives and recruit more public 
health workers. Let's put people above politics. We owe it to 
the American people to take every action we can to save lives. 
And I stand ready to work with the Chairman to do so.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Dr. Ruiz. In closing, I would like 
to thank our panelists once again for their important and 
insightful testimony today. With that and without objection, 
all members will have five legislative days within which to 
submit materials and to submit additional written questions for 
the witnesses which will be forwarded to the witnesses for 
their response.
    If there's no further business, without objection, the 
select subcommittee stands adjourned. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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