Coronavirus

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, last week's conversations about our own government's role in the COVID coverup reflected over a year of refusal on the part of my Democratic colleagues to accept that the novel coronavirus may not have spread via natural transmission from a Chinese wildlife wet market.

As the theories of the pandemic's origins evolved, one remained, until very recently, off limits. This is, of course, the lab leak hypothesis, or the theory that the virus somehow escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Now, this theory didn't come out of nowhere. In early January 2020, alarm bells were already ringing at the CDC, the State Department, and in the scientific community over problems with the natural origin theory of transmission.

Virologists and other public health officials studying the disease were quickly coming to the conclusion that the way the virus was spreading suggested that this theory was flawed. Officials also knew that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting controversial and dangerous ``gain of function'' research with the help of repackaged U.S. Government grants.

Yes, that is correct.

In April of last year, I joined many of my colleagues in publicly demanding a thorough investigation into the lab leak theory. What followed was nothing less than moral panic. Activists, journalists, and even our own Democratic colleagues accused us of racism, xenophobia, and science denial.

Major media organizations refused to report on the hypothesis, except to decry it as a racist attack on Chinese scientists. Facebook banned accounts that posted about it. YouTube deleted videos that dared contradict the World Health Organization.

Rather than scaring us off, though, these attacks left us with another question to answer: Why did the very idea of investigating the Wuhan lab inspire such a bizarre panic? Or, perhaps, the better question is, Why did NIAID Director Dr. Fauci and the rest of the powers that be publicly insist that the idea of a lab leak was completely preposterous?

Even NIH Director Francis Collins hadn't ruled it out. In a March 2020 interview with the Atlantic, he said that while natural transmission was the likely culprit, ``the possibility that such a naturally evolved virus might have also been under study at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and reached residents of Wuhan--and ultimately the rest of the world--as the result of a lab accident has never been adequately excluded.''

We certainly have evidence to show that mistakes happen, even in a professional lab. Who could forget that back in 2015, we saw reports that personnel at a military facility in Utah accidentally shipped active samples of anthrax to labs in nine States--yes, a 2015 lab accident.

NIH has also had problems keeping track of things. According to a memo prepared in 2016 by a minority staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a 2009 Department of Health and Human Services OIG audit found an inventory discrepancy at the NIH caused in part by mislabeled envelopes containing unregistered vials of plague and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

In 2012, NIH researchers found vials of anthrax spores in the wrong place. What is worse, the scientists in that particular lab weren't registered to possess them.

In 2014, an FDA researcher working at the NIH campus in Bethesda discovered vials of live smallpox virus stuffed in a cardboard box in an unsecured cold storage room.

Mistakes were clearly made. Lab accidents happen. It is also clear that while a leak from the Wuhan lab could have happened due to human error, this coverup we are now learning about certainly did not happen by error.

We now have an emerging picture of what did happen behind the scenes to create so much resistance to the lab leak theory.

On June 3 of this year, that bastion of rightwing insanity known as Vanity Fair magazine published an investigative report exposing the deranged political gamesmanship that prompted public health officials to paint the lab leak theory as a conspiracy.

The report confirmed just about everything those officials wanted to keep hidden--namely, that the lab leak hypothesis was suppressed at multiple levels of government by officials looking to protect their own interests and to distance themselves from President Donald Trump--so much for following the science. They were following emotions.

The report confirmed conflicts of interest concerning grant awards that supported gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The same people who knew that Chinese scientists were performing these dangerous experiments on the taxpayer dime also knew from verified intelligence reports that three Wuhan-based researchers fell ill with COVID-like symptoms in November 2019, well before the first reported outbreak. Still, State Department officials warned investigators to abandon their inquiries into the origins of COVID-19 because it would ``open a can of worms.''

The internal coverups bled into this year until, finally, 5 days before President Biden took the oath of office, the State Department put out a fact sheet on the Wuhan lab that confirmed the November outbreak and revealed that scientists working there had collaborated with the Chinese military on classified research. The Biden administration has yet to walk any of this back.

We are also finally seeing some interest in the World Health Organization's Beijing-controlled investigation into the Wuhan lab. On March 1 of this year and again on May 24, I laid out my concerns to the White House about the WHO's reliance on the Chinese Communist Party for funding and support. I explained how this reliance drove their initial support for Beijing's response to the outbreaks and ruined the integrity of their investigation. The White House has yet to respond to my concerns, but it is not going to be able to avoid responding because the American people are demanding the answers.

I think it is important to state for the record that what we are seeing in these news reports is not entirely new information. The foundations of the lab leak hypothesis remain much the same as they were a year ago. So why pop open that can of worms right now? Because there is no way to sweep this thing back under the rug.

We have the sudden interest of the media. Imagine that. We also have an entire body of published statements and investigative reporting from inside China. Facebook and YouTube have reversed their content policies, which means they couldn't stop people from sharing this information unless they pulled the plug on the entire internet which, obviously, isn't an option.

We also have the magic of FOIA on our side. We learned from Dr. Fauci's published emails that he knew about the dangerous research happening in China. He was aware. We know he allowed inquiries into the Wuhan lab leak theory to go unanswered. We also know he worked with Mark Zuckerberg to determine what COVID-related information flowed into the public timeline and when that information went out.

Now, I stand by my criticism of Dr. Fauci. His dystopian comments equating attacks on his job performance with attacks on science are unacceptable, but I want to encourage everyone to not make this about one person. We now have evidence that public officials were eating each other alive over political disagreements and that these disagreements derailed investigations into the origins of COVID-19.

This is more than just political failure; it is a moral inversion that empowered one of the globe's most violent authoritarian governments. The Chinese officials who hid the existence of the novel coronavirus from international bodies are the very same Chinese officials who gunned down freedom fighters in Hong Kong, who unleashed political violence in Inner Mongolia and Tibet, and who continue to commit ongoing genocide against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

It is time for Congress to get serious about cleaning up this mess. I reiterate the same demands I made more than a year ago for a full and unbiased inquiry into the lab leak hypothesis and a broader investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last week, I joined Senator Cotton in reintroducing the Li Wenliang Global Public Health Accountability Act. This legislation would authorize the President to sanction foreign officials who suppress or distort information about international public health crises, including COVID-19. I encourage my colleagues to sign on to the bill.

Most importantly, I would implore my Democratic colleagues to engage in a little introspection. The officials implicated in this coverup swept science under the rug, orchestrated a relentless smear campaign, throttled the flow of public information, and allowed the Chinese Communist Party to exonerate itself at the expense of truth and accountability.

You don't have to defend this. Please, have the moral courage to make the right choice, and join us in our demands for unbiased investigations into the origin of the pandemic.

Nearly two million people have died. Their families deserve to know the truth. Only through transparency can we learn what caused this pandemic and how to prevent the next one.

The U.S. government does not know exactly where, when, or how the COVID-19 virus-known as SARS--CoV-2--was transmitted initially to humans. We have not determined whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

The virus could have emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, spreading in a pattern consistent with a natural epidemic. Alternatively, a laboratory accident could resemble a natural outbreak if the initial exposure included only a few individuals and was compounded by asymptomatic infection. Scientists in China have researched animal-derived coronaviruses under conditions that increased the risk for accidental and potentially unwitting exposure.

The CCP's deadly obsession with secrecy and control comes at the expense of public health in China and around the world. The previously undisclosed information in this fact sheet, combined with open-source reporting, highlights three elements about COVID-19's origin that deserve greater scrutiny:

1. illnesses inside the wuhan institute of virology (wiv)

The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses. This raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli's public claim that there was ``zero infection'' among the WIV's staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses.

Accidental infections in labs have caused several previous virus outbreaks in China and elsewhere, including a 2004 SARS outbreak in Beijing that infected nine people, killing one.

The CCP has prevented independent journalists, investigators, and global health authorities from interviewing researchers at the WIV, including those who were ill in the fall of 2019. Any credible inquiry into the origin of the virus must include interviews with these researchers and a full accounting of their previously unreported illness. 2. Research at the WIV

Starting in at least 2016--and with no indication of a stop prior to the COVID-19 outbreak--WIV researchers conducted experiments involving RaTG13, the bat coronavirus identified by the WIV in January 2020 as its closest sample to SARS-CoV- 2 (96.2% similar). The WIV became a focal point for international coronavirus research after the 2003 SARS outbreak and has since studied animals including mice, bats, and pangolins.

The WIV has a published record of conducting ``gain-of- function'' research to engineer chimeric viruses. But the WIV has not been transparent or consistent about its record of studying viruses most similar to the COVID-19 virus, including ``RaTG13,'' which it sampled from a cave in Yunnan Province in 2013 after several miners died of SARS-like illness.

WHO investigators must have access to the records of the WIV's work on bat and other coronaviruses before the COVID-19 outbreak. As part of a thorough inquiry, they must have a full accounting of why the WIV altered and then removed online records of its work with RaTG13 and other viruses. 3. Secret military activity at the WIV

Secrecy and non-disclosure are standard practice for Beijing. For many years the United States has publicly raised concerns about China's past biological weapons work, which Beijing has neither documented nor demonstrably eliminated, despite its clear obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention.

Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China's military. The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.

The United States and other donors who funded or collaborated on civilian research at the WIV have a right and obligation to determine whether any of our research funding was diverted to secret Chinese military projects at the WIV.

Today's revelations just scratch the surface of what is still hidden about COVID-19's origin in China. Any credible investigation into the origin of COVID-19 demands complete, transparent access to the research labs in Wuhan, including their facilities, samples, personnel, and records.

As the world continues to battle this pandemic--and as WHO investigators begin their work, after more than a year of delays--the virus's origin remains uncertain. The United States will continue to do everything it can to support a credible and thorough investigation, including by continuing to demand transparency on the part of Chinese authorities. ____ March 1, 2021. Hon. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., President of the United States, Washington, DC.

Dear President Biden: The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a significant toll on American life as well as the U.S. economy. Test kits, antibody therapies, and vaccine development have occurred in record time due to Operation Warp Speed and the ingenuity of the private sector. However, the investigation into the origins of the pandemic are not complete. Without this knowledge, it will be difficult to prevent a future, similar pandemic. I urge you to use your leadership to ensure investigations by the World Health Organization (WHO) are free from conflicts of interest.

Concerns have been raised about the lack of transparency of the events that took place at the time the outbreak started in Wuhan, China. In addition, concerns have been raised regarding the manner in which World Health Organization investigators were chosen to study the outbreak and some of the conflicts of interest that exist in those investigators.

Following the 2014 breakdown of security measures that resulted in cross contamination with a dangerous bird flu strain and the accidental mailing of live anthrax spores from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to other labs, Tom Frieden, the director of the CDC under president Obama testified ``We also need to encourage a culture of openness and effective reporting of past or future incidents--since a key aspect of effective response is to support rapid reporting of problems.''

On February 13, 2021, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said, ``We have deep concerns about the way in which the early findings of the COVID-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them. It is imperative that this report be independent, with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government.''

Transparency is an issue upon which we can agree. In light of that, I respectfully request you use your leadership to ensure the ongoing investigation of the COVID-19 pandemic origin be free from conflict of interest. WHO should be required to have independent investigators to conduct this study. WHO should not include researchers with conflicts of interest or with a lack of experience in forensic investigation. We owe this to the over 500,000 Americans who have died from this disease, to their families, and to future Americans who face possible pandemics. Sincerely, Marsha Blackburn, U.S. Senator. ____ May 24, 2021. Hon. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., President of the United States, Washington, DC.

Dear President Biden: I write to follow-up on my March 1, 2021 letter with lingering concerns about the validity of the World Health Organization's (WHO) investigation into the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior reports appear to confirm that the WHO had ``little power to conduct a thorough, impartial examination.'' On May 13, 2021, in a letter published in Science, a group of 19 prominent scientists called for a deeper investigation of the two primary hypotheses: 1) the virus began to spread after jumping from infected animals to humans; and 2) the virus was accidentally released from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology and began spreading in the human population.

Among other issues, these scientists call into question the China-WHO joint study's consideration of the two main hypotheses stating, ``Only 4 of the 313 pages of the report and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory accident.'' This fact is deeply concerning in light of recent media reports that, ``[t]hree researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.''

In light of these reports and my continued concerns, please respond, in writing, to the following questions:

1. According to reports, the WHO asked the U.S. government to recommend three experts for the China-WHO joint investigation team. Although they were not ultimately selected, another U.S. scientist was selected for the team.

a. Please name the three scientists recommended by the U.S., and articulate the WHO's reasoning for not choosing these individuals.

2. Beijing has refused to share critical raw data on the initial cases of COVID-19 in China. Has Beijing provided the U.S. with that data? If not, please explain why.

3. The China-WHO joint investigation stated that they ``lacked expertise and access to investigate a potential lab leak.'' What will the administration do to insure that competent, impartial experts are involved in future investigations?

4. WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the organization was not mandated to do a forensic audit. Why was this the case? Will your administration insist on a fulsome forensic audit for future outbreaks?

I request the courtesy of a reply by June 14, 2021. Sincerely, Marsha Blackburn, U.S. Senator.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source