This piece is referencing Rand Paul’s famous grilling of Fauci regarding “gain of function” research at WIV, and isn’t questioning Fauci’s stature as a scientist.
Paul isn’t saying he’s stupid, or a bad scientist, just that he’s a liar.
Which is undoubtedly is. Fauci’s lies, in this case, took two forms:
1. He tried to evade Paul’s cross-examination by attempting to re-define “gain of function” and
2. Tried to evade responsibility for funding anything that Paul was calling “gain of function” because he had used a cutout.
He might be brilliant in his field, but he’s a lousy lawyer. And he got caught.
Paul’s right about this.
“He tried to evade Paul’s cross-examination by attempting to re-define “gain of function””
What definition of Gain of Function do you think is correct?
People here use the term like it has an accepted definition, but when you look at NIH studies that were done well before Covid-19 you can see that that isn’t the case at all.
Here’s a PubMed book report on a 2015 symposium:
“Potential Risks and Benefits of Gain-of-Function Research: Summary of a Workshop.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285579/
“Throughout the symposium, particularly in the final discussion session, there were calls for a clearer definition of precisely what types of experiments are really of concern. Dr. Tom Inglesby of the UPMC Center for Health Security noted that he thought that the origin of the term “gain-of-function” goes back to a 2012 meeting that he convened for the NIH on this topic.
“The term was used to replace more descriptive terms that indicated concerns about research that generates strains of respiratory viruses that are highly transmissible and highly pathogenic. According to Inglesby, this was the provenance of the term, and he suggested that it could be retired with something more descriptive.
“Dr. Gerald Epstein of the Department of Homeland Security also called for clarifying which experiments are of most concern. GoF is clearly not the right descriptor, and he stated that it would be a tremendous service to have terminology that accurately describes those things about which we are most concerned. The same point was made by others at various times during the workshop.
ALTERNATIVES TO GOF RESEARCH
“The essence of the debate around the risks and benefits of GoF research and the concerns it raises have naturally encouraged virologists on both sides of the debate to consider alternative methodological approaches.
“During his talk, Kawaoka discussed alternatives to GoF research mostly applicable to influenza research, such as loss-of-function research, use of low pathogenicity viruses, and phenotypic analyses.
He further cited a review paper in which Lipsitch and Galvani stated that “alternative scientific approaches are not only less risky, but also more likely to generate results that can be readily translated into public health benefits.”
However, Kawaoka argued through specific examples that alternatives do not always provide the full answer to key questions.
For instance, he cited work by Tumpey et al. and Imai et al. on mutations responsible for the loss of transmission capabilities of the 1918 influenza strain between ferrets and noted that this work required GoF research because a loss-of-function approach did not provide the complete picture.
In addition, although working with low pathogenic avian influenza viruses provides a safer approach, Kawaoka explained that “highly pathogenic avian influenza differ from low pathogenic viruses in their kinetics of virus replication and tropism” and therefore the data can be misleading.