The far right wing of the Republican Party is insisting that the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 in humans was somehow designed and created in a lab in Wuhan, China, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is not only responsible, but profiting off the deaths of 3.3 million people around the world who have died from their the virus, and from the COVID-19 vaccine, which is false.
For example, here’s U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), spreading the false claim that Fauci “profited” from virus research:
U.S. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, has been attacking Fauci for nearly a year, and spreading conspiracy theories and falsehoods, like this, from a science-denialism think tank that advocates herd immunity for COVID-19.
On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) tried to attack Dr. Fauci during a Senate hearing.
Fauci was not about to let him.
Marshall, reading from a script, suggested COVID-19 is “a product of lab manipulation,” and demanding to know if National Institutes of Health funding could “indirectly or directly” be related to the COVID-19 virus.
“Looking at the experiments that were done that we funded there would not be that possibility,” Fauci told Marshall.
Pressed by Marshall if his response is unequivocal, Fauci politely schools Marshall, who is a physician, saying “anyone who knows anything about virology would realize that that is not something that would infect a human.”
Marshall was determined to get Fauci to give him a soundbite to support his conspiracy theories, and Fauci was not budging.
“The NIH and NIAID did not fund gain of function research to be conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Fauci said, slowly, for Marshall to comprehend.
Marshall continued to press and Fauci who refused to give him what he wanted.
“If you want to trap me into saying yes or no, I’m not going to play that game,” Fauci replied.
Watch: