“You don’t know what you’re talking about”

WASHINGTON – Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., And Dr Anthony Fauci, one of the government’s top public health experts, had a heated exchange during a Senate hearing on Tuesday after Paul accused Fauci of ‘lying to Congress about the role of National Institutes of Health have played a role in funding research in Wuhan, China.

“Senator Paul, you don’t know what you’re talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say it officially. Said Fauci. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was responding to Paul’s claim that the NIH was funding research into gain of function – which seeks to increase the transmissibility or pathogenesis of an organism in order to study disease – at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. . Fauci said Paul’s accusation was false, prompting a new exchange about what constitutes such research.

While not a new accusation by Paul, the senator hinted on Tuesday that Fauci had previously lied to Congress and was aware of what the Wuhan lab was doing with the grant money from the NIH.

“Senator Paul, I have never lied to Congress and I do not withdraw this statement,” Fauci said, chastising Paul’s assertion, adding that the matter had been repeatedly assessed by qualified persons.

“We don’t know it’s from the lab, but all of the evidence points to it coming from the lab, and there will be liability for those who funded the lab, including yourself,” said Paul, himself. referring to the coronavirus.

“I don’t like at all the lie that you are spreading now, senator, because if you look at the viruses that have been used in the experiments that have been given in the annual reports that have been published in the literature, it is molecularly impossible “for these coronavirus result viruses, Fauci replied.

President Joe Biden in May asked U.S. intelligence agencies to “redouble” their efforts to determine the origins of the coronavirus after he was unable to come to a “definitive conclusion” on the matter.

Paul was the first known senator to contract the coronavirus when he tested positive in March of last year, and he said earlier this year that he would not receive the vaccine since he already had the virus .

The senator, a steadfast opponent of Covid mitigation measures and mask warrants, has already clashed with Fauci on other issues related to the pandemic.

“It is a model that Senator Paul has made in several hearings based on no reality,” Fauci said. “I didn’t lie. Case closed.”