NIH letter appears to conflict with Fauci, Collins claims about Wuhan lab

WASHINGTON (TND) — The National Institutes of Health has confirmed the veracity of a letter it released which appears to contradict Senate testimony from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, according to a Rutgers chemistry and chemical biology professor.

Fauci repeatedly insisted during a May Senate hearing that the NIH “has not ever, and does not now fund, gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

NIH Director Francis Collins, who announced earlier this month that he will be stepping down from his position at the end of the year, also confirmed this in a May news release.

Yet, a letter from the NIH's Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak, sent to the ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, seems to contradict Fauci's testimony, according to Professor Richard Ebright.

Ebright, who released the letter on social media, accuses Fauci, Collins, and Tabak of being dishonest to Congress, the press, and the public about the research done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

Yet, the NIH reiterated in a follow up statement regarding the letter, which was obtained by The National Desk, that the research the grant was funding "was reviewed in advance" and was initially "determined not to meet the definition of enhanced potential pandemic pathogen (ePPP) research," which kept it from further mandated review.

The NIH's follow up statement concluded:

While the findings of this limited experiment in mice were somewhat unexpected, NIAID reviewed the progress report and has determined that the research described in the progress report would not have triggered a review under the HHS P3CO Framework because the bat coronaviruses used in this research have not been shown to infect humans and the experiments were not reasonably expected to increase transmissibility or virulence in humans.

Ebright’s assertions were made alongside a tweet including the letter, which indicated that some variation of spike protein binding research did indeed occur under the NIH's grant.

The letter said:

The limited experiment described in the final progress report provided by EcoHealth Alliance was testing if spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model.

During Fauci's Senate testimony Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., insisted scientists at WIV “worked together to insert bat virus spike protein into the backbone of the deadly SARS virus, and then use this man-made supervirus to infect human airway cells.”

“Can you imagine if a SARS virus that's been juiced up and had viral proteins added to it to the spike protein if that were released accidentally,” Paul said to Fauci.

Since Fauci’s May testimony, other revelations have surfaced that critics argue confirmed the research was indeed gain-of-function.

As Fauci began receiving increased criticism over the Wuhan “lab-leak theory,” including from the release of over 3,000 pages of his email communications that showed he was discussing the possibility that COVID-19’s “features (potentially) look engineered,” with another virologist, he began admitting there was a possibility the theory wasn’t just a conspiracy.

Fauci defended himself following the leaked emails and said they could easily be “taken out of context.” He also said he thought it was “quite far-fetched” to say that the Chinese deliberately created a virus to harm others.