Gain of Function Research Probably Still Happening in China with U.S. Funding
On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Evening Edit,” former HHS Assistant Secretary Adm. Brett Giroir said it’s “very possible” that the United States funded gain of function research on coronavirus and that this sort of research “is probably still ongoing there and in a number of other labs in China and probably around the world, many of whom we probably fund.”
Giroir stated, “I think, very clearly, back in the 2014, 2015 era, the NIH was funding research that was published and we know about it, about gain of function mutations on this type of virus. And I think there’s a lot of investigation that needs to be done. If you look at the series of grants that were funded, they all talked about bats. They all talked about coronavirus. But I would bet dimes to doughnuts, as they say, that the NIH does not have record[s] or controls to understand exactly what was done. So, it’s very possible we did fund this research.”