Another lie by St. Anthony of Fauci: gain of function

For #BlueAnon, in my opinion, Fauci is more and more a "Mount Rushmore face" ranking right up there with former president Dear Leader.

Lies by him continue to go unchecked.

Yesterday, in another Tar Baby-like argument with Squirrel Hair (Rand Paul), one that I'm sure both of them like for its Tar Baby reasons, Fauci again claimed the US had not sponsored gain of function research at Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Reality?

Hellz yes we did.

Fauci was busted six weeks and more ago for lies, lies by omission and lies by redefinition about his agency and others helping the Wuhan Institute of Virology in "gain of function" research on coronaviruses. This busting also applies to the fellow travelers above. Before that, Fauci is on record openly supporting gain of function research in general.

Jaime Metzl, who used to work for President Clinton, and also for then-Sen. Joe Biden, so not a wingnut, has also said WIV did gain of function research, albeit not on a coronavirus, as far as we know.

He adds that the the Wuhan CDC, just down the road, also did gain of function research, and this WAS ON bat coronaviruses, starting in 2015. That link is a long read but well worth it. Among other things, he VERY SPECIFICALLY notes that "gain of function" research is NOT "genetic engineering." Fauci knows this, but, IMO, he's hand-waving, gaslighting or whatever, and even if not actively conflating the two ideas himself, letting others do the lifting for him.

(Update: Whether WIV's gain of function research deliberately increased transmissibility to humans or not is a different issue than gain of function as defined by Jamie Metzl et al as "gain of function"! This is where Fauci's hair-splitting comes in. As does Fauci's hairsplitting in calling GIF only when it makes a virus more dangerous to humans. No, it means ... gain in function! Period. And, this is important because if such a virus leaks, we don't know how it's going to further evolve after that. And, at that link, per Gregory Koblenz, the big issue is that we don't know what standards, if any, the National Institutes of Health has for calling an "enhancement" officially GIF by its standards. So, Fauci could claim NOTHING is GIF, for all you and I know. [Fauci's boss Francis Collins, head of NIH, engages in the same lie by definitional hairsplitting, Metzl notes.] )

Finally, as with his original Platonic Noble Lie, and his follow-up Noble Lie on population percentages for herd immunity, on his emails as well, St. Anthony of Fauci is unapologetic. He claims the outrage is all Republican and all anti-science. Tell that to the likes of me and Zeynep Tufekci.

Or, per the Fauci emails, have your toady, Kristen Andersen, tell them that after his lying on your behalf on viral engineering. Per that piece, Andersen lamely claims that "new evidence" arose between his email to Fauci and one to the Lancet which squashed, for public consumption, the lab leak idea like a bug. Metzl asked, how much new info could arise in four days. (For open minded people like Jaime, try THIS on size: Times Higher Ed reports that critics claim Lancet, and other journals with the same take, had potential conflicts of interest.)

As I've said before, if Fauci had any ethics, he'd resign. But, I more and more question just how much or how little ethics he has. I don't question how much of a bureaucrat he is.

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Update: Fauci says we should continue to fund WIV. This is insane both on the gain-of-function issue and on China's stonewalling WHO as well as the US on further transparency.