Giroir: NIH Is ‘to Blame’ for COVID for Funding Risky Research, Scientific Community Doesn’t Want to Accept Blame for Pandemic

On Tuesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “On Balance,” former HHS Assistant Secretary Adm. Brett Giroir stated that he believes a lab leak is the most likely origin for COVID, but the scientific community does “not want to take the blame for something like this happening.” And that the NIH and the U.S. are also partially to blame for COVID “because we funded the research to begin with.”

Giroir said, “I’ve been pretty open about assessing that it is much more likely to come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We now know from the Government Accountability Office report just a couple of weeks ago that the NIH was absolutely funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology and they were absolutely doing gain-of-function research, and many agencies, including the FBI, believe it came from them. So, clearly, we have to focus on preventing [this] kind of proliferation of BSL-4 laboratories and secrecy and links with the governments of adversarial nations, just like we do nuclear proliferation, nonproliferation. We also have to work on wet markets and the natural environment because we have had pandemics there before. But look, we have to say it honestly, let’s face it, the scientific community does not want to, quote, stifle science. They do not want to take the blame for something like this happening. But look, I think, actually, Sen. Paul (R-KY) said something smart a week ago and said, look, China’s to blame for an accidental leak, but the NIH, and therefore, America’s, also, in part, to blame, because we funded the research to begin with.”

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