A US House of Representatives committee on Monday launched an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 by issuing a series of letters to current and former White House officials for documents and testimony.
The chairmen of the House Oversight Committee and the subcommittee on the COVID-19 pandemic requested information from several people, including Anthony Fauci, a former director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, surrounding allegations that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab.
“This investigation must begin with where and how this virus came about so that we can attempt to predict, prepare or prevent it from happening again,” US Representative Brad Wenstrup, chair of the virus subcommittee, said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
US Representative James Comer, chairman of the oversight committee, said that members would “follow the facts” and “hold US government officials that took part in any sort of cover-up accountable.”
The letters were to Fauci, US National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, US Secretary of Health Xavier Beccera and others.
Wenstrup, who is also a longtime member of the House Intelligence Committee, has accused US intelligence of withholding key facts about its investigation into the virus.
The committee last year issued a staff report arguing that there are “indications” that the virus might have been developed as a bioweapon inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China’s Hubei Province.
That would contradict a US intelligence community assessment released in unclassified form in August 2021 that said analysts do not believe the virus was a bioweapon, although it might have leaked in a lab accident.
The letters sent on Monday do not require the cooperation of recipients.
However, in announcing the staff report in December last year, Wenstrup said that lawmakers would issue subpoenas if potential witnesses did not cooperate.
Initially dismissed by experts and government officials, the idea that COVID-19 originated from an accidental lab leak began to receive scrutiny after US President Joe Biden ordered an investigation into the matter in May 2021.
The 90-day review was meant to push US intelligence agencies to collect more information and review what they already had.
Former US Department of State officials under former US president Donald Trump had publicly pushed for further investigation into virus origins, as had scientists and the WHO.
Many scientists, including Fauci, who until December last year was Biden’s chief medical adviser, say they still believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to humans.
However, lawmakers have accused Fauci of lying to Congress when he denied in May last year that the National Institutes of Health funded “gain of function” research — the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential impact in the real world — at a virology lab in Wuhan.
US Senator Ted Cruz even urged US Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Fauci’s statements.
Fauci has called the criticism nonsense.
Cruz and US Senator Rand Paul have previously said that an October 2021 letter from the National Institute of Health to Congress contradicts Fauci.
The institute has said that its funding did not go to research involving boosting the infectivity and lethality of a pathogen.
Nonetheless, Fauci in November last year said that he would “cooperate fully and testify” if lawmakers followed through with plans to investigate the origin of COVID-19.
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
RSS