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Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Monday denied attempting to suppress the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic began as a result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China, during his opening statement before the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Lawmakers proceeded to grill Fauci throughout the hearing on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's six-feet distancing rule, the masking of schoolchildren and other pandemic-era restrictions.
Fauci testified affirmatively each time when asked by Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, if business closures, church closures, school closures and stay at home order were justified, adding that "again, this was when we were trying to stop the tsunami of deaths that were occurring early on how long you kept them going is debatable."
Asked again about mask mandates, including those for children under the age of 5, Fauci said those were in the context of the time "when 5,000 people a day were dying."
HIGH-RANKING FAUCI ADVISER USED PERSONAL EMAIL TO AVOID FOIA REQUESTS, DISCUSS COVID ORIGIN
Dr. Anthony Fauci is sworn-in before testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the Rayburn House Office Building on June 3, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
"Mask mandates for children under the age of five? Theres scientific evidence supporting that?" the congressman asked.
"There was no study that did masks on kids before," Fauci admitted. "You couldnt do the study. You had to respond to an epidemic that was killing 4-5,000 Americans a day."
Fauci also attempted to clarify an earlier statement that the six-foot social distancing rule "just appeared," telling committee members that "it actually came from the CDC."
"The CDC was responsible for those kinds of guidelines for schools, not me. So when I said that, it just appeared. It appeared. Was there any science behind it? What I meant by no science behind it is that there wasn't a controlled trial. That said, compare six foot with three feet with ten feet. So there wasn't that scientific evaluation of it. What I believe the CDC used for their reason to say six feet is that studies years ago showed that when you're dealing with droplets, which at the time that the CDC made that recommendation, it was felt that the transmission was primarily through droplet, not aerosol, which is incorrect because we know now aerosol does play a role. That's the reason why they did it. It had little to do with me since I didn't make the recommendation."
Fauci also defended vaccine mandates for students, employees and the military by stating, "Vaccines save lives. It is very, very clear that vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions worldwide."
"In the beginning, it clearly prevented infection in a certain percentage of people but the durability of its ability to prevent infection was not long. It was measured in months," he added.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., pressed Fauci on past comments he made during an appearance on CBSs "Face the Nation," when he claimed that those who criticize him are "really criticizing science because I represent science." At the time, the remark drew ire, getting slammed by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who accused him of having a "delusion of grandeur that you cannot criticize him."
Elon Musk also criticized Fauci, posting on social media, "Anyone who says that questioning them is questioning science itself cannot be regarded as a scientist."
Asked Monday if he represents science, Fauci testified, "I am a scientist who uses the scientific method to gain information."
Dr. Anthony Fauci sits down to testify before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the Rayburn House Office Building on June 3, 2024. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
In his opening statement, Fauci addressed the COVID-19 lab leak theory. stressing to the committee that he never sought to suppress that idea.
He testified that on Jan. 31, 2020, he "was informed through phone calls with Jeremy Farrar, then director of the Wellcome Trust in the UK, and then with Kristian Anderson, a highly regarded scientist at Scripps Research Institute, that they and Eddie Holmes, a world-class evolutionary biologist from Australia, were concerned that the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 suggested that the virus could have been manipulated in a lab."
The next day, Fauci said, he participated in a conference call "with about a dozen international virologists to discuss this possibility versus a spillover from an animal reservoir." Fauci described the conference call discussion as "lively with arguments for both possibilities," and said two participants have testified before the House subcommittee that he "did not try to steer the discussion in any direction."
FAUCI ADVISER'S ALLEGED DESTRUCTION OF COVID ORIGIN DOCS MUST BE PROBED BY AG: RAND PAUL
"It was decided that several participants would more carefully examine the genomic sequence after this further examination. Several who at first were concerned about lab manipulation became convinced that the virus was not deliberately manipulated. They concluded that the most likely scenario was the spillover from an animal reservoir, although they still kept an open mind," Fauci said. "They appropriately published their opinion in the peer-reviewed literature."
"The accusation being circulated that I influenced these scientists to change their minds by bribing them with millions of dollars in grant money is absolutely false and simply preposterous. I had no input into the content of the published paper," Fauci said in his opening statement. "The second issue is a false accusation that I tried to cover up the possibility that the virus originated from a lab. In fact, the truth is exactly the opposite."
Dr. Anthony Fauci arrives to testify before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the Rayburn House Office Building on June 3, 2024. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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The Republican-led subcommittee has spent over a year probing the nations response to the pandemic and whether U.S.-funded research in China may have played any role in how it started. Democrats opened the hearing saying the investigation so far has found no evidence that Fauci did anything wrong, while missing an important opportunity to prepare for the next scary outbreak.
Fauci spent 14 hours over two days in January being grilled by the House panel behind closed doors. Monday's hearing was the first time Fauci was questioned in public and on camera since he ended more than five decades of government service.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Brad Wenstrup was alarmed.
It was February 2020, weeks before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered Americas businesses and schools. But the Ohio congressman, a former military combat surgeon, was reading email from a fellow doctor on how U.S. and Chinese researchers had been experimenting on viruses in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
Look, Im military, a military doc. I started thinking about biological weapons, Wenstrup recalled in a recent interview with The Washington Post.
Four years later, the Republican congressman is still thinking about Chinas potential links to covid, as part of his work to shape Americas understanding of the pandemic. As chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic the only panel in Congress solely devoted to probing a health crisis that left more than 1 million Americans dead Wenstrup has led investigations into the origins of the virus as well as hearings on school shutdowns, vaccine mandates and possible side effects from coronavirus vaccines. He recruited another doctor California congressman Raul Ruiz, an emergency medicine specialist to serve as the panels top Democrat last year, promising they would be two physicians working together to get answers and accountability.
But 16 months into their investigations, Wenstrup and Ruiz have splintered on a core question: whether their work is helping prepare America for the next pandemic, or deepening divisions from the last one.
Wenstrup and his fellow Republicans have focused much of their effort on the possible lab origins of the coronavirus, suggesting federal officials worked to cover up U.S. ties to researchers in Wuhan. The issue is set to receive national attention Monday, when Anthony S. Fauci to many Americans, the face of the nations coronavirus response testifies in front of the panel. Republicans are poised to grill the former National Institutes of Health official on the agencys funding of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that participated in risky virus research in China before the pandemic. Federal officials in May halted funding to the organization, citing irregularities uncovered by the coronavirus panel.
Ruiz and other Democrats concede there were episodes of pandemic-era wrongdoing, such as EcoHealth misleading the government on its potential work and a former Fauci adviser admitting he deliberately deleted emails. But they say the GOP-led investigations have amounted to a wild-goose chase, wasting taxpayer dollars and a crucial opportunity to prepare for the next health crisis.
We have gone through a countless amount of pages, countless amount of interviews, countless amount of hours, Ruiz said in a recent interview, stressing that no one has linked SARS-CoV-2, the virus that sparked the outbreak, to any lab. Many scientists say its more likely the crisis began just like other outbreaks: the virus made the leap from an animal to a human.
Despite repeated calls from politicians and editorial pages, there are no plans to establish a Sept. 11-style commission on the pandemic, with Trump and Biden officials worried about revisiting unpopular decisions or spotlighting mistakes. Congress is unlikely to continue the covid panel past this year, making Wenstrup and Ruizs fragile partnership perhaps the last, best hope to get bipartisan answers about a still-mysterious outbreak and the governments response.
In interviews during the past year, Wenstrup and Ruiz acknowledged fractures in their relationship, as they wrestled over how to use the powers of Congress. Ruiz said he has thought about the Hippocratic oath that physicians must take, pledging to do no harm.
Is the covid committee playing with fire by elevating the lab-leak theory, raising questions about vaccines and spotlighting accusations against public health experts like Fauci? Or is the panel finally giving voice to points of view suppressed during the pandemic?
Look, Im a doctor, and I took an oath to do no harm, Ruiz said as he helped kick off a May 2023 hearing on coronavirus vaccine mandates, warning about the disinformation and the misinformation that he said had damaged confidence in public health. We cannot get to a place where we are explicitly or implicitly sowing distrust in covid vaccines, Ruiz said later.
An opinion is far different from misinformation, Wenstrup quickly countered. And if were not allowed to have opinions in the medical community, we are doomed. We are absolutely doomed.
Since the earliest days of the pandemic, lawmakers and public health officials have said that do no harm was never really an option. Do less harm, perhaps.
Fauci and other leaders have conceded that telling Americans to keep apart from family, or encouraging them to attend school remotely, caused harm even as they continue to believe it was less harmful than contracting a novel virus that had no existing treatments and ended up as the nations third-leading cause of death in 2020.
House Democrats feared some of the harm was coming from President Donald Trump touting unproven treatments, and in April 2020 they created a panel to oversee trillions of dollars in coronavirus spending and to serve as a check on the White House.
Leading up to the election, the committee delivered high-profile reports about Trumps mismanagement of the pandemic response over GOP accusations that the Democrat-led panel was playing politics.
Then came a new year and a new administration. And with President Biden in office, the committee steered away from criticizing the White House. There were no hearings about vaccine mandates. No threats of subpoenas to Biden officials.
No talk at least from the Democrats about the possibility that the virus began in a laboratory.
Then Republicans won back the House.
It was January 2023, Kevin McCarthy was on the phone, and Wenstrup weighed the new House speakers offer: become the next leader of the covid committee.
Finally, Republicans would hold the gavel. They could ask about school shutdowns, and whether teachers unions had too much sway in shaping social-distancing policies. They could review the safety and necessity of vaccines. They could train their lens on whether scientists tried to hide a lab leak.
The panel could do a true after-action review, just like in the Army, Wenstrup thought.
Growing up in Cincinnati, Wenstrup dreamed of being a doctor inspired by a 1970s TV show, Medical Center, and its fictional hero, Dr. Joe Gannon and hed wanted to serve in the military, too.
He got the chance to do both in Iraq, as a major in the Army Reserve and chief of surgery at Abu Ghraib prison hospital in 2005 and 2006. Wenstrup ended up operating on Ali Hassan al-Majid the infamous cousin of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein who was nicknamed Chemical Ali after ordering poison gas attacks.
Six years later and back in Ohio, Wenstrup began a long-shot campaign for Congress, winning support from the tea party movement for his conservative politics and getting favorable coverage from local media; one reporter compared the podiatric surgeon to Cincinnati-area native George Clooney. After unseating the incumbent Republican, Wenstrup joined dozens of new lawmakers in January 2013, a freshman class that included Ruiz. The two doctors found common ground, partnering on health bills, but their tendency toward bipartisan deals didnt help either stand out in a Congress that rewards firebrands.
Then came the 2017 shooting at a congressional baseball practice, where Republicans were attacked by a gunman. It was like being back in Iraq, Wenstrup thought. His military training took over as he rushed to save Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) from bleeding to death near the outfield grass.
Other brushes with the spotlight would come, as the pandemic hit and the GOP doctor emerged as one of his partys go-to voices. Wenstrup cut a pro-vaccine ad with other Republican doctors. He administered hundreds of shots around Ohio. He even met with skeptical GOP voters over Zoom, suggesting the new vaccine could spare them longer-term problems.
The pitch fell flat. Ive had covid, said one skeptic who gave his name as Patrick. I had a cold for three days, and I was fine after that the vaccine, I just dont see any rush to do it.
To Wenstrup, it was a vivid illustration: Americans didnt want to be told what to do on public health, especially by bureaucrats. They needed to be educated, not indoctrinated.
What better way to inform than by leading the covid committee? Yes, Wenstrup said in January 2023, Ill do it.
With Wenstrups encouragement, the panel ended up packed with GOP physicians: Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, who had been Trumps White House doctor; Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who had led that states public health department; Rep. Richard McCormick, a newly elected Georgia emergency-medicine doctor who had treated covid patients; and Rep. John Joyce, a Pennsylvania physician with experience in intensive care.
McCarthy also picked Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had been banned from Twitter for amplifying questions about the covid vaccine.
There was one other doctor Wenstrup wanted on the panel. He called Ruiz right away.
I said, try to get on this subcommittee, Wenstrup recalled, following up with a quick text message. Try to be ranking member.
Raul Ruiz felt caught in quicksand again.
Hed taken Wenstrups encouragement and won a spot as the covid panels top Democrat. Hed come prepared to focus on improving public health; one pet project involved equipment and ventilation that could keep schools open in the next pandemic. Hed been excited to work with Wenstrup, a friend and occasional dinner companion.
Now it was July 2023, and Ruiz told his staff he was stuck, unable to move forward on pandemic preparations because he was busy defending science.
And on this day, sitting in one of Congresss most famed oversight rooms, Ruiz was again listening to Republicans accuse scientists of a coverup, suggesting that Fauci and longtime NIH Director Francis S. Collins had conspired with prominent virologists to write a paper dismissing the possibility of a lab leak. (The scientists repeatedly denied the accusation.) He heard Greene wrongly claim that most of the intelligence community had concluded that the coronavirus came from a lab.
It was a parade of dishonesty, Ruiz thought baseless allegation after baseless allegation and unsubstantiated claim after unsubstantiated claim, he spat out, nearly three hours into the hearing.
Weve even seen flat-out lying today lying, Ruiz added, walking through examples he said were dishonest and gesturing in Wenstrups direction. For instance, just two agencies favor the lab-leak theory, compared with the four agencies and the National Intelligence Council that think the virus emerged naturally.
Four is more than two. Four is more than two, Ruiz repeated, holding up four fingers on his right hand and two on his left for emphasis, mocking the GOPs math.
It was a characteristically passionate appeal from the energetic, cerebral Ruiz. It bombed with Wenstrup, sitting a few feet to Ruizs left.
Were working on behalf of the lives lost or severely damaged, the committee chairman snapped back, his normally flat tone a little ruffled, as he rebutted his counterpart in what became a 17-minute riff. (He would also argue with Ruiz behind closed doors later, angry to be labeled a liar, a dispute that briefly strained their friendship.)
You may call it going down a rabbit hole and trying to find vendettas or somebody here might but I do have a vendetta against dishonesty, and as a doctor Im against politically motivated science, Wenstrup added.
Ruizs worries had been building for months.
He was worried by news releases that accused scientists of wrongdoing. He was alarmed by behavior from his GOP counterparts that seemed cruel and designed to provoke, such as Greenes personal battles with witnesses.
And he knew that, as the top Democrat on a GOP-led committee, there was only so much he could do to shape the panels work.
Ruiz understood life as an underdog.
He grew up in Coachella, Calif. an area made famous by its annual music festival, but one marked by widespread poverty, which he experienced as the son of farmworkers.
By age 4, Ruiz decided to be a doctor; at 18, he raised tuition money by pledging to businesses that he would return home to care for the community. He earned his medical degree at Harvard one of three graduate degrees he earned from the school, where he became a protg of legendary public health physician Paul Farmer.
Now in Congress, Ruiz approached new challenges with the framework he had learned in medical school: Find the root causes of a problem, diagnose what wasnt working, prescribe a solution. But he wasnt sure how to solve the problems he saw with the covid committee.
Take vaccine safety. Democrats knew rare side effects could happen Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell, one of the panels members, once suffered a serious side effect from a flu shot. But Ruiz didnt understand why some Republicans were raising debunked theories, such as the connection between autism and vaccines.
His most persistent frustration: how Republicans and their handpicked witnesses kept talking about the viruss origin.
Its a no-brainer it came from the lab, Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins University transplant surgeon and Fox News analyst, said at the panels first roundtable in February 2023. The public has tended to agree; polls show that about two-thirds of Americans, including about half of Democrats, believe the virus originated in a laboratory.
Ruiz said hes more open to the lab-leak theory than when he joined the panel. But the congressman said hes surprised by how little he has learned from the GOPs relentless investigations.
What I can tell you so far, of the data and the investigations and countless hours of research, there is no evidence to show that Dr. Fauci and EcoHealth have created this virus, Ruiz said.
Rain pelted the Capitol on Jan. 9 as Tony Fauci strode through its depths, escorted by Capitol police, his own security detail, a pair of government lawyers, two personal lawyers, even a couple of junior legal aides, navigating underground corridors hidden from visitors.
It was a walk Fauci and his entourage had already made a dozen times by that evening, shuttling between a room of congressional investigators and his holding room every hour.
The 83-year-old doctor had been summoned to the nearly empty Capitol to privately testify about the pandemic for 14 hours across two days. On Monday, he will face lawmakers questions in public for the first time since leaving government in 2022.
Fauci has repeatedly denied accusations of a coverup into the viruss origins, telling friends he feels caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare where personal emails and comments have been distorted by conservatives in Congress and on television. In his private testimony, he spoke of the constant threats he and his family have received, particularly when lawmakers allege he played a role in creating the virus. Fauci declined to comment for this article.
For months, Democrats have protested Republicans focus on Fauci, Collins and other public health officials, worried about undermining Americans already-declining confidence in public health agencies and their leaders.
But Democrats have begun to agree with Republicans about evidence of some wrongdoing. First came a May 1 hearing with Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth, during which Wenstrup and Ruiz said the federal government should consider blocking the nonprofits funding for failing to monitor and report on its risky virus research in China. EcoHealth has protested the resulting funding crackdown, and Daszak maintains the organization is being scapegoated.
Then, the panel battered David Morens, a former Fauci deputy and close friend of Daszak, over his attempts to evade federal records requirements when corresponding with Daszak and others about sensitive coronavirus topics. Democrats joined that effort but took pains to distinguish between their anger at Morens for deleting emails vs. the lack of evidence for a broader conspiracy to hide the origins of the virus.
It is not anti-science to hold you accountable for defying the publics trust and misusing official resources, Ruiz said. Morens told Congress he had made mistakes, but said there was no coverup of secret virus experiments.
Later this year, the panel will need to write a final report, summarizing its investigations and offering recommendations. It will probably be one of Wenstrups final acts in Congress; the 65-year-old is retiring.
The Republican chairman said he views the panel as helping correct the record for history, and that fully exploring controversial topics will safeguard the world against another crisis.
Science involves looking at everything, Wenstrup said in a May interview, adding that people who raised questions about the virus possibly originating in a lab and other issues were written off as conspiracy theorists. Serious harm was done to science [by] canceling people who had different opinions.
Ruiz, sitting in his office later that day, countered that Republicans have harmed the public by focusing too much on trying to validate the lab-leak theory. Even the panels success stories, like catching Morens deleting emails, are small victories, he added.
When we have the next emerging virus thats a pandemic and is killing thousands of people daily, do you think that theyre going to look back and say, Oh, thank goodness, we caught that misconduct, Ruiz said. Do you think identifying this misbehavior is somehow going to lead to better protective equipment, better protective protocols so that we can respond to the [next] pandemic and save lives? I personally dont think so.
In a riveting congressional hearing, Dr Anthony Fauci, the prominent US government scientist, made major revelations about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and claims of cover-up. With unwavering candour, Fauci addressed a myriad of contentious issues surrounding the virus, declaring, "Nothing to hide." As the first day of grilling came to an end, he left the room after shaking hands with multiple White House staffers, while Ranking Member Raul Ruiz thanked him for his testimony and service to the country.
Also read: California lawmaker whose parents died of COVID-19 counterstrikes MTG, hails Fauci as an American hero
In his final remarks, Raul Ruiz highlighted that Raul Ruiz wasn't at fault for supporting the research that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, nor was he involved in any falsehoods regarding gain-of-function research in China's Wuhan. Furthermore, Ruiz declared that Fauci wasn't behind any effort to suppress the lab leak theory.
In a debatable exchange with Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis regarding the origins of COVID-19. He said thinking the virus came from a lab wasnt automatically a conspiracy theory. But he did say that some people twisted that idea into conspiracy theories. What is conspiracy is the kind of distortions of that particular subject, like it was a lab leak and I was parachuted into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak, Fauci said.
On Monday, June 3, Republicans united to challenge Dr. Anthony Fauci, aiming to interrogate his purportedly dubious connections to the COVID-19 pandemic and dig deeper into the true origins of the virus that posed a global threat. The leading US research scientist proceeded to recount how he and his family dealt with death threats during his tenure as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
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Everything from harassments from emails, texts, letters of myself, my wife, my three daughters. There have been credible death threats leading to the arrest of two individuals and credible death threats mean someone who clearly was on their way to kill me. And its required my having protective services essentially all the time," he said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci noted that while assessing how the United States has handled the Covid-19 situation, public health experts will carefully consider the "cost-benefit ratio" of measures such as vaccination requirements. He addressed concerns about whether these mandates might have made some people hesitant to get vaccinated during his testimony. Fauci also defended the effectiveness of vaccines, highlighting how they have saved countless lives in the US and globally.
Thats something that I think we need to go back now, when we do an after-the-event evaluation about whether or not given the psyche of the country and the pushback that you get from those types of things we need to reevaluate the cost-benefit ratio of those types of things. He remarked.
During the testimony, Democratic Representative Robert Garcia, who lost his parents to COVID-19, commended Dr Anthony Fauci for his policies that have saved lives throughout the pandemic and labelled him as an American hero. Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged that while some progress has been made, there are still areas where the country falls short in handling health crises. He highlighted the importance of the US enhancing its readiness for upcoming pandemics.
I think one of the things that was really a problem with the response was the degree of divisiveness that we had in the country about a lack of a coherent response where we were having people, for reasons that had nothing to do with public health or science, refusing to adhere to public health intervention measures.
Anthony Fauci, who led the US charge against Covid-19, appeared before Congress on Monday, with Republicans grilling him over the national response to the pandemic.
Dr Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for almost four decades, testified before the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic his first time giving public congressional testimony since he left his post in 2022.
The former head of the Niaid, who advised President Joe Biden during the pandemic, became a lightning rod for Republican anger as schools and businesses were forced to close, and mandates for social-distancing and wearing masks were introduced across the country.
The Republican-led subcommittee has spent more than a year assessing the US response to the pandemic and whether Washington-funded research in China may have played a role in the rise of Covid-19.
Theories of the pandemic's origins have been circulating since it was first detected in Wuhan, China, in late 2019.
The most prevalent is that the disease was first contracted by humans at a large seafood and live animal market in the Chinese city.
But others believe Covid-19 came from a leak at a Wuhan laboratory, where it has been alleged that scientists were engaged in "gain of function" research that led to the virus being created.
A major theme of the hearing was the alleged funding of this gain of function research, a much-debated term that entails enhancing a virus in a lab to see how it might behave in the real world.
Republicans have accused Dr Fauci of lying to Congress when he denied in May 2022 that his agency funded gain of function research.
For years, the National Institutes of Health gave grants to New York non-profit group EcoHealth Alliance that used some of the funds to work with a Chinese lab studying coronaviruses commonly carried by bats.
Last month, the government suspended federal funding to EcoHealth Alliance and proposed barring it from future financing citing its failure to properly monitor some of those experiments.
But Dr Fauci said "it would be molecularly impossible for the bat viruses studied with EcoHealths funds to be turned into the virus that caused the pandemic.
He also strongly denied suppressing the theory that Covid-19 originated from a lab leak, telling legislators he never influenced research on the origins of the virus.
Dr Fauci said he believed the most probable origin of the pandemic was animal-to-human transmission.
"I've also been very, very clear, and said multiple times, that I dont think the concept of there being a lab [leak] is inherently a conspiracy theory," he said.
"What is conspiracy is the kind of distortions of that particular subject, like it was a lab leak, and I was parachuted into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak."
As to his handling of the pandemic, he said that when dealing with a novel outbreak, "the scientific process collects the information that will allow you, at that time, to make a determination, a recommendation or a guideline".
"As things evolve and change and you get more information, it is important that you use the scientific process to gain that information and perhaps change the way you think of things, change your guideline and change your recommendation," Dr Fauci said.
He was grilled repeatedly by Republicans on the panel over his stance on Covid safety measures and the exchanges at times became acrimonious,
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene refused to call Dr Fauci by his honorific, saying "that man does not deserve to have a licence as a matter of fact, it should be revoked and he belongs in prison".
During the hearing, Dr Fauci faced questions about the credibility of his former agency, after the panel last month revealed emails from a colleague about ways to evade public records laws, including by not discussing controversial issues on government email.
Dr Fauci said in opening remarks that to the best of my knowledge I have never conducted official business via my personal email".
He also said he has received and continues to receive threats and harassment over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"There have been everything from harassment by emails, texts, letters, of myself, my wife, my three daughters," Dr Fauci said.
"There have been credible death threats leading to the arrests of two individuals and credible death threats means someone who clearly was on their way to kill me."
A man wearing a facemask in Dubai in April 2020, shortly after the first outbreak. Pawan Singh / The National
Updated: June 03, 2024, 10:52 PM
US News
By Chris Nesi
Published June 3, 2024, 2:55 p.m. ET
A damning new report found that the COVID-19 virus most likely leaked from a Chinese lab and that the US bears responsibility for pumping tens of millions of dollars into high-risk research on extremely infectious viruses at a facility with weak safety protocols.
The analysis by Alina Chan, a Harvard and MIT molecular biologist, was published as a guest essay in the New York Times, a publication which was for a long time skeptical and dismissive of the lab leak theory.
It comes as Dr. Anthony Fauci faces a grilling before a House panel on Monday over his backing for the research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Chan who has long advocated more study of the lab leak theory said that until recently, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for truth in getting to the bottom of the pandemics origin.
If the theory is correct, the global pandemic which claimed 1 million lives in the US and at lest 25 million around the world is the most costly accident in the history of science, Chan, the co-author of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, wrote.
Her findings paint an alarming picture of how the virus was sourced in China, supercharged for maximum infectiousness with US government support, and ultimately allowed to escape under inadequate containment conditions.
Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology spent more than a decade looking for SARS-like viruses, led by Dr. Shi Zhengli, to learn more about how they infect humans.
Their research determined that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the pandemic, was known to exist in bats located around 1,000 miles away from Wuhan.
Shis team made multiple trips to southwestern China and Laos to collect samples of the virus, during which samples traveled through hundreds of large cities on their way back to the Wuhan lab.
Despite the virus being highly contagious, even between species, no trace of infection was discovered anywhere along the 1,000-mile route, Chan wrote.
Her research also shot down a popular theory early in the pandemic that the virus was unleashed on the world via the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan where exotic game was being sold for human consumption.
This theory, Chan says, is not supported by strong evidence, noting its likely the outbreak at the market likely occurred after the virus was already passing between humans.
Wuhan researchers collected samples from both infected humans and animals in an effort to learn more about the highly infectious nature of viruses like SARS-CoV-2.
Much of this work was done in partnership with EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based scientific organization researching infectious diseases, which the federal government has funded with more than $80 million since 2002, Chan wrote.
The Wuhan labs risky research involved genetically reconstructed and recombined virus samples collected across several different types of animals, resulting in never-before-seen infections that were repeatedly forced to mutate in order to survive in each new host species.
The researchers published an extensive database in 2019 containing more than 22,000 collected samples.
However, Chan notes, access to the data was shut off in the fall of that year, and was not shared with American research partners even after the pandemic began.
In 2021, a leaked grant proposal for a collaboration between EcoHealth, the Wuhan Institute, and US-based coronavirus researcher Ralph Baric to create new viruses strikingly similar to SARS-CoV-2 was published by The Intercept.
The idea that the virus which led to the pandemic originated from a lab in China is far from new.
But its only recently begun to be discussed in a serious way after years of mainstream media outlets like The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC and others downplaying it as nothing more than a racist conspiracy theory.
According to Chan, the Wuhan lab where the dangerous research was being conducted was woefully inadequate to contain an airborne virus as infectious as SARS-CoV-2.
US virologists dealing with highly infectious diseases like those in the SARS family would generally use Biosafety Level 3 containment,which requires protocols like respirators and proper exhaust systems to protect against airborne pathogens ,to ensure the virus cant infect lab researchers.
However, the Wuhan lab did its work underthe lowerBiosafety Level 2 conditions,which focus on merely protecting researchers against skin contact with viruses and bacteria,according to Chan, could not prevent a highly infectious virus like SARS-CoV-2 from escaping.
Scientists at the Wuhan lab reportedly became sick with COVID-like symptoms as early as the fall of 2019, according to information leaked to the Wall Street Journal and later confirmed by US government sources.
However, Chan wrote, the scientists denied that they were ever sick.
The first international report of a mysterious viral pneumonia in Wuhan did not emerge until Dec. 31, 2019.
In Chans sharply worded conclusion, she urged investigators to subpoena exchanges between Wuhan scientists and international partners, especially during the key pre-pandemic period of 2018-2019.
She also singled out Fauci, saying he should cooperate with the investigation to help identify and close the loopholes that allowed such dangerous work to occur.
The US government itself wasnt spared from her criticism for its role in the pandemic.
Whether the pandemic started on a lab bench or in a market stall, it is undeniable that US federal funding helped to build an unprecedented collection of SARS-like viruses at the Wuhan institute, as well as contributing to research thatenhanced them, Chan wrote.
The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics.
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COVID-19 accounted for much more absenteeism than influenza among Greek healthcare personnel (HCP) with low vaccine uptake in 2022 and 2023, highlighting the need to stay current with vaccinations against both diseases, according to an observationalstudy led by a National Public Health Organization researcher in Athens.
For the study, published yesterday in the American Journal of Infection Control, the researchers tested symptomatic HCP at four hospitals for COVID-19 and flu from November 2022 to May 2023 to estimate the number of missed workdays by disease type. The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant was predominant during the study period.
"To our knowledge, this is the first study to compare the burden of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza among HCP using data from the same season," the authors wrote.
A total of 9.2% of HCP were fully vaccinated, and 90.8% were partially vaccinated, against COVID-19. Flu vaccination coverage was 23.1%. HCP with flu were less likely to be current with the flu vaccine than unvaccinated workers with COVID-19 (14.0% vs 26.2%).
In total, 4,245 missed workdays were associated with COVID-19, compared with 333 for flu.
Among 5,752 HCP, 734 COVID-19 (incidence, 12.8%) and 93 flu (1.6%) cases were detected.Two COVID-infected HCP were hospitalized for 4 and 5 days, respectively.
The average number of workdays missed was 5.8 for COVID-19 and 3.6 for flu. In total, 4,245 missed workdays were associated with COVID-19, compared with 333 for flu. Analyses estimated that, on average, HCP with COVID-19 were absent for 1.91 more days than those with flu.
"The shorter duration of work absence among HCP with influenza than those with COVID-19 may be attributed to the milder clinical course of influenza, the particular seasonal influenza strain, and to differences in absenteeism policies," the researchers wrote. "Indeed, although post-COVID-19 isolation is not mandatory as in the first pandemic waves, a five-days leave is common practice for HCP in Greece. In contrast, there are no official recommendations for HCP diagnosed with influenza."
The findings underscore the value of COVID-19 and flu vaccination in protecting HCP health and protecting healthcare services from absenteeism, they concluded.
Dr. Anthony Fauci testified Monday before the House panel investigating the origins of COVID-19, defending pandemic-era restrictions and again sharply denying financial support for gain-of-function research with coronaviruses.
Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, took questions under oath before the House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Here are seven highlights of the panels hearing.
Fauci fielded questions from several lawmakers on National Institutes of Health grants to the EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based organization that in turn funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China. NIH includes the agency directed by Fauci for nearly 40 years, until his retirement at the end of 2022.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a suspension of funding to the EcoHealth Alliance.
COVID-19 first emerged in Wuhan. The FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies reached a consensus that the virus that causes COVID-19 emerged from a lab leak there.
Before taking questions from the House panel, Fauci affirmed in his opening remarks that according to the regulatory and operative definition, the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
However, NIH Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak had told the House panel that under the generic definition of gain-of-function research, NIH indeed funded such research at the Wuhan lab.
Critics of Fauci have said the NIH used EcoHealth to fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is suspected to have led to the initial spread of COVID-19.
The term gain of function describes a risky process of making a pathogen more dangerous or contagious for the purpose of studying a response.
During the hearing, Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., asked: Dr. Fauci, did the National Institutes of Health fund the potentially dangerous enhanced potential pandemic pathogens gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?
Fauci replied: I would not categorize it the way you did.
The National Institutes of Health gave a sub-award to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, funded research on the surveillance on the possibility of emerging infections. I would not characterize it as dangerous gain-of-function research, he explained.
Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, pressed Fauci about accountability for COVID-19.
Your name is on every single grant, Cloud told Fauci. Yet, you absolve yourself of every single responsibility by saying it goes to this committee that has a number of people on it and its approved in block. So, there is no accountability for anything, any of the taxpayer dollars that are going forth.
Fauci objected.
We fund thousands of grants, Fauci said. It would be physically impossible for me to go through every single grant in a detailed way to understand it.
Cloud followed up by asking, Why does your signature go on it?
Fauci replied: Because someone has to sign off on it and you trust the expertise and the competence of the staff that go over it.
Fauci said some of his top staff, mainly Dr. David Morens, for years a senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, violated NIH policy on public records.
Morens last month admitted to Congress that he used private email to dodge disclosure of public information about NIH grants to the EcoHealth Alliance, the organization that worked and helped fund the Wuhan lab.
House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., pressed Fauci on the issue of his longtime senior adviser.
Did you ever delete an official record?
Fauci replied, No.
Comer asked, Dr. Fauci, did you ever conduct official business via [personal] email?
Fauci replied: To the best of my recollection and knowledge, I have never conducted official business via my private email.
Comer later said there was a troubling pattern among Faucis inner circle.
Fauci said, Using a personal email for official business violates NIH policy.
Comer asked: On April 28, 2020, Dr. Morens edited an EcoHealth press release regarding the grant termination. Does that violate policy?
Fauci replied: That was inappropriate for him to be doing that for a grantee, as a conflict of interest among other things.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., pressed Fauci on whether he tried to suppress the lab leak theory, quoting him.
You have said, Ive heard these conspiracy theories and like all conspiracy theories, theyre just conspiracy theories. Thats what you told the American people,Malliotakis said. So would you like to clarify what science were you following then versus now?
Fauci said he didnt mean everyone was a conspiracy theorist, before launching into a scenario comparing himself to a fictional movie character played by actor Matt Damon.
I dont think the concept of there being a lab leak is inherently a conspiracy theory, Fauci said. What is conspiracy is a kind of distortion of that particular subject, like it was a lab leak and I was parachuted into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, read aloud communications from Meta executives, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, noting that the Biden administration suppressed posts about a leak from a Chinese lab.
Why was it so important that the virus not have started in a lab? Jordan said.
Fauci replied: It wasnt so important that the virus not [have started in a lab]. We dont know.
Jordan followed up.
Well, it was important to someone in the Biden administration. So much so that the top people at Meta, the top people at Facebook, are asking, Why are we getting all this pressure to downplay the lab leak theory? the Ohio Republican said.
Fauci protested, What does that got to do with me?
Im asking you because youre the expert on the coronavirus. Why was the administration so pushing not to have the lab leak theory? Jordan asked.
Fauci replied, I cant answer that. Ive kept an open mind.
Kept an open mind, Jordan said, using a skeptical tone.
Speaking about COVID-19 vaccines, Fauci seemed to admit to Cloud, a Texas Republican, that they had limited capacity to stop the spread of the disease.
It is very, very clear that [COVID-19] vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of Americans, Fauci said.
Did the vaccines stop anyone from getting COVID? Cloud asked.
Early on, it became clear that, Fauci began.
Cloud interrupted: They didnt.
Actually no, Fauci said. In the beginning, it clearly prevented infection in a certain percentage of people but the durability of its ability to prevent infection was not long. It was measured in months.
Cloud asked: And it didnt stop you from spreading [COVID-19], either?
Faudi answered: Early on, it prevented infection, but it became clear that it did not prevent transmission when the ability to prevent infection waned.
Cloud listed COVID-19 mitigation efforts and asked whether Fauci would do anything differently if given another chance.
Fauci doubled down on his recommendations at the time.
Business closures? Cloud asked.
Fauci: Early on, when 5,000 people were dying a day, yes.
Cloud:Church closures?
Fauci: Same thing.
Through several questions, Cloud also asked about school closures, stay-at-home orders, and mask mandates for children and adults.
These were important when we were trying to stop the tsunami of deaths that were occurring early on, Fauci responded. How long you kept them going is debatable.
However, early in the hearing, subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, listed the negative effects of many pandemic measures.
Any dissent from your chosen position was immediately labeled as anti-science, Wenstrup said. Anything less than complete submission to the mandates could cost you your livelihood, your ability to go into public, your childs ability to attend school.
Wenstrup continued:
Families were thrown off planes and shamed when their 2-year-olds struggled to wear a mask. Children with disabilities lost access to therapies that they and their families depended on. Students were out of the classroom and told to attend school remotely even when the science clearly demonstrated it was safe for them to go back in the classroom.
This harmed low-income students the most. How were single-parent households supposed to teach their own children and work at the same time? Dr. Fauci, you oversaw one of the most invasive regimes of domestic policy the U.S. has ever seen, including mask mandates, school closures, coerced vaccinations, social distancing of 6 feet, and more.
Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., gave Fauci an opening to defend his COVID-19 policies.
Do you think the American public should listen to Americas brightest and best doctors and scientists, or instead listen to podcasters, conspiracy theorists, and unhinged Facebook memes? Garcia asked the immunologist.
Fauci replied: Listening to the people who you just described is going to do nothing but harm people because they will deprive themselves of lifesaving interventions, which has happened.
Fauci said research has shown this to be the case.
People that refuse to get vaccinated for any variety of reasons [were] probably responsible for an additional 200,000 to 300,000 deaths in this country, Fauci said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, arrives to testify before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the Rayburn House Office Bu
Dr. Anthony Fauci is facing questioning by House Republicans about his response to COVID-19 and the origins of the virus at a hearing on Capitol Hill.
During his Monday testimony, Fauci got into a heated exchange with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Greene started by bringing up a quote Fauci made on CBS that he "represents science." The politician grilled Fauci to give a yes or no answer, to which he provided a retort refuting what Greene said.
The questioning transitioned to Greene showing Fauci a photo of two dogs involved in scientific experiments. Greene claimed that Fauci, while director of the National Institutes of Health, signed off on the "torture of the animals."
Greene then grilled Fauci alleging that he "made up the COVID rules" including social distancing and masking of children.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified before a Republican-led subcommittee about the origins of COVID-19.
"I didn't say I made anything up. I said that it is not based in science and it just appeared," Fauci tried to explain before being interrupted by Greene.
Greene then held up the photo of the dogs a second time as she tried to double-down on her assertion that Fauci signed off on the experiments of the animals, as Fauci questioned what dogs had to do with the discussion.
Greene then tried to discredit Fauci, claiming that "he's not a doctor" and shouldn't have a license and should be in prison.
Fauci has long said publicly that he was open to both theories but that theres more evidence supporting COVID-19s natural origins, the way other deadly viruses including coronavirus cousins SARS and MERS jumped into people.
"I have repeatedly stated that I have a completely open mind to either possibility and that if definitive evidence becomes available to validate or refute either theory, I will ready accept it," he said in an opening statement for Mondays hearing.
The House panel also questioned him about the science behind some controversial advice, including social distancing.
Mondays testimony by Fauci was his first time publicly testifying since he left the federal government in 2022.
The hearing comes as Republicans on the House Select Subcommittee on the pandemic have spent 15 months reviewing emails, messages, and research proposals to find evidence against Fauci, the former White House chief medical advisor.
Many scientists believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to people, probably at a wildlife market in Wuhan, the city where the outbreak began. Theres no new scientific information supporting that the virus might instead have leaked from a laboratory.
The Associated Press reported that a U.S. intelligence analysis noted theres insufficient evidence to prove either way -- and a recent Associated Press investigation found the Chinese government froze critical efforts to trace the source of the virus in the first weeks of the outbreak.
RELATED: Fauci predicts mask recommendations could come back if US sees 'significant uptick' in COVID-19 cases
GOP members on the panel have tried to build a case that lab work funded by the institute Fauci used to run possibly contributed to the start of the pandemic.
Separately, Republicans have targeted money the institute awarded to EcoHealth Alliance,a U.S.-based organization to a 'One Health' approach to protecting the health of people, animals and the environment from emerging infectious diseases, per its website.
The GOP panel has alleged that the scientists from the organization created the coronavirus in their Wuhan, China lab.
According to the New York Times, after reviewing millions of pages of documents and over 100 hours of testimony, the panel didn't find anything connecting Fauci to the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in China.
RELATED: Anthony Fauci concerned people wont comply if masking recommendations return: 'I hope' they 'abide'
However, the House Select Subcommittee panel found emails suggesting that Faucis former aides attempted to avoid public records laws at the medical research agency he led for 38 years until he retired in December 2022.
Some emails imply Fauci prioritized his public image and questions about research funded by his agency, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
As for hiding public records, Fauci said in the opening remarks that "to the best of my knowledge I have never conducted official business via my personal email."
Fauci previously said he had "nothing to hide" and volunteered to testify before the panel, ABC News reported.
The 83-year-old spent over 50 years in government service and advised former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden on outbreaks of infectious diseases such as AIDS, Ebola, anthrax, and the flu.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.
Bird flu has been behaving very strangely lately. A strain of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1) has been spreading in dairy cows in at least nine U.S. states. Infected cows have very high levels of virus in their milk, and early reports indicate that it is being spread by contaminated milking equipment, although other methods of transmission are also possible. Several cats that drank raw milk from infected cows developed neurological symptoms and died. Pasteurizing milk appears to effectively neutralize the H5N1 virus.
In recent weeks, three human infections with the virus have been confirmedall in dairy workers who had contact with sick cows. All three developed symptoms of eye infections known as conjunctivitis. The latest case, reported in Michigan this week, also involved respiratory symptoms more typical of a flu infection. The workers were most likely exposed to the virus in contaminated milkby getting it on their hands and then touching their eyes, for example, or via milk droplets (or even microscopic particles called aerosols) from a cows udder or milking equipment.
It is really surprising how widespread this thing got over a few months time and how this virus seems to be spreading through the milking machines from udder to udder,says Ron Fouchier, deputy head of the viroscience department at Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands. This is a completely new situation for all of us, and its surprising and a little bit worrying because of the enormous amounts of virus that can be in raw milk.
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But why is H5N1 causing eye infections in humans? And is there a risk the virus could spread more widely and potentially cause a pandemic?
In fact, cases of avian flu causing conjunctivitis are not that rare. There was a large outbreak of H7N7 avian flu in poultry in the Netherlands in 2003, which led to 89 confirmed human cases. Of these, 78 people had conjunctivitis; five had both conjunctivitis and flulike illness and two had only flulike illness. One person developed pneumonia and respiratory distress and died, according to a 2004 study by Fouchier and his colleagues.
Weve seen this [conjunctivitis] also before with ... H7N7 viruses quite a lot and a little bit less with H5 bird flu viruses, Fouchier says. (The latter is the type now spreading in cows.) But we know that these bird flu viruses can cause conjunctivitis rather easily.
In the recent H5N1 outbreak in cows and infections in humans, viruses that got into workers eyes may have bound to receptors in the conjunctiva, the clear membrane that covers the inside of the eyelid and the white of the eye and protects the eye. Influenza viruses bind to what are called sialic acid receptors. The accepted wisdom suggests that avian flu viruses preferentially bind to one type of sialic acid receptor predominant in birds, whereas human seasonal flu viruses bind to another type of sialic acid receptor predominant in the human respiratory tract, says Patrik Ellstrm, an infection medicine researcher at Swedens Uppsala University. But recent research suggests the picture is more complicated; both receptor types have now been found in the respiratory tracts of humans and birds. So its not clear that the virus would need to bind to the human receptor to cause infection, Ellstrm says. In the human eye, however, the bird receptor is the one most frequently found, and this could explain why the virus in cows is causing eye infections in humans.
An H5N1 eye infection could conceivably spread to a persons respiratory system via the sinuses and possibly cause a more severe, systemic infection, Fouchier says. Thats likely what happened with the one person known to have died in the 2003 outbreak in the Netherlands. So far, there is little evidence that the currently circulating strain of H5N1 is spreading person to person, although that could change. The more the virus spreads from cows to people and the more people who become infected, the higher its chances of evolving to become better at infecting and spreading among humans.
Given the amount of virus detected in milk from H5N1 virus-infected cows, I am concerned about its spillover to humans, poultry and other animals,says Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor of virology at the University of WisconsinMadisons School of Veterinary Medicine.
Conditions in many milking parlors can be especially conducive to spreading the virus among workers via milk, according to Seema Lakdawala, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory University School of Medicine and an expert in influenza virus transmission. Lakdawala says she recently visited a parlor to observe the milking process. It was eye-opening to me, and I, of course, got splattered on my face with milk because thats what happens, she says.
The cows were on a platform that put their udder roughly at eye level so humans could access it easily, she says. The first step in milking was forestripping, in which a worker very briefly milks the animal by hand to start lactation. When Lakdawala was watching this process, these animals were just leaking, she says, comparing the effect to that of water misters in a plant nursery.
Next, the cows udder was disinfected, and the workers attached a tube capped by a cup to each teat with a liner that inflates to exert pressure: basically a breast pump for a cow teat, Lakdawala says. As anyone who has breastfed a child knows, the breast pump gets totally coated with milk, Lakdawala says. And although workers disinfect the udder, they dont always do so to the milking equipment between animals, she says, so its easy to see how an infected cow could transmit the bird flu virus to another cow via the milking pump and how workers could be infected by splashing milk droplets.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends that workers on farms where H5N1 has been detected have access to personal protective equipment, or PPE, such as N95 respirators, face masks, goggles and face shields. But its only a recommendation, Lakdawala says.
In order to prevent bird flu from causing more infections in humans, Lakdawala thinks dairy workers on all farms should have access to and use proper PPEespecially face shields to protect their eyes. Getting workers to wear N95 masks while working all day in hot barns is unlikely, she notes, but a face shield would provide at least some protection. Additionally, all dairy workers and veterinarians visiting those farms should be offered H5N1 vaccines, she says.
Lakdawala says it is crucial to get farm owners, workers and state public health officials to come together and figure out how to stop the spread of this virus. No farm owner wants their working staff out sick, she says, and none of us in public health want those workers to get sick.
Its a daunting problem, she admits. But there is still a chance to act before any potential sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus.
In addition to providing every farmworker with PPE, Lakdawala believes the CDC should issue a stay-at-farm order for all cows to get an assessment of what is happening and the extent of what has happened. Tens of thousands of cows are transported across the country every week, she says. The U.S. Department of Agriculture now requires lactating cows from farms with known H5N1 infections to be tested before they can be transported to other states. But Lakdawala thinks the industry should temporarily stop moving all cows around.
Finally, she says that experts and officials need to talk with farmers about how to reduce contamination of milking equipment and about how to safely dispose of milk from infected animals.
Nobody, no one, absolutely nobody, wants another pandemic, Lakdawala says. We really need to take a moment and do everything we possibly can right now to prevent it.
The third human case of H5N1, reported on Thursday in a farmworker in Michigan who was experiencing respiratory symptoms, tells us that the current bird flu situation is at a dangerous inflection point.
The virus is adapting in predictable ways that increase its risk to humans, reflecting our failure to contain it early on. The solutions to this brewing crisis such as comprehensive testing have been there all along, and theyre becoming only more important. If we keep ignoring the warning signs we have only ourselves to blame.
H5N1 has long been more than a bird problem. The virus has found its way into dairy cattle across nine states, affecting 69 herds that we know about. Of the three human cases of H5N1 that have been identified, all involve farmworkers who were in direct contact with infected cows or milk. The first two cases were relatively mild, involving symptoms like eye irritation, or conjunctivitis. However, the most recent case has shown more concerning signs, including coughing.
The emergence of respiratory symptoms is disconcerting because it indicates a potential shift in how the virus affects humans. Coughing can spread viruses more easily than eye irritation can.
New symptoms should be expected as the virus continues to spread and adapt to humans. Yet our response to this looming danger has been woefully inadequate, particularly in the area of testing.
Testing is our first line of defense in identifying and controlling infectious diseases. It allows health responders to understand the extent of an outbreak, identify who is infected and take measures to prevent further spread.
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