© Getty ImagesSen. Rand Paul told The Post a whistleblower brought the documents to his attention.
The federal government has been quietly sitting on a heap of documents about dangerous gain-of-function biological research — and Sen. Rand Paul says it's failing to cough them up, despite that being in the public's interest."What we've discovered is there's a treasure trove of information about dangerous research all collected, sitting in one spot," Paul (R-Ky.) told
The Post in an exclusive interview.
He says those files could be key to unlocking exactly how COVID-19 started in Wuhan, China, and how US funds may have been involved, and he's hopeful that the new Trump administration will help.
"We're nearing the beginning of the real investigation because come January, with a friendly administration, we think we're going to get all of this information," he added.
Documents reveal the
US government has been collecting information about dangerous research practices, including gain-of-function research — the practice of amplifying the active part of viruses, making them more dangerous, in order to study them —
since 2012.
Paul's office was tipped off by a whistleblower that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has been privy to these reports for years.The information is gathered and reviewed biannually, under a policy called US Government Policy of Oversight of Life Sciences Dual Use Research of Concern.
A
document about the policy says its purpose is to gather information about "life sciences research that ... could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety ... or national security."
To Paul, it's an admission that public health officials were aware that controversial research practices like gain-of-function were potentially dangerous — long before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.
Many experts have speculated COVID-19 may have been the result of gain-of-function research performed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
© APResearchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were studying bat coronaviruses.
This was made all the worse when it emerged that funds from the US had been given to the lab. The National Institutes of Health
gave EcoHealth Alliance a
$4 million grant to research bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab, according to a House committee investigation."Many people insist that EcoHealth Alliance conducted gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That is categorically untrue," EcoHealth Alliance
said in a statement about the allegations.
"EHA and its sub-awardee, Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), were studying bat coronaviruses that were never shown to be capable of infecting humans."
It's presently unknown whether documents about that specific grant have been collected and reviewed under the policy, but Paul thinks it's very possible: "Here's the question: If they think it's dangerous enough that they're sending it up to the White House so they can oversee it, was the Wuhan research sent up?"
If so, the trove of documents could definitively uncover the origins of COVID-19 — and who among US health officials approved funding research at Wuhan.
© REUTERSSome believe that COVID-19 may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
On Monday, Paul sent letters to
director of the White House OSTP Arati Prabhakar,
national security adviser Jake Sullivan and
President Biden.
The OSTP did not respond to
The Post's request for comment.
He requested unredacted copies of "any classified reporting" submitted for Institutional Oversight of Life Sciences Dual Use Research of Concern. He also put them on notice to preserve all relevant documents and communications.
Paul, who is a medical doctor, has been sending letters to dozens of government agencies and the White House for years demanding documents that could hold clues about the origins of COVID-19.
"It's been the opposite of anybody cooperating with us," he said. "We keep getting very, very little. There are huge documents that are 250 pages long, [but] everything is redacted."
© REUTERSPaul has been trying to determine which American health officials approved funding for research in Wuhan.
Paul believes governmental agencies might be being so opaque in an effort to obscure culpability in dangerous research.
"We know that the research [at Wuhan] was reviewed," Paul said. "What I've always wanted from the beginning is, I want the discussion ... Show us the discussion. That's not classified, that's not secret, it's not like nuclear bombs or something."
Paul also hopes the collected documents might show whether former director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci participated in signing off on funding research in Wuhan.
"It's not just for culpability," Paul said of his crusade for documents. "I want to see what's broken about the safety process of overseeing this, and this is an argument for why we need legislation to make sure it doesn't happen again."
He introduced
The Risky Research Review Act in July 2024, which would establish an independent Life Sciences Research Security Board within the executive branch to oversee high-risk research to prevent another pandemic.
Now that he's identified the potential gold mine of information,
he is confident the Trump admin will be more open to working with his requests to finally get to the bottom of what happened."We're very hopeful that we're gonna get it all, and so I think we're on the cusp of uncovering what happened with COVID," Paul added.
Rikki is a New York Post columnist, News Features reporter, and author of "The Canceling of the American Mind." Schlott completed a research fellowship with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). She covers higher education, women's issues, freedom of speech, and popular culture.
Reader Comments
"Dr. Martin said evidence shows the coronavirus was isolated as a model pathogen in 1965 and that by 1990, Pfizer filed a patent for a spike protein vaccine."
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I digress.
What's a suitable punishment for harming so many people? Does justice still exist?