The Rats of The NIH pointing finger away from them and trying to blow smoke up
your...
Francis Collins 10/24 interview (full)
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Francis Collins 10/24 interview (full)
Francis Collins interview (full)
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In a rare attempt at real journalism, CNN’s Pamela Brown kept Collins strapped
to the hot seat in a recent interview, repeatedly grilling him about why the
NIH was funding dangerous GOF research.22 Even Josh Rogin from the liberal
Washington Post picked up on Brown’s dogged demands for Collins to come clean
on the issue in the face of Collins’ attempts to sidetrack her:
“Everyone should watch this interview with outgoing NIH director Francis
Collins to see how Collins uses misleading talking points to avoid any
acknowledgement NIH was caught completely unaware its grantee was doing risky
bat coronavirus research in Wuhan ... Collins uses every rhetoric trick to
dissemble and distract ...” Rogin tweeted.23
To her credit, Brown repeatedly brought the interview back on track, pressing
Collins for answers, demanding to know:
“Why should Americans trust you and the NIH on the issue of COVID origins, when
you didn’t even know about the programs it was funding with taxpayer dollars in
China?"
When Collins tried to circumvent the question by diving into semantics about
the definition of GOF, Brown interrupted him, again asking how he can be so
certain that NIH funding isn’t being used for GOF, when he claims the NIH only
recently found out about how the money was used in 2016?
Collins also reiterated that while EcoHealth “did some things they should have
told us about ... they did not do the kind of gain-of-function research that
requires special, high-level oversight.” Really? As noted by ZeroHedge:24
“... if EcoHealth HAD reported its research results, it WOULD HAVE triggered
extra, high-level oversight. Why is Collins pretending he knows they would have
been exempt from that?”
Despite Collins’ insistence that the NIH was above-board and honest in all its
communications, Brown refused to let him off the hook, ending the interview
with: “This is U.S. taxpayer dollars going to risky research and I believe
every American deserves to know about it.”
On a sidenote, like Fauci’s, Collins’ halo is rapidly tarnishing as alternative
media have started digging into their backgrounds. While appearing squeaky
clean on the surface, a closer look reveals both men have supported all sorts
of questionable research, including research on aborted fetuses.
For an overview of Collins’ alleged sins, see First Things’ article, “The
Cautionary Tale of Francis Collins.”25 Unlike Fauci, though, Collins seems to
sense he won’t escape public judgment. In October 2021, he announced his
retirement from the NIH. He’s reportedly planning to step down by the end of
the year. Time will tell if Fauci will have the good sense to resign, or if our
political leaders will finally boot him out and press charges.
We Must Ban GOF Research
The evidence of regulatory failure by the NIH further strengthens the call for
a permanent ban on most kinds of GOF. As Bloom told The Intercept:26
“We urgently need a broader discussion about whether it’s a good idea to be
making novel chimeras of coronaviruses that are at this point universally
acknowledged to pose a pandemic risk to humans.”
Indeed, it appears we got off easy this time. SARS-CoV-2 has a very low
mortality rate, despite spreading quite easily. The next Frankenstein pathogen
to escape from a lab might not be as benign.
Seeing how the people in charge of making decisions about what research is to
be allowed cannot be trusted with making sensible decisions, the public really
needs to step up and let our representatives know we will not tolerate federal
funds — taxpayer money — being used for research that has the potential to wipe
us all out.
A true lover of wisdom has hands too busy to hold on to anything! He learns by
doing and every pebble in the path becomes her teacher! Oink
