Redfield: Fauci’s Denials on Funding Gain-of-Function Research in Wuhan Are Like Clinton’s Definition of ‘Is’

During an interview with the “Fox News Rundown” podcast released on Friday, former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said that the U.S. did fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan lab and that former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci’s denials “are highly misleading and not truthful” word parsing akin to former President Bill Clinton disputing the meaning of the word “is.”

Redfield stated, [relevant remarks begin around 22:50] “[I]t’s very, very, very, probable that this great pandemic was caused by science and an arrogance of science that they didn’t see the downside of their gain-of-function research. … I wish China had been more transparent post-the pandemic, but it’s not China’s problem. It happened to be done in a Chinese lab, but it was funded by NIH, it was funded by the State Department, it was funded by USAID.”

Later, host Dave Anthony said, “Dr. Fauci…has gone back and forth with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) about whether the U.S. was backing and funding gain-of-function research on COVID, and he has said that that’s not true.”

Redfield responded, “His comments are highly misleading and not truthful. Now, whether he understands that or not, Tony is playing with words. Because what he’ll tell you is he petitioned — he got a group of independent scientists to come up — in the National Academy and others — and they redefined the gain-of-function research. And they define it in a way that he believes excludes the work that was done in the lab. But this was definitely gain-of-function research. He’s parsing words. It’s come back to the Clinton, well, what’s the meaning of is? This is gain-of-function research, and…most people of goodwill can see that.”

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