regarding the grant termination. does that violate policy? it was inappropriate for him to go doing that for a grantee as a conflict of interest, among other things. >> on march 29, 2021, dr. morens edited a letter that dr. das yak was sending to nih. does that violate policy? >> yes. >> he provided him with advice regarding how to mislead nih on eco health's late progress report. does that violate policy? >> it was wrong and inappropriate and violated policy. >> on december 7th, 2021, dr. morens wrote to the chair of eco health's board of directors to quote put in a word, end quote, for the doctor. does that violate policy? >> should not have done that. that was wrong. >> it violates policy. >> i'm not sure of a specific policy. i imagine it does. he should not have been doing that. >> in addition to all those actions dr. morens wrote to the doctor peter from tony's recent comments to me they are trying to protect you, end quote. did you ever talk to dr. morens about dr. daczak and eco health alliance. >> we knew he was a grantee. i may have mentioned and discussed him because he is a grantee but i never spoke about protecting him. >> he just made that up? you are testifying that dr. morens just made that up. >> i don't know where he got that but it is not true. >> by this point, dr. fauci, when these emails were written, you should have known that dr. daszak was two years later on a required progress report for his grant. he conducted an experiment that resulted in a novel virus showing excess growth. he failed to report that experiment, that he was protecting the wuhan lab and not sharing its lab notebooks and that he failed to disclose obvious conflicts of interest. so why were you trying to protect him and eco health alliance? >> i repeat on the record i have not tried to protect him and that's number one. number two, you said something that is not true. because i did not know about the compliance issues until well after the fact when i was being briefed for going to before a congressional committee. so it wasn't as if these things were going on i knew that he was withholding. >> did you know about dr. morens close relationship with dr. daczak. >> he made it clear he was his friend. i did not engage in the interaction between them. >> and just lastly, you testified and answered the chairman's question that you never had any communication with the intelligence community throughout all of covid? did i understand that correctly. >> no, you heard wrong. i said i did have communication. i was briefed by the intelligence community multiple times during the covid issue. >> gentleman's time is expired. i recognize the ranking member of the full committee mr. raskin for five minutes of questions. >> first, dr. fauci, thank you for your testimony. your service to the american people. was there anything you wanted to clear up in that last exchange that where were interrupted? >> no, i think i made it clear that we're talking about my knowing about a lack of compliance. that became clear, congressman raskin, well after the fact. it isn't as if they were not complying and i was not monitoring their non-compliance. i didn't know about it until it was a done deal. >> you've been a scientist and scientific administrator for 54 years, more than a half century and you were director of the national institute of allergies and infectious diseases for more than three decades, is that right? >> 38 plus years. >> okay. i assume that you've never been accused of trying to start a disease before, is that right? >> that is correct. >> you have devoted your life to fighting infectious diseases for the american people, is that right? >> that is correct. >> i want to go back to this email that you cited in your opening because i think it goes right to the heart of this campaign of character assassination against you. the claim was essentially that you tried to cover up the possibility of there having been a laboratory leak, which, of course, is perfectly possible and if committee were doing its job we could be working to advance the investigation of that. but they would rather assert that you tried to cover up this possibility. here is the email that you sent on february 1st at 12:38 a.m. to christian anderson with a copy to christian anderson but you sent it to ferrar. he related to me his concern about the site mutation and spike pro ten of the currently circulating ncov. i told him as soon as possible he and holmes should get a group of evolutionary biologists together to examine the data and do it very quickly. if everyone agrees with this concern they should reportist to the appropriate authorities. this would be the f.b.i. in the u.s. and u.k.mi5 and get confirmation of the cause of his concern by experts in the field of coronavirus and evolutionary bio biology. i will alert my colleagues and determine what further investigation they recommend. best regards, tony. was this the email where you were trying to cover up the possibility of a lab leak? >> yes, congressman raskin. that's the reason why i mentioned in my opening statement that it is inconceivable that anyone could get out of that that i was covering anything up. >> would you have a reason to cover up any knew sin type of i can evidence relating to the origins of covid-19 virus? >> absolutely not and the reason why it was important to get people together to discuss this in a transparent way. >> have you spent your whole life trying to determine the causes of infectious diseases and then to stop them to protect a american people? >> yes, i have. >> well, dr. fauci, i want to join my colleague from florida in apologizing to you that some of our colleagues in the united states house of representatives seem to want to drag your name through the mud. they are treating you, dr. fauci, like a convicted felon. actually i probably wish they were treating you like a convicted felons. they treat them with love and admiration. some blindly worship them. anything else you want to say to the american people about your service to america during the course of the covid-19 pandemic? >> my main job during the covid pandemic was to play a role with my team at the vaccine research center to develop a safe and effective vaccine and we did that in an unprecedented short period of time never seen before in the anals. as we all know, that vaccine and those vaccines have resulted in saving of hundreds of thousands of lives in the united states and millions of lives throughout the world. >> well, you have fought aids and h.i.v. and fought covid-19 and you are fearless in doing so. do you have any reason to be afraid of scientific evidence or data or the truth? >> not at all. >> thank you, i yield back to you, mr. chairman. >> now recognize mr. griffith from virginia for five minutes of questioning. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good to see you, dr. fauci. take a deep breath because my questions change sometimes based on things that happen in the hearing. i want you to follow the bouncing ball with me. and there is no gotcha at the end of this. i'm trying to figure this out. you told dr. ruiz in his questioning that it was absolutely impossible for any of the viruses that you all were funding, i get that, it was impossible for sars covid two known as covid-19 to have come from any of the work that was being done at wuhan. at the same time, you told mr. comer that you didn't know about the non-compliance by eco health until after the fact and when the virus was already out there, however it got there. in light of the fact that part of that non-compliance was a report where we uncovered and i believe dr. daszak was untruthful to this committee in one of his reports to niaid and in the two most sensitive years related to the humanized mice experiments we never got lab notebooks from wuhan institute of virology, can you understand following the bouncing ball, why some of us doubt not that you had some hand in it or you knew about it, but doubt that you can state with certainty that it was impossible because they might have been doing stuff you didn't know about? isn't that true? >> actually, it is not incompatible at all, congressman, with what i said. the viruses that were studied, whether you did or did not give a five-year report on time, was still the viruses that follow genetically would be impossible to be the precursor of sars covid two. it was completely compatible with the statement i made. >> is that accurate knowing they had worked on adding a site to mers? >> there is difference between the viruses that were funded by the nih sub award versus anything else anybody else in china might be doing. we were talking about did the nih -- >> you were talking about what you funded, all right. >> that's the point. >> that goes to my next question. i thought you might go there and i appreciate that. in an off the record member level briefing in february of 2022 i asked about the likelihood of nature of a sars-related coronavirus to have a cleavage site since it takes the 12 nuclear chains in there to make it as viral as this was going on. at the time you said to me what you just said. well, that wasn't us. if that wasn't done it wasn't us and you confirmed that for the record. it wasn't what you were funding. >> what i'm saying is i cannot account nor can anyone account for other things that might be going on in china, which is the reason why i have always said and will say now i keep an open mind as to what the origin is. but the one thing i know for sure is that the viruses that were funded by the nih could not be the precursor of sars covid two. >> i appreciate that. i never thought nih or niaid went out to create this thing but i do believe it came out of the lab and you made it clear. sometimes people miss this, one side says one thing, one side says the other. the actual fact may be that at some time working on that maybe they used some of our money to get started, maybe they didn't. but a group of scientists getting together might very well at wuhan have said let's see what happens if we go over here and do this. not that nih funded it but on their own went off and did something. isn't that possible? >> well, i actually would also want to say that one thing we should put out on the table that you were talking about a $120,000 a year grant in a $6 billion budget. if they were going to do something on the side, they had plenty of other money to do it. they wouldn't necessarily have to use $120,000 nih grant to do it. >> i appreciate that. it means something could happen. i'm glad you kept an open mind. one final thing. do you think they could have done it without the humanized mice that we gave them? >> could have done what, sir? >> could they have done any other research with the humanized mice that we gave them? china didn't have humanized mice before we gave them to wuhan. isn't it accurate they might have been able to do extra stuff with our mice? >> that's a hypothetical that i can't really answer what they could. >> you can't say it count have happened. i yield back. >> you want me to prove a negative. >> now recognize miss castor from florida. >> these special investigative committees are intended at the outset to bring light to difficult matters and i think unfortunately this select committee has brought more heat than light to things. one example is nearly five months ago dr. fauci sat for a 14-hour voluntary interview with the subcommittee. i was there for that interview, which included exchanges on many important questions on research safety, long covid, vaccine development, and the importance of strong public health systems in our local communities and also we discussed pandemic preparedness, like stockpiling supplies for our hospitals in advance of the next pandemic. but i want to public to know that for five months the republicans sat on that transcript. they could have released it at any time. it was released last friday. if the public had seen it five months ago, they would know that the republicans failed to find a shred of evidence of their far-fetched conspiracy linking dr. fauci to a cover-up of the origins of the pandemic. instead, the republicans contorted and mischaracterized dr. fauci's words over twitter to gin up conspiracies about nih's role in the origins of the pandemic. in the lead-up to this hearing parts of the interview have been cherry picked and distort evidence in press releases and tweets. dr. fauci, i want to make sure you have an opportunity to publicly clear anything up. does anything come top of mind right off the bat in how they cherry picked parts of your 14-hour transcript? >> i don't want to be casting stones at the distortions of what was said in that but there were a couple of things that come to mind. one, i'm sure will come up later is the issue of the six-foot distance and i made the statement that it just appeared and that got taken like i don't know what's going on. it just appeared. it came from the cdc. the cdc was responsible for those kinds of guidelines to 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 to ten feet. this 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 are dealing with droplets, which at the time 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 and my saying there was no science behind it means there was no clinical trial that proved that. that's just one of the things that got a little distorted in the response to that. >> i've learned and watched you over the years. i have to go back to the zika outbreak where we didn't know how exactly it was being transmitted and at one point we weren't aware that some of it was sexually transmitted. that is an example of why with these public health threats that you learn unfortunately as we go along. talk a little bit about the zika health threat and how we didn't know what was happening in the early days. >> well, i'm glad you brought that up because it really is also reflective of what went on in the early months of covid. when you are dealing with an outbreak that is a novel outbreak, the zika outbreak was novel, we had never seen that before. covid was novel, we had seen that before. when you are dealing with a new outbreak, things change. the scientific process collects the information that will allow you at that time to make a determination, a recommendation or 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 guidelines and change your recommendation. and that really goes across the board because you are dealing with something that needs to be modified because it is a moving target. zika was a moving target. covid was a moving target. >> thank you very much. i want to thank the democratic staff for your minority report and if it's not already submitted for the record i would like to ask unanimous condition sent to offer into the record the democratic staff report just completed. republicans fauci flops led committees 15 month probe fails to find evidence of extreme claims linking dr. fauci to covid-19's origin. thanks the staff. an outstanding report folks should read. >> thank you, mr. chairman. many of the us are the committee are disturbed by revelation toes this committee there were officials at nih that deleted government records, deleted -- used personal emails to communicate and circumvent freedom of information laws. so i just had a couple questions about that. dr. fauci, did you delete any emails or records related to the wuhan labor origins of the virus? >> no, i did not. >> okay. dr. morens said in a may 2021 email he indicated that he was connecting people to you in a quote secret back channel. do you know what he was referring to? >> i don't have any idea what he is talking about. there is no back channel at niaid. >> he also said in another email there is no worry about freedom of information act. i can send stuff to tony on his private email. did you communicate with anyone relating to anything regarding nih or with dr. morens on a private email? >> i don't do government business on my private email. >> how do you communicate with dr. morens via private email even if it was not necessarily your definition of government -- >> as i mentioned in my opening statement, one of his functions is to write chapters, medical scientific chapters with me. it is conceivable i communicated with him on my private email when we were writing a chapter. that was not official business. >> what about peter daszak? >> no. >> today you testified you did not suppress the lab leak theory but in the past you have said it is a distortion of reality. you said i've heard this conspiracy theories and like all conspiracy theories they are just conspiracy theories. that's what you told the american people. what science were you following then? >> i have also been very, very clear and said multiple times that i don't think the concept of there being a lab leak is inherently a conspiracy theory. what is conspiracy is the kind of distortions of that particular subject like it was a lab leak and i was parachuted into the c.i.a. like jason bourn and told the c.i.a. they shouldn't be talking about a lab leak. that's the conspiracy. >> how much have you earned from pharmaceutical companies since the pandemic began in 2021. >> 0. >> nih scientists made 10 million in royalties from drug makers. you are saying you did not receive any of the $710 million? >> on covid i received i think $122 for a monoclonal antibody i made 27 years ago. >> in general how much have you received not related to covid, just in general how much you received in royalties between 2021 and 2023? >> i think none. >> okay. somebody received the 710 million. >> somebody did but not me. >> you didn't receive any royalties. >> i received no royalties associated with covid. i'm on the record and i want to make sure this is clear that i have developed a monoclonal antibody 25 years ago that is used as a diagnostic that has nothing to do with covid and i receive an average of $120 a year from that patent. >> the bottom line scientists at nih did receive $710 million in royalties. don't you think that any of the royalties should be going back to the tax pairers and not the scientists. >> if you want to change the patent laws, go ahead. that's not for me to say. >> i want to say we know billions of dollars have been funding animal experiments here and in foreign lands. i'm troubled by the cruel, horrific animal research done on u.s. land and in foreign laboratories of taxpayers footing the bill for billions of dollars. these beagle puppies that have their throats slit, being injected with ticks, murdered after a few months. piglets, rabbits, you name it. fda say we no longer need to test human medications on animals. there are other ways to achieve this. can you comment on that if it is time for the united states of america to move on from the cruel animal and horrific costly tests? >> i'm puzzled what that's thaw has to do with the origins covid. >> i have a question about it. it has to do in general with the amount of waste of tax dollars that nih is using. >> well, the animal experiments that are conducted by and funded by nih go through strict regulations of the proper use of animals in research. i am not, with all due respect not trying to be -- i'm not sure what you are talking about. but the experiments the nih funded go through strict regulatory processes of the treatment of animals, the humane treatment of animals. >> they aren't very humane and i will say as the former director you signed off on these experiments and so my time is expired and -- >> i signed off on them because they were approved by a peer review. >> recognize miss dingle from michigan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. instead of taking a serious look at the various ways by which this virus could have emerged in labs ornate you are my pub con colleagues and friends are trying to pin blame on hin, naiad and dr. fauci for the covid-19 pandemic. let's bring everything in. i want to have a discussion about animal testing, too, but i'm really not sure how that comes into here. so i want to be perfectly clear, though, that the select subcommittee has seen no evidence of this. however, allegations by my republican colleagues amplified in the media have led to real tangible consequences for dr. fauci in his personal life in a way that should be unacceptable to all americans. dr. fauci, you and i have known each other for a long time and i'm not going to admit how long. during that time i have seen your commitment not just to science, but to advancing the greater good. and i know that this isn't a topic you enjoy discussion and i'm sorry i will have to ask you about it. i think the american people need to know what we are doing to those who are serving the common good in public health. i think it's important to make clear the harms that you and your loved ones have suffered because of these deeply irresponsible accusations. because you know what? you are human just like the rest of us. so dr. fauci, can you please share with us the nature of the threats you have received since the start of the covid-19 pandemic? >> yes. there have been everything from harassments by emails, texts, letters of myself, my wife, my three daughters. there have been credible death threats leading to the arrests of two individuals and credible death threats means someone who was on their way to kill me. it has required my having protective services essentially all the time. it is very troublesome to me. it is much more troublesome because they have involved my wife and my three daughters. >> at this moment how do you feel? >> terrible. >> do you continue to receive threats today? >> yes, i do. every time someone gets up and says i'm responsible for the death of people throughout the world, the death threats go up. >> it's unacceptable you have been treated this way after you've dedicated your life to science and research for the public interest. you deserve better. every human being deserves better. and i'm afraid the treatment you have received will also have far-reaching consequences for the future of science, particularly when done for the public good. dr. fauci, how do you think the threats towards you and other public health officials have received will impact bright young scholars thinking about going off into science or public service? think as many people want to follow in your footsteps as they did when i first met you? >> you know, congressman, i think this is a powerful disincentive for people to go into public health and science and medicine in the public arena. it is not clear that not only i, i'm very much of a public figure, but many of my colleagues less visible than i, whenever they speak up in defense of the kinds of things that we're trying to do to protect the american public, they, too, get threats. and when they see that their colleagues get threats, they say to themselves i don't want to go there. why should i get involved in that? you have some potentially very good talent that would be important to maintain the integrity and excellence of the public health enterprise in the united states. we're not getting the best people coming in because they are reluctant to put themselves and their family through what they see their colleagues being put through. >> you are right. you are not alone feeling that way. in fact, ahead of today's hearing the select subcommittee received a letter from the association of state and territorial health officials which represents public health officials in communities of all political persuasions detailing the surge of harassment, intimidation, hate speech, threats of violence and death threats that their members faced during the pandemic. i will ask to insert the letter but i wanted to make the point before i close, mr. chairman, as many as 40% of public health workers have been bullied, threatened, or harassed. i think we all need to take that on as a public health issue and ask to enter the letter into the record and yield back. >> without objection. now recognize ms. lesco from arizona. >> dr. fauci, did the national institute of health fund the potentially dangerous enhanced potential pandemic pathogens gain of function resurge at the wuhan institute of virology? >> i would not characterize it the way you did. the national institutes of health, through a sub award to the wuhan institute of virology, funded research on the surveillance of and the possibility of emerging infections. i would not characterize it as dangerous gain-of-function research. i have already testified to that effect a couple of times. >> you are saying no, correct? in his may 16th -- >> i'm saying no because i've said that multiple times including the transcribed interview. >> in the may 16, the nih director said i can tell you that the failure of the wuhan institute of virology to provide us with the data that we requested and the lab notebooks that we requested certainly impeded our ability to understand what was really going on with the experiments that we've been discussing this morning. my question to you, dr. fauci, if the nih didn't inspect the wuhan institute of virology and nih didn't receive the lab books and data from china and the required reports from eco health alliance were not submitted and were late. how can you definitively say the nih did not fund the dangerous gain-of-function research? >> i go back to what i said, that the gain-of-function research by the operative and regulatory definition of p3c40 does not include at all the viruses that were studied under the -- >> how do you know that if there were no lab books or nothing from china? >> we know what var viruses they were studying. the nih funded research on these viruses. if someone else somewhere in china was doing something else -- >> that's the problem. nih didn't go there or get the reports needed. how would you know? >> you are not hearing what i'm saying. >> dr. morens your senior advisor for over 20 years said in a email i learned from your foia lady here now how to make emails disappear when i am foye added. before the search starts. i think we're all safe plot i deleted most of these earlier emails after sending them to g-mail. in another email dated 4/21/21 he said i forgot to say there is no worry about foia i can sets end it to him or hand it to him. see too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble. were you ever engaged in attempts to obstruct the freedom of information act and the release of public documents? >> no. >> did dr. morens communicate with you about official business using his private email? >> official business? no. >> did you ever encourage dr. morens to use his private email address for official business? >> no. >> my next question, sir, is on february 1, 2020, you, yourself, dr. fauci, the nih director collins and at least 11 other scientists were on a conference call to discuss the origins of covid. a number of the scientists said they were concerned that covid was the result of a lab leak at the wuhan institute of virology and were concerned that a revelation of the lab leak theory who hurt their relationship with china. cdc director redfield testified he wasn't invited on the call because he believed the lab leak theory was possible. three days later on february 4th, 2020, four participants on the conference call authored a paper proximal origin sent to you for editing. proximal origin pushed the natural origin theory. april 16, 2020, dr. collins emailed you expressing dismay that the nature medicine article which was based on proximal origin didn't suppress the lab leak theory and asked you for more public pressure to suppress the lab leak theory. the very next day in response to dr. collins' request to do that you cited the nature medicine article that discounted the lab leak theory from the white house podium. my question to you, sir, did you cite this article at the white house because the nih director asked you to suppress the lab leak theory? >> i did not do that in response to anybody's suggestion to suppress anything. it was in response to a question that someone asked at the podium. and i did not edit any paper as shown in my official testimony. so you said about four or five things, congressman, that were just not true. >> well, we have emails to prove it. >> you don't. >> thank you. i yield back. >> now recognize the congressman from maryland for five minutes of questions. >> thank you very much. by the way, no we don't have it. so i get tired of hearing we've got it and then when we ask for it it's not there. we do not have it, dr. fauci. for everyone watching this. that's just incorrect. now let me just say a couple of things if i sound a little outraged it is because we sit here and we watch one conspiracy theory after another get debunked and if i might on a point of personal privilege to the gentleman woman from new york who wanted to argue that we should be worrying about testing of human medicines on animals. if this committee wants to do something let's talk about the infamous research study where 400 black men in this country were injected deliberately with syphilis and allowed to die slowly over a 40-year period without any attempt to help them at all. it was condoned by the u.s. public health service and if we want to talk about testing, let's talk about that as well. i want to talk about covid right now. mr. chairman, i have the floor. i want to say to you, mr. chairman. >> ask you to suspend, please. i want the remind the audience of decorum. recognize the congressman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you and ranking member ruiz for this opportunity. dr. fauci, we owe you an apology for the way we have raked you through the mud and none of us has said to you here is with where you go to get your good name and reputation back. the most unfair thing i have seen. if there were evidence, if there were facts that supported the conchs we would be interested but we haven't seen a thing to suggest these accusations are accurate. you have been a hero to many for five plus decades and led the country through the anthrax scare, aids, sars, ebola and covid-19. pandemics and epidemics. we owe you a collective thank you. are you a world renowned scientist and american patriot. whether or not people want to believe that, that's on them. those facts are undisputeable. for a year and a half the republican majority on this committee has sought to weaponize scientific questions over covid-19 and vilify our public health officials and our nation's scientists with unsubstantiated, baseless, allegations that just can't stand the light of day. and so they've tried to do that with covid-19 and we are here now as a result of the aggregated amount of foolishness that has taken place. i have always said to this committee every time i have had a chance to speak let's go back to when we were in the heart of the pandemic when our family members and friends and co-workers were dying left and right. when we were afraid to get near anybody. when we wanted to wash down our groceries before we brought them into the house. where we were willing to put on masks or head gear to keep us from being infected and turned to our leaders and public health officials and scientists for answers and we got some but then we didn't get some. and then we got some later. like dr. debra burks who was donald trump's expert on the virus who said no, bleach won't do it. don't inject yourself with it and who also said publicly on the record that thousands of american lives could have been spared -- spared if we had done what we were being told to do by the scientific community. at least one thing is clear, those 1 million people who died as a result of these conspiracy theories will never come back. and those families have empty seats at the table year after year and we do a disservice if at the very least we don't knowledge their deaths and harm and hurt done to their families and learn -- learn how to find a way to trust science going forward in this country. dr. fauci, you have been accused over and over again of going to the c.i.a. headquarter and having a meeting with the c.i.a. to construct a way to make sure that covid raged in this country. is that correct? >> that is incorrect. >> dr. fauci, have you been to the c.i.a. office in the last 20 years or headquarters? >> i went to the c.i.a. decades ago during the anthrax attacks to discuss the possibility of terrorist attacks. >> thank you. i want to get that on the record. that's just the latest theory now that you and the c.i.a. director conspired. this is foolishness. people are not going to agree with you, i understand that. but we take an be smirk somebody's good name. think about one of us, we would be jumping up and down trying to find a way to get justice. on behalf of those of us who are thankful and a grateful nation, thank you for your service, sir. i yield back. >> i now recognize mr. clout from texas for five minutes of questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here and i do want to echo some of what he said. we need to focus on the people and that's really what the angst that's left with the american people. what they had to walk through during this time. i will go down a list of mitigation measures that you supported over the course of the pandemic and ask you to give a yes or no if you still believe these measures were justified. business closures? >> not hearing you at all. could you please speak louder? >> sure. i will go through a list of covid mitigation measures you supported over the course of pandemic and give a yes or no whether you believe these measures were justified. business closures? >> when 5,000 people were dying a day yes. >> church closures? >> same thing. >> school closures? >> again >> stay at home orders. >> they were important when we were trying to stop the tsunami of deaths occurring early on. how long you kept them going is debatable. >> mask mandates for adults and children, mask main dates for children under five. >> going back who i said before all of that is in the context of at the time four though 5,000 people were dying. >> mask mandates for children under five. scientific evidence supporting it? >> no study that did masks on kids. you couldn't do the study. you had to respond to an epidemic killing four to 5,000 americans today. >> vac en mandates for students and military? >> vaccines save lives. it is clear that vaccines have saved than hundreds of thousands of americans. >> we are talking about the covid-19. did or do the vaccines, covid-19 evacuees stop anyone from getting covid? >> i answered that question to the chairman. early on it became clear that -- 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. >> it didn't stop you from spreading it, either. >> early on it did if it prevented infection. it did not prevent transmission when the ability to prevent infection waned. >> i think what's troubling is when the american people look at the certainty and the case at which people lost jobs, lost livelihoods. i had rural hospitals in my area that did not have a single case of covid in their rural community that had to shut down and people not get care that they did need for cancer and some passed away because of those kind of things. and time after time again people's lives were destroyed and we have not seen this same sort of once the new data came available we did not see a change of course and you will point out in the schools that the cdc put out the guidelines, for example. but we know that those guidelines end up being protection from lawsuits. if you don't want to be sued you better follow the guidelines. they are not mandates defact owe mandates but turn out to be such a mandate. and when the science began to change. we all understand in the first couple of weeks, first few weeks, even a couple months we were trying to figure it out. there is a lot of grace for that. the concern is as science became available oh maybe we should consider lab leak theory, natural immunity. we never heard this messaging coming from you or anyone else who stood on the sidelines talking about these things. it left the american people with a tremendous distrust. i want to talk about the grant process. my understanding from your testimony says the nih process for rewarding grants research proposal goes to peer review committee to receive a priority score and goes to an advisory counsel for nih personnel and receives basically the group votes on it and then eventually ends up on your desk for signature, right? you said in that that sometimes, if i recall correctly, those grants are often approved in block, en masse when they are voted on and you sign off on them. >> that's correct. >> this is one of the things that's really troubling to the american people. they look at their lives being destroyed and there is no one to hold accountable because these systems of accountability have become systems of plausible denia deniability. your name is on every grant but absolve yourself of responsibility by saying it goes to this committee that's -- you know, that has a number of people on it and approved in block and there is no accountability for anything. any of the taxpayer dollars that are going forth. >> i disagree, congressman. if you look at the number of grants, we fund thousands of grants. it would be physically impossible for me to go through every single grant in a detailed way to understand it. that is true not only for me but for virtually every institute at the nih. >> why does your signature go on it >> somebody has to sign it and you trust the expertise and competence of the staff that go over it. >> gentleman's time is expired. recognize ms. ross from north carolina for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you, dr. fauci, for your voluntary testimony today and for so much grace in your 14 hours of testimony. and i again want to thank you for your service and your patience. it is truly remarkable. because it bears repeating, let me just remind everyone that after 15 months, my republican colleagues' extreme allegations against you remain unsubstantiated. unsubstantiated. and now during your two-day close had door interview in january you discussed a number of topics regarding the public health response to covid-19, pandemic, some that we have touched on briefly but i want to dive in a little bit deeper here. for example, you discussed both then and here with congresswoman castor the recommendation we maintain six feet of distance between one another to reduce the spread of covid-19. and you discussed how social distancing recommendations were developed. that you yourself didn't pick this six feet and it was just really kind of a guideline in the moment. in your view, though, do social distancing recommendations and other public health measures to reduce transmission save lives? >> definitely. >> okay. i would also like to go back and take a deeper dive into the covid-19 vaccine discussion that we just had and you were also asked about that during your interview in january. in the select subcommittee we have heard suggestions the vaccine was ineffective because of breakthrough infections that occur after vaccination. we just heard about that right here. but as i understand it, perhaps the strongest measure of covid-19 vaccines effectiveness is the reduction of severe disease and death, not necessarily getting a milder form of covid. could you talk about that a little bit? >> yes. it is very clear that when you are dealing with many vaccines, but particularly when you are looking at covid, as i mentioned and i will repeat it quickly for you, that early on there was a degree not as much as against severe disease of protection against infection. unfortunately, that protection against infection, which is related to trance missability waned rather rapidly in a matter of months. what has stood firm much better than transmission and much better than infection is the ability to prevent someone from hospitalizations and deaths. in fact, the curves, congresswoman, are stunning when you look at the deaths and hospitalizations of people who were unvaccinated, it is like this. when you look at the deaths for vaciateed it is like this. the difference is profound. when you deal with infection because of the waning of infection against infection. >> that was also confirmed by a commonwealth fund december 2022 report that which came out two years after the biden administration's effort to get covid-19 vaccines in arms and your effort, too. it prevented more than 3 million deaths and averted 18 million hospitalizations. that came out in 2002 but it seems to corroborate what you are saying. >> indeed. $1.15 trillion in healthcare costs. >> thank you for that add. one pillar of the vaccine requirements was to have an increased uptake in the covid-19 vaccines and that at the time was supported by leading physicians including the american medical association, the american academy of family physicians and pediatrics and more. were the vaccine requirements a clinically sound tool for improving uptake of a safe and effective vaccine? >> yes. you would like people to get vaccinated voluntarily and realizing the important effect on it. but the fact that people were vaccinated by whatever motivation was clearly saved many, many lives. >> and just with the 17 seconds i have, what steps can public health officials take to bolster confidence in these life-saving interventions since there has been so much misinformation circulating? >> that's going to be very difficult, congresswoman. because there is so much misand disinformation around. we have to get the correct information. it is difficult when you have a very energetic group of people continually spreading misand disinformation. we have to get more facts about the information that's correct. >> thank you for your testimony. i yield back. >> now recognize dr. joyce from pennsylvania for five minutes of questioning. >> bill: thank you for convening this important hearing and thank you for testifying. one of the controversial regulations of the pandemic was the six foot distancing rule. it became an important policy consideration in subsequent regulations. however, you testified recently i'm quoting, this six foot role sort of just appeared. do you think that a role that sort of just appeared is substantial justification for the regulations that we saw based on that six foot rule? >> congressman, thank you for that question. i answered that but i will summarize it briefly for you. when saying it just appeared, it came from the cdc. >> you stated that earlier. what was your relationship with the cdc when you saw a regulation which was not based in the current science? >> when i say was not based >> i meant a prospective clinical trial to determine whether 6-foot was better than . >> once we realize the virus was aerosolized, did you feel an indication to go back to the cdc and, let's base this on science. let's get rid of this 6-foot rule. this 6-foot rule's crippled businesses. it allows students to stay at home and not learn. americans are suffered. their suffering continues, because the fracture of trust in american scientists continues to this day. if you feel an obligation for something that just sort of appeared not to go back to the cdc and say, let's base this on what we know? >> it was a cdc decision. >> were you dialoguing with the cdc? >> the cdc was part of the coronavirus response team. the one you didn't feel an obligation to go to them and say americans are going to trust us. we are providing them with misinformation. >> we have discussions at the lighthouse about that. the cdc's decision to make, they made it. >> you didn't feel an obligation as the lead scientist at the nih to challenge that? >> i have challenge the cdc multiple times. >> quickly you challenge them on the sixth the distancing rule? >> it is not appropriate to be publicly challenging the system organization. the one you that americans of lost their trust because of misinformation like this? >> when you talk about misinformation, i think that you have to be careful. it's not this information. it was information that ultimately proved when you put the rationalization and that it was not an effective role. >> 6-foot beaded distancing. dr. fauci, let's move on. on april 21st, the email that there is no wary about -- i can neither -- on his private gmail and hand it to him at work or house. he is too smart to let colleague send him stuff that could cause trouble. do you realize the impact considers today? this is your lead trusted researcher who works with you, your advisor? do you realize the impact of that? >> it was a terrible thing. it was wrong. it was inappropriate. >> i think we all agreed. he was incredibly inappropriate. recently an op-ed that senator roger marshall published just yesterday raised concern about hhs foia compliance following your testimony in front of the senate health committee. dr. county, what involvement did you have an hhs not responding to foia request following your testimony in the senate in 2021? >> i had no role whatsoever in anything to do with the request when foia is made to come it doesn't go directly to a person like me. it goes to a department which takes care of it. i don't have any role one way or another in foia. >> let's go on. where are you aware that naiad employees conducting official work on unofficial emails and inappropriately assisting grantees during your time as a director? >> i was not aware of that as it was lecturing. it obviously came out during the committee hearings. i was not aware of that. i think you put an exclamation point on how important these a are. dr. kyle trego would you agree that this demonstrates the need for more accountability and increase oversight? >> what you saw i believe was an outlier. the individuals at the nih and naiad are a very committed group of individuals. this one instance that you point out isn't an outlier. >> from your senior advisor for 20 years. >> on the is senior advisor. we wrote scientific papers together. he didn't advise me as i mentioned. >> are your senior advisors not trusted staff? >> again, i told you that his title as senior advisor. but he is not an advisor on policy. >> that is very confusing to have someone's title and not have that to be there obligation. >> that is the fact.

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