Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing On Virus Research Funding 20220929

Genetic modification of viruses and pathogens. Kentucky republican senator rand paul chaired the hearing. It is one hour and 45 minutes. We are going to go ahead and get started. I call this meeting of the Senate Homeland security and Government Affairs subcommittee on emerging threats and spending oversights to order. I want to thank senator hassan for allowing this bipartisan hearing to occur. Welcome to each of our panelists. Thank you for joining us. The purpose of this hearing by the subcommittee on emerging threats and spending oversights is to discuss, as our name implies the emerging threat posed by gain of research. We will hear from three witnesses, all of whom are extraordinarily accomplished experts in the scientific community. We are grateful for the work and we are grateful for each of you to take the time to appear with us this afternoon. Gain of function research is a controversial Scientific Research method involving the manipulation of pathogens to give them a new aspect or ability. Such as making viruses more transmissible, or dangerous to humans. Despite all we have learned about the potential risks of this particular method of research, this is the first congressional hearing on the subject since the pandemic began. Today, we will discuss what gain of function research entails. How gain of function research is defined, and what the definition of gain of function research is defined consistently by the department, health and Human Services p3co review committee. This is a committee set up to study potential pandemic pathogens. We will discuss the responsibility for how we determine the risks and benefits. We will also discuss how this committee operates. How this Committee Approves or denies projects from receiving federal funding, based on whether the pathogens considered to be a credible source of potential future human pandemic. And, if the potential risks as compared to the potential benefits to society or justified. In other words, a project does not gain a function of the review committee if a recombination virus will create a future pandemic. There is a question of whether or not there is a reasonable expectation or whether it might be, or has been in the past, or what viruses should be or should not be experimented on. This broad criteria gives one sole committee, comprised of an unknown group of bureaucrats. I believe the names of who is on the committee are not released. There is not any oversight of the oversight. The power to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on a single preemptive guess, with potential lifesaving consequences. Today we will also consider if gain of function research was considered at the Wuhan Institute of virology. First, no one, not myself or anyone that i am aware of, argues that a recumbent super virus which have been published in scientific journalss covid 19 or a close relative. If, and i underlined if, lit covid19 leaked from wuhan lab it would be a laboratory created virus that the wuhan scientists are not yet, and unlikely to ever, reveal. I the nih funded and wuhan to recreate in his passages may have, or could have, been used to create covid19 the American People deserve to know how this pandemic started. And to know if the nih funded research which may have caused this pandemic. Gain of function research has the potential to unleash a Global Pandemic that threatens the lives of millions. Yet this is the first time issue has been discussed in a congressional committee. Im sure each member of this committee, as well as the full senate, can agree that we need stronger government oversight as how our tax dollars are used to finance experimenting with possibly fatal diseases. Again, i think each of our distinguished witnesses for being here today. Ive bank chairwoman hassan and working with me to convene this meeting. Before i began out would like to note that i have invited senators who are not on the subcommittee to also attend today. Therefore, i allow unanimous consent to allow senator marshall and can senator johnson fully take part in the hearing. Without objection. Next, i would like to remind witnesses that any written testimony they have, anything they have submitted will be stuck included in the record. Please keep your opening remarks to around seven minutes. With that i am going to introduce the witnesses. We will hear the remarks after the introduction, which is slightly different than we do sometimes. Then i will introduce the next witness. The first witness will be with us via zoom, or skype. It is doctor Richard Ebright doctor ebright is the board of governors professor of chemistry in chemical biology and the director of the Waksman Institute of microbiology at rutgers university. Doctor ebright completed his undergraduate degree from Harvard University of biology where he earned coombe loudly honors. He later received a ph. D. From microbiology molecular genetics also from harvard. Doctor ebrards research has led to over 175 publications as well as over 40 issued and pending patents. He has received numerous awards for research and he is currently a member of the American Academy of arts and sciences as well as the Institutional Bio Safety Committee at rockers. Hes a fellow of the Infectious Disease fellowship at american and science. The editor of molecular biology for 16 years. Doctor ebright currently serves as a project leader and three current nih grants, has provided testimony to the House Committee on energy and commerce on the 2014 anthrax incident. Was a Founding Member of the Cambridge Working Group whose Cautionary Statement on gain of function Research Involving Potential Pandemic Pathogens remains as relevant as the day it was released in july 2014. Doctor ebright . Thank you. Chair hassan and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to discuss gain a function research and its oversight. The border government professor of chemical and biology at records university. I am Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of microbiology. My oral statement i will discuss the definition of data function research of concern, risks and benefits of the research, u. S. Oversight of the research, and steps to strengthen u. S. Oversight of the research. What is the gain of function research of concern . Gain of function research of concern is defined as Research Activities reasonably anticipated to increase the potential pandemic pathogens transmissibility, past indigenous city, the ability to compromised immune response or the ability to overcome a vaccine or drug. Gain of function research of concern involved creation of new Health Threats. Health threats that did not exist previously and that might not come to exist through natural means for tens of thousands of years. Data function of concern is a small part of biomedical research. It constitutes less than one tenth of 1 of my medical research. And less than 1 of virology. Gain of function research of concern involves pandemics, the small part is highly consequential and requires strict oversight. What are the risks . Gain of function research or concern poses high, potentially existential, risks. Gain of function research of concern poses material risks by creating new material pandemic pathogens if they result in new potential pandemic pathogen out in humans either by accident and delivery this could cause a pandemic gain of function research of concern also poses information wrist on providing information on creation of the most potentially damaging pandemic pathogens. It contains instructions, stepbystep instructions that a rogue nation or individual may used to construct a new pathogens of pandemics. One of the benefits . Gain of function research of concern provideslimited benefits. It can advance gain Scientific Understanding but gain of function research of concern has no civilian application. In particular gain of function research of concern is not needed for or contribute to the development of vaccines or drugs they allow vaccines to pathogens to develop throughout humans. They do not circulate in humans. What should oversight entail . Because gain of function research of concern poses high, potentially existential risk and providelimited benefits, the risk benefit ratio for the research is almost always unfavorable, and in many cases is extremely unfavorable. Therefore it is imperative that gain of function research of concern be subject to national or International Level oversight to ensure that before the researchers started the risk budget is acceptable. Risk oversight includes three components. Research proposal that include gain of function research of concern should be identified in flight. Second, a risk benefit assessment must be conformed. This details enumerating rescind benefits, weighing rescind benefits, and raising a decision. Either to proceed as proposed or to proceed with additional risk mitigation, or not to proceed. Third with a compliance for the risk benefit assessment must be mandated, and enforced. I turn to the u. S. Oversight of gain of function research of concern, before 2014 there was no National Level u. S. Function oversight in gain of function research of concern. In 2014 to 2017, the government put in place a moratorium on federal funding for, quote, selected gain of function research, and quote. Defined as Research Activity recently anticipated to increase the transmissibility of pathogens of influenza, sars, or the morose virus. The policy was referred to as the pause. Under pause, 18 projects were paused. However, at least seven of the 18 projects that were paused were allowed to resume almost immediately. Warren portly, more and including a project on sars related coronaviruses by the equal Health Alliance and its wuhanbased partners were not paused due to the failure of the nih to identify and flag all relevant projects. At the end of 2017 the positives lifted and replaced by an nih policy that requires risk benefit assessment before awarding h h s funding for, quote, research involving potential Research Enhanced pathogens, and. Quote any expected to increase the pathogen if the d or the reach of any pathogen. The policy is referred to as the p3co framework. Under the p3co framework projects must be identified in fly by the Funding Agency, the nih. The funded progress must be reviewed by p3co secretary committee. The p3co framework assesses the reasonably anticipated results a proposed research. The reasonably anticipated standard employed in the policies is equivalent to, in all respects, with a reasonable person standard in u. S. Administrative law and civil law. In principle, the p3co framework ensures risk by the fifth of gain of function research of concern. However, in practice the p3co has existed primarily on paper. In the four and a half years since the policy was announced, only three projects have been reviewed. Most covered projects, including those by the world Health Alliance and its wuhan partners were not reviewed due to a failure by the nih to identify in flag the covered projects. In addition, p3co had nontransparent in unaccountable. The names and affiliations of its members have not been disclosed. Its proceedings have not been disclosed. Even if decisions have not been disclosed. Current u. S. Oversight of data function research of concern has serious shortcomings. Moving forward, any effective system of u. S. Oversight of gain of function research of concern must address these shortcomings. My recommendations are as follows. First, responsibility [inaudible] oversight of gain of function research of concern should be assigned to a single independent federal agency that does not perform research, and not fund the research. Second, u. S. Oversight of gain of function research of concern should cover all u. S. And u. S. Funded research, irrespective of funding sources, the classification status, and research location. Third, u. S. Oversight of gain of function research of concern should be codified in regulated into a force of law. It should be mandated, monitored, and enforced. Fourth, u. S. Oversight of gain of function research of concern should be transparent and accountable. Thank you for your attention. I would be pleased to address questions. Seattle thank you doctor ebright next we will have dr. Steven quay. And how therapeutics is a clinical stage by a Pharmaceutical Company that develops novel therapeutics and delivery methods for Breast Cancer in other breast conditions. With the goal of preventing the 2 million annual Breast Cancer cases worldwide. He received his mgm ph. D. From the university of michigan, trains as a post doctoral fellow at m. I. T. , and served at the faculty of Stanford University school of medicine. Doctor quay published contributions to the world of medicine i have been cited extensively, he is also a medical entrepreneur. He has founded six startups, invented seven fda pharmaceuticals and its the older of 87 patents and over 130 pending u. S. And foreign patent applications. Also an author, notably during the pandemic doctor quay published his number one amazon bestseller, stay safe. A physicians countess abide coronavirus. Finally doctor quay recently presented testimony to lawmakers as part of an expert form convened by the House Committee on coronavirus entitled, led by science. The covid19 orange and story. Doctor quay . I am honored to participate in this [inaudible] one the pandemic taught, us and where do we go from here . [inaudible] i offer six statements in the opening. One, there is no test positive evidence that the pandemic began as a natural virus in the market. All markups are consistent with a laboratory infection. I do understand this conclusion is not widely held. I could spend an entire hearing painstakingly going over the Scientific Evidence of this conclusion. That is not the purpose of this meeting. Im happy to discuss the evidence contained in my written remarks during mid. Im also willing to public debate and overall just on this question in any time or place. Only one Infectious Disease doctor was willing to debate this quest with me in a formal debate format and he lost im also willing to testify under oath if requested. Number two, all evidence is consistent with a not accidental but deliberately. Number three, sars two has features consistent with emphatic data function research. Two features involve acceptable gain of function research. The bind domain optimization in the cleavage site. These two features have never been found in nature. Or related viruses which could a recently start of the pandemic because of the closeness of these viruses to move on these two features are on the other hand routinely involved in other viruses. Human specifically interviewed science in a backbone. Sars two is a bath drive hours of a human cleavage site. One region of sars two, called or if a has features of forbidden data function research of asymptomatic transmission an immune system of asian. The wavys engineering a protein related to or a to have these two forbidden properties before 2019. Shown into masters degree csis available only in chinese. Covid exhibits 40 asymptomatic transition, unheard of for a new respiratory virus. Patients infected with the delete of north eight have mild infection. Could the reduced accuracy of vaccines and natural mean aba a manufactured feature . It remains likely. Six, and december 2016 that Wuhan Institute of virology was conducting research on the nepa virus which is 60 lethal in low containment, facilities. The dnieper virus was an infectious clone format. Nepa is a b l for level pathogen in a cdc designated terrorism agent. This is the most data function research ive ever encountered. We should assume this Research Continues at this day on wivt. I will close with five recommendations for future gain of function research. Where did the pandemic began . The competing hypothesis are natural spillover in wuhan or a laboratory inquired perfection. To read some papers purport to claim the pandemic began at the hunan mark and december 2019. There are at least six Serious Problems with these papers. The most important on that in the early months, no animal has ever been found to be infected with covid19. Anywhere, including the market. The molecular clock of sars two places the first human infection and the fall of 2019, long before the december market cases. All infections in the market in humans where what is called, lineage be. Not the most ancestral lineage, lineage a. I, like many other scientists believe the market cases were a superspreader event. This first chart here. The earliest cluster of hospitalized paces with both that lineage a b virus was at the Peoples Hospital in wuhan. This hospital is about six kilometers from the wivb. Online two of the wuhan subway system. As shown in this chart. All early cases were in hospitals adjacent aligned to. The probability that this is a chance occurrences one and 68,000. Line to covert conduit, as i call, it involves the pla hospital, the wivb, the mark, it in the international airport. You can literally walk down into the some boy system from the debris of a in china and next exit in london, paris, dubai, paris or new york all before having any symptoms. Our other model suggests the pandemic could not have occurred without the international spreading impact line to. As gain a function research has been useful to the Covid Response or in any other Public Health infection disease emergency . I have found no evidence that gain a function research helped neither the covid pandemic or other smaller epidemics. We now know that an mri vaccine can be designed within literally days of a new outbreak once the passage and has been sequenced largescale manufacturing can begin their after this capability have now been fully road tested. It provides, in my opinion, the best defensive capability against future microbes. It is also important to point out the gain of function research is a tiny sliver of all research pounded by nih. Specifically, there are over 36,000 grants founded by the nih in 2020, the latest year with statistics. Of the, the self described gain of function on potential pathogen health only label 21 in the past year. Expanding this by ten fall with a lesser engine of gain a function, it would mean that we are talking about less than 1 of all nih funded research. I cannot imagine a scenario whereby this tiny Research Effort where a new pandemic occurs. What reaffirmed should be considered to ensure that what research is conducted in a safe and transparent manner . I found no actual benefit from gain a function research ever stood given the vested interest of literally the entire virology community, it is a hills too steep to climb. A proposal that i believe is a table is all gain a function research in a existing review Board Structure used for human clinical trials. I believe that this effort would put guardrails around the most dangerous aspects of the research. It has the added benefit of international acceptance, including in china. Our second reform would be to separate government oversight from the Funding Agency. The model would be the Atomic Energy commission. Third suggestion is to place western biotechnology equipment under export controls and monitoring. There are ways to build into the systems a forensic and Law Enforcement capability that could, for example, with probable cause and according search warrant allow the work of any land to be scrutinized remotely. My fourth recommendation is simple, do not put dangerous Infectious Disease laboratories like subways like line to wear every major city is accessible with an incubation period of an infection. Finally, including what i call the going into opportunity research, going into case where humans are rarely found, taking a bath eagle sample with thousands of viruses. Taking the laboratory back with a laboratory in culturing the specimen where it could be controlled into her first natural vehement where it is now able to grow understated including a massive potential risk. This is the goal of the global viral project, against foundation funded ecoHealth Alliance associated effort. Their stated goal, collect the estimated 500,000 and viruses that are capable of infecting humans and bring them back to a laboratory near you. What could go wrong . Can i have the last line here . What happens we have the hearings and nothing happens . In december of 2019 we performed a remote audit of forensic examinations of the yuan institute of urology and found synthetic biological experiments with the nepa virus. As the charred show, they created a cloning vector with the virus which cdc defines as a bio terrorism agent. One of the deadliest on the channel with the greater the 60 lethality. Why were they conducting this experiment . I do not know. But a Laboratory Acquired Infection with this virus if it became airborne would look covid19 looks like a walk in the park. This cruddy is critical for protecting the American People and the people of all countries from protecting viruses from man in on main. If we have the proper to nadim and we fail, history will judge us poorly. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you doctor quay our final witness is dr. Kevin esvelt he is as associate professor at Massachusetts Institute of technology. Doctor esvelt received his va from chemistry and biology from harvey milk college and would later complete his ph. D. In bio chemistry at m. I. T. And harvard. While working at Harvard University, dr. Esvelt invented for age assisted continues evolution. Or pa ac. A synthetic microbial system for a rapidly evolving by molecules. Later, during his time as a wistful chronology fellow, esvelt focus centered around the development of gene drive technology. Many of esvelts contributions related to the bio ethics and biosafety of such gene drivers. He is credited with the first to describe how crisper gingrass can be used to alter the traits of wild populations in an evolutionary unstable manner. As we can work in the sculpting ablation group doctor esvelt and its technology created the new technology known as daisy drives. Which black communities hoping to prevent or do these would enter wild organisms in local ecosystems. Threat is career dr. Asphalt has been a champion of universal safeguards, transparency, raising scientific awareness and about learning Warning Systems and reliably detect any catastrophic biological threats. Advising policy makers on how to best mitigate global catastrophic viral risk. Doctor esvelt . Cher austin, Ranking Member paul, senators. Thank you for the kind invitation. I have to say that i have no special insights regarding or events of covid. In fact, i kind of doubt there is sufficient evidence to be conclusive in one way or the other. Our model does suggest that knowing where it came from wouldnt actually help us defend against future pandemics. I agreed to speak to a bipartisan hearing today because this is the emerging threat subcommittee. I am increasingly concerned by our continuing failure to recognize and increasingly dire technological threat. Who invented the Nuclear Chain reaction and launch the modern on proliferation movement is a scientific hero of mine. He wrote, the most important step in getting a job done is the recognition of the problem. The problem isnt our inability to agree on what does it does not constitute gain of function research. Or even whether the putative Research Benefits outweigh the risks of accidents. Rather, the problem is we are so used to thinking of pandemics as a health and safety issue, that we have missed the National Security implications of identifying viruses that could be deliberately unleashed to kill millions of people. Let me illustrate. When the genome of sars two was first posted online, scientists didnt have to wait for physical samples of the virus to become available to begin studying it a start working on countermeasures. That is because we could order thin static dna corresponding to the genome known pathogen and assemble infectious samples using freely available stepbystep protocols. From a biomedical perspective that is a triumph, particularly because it only cost a few thousand dollars and the prices plummeting. From a security perspective that means that thousands of researchers could gain access to a novel pandemic agent. As soon as it was identified as such. Thankfully, we still dont know of any particularly concerning examples. That is, agents that would likely cause a pandemic if they were to be released, even at multiple sites. If we did know that in the modern day equivalent of a terrorist like fiji endo, a graduate train virologist and doomsday cultists who thought samples of ebola and use chemical weapons to commit mass murder might have well assembled them and release them at airports by now. If you work in Public Health and in Infectious Disease you naturally might want to know what the next threat might be so you can prepare defenses that make sense that is why both usaid and nih have funded research attempting to find or create novel pandemic capable pandemics and labs all around the world. We disagree on whether some of those experiments might fall into arbitrarily to find category called a gain of function research. We biologist disagree on what a species is. Did you know that a lion and tiger can into breed . What no one disputes is in the hopes of preventing natural pandemics, both agencies seek to identify viruses that could kill as many people as a nuclear weapon. To alert the entire world to what they find and to publicly sharing the genome sequences of those viruses so skilled scientists everywhere will be able to make infectious samples. These are well meeting experts who dedicated their lives to fighting diseases. They struggle to imagine anyone deliberately evil enough to deliberately cause one. They never consider these advances in technology which are continuing which are continuing and allowing a single skilled terrorist which would actually occur in a century no one warned them because as been previously noted they last independent security oversight of the work. Now, it is always possible that we could save more lives by trying to prevent natural pandemics than we would lose through delivered acts of terrorism. According to our numerical costbenefit model it is not even close. Even for the bestcase scenario the reason is there are so many viruses in nature most of which will never encounter a human the lowest publish estimates suggest that for every pandemic virus that does spillover in a century there is 100 that will never encounter a human that means if you identify one random, even if we could perfectly prevent it from spilling over and causing a pandemic that one virus then we will have a one in 100 chance of actually preventing a pandemic if theres just a 1 chance of deliberate use in the same year we can expect it to cause a pandemic. In other words, pandemic virus and it vacation whether it is created in a lab or just identified in the world is expected to kill a lot of times as many people as it would save. We can successfully work with Nuclear Weapons and keep them out of the hands of terrorists. In the wake of a pandemic that killed more people than any thurman who explosion. It is time to start doing the same for pandemic arises. For starters, congress could study the issue and released a finding on whether pandemic virus identification and dangerous National Security. It is just that simple. Then, if necessary, reform usaid and nih research. It could use wire and Oversight Committee of experts from security agencies to review all requests of proposals in the life sciences. It could update the federal select Agent Program to automatically regularly viruses at the first sign of pandemic capability. These are the most dangerous agents out there. It could require all dna since the tools to be screened for how. Theres perhaps the most important, congress could legislate catastrophe liability. That is, liability for human caused events that result in more than 1 million american casualties, and sars two has. It could require general Liability Insurance to cover it. That would induce the market to price in negative externalities. It would cause professional Insurance Risk analysis to cause those risk benefit analysis. I am optimistic about this issue, we just need to buy time. If we can keep pandemic capable viruses out of the hands of terrorists for a decade, then we can deploy new general purpose defensive technologies. This range from ubiquitous sequencing which can detect any emerging threat, to perfect protective equipment to our essential workers. Two low wavelength german side linked. These together could protect us from all pandemics whether natural, accidental, or deliberate. Pandemic proliferation is a solveable National Security problem. Only if we recognize it as one thank you. Thank you doctor esvelt. We will start with senator scott from florida. Thank, you chairman. Doctor esvelt in your testimony you talk about u. S. And the funding gain of function experiments through deep veasey and. The program which specifically funds programs guitar pandemic biology. And to stop spillover. Research a spillover between animals and humans. Can you talk about what these programs specifically are, and why they may be dangerous . Deep vision and stop spillover are extensions of the u. S. Predict program the goal was to predict pandemics the goal is to identify viruses in the wild and have a good chance of spilling over and creating a virus in humans. This says a lot of the one Health Program which seeks to identify hotspots where viruses are likely to spillover into humans and cause a pandemic. The idea is, if we find these hotspots and educate the community a teach them what to do in the event of an outbreak, we might be able to stop it before it reaches our shores. That makes sense. Again, they dont seem to have thought of the Security Issues associated with publishing a list of pandemic capable viruses by threat order. We dont know if a game in pandemic would take off until it is spreading in humans. There is a narrow set of Laboratory Experiments that can tell us, does this look like a human endemic virus . These are a tiny subset of all experiments that really are very useful for anything else. They do not help with their predictive element. Part of predict was to take samples of these viruses, bring them back to a lab, run these types of experiments, sequence the genomes channeling. They did not find anything particularly scary. But they found some candidates that were fairly nasty. Including in the Wuhan Institute of virology. It is hard to know what usaid did and did not approve. It is an acknowledgment, as is an age on recombining those dangerous looking but definitely not pandemic capable viruses. Then we provided experiments which could see if they could possibly cause pandemics . So, do you think that these programs are dangerous . I think any program attempting to identify an agent that would be widely accessible and could be deliberately relief to kill millions of people its pretty much the definition of dangerous, yes. Do you think that usaid whose main job is to provide humanitarian aid globally has the oversight for programs and experiments like stop spillover and deep veasey and, which are not humanitarian and nature . I think there is a very strong humanitarian case for preventing pandemics i think the absence of oversight is probably just unaware of the security consequences of the work. It remains to be seen whether they will decide that it is inadvisable to maintain a rank order list of the most threatening viruses. Do you think they have the oversight ability to handle this job . It is unclear exactly who they are seeking advice from. My understanding is they are seeking advice from those with greater security expertise. Through the question is, what actions are going to come from that . So, what these programs and go through a p3co review . My understanding is federally funded research does go through p3co review, however, it is unclear whether the basic finding a Pathogen Program would go through such a review. Until you find it, and at least run some characterization to determine whether or not it looks like a pandemic virus, it would not necessarily be regulated. As previously mentioned, due to the transparency issues with that committee. It is very much unclear what their remit is and is not. All right. Do you know who is on the panel for the p3co . I do not. Is it not public . My understanding is that it is not public. Why wouldnt it be public . That is an excellent question. Do any of the witnesses know why it wouldnt be public . I know that it isnt public, and i do not know why. It is part of our federal government, right . So, what . They think americans arent smart enough to understand . Youll have to ask the people at nih. Do you know how they made the decision to not make the names public . No, i do not. For each of you do you think that the p3co view is comprehensive enough on nih grants . Do you think that can function have been approved without a p3co review . Lets go to dr. Ibrahim, i would like to lead him. And then ill go to each of. You doctor ebright would you like to respond to that. Yes. As i mentioned in my summary statement there have been only three p3co reviews in the four and a half years that the p3co framework has been in effect. But majority of gain of function research of concern enhanced potential Pandemic Pathogen Research supported by nih has not undergone p3co review. It is not undergoing p3co review for the simple reason that the nih has not identified in flagged them as subject to p3co review. And has not forwarded the proposals from p3co review. We would like to ask the other two witnesses to respond, as well. Yes, echoing dr. E. Bright, it has been a failure at this point in time. We need to find an alternative which is perhaps to take it out of the nih. Take the oversight outside of the energy which is funding. One major problem is gain a function is a terrible term. It applies to most of biology or you can try to qualifiers as you want. It also apparently did not catch efforts to identify perfectly natural but nevertheless highly lethal pandemic potential viruses. It really doesnt matter where the thing comes from. What matters is do you know that there is a good chance the cause of the pandemic. Again, maybe you dont think we can ever be confident more than say 50 of a given virus. If you get a list of eight viruses in you are 50 confident. It is possible to make all lay, let them go, youve got pretty good odds there. I am concerned by efforts to continue to effort on gain of function, because it is so ill defined. It seems more productive to narrow in on the classes of experiments that can substantially increase our confidence that a virus is pandemic capable, wherever it comes from. I certainly echo the calls for external security oversight. Do you think that there is approved oversight of research after it has been approved to ensure complete appliance . It is not. Importantly, the p3co framework does not mandate compliance. If the p3co Committee Makes the decision that the research may not proceed, that decision is only advisory to the Funding Agency. It is not mandated for the Funding Agency. The Funding Agency is free to accept or not accept a decision. It is free to determine whether to monitor or not monitor the progress of the work. This is a major shortcoming. Is a good decision or not. The ni i would just like to interject on the definition of weather gain a function of the good definition or not. That began with the nih. They gave us the definition and they started with that. I do think the doctor esvelt is making some good points. We ought to be concerned with viruses that are not created, that actually do come from nature who could cut pandemics. I think that is part of this discussion to try to figure out where we get to. Senator johnson . Thank you mister chairman. How long have we had gain of function capability . Is that the Crispr Technology . Mr. Esvelt . I should probably defer to doctor ebright on that . I talked to a bright, how long are we had this capability . The discussions have been underway since 2002 or 2003. I examples involved reconstruction of previously eradicated or extinct pathogens. Those could create understanding and new Health Threats and the need to discuss them. We are again discussing a two decade long. Again, the technology emerge, they started discussing and about the technology . Which came first . The discussions occurred as the technology emerged. It became possible to do this effectively starting at the beginning of the millennium. The technology has increased and sophistication and have increased in eased and decreased in cost overtime. Talk about the ease and the cause i heard it is very accessible now and it is very cheat. A knowledgeable individual can do this in their garage i think that is an exaggeration. But as doctor esvelt has pointed out. Given the genome sequence of the virus, it is typically possible to reconstruct infectious particles of the virus. And to do so for cost well under 10,000 u. S. In one person months or two person months. In a laboratory, the kind of laboratory that may be present in any state program, that is present in Many Research laboratories at academic institutions, this is imminently possible. We constructing viruses one thing, but i understand this theory. There is genes by saying that occurred here. There is some very unusual markers it would be beyond my comprehension with exactly what that means. Talk to me a little bit about the whole genes placing aspect of this. There are two ways to edit a virus. Nowadays is the easiest way is usually to assemble it from stretch using it synthetic dna. If it is large, in some cases it is better to create the altered piece that he wish to insert into the virus and you can use a tool such as crisper to do the insertion into the backbone. With respect to the cost the first virus with a chemically synthesized genome with synthetic dna with made in 2002. Since then the cost of gene synthesis has fallen by roughly 1000 fold. Today the cost of ordering a component of the infections that synthetic dna cost less than 1,000. That does not require any further development. It just involves following the reverse genetic protocol, trans men to get into the cells to get the genetic virus. I estimate there are 30,000 people who can do that her have documents. Say 125 raja phds per year in the United States. That is roughly one third in the world. Its probably four times as many people who have degrees and other disciplines such as mine who could do. It assume a 20 year career, thats 30,000 people, had a few technicians. Was there a specific incidents or something that concern people that caused the pause . There were experiments in influenza and netherlands and wisconsin that took a virus that was 90 lethal and not a born and created it, made it airborne through a pathogen in the laboratory. That occurred when . 2013 2012 that caught the attentionbut which memory of ouh agencies . Who was alarmed by that . Which member of our Health Agencies . The impetus for the pause was a series of Events Laboratory accidents at laboratories that have access to storage of potential pandemic pathogens. Including an anthrax incident at the cdc. Another anthrax incident at a u. S. Army facility at doug way in utah. The finding of unsecured biles labeled smallpox virus in an fda and i h freezer in maryland. Those three incidents, resulted in a hearing in the house energy and commerce committee. Actions by the office of Science Technology policy. The pause was driven, ultimately, from the white house, from the obama office of science, technology and policy. Im assuming all three of you would agree with this statement, that this research, and i would even say the mining of dangerous potential pathogens, go crawl in a bat cave, to try to bring these things out, there is certainly doubt benefit that overrides the risk. We shouldnt be doing this at all. I call it gain of opportunity, and gain of function, my analysis is that it hasnt contributed to the response to this pandemic. We shouldnt do it. You can talk about controls of bottom line we shouldnt have control of because we shouldnt even do it, is that your position as well . For balancing the potential benefits of prevention, against the risk of accidents, it can go either way depending on the numbers for use for those, you can come out with either answer. When you add the misuse case, thats what blows it out of the water. I think a strong case can be made, or a case could be made, that certain components of data function research of concern including pathogens that are currently in human populations, are categorically separate and more justifiable than other components of it. Currently, covid two is present in millions of humans and is generally generating variant after variant. Research involving the creation of new variants and the analysis of the threat posed by that are you really can be justified. Not creating new justices that might arise. For that reason and for a reason like that, enhancing the oversight of the research is a more effective, more prudent strategy than simply banning it. I would say improve oversight but would you also agree, dramatically limit it . Absolutely. Thank you, mister chairman. Senator marshall, you have the floor. To our witnesses, let me say welcome and i regret that none of you were able to get into the Kansas State University biochemistry program. But certainly we appreciate your credentials that are all here today. I think its important to not only identify the true problem but to talk about where we have been and you all can help fill us in with the pieces here, when we talk about data function research, it was late in 2011 when the high age Advisory Board stopped and they stopped it because they were afraid it could educate bio terrorists. This was 2011, over a decade ago, scientists had figured out how to make heche five and one, highly pathogenic, influenza as more contagious. In 2012 those two scientists and 39 others implemented a data function research pause on influenza experiments. In early 2012, doctor fauci encourage all influenza scientists to pause data, im quoting, 2012, its essential that we respect the concern of the public, domestically or globally and not ask them to take the word of the influenza scientists. Its interesting that doctor fauci was focused on the messaging, but he still wanted to continue the data function research. End of 2012 he also said that he worried about unregulated laboratories, perhaps outside of the United States, doing work sloppily and leading to an inadvertent pandemic. He went on to say the accidental release is what the world is really worried about. I go forward to 2014 now after bios a carry accidents in the United States research labs, which we have witnesses that talked about, the Obama White House had the second moratorium on influence of mers and sars, but function still continued, in the university of North Carolina. Research later, that was shared with doctor shi. Almost counter intuitively, what doctor fauci encouraged to pause, doctor fauci off short the pause research to china, not once, but twice. In 2012 dr. Fauci gave a new grant to ecoHealth Alliance for Influenza Research in china and then again in 2014, doctor fauci gave another grant for sars research in china. Partnering with the Wuhan Institute of virology. In 2017, nih in l apparently without consultation from a Senate Confirmed state Department Head or National Security leadership. Also significantly there was no director in place and only an acting huge and secretary at the helm. Today, we cannot see the Research Record for dr. Faucis offshore projects because the Chinese Community party has those records and nih resist sharing theirs. I will get to my question. Doctor ebright, could Ecohealth Research in china have led to the covid19 pandemic and dr. Faucis worst fears that a lob accident in a foreign lab became reality . Yes. Lapses and u. S. Oversight of data function research of concern may have caused the current pandemic and can cause future pandemics. They funded high gain a function and potential pandemic Pathogens Research in the Wuhan Institute of virology from 2016 to 2019. The research overlapped the pause, and it was met the criteria to be paused but it was not paused. The Research Also overlapped the subsequent policy. It was in effect from 2018 to the president. Met the criteria for federal risk benefit review. But did not undergo federal risk benefit review. Thank you. I have to stop and point out that is part of the state department where they can get the security advice that they should have asked for before they cleared this with p3co. Certainly i believe that this came from wuhan, china. And that it was a product of research. This is a bipartisan National Security issue like several of our witnesses have testified. That this viral gain a function has become a weapon of mass destruction, that this model, a 3d model of what the covid virus looks like and this is the protein spike. The two units that allows this key to fit into the door perfectly, this became a nuclear hand grenade is what happened. Considering the extreme risk of this research and the obstruction by the nih, usaid and congress should immediately pause this. I think that is an appropriate circumference to take. I think it would be somewhat dangerous to pause gainoffunction research, when its evident that that term is so malleable as to be evaded at will and also could plausibly do damage by applying to science that is not specifically directed at potential pandemic pathogens. Are there any countries that you say we shouldnt be doing this type of research . With when it comes to identifying pandemic capable viruses that could kill millions of people and will necessarily be shared with scientists worldwide who will be able to access them, i do not think that we should be doing it, i dont think that we, that anyone should be doing it, it is expected to kill 100 times as many people as it might save. Even if we could perfectly prevent unidentified natural virus from spilling over. I have some more questions, i yield the floor back. Thank you, mister chairman, for the witnesses for being here. Doctor quay, you said that the genome of covid has some of the have the signature of Synthetic Biology. One region has features of two types of forbidden gainoffunction research that is associated with bio weapons development. And you said you believe covid19 was the product of gainoffunction research and was from a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of virology. My question is do you think china engaged in a coverup to prevent the world from knowing the true origins of this virus and lab leak . I think there is abundant evidence that they have not shared all the information they had at the time, they continue to not share information. I could give you a longer list of 20 things that they have done, starting with a website with 21,000 viruses, that had been available to virologist for a decade, it was taken off line, it has not been returned, we have asked to see it, no one i know has ever seen it. It goes on for their. Are you concerned with the continuation and expansion of chinese gainoffunction research . In december 2019, they were doing Synthetic Biology on a cloning vector of the nepa virus which is 60 lethal. We just experienced at 1 lethal virus. My estimates would be that that could set us back a millennium. The black played was a 20 lethal event and it was 20 years before civilization returned. How safe or the testing conditions at wuhan to your knowledge . I think western virologist usually use the findings of that to get around saying it was okay at the beginning. All the work that i described as being done, commonly spoken of as a dentist laboratory level. I think you said, this is the most Dangerous Research that you have ever encountered. What makes this particular research so dangerous . If you are doing experiments with a pathogen that is 60 lethal but is not airborne and you make it airborne in a laboratory, and somebody walks out with it, nepa has a 21day incubation period, perfect for a widespread without being detected. We couldnt afford 60, we cant afford 10 lethality. Doctor ebright, let me ask you about the merits of gainoffunction research, you said gain of function research has no civilian practical applications. For murray search perspective, why do it . What is the value, the real value of gainoffunction research . Its not a matter of value, particularly incentives within the Academic Research ecosystem. Gainoffunction of concern is fast and easy, much faster and easier than vaccine or drug development. Gainoffunction research is publishable and it is fungible. With those four incentives in place, fast, easy, fungible, publishable, the research will be performed. Thinking about china for a second, what is chinas interest in gain of function research . They have witnessed the United States leading the way with gainoffunction research, performed today, it has been done in the u. S. With u. S. Funding or overseas with u. S. Funding. China has wished to be part of that. Participating in research in this scenario with u. S. Funding and it has also so let me ask you this. Gainoffunction research and bioweapons what is the connection . What role does gainoffunction play . As i mentioned there are no civilian practical applications, there are immense bioweapon applications. The potential pandemic pathogens that can emerge from such studies, are potential weapons of mass destruction. An expensive, accessible, easily distributed weapons of mass destruction. Let me ask you about some of the things that you have commented on with regard to what and i h and doctor fauci had said, and frankly the lies they have been caught in. In response to an inquiry from october, the nih attempted to walk back assertions by doctor fauci that you commented at the time saying, nih specifically collins, fauci and tab lied to the press, the public, knowingly, willfully, brazenly, on maybe may the 11th, doctor fauci said the nih has not funded research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of virology. You commented on that saying the documents make it clear the assertions by that and i h director and doctor fauci, the nih did not support gainoffunction research are untruthful. What are the implications of dr. Faucis continued blatant dishonesty regarding nihs funding of gainoffunction research in wuhan . I stand by my statement, the statements made on repeated occasions to the public, policy makers, press, by the nih director and dr. Fauci have been untruthful. I do not understand why those statements are being made because they are demonstrably false. Can i ask you, in my few remaining seconds, let me ask you about an effort to shut down any kind of questioning the origins of covid, on february 19th 2020 a group of which set among other things, we stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting covid19 does not have natural origin. And we later found out that the letter had been organized by president of ecoHealth Alliance, which we discussed today, who had gotten to study that coronaviruses. The letter said, we declared no competing interests. Many people doesnt need this letter as the first effort to squash any kind of debate about the origins of covid19. Do you think that labeling the lab theory as a Conspiracy Theory had an effect of slowing down investigations into the origins of the virus . It certainly had that effect. The letter that you described was only one of two efforts to impose the false narrative, that science shows sarscov2 going through humans through natural spill over. One was the efforts, the lancet letter the other was coordinated and orchestrated through the nih director, dr. Fauci and dr. Collins and resulted in a publication of an opinion article entitled proximal origins of sarscov2. Making the case again, that sarscov2 could not have been a product of researchrelated spillover. Thank you very much. Thank you. Had there not been a pandemic i think there would still be a need for this hearing. This discussion, doctor ebright, started back as early as 2003, 2004. Others have commented on the danger of being able to manipulate influenza viruses, to be used as either weapons or by accidental release. Given that there was this pandemic and 1 million of americans died, i lost friends, to the pandemic. I think we should be curious, i am perplexed by the lack of curiosity on some as to know, are there any precautions we can take . Are there any kind of government oversight that we can do to try to prevent this from happening . Some will say, we cant prove it came from a lab. That is in all possibility true, we cant prove it but there are the arguments to be made. Examination of facts, to give us an idea of whether it might have come from a lab. And even if we didnt, i think this could have come from person in a lab who already ruth, if it was a virus out of nature. I think we have to get to the truth of the matter, if there was Dangerous Things going on, that may have been reviewable. We had a pause of gainoffunction research but then we had research occurring during the pause that should have gone to this p3co committee and didnt get to the committee. And doctor ebright described it well, he says in wuhan in 2016, 2018 period, they were constructing novel sars related coronaviruses that combined the spike gene of that sars coronavirus with the rest of the Genetic Information of a sars one related environment, one already known to have lethality. And they found that it could efficiently affect human airway cells and exuded up to a 10,000 vault increase in viral growth. But when we have asked before, is this gainoffunction, we get arguments and post has stations that this is not gainoffunction, that its no big deal and the experts looked at this. But we find that the experts never looked at this. Its a kind of select in program, it doesnt go looking for Dangerous Research, it looks at it if you come to them and said, i think i have gainoffunction research, do you want to look at my research . This opting in aspect of this. I think its important that we get to the truth, was there Research Going on in wuhan that was dangerous . Was it funded by the nih . And should it have gone through this Committee Process . I think, by the definition that they have given us, gainoffunction, i agree, with doctor esvelt, it could be better define, and if we will have oversight on this, we will have to figure out what the oversight will be. We have to ask and include the scientists to get a definition of what we are talking about if we want more oversight. But we have to look back before we can look forward, not so much to assign blame, but to figure out, is it really necessary . But we have to have hearings on this . Should we have followup hearings, legislation . If 1 Million People died, there is a chance this came from a lab without question, both sides of the aisle should be looking at this. My question, i think its pretty clear but i would like to go through everybody, even though doctor ebright has said this is gainoffunction, for the three witnesses, where you take the backbone of a sars one virus with no lethality and you mix it together with an unknown bat cyrus protein, was this gainoffunction according to nih definition and should it have been reviewed and discussed by this committee, to prevent Dangerous Research from going on . As you mentioned, the Wuhan Institute of virology constructed coronaviruses that combined a spiked gene of one coronavirus with the Genetic Information of another. They showed that it had sufficiently replicated in human airway cells. And that it exuded up to 10,000 fold enhancement of viral in lungs, and 14,000 of lethality. Based on those facts, and they are indeed facts, the research was gainoffunction of concern subject to the pause, and was enhanced potential Pandemic Pathogen Research subject to the p3co framework. Nevertheless, due to the failure of the nih to forward the proposals for review, the work was not paused and there was no p3co review. Doctor quay. Unique in the entire world, before 2019, 65 of all publications on coronaviruses came from that single institution. They are unique for two reasons. For almost a decade, they were going into pack caves throughout china and actually back into africa as well. 20 visits a year. Bringing these samples back to the laboratory. On the one hand they had the largest collection of raw material backbones from nature, to then do gainoffunction research on. They trained in galveston, texas and North Carolina and where doing experiments between 2015 and 2019. I believe its the confluence of those two activities, gain of opportunity bringing things back from that caves, and gainoffunction research, that led to the pandemic. Doctor esvelt. On the list of experience that you would need to perform in order to learn whether a novel virus could potentially cause a pandemic, you would need to test growth in human primary cells, such as human airway epithets aerial cells and you would have to test in a suitable animal model. The question is, if they were not intending to determine whether a novel event between these coronaviruses could lead to something that might kill millions of people, then why were they doing it . If there was no chance they would come up with a result that looked like it was more dangerous, whats the point . What is the scientific hypothesis . Again, whatever you call it, what they were trying to do, was identify a biological agent, that has a good chance of being able to kill millions of people if released. And they shared the description of what they did and they share the genome sequence, because they thought that this would make us safer, because knowing which viruses in nature might cause pandemics makes us safer. They did not consider the security risks and its worth noting that both usaid and nih funded those particular coronavirus come era steadies. Usaid has since disavowed those combination studies, and announced that they would only focus on finding natural pandemic capable viruses, a step in the right direction, but i would call that gainoffunction, another reasonable scientist would say that is not gainoffunction, because the term is so ill defined. Even beyond the term would it be qualified as Dangerous Research, that should have gone before this committee, the p3co and been reviewed . Here is where you come back to the problem of thinking this is a health and safety issue rather than a National Security issue. Why are we trying to identify readily accessible agents that could be used to kill millions, and will as soon as identified, fall in the hands of all of our adversaries as well as perhaps individual terrorists who would just want to use them . The fundamental principle behind even wanting to do these experiments in the first place, is i think, a fundamental threat to not just National Security but interNational Security. Its hard to see why you would ever want to do this. When you think about the misuse potential. And i havent seen anyone else, push a numerical model of that. People have said, the closest relative that we found is only 96 identical to covid19, this couldnt have come from a lab. We have also mistakenly accused those who say, it came from a lab, to say its this particular variant. I think people who are saying this could have come from a lab, are saying, there couldve been other viruses that are manipulated, or the one that is 96 analog us to covid19 could have gone through cereal cell culture and become covid19. I guess i would like to ask each of you, whether or not the variant that is 96 analogous to cover 19, through serial passage, could be transformed into covid19 . Is it possible . Is it so far away that you cant do it experimentally . Can you do it through gene slicing . Cut it be done . Or is it something that argues that this could not come from the lab . We will start with doctor ebright. The closest relatives are more on the order of 97 identical to sarscov2, that 96 . Viruses with that level of genetic difference cannot rapidly in the time scale of weeks or months, move from their state into being the janitor of sarscov2. However, in a laboratory, those can be combined at will. They can be combined in particular using a method that would be described as constructing a consensus genome virus. One takes the sequences of several related viruses, identifies the most commonly observed nuclear types in these sequences and then synthesizes the the consensus genome for the group of viruses. This has been done successfully in coronaviruses. Done and published a decade ago and coronavirus. That kind of research could have been done using viruses that are on the order of 96 to 97 identical in their genome sequences to sarscov2. And with two or three or more such viruses, genome sequences, one could develop a consensus. That is just one of a series of potential by wish one of the known viruses with 96 to 97 identity could, through a laboratory, in a relatively short time, be transformed into a progenitor of sarscov2. Sarscov2 are from china and northern laos. They are probably 1200 letters different. In nature, that probably takes 40 years. The most common ancestor is about 40 years ago. That could be done in a couple days in a laboratory. However, i dont think we have the backbone on which sarscov2 was found. It is one of the other viruses on in the database that was taken down at 2 00 a. M. In december 2019. A great deal of information was taken down by the chinese . It is not available. Dr. Esvelt if a phd student proposed to take a viral genome and attempt to acquire a thousand or so mutations, i would say that is not a phd project, go do something else. I concur with dr. Ebright, the only way to get something so divergent would be to computationally synthesize it. Which has certainly been done from what data says. Again, why would you do something such a thing unless you want to know whether the ancestral virus was dangerous. There are basic scientific reasons to know, but at the end of the day, why this is of interest is the risk of pandemics. Again, why would you run the tests to determine whether something was pandemic capable . And they ran those on all the other coronaviruses they thought might be dangerous. On the other hand, they never published anything like that, right . Presumably they on the other hand they never publish anything like, that . Right presumably, they would have. They published there on the other stuff. This is why i dont think we have enough information to know. It was definitely not something allowed that was 97 . One of the things that tips us off that they may have been trying is in 2018 be asked for money from that money they wanted to insert the what makes it highly infectious in humans and we had the idea that, they are asking for money, they must have thought, wow, we can do this. This is gonna be a great experience. Even our government finding that at that point decided not to fund that. What they are asking for, this is what i think there was a holy cow moment when all of a sudden the scientists see the sequence of covid19. They went, oh my goodness, didnt they ask us in 2018 to put that in . Lo and behold its their. What i like to ask, and im gonna finish with this, and we will have another round, some other questions is, doctor, can you lay out in a simple fashion as possible two or three items about the virus that makes you think it came from 100 percent, where this came from a lab, whether it came from animals. And there is some compelling evidence that suggests it could have come from a lab and even if it was a 10 chance it came from a lab its another reason for us to be concerned about having oversight on this kind of research. Can you give me two or three things that this virus has that makes you think its lab versus some of the evidence for mers and sars that came from animals . There are three regions. The domain, the clearing cleavage site, and this protein eats from with respect to the receptor binding domain, if you look at what happened with sars one, we have the virus sequence when it was in the markets, it jumped into a few humans. We have the virus sequence than. It started infecting more. Then we had the virus sequence that became human to human passage could occur. An epidemic occurred. You can see the progression of mutations as the virus adapted from being in civic cats and then being in humans. The first jump into humans, it had only 50 of the mutations that needed to support an epidemic. Lets look to sars covid two. When you look at the virus that first entered the human population out of the changes in the receptor binding, there are 200 possible chains, 200 amino acids, 200 possible changes. Only 17 mutations could make it a better virus. Its a receptor binding optimization was 99. 5 . In fact, one of the 17 ended up being the delta variant. That kind of optimization juxtaposed by the fact that there were no patients in wuhan, 36,000 blood back to specimens tested for antibodies in 2019. Not a single patient was infected. To go back to sars one, 20 of all people in the markets were infected while the virus was practicing to set up an epidemic. 1 of the general population, 360 in the general population, we had zero. The cleavage site has never occurred in this virus as it played from there from there come in around the time of William Crossing the channel in 10,060. That was when the virus came. Theres never been a fear and cleavage site. The news is a code thats never been used that which has never been used before. Finally, or faith. This protein that goes into the bloodstream that suppresses interfering or response, if you are you cant make good antibody. This was the subject of two masters thesis at the department of reality. I saw no western science working on this location in the genome before 2019. And the protein is not present in mers. It has a 5 homology in sars one, between sars one and starts to, there is a protein that was only 5 homologous. This is the optimized function in suppressing interfering symptoms of fever and chills, suppressing its energy presentation. The second one was making Synthetic Biology tools so you can move it around inside genome. To reiterate, there is been no animals found that have covid19. When they did find animals had for the first sars and the mers, they found out within months. They tested the animals in question. 90 of the animals had the sars virus. We havent found any animals with covid19. Most viruses that come from animals first arent very infectious at first. They affect a few humans. You dont have a pandemic that does this. Its smolders and then does this. During the smoldering phase, you find background antibodies that people have, even if they dont know they had it. When they tested the background of people who were working with the animals and had covid, they found 20 of them had antibodies to having had sars. Sars one, correct. If we test people in the marketplace, we are not finding that. If we look at the people in the wuhan marketplace, we are not finding significant numbers that were positive and finding almost nobody positive from the Previous Year that had been ill. It is zero out of 36,000. Thank you. Lets do a second round, and lets start with senator johnson. And doctor quay, how do we find out about that so, in december 2019, five patients at wuhan hospital had their specimens sentence with a stick for sequencing. The process is to amplify the pcr process. You make a lot of copies of what is in the specimen. You usually, inadvertently, make copies of whats going on in the laboratory. They put a 55 million letter database of the Background Information up in the gene bank, which is the nih is a database there. Everything was going on. We found 20 strange things in the patient specimens. Honeysuckle jeans, horse viruses. 19 of the things we found were publications from the laboratory in the previous two years. This was a signal of what was going on in the lab around it. The one thing they didnt publish on was this cloning vectors of the nepa virus. Its in the patient specimens because it was in the laboratory at the time, not in the patients. They have never published on that. At this point in time. How do we know its 60 lethal . The virus has had epidemic spreading, epidemics in the belt around africa and india, bangladesh. Its between 60 and 80 lethal in the pockets. Its not very transmissible like ebola. It kills 100 or 200 people and then burns out. If it was airborne, it would be different. This is a virus that occurs in nature. You detected it in the database. I detected clothing vectors. They are manipulating it, which is not allowed by biological treaties. Thats a pretty scary scenario right there. The wuhan lab that might have been the originator of the coronavirus, just fooling around with something far more deadly. Yes. Obviously, mumps the where. Doctor ebright, im a little confused. You talked about, well, if we were doing gain a function on the current coronavirus, it would be okay. But its not the indication im getting from dr. Esvelt here. What really concerns me is this justification, the reality situation is we have got research centers, we have got scientists that are doing this gainoffunction research for two verys dangerous gainoffunction research for two completely unnecessary reasons. Because its fungible and its publishable. Youve got a little greed involve and you have hubris. Is that what you are saying . Its performed because its fast, easy, fundable and publishable. The Academic Research ecosystem, these are determinants of what Research Gets pursued. I view that as a very corrupt research ecosystem. If that is what is driving research, and they are Dangerous Research, you get a Funding Grant to do something for grin, and then you can publish it and get the academic kudos for. Im sorry, i find that sick. I would not use the term corrupt. I would not see any real difference between this and the activity of a hedge fund, or the activity of a bank or broker. The key point is that because of these incentives, self regulation from within the community is insufficient. Scientific Research Communities will follow the incentives. It will never effectively selfregulate on these issues. For this reason, we have regulations vertebrate animal research, and humans subject research. We need regulations with force of law for gainoffunction research. I think that difference if its a banker or hedge fund, they are doing things for economical incentives to do something. To fund a manufacturing site, to find some kind of business. Again, this is research that has again, im not hearing the benefit of this research. Im seeing the risk, im seeing the danger. Im not seeing the benefit other than what you are saying for the researcher itself to get money, to do something this danger and have, again, the academic kudos for being published. I dont know. Maybe you dont like the word corrupt. Its completely useless. It has no benefit this is society. It just has a risk, just has danger. I have no further dr. Esvelt, do you disagree with that assessment . I think that all institutions follow their incentives. I think that set of incentives, fast, easy fundable, and publishable, in so far as we fundable and publishable our ways of carrying hard disease and cancer, for stalling aging, those are all certainly fundable we publishable. Perhaps not as fundable as we would like. Certainly, research into defenses against the next pandemic is, right now, somewhat fundable. I wish it could be more fundable. It depends on we fundable and publishable have a beneficial reason. What im hearing from the three of the witnesses, there is just not a benefit to this. There is one clarification. You mentioned on endemic human viruses, like sars to, why do this . If you want to predict the next variant that will arise anyway within a couple months, one that already exists, and then thats why researchers do things like deep mutation will scanning of the spike protein to look and see which ones of them might have a bit of an edge in terms of maintaining infection while evading immunity a little bit, and will likely be the next variant. That lets us design the next vaccine against the variant. We have to do this for the flu every year. Flu vaccines are terrible, usually, because we often guess wrong. That kind of research can help improve our guess as to what is correct. As soon as you do, as you make a change that would not occur in nature, then it becomes dangerous. That is something that a more pathogenic mutation could be inserted. That becomes a problem. There is no justification for doing that because nature wont come up with it. Thank you, mister chairman. Senator marshall . Thank you, mister chairman. Thank you again to our witnesses for hanging in there with us. I want to start by going back to the comment doctor esvelt made, that usaid paid for gain of function research in china. Most people dont realize that because usaid wont give us the records and weve been trying for over a year to get those records which is why we are holding up one of their nominees as well. Thank you for pointing that out, dr. Esvelt. Im gonna go to a doctor ebright next, and talk a little bit more about ecoHealth Alliance. The record of noncompliance. They couldnt provide Research Records to nih when they requested them. They didnt have an adequate agreement with them, they dont use the appropriate rate of pay for researchers. There continue to be noncompliance with financial conflicts of interest policies. Doctor ebright, based upon ecoHealth Alliances record of noncompliance, should they continue to be eligible to receive federal funds . Their most important aspect of noncompliance was that they were informed by the nih in terms and conditions of a noticeable ward for there in the event they vital growth in their engineered coronaviruses that exceeded gross of the parent coronaviruses by more than a factor of ten, it was immediately informed nih would stop the research. They did not do this. Thats not merely a financial violation. That is a serious hazard violation and a violation that may be connected to the origins of the pandemic. That being said, it is inexplicable that they were awarded subsequent federal awards and that they will remain eligible to receive federal awards. Well. I need to submit for the record thank you i quoted dr. Fauci. This is an article from science, in july 2012. Handsome, young doctor fauci i. Want to submit that for the record. My next two questions, i want to submit something from the wall street journal a, couple articles, regarding genomic sequences. Without objection. We will go to dr. Quay. I think you spoke about them. Chinese scientists asked to be removed and how they were from early covid wuhan patients. If you believe there couldve been more data in nihs database used by chinese tiniest that could hold a key to the nice piece of work by just bloom at the university of washington who found not in the nih database, but on some amazon web servers, the actual sequences of viruses from very early patients that had been put on gene bank and then removed before they were published made available. The remarkable thing is that, again, going to another piece of good research, the virus that first came out, the first coronavirus, is three mutations away from what we now know as this probably the first virus. Thats a calculation ill method. Its complicated three mutations that have never been seen in humans before the first virus that we have in humans. The specimens jessie found had some of those. So we know that the chinese have a virus sequences that are ancestral to what we have. The more of those we get, the more we will get to the bottom of this. Ill point out that the sequences or from september in october of 2019. Two months before any person in the market was sick. The timing of the market spillover doesnt coincide with the genetics of the virus. Doctor esvelt, anything to add to that . No, other than jesse is certainly one of the foremost experts in this field. If you want probably some of the best answers of the science can give, i would recommend that you request his input. Thank you. My last question, for 20 i legal Health Partnership with scientists from the Wuhan Institute of virology. The chinese scientists have bragged that their bio sample database is the largest in the world. They took that data based off line in september 2019. Nih asked for the Research Records. They told them the records are in the custody of the Chinese Government. Is it possible that the database taken off line by the Chinese Government was Data Collected by ecohealth and belongs to american taxpayer . Doctor quay . Since the work has been funded in part by u. S. Taxpayers, by definition access to that would be important. I also think that we dont have to rely on the virology from releasing that. I believe within the u. S. Jurisdiction, there will be copies of that database. Its too valuable not to have in your own possession if you are doing research on it. Do you think theres any way we can still get any of that data that is missing . Somewhere we are going to find the grandfather of covid, or a cousin or something here, in these databases. Why did they take them down . What would be the advantage of them taking them down . Do you think we can never find it was taken down at 2 am on september 12th, 2019, which everyone works hard, but thats a little suspicious to be doing it at that point in time. I believe it can contains closer precursors, my hypothesis is it contains the one thats 50 mutations, or 100 mutations, not 1200 away. It was to obviously a smoking gun. Again, if you are collaborating on that and you are spending ten years building a database inside the virology, you get a mirror that database in your own facilities, which means its gotta be at equal Health Alliance somewhere. Thank you. Anything to add . Just know that i agree with doctor a rights assessment from earlier to the research from and is fast, easy, publishable, et cetera. Chinese scientists have the same incentives as western scientists in this regard. I do not think, in fact, its very clear that this research is not in chinas interest. China has no more interest than we do in handing out the blueprints to agents that can kill millions of people, including their people. This is not in the interest of any established, powerful nation. The question is, can we show leadership and persuade them of that . As long as we are doing it, we are making it, we are contributing to the fact that this is seen as glamorous research. It gets published in our top tier journals. Many chinese scientists get bonuses for publishing in our top tier journals. We are driving these intent to is because we persist in seeing this as a health and safety issue, rather than a National Security issue. I think its in our power to change it. I think this is one issue where our interests with are actually aligned with those of china and really, indeed, every established a nation. These are asymmetric tools of mass death. Doctor ebright, anything we didnt ask you that we should have . I dont know. I just wanted to agree completely with the last remark by dr. Esvelt. Thank you. I yield back. I want to thank everybody for being part of this hearing. I dont see this as the end. I see this as the beginning of trying to understand what caused the pandemic and trying to come up with solutions. Each of your statements, which is longer than you testimony, will be available for those interested. I want to point out one thing from dr. Ebrights testimony, just for those who say lab links should be discounted, they dont ever happen, as one point doctor ebright writes the second, third, fourth, and fifth entries of the sars virus, this was the first one, into a Laboratory Accident in singapore in 2003. The Laboratory Accident in taipei in 2003, and two separate Laboratory Accidents in beijing in 2004. For people who say that is a Conspiracy Theory, that this could have come from the lab, they are discounting our history. The history has had these lab leaks. Whether we will know 100 percent certain when this came to the lab, we have had lab leaks. We have to realize the potential danger of these pathogens. We didnt get a great deal of time into the answer. We got a little bit into the answer. But each of the scientists we asked tonight were asked to let us know how we can better supervise or oversee this kind of research. The interesting thing to me is i think they all worked independently but they came up with basically very similar solutions. And independent body outside of the funding organizations, those receiving the funding to make the recommendations. Something akin to an independent agency like a Nuclear Regulatory agency. In fact, ive already been using the analogy when people ask me and say, whats this like . Its essentially, we dont let anybody sell centrifuges to russia, or centrifuges to iran. There are rules in the export of things. I think doctor esvelt, in particular, has talked about the security aspect of this. What i would really like to come of this, and i mean this sincerely, is i would like to have a bipartisan bill that comes forward for better oversight. Maybe its not oversight of gainoffunction, but maybe include something some people consider to be gainoffunction. Maybe its more general, pending viruses. Theres a lot of ways we can discuss it. The bottom line is i dont think the people doing the research can adequately, objectively regulate themselves. Having 1 Million People die, there should be bipartisan courtesy in this that we should be able to move forward. My hope is your suggestions, that you taking the time to put in writing, taking the time out of your busy career to come here, that the suggestions will become legislation. If we can get a bipartisan bill to come forward, i would like people who help us write the legislation can communicate with the three scientists here. We are willing to hear from a dozen more scientists. Anybody he wants to. I want scientists to be involved in this. I do think that ultimately the people making that judgment should not be from one small field of science. Some have said, and one of the three scientists there are virologists. I dont have i do have a problem with them all being fireologist. The same way i have a problem with behavioral science being proof of funding by all behavioral scientists. I think there need to be people understand science on this. I think theyre also need three people on the committee, as doctor esvelt mentioned, that understand bio terrorism and bio security. I think it should be a mixture. This is something we talked to the scientific community. I dont think an absolute ban is what we want. We want better oversight of this. We can have something worth three projects have been looked at in the last seven years. That means they are not looking. In fact, that they didnt look at what went on in wuhan. Some of the folks i asked the committee about this were saying, oh, our scientists looked at it and approved it. Even thats not really true. They didnt look at the research. They just ignored the research. It didnt go before the committee. They havent been honest. If we want trusted Public Health and trust in government and trust in science and trust in research and trust in the nih and trust in the comments we give our universities, billions of ours, we need transparency and honesty. We cant have a committee where the people are cloaked in secret. What is this . This is completely insane. I think weve made some progress. I want to move forward, i, for one, im ready to work with any democrat incentive to make this a bipartisan bill and to make it an even keeled thing where all the voices are heard, that we dont create any legislation that would hamper science, but that we create something that would have oversight that might save lives. I truly think that 1 Million People died in our country, 6 Million People died. I think it was from a lab leak. I think it is something that we need to have precautions against. If this i think it was accidental, by the way i think we dont do anything, what if this gets in the hands of somebody who wants to harm america or the world, some psychopath . What could happen . Right now, we are doing nothing and have changed no behavior. Weve had this pandemic. We have changed not one bit of behavior. I think its about time we do get together and that we are all curious and that we dont make this about republicans and democrats. We make this about how we, as of people, come together to try to make this world a better place. Thank you all for appearing. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] Catholic University professor, michael kimmage, discusses that history behind the war in ukraine, including the competing u. S. , russian, and ukrainian interest from the cold war to the 21st century. At 2 pm eastern, on the civil war. Other of americas buried history. Talks about land mines, used for the first time on a widespread basis in the civil war. Exploring the american story. Watch American History tv saturday on cspan two. And find a full schedule on your Program Guide or watch online anytime at cspan dot org slash history. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government. We are funded by these Television Companies and more, including charter communication. Broadband is a force for empowerment. Thats why charter has invested billions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity, and communities big and small. Charter is connecting us. Charter communication supports cspan as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. Up next, a look at the challenges facing companys collecting sales tax four out of state purchases, with testimony from Small Business owners and Tax Professionals happening before the Senate Finance committee. They spoke at length about the High Economic costs on Small Businesses with various state tax regulations. This is about an hour and 35 minutes