Americans who value their personal liberty owe a debt of gratitude to Senator Rand Paul. The senator has not always been the most effective advocate for his libertarian philosophy, but he made up for a lot of earlier misfires in his handling of Anthony Fauci at a Senate hearing last week.
Under questioning, Fauci stated categorically that the CDC has never funded “gain-of-function” research conducted at the notorious Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading laboratory that studies bat viruses.
Fauci’s statement is so evasive and misleading that it is effectively, functionally, and ethically a lie. The CDC did not write checks to the Wuhan lab. It did, however, fund the EcoHealth Alliance of New York, which used the funds to support “gain-of-function” research on bat viruses at the Wuhan lab. EcoHealth’s use of the funds was fully endorsed and commissioned by the CDC. Only two individuals have the authority to authorize “gain-of-function” research. One of them is Anthony Fauci.
The details are set out in a long article by Nicholas Wade published last week in the Bulletin of Atomic Sciences.
The article is well worth the time it takes to read it. Mr. Wade is as usual balanced and reasonable. He does not draw conclusions. He leaves that task to the reader. This reader thought there was only one conclusion to draw from the trove of detail that Wade presented.
Sometimes a small event provides a lens for viewing an individual’s character. I am thinking of the day last year that Fauci was invited by the Washington Senators baseball team to throw the ceremonial first pitch at their home opener. It appeared that Fauci could not decide whether to show off his pitching skills or his pick-off move to first base. He compromised by throwing the ball to a spot about half-way between first and home.
That could happen to anyone. Not everybody is Sandy Koufax. The revealing event happened during the game. A photo was taken of Fauci in the stands, seated between two companions. He has his mask down. The trio are not maintaining social distancing. Here is the photo:
When challenged, Fauci’s explanation was that he had taken his mask off to get a drink of water. The photographer happened to catch him in that post-sip instant when his mask was off.
There is a bottle of water in the photo. Perhaps Fauci had recently taken a sip. His relaxed posture indicates that he is not about to replace the mask. His explanation for the unmasked face in the photo is similar to his foot-stomping denials about funding the Wuhan lab.
He got away with that one. He has gotten away with similar verbal tricks. But his attempt to mislead the Senate and the public about his funding of the Wuhan lab backfired.
Every effective politician knows that the first thing to do with bad news is to get it off the front page. Fauci went into action. Fully vaccinated individuals no longer need to wear a mask or practice social distancing indoors or outside. The news media, with little interest in nailing a sainted scientist to the wall over a tiny unimportant technicality and already yawning from the effort of understanding “gain-of-function”, are only too happy to shout “No Mask” and bury the Wuhan funding story.
Mission accomplished.
Note, meanwhile, that the same CDC still requires children and staff at summer camps to wear masks and to practice social distancing outdoors.
The head of the CDC, a Dr. Walensky, told a news conference a month or so ago that she was filled with feelings of dread. Recently she announced that her feelings of dread have subsided. Policy changes to accommodate these emotions as they come and go.
The list of things this organization has been wrong about keeps growing. For the citizens to gain even a small measure of relief from the CDC’s ungrounded policy inventions, it was necessary for a United States senator to ask a question that caused a CDC official to stretch the truth to the point that the official’s credibility and integrity are now an open question. The agency changed a much-disliked policy in order to distract the public’s attention from the integrity of the CDC.
That’s what it takes to strike even a small blow for individual liberty in these United States in the current year. I’ll take the win, but it shouldn’t be this hard.
The Passing Scene 