Newzand Iran have resumed fighting after Iran attacked U.S. forces in the Middle East yesterday. And, a Senate committee will question Anthony Fauci about the COVID-19 pandemic.(Image credit: Allison Bailey)
Veteran medical adviser likely to face questions over disputed ‘lab leak’ theory in investigation seen by scientists as ‘vilification and harassment’ of 85-year-oldSign up for US Breaking News emailScientists have scrambled to Anthony Fauci’s defense ahead of the unusual hearing, the second time the longtime National Institutes of Health scientist has been before Congress to discuss pandemic origins since leaving the government in 2022.While the Covid-19 pandemic introduced him to millions of Americans, he talked the nation through numerous outbreaks over decades, including HIV, Ebola and the 2001 anthrax attacks, while advising seven presidents. Anthony Fauci, who helped lead the U.S. response during the COVID-19 pandemic, invoked the Fifth Amendment amid plans to testify before the Senate on Wednesday and will refrain from answering questions.
scientist who helped lead the nation’s COVID-19 pandemic response, is set to face off — again — with a Republican senator probing the origins of the coronavirus. Rand Paul of Kentucky subpoenaed Fauci to appear before a Senate committee Wednesday. It’s part of Paul’s yearslong accusations that the now-retired infectious disease expert had lied about the pandemic, something Fauci has called “preposterous.” Leading up to the hearing, Paul released more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s personal diary covering the pandemic years.
Pointing to some notes about early efforts at understanding how the virus emerged, Paul wrote on the social media platform X that what Fauci “wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.” Some of the diary entries — including his uncertainty in the pandemic’s earliest days as scientists around the world raced to understand the new virus and how best to curb it before vaccines could be created — already were reflected in Fauci’s 2024 memoir and in interviews at the time. But they’re likely to further inflame a partisan divide that, years after the pandemic, still makes Fauci a target of vitriol from people who blame him for mask mandates and other policies they believe infringed on their rights as hundreds of thousands of people were dying. In an earlier letter to Paul, Fauci’s attorneys called his allegations “absolutely baseless” and part of an “obsessive and groundless vendetta.” Scientists scrambled to Fauci’s defense ahead of the unusual hearing — the second time the longtime National Institutes of Health scientist has been back before Congress to discuss pandemic origins since leaving the government in 2022.
While the COVID-19 pandemic introduced him to millions of Americans, he talked the nation through numerous outbreaks over decades, including HIV, Ebola and the 2001 anthrax attacks, while advising seven presidents. In a public letter, more than 150 infectious disease experts and other scientists wrote that “no credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges” and that they are “urging our elected representatives in Congress stop these witch-hunts.” The expected crux of Wednesday’s hearing: whether NIH-funded research in China may have played any role in how the pandemic started. Many scientists believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jum…
The scientist, who helped lead the nation’s COVID-19 response, was subpoenaed to testify under oath by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has long had an antagonistic relationship with Fauci. Hearing is part of a longtime Republican investigation into pandemic’s origins, led by Senator Rand PaulAnthony Fauci, the former veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid) who served as a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden on the Covid-19 pandemic, is due to testify on Wednesday at a high-profile US Senate hearing.Senators are expected to question Fauci about whether the Covid-19 virus began as a “lab leak”, a claim virologists have argued is unlikely.
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