National Institutes of Health (NIH) Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak confirmed on Thursday that his agency’s communications department altered NIH’s definition of gain-of-function research, with the change being “vetted” by “experts.”
The NIH until Oct. 20, 2021, defined this research as “modif[ying] a biological agent so that it confers new or enhanced activity to that agent,” while “some scientists use the term broadly to refer to any such modification,” according to the House Oversight Committee. Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York questioned Tabak, a former aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci, about the agency changing its definition of the research on its website, asking him who authorized the alteration.
WATCH:
The current website does not define gain-of-function research but asserts this research is usually uninvolved with enhanced potential pandemic pathogens.
“The change was made by our communications department because of the confusion that people have about the generic term of gain-of-function and the specific term gain-of-function,” Tabak testified.
Malliotakis responded by suggesting the communications department would not be qualified to make a change like this and must have had other input.
“The content was vetted,” Tabak testified. “By individuals who are subject-matter experts.”
Fauci firmly denied that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) funded gain-of-function research on bat-based coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) before the COVID-19 pandemic during a Senate hearing in May 2021.
“The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Fauci said.
Tabak testified on Thursday that the NIH did fund this research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but it “depends on [the] definition.”
The NIAID, which Fauci previously led, funded the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance to study bat-based coronaviruses in China that consisted of the transfer of $600,000 to the WIV, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.
All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline, and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Jason Cohen
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://www.bizpacreview.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.