Rep. Jim Jordan: [00:00:00] Dr. Rapto, you ran the CDC and you were on the Coronavirus task force, is that right? Correct. That was formed on January 29th, 2020. Is that right?
Dr. Redfield: Correct.
Rep. Jim Jordan: Two days later, Dr. Fauci gets an email from Dr. Anderson, which says, what virus looks, engineered virus not consistent with evolutionary theory.
Is that accurate?
Dr. Redfield: That's my understanding
Rep. Jim Jordan: From what next day. I know he, did he share that email with you, by the way? Dr. Redfield?
Dr. Redfield: No.
Rep. Jim Jordan: As a member of the task force, as the head of cdc, did he share that email with you?
Dr. Redfield: No.
Rep. Jim Jordan: Okay. Next day, February 1st, Dr. Gary sends Dr. Fauci another email. That email says, I don't know how this happens in nature, but it would be easy to do in a lab. Did he share that email with you, Dr. Redfield?
Dr. Redfield: No.
Rep. Jim Jordan: You didn't see either one of those emails, even though you're head of c d c, even though you're on the Coronavirus task force that had been formed just two days, three days.
Dr. Redfield: No.
Rep. Jim Jordan: Three days later, Dr. Anderson and Dr. Gary who told us it came from a lab and email said, Dr. Fauci, that Dr. Fauci wouldn't let Dr. Redfield see. Three days later, they changed their position, 180 [00:01:00] degrees.
The question is, why Mr. Wade, why would they change their position that fast when the only intervening event is a conference call with Dr. Fauci, the guy who wouldn't let Dr. Redfield see the very email.
That they had sent him Dr. Redfield, head of c d c on the Coronavirus Task Force. Why would they change their position, Dr. Wait or Mr. Wade?
Mr. Wade: Uh, well this question does lie at the heart of the, um, issue. Uh, what is pertinent and it seems to me is there's, there's no new scientific evidence that we can see that came, uh, available in between these dates, the January 31st and Fed
Rep. Jim Jordan: before, right.
There's no new, I think you're,
Mr. Wade: go ahead. So you have to ask if there were. Uh, other kinds of influence available. Now, it is true that, that Dr. Fauci and Dr. Far in London were very powerful research officials, and between them, they,
Rep. Jim Jordan: I read, I read your testimony. I saw that. Okay. Yeah. So why don't you cut to the chase and tell 'em what you really think was the reason[00:02:00]
Uh,
Mr. Wade: I don't know what, what the reason was. I didn't, I know what it
Rep. Jim Jordan: was. Well, no, go ahead. Go ahead. I'll let you say cuz I read your testimony. I think you, you said it in your testimony too, maybe you're reluctant to say it here, but go ahead. Well, if
Mr. Wade: you're looking at the timeline on, um, May 21st, um, just, uh, a few weeks after the Nation medi, uh, the, the Nation Medicine article had come out.
Uh, two of the signatures of the original email to, um, Dr. Fauci, that that's Dr. Anderson and Dr. Gary were awarded a 9 million grant
Rep. Jim Jordan: for the, so there's 9 million reasons why they changed their mind. I knew you'd get to it. I read that last night, three months after. So three days after they say it came from a lab, they changed their position.
In the only intervening events, a conference call with Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins, again, a call that Mr. Redfield was not allowed to be on the head of C D C and on the Coronavirus Task Force. And then three months later, Shazam, they get 9 million bucks from Dr. Fauci. . Well, isn't that [00:03:00] something? Isn't that something?
That's why we wanna talk to these guys. That's why Chairman Linstrom wants to bring in Dr. Anderson and Dr. Gary and ask them a series of questions so we can get to the bottom of this so we can move forward and deal with this. Here's the key question, like I don't, I'm not, I'm just a common sense guy from Ohio.
My I, well, I was, I majored in wrestling in college, but I got a degree in economics. You're supposed to get a degree when you go to college. I got one in economics, and one of the things they tell you about is a thing called opportunity. So when you're spending your time making sure that the country believes only one of these theories, you could have been doing what Dr.
Redfield was doing in our government trying to figure out how we deal with this virus and what was, what was Dr. Fauci doing? He was trying to cover his backside and everybody knows it. And that's a part that ticks us off cuz this is the highest paid guy in our government getting all kinds of money to tell us things that were not accurate.
Cause we now. US tax dollars went to a lab in China, a lab that was not up to code, a lab that was doing gain of function [00:04:00] research. And that's where this thing most definitely came from. And Dr. Fauci had to prove, no, no, he can't have that news getting out. And that's why he did what he did to the exclusion of a brilliant guy running our C d c kept him out the loop, keeping him outta the loop, probably potentially could have harmed.
That's the thing that ticks us all off, and that's why Mr. Chairman, this, this hearing is so darn important, and we get to the bottom of really what happened. I yield back.
Uh, thank you. At this point, I'm gonna make a closing. Wow. All
Dr. Redfield: right. As Covid 19 began to spread across the world, there were two competing hypothesis about the origin of this virus that needed to be vigorously. The first hypothesis is the possibility that Covid 19 infections in humans were the result of a spillover event from nature.
This is a situation in which the virus naturally mutates and becomes more transmissible from one species to another. In this case, [00:05:00] from bats to humans view via an intermediate species. Species. This is what happened in previous outbreaks of sars and Mers and earlier coronaviruses that emerged from bats and spread through an intermediate.
The second hypothesis is the possibility that the virus evolved in a laboratory involved in gain of function research. This is a type of research in which scientists seek to increase the transmissibility or pathogenicity of an organism in order to better understand that organism and inform preparedness efforts and the development of countermeasures such as therapeutics and vaccines.
Under this theory, covid infected. The general population after it was accidentally leaked from a lab in China from the earliest days of the pandemic. My view was both theories about the origin needed to be aggressively and thoroughly examined. Based on my initial analysis of the data, I [00:06:00] came to believe, and I still believe today, that it indicates that Covid 19 more likely was the result of an accidental lab.
Then a result of a natural spillover event. This Colus conclusion is based primarily on the biology of the virus itself, including the rapid high infectivity for human to human transmission, which would then predict rapid evolution of new variants, as well as a number of other important factors, which also include the unusual actions in and around Woo Wuhan in the fall of 2019, all of which I'm happy to discuss.
even given the information that surfaced in three years since the Covid 19 pandemic began, some have contended that there's really no point in investigating the origin of this virus. I strongly disagree. There is a global need to know what we are dealing with in Covid virus because it affects how we approach the problem to try to [00:07:00] prevent the next pandemic.
The understanding of the origin of Covid is critical to future science research, particularly as it affects ongoing ethical debate. Around gain of function research, gain of function research has long been controversial within the scientific community. In my own opinion, COVID 19 pandemic presents a case study on the potential dangers of such research.
While many believe that gain of function research is critical to get ahead of viruses by developing vaccines, in this case, I believe it was the exact. Unleashing a new virus of the world without any means of stopping it and resulting in the deaths of millions of people. Because of this, it's my opinion that we should call for a moratorium on gain of function research until we have a broader debate and we come to a consensus at a community about the value of gaina function research.
This debate should not be limited to the scientific community. If the decision [00:08:00] is to continue with gaina function research, then it. Um, be determined how and where to conduct that reserve in a safe, responsible, and effective way. I thank you for inviting me here today as we explore this important topic.
I look forward to answering your questions.
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