Fauci Transcribed Interview — House COVID Subcommittee, Part 1 (8 Jan 2024) (Part 2 of 2)

something improper about that process.   6
I think -- it is useful because I think that that timeline sometimes has gotten a little 7
bit foggy.   8
I'm going to introduce just one more draft of the paper that was forwarded on to 9
you, as minority exhibit I.  10
    [Fauci Minority Exhibit No. I  11
    was marked for identification.]  12
BY   13
Q And I'll give you a moment to look that over.  I may want to chat a little more 14
about the substance in the draft, so take your time.   15
This Bates number, for the record, is REV411.   16
A Yeah.  17
Q Great.  So this email chain is now February 8th.  So we are a full week out 18
from that February 1st conference call.  And it's another similar example, it looks like, 19
where Dr. Farrar is forwarding the current draft, but in this case  -- I just want to know, as 20
a preliminary matter, the to line is not just yourself, Dr.  Collins in this case.  It's other folks 21
who were on the February 1st conference call, right?  Such as Ron Fouchier, for example?  22
A Right.   23
Q Who is Dr. Fouchier, if you recall?  24
A He's a Dutch scientist.  25

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Q What is his general field of expertise?  I think it's virology, maybe evolution.   1
A No.  He's an evolutionary virologist.  2
Q Got it.  So the body of Dr. Farrar's email here looks a little bit different than 3
the last one in that he appears to be soliciting a little bit of substantive input.  Is this 4
reasonably balanced?  Does anybody disagree?   5
I just wanted to ask just as a threshold matter whether  -- if you recall it's more 6
likely that Dr. Farrar is interested in the opinion on those questions of somebody like Dr. 7
Fouchier, or somebody like yourself who, as I understand it, is not a virologist?  8
A Well, he's certainly interested in what Andrew Rambaut and Ron Fouchier 9
and Marion Koopmans -- I couldn't comment on this because I'm not an evolutionary 10
virologist.  This really is not even close to my lane.   11
Q That's exactly my question.   12
And then with respect to the content of this particular draft, the draft at this point 13
walks through three possible scenarios for the origin of SARS -CoV-2:  natural selection in 14
humans, natural selection in an animal host, or selection during passage, being sort of the 15
lab origin option.   16
And on the very last page, Bates numbered 414, under "limitations and 17
recommendations," I'll just read out loud the first sentence there, which is, "The 18
evolution scenarios discussed above are largely indistinguishable and current data are 19
consistent with all three.  It is currently impossible to prove or disprove either, and it is 20
unclear whether future data or analyses will help resolve this issue."  That's the end of the 21
quote.   22
So it's less of a question, more an observation.  And if you recall, it seems to us as 23
readers that, you know, in the days after the February 1st call, the position of these folks 24
seems to have been , we honestly couldn't tell you whether it's from a lab or from an 25

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animal.   1
Is that basically your recollection?  2
A Yeah.  I think they -- I don't know.  Let me read it.   3
I think the idea of artificially creating it was out.  But they said -- they didn't rule 4
out that it could have come from a lab for the reasons that are -- so they had a pretty 5
open mind about where it came from.  6
Q Precisely.  And when the article ultimately came out  -- which I think was a 7
month or a month and a half after this  -- at that point, it had some language in it that 8
folks have pointed to that was a little bit more definitive about, we don't think that any 9
laboratory -based scenario is plausible.   10
My point is simply that that seems to have come much later in the process.  Is that 11
your general -- to the extent you would even know.   12
A No.  I don't know  -- 13
Q Yeah.   14
A -- but I assume that after further examination of sequences and backbone 15
viruses and all that, that there was strength in that it would be less, less likely given 16
the -- what you would need to be able to manipulate it in passage, that it is unlikely that 17
passage would have been the case.  18
Q And that's some of what we've heard from them of, hey, we started learning 19
about the furin cleavage sites that are a little more common than we thought, and it turns 20
out that the receptor binding domain is really prone to mutations in a way that maybe we 21
didn't appreciate at first, and we've got a receptor binding domain out there in nature 22
that looks like a 99 percent match to the one in SARS -CoV-2.   23
So it seems like they were accumulating data points as they went along that led 24
them to wherever they ended up -- is our perception of how this process unfolded.   25

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A Right.   1
Q One last point on this.  It's a narrow one, which is, there's been this 2
suggestion that  -- I mean, "bribe" is an extreme word, but there's been a suggestion that 3
you somehow bribed the authors of the paper to write a paper that would suppress the 4
lab leak theory in exchange for a $9 million grant to Dr. Andersen and Dr.  Garry.   5
We went and asked Dr. Andersen about this.  We did the same for Dr.  Garry.  Dr. 6
Andersen told us that the allegations are false and that he had not even talked to you 7
about the grant application.   8
And we had an exchange with Dr.  Garry on this topic that  I think I'll introduce as 9
an exhibit and read out loud because I think it's helpful.  So I will mark that as minority 10
exhibit J.  11
    [Fauci Minority Exhibit No. J  12
    was marked for identification.]  13
BY   14
Q So on the back page of that exhibit -- I'll give you a moment to glance at it, 15
but I'm just going to read an excerpt from the middle of that page while you also read 16
over it.   17
We can see in the middle of that page that -- we asked Dr.  Garry, quote, "Did Tony 18
Fauci or Francis Collins ever threaten you or bully you or intimidate you into concealing or 19
altering the findings of your paper or in any other way?"  20
To which Dr.  Garry said, "No."   21
And we asked him, "Okay.  Did Drs. Fauci or Collins ever threaten to revoke or 22
withhold Federal funding from you in any way?"   23
And Dr.  Garry answered, "No."   24
Then we asked him, "Are you aware of any efforts by Drs.  Fauci or Collins to 25

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suppress scientific inquiry into the origins of the virus?"   1
Dr. Garry answered, "No."   2
To which we asked him, "Is there any version of this question that I haven't asked 3
you yet to which the answer would somehow be yes?"   4
To which he answered, "There is not."   5
So we'll do our diligence and ask you as well.   6
Did you, in any way, ever threaten to withhold Federal funding from the authors 7
of the paper or award Federal funding to the authors of the paper in exchange for 8
changing their scientific findings?  9
A No.  10
  Great.   11
I'm going to kick it to my colleague,  for a few more questions.   12
BY :  13
Q Dr. Fauci, it is additionally our understanding that the grant review process 14
throughout NIH at all the institutes is thoughtfully designed to prevent undue influence.  15
Is that right?  16
A Correct.   17
Q In the last hour, you spent a lot of time with our colleagues going through 18
the grant review process.  I'm not going to go through the entire thing with you, but I just 19
want to get some clarification on a few aspects.   20
You said the initial peer review or the study section is conducted by scientists and 21
academics who are not employees of NIH.  Is that correct?  22
A That is correct.  23
Q And are those members of that committee -- or that peer -review committee, 24
are they fully vetted for potential conflicts of interest and to ensure that they have the 25

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appropriate expertise to join that peer -review panel?  1
A Yes.  2
Q Similarly, you spoke about the NIAID advisory council and their secondary 3
review of grant applications.  And those are also predominantly external to NIH, correct?  4
A Correct.   5
Q Are the members of the NIAID advisory committee also fully vetted for 6
potential conflicts of interest and to ensure they have the appropriate expertise prior to 7
joining the advisory council?  8
A Right.  Not only are they vetted, but whenever there is a vote on the en bloc 9
approval, you specifically say, is there anyone that has a conflict of interest with one of 10
these grants that have been discussed?  If so, you need to get up and leave the room and 11
not be involved in the discussion.  So it's in general and specific.   12
Q Perfect.  And in my review of the entire application process for grants 13
throughout NIH, I saw many references to preventing conflicts of interest.  So it seems to 14
me that this is a high priority for NIH and for NIAID, and that this is to protect the integrity 15
of the grant application process.  Is that correct?  16
A That is correct.  17
Q All right.  And just to reiterate, you, as director of NIAID, were not involved in 18
the grant -making process, correct?  19
A That is correct.   20
  Thank you, Dr. Fauci.   21
I'm going turn things over to my colleague .   22
BY    23
Q Dr. Fauci, while we have you here today and tomorrow, I think one of the 24
most important things we can do is collect your perspective on reforms and positive steps 25

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we can take for future pandemic preparedness and response.  And so with that, I would 1
like to look back at the COVID -19 pandemic starting with contact tracing.   2
At the outset of the pandemic, it was suggested that contact tracing was going to 3
play a key role in containing the spread of COVID -19.  For the record, could you explain 4
the public health practice of contact tracing?  5
A Yeah.  Contact tracing is a process when you're trying to determine 6
exposures and potential mechanisms of spread throughout the population.   7
So if I get infected and I'm known to be infected, and I'm in close contact with 8
family members, fellow employees, or whomever, that you then trace the contact and 9
you observe them to see if they are being -- if they're sick, and if they are, then you 10
isolate them depending upon the nature of the infection.   11
So it's identification, isolation, contact tracing.  That works well when you have a 12
virus that has symptoms always associated with it. 13

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[3:02 p.m.]  1
BY  2
Q And so, looking back at the outbreaks that my colleague  covered in 3
the previous round, how was contact tracing successful in containing prior outbreaks of 4
infectious diseases?  5
A Well, when you have a disease or an infection that is transmitted mostly by 6
syndromic transmissibility -- someone who is obviously sick -- that contact tracing 7
becomes much, much more easy and effective in getting people to be isolated.  It 8
becomes much more difficult when there's community spread, because you can't identify, 9
contact, and trace it if you don't know who they came into contact with.   10
So that's when things really fall apart, particularly when you have widespread 11
community spread where someone just appears in the emergency room or in a clinic and 12
is infected, and you say, well, who did you come into contact with?  And they say, I never 13
came into contact with anybody that I knew was infected.  It becomes problematic.   14
So contact tracing is really good under certain circumstances, but in others it's less 15
effective.   16
Q And so, looking back to the earliest days of the COVID -19 pandemic, what 17
steps were taken across the board to stand up nationwide contact tracing?  And what did 18
collaboration between the Federal Government and State and local governments look like 19
to do that?  20
A Well, you know, it was problematic.  I can't  -- I don't think it would be  -- I 21
want to be perfectly honest about it, is that I was not involved in all of the issues of 22
setting up contact tracing, doing the testing, because, as I mentioned to you, my 23
responsibility as a scientist was to direct the NIH's and NIAID's vaccine effort.   24
In the beginning, there were problems with contact tracing because the diagnostic 25

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test we were using was not an adequate test.  That really created a problem, because if 1
you can't test somebody to see if they're infected, it becomes really problematic to 2
contact trace.  So I would say the contact tracing in the beginning did not work very well.   3
Q So what about COVID -19 specifically  -- for example, the ways it 4
spread  -- made contact tracing so difficult to stand up in the United States?  5
A Yeah.  We found this out gradually, but then it became very clear that, 6
anywhere, depending upon your study, between 50 to 60 percent of the transmissions 7
occurred from a person who had no symptoms.  Either they never would have any 8
symptoms or they were in the pre -symptomatic phase.   9
So, if you have at least half of the infections in the community are spreading, it 10
becomes really difficult to make contact tracing effective.   11
Q So, looking to the potential for future outbreaks or future pandemics, it's my 12
sense that contact tracing could take a greater role under certain circumstances.   13
Are there lessons from the initial COVID -19 response that we should be taking 14
away -- 15
A Yes. 16
Q -- for the deployment of contact tracing?  17
A Yeah.  Contact tracing is intimately associated with your local public health 18
capability of mobilizing people to do the contact tracing.   19
What became clear -- it became clear to me, because what I would do after a 20
while, because I'm a physician who takes care of patients, I would call up my colleagues in 21
different places and say, how's contact tracing going?  And they were saying that contact 22
tracing is not working very well because we don't have the public health infrastructure in 23
place to make it work.   24
So my recommendation for what are lessons learned, that we need to support 25

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more the local public health capability of doing contact tracing.   1
Our local public health infrastructure, as good as it was decades ago, has sort of 2
attenuated a lot, almost as victims of our own success, because we have good vaccines 3
and we have antibiotics, so the local public health people who go out into the community 4
and do public health things has diminished greatly over the last several years.  People 5
who have left their jobs have not been rehired.   6
So one of the big lessons learned is that, you know, public health at the local level 7
is absolutely critical, and we were weak in that regard.   8
Q And so, then, looking at the role of the Federal Government both in investing 9
in local public health infrastructure and revitalizing our public health workforce, what 10
more could Congress be doing to support those efforts?  11
A You know, again, I'm not really quite sure.  I don't want to speak for 12
Congress.  But they certainly, from a resource standpoint, they could give more resources 13
and/or make sure that resources that are directed to different agencies ultimately get to 14
the local public health infrastructure.   15
Q You mentioned just now testing, which is something we'd like to dig into a 16
little bit more as well.   17
As I understand it, testing is a key pillar of the public health response to any sort of 18
disease outbreak.  Could you elaborate specifically on the role of testing in containing 19
outbreaks?  20
A Yeah.  I mean, testing is your eyes on what's going on in the community.   21
So, I mean, right from the very beginning, if you go back and look at quotes that I 22
have made, is, we've got to absolutely  -- what did I quote?  -- flood the system with 23
testing, both people who are symptomatic as well as asymptomatic individuals, to get 24
some vision into what's going on in the community.   25

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Because if you wait for people to get sick and present to a clinic or to a hospital, 1
you are already weeks behind what's actually going on in the community.  In order to stay 2
ahead of it, you've got to test very, very robustly.  3
Q Now, as I understand it, in epidemiology, there are two key measures of a 4
test's performance or effectiveness; those are sensitivity and specificity.  Do those 5
concepts sound familiar?  6
A They do.  7
Q And so, as I understand it, sensitivity is the ability of a test to identify true 8
positive cases; specificity, the ability of a test to identify true negatives.   9
A Right.   10
Q I also understand that there are different kinds of COVID -19 tests -- for 11
example, PCR tests and antigen tests.   12
Could you explain for us how the different types of COVID -19 tests that we've 13
deployed across the pandemic are different, for example, in terms of sensitivity and 14
specificity?   15
A Yeah.  I mean, the PCR test, if done properly, is both very sensitive and also 16
very specific.  The problem is, if not done properly, there could be some contamination, 17
so there are some false negatives and false positives.   18
The antigen tests are clearly less sensitive, in the sense of picking up an individual.  19
When you do get a positive antigen test, it usually is quite specific for the particular 20
antigen.   21
Q And so, when we look at how each of these tests were deployed as part of 22
the COVID -19 response, are there different pros or different cons to each of the types of 23
tests you described?  24
A Well, yeah, I mean, the pro of a rapid antigen test is that you can just give it 25

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to people to go ahead and test and report it in, and you could be done very rapidly.  You 1
can do it in 15 minutes.  Some of them are even 12 minutes or 10 minutes.  For those of 2
us who've tested ourselves in positive, you sometimes find out in 1 minute that you're 3
positive when the band appears.   4
Whereas the PCR test, as very specific and sensitive as it is, is a test that requires, 5
at least what's available now, a specialized lab to do it.  And it usually  -- again, you get 6
better and better at it.  If you really want to do it in an emergency, you might get it 7
overnight, but usually you've got to wait several days.  And one of the problems, again, 8
getting back to your original question of contact tracing, is that if you have to wait several 9
days to find out if something is positive, then that really makes things very complicated.  10
Q Thank you.  11
Now, when it comes to testing for COVID -19, I recall we experienced some initial 12
stumbles in developing effective tests.  For example, the CDC's early COVID -19 tests were 13
both contaminated and contained initial design flaws.  Is that correct?  14
A Correct.   15
Q Could you elaborate on those specific issues that we observed with the early 16
rollout of the CDC's COVID tests?  17
A Well, I don't have the specifics of the defect, but it became very clear that 18
when the tests were made by the CDC and then distributed, there were people who were 19
calling in and saying, wait a minute, we're getting false positives here, it's not working 20
very well.   21
That became pretty clear when they were distributed out into the community.  22
The exact detail of what the defect was, I don't think I can give you a totally accurate 23
answer to that, but they were clearly inadequate.   24
Q And so you mentioned earlier in this round the role of testing, obviously, and 25

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contact tracing, some difficulties, that the testing rollout -- the way that that informed 1
contact tracing and standing up that effort in the United States.   2
Are there other ways in which the rollout of the COVID -19 tests and some of those 3
early missteps undermined our early response to the pandemic?  4
A Yeah.  I think, you know, if you're relying solely on a test, a single test, to get 5
eyes on the outbreak and that test doesn't work, in some respects, you're really operating 6
blindly about what's going on.  That was a real problem.   7
Commercial firms were not drawn in quickly enough, I believe, to substitute for a 8
defective case.  Kept on trying to make it better, trying to fix it, trying to fix it.  They 9
ultimately never really fixed it.  And then the commercial tests came in and took over.   10
So February was a month that really was an issue with regard to testing.   11
Q We're approaching the end of the hour, and we will have additional 12
questions on testing, but before we conclude the round, I just want to turn it, in case 13
Congresswoman Dingell or Congresswoman Castor have any followup questions.   14
Do either of you?  15
Mrs. Dingell.   I do, but do we want to wait until the next hour?   16
Ms. Castor.   Yeah, we'll wait to the next hour.  Thank you.   17
Then, in which case, I think we can go off the record.  Thank you.   18
[Recess.]  19
Mr. Benzine.   We can go back on the record.   20
BY MR. BENZINE:  21
Q Dr. Fauci, when I was running through the really long list of names what feels 22
like forever ago now, I brought up Dr.  Ping Chen.  She was stationed by NIAID in Beijing up 23
until mid -December 2019 and had toured the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2017.   24
After the pandemic emerged, did you ever request to meet with her?  25

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A No.  1
Q Why not?  2
A There was no reason to meet with her.  She reported to Gray Handley, and if 3
there were any issues, Gray, I'm sure, would've brought it up.  So  --  4
Q Did you ever talk to Mr.  Handley about anything related to Dr.  Chen 5
stationed in Beijing?  6
A Ultimately, when everyone started  -- yeah, I mean, the first time was when 7
all the hearings started and all the questions started getting asked.   8
Q Okay.  But not, kind of, contemporaneously?  9
A Contemporaneously, as things are happening, I didn't even know she 10
existed.  11
Q It just seems  -- and we talked to Mr.  Handley, and he said pretty much what 12
you just said, that he didn't recall you requesting a meeting or anything.   13
It's just, in this particular aspect, from where we're sitting, is, you have someone 14
in Beijing while the outbreak is going on -- we didn't know it was going on, but it was 15
going on --    16
A Right.  17
Q -- who had been to the laboratory that was being at least somewhat 18
blamed  -- 19
A Right.  20
Q -- maybe not, for the outbreak, it just seems to us that she's kind of, like, a 21
material witness in some of this and, you know, would be of interest in determining 22
how -- 23
A No. 24
Q -- China was behaving.  But no?  25

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A That didn't  upset the -- I didn't look upon it that way.  I barely knew she 1
existed, so it was tough to say, "Let me talk to Ping Chen."  Gray Handley was the one 2
who handled those kind of global -affair issues.  3
Q Okay.   4
  Sorry.  If you could just go a little bit louder, just for the end of the 5
table, if you can.  6
Dr. Fauci.   Sorry.  Do you want me to repeat what I said?   7
  It's up to the members.   8
Mrs. Dingell.   I heard the answer.  9
Mr. Benzine.   Okay.  10
Ms. Castor.   And the name of the person you're inquiring about?   11
Mr. Benzine.   Ping Chen, C -h-e-n. 12
Ms. Castor.   That is what we didn't hear.  13
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, Ping Chen.  Yes.  14
Ms. Castor.   Thank you.  15
Mr. Schertler.   And the other name, just for the record?   16
Dr. Fauci.   Oh, the other name is Gray Handley.  Ping Chen reports directly to Gray 17
Handley, who's the head of our Office of Global Health Affairs.   18
So the question was, did I interact at all with Ping Chen, and the answer is no.   19
BY MR. BENZINE:  20
Q We also talked about Dr.  Stemmy a little bit earlier.  Did Dr.  Stemmy ever 21
brief you about any information he was gathering from Wuhan?  22
A The only time that Dr.  Stemmy directly briefed me, multiple times, was in 23
preparation for the multiple hearings that I had.  24
Q In early January 2020, Dr.  Stemmy had multiple communications with 25

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Dr. Daszak about the outbreak.  He never told you about that?  1
A No, he didn't.   2
Q And then also in early January 2020, Dr.  Chen spoke to Dr.  Zhengli Shi at the 3
Wuhan Institute of Virology about the outbreak.  No one told you about that?  4
A No.  5
Q We touched on it very briefly, but Dr.  Redfield has previously testified that in 6
January of 2020 he was working with Dr.  Gao to get a CDC team into China.  Were you 7
aware of those efforts?   8
A In January of 2020?   9
Q Uh-huh.  10
A I was aware that we all were trying to get  -- not me personally, but the 11
Coronavirus Task Force as well as the CDC were trying to get their team in.  I believe that 12
was before  -- I'm not sure, but before the WHO became the convening group to get a 13
team in.  14
Q Okay.   15
A But it was clear that the CDC wanted to get a team in there.  Yes.   16
Q And then in mid -February 2020, two U.S. scientists, Dr.  Lane from NIAID and 17
an individual from the CDC, were part of a 13 -person WHO team that joined a team of 12 18
Chinese scientists touring a couple cities around China.   19
Is that what you were just referencing?  20
A Yes.  21
Q Did you help coordinate this trip for Dr.  Lane?  22
A I'm not sure what you mean by "coordinate."   23
Q Were you involved in setting up this trip at all?  24
A No, I was not involved in setting up.   25

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I was asked -- and I don't recall by whom; it likely  -- likely, but I don't know for 1
sure -- was by HHS -- who would be the best person, who's the most knowledgeable 2
about infectious diseases.  And that certainly would be Cliff Lane, so I recommended Cliff 3
Lane.   4
Q Do you recall any reluctance on the part of the Chinese to let a WHO team 5
in?  6
A In February, I'm not sure if it was reluctance, but I do recall it was difficult 7
finally getting the team to be allowed to go in.   8
Q Uh-huh.   9
A It wasn't  -- I don't recall the back -and-forth of the reluctance, but it was clear 10
that they kept on asking to get the team in, and for one reason or other it didn't happen, 11
and then finally it did happen.  12
Q The "they" in that answer is the WHO?  13
A No.  It was, I believe, the Chinese -- again, I'm saying I believe, but I don't 14
know for sure  -- that the Chinese were  -- not the Chinese -- the WHO was trying to get a 15
team to go and it was not happening as quickly as people wanted it to happen.   16
Q Were there any conversations about why it wasn't happening as quickly?  17
A No.  I don't know.   18
Q Do you know Dr.  Bernhard Schwartlander?  19
A Bernhard Schwartlander is a senior official at the WHO.   20
Q Did you ever receive an intelligence briefing regarding Dr.  Schwartlander?  21
Mr. Schertler.   And, I'm sorry, when you say intelligence briefing "regarding" him, 22
is it from him or -- 23
Mr. Benzine.   No, no.  24
Mr. Schertler.   -- about him?  25

  140
Mr. Benzine.   About him.  1
Dr. Fauci.   About him?  2
Mr. Benzine.   Uh-huh.  3
Dr. Fauci.   I don't recall receiving an intelligence briefing about him, no.  4
BY MR. BENZINE:  5
Q Did you receive any other types of briefings regarding Dr.  Schwartlander?  6
A I don't recall ever receiving a briefing regarding Dr.  Schwartlander.  He's a 7
well-known figure in WHO, and I certainly over the years have had conversations with him 8
at meetings or in correspondence.  But I don't ever recall being briefed about him.   9
Q Okay.   10
There were some emails early on with him and you about this trip, and, in one of 11
them, you expressed concern about maybe getting zero Americans on this trip.  Do you 12
remember that?  13
A Could you show me the email?   14
Q I can.   15
Mr. Schertler.   And this is an email with Dr.  Schwartlander; is that correct?   16
Mr. Benzine.   Yes.   17
So this will be majority exhibit 5.  18
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 5  19
    was marked for identification.]  20
BY MR. BENZINE:  21
Q And it is an email chain from February 9th, and it has Garrett Grigsby, 22
Dr. Schwartlander, Larry Kerr, Brian Harrison, eventually you, and Dr.  Kadlec and 23
Dr. Redfield.  And it was produced via FOIA.   24
And at the very top of the second page is an email from you, where it says, "I do 25

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not like the sound of this.  So now we are in the queue with other countries?  Seems like 1
he is talking about at best 1 USA person and maybe even 0 USA people."  And you're 2
referring to an email from Dr.  Schwartlander on the second -to-last page.   3
Mr. Schertler.   I don't know that we've seen this before.  Is it okay if he takes a few 4
minutes to just read it?   5
Mr. Benzine.   Yes.   6
Mr. Schertler.   So I think you start at the back, if you haven't already, because 7
that's  where the first page would be.   8
Dr. Fauci.   So the back is just an announcement by  -- it isn't really an email.  He's 9
just --  10
BY MR. BENZINE:  11
Q No, that's just a  --  12
A Yeah.  13
Q And then  --  14
A And then the  --  15
Q -- Mr. Grigsby emails Dr.  Schwartlander.  It's all redacted.  And 16
Dr. Schwartlander responds and  --  17
A So Bernhard says, "We have three people on the way to Beijing who will 18
work with our Chinese counterparts on finalizing the TOR," whatever that is -- 19
Q Terms of reference.   20
A -- okay -- "and composition of the joint"  -- oh, so they're trying to put 21
together the group.   22
Q Uh-huh.  23
A I see.  Okay.   24
"As you are well aware, the US has given us a number of names who will be able 25

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and willing to join such a mission.  We have received similar proposals from other 1
countries and will now match the 'long list' of experts with the required specific expertise.  2
We hope to have more clarity...keep you in the loop...overall number...."   3
And Grigsby says, "Many thanks!  I know I'll be asked, so I will pass [it along]."   4
"Brian -- more clarity from 'the horse's mouth'...."   5
And I say, "I don't like the sound of this.  So now we are in the queue with other 6
countries?  Seems like he is talking about at best 1 person and maybe 0 people."   7
So I was concerned that we were not going to get eyes on what's going on.   8
Q Did you have any communications with anyone at the WHO about ensuring 9
that -- 10
A No. 11
Q -- Americans were on the trip?  12
A No.  I didn't communicate with the WHO about that.  I just wrote to Garrett, 13
saying, I don't like the idea that we might not have anybody going.  14
Q Uh-huh.   15
And you said you recommended Dr.  Lane for this trip?  16
A Yeah.   17
Q Was he your first choice?  18
A Yeah.   19
Q He was on the way to Japan to see the Diamond Princess at the time?  20
A Yes.   21
Q And we talked to Dr.  Lane, and he said that, pretty much, he was, like, 22
on -- he was boarding a plane at Dulles when he got a call from you that said, "When you 23
land in Japan, you're going to get on a plane and go to Beijing and go on this trip."   24
Does that sound like that's what happened?  25

  143
A Unfortunately for him, that was correct.   1
Q Okay.  2
A No.  Let me explain what I mean by "unfortunately for him," is that he was 3
sort of, like, traveling all over the place.  He was in Japan trying to set up a remdesivir 4
study on the people who were there.  And no sooner did he land than we said, "Sorry, but 5
now you gotta go to China."  That's what I meant by "unfortunately."   6
Q And then he said, while he was on the plane to Tokyo, he got plane WiFi and 7
the State Department and NIH worked on getting him all set up to go to China and the 8
complications that went with that.   9
While he was on the trip, he nor the CDC individual were chosen to go to Wuhan?  10
A Correct.   11
Q Do you -- is that correct?  12
A That is correct.   13
Q Did you have any conversations with anyone about that?  14
A I didn't have any conversations with anyone, but it just  -- I was disappointed, 15
because Cliff is a very competent person.   16
Q Would there have been  -- why do you think they weren't chosen to go to 17
Wuhan?  18
A I don't think they specifically were not chosen.  I think that they allowed  -- if 19
my recollection is correct -- it might not be.  But I think they allowed one person to go to 20
Wuhan.  And you could understand, if they have a group of multiple people, that they 21
didn't pick Cliff.   22
I don't think they specifically said, "I don't want Cliff to go."  I think they just 23
decided they were going to pick somebody else.   24
Q Did Dr.  Lane brief you when he returned?  25

  144
A Yes.   1
Q What was the content of that briefing?  2
Mr. Cooke.   So, again, if we're getting into the details of internal communications, 3
we have a confidentiality interest in maintaining the  --  4
Mr. Osterhues.   So facts are what you're concerned about disclosing?   5
It has to be deliberative.  Facts are not deliberative.  If he's telling him what he 6
saw -- I mean, come on.  We've been through this in every one of these.  I know you've 7
been out for a while.  But, again, it has to be deliberative, pre -decisional.  Getting a 8
briefing on what happened in Wuhan or in Beijing is -- should be primarily factual.   9
Mr. Cooke.   If you recall the general topics you discussed, you can speak to that.  10
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  11
BY MR. BENZINE:  12
Q So what were the general topics that Dr.  Lane briefed you on?  13
A They were mostly clinical topics.  What Cliff was impressed with was the 14
equipment and the number of personnel they had working in these hospitals where  -- he 15
spent most of his time talking about how effective they were in, you know, every bed has 16
a monitor, and every bed has a pulmonary physiologist, every bed has a physician, every 17
bed has a nurse.  He said, they really are putting a major effort at good clinical care to 18
them.   19
Of course, that's his area.  I mean, he's --   20
Q Uh-huh.  21
A -- one of the best clinicians around.  22
Q Dr. Lane said that the final WHO China report, some of the more narrative 23
sections should be taken with a grain of salt, is the quote from Dr.  Lane.   24
Did you have any conversations with him regarding the language in the report or --  25

  145
A No.  1
Q No?  2
A No, I did not.  3
Q Did you have any conversations with him regarding whether or not he 4
believed, being there, that China was controlling the message?  5
A I don't remember specific conversations with Cliff that they were controlling 6
the message, but I do recall that he would've liked to have gone to Wuhan.   7
Q Uh-huh.  Did you have any discussions with him about whether or not he felt 8
like China was being forthcoming?  9
A You know, that wasn't the conversation that I had with Cliff.  Most of the 10
conversation with Cliff is how they were handling the people who were sick or who were 11
at risk.  It was mostly a kind of a public health commentary about the kinds of things that 12
they were doing.   13
Q Dr. Lane wrote that China was good at controlling the outbreak, albeit at 14
great cost, is again a quote from him.   15
A Yeah.  16
Q Did you have any conversations with him regarding, kind of, China's extreme 17
lockdown policies at that time and their effectiveness?  18
A The only thing I can recall about what Cliff said back then was that their 19
social distancing seemed to have been working, in that  -- I didn't get into the details of 20
how stringent it was, but I remember him saying that their social -distancing program 21
seems to be working well in controlling the infection.   22
And then, as I mentioned a moment ago, the other part of the conversation was 23
he was really struck by their really competent intensive care.   24
Q Did you have any conversations with him that would suggest China knew this 25

  146
was worse than what they were publicly portraying?  1
A No, I didn't.  I think that by the time I had a conversation with him it was very 2
clear that there was a big -time disease going on.  3
Mr. Benzine.   I want to introduce majority exhibit 6.  4
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 6  5
    was marked for identification.]  6
BY MR. BENZINE:  7
Q This is an entry from your calendar from January  17, 2020.   8
And I have a just, kind of, question on what one thing means.  At 3 o'clock, there's 9
an entry, "Call to Discuss CDC Gao Writing Request."  Do you recall what that was?  10
A I believe  -- I don't know if this was a specific thing, but around  -- again, I 11
don't know the timing, but Dr.  Gao had approached me about writing an article with him, 12
which I don't think I did.  But that's what I think this is referring to, to call  -- Gray, I 13
believe, set it up, because Gao went through Gray -- Gray Handley, that is -- 14
Q Uh-huh.  15
A -- to try and see if we could co -author a scientific paper.  And, as I recall, I 16
believe I declined.  Yeah.   17
Q Had you had any conversations with Dr. Gao regarding the outbreak prior to 18
this?  19
Mr. Schertler.   Prior to January?   20
BY MR. BENZINE:  21
Q Prior to mid -January?   22
A You know, I believe I had a conversation with Dr.  Gao, but I'm not sure 23
exactly when in the time.  I may have had one conversation.   24
Like I said when I was asked before, the only thing I remember about Dr. Gao is 25

  147
once I met him here and once I spoke to him on the phone.  But I don't know exactly 1
timeframe, when that was.   2
Q We have a few documents to hopefully nail down the timeframe of the 3
phone call.   4
A Okay.  Sure.   5
Q I'm going to introduce majority exhibit 7.  6
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 7  7
    was marked for identification.]  8
BY MR. BENZINE:  9
Q This is an email chain with Mr.  Handley, and then it also has Dr.  Chen and a 10
couple others on it, and is Bates marked SSCP_NIAID 1 and 2.  11
You're not on these emails.  There's no reason that you should have seen these 12
emails before.   13
And I just want to draw your attention to the one from Mr.  Handley at the bottom 14
of the first page.  And he said, "I have asked Ping to reach out to George Gao to see if he 15
is interested in having a research information sharing call with ASF.  We will see if he has 16
time to respond."   17
I'm assuming "ASF" is you?   18
A That's me.  It's usually only me --   19
Q Yeah.  20
A -- right?  21
Q Dr. Chen responds with a draft invitation to Dr.  Gao with some Chinese 22
language in it, which makes sense, and, "Please let me know if this is acceptable."   23
Mr. Handley responds with some suggestions -- it's unclear, based on this email, 24
what his suggestions were -- and then said, "Good to send it via WeChat."   25

  148
A baseline  -- and you may not know:  Does NIAID have any policies regarding the 1
use of WeChat for official purposes?   2
A I only heard about WeChat a couple days ago, so I think -- 3
Q Okay.  4
A -- I think not.   5
Q Okay.   6
Dr. Chen reached out to Dr. Gao.  And, based on these messages, it looks like the 7
call got eventually set up for the night of January 31, 2020.   8
Not these messages; the WeChat messages.  I'm happy if you want to see them.   9
A No, I don't.   10
Q Does that sound about right -- 11
A Yeah.  12
Q -- for the timeframe with Dr. Gao?  13
A Yeah.   14
Q Do you recall if there was anyone else on the phone with you?  15
A I don't recall.  I don't recall the phone call.  I mean, I don't recall what we 16
said.   17
Q Uh-huh.  18
A But when you just mentioned here  -- let me see the thing that  -- "interested 19
in having a research information sharing" -- that doesn't trigger the conversation I had 20
with George Gao, but it tells me that that's not at all incompatible with somebody 21
wanting to talk to me about a research agenda.  Since I'm in charge of infectious diseases 22
research, that somebody who's in China might want to talk to me about what are the kind 23
of things that we might do.  But I don't recall the details of that call.   24
Q So what you're saying there -- and I'm just trying to distill it down a little -- is, 25

  149
the call may not have been, like, about the Chinese response, but it might have been 1
trying to set up or understand the research agenda to attack COVID -19.  Is that  --  2
A In fact, that would be strongly like - -- not "strongly likely," but that would 3
be -- if you were to ask me, what would a call be when someone wants to talk about 4
research information, it's not rare that when a problem arises that someone would call 5
me and say, what is your idea about it?  I mean, how best to investigate?  You know, is a 6
vaccine feasible?  How long do you think it would take to get a vaccine?  Or stuff like that.   7
Q Uh-huh.  8
A That's what I think this is about.   9
Q Did you ever speak with  -- to the best of your recollection, did you ever 10
speak to Dr.  Redfield about this call?  11
A To my recollection, no, but it's possible.  Yeah.   12
Q You kind of just answered it, that you're obviously  -- NIAID is more of a 13
research organization, maybe, than how people would view the American CDC being.   14
A Right.   15
Q So that might answer this question.  But was it odd to have this not be a 16
CDC-to-CDC kind of conversation versus NIAID -to-Chinese -CDC?  17
A I think if he was talking about what kind of research  -- because we're the big, 18
you know, 600 -pound gorilla when it comes to research --  19
Q Uh-huh.  20
A -- with the amount of money we put in.  So I don't think it would be unusual 21
for him to call me to kind of get a feel for what kind of research is being done and what 22
are the best research questions.  23
Q Okay.   24
I'm going to move on from Dr. Gao and move to Dr.  Baric and just ask a couple 25

  150
questions about a couple documents.   1
This will be majority exhibit 8.  2
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 8  3
    was marked for identification.]  4
Mr. Benzine.   And while that exhibit is being passed around, a few members have 5
come in the room.   6
Dr. Joyce and Ms.  Greene, do you mind identifying yourselves for the court 7
reporter?   8
Mr. Joyce.   John Joyce, representing Pennsylvania's 13th Congressional District.   9
Ms. Greene.   Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia 14.   10
Mr. Benzine.   I think I caught everyone.  11
BY MR. BENZINE:  12
Q So this is an entry from your calendar, Dr. Fauci, from January 31, 2020.   13
Excuse me.  This is the wrong exhibit.  We can ignore this one.  This is the wrong 14
calendar exhibit.  This was just a -- a Dr. Gao meeting was not on here, but --  15
A Right.  16
Q -- you think it was around that time.   17
A Right.   18
Q Since it's already been introduced, we'll move on to 9.  19
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 9  20
    was marked for identification.]  21
BY MR. BENZINE:  22
Q Okay.  Now we have the right exhibit.  So, an entry from your calendar from 23
February 11, 2020.   24
And at 2:30 it looks like, it says, "HOLD -- Meeting with Dr  Ralph Baric (and 25

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erbelding)."   1
Do you recall if you met with Dr.  Baric?  2
A You know, I don't recall, but it's here on the calendar.  So, I mean, it's not 3
unusual for me to meet with scientists who pass through D.C., so it's not surprising.  But I 4
don't recall the meeting or what was discussed at the meeting.   5
Q Do you recall if anyone else was meeting with Dr.  Baric?  6
A If it's in  -- 7A18 is my conference room.  7
Q Okay.   8
A So it is likely that there are other people involved.  Because when it's a 9
one-person meeting, I usually meet in my office, which is a couple of  -- you know, a 10
couple of doors down.   11
Q Since it says "Erbelding" next to it, would it be safe to assume that 12
Dr. Erbelding would've attended that meeting?  13
A It's safe to assume that Dr.  Erbelding would've attended that meeting, yes.   14
Q All right.  15
A Yeah.  16
Q I want to introduce majority exhibit 10 and make sure I have the right one 17
this time.   18
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 10  19
    was marked for identification.]  20
BY MR. BENZINE:   21
Q So this is a memorialization of a Slack message from the Vineet Menachery 22
and Matt Frieman.  And it was produced via FOIA, and Bates marked UTSystem 58871.   23
Do you know either Dr.  Frieman or Dr.  Menachery?  24
A I don't recall.  No, I don't.  Vineet Menachery?  No, I'm sorry.  I may have met 25

  152
that person.  Again, when you put scientists in front of me, I meet hundreds of them.  1
So --  2
Q Uh-huh.  3
A Matt Frieman, same.  I don't see anything.  So let me read this email.   4
Q Uh-huh.  5
A Yeah.   6
Q So I'm going to read the message into the record.   7
Dr. Frieman writes, "I talked to Ralph for a long time last night.  He sounds beat.  8
His ACE2 mice are breeding up but not ready for anyone to have.  He said he sat in Fauci's 9
office talking about the outbreak and chimeras.  Clearly he is in other kinds of meetings 10
than what we are invited to!  I joked about his link to WIV, he wasn't very amused."  And 11
then a few other things.   12
To avoid beating a dead horse, do you recall anything about Dr.  Baric during this 13
meeting discussing -- 14
A No, I don't.  15
Q -- the WIV or chimeras?  16
A I don't recall, really.  Honestly, I don't.   17
Q In 2018, Dr.  Baric, Dr.  Daszak, and Dr. Shi submitted a proposal to DARPA 18
named "DEFUSE."  Are you aware of that proposal?  19
A I heard about a proposal that was submitted to DARPA.  Yes.  It got a lot of 20
publicity.  21
Q So you heard through the press?  22
A I heard through the press, yes.   23
Mr. Schertler.   And just to be clear, when did you hear about it?  24
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  I don't recall when I heard about it, but I heard through the press 25

  153
that Daszak and a couple of others had submitted a proposal to DARPA to do some 1
experiments.  I heard about it because I -- I heard it through the press.  I think there was a 2
confusion that that was an NIH proposal, and it wasn't.  3
BY MR. BENZINE:  4
Q It came out, kind of, within the last year.  Does that sound about right?  Like, 5
it wasn't at the time; it wasn't in 2020.   6
A No.  No, no, no.  It was definitely after that, yeah.   7
Q So Dr.  Baric didn't tell you about this proposal during that meeting?  8
A The first I heard about the proposal was from the newspapers, not Dr.  Baric.   9
Q Thank you.   10
I want to  -- I will avoid retreading a lot of past topics, but -- talk about 11
gain -of-function a little bit.   12
And and the minority, I think, laid out there's multiple definitions, 13
there's a lot of confusion.  People say "gain -of-function," people say "gain -of-function of 14
concern," people say "ePPP," and they're all talking about different things at different 15
times and different places under different definitions.   16
So, again, I want to walk through, and, to avoid introducing a whole lot of paper, if 17
you still have them, I'm going to use what the minority introduced as exhibits.  I'll 18
announce them as I go.  19
So, going through this section, I want to focus on the definitions, not necessarily 20
the policies that govern them.   21
A Right.   22
Q And I'll wait for  -- it's going to be A, is what we're going to start with.   23
Mr. Schertler.   Yeah, I think we've got the three exhibits here.   24
Mr. Benzine.   So this is minority exhibit A.   25

  154
Mr. Schertler.   I don't think we have the number on it.  What is the title of A?   1
Mr. Benzine.   It's this one.   2
Mr. Schertler.   Okay.  Yeah.  3
Mr. Benzine.   It's the NIH website, "Gain -of-Function Research Involving Potential 4
Pandemic Pathogens."   5
BY MR. BENZINE:  6
Q So this page was last reviewed by the NIH on July  12, 2021.  So this page was 7
online until at least July  12, 2021.  We know it was online until October 20, 2021.   8
And you were read the definition under the header "Gain -of-Function Research" 9
as describing a type of research that modifies a biological agent so that it confers new or 10
enhanced activity to that agent.   11
And you generally agree with that definition as would apply to broad, big -level, 12
kind of the top level of gain -of-function research?  13
A The broad generic.  14
Q Yes.   15
A Not the operational definition or the regulatory definition.  16
Q Correct.   17
Then, I believe it was  -- I'm going to skip over the pause, but minority exhibit C 18
outlined the definition for what would fall under further HHS scrutiny as research that 19
would involve an enhanced potential pandemic pathogen.   20
And that's defined as -- a potential pandemic pathogen, one that is likely of wide 21
and uncontrollable spread in humans and likely to cause significant morbidity and/or 22
mortality in humans resulting from the enhancement of the transmissibility and/or 23
virulence of the pathogen.   24
So that's research enhancing potential pandemic pathogens; is that right?  25

  155
A Reasonably anticipated to enhance the  --  1
Q So it would be  -- this definition would be applied when someone proposes 2
doing an experiment?  3
A Right.   4
Q And the difference between these two, beyond the "reasonably 5
anticipated," is primarily the "enhanced potential pandemic pathogen" part of it?  6
A Right.   7
Q A definition that was not introduced but I want to touch on is "dual -use 8
research of concern," which is defined by the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and 9
Response as life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be 10
reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that 11
could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat, with broad potential 12
consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, 13
the environment, materiel, or national security.   14
Does that sound about right?  15
A That was the definition way -- 16
Q Okay.  17
A -- back before that.  I think the dual -use research of concern was the thing 18
that was discussed, like, years ago.  This, here, supplanted that.  19
Q Is there not  a -- I guess, could something be ePPP research, so fall under this 20
framework and this definition, but not dual -use research?  21
A I'm not sure what you're saying.  I'm just saying that this is the policy 22
guidance that was determined by OSTP that the Department created a framework from 23
to guide us on research with these types of organism.  This is the framework that was 24
used for our definition of the operative definition of "gain -of-function research of 25

  156
concern."   1
Q Okay.  I guess I'm trying  -- and I'm sorry, and I'll drop it after this.  I'm trying 2
to figure out if there are three buckets or if there are two buckets; if there is a bucket of 3
high -level gain -of-function, that first definition we just talked about, big, broad 4
gain -of-function; ePPP gain -of-function  -- 5
A Right.  6
Q -- and then dual -use research.   7
A Yeah.  I believe that the dual -use thing was, in many respects, part of the 8
confusion of what it is that does it.  And these were the things that became the regulatory 9
guidelines.   10
So, when I  -- to repeat, when I'm asked is something gain -of-function, I'm referring 11
to the operative definition of gain -of-function according to the framework of the 3PCO.   12
Q Okay.   13
A That's my definition.  That is the regulatory operational definition.   14
And as we were talking about before, other people use the word 15
"gain -of-function" -this, "gain -of-function" -that, and everybody's got their own 16
interpretation of it.  But when you're deciding whether a grant should be funded, this is 17
the operational definition.   18
And when I was asked anywhere -- by the Congress, by the Senate, by Senator 19
Paul -- this is what I was referring to.   20
Q This website has been changed -- and we're going to talk about that in a little 21
bit too -- I imagine, in part, because of the confusion.  It's just the timing on the change  -- 22
A Right.  23
Q -- is kind of interesting.   24
But this was up and confirmable by July 12, 2021.  If this isn't the NIH's definition 25

  157
for gain -of-function research, why is it on the website?  1
A I can't answer that, because I had nothing to do with putting -- 2
Q Okay.  3
A -- the definition on their website.   4
Q Do you think it being on the NIH website was confusing?  5
A I think  -- I don't want to surmise.  That's a speculation.  But I would imagine 6
they changed it because they thought it was confusing.   7
Q Okay.  8
Under these definitions -- broad gain -of-function, ePPP gain -of-function -- can 9
something fall under definition  under Exhibit A and not under definition under exhibit C?  10
Mr. Schertler.   Could you just clarify that?  So exhibit  A is the website's definition, 11
right?  12
Mr. Benzine.   Yeah.  Could research meet the definition of "gain -of-function" on 13
exhibit A?   14
Mr. Schertler.   So which "gain -of-function" definition on exhibit A?  Because it 15
goes into  --  16
Mr. Benzine.   The one under the heading "Gain -of-Function Research."   17
Mr. Schertler.   So the big, broad definition?   18
Mr. Benzine.   Yes.  19
Dr. Fauci.   So the term "gain -of-function" describes the type of research that 20
modifies a biological agent so that it confers new or enhanced activity to that agent.   21
Now, there are many, many gains -of-functions that  --  22
Mr. Schertler.   So, if you have that definition, why don't we just go with --  23
BY MR. BENZINE:  24
Q I'm not disputing that there are many gains -of-function.  I'm trying to 25

  158
determine if something can meet that definition without meeting the standard of more 1
regulatory review under the P3CO framework.   2
A Yeah.   3
Q Yes?  4
A Yeah.  I'm trying to think of an example.  So, if a gain -of-function where you 5
make a virus grow better in eggs so that you can then make enough virus to create a 6
vaccine, you've made that influenza virus have a gain -of-function.  That does not fall 7
under an ePPP, because it is not a pandemic potential pathogen.   8
Q Okay.  Thank you.   9
A All right.  10
Q I want to introduce majority exhibit 11.  11
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 11  12
    was marked for identification.]  13
BY MR. BENZINE:  14
Q So this is majority exhibit 11.  It is an op -ed in The Washington Post written 15
by you, Dr. Gary Nabel, and Dr.  Collins and published December 30, 2011.   16
I'll give you a minute to skim it over, but do you generally recall this, writing this 17
piece?  18
A Yeah.   19
Q Why did you draft this article?  20
A I believe this was about the time when there was a lot of discussion and 21
some confusion about the articles that were submitted for publication and published on 22
the ferret studies that were done by the Dutch and the University of Wisconsin 23
investigators.   24
Q And that was taking avian influenza, H5N1, and making it transmissible in 25

  159
ferrets.  Is that correct?  1
A Right.  2
Q At the top of the third paragraph on the first page, you say, "... important 3
information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the 4
laboratory."   5
What did you mean by that?  6
A I explained that, I believe, in the subsequent part, and I also explained it in a 7
subsequent article in Science Magazine, which means that there are some questions that 8
are important for the public health, such as determining are there mutations that signal 9
the evolution of a virus that you would have to be concerned about or that might signal 10
you to the type of antiviral drug that you want to make -- that this important information 11
can come from that, but it needs to be done under very, very careful circumstances by 12
very highly trained and competent investigators.   13
Q In this article, you also say that it's important  -- and you kind of just touched 14
on it  -- it's important that a risk -benefit analysis comparing the -- 15
A Yeah.  16
Q -- risk of the research to the  --  17
A Yeah.  And I was  -- we were very careful in this article, as well as in the 18
Science article that was written by Francis and I and not by Gary Nabel, in which we said 19
that, when you do it, you've got to be very careful and you've got to do it with a good 20
reason and you've got to make sure that the information you get is important for the 21
public health.   22
Q So, in researching for this, there was a -- "argument" may be too strong a 23
word, but -- a back -and-forth on whether or not Dr.  Fouchier and the University of 24
Madison and his Erasmus in the Netherlands should publish their work on H5N1, that, by 25

  160
virtue of publishing it, it could be misappropriated -- 1
A Right.  2
Q -- and used poorly.  3
A Right.  4
Q How does NIAID review that sort of situation?  Like, do you get a heads -up 5
on when publications come in that might describe research that could be 6
misappropriated?  7
A Well, now you're talking 2024 and 2023.  Absolutely.   8
Q Okay.  9
A But, back then, things were not as strict.  In fact, this whole scenario of the 10
Netherlands -Wisconsin experiments on the ferret are what triggered the pause.  Because 11
what happened is that these manuscripts were submitted to a journal, and the journal 12
editors as well as people who were reviewing it said, wow, you know, they did this 13
experiment; was this done properly?   14
It happened to have been done by very experienced, highly trained investigators.  15
But that allowed the field to say, we really need to start looking at things before the 16
experiments are done.  And that's when the pause occurred.   17
And, during that pause, we had the 3 -year deliberation of, what are the things 18
that really need to be regulated?  And that's how we came up with the policy guidance 19
and the framework.   20
But, back then, this was a wake -up call, yes.   21
BY MR. STROM:  22
Q So, within NIAID, who does that risk -reward assessment that you guys talked 23
about needing to be done in advance of the experiment?  Is that 24
another  DM- -- Dr. Erbelding's division?  25

  161
A Yeah.  Well, that's a combination -- now that, you know, we had the wake -up 1
call about those experiments that, fortunately, were done by very competent people who 2
did it correctly -- 3
Q Uh-huh.  4
A -- that right now there's, I believe, two levels at least, maybe more, of 5
review.   6
Q Uh-huh.  7
A The peer review who looks at it makes an estimate of it.  But before the 8
thing even gets submitted as a grant, the boards at the institutional level -- I think it's 9
called the Institutional Review Board of an institution -- makes a determination on 10
whether or not it should even be submitted.   11
Once it's submitted, then the DMID, the Division of Microbiology and Infectious 12
Disease, staff also makes a determination of whether it's worth doing given the risk.    13

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[4:15 p.m.]  1
BY MR. BENZINE:  2
Q What about the review process for publications?  So like you said, this kind 3
of triggered a thought on  -- "censoring" is too strong a word  --  4
A Yeah.  5
Q -- but reviewing publications  --  6
A Yeah.  7
Q -- on that could lay out research that could be misappropriated.  How does 8
that --  9
A Yeah, right now, most of the time, not always, but most of the time the 10
people who are doing the experiments, who write the paper up, send it in to the program 11
staff out of courtesy to show that we have now a productive amount of research from the 12
funding you give.  13
But sometimes papers come out  -- remember, these are papers that are now 14
modern, being approved  -- that the staff doesn't know about it.   15
But usually they send it to their program staff out of courtesy, and I believe it's to 16
their benefit because it's telling this program staff, "See, you funded us, and, look, we 17
now have some productive results from that."  18
Q Thank you.   19
I want to introduce majority exhibit 12.   20

  163
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 12  1
    was marked for identification.]  2
Dr. Wenstrup.   While that's going around, let me ask, is virtually all research 3
published?   4
Dr. Fauci.   The answer is probably not.  And the reason is that sometimes when 5
you get a negative result and you submit it, the journals reject it.   6
And that's one of the issues that I believe the scientific community is dealing with, 7
is that how do you get data out, that you did an experiment, it didn't work, it was a 8
failure, but you submit it to the New England Journal and they say, "Sorry, we're not 9
interested," you submit it to the Annals of Internal Medicine, they say, "Sorry, we're not 10
interested," and then nobody really sees it.  So --   11
Dr. Wenstrup.   What about not submitting it at all for fear of rejection?   12
Dr. Fauci.   Oh, i doubt that.  I think most investigators, when they put enough 13
work in it  -- I mean, I can't speak, Mr.  Chairman, for everybody  -- but most investigators, 14
when they put a lot of work in it, they want to submit it somewhere, even if it's a 15
third -tier journal, just so that they can, you know, get some credit on their CV for it.   16
I doubt it.  If there's  -- I mean, I'm sure there's somebody that's done that, 17
that's  decided --  18
Dr. Wenstrup.   I mean, if their premise was way off, they may not be anxious to  --  19
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  20
Dr. Wenstrup.  -- show that to the world.   21
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, yeah.  22
Dr. Wenstrup.   So --  23
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, I see what you're saying, yeah.   24
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah.  Thank you.  25

  164
Mr. Benzine.   So this is majority exhibit 12.  It's an article written by you in mBio 1
entitled, "Research on Highly Pathogenic H5N1 Influenza Virus:  The Way Forward."  And 2
it's from the September/October 2012 issue, 2012 issue, so about a year or so later than 3
the Washington Post article.   4
I want to draw your attention to one particular section that you wrote in here 5
because it really stood out.  The second paragraph on the left -hand column about halfway 6
through, there's a sentence that starts "Putting aside  -- " 7
Dr. Fauci.   Uh-huh.  8
Mr. Benzine.   I don't know if you see it.  9
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  10
Mr. Schertler.   Second  --  11
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, right here.  12
Mr. Benzine.   And it reads, "Putting aside the specter of bioterrorism for the 13
moment, consider this hypothetical scenario:  an important gain -of-function experiment 14
involving a virus with serious pandemic potential is performed in a well -regulated, 15
world -class laboratory by experienced investigators, but the information from the 16
experiment is then used by another scientist who does not have the same training and 17
facilities and is not subject to the same regulations.  In an unlikely but conceivable turn of 18
events, what if the scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak 19
and ultimately triggers a pandemic?"   20
What stood out to me is at least from some of the people we've talked to is this 21
sounds almost premonitionary of what could have happened, what one of the possible 22
scenarios is for COVID -19 of a well -known, world -class laboratory and scientist, in 23
Dr. Baric and UNC, collaborating with the Wuhan Institute with known biosafety and 24
training lapses, them attempting to recreate a UNC experiment, and a lab worker 25

  165
subsequently getting infected.  1
You wrote this in 2012.  Is that  -- is the scenario you authored then still possible 2
today?  3
Dr. Fauci.   Well, you know, what I was really referring to here is that  -- and it's a 4
broader picture, and I think that's something, Mr.  Chairman, when you said you want 5
suggestions about lessons learned  -- what we really need, even if we have the strictest, 6
best control of what we fund in the United States, we don't have control of what's done 7
in other places.  8
And I would think that if you were to ask  -- and you did ask  -- what lessons that I 9
could suggest to the group, I think we would need a broader international organization, a 10
strengthened WHO or a U.N. or something, to have much more regulatory control of 11
what everybody does.   12
Because if you just do what we're doing here with this, which our framework, 13
which is good for us, that doesn't control what's being funded privately or what's being 14
funded by other organizations.  15
Dr. Wenstrup.   And that's my concern.  I agree with what you just said on that, 16
Doctor.   17
And as I read this, too, you know, I'm a soldier.  I sit on the Intelligence 18
Committee.  I've been concerned about bioweapons before COVID ever came around.  19
Our State Department said as far back as 2005 China's interested in bioweapons.   20
What may be good intentions don't always end up good intentions.  I don't think 21
the Wright brothers ever thought that what they invented could be used to kill 3,000 22
people in one day by flying planes into buildings.  But there's always nefarious people out 23
there, and there's nefarious components to especially adversarial governments.   24
And that is one of my  -- one of my concerns in this whole process is to what are 25

  166
we doing, doing this  -- these research projects in China at all  --  1
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  2
Dr. Wenstrup.  -- at all, especially you're familiar with the AMMS, I believe, the 3
Academy of Military Medical Science in China.  Where are they located?   4
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  5
Dr. Wenstrup.   In Wuhan.  6
Dr. Fauci.   Right.   7
Dr. Wenstrup.   I'll let Mitch continue, but I'm just expressing my concerns  --  8
Dr. Fauci.   Sure.  9
Dr. Wenstrup.  -- as you are here, I think.  10
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, no, I am.  And I think historically that the collaborations that we 11
have had with China for decades have been quite productive, leading to things that could 12
be very beneficial for public health.   13
What the situation is now, I can't surmise on.  But we've had very good 14
collaborations with the Chinese over the years.  15
Dr. Wenstrup.   I was in China years ago, and I mentioned that to them.  I said, 16
when I get my surgical journals, I see papers written by Chinese physicians.  So there's a 17
lot we can do together.  But I was more there to talk about fentanyl at the time.   18
Dr. Fauci.   Okay.  Sorry.  Thanks.   19

  167
BY MR. BENZINE:  1
Q I want to, sitting here today, do you still agree that -- or do you still think 2
that the benefits outweigh the risks regarding this type of research?   3
A I think you have to take it on a case -by-case basis.  What is the question 4
you're trying to ask and answer?  Is this the best way to get it?  Is the risk -benefit worth 5
it?   6
And all of those things need to be taken on a case -by-case basis as to what 7
pathogen you're dealing with, what is the risk of that pathogen.  It's very complicated.  8
You can't say, though, I still agree with this.  You really have to apply it to a specific case.  9
Q Okay.  Really quickly, wrapping up our hour, if you could turn back to 10
minority exhibit B, it's the gain of function, the deliberative pause document, that one.   11
A This one here?   12
Q Yes, sir.   13
Were you involved in crafting the deliberative pause?   14
A Crafting the pause?   15
Q Yeah, the language.   16
A No.  17
Q No?   18
A No.  19
Q Do you recall who was?   20
A No, I don't.  I assumed it was OSTP was involved, I believe.  But the honest 21
answer, I don't know who crafted it.  22
Q All right.  And then flipping to minority exhibit C, the P3CO document?  23
A This one here?   24
Q Yes, sir.   25

  168
Were you involved in drafting that?   1
A No.  2
Q Do you know who was?   3
A Well, this was at the departmental level.  What it was, was the 3  -- to my 4
understanding  -- I was not involved  -- is that the 3 -year pause was a combination of OSTP, 5
the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, and multiple scientific 6
working groups that were discussing it with individuals who put together a guidance, 7
policy guidance, which then months later the Department used that policy guidance to 8
come up with the framework which came to the paragraph that we've read multiple 9
times.  10
Q Yes.   11
A Right.  12
Q HHS is the only department to use that OSTP guidance, and NIAID is the only 13
division within NIH to submit any proposals under the P3CO.   14
Does it  -- it comes across a little strange that NIAID wouldn't be involved in the 15
drafting of the policy that they then have to work under.   16
A Well, you know, they may have  -- and, again, I'm not certain -- but they may 17
have tapped into some of our subject matter experts at the program level.  But I certainly 18
was not involved in the drafting of these.  19
Q Sitting here today, we've been through, like, obviously been through a 20
once -in-a-generation pandemic.  All of this has come under the microscope.  Do you think 21
the P3CO policy is sufficient?   22
A As I've said in the past, we have got to continually  -- and I think it was said 23
here, too, as part of it  -- I didn't say it -- but I think part of it says  HHS will periodically 24
reevaluate and modify the process, as necessary, to reflect scientific advances and 25

  169
changes in the regulatory landscape.  1
So my feeling, and I publicly expressed this, that I'm always very much in favor of 2
taking a look back and say, do we need to modify these, do they need to be broader, do 3
they need to be changed?   4
And I believe, if I'm not mistaken  -- I've been out of government for a year  -- I 5
believe that there is a process ongoing now to relook, do they want to broaden this and 6
not make it so  restrictive to this type of a PPP.  7
Q Yes, the NSABB put out recommendations to OSTP to  --  8
A Right.  9
Q -- to broaden it.  Were you contacted by NSABB during  that process?  10
A No, I was not.  11
Q Do you think, in your opinion, that it should be broader?   12
A Well, my feeling is that there should be more wiggle room, because clearly 13
the amount of anxiety and concern that has been generated by this process means we 14
need to consider, you know, the general public's comfort in this, as well as people who, 15
you know, who made this in a good -faith way over 3 years of discovering it.  16
And, quite frankly, you recall part of the process wasn't just NSABB and the OSTP 17
and others.  They had broad public input.  So now we have the situation where there's a 18
lot of concern and discussion  -- test assess, we're sitting here at this table.   19
So I think that we really do.  We need to relook at it, you know, and maybe get 20
more opportunity for people to look at things more carefully to avoid this kind of 21
confusion about what was done correctly or not.   22
Mr. Benzine.   We are coming up at the end of our hour.  Unless John has any 23
questions, we can  --  24
Mr. Strom.   I don't.  25

  170
Mr. Benzine.   We can go off the record.   1
[Recess.]  2
  All right.  We can go back on the record.   3
BY  4
Q Dr. Fauci, I just wanted to start with a few questions on the general concept 5
of zoonotic spillover as it relates to viruses in general.   6
We've talked a little bit about SARS -CoV-2.  But just to start with, I think we, at 7
least here in the subcommittee, we've spent a lot of time examining what a lab accident 8
could look like, exact details, chimeric work, serial passage, different BSL levels.  It's all 9
great.  That's all important.  We agree.   10
But I'm not sure whether we have always spent the same amount of time fleshing 11
out what a zoonotic origin might look like.   12
So could you start and help us by just talking a little bit about historical context for 13
zoonotic jumps, whether with coronaviruses or other viruses or whatever pathogen you 14
might choose?   15
A Sure.  So as I mentioned earlier, about 70, 70 -plus, maybe 75 percent of all 16
the new infections, namely infections that we had not experienced before, are zoonotic in 17
that they are fundamentally a reservoir in an animal and jump species.  18
So the classical ones that have been studied for years are influenza, the bird flu, 19
which was the H5N1 and the H7N9, which jumped from a bird, in one case a clearly 20
identifiable chicken outbreak, that led to human infections and then human transmission 21
but not efficient transmission.  22
Another example of a zoonotic is HIV, which clearly, it took several, several years 23
to determine what the source was, but it's a chimpanzee.  Very clearly jumped probably 24
decades and decades before the actual recognizable outbreak.  And it was only change in 25

  171
demographic and sociological circumstances that allowed it to explode in a population.  1
So that's another one.  2
Another zoonotic is Ebola.  And the interesting thing about Ebola is that we still 3
don't know exactly what the steps of it.  We know that bats can harbor Ebola, and we 4
know that there might be a reservoir in forest animals.  We don't know whether the 5
forest animal infects the bat or the bat infects it.  But it's a zoonotic that jumps into 6
humans.  It isn't primary.   7
And you can go on and on.  There are multiple, multiple examples of that.   8
Now, just  -- well, I'll wait for your question.  9
Q No, please.   10
A But to go on a little bit more, sometimes, in fact maybe more often than not, 11
when there's a jump from an animal species to a human, it doesn't adapt very well for 12
transmissibility, and it's sort of easy to stop.  There are some examples of that.   13
One that we worry about a fair amount in pandemic preparedness for what are 14
the risk viruses that we need to look at sooner rather than later is Nipah virus is one of 15
them that can jump species, infect humans, but we don't have a global Nipah outbreak.  16
But it's something you're concerned about.  17
So there are a number of viruses, and depending upon the species and depending 18
upon the fact of they can either jump a species, a zoonotic, and not spread rapidly or they 19
could jump.  And I gave an example in the prior discussion of the 2009 H1N1 influenza, 20
which clearly was a swine flu, jumped into humans and immediately began to spread 21
rapidly.  So various versions.  22
Q Is there  -- we've heard sometimes, what, if any, is the special significance of 23
bats as the originators?  24
A Yeah.  Bats are bad actors.  I mean, we know that.  Bats very, very often are 25

  172
able to harbor viruses without getting sick and without dying from it.  It's something 1
unique about the bats' immune system or lack of the ability to cause disease in different 2
organs.  And they are the source of a number of infection s, Nipah being one of them, 3
yeah.   4
Q Are there  -- when we think about China specifically, I know that that has 5
been a place where a lot of this research has been focused.  Does China as a country have 6
any characteristics or traits that might make it ripe for zoonotic spillover?  7
A Yeah, yeah.  I mean, we've studied that and written about that.  And if you 8
look at the animal -human interface, and there are two ways to have an animal -human 9
interface.  You can encroach upon their habitat, or you could bring them into your 10
habitat.  11
And when we had the H5N1 crises that prompted us to stockpile tens of millions 12
of doses of an H5N1 virus, I actually went on a fact -finding trip to multiple countries in 13
Southeast Asia.   14
And what became patently obvious to us was what we saw were people who were 15
sleeping in the chicken coops where there were pig coops next to it and waterfowl were 16
landing on  -- I mean, talk about a perfect storm of people being close to a virus, namely 17
flu, that can be a mixing bowl in a pig and that often has occurred by waterfowl.   18
So that's a classic example of Far East  -- China, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand  -- where 19
you see that kind of interaction.   20
The other one is when you bring into a market where you have forest animals not 21
cultured, cultivated animals where you sort of have a chicken farm where you have 22
control over it, where you bring in exotic animals that never really have an opportunity to 23
have much interaction with people.  So they could harbor an infection that you never 24
really noticed because the public doesn't go into contact with these.  25

  173
But when you bring them into a market where you have a lot of people 1
congregating, that really is a perfect setup for I think perturbing a normal animal -human 2
interface.  That was shown to have happened with SARS -1 where it was clear that a bat 3
infected a civet cat.  And civet cats are ceremonial, festive meals, very, very common in 4
China and in Guangdong Province, and that almost certainly is what happened there.  5
So it depends on how you perturb the normal animal -human interface.  That's 6
what zoonotic infections do.  7
Q Great.  So then zooming into SARS -CoV-2 specifically, knowing that we don't 8
know the answer, but in theory what might a zoonotic origin have looked like in the 9
context of this current virus?   10
A Well, a zoonotic origin might look like a bat who is generally the ones that 11
are the reservoirs of that interacting with animals in the wild.   12
And when animals are brought into a marketplace and people have direct contact 13
with that, that could be the scenario where it jumps species, maybe infects someone or 14
affects a few people.  Maybe it doesn't have much impact on them, and then that person 15
infects another person.  And then you'll reach a critical point where it actually explodes 16
into a major outbreak.  17
Q So there's a body of research out there sort of examining data points on that 18
question.  If you're able to talk a little bit about your understanding of it, for example, 19
there's a question of whether the extent to which early cases may have been clustered 20
around the Huanan Seafood Market.  I don't know if you're familiar with that wor k.   21
A I am.  But not being an evolutionary virologist, there are a number of papers, 22
two in particular, one written by a person called Pekar  and another one written by a 23
person called Worobey in Science magazine, with a commentary in Cell, in which they use 24
geospatial, epidemiological, and virological investigation to come up with not a 25

  174
conclusion but what they consider  -- and I have to rely on these evolutionary virologists 1
who are international and highly, highly respected people, who feel that it is very likely 2
that the scenario of animals that were illegally in the Huanan fish market in Wuhan  -- and 3
we know that they were there because, according to the papers, that photographs were 4
taken of raccoon dogs and others that should not have been in there, that we know 5
animals were in the market that shouldn't have been there.  Virus was isolated from a 6
part of the market where the animals were known to have been.   7
And then here's where you get into molecular virology that I rely on the expertise 8
of people  -- and that's not my lane of expertise  -- is that there were two lineages that 9
came out which really indicate that there were multiple introductions which would be 10
very, very much compatible with there being infection among animals and different 11
people getting infected.  12
Q In the case of -- SARS -1 is a good example  -- was it instantaneous that folks 13
were able to pin down that pathway  --  14
A No. 15
Q -- you described?  16
A No, it took quite a while.  And the actual definitive molecular proof took 17
years, even though it, you know, the published data say, well, they strongly suspected this 18
after  -- I don't know, I'll have to take a guess but, you know, a year, we'll say.  But it really 19
took a while.  It took decades, well over a decade to make the connection with HIV for 20
sure.   21
Q Is it fair to expect that sorting through something like that, you know, even 22
in this case would take some time?   23
A It would take some time if you had easy access to the potential species that 24
are carrying it, which is, you know, one of the reasons why I and others have said it would 25

  175
be wonderful if we could be able to go in and sample these animals.   1
Because apparently what happened  -- I wasn't there  -- but apparently what 2
happened was that as soon as there was a realization of the outbreak, the animals were 3
killed and disposed of.  So the evidence might have already been knocked out, which is 4
unfortunate.  5
Q Knowing that it's not possible to know definitively, do you have a personal 6
point of view about what you think is more likely in this case?   7
A I do.  I mean, I, as I've said and I'll say it here, in total open honesty, I have a 8
completely open mind that it could be either a lab leak or a natural occurrence.  9
When I read the papers written by an international group of highly, highly 10
respected evolutionary virologists, I lean much more heavily that this is a natural 11
occurrence because I don't see any specific data except coincidental innuendoes and 12
things like that, that it's a lab leak.  It certainly could be.  It certainly could be.   13
And I keep that very open.  And even though people have said that I don't have an 14
open mind, that I'm very open about that.   15
But because something is possible doesn't mean it's equally probable.  And if you 16
look at the scientific data, I think the probability weighs much more heavily toward it 17
being a natural occurrence.  18
.  I appreciate it.   19
I think, with that, I'm going to hand it to my colleague,    20
  Great.  Thank you.  21
BY  22
Q Thank you, Dr. Fauci.  I'm  from the Energy and Commerce 23
Committee.   24
I just want to echo my colleagues.  Thanks for your time.  Thank you for all of your 25

  176
work and walking through all of this with us today.  1
To pick up where  left off, you know, you're talking a lot in terms of prior 2
flu viruses, other viruses that originated from wildlife reservoirs and that we know that 3
these are circulating and other viruses that have not yet jumped to humans.   4
And presumably we know what is circulating -- or at least in part -- because of 5
wildlife surveillance and monitoring work.  Is that accurate?   6
A That is accurate.  In fact, some recent studies, even like a month or two ago, 7
three ago, have shown that there are viruses out in bat populations that are quite similar.  8
Q And so just taking a step back, broadly, in terms of thinking about pandemic 9
preparedness, understanding not only, you know, what we are directly facing that we 10
know is transmissible to humans but what could become transmissible to humans, could 11
you just talk about where wildlife surveillance and monitoring sort of fits among all the 12
other pieces that we've talked about today?   13
A Yeah, it is -- it's an essential part of knowing what the threat is, what the 14
risks that are out there, because if you don't have any idea of what's going on out there 15
you have to do surveillance.  Surveillance is absolutely critical.   16
In fact, just dating back to 2009, one of the criticisms of the scientific community 17
with the swine flu of 2009 is we weren't doing surveillance in the pigs to look for viruses 18
that might have the capability of jumping species.   19
I remember that very clearly because there was, you know, criticism about that.  20
Why don't we have better surveillance in the animal -human interface, you know, the 21
people who are talking about One Health, namely looking at animals together with 22
humans to be able to have a good idea of the surveillance.   23
Q And can you just explain again at a high level what changes have to occur in 24
a virus that exists in an animal reservoir for it to become transmissible to humans, and 25

  177
how do we look for that?  1
A Yeah.  Well, there's various levels of it.  There could be animals  -- there could 2
be viruses that are in a animal that just needs to jump and it'll go right ahead and infect 3
an individual.  It doesn't have to change much.   4
There are other viruses that need to adapt in a host.  And that's the reason why 5
the bat virus that was originally the one that infect  -- not the bat virus but the type of 6
virus that infected the civet cat likely adapted itself in the civet to get the right number of 7
mutations to become transmissible and pathogenic to form SARS -CoV-1.  8
So really it is sometimes direct.  There are no good examples that have been well, 9
well documented to my knowledge of bats directly infecting humans with those viruses.  10
So usually what we've seen is a bat will directly infect another species, and the 11
virus will evolve in that species to develop the ability to infect and transmit in humans.    12
Q So in many ways is it fair, if we're thinking about the spectrum of pandemic 13
preparedness and response, you know, we're at the far end, you have things like 14
therapeutics and vaccines, that this is really at the very, very front end  --  15
A Right.  16
Q -- of preparedness and understanding what could become a pandemic?   17
A Yes.  18
Q Okay.  So as a result of that, you know, it's a crucial part of pandemic 19
preparedness to sustain and even bolster the wildlife surveillance activities that are out 20
there currently.   21
A There's a whole discipline of that in One Health of surveying animals and 22
looking to see what's out there that might actually have even a distant capability of being 23
able to transmit.  24
Q And can you just talk a little bit about the importance of international 25

  178
collaboration in this particular aspect?  I mean, some of the other things we've talked 1
about, you know, you have a gene sequence, for example.  You can, you know, analyze 2
that in your lab from ostensibly wherever.  You don't need the presence of something.  3
You just need data, right?  You can sort do have that kind of analysis.   4
But it seems that wildlife surveillance needs to happen where the wildlife  --  5
A Right.  6
Q -- is around the globe.   7
A Right.  8
Q So can you talk about that?  9
A It's absolutely critical because once you get a disease that becomes a 10
pandemic, it doesn't know geographic boundaries.  And we're experiencing that right 11
now.  We have a virus and a disease that evolved in China, and the whole world has 12
gotten infected.   13
However, there are certain pathogens which are very, very specific for particular 14
parts of the world.  And if you want to stay ahead of the potential of a pandemic evolving 15
from that, you have to go to and/or collaborate with scientists in that part of the world.   16
You know, when people ask me that and I try and explain it in lay language is you 17
don't go to Jersey City, New Jersey, to study malaria.  You know, you go to Africa to study 18
malaria or certain countries in South America.   19
It's very much the same when you talk about the diseases we're talking about.  20
You have to have enough global international collaboration to be able to study viruses 21
that might originate in one country but affect any of a number of other countries.   22
Q So when there's a reduction for whatever reason in international 23
collaboration in various regions, fair to say then that that limits our ability to see what 24
might be coming at us.   25

  179
A Right.  As I was mentioning, it takes your eyes off what's possible.  That's one 1
of the problems.  2
Q Earlier, when you were talking about testing, you said that, you know, 3
testing for SARS -CoV-2 or really any other disease is our eyes during a pandemic in terms 4
of the human population.  So fair to think of, like, wildlife monitoring as our eyes in the 5
wildlife population, this is what is happening there that could come to us?   6
A The analogy is appropriate.  7
Q Okay.  I mean, are there instances that you've  seen where work that has 8
been done in monitoring wildlife and viruses that either have not yet jumped to humans 9
or, you know, some ancestor of it may have jumped to humans like some of the other 10
viruses that we talked about or the actual work of wildlife monitoring itself and things 11
that we learned about those reservoirs contributed to response of a pandemic like in 12
SARS -CoV-2?   13
A I think monitoring of wildlife, of waterfowl has allowed us to appreciate, if 14
you look at the history of H5N1, when it got  -- appeared first in China and then it went to 15
Eastern Europe and then it went to other countries, it was by anticipating that it would 16
occur by the flight patterns of wildfowl that actually were going to be ultimately landing, 17
as you know, in a certain place.   18
And it was quite predictive that the wildfowl got infected, and you had spread of 19
H5N1 from what was probably the original nidus in China.  It started to be seen in a 20
number of other countries.   21
Q So if I'm understanding correctly, I mean, we've talked a lot about 22
therapeutics, and we'll talk about vaccines and all of that.  But at a sort of practical level, 23
there are things about wildlife surveillance that could inform things like agricultural 24
ranching practices that are not necessarily as sophisticated as developing a vaccine but 25

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have the practical effect of mitigating or in some cases maybe even eliminating risk of 1
human  --  2
A Right, yeah, yeah.  So let me give you an example.  3
If you do  -- there are two types of surveillances.  Well, there are more than two.   4
But two in particular are what's called sero -surveillance, where you take serum 5
samples from a large group of people representative of different demographic groups, 6
different occupation, different risks, and you could determine from antibodies that are 7
present in an individual whether or not they have been exposed to a potentially harmful 8
virus.   9
And that actually was done in some of the studies in question where you know 10
that X percent of the population, and you could determine were those farmers, were 11
those peoples that cleaned guano out of caves, were they people who worked in the 12
markets.   13
So sero -surveillance is one way of do it.  You survey the human population.  14
The other surveillance is to go into the wild, get bat viruses out, and see if those 15
viruses might actually be, are they or are they not capable of infecting a human?  Not 16
trying to make them capable, but are they or are they not?   17
So those are the two ways that -- surveillance either of the bat population or 18
surveillance of the human antibody population.  19
Q So in terms of, you know, lessons learned from the COVID -19 pandemic, 20
where does wildlife surveillance fit, if anywhere, in there?  You know, do we need to 21
increase wildlife monitoring, maintain it, add more safety processes?   22
A Yeah, I think you need to maintain it.  But you've certainly got to make sure 23
it's safely done.  And that's where we get into the question of international collaboration 24
and international guidelines of how to do it.   25

  181
You've got to do it in a way that's safe and that the risk of doing that is 1
commensurate with the information that you'll get out.  But you really have to keep 2
surveying the potential of what's out there.  3
.  At this point I want to turn it over to Congresswoman Dingell for 4
some questions.  5
Mrs. Dingell.   We're gettin' there.  We're gettin' there.   6
Dr. Fauci.   No, no, no.  No, Deb, I got to tell you, my phone just went off, and I 7
wanted to make sure it wasn't my daughter calling me.  So I was looking at my Apple 8
Watch.   9
Mrs. Dingell.   No worries.  No worries.   10
Let's go back to testing, to finish up on what we were talking about.   11
So once we got a good test, there was still a  -- the focus became on focusing up 12
the accessibility of the test.  And it was hard at the beginning.  13
What was the role of the Federal Government in scaling up the nationwide 14
testing?   15
Dr. Fauci.   In doing what with the Nation?   16
Mrs. Dingell.   Scaling up  --  17
Dr. Fauci.   Scaling.   18
Mrs. Dingell.   -- the Nation.   19
Dr. Fauci.   Well, the role of the Federal Government was that we should have 20
made, and did in some respects, make testing widely available.  I mean, if you go back in 21
statements that I've made way back is that the words I use is that we should be flooding 22
the system with tests in the same way that we mentioned keeping eyes on what's going 23
on, particularly as we got more information that the virus was spread in many cases by 24
asymptomatic people.  25

  182
Mrs. Dingell.   So let me  -- how did you partner with State and local government?  1
And by the way, that didn't happen at the beginning, as you well know.   2
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  3
Mrs. Dingell.   So what were the issues?  Why did  -- and how do we prevent 4
something like that happening in the future?   5
Dr. Fauci.   Well, if you're talking about the issue of lessons learned and how do 6
you prevent that in the future, you've got to immediately, when you have a test, you've 7
got to get the private sector involved in making tests that are inexpensive, sensitive, 8
specific, and available to everyone who needs it, and particularly when you're dealing 9
with a highly transmissible virus like a respiratory virus.   10
And you're right, that was not done.  And when it finally got close to that, it took a 11
long time to get there.   12
Mrs. Dingell.   So what was the role of the Federal Government?  How did you 13
partner with State and local?  I mean, I remember going through tents for  -- I mean, we 14
had drive -through testing for a long time.   15
So what is  -- what  -- and what challenges did the Federal Government play?  16
What's the Federal Government's role?  What's the State and local role?   17
Dr. Fauci.   You know, that's a good question that's argued about that.  There are 18
some that feel that this is a local issue and the States should be the ones that are 19
responsible for that.   20
But when the States don't do it and you have a situation where there's a public 21
health issue at hand, that's when you start talking about maybe the Federal Government 22
should step in and do that.  23
Mrs. Dingell.   I think that's going to become a bigger issue, because when you 24
were talking about public health before  --  25

  183
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  1
Mrs. Dingell.   -- a lot of public -- local public health departments aren't being 2
funded.  Local governments don't even have the money.  So  --  3
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, I'm totally aware of that, Congresswoman.  And I've learned that 4
by I -- one of the comments that I made in response to a question that was asked, I'm not 5
sure if it was from the majority or the minority, that when I got on the phone and spoke 6
to the people in the trenches, and there were multiple cities that I called every other 7
Tuesday  -- L.A., Seattle, Washington, Chicago, New Orleans, and D.C. -- and they all said 8
exactly what you said, "We don't have any tests."  And that was really a problem.  9
Mrs. Dingell.   So what were the challenges that the Federal Government faced in 10
getting it scaled up more quickly?  Or was it that you  -- the Federal Government didn't 11
think it was  --  12
Dr. Fauci.   Well, in the beginning there weren't good tests that could be used.  So 13
there was a whole period that we just didn't have the tests that were sensitive, specific, a 14
15-minute test that could be used by anybody.   15
When we finally did get it, we didn't get enough of them distributed.  And in order 16
to -- there were a lot of different problems.  Like one of them was, you know, a test could 17
be used  -- this was before the rapid test  -- a test could not be used unless somebody was 18
the contact of someone who has a symptom.  But that was almost oxymoronic because 19
most of the people were not  asymptom -- were asymptomatic.   20
So if you can only get a test by someone who was the contact of a symptomatic 21
person, you're missing all of the asymptomatics.   22
Mrs. Dingell.   So what are lessons learned that you'd recommend for the future?   23
Dr. Fauci.   I think we should put in an extraordinary  amount of -- not 24
extraordinary  -- an ample amount of resources into making tests widely available at the 25

  184
local level.   1
Mrs. Dingell.   If we had been able to do that sooner than we did, would it have 2
made a difference in what happened in this country?   3
Dr. Fauci.   I think it would have made a difference.  The degree of the difference, I 4
don't think I can accurately quantitate.  But I think if we had a test easily available 5
that -- and people were encouraged to utilize the test, people would not have 6
inadvertently infected anybody, particularly vulnerable people.  7
I mean, if there was a test where someone knew, I test myself, I'm not going to go 8
and visit my grandmother or my mother who's, you know, has a compensated  -- I mean a 9
compromised immune system, I wouldn't do that.   10
Mrs. Dingell.   So we're looking at an increase in COVID -19 right now.   11
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  12
Mrs. Dingell.   There's nobody in this room that doesn't know somebody that has 13
it.   14
Does testing still play a role  --  15
Dr. Fauci.   Oh, absolutely.  16
Mrs. Dingell.  -- in managing it?   17
Dr. Fauci.   Absolutely.  18
Mrs. Dingell.   And then how do we make sure  -- I'm very concerned that not 19
everybody  -- I test every day only because I don't know who's got it and who doesn't.  20
And I'm with a  -- this is the smallest group of people I'm with in a room.   21
But how do we  -- what do we need to do to make sure that  -- a lot of people can't 22
afford to get a test every day.   23
What's the Federal Government's responsibility?  State and local?  What do we do 24
to address this going forward?   25

  185
Dr. Fauci.   Again, I don't have control over that.  But if I were able to do that, I 1
would say we need to make copious tests freely available to anyone who wants it, 2
particularly when you're in the middle of now a resurgence.   3
Mrs. Dingell.   So I guess -- I have a lot more questions.  But I want you to have 4
time, and I know he's going to be ready to go.  5
So I'm going to turn it over to Kathy Castor so we can end this for you at some 6
point.   7
Ms. Castor.   Dr. Fauci, I'm Kathy Castor.  I'm in my 17th year in Congress.  A lot of 8
that time has been on the Energy and Commerce Committee.  So over the years you have 9
advised us.  I remember very well during Ebola many of your visits.  The symptoms of 10
Ebola were  -- are scary.  So that did capture a lot of attention.   11
You were there as we were grappling with Zika.  Zika was of particular concern 12
because I represent the State of Florida.  It's a mosquito -borne illness.   13
And it was surprising along the way because at first it was, I guess, did it 14
determine in Brazil and it passed from mother to fetus and caused some very significant 15
encephalitis.  16
But then we  -- it evolved over time, and it turned out it was also you could pass 17
along that disease through sexual transmission.  That was a surprise, wasn't it?   18
Dr. Fauci.   Correct.  19
Ms. Castor.   And then throughout the COVID -19 pandemic we relied on you.   20
And I just want to thank you for your years of advising policymakers like us that 21
don't have that base of scientific knowledge and always putting it in real -world terms so 22
that we can understand it, so that we can pass along to our  -- the folks we represent back 23
home the best advice as things evolve with a lot of these epidemics and pandemics.  24
I also want to focus a little bit on lessons learned, build a little bit on -- not on 25

  186
testing, but on what we've learned on public health data.   1
We -- right off the bat folks back home, after COVID -19 blew up in early 2020, they 2
wanted to know where is it, who is susceptible to it, where  -- and we were grappling with 3
all of those issues.   4
Meanwhile, we can look at  -- we had kind of a baseline of different public health 5
authorities.  The State of Florida at that time had  -- we had a pretty strong public health 6
system built up over decades that helped report illnesses at the county level, reported up 7
to the State.  The State had pretty good dashboards.  A lot of communities did not have 8
that kind of public health data.   9
I think a lot of folks thought the CDC, you could go right to the CDC website and 10
see a lot of information.  But their data gathering over time, it's not immediate, is it?  You 11
can't go to a CDC page and see a dashboard in real time of public health concerns in a 12
community.  Is that correct?   13
How would you characterize it?   14
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  I would  -- I would characterize what you're bringing up as one of 15
the major stumbling blocks and problems that we had with the pandemic.  It's a 16
combination of the CDC not having the capability or even the authority of getting 17
on-the-ground local public health information that in real time they could know what's 18
going on.  19
It's -- and, in fact, when you know the CDC went through an internal review, and 20
that was one of the many difficulties that were pointed out, is that they don't get data in 21
real time.   22
Part of it might be their fault, but part of it is the  fault of the system where data 23
that comes in at the local public health is so fractionated in our country, we don't have 24
one system that when a  -- and I'm going get to and I'll be concise about it -- but get into 25

  187
an example of that.  1
If someone comes in and they're infected, that test may not get reported.  If it 2
does, it gets reported locally.  And it doesn't necessarily go to a central system.   3
So at any given time, depending upon how well the local is collecting data, how 4
well the local who collects data is giving it to the central system, so that the central 5
dashboard is generally anywhere from weeks to, believe it or not, months behind.   6
And we knew that because in the middle of many of the waves of variants that we 7
had, the information that we, and I even personally as part of the various Coronavirus 8
Task Force and Coronavirus Response Teams, we had to get on the phone with our 9
colleagues in South Africa to figure out what was going on with the trend of the virus.  We 10
had to get on the phone with our colleagues from Israel and find out.  We had to get on 11
the phone with our colleagues from the U.K.   12
It was a humbling experience that they knew more about what the trend of the 13
virus was than we did in our own country.  That is a lesson learned we've got to correct.   14
Ms. Castor.   So in the  -- Congress did act, and through the public health 15
emergency we kind of unlocked some data streams.  So hospitals were required to report.  16
I think skilled nursing centers were required to report.  They would report infections.  17
They would report deaths.  They would  -- I guess they were  -- we were trying to get a 18
handle on age -related data, race -related data, urban, rural.   19
Was that helpful to you?   20
Dr. Fauci.   It was helpful but -- it was necessary, but it was not sufficient.  It wasn't 21
done completely to make it equivalent to what our colleagues in other countries who 22
knew essentially immediately in real time what was going on.  23
It was the right direction, and we need to keep going in that direction, but it didn't 24
solve the problem.   25

  188
Ms. Castor.   So I learned from folks back home in the Tampa Bay area that it's so 1
outdated that they were even reporting basic public health data to CDC via fax machine in 2
the year 2020, 2021.  3
Dr. Fauci.   That is true.  4
Ms. Castor.   Is -- and I know that they  -- we gave -- the Congress, bipartisan, in the 5
early CARES Act, I think, we -- no, it was  -- yes, I think it was in the CARES Act.  We said 6
here are resources to help modernize so that locals don't have to go through faxing this 7
material.  8
But there's a better way, isn't there, in this digital age to be more efficient and 9
save taxpayer money rather than relying on fax machines and doing things digitally?  10
Would you agree?   11
Dr. Fauci.   I would agree.  I would agree with you.  12
Ms. Castor.   And that would also help us understand any kind of health concerns 13
in a region or locally or among a certain population or in a rural area, wouldn't it?  14
Wouldn't that kind of real -time data be helpful to preventing the spread of disease or 15
tackling any problem?   16
Dr. Fauci.   The answer is an overwhelming yes, of course.  When you're dealing 17
particularly with a rapidly moving target, the way COVID was clearly a premier example of 18
a rapidly moving target, you have to stay with it and hopefully ahead of it instead of 19
weeks, if not months, behind it.  20
Ms. Castor.   So the  -- that's why it was entirely frustrating, coming from the State 21
of Florida, where we had invested over time in public health and we had good  -- fairly 22
good reporting systems, and yet kind of withered.  Like Rep. Dingell mentioned, across 23
the country, it's kind of declined, the State and local investment in public health and local 24
health departments.  25

  189
But there was a point where leaders in my State started to hide the data.  And this 1
was a particular concern because we have in our State constitution a requirement for 2
public records law.   3
So a lot of this was public records that my hospitals but just all of my neighbors, 4
they wanted to know how widespread are the infections, can their kids go safely back to 5
school in this area.   6
And at the time of the Delta surge in 2021 it seemed like there was this political 7
turn by leaders in my State.  And they actually started to take down public health data 8
that had been publicly available.  And it just seems like from  -- you know, I think it cost 9
lives.  10
They're downplaying the vaccine efficacy.  Some of the misinformation.  And now 11
we're running into, at the time the delta surge is on the increase, heading into the 12
summer of 2021, to withhold that data would be just the last thing that you would want 13
to do.  14
Did that ever get your attention at that point?   15
Dr. Fauci.   No, I don't recall  --  16
Ms. Castor.   Well  --  17
Dr. Fauci.   -- coming to my specific attention that Florida was withholding data.  18
That would be much more something that would come to the attention of the CDC.  19
Ms. Castor.   Oh, and it did.  And it did.  And it actually, there  -- this is top of mind 20
because it is in our State constitution, public records, and we have a strong public records 21
laws.  Governor DeSantis was sued for it, and just a couple weeks ago they had to settle 22
the case and admit they were wrong and pay attorneys ’ fees.  23
But that's why it kind of goes back to we've got to  -- it seems like it would  be -- it 24
would be wise and cost effective and it would save lives if we did have some basic 25

  190
requirement that States report real -time health data to the CDC really and that you 1
modernize it.   2
Would you agree  --  3
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  4
Ms. Castor.   -- with that?   5
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  I'm not -- I can't address Florida specifically, but, in general, the 6
idea of a requirement to report data centrally so that there could be the kind of robust 7
dashboard that we're talking about I believe is one of the things that was discussed in 8
how you get the CDC to be a more effective agency.   9
Part of it was to making sure they get the data in real time on time, and one of the 10
ways to do that is to make it a requirement that the States give them the data.   11
Ms. Castor.   It's the same kind of consternation we have with China, isn't it?  We 12
know they haven't been transparent.  That's been one of our  -- something that's  -- that's 13
confounded us along the way.   14
Do we know how many people died in China  --  15
Dr. Fauci.   No.  16
Ms. Castor.  -- based upon COVID -19?   17
Dr. Fauci.   No.  I mean, they report a certain amount, but I don't think many 18
people take that as what the actual number is.  But I don't know myself how many people 19
died in China.  20
Ms. Castor.   So the same consternation applies to here in the United States.  21
But I'm concerned when State officials deny us the transparent information that 22
we need, just like we get fed up with China not being transparent.  And what they did 23
impacted the world and we can't  -- we still can't  -- don't have the animal samples that we 24
needed to take conclusions farther.  25

  191
But this is the same frustration at the State level, too.  We need this basic data for 1
people to make decisions about their lives.  2
So thank you very much for letting me go over that.   3
I'll turn it over to you.  4
  So just to follow up on a finer point on something that 5
Congresswoman Castor raised, as I understand it, when we look at the process of 6
collecting public health data in the United States, one key obstacle we're navigating is 7
that there is a lack of a uniform standard or baseline for reporting data to the CDC.   8
Is that correct, Dr. Fauci?  9
Dr. Fauci.   That is correct, yes.  10
And so as we look to planning for future pandemics, as we look to 11
preventing and addressing future outbreaks, are there modifications to the process of 12
collecting public health data through the CDC that we made during this past pandemic 13
that we should consider carrying forward for future outbreaks or future public health 14
preparedness? 15

  192
[5:29 p.m.]   1
Dr. Fauci.   You know, I'm not actually sure exactly what modifications you're 2
talking about.  So I can't answer that question in a way that I feel comfortable with.   3
BY    4
Q Okay.  But as a general matter, establishing that baseline threshold  -- kind of 5
what Congresswoman Castor was describing -- or a baseline standard would be a step 6
forward?  7
A Yeah.  I can say that the ability to get all the data and make it available in a 8
central depot where you can utilize that data for the good of the entire country is 9
certainly a desirable direction to go in.   10
Q And I think as we have been discussing or deliberating over the topic of 11
strengthening Federal public health data collection, some have expressed reticence or 12
concern about that being an overreach or that being intrusive.   13
Do you have sort of a perspective on that criticism?  Or what would you say to 14
those folks who have concerns about public health data collection?  15
A Well, as a physician and someone who's been involved with this, I would 16
want to know why they think that would be an overreach.  I mean, if it's data that is going 17
to have the ultimate effect of being able to respond better to an outbreak both nationally 18
and locally, I'd try to sit down and talk to them and find out why they feel that that's 19
something that is not beneficial.  20
Q Because, of course  -- and I anticipate you will agree  -- but just for the record, 21
up-to-date public health data is the foundation of ensuring accurate and responsive 22
public health guidance during times of crisis.  23
A Yes.   24
Q Is that correct?  25

  193
A I mean, up -to-date public health data is absolutely important in general, but 1
also very important when you're in the middle of an outbreak.  2
Q Is there anything else you'd like to add on the topic of public health data 3
collection?  4
A No.  That's good.  5
Q So then, again, looking to the idea of preparing for future pandemics, taking 6
lessons we've learned from COVID -19, and carrying them forward, I'd like to discuss with 7
you where things stand with therapeutics for COVID -19 and continued efforts to develop 8
COVID -19 therapeutics, and then the idea of getting ahead of -- the process to develop 9
medical countermeasures for future health threats.   10
So although the public health emergency for COVID -19 ended last year, it 11
obviously is very important to stay on top of COVID -19.  We discussed the current uptick 12
in cases.  We understand that COVID -19 continues to pose a threat to the medically 13
vulnerable, people like the elderly, those who are immunocompromised.   14
Just briefly, could you explain for us why COVID -19 continues to be a threat for 15
those populations specifically?  16
A Well, it's certainly a threat because we're having an upsurge in cases right 17
now, which is the second largest uptick in surging cases since the beginning of the 18
outbreak.  It isn't nearly as high as the highest, but it is the second highest.  And we still 19
have a considerable number of people in the population who are vulnerable.   20
And the deaths are going up right now.  The last that I saw a couple of days ago, 21
even though the deaths are very much lower than they were at the worst part, when you 22
compare it to what the deaths were a couple of weeks to a month or so ago, we were 23
down to less than 100 deaths per day, and now, the last time that I looked, was 1,400 24
deaths in a week, which means that there was 200 deaths a day.  So it's going up.  So 25

  194
we're not -- COVID is not completely behind us by any means.   1
Q And so an important way we can continue to reduce the threat of 2
COVID -19 -- the ongoing threat of COVID -19 to vulnerable populations is by investing in 3
the development and continued availability of therapeutics.   4
You mentioned some of these therapeutic options earlier during today's rounds, 5
but for the record, would you mind just briefly explaining for us the current therapeutic 6
options that are available to treat COVID -19?  7
A The therapeutic options are a number of drugs.  The one that has been used 8
the most and is effective in a number of studies to show it decreases hospitalizations, 9
particularly for those who are at a higher risk, is Paxlovid.  And there's molnupiravir, and 10
then there is remdesivir, and then there's a drug from a Japanese company  -- Shionogi is 11
the company.  I don't know what their latest name of the drug is.   12
But antiviral drugs are really critically important to continue to develop them.  13
And, in fact, before I left when I was the director, we put together a proposal to have a 14
drug development program that would be developing new drugs for COVID that 15
unfortunately did not get the funding that it needed.   16
Q And so you mentioned Paxlovid specifically.  I'd like to zoom in on that just a 17
little bit.   18
For those of us who are not scientists, would you mind just briefly explaining why 19
Paxlovid is particularly effective at treating COVID -19?  20
A Well, Paxlovid is a drug that interferes with one of the enzymes that the 21
virus needs to replicate.  So it is what's called a direct antiviral drug.  It's a drug that's 22
given over -- well, initially over a 5 -day period, and it diminishes the likelihood that you're 23
going to have advanced disease and go to a hospital and die.  So it's an important tool in 24
our armamentarium against COVID.   25

  195
Q So you mentioned the importance of taking Paxlovid within that 5 -day 1
window.   2
A No, no.  I said it's given on a 5 -day course.   3
Q Thank you.  As I understand it, however, taking Paxlovid within sort of the 4
immediate realization of your symptoms or your immediate infection is a critical 5
component of ensuring that the treatment is as effective as it can be.  6
A Right.  7
Q Is that correct?  8
A It is most effective if given within the first 24 to 48 hours, but it has some 9
effect after.  Most effective -- the earlier you give it, the better.   10
Q And so could you, just for the record, you know, briefly explain the process 11
by which a patient would go about accessing Paxlovid?  12
A Well, you know, the reason I'm hesitating is that, when I was at the NIH, we 13
were in a tertiary hospital.  So the easiest way my patients would get it is I would 14
prescribe it and give it to them, and they would go to the pharmacy and get it.   15
But an outside patient would have to get a prescription from the 16
pharmacy -- excuse me -- a prescription from their physician to allow them to go to a 17
drugstore and get the Paxlovid.   18
Q And so recognizing that that process can be time -consuming, are there steps 19
that we should be considering or that could be considered to streamline the process by 20
which patients access Paxlovid?  Again, recognizing that the first 24 - to 48 -hour period is 21
critical.   22
A There was a program -- and I have to tell you, I am not sure what the status 23
of that program is, whether -- it may have gotten started or may not have gotten off the 24
ground  -- which was called Test and Treat, which was a program where you can go to a 25

  196
pharmacy and you could get a test for COVID, and if you're positive, the positive test 1
alone would allow you to get the prescription.  2
Q And so some patients, as I understand it, have expressed a hesitation to take 3
Paxlovid over this concept of rebounding  -- a reemergence of symptoms, testing positive 4
after testing negative  -- following taking a course of Paxlovid.   5
What would you tell COVID -19 patients who may be concerned about this concept 6
of rebounding?  7
A I would tell them that the risk of rebound is overcome by the enormous 8
benefit of the drug itself.  So when you talk -- we've been talking today a lot about 9
risk-benefits.  That if an individual takes Paxlovid, the data is showing the positive impact 10
in preventing progression of severe disease, particularly in those who are at a higher risk, 11
is well worth any increase or not in the rebound percentage associated with Paxlovid.   12
The one thing that I might mention that's another unfortunate aspect of the 13
underutilization of Paxlovid is the fear on the part of physicians of the drug -drug 14
interaction.  And there is a misperception.  For example, the most common drug that 15
people are on that synergizes, in a sense, with Paxlovid and is one of the drug -drug 16
interactions is the lipid -lowering agents.   17
And what people don't understand is that if you're taking Lipitor or Crestor or one 18
of those drugs for your cholesterol or your triglycerides, if you stop that drug for the 5 19
days of the Paxlovid, nothing bad is going to happen to you vis -à-vis your cholesterol.  20
And yet there's this unrealistic feeling that, oh, my goodness, I'm on Lipitor.  I can't take 21
Paxlovid.   22
And people are not doing it feeling that there's some horrible consequence of the 23
drug -drug interaction when, in fact, you stop your Lipitor for 5 days and go back on it 24
after 5 days and there's no problem, and yet you have the benefit of Paxlovid.   25

  197
Q And then just with the few moments remaining in this round, I'd appreciate 1
your perspective on the current landscape for ongoing work to develop new COVID -19 2
therapeutics.  Are we doing enough to develop new COVID -19 therapeutics?  Could we be 3
doing more?  And if so, what would that look like?  4
A Yes.  I believe we can be doing more, because when I was the director, we 5
put together a program that was an individual program of which I put one of my own 6
people on as the leader of that program, and we were supposed to get a considerable 7
amount of money, and we did not because of the restrictions on the budget.   8
Before closing out this round, I just wanted to take a moment to 9
see.   10
Congresswoman Dingell, Congresswoman Castor, any followup from this round?   11
Okay.  Then I think we can go off the record.   12
[Recess.]  13
Mr. Benzine.   We can go back on the record.   14
BY MR. BENZINE:  15
Q I want to talk really briefly generally about the Wuhan Institute of Virology 16
and your knowledge of it.   17
Did you have any knowledge of the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the 18
pandemic?  19
A I don't recall specific knowledge about it.  Again, as I mentioned several 20
times, when we have discussions in our conference room about grants, someone may 21
have mentioned Wuhan, but I didn't specifically know Wuhan, and Wuhan is doing this, 22
and et cetera.  So the first time I really heard about it was after the outbreak.  23
Q The Office of Director of National Intelligence reported that WIV personnel 24
have worked with the People's Liberation Army.  Do you have any awareness of that?  25

  198
A No, I have not.  1
Q They also reported that --  2
A I heard all these things after.  I mean, you know  --  3
Q As the reports kind of came out?  4
A Well, I mean, after all of these hearings and investigations about --  5
Q Okay.   6
A I had no knowledge of any connection with the Army or the Communist 7
Party or anything like that.  8
Q ODNI also reported that the WIV first possessed SARS -CoV-2 in late 9
December of 2019.  We've talked about this a lot.   10
A Right.   11
Q Obviously no knowledge of that?  12
A No.  13
Q Along this line of discussion that we've talked about a lot, Dr. Holmes, Dr. 14
Farrar, a Chinese genomics company, the Chinese CDC, Dr.  Daszak, whoever told 15
Dr. Daszak, seems like there was an awful lot of people that knew that this was a 16
coronavirus by late December, yet China was reporting undiagnosed pneumonia.   17
Is that kind of standard in disease outbreak reporting, or would that concern you?  18
A I'm sorry.  The question is what?   19
Q We've talked about a lot today that there were a lot of people that knew 20
that it was a coronavirus.  The Chinese Government knew that it was a coronavirus.  ODNI 21
assessed that, and the Chinese CDC had the sequence.  Dr.  Daszak knew it was a 22
coronavirus.  Dr. Farrar knew it was a coronavirus.  Dr. Gao knew it was a coronavirus.  23
Dr. Holmes knew it was a coronavirus.  Yet the public reporting was undiagnosed 24
pneumonia.   25

  199
I'm just wondering if that's kind of -- like, in outbreak reporting --  1
A No, I can't comment on that.   2
Q Okay.   3
A I don't know what they were thinking and why they didn't report it.   4
Q Okay.  Okay.  The ODNI also reported that the WIV has the capability of 5
operating genetic engineering projects that would make it difficult to detect intentional 6
changes.  Do you have any knowledge of that?  7
A No.  8
Q Dr. Baric at UNC uses similar techniques known as "no see'm" techniques.  9
Do you have any knowledge of that?  10
A No.  I've heard comments about that in association with these investigations, 11
but I never -- before the fact, I didn't -- I'd never heard of that.  Again, as I mentioned to 12
you in response to other questions, this is not my area of lane of expertise as molecular 13
and evolutionary virology.  14
Q Just a few more on the WIV.   15
ODNI also reported that the WIV did not use adequate biosafety precautions at 16
least some of the time prior to the pandemic in handling SARS -like coronaviruses.  Do you 17
have any knowledge of that?  18
A Again, only after the fact that people were saying that that was the case, but 19
I had no direct knowledge of it.  Certainly not before my knowledge of Wuhan, which was 20
after the outbreak.  21
Q Okay.  And then, finally, ODNI reported that several WIV researchers fell ill in 22
fall 2019 with symptoms, some of the symptoms consistent but not diagnostic of 23
COVID -19.  Do you have any knowledge of that?  24
A I heard about that, again, after the fact.  I didn't hear about people in 25

  200
December getting sick.  Yeah.   1
Q During the course of the pandemic, did you receive any briefings specific to 2
these issues?   3
Mr. Schertler.   Just to be clear, Mitch, when you say "these issues" --  4
Mr. Benzine.   Specific to concerns at the Wuhan Institute of Virology on biosafety 5
or their capabilities.   6
Dr. Fauci.   Again, all after the fact when questions were being asked and 7
investigations and hearings and things like that.  It was not something that I was -- like, 8
again, getting back to my original premise, I didn't even know there was that before the 9
outbreak.   10
BY MR. BENZINE:  11
Q We talked very briefly about Dr.  Chen and her trip to the WIV.  12
Contemporaneously, she went in October of 2017.  Were you aware of her going to the 13
WIV?  14
A Not to my recollection, no.  15
Q She wrote in her trip report that a technician told her that the WIV planned 16
on reverse -engineering Ebola because it was against Chinese regulations to import Ebola.  17
Did anyone ever tell you that?  18
A Again, I heard that well after the outbreak, months into it, but I didn't hear it 19
exactly that way.  What I heard was that they wanted to study Ebola, and the Chinese 20
authorities did not want to bring Ebola into the country, and a technician made a 21
comment that, well, I can just go ahead and reverse -generate it  -- reverse -engineer it.  I 22
don't think it was said in the context that the Chinese were deciding they were going to 23
reverse.  It was a comment from a technician, according to what I heard.   24
Q Who did you hear that from?  25

  201
A I probably heard that from Gray Handley.  1
Q Okay.  Did Mr. Handley -- there was a widely publicly reported State 2
Department cable from -- it was reported by The Washington Post regarding biosafety at 3
the WIV.  Dr.  Chen's trip was some of the information that went into that cable.   4
Did Mr. Handley ever have any discussions with you regarding that cable?  5
A He did.  6
Q When?  7
A I don't recall exactly when, but he did have some discussions about what I 8
think he felt was misinterpretations of the cable.  9
Q Do you recall the substance?  10
A Yeah.  Yeah.  The substance of the discussion -- and, again, I don't recall 11
when -- but was that they were working with -- they being the Chinese in Wuhan -- were 12
working with the French to put together a BSL -4 facility, and the Chinese were asking for 13
help in training about how to operate a BSL -4.   14
And according to Gray, that that was misinterpreted that they kind of didn't know 15
what they were doing, they needed training, when anybody who starts a BSL -4 needs 16
extra training, including our own BSL -4s here in this country.  That's what Gray told me.   17
Q All right.  The cable didn't include the language about the technician saying 18
maybe off the cuff, I'll just reverse -engineer Ebola?   19
A I don't know if the cable said that.  I know I heard that from Gray.   20
Q The cable didn't say it.  21
A Yeah.  22
Q It was not put in the cable.   23
Did Mr. Handley relay anything to you about why or why not or his involvement in 24
that cable?  25

  202
A No.  No, I didn't get that.   1
Q Okay.  A general baseline.  Do you know or have you ever interacted with 2
Paul Dabbar, D -a-b-b-a-r?  3
A Not to my recollection, no.  4
Q And then quickly closing out the WIV section.   5
You had already separated from Federal service, but on July 17th, 2023, HHS 6
suspended the WIV from receiving Federal funds.  Prior to your retirement, were you 7
involved in any aspect of that decision?  8
A No.  9
Q And then on September 19th, 2023, HHS debarred the WIV for a period of 10 10
years.  Prior to your retirement, were you involved in any aspect of that decision?  11
A No.  That was a compliance type.  Was this before I left?   12
Q No, it was after.  I just didn't know how long the lead -up was.   13
A No.  I don't know what the lead -up was, but I was not involved in any of that.  14
Those were all compliance issues.   15
Q Okay.  Thank you.   16
BY MR. STROM:  17
Q One question on the WIV.  Is it safe to sort of summarize that your minimal 18
knowledge of the WIV is almost, like, no awareness of it pre -pandemic, perhaps beyond 19
maybe some published papers and research?  20
A Right.   21
Q But operationally, no knowledge, I guess, other than they had a BSL -4 or 22
were building one?  23
A Again, I heard about the BSL -4 after the outbreak when there was a lot of 24
discussion about cables and discussions in safety and things like that.  25

  203
Q But any of this  -- I think Ian Lipkin maybe and some others have noted that, 1
you know, some of their work in BSL -2 might not have been viewed as -- it would have 2
been at a BSL -3 in the U.S.   3
A Right.  4
Q You weren't aware of any of that prior to the reporting on that?  5
A No, no.  Prior to the reporting, I was not aware of that at all.  6
Q Okay.  Thank you.   7
BY MR. BENZINE:  8
Q We have touched on this a little bit.  And just to the best of your 9
recollection  -- probably month and year versus actual day at this point, if you can  -- when 10
did you become aware of NIAID funding EcoHealth?  I guess, EcoHealth  -- specifically, the 11
emerging bat coronavirus grant.   12
A Yeah.  To the best of my recollection, the first time I was aware of that, I 13
believe -- I mean, things get confused now because there were so many briefings and 14
hearings.   15
But the first I became aware of what experts we had in coronavirus and who we 16
were funding  -- I didn't learn about what we were funding but who we were 17
funding -- was when we were getting ready to have our first press conference task force 18
meeting at the end of July -- excuse me.  I'm sorry.  At the end of January, not July.  Sorry.  19
It's getting late, and my mind --  20
Q No.   21
A It was probably -- maybe January 27th or something I got an email from Greg 22
Folkers, whose job is to essentially brief me and staff on important issues, and we were 23
getting prepared to go to the first task force meeting and to have a press conference.   24
So I wanted to know, what's going on with coronavirus?  And he gave an email 25

  204
that, you know, said, you know, we have Baric, and we have this, and we have this, and 1
we have that, et cetera.  And that was in the email.   2
It was a combination of who was doing what, and these are the experts that we 3
can call upon to help brief us about what we're doing.  It was an informative 4
data -collecting email.  That's the first that I was consciously aware that there was a 5
Wuhan Institute and that's, you know, what was going on, though I didn't know from that 6
email exactly what we were doing in that.   7
Q I want to introduce majority exhibit 13.  Give me one second.   8
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 13  9
    was marked for identification.]  10
Mr. Schertler.   Thanks.  Thirteen, you said?   11
Mr. Benzine.   Yes.   12
This is an email chain with Dr. Morens and Dr.  Stemmy and Dr.  Daszak.  Really, I 13
only want you to focus on the page that looks like this.  It's an email from Dr.  Daszak.   14
Mr. Schertler.   Would you mind if he just took a minute to get the context of it?   15
Mr. Benzine.   Yeah.   16
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.  So this is the email -- Peter Daszak, January 27th?   17
Mr. Benzine.   Yes, sir, that you sent to Dr.  Morens and Dr.  Stemmy.   18
Dr. Fauci.   Right.   19
Mr. Benzine.   Concurrent with that exhibit being 13, I want to introduce exhibit 14.  20
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 14  21
    was marked for identification.]  22
Mr. Benzine.   This is just a one -page exhibit.  And this is an email from Mr. Folkers 23
to you that I believe you were just referencing  -- January 27th, 2020  -- with some 24
information about coronavirus experts that NIAID funds:  Dr.  Daszak, Dr.  Baric, Dr.  Lipkin.   25

  205
On Exhibit 14, there's a line that starts, "From David M."   1
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.  2
Mr. Benzine.   And then it's, I believe, an almost near identical version of the page 3
we were just discussing on exhibit 13.   4
Dr. Fauci.   I'm sorry  --  5
Mr. Schertler.   So I think -- can you direct us to the page on 13?   6
Mr. Benzine.   Yes.  There isn't a Bates number.  It looks like -- he's got it in front.   7
Dr. Fauci.   Here?   8
BY MR. BENZINE:   9
Q Yes, sir.   10
A And what was the question?   11
Q I guess, did you know that when you were getting these talking points, you 12
were getting them straight from Dr.  Daszak in EcoHealth?  13
A I don't recall that I was.  I know I got them from Greg, who was my 14
information gatherer.  I know he got them from a number of sources, but I don't 15
specifically remember, well, this was from Daszak, and this was from Baric, and this was 16
from -- I knew it was from multiple sources.  17
Q Would it be -- and if you don't know, that's okay.  Would it be common for 18
Mr. Folkers to reach out beyond expertise at NIAID to get this kind of information?  19
A Sometimes he would do that, he would call a grantee, but I'm not so sure he 20
did.  I think he spoke mostly with David.  Yeah.  Again, I can't tell from this whether Greg 21
went out to an outside person.  But, you know, he generally doesn't, but occasionally, he 22
will.  23
Q It would appear that Dr. Morens emailed Dr.  Lipkin and Dr.  Daszak and asked 24
for information on the new coronavirus, and this is what Dr.  Daszak sent back, and then it 25

  206
got transferred into an email to you.   1
A It looks like this was David Morens to Greg, Greg to me.  That's what it looks 2
like.   3
Q Yeah.  But it wouldn't be terribly unusual for people in your office to go to 4
the grantee instead of say, like, the grant file to find this kind of information?  5
A Well, again, I don't know what you mean by "unusual."  I mean, when you 6
said that -- for example, if a grantee was very familiar -- like, some of the AIDS grantees.  7
Like, we have people at Harvard and people at Cornell and people in San Francisco.  It 8
wouldn't be completely out of the question for Greg to call up Deeks in UCSF and ask him 9
about what's going on with HIV.  He wouldn't do that.  Normally, he would go through the 10
program people, but occasionally, he would speak to a grantee.  11
Q Okay.  Thank you.   12
Putting those aside, I just want to ask your general understanding of what the 13
scope of work is that NIAID funded EcoHealth for.  Now, obviously, you were unaware  --  14
A Right.   15
Q -- going into the pandemic, but -- 16
A Right.   17
Q -- as you've testified I don't know how many times now --  18
A Right.  Right.  19
Q -- and obviously gotten this question an awful lot, so what is your general 20
understanding of that award?  21
A My general understanding of that award was that it was a surveillance 22
award.  I believe the title is right here in front of me:  "Understanding the Risk of Bat 23
Coronavirus Emergence."   24
And my understanding is that there were two parts to it.  One was sero- 25

  207
surveillance to determine what particular demographic group might have been exposed, 1
and was it related to any particular risk occupation.  And I believe they found a relatively 2
small percentage; 3, 5 percent or something like that.   3
And the other was to do surveillance by getting bat viruses and determine if, in 4
fact, they might bind or not to in vitro ACE2 cell cultures as well as mice that have been 5
transgenic for an ACE2.  Not humanized mice, but mice that were transgenic for a human 6
ACE2 receptor.   7
And it was fundamentally -- which we discussed a bit ago  -- a surveillance.  What is 8
in the population that might have been exposed, and what bat viruses are out there that 9
might potentially infect a human?   10
Q Just for my own edification, what's the difference between a humanized 11
mouse and one that just shows ACE2?  12
A A humanized mice is when you have -- every aspect of it is like a humanized 13
immune system.  Like, when you take a mouse and you want to determine if they can 14
replicate HIV, you give them a whole new stem cell transgenic insertion of a gene for the 15
whole immune system.  Then you could do it for a variety of other things.  But this was 16
one specific receptor that was a human receptor.  The rest of it was all mouse.  17
Q And the second part of the grant, as you just described it, would be 18
taking -- was there work taking backbones and dropping spike proteins into them and 19
seeing if they could infect the ACE2?  20
A Right.  Right.  Right.  Exactly.  21
Q Okay.   22
A They didn't modify it.  They just see if it infected.  Right.   23
Q Didn't modify --  24
A They didn't take the spike and do anything with the spike.  They took a 25

  208
backbone, which was WIV, and they took the spike from a number of different bat 1
viruses.  And my understanding  -- which when it was explained to me is that if you take a 2
bat virus and you try and sequence the whole virus to then see if it would bind to the ACE 3
as opposed to studying just the head, it would take an inordinate if not infinite amount of 4
time to sequence all the viruses.   5
So what they do, they get a backbone, which they know how to work with and it's 6
something that's a tool that they're familiar with, and they just take different spikes, put 7
it on, see if it binds, spike, put it on, see if it binds.  And that's called a chimera, which 8
people go like that with.  But that's essentially a research tool.  9
Q Splicing together different pieces?  10
A Right.  Right.  Exactly.  11
Q And I'm going to go through this probably pretty quickly.  I have the letters if 12
you need them, but you said that you weren't involved in a lot of the compliance issues.  13
So I'm just going to ask you if you were aware of them, and if the answer is no, then we'll 14
just move on.   15
A Okay.   16
Q In May 28th of 2016, Dr. Stemmy sent a letter to EcoHealth requesting 17
information regarding some proposed experiments and if they met the definition of the 18
gain -of-function funding pause.  Were you involved at all in that?  19
A 2016?   20
Q Yes, sir.   21
A No.  22
Q We touched on this a little bit, but in between that and the next letter, the 23
P3CO Framework came out.  And when the framework came out, Dr. Stemmy sent 24
another letter July 5th, 2018, to EcoHealth informing them that their grant and the 25

  209
proposed research did not fall under the P3C O Framework.  Were you involved in any of 1
that?  2
A At that time, no.  3
Q What do you mean by "at that time, no"?  4
A No, that I wasn't aware of it then.  5
Q Oh, okay.   6
A Yeah.  I mean, after everybody started talking about it with all the 7
investigations and the briefings, the hearings, they mentioned that.  But since, that was 8
an issue that I was not involved with in any way.  9
Q But you weren't involved in the decision -making process?  10
A No, I was not involved in the decision -making process.  11
Q And forgive me if this has been touched on.  To your recollection, how is a 12
grant referred to the P3C O?  Obviously, they propose the grant to NIAID, NIAID would 13
look at it, and then determine whether or not it goes to the P3C O.   14
A Right.  Right.   15
Q Is there a structure or a process that that goes through?  16
A It's a committee that starts off with the program people.  I don't know if 17
there's anyone lower than Erik.  Not that he's low.  He's a very knowledgeable person.  18
But it would be Erik and Diane Post and someone else whose name I forget, and then it 19
would go to Emily Erbelding, and that group would make a decision whether or not it 20
would go up.  21
Q We talked about this a little bit before in the grant process, but does anyone 22
have the final determination on whether or not to refer a grant to the P3C O?  23
A I believe the final determination is the -- that committee who reports to 24
Emily.  25

  210
Q So would it be Dr.  Erbelding that would be kind of the final thumbs up or 1
thumbs down?  2
A You know, to be honest with you, I don't know precisely whether that would 3
be Diane Post, who was a senior person, versus going up to Emily.  It might not.  If they 4
have a kind of question, if it's a close call, I guess -- and I'm just guessing -- that it might go 5
to Emily.  But the exact process of that, I'm not familiar who has the final call.  6
Q But would you have any decision -making authority over grants that would be 7
referred to the P3?  8
A No.  That's something I totally delegated below me.  9
Q Okay.  I want to shift to a time period a little closer  -- it's still 2020, but it's at 10
least closer than 2016  -- and ask a blanket question first.   11
Dr. Lauer testified that he would not sign or send a letter that he disagreed with.  12
Do you have any reason to doubt that assertion?  13
A He would not sign --  14
Q Or send a letter that he disagreed with.   15
A I can't speak for him.   16
Q Okay.  I want to introduce majority exhibit 15.  17
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 15  18
    was marked for identification.]  19
BY MR. BENZINE:  20
Q This is a letter sent by Dr. Lauer to EcoHealth and Columbia 21
University  -- Columbia University by mistake  -- on April 19th, 2020.  And I'll give you a 22
minute to familiarize yourself with the letter  --  23
A Okay.   24
Q -- but the second paragraph kind of sums it up.   25

  211
"While we review these allegations during the period of suspension, you are 1
instructed to cease providing any funds from the above noted grant to the WIV."   2
So this keeps the grant intact to EcoHealth but severs their relationship with the 3
Wuhan Institute of Virology.   4
A So let me read it.   5
Yeah.   6
Q Were you aware of this letter before today?  7
A No, not to my recolle - -- I wouldn't say no.  I mean, a lot of discussion went 8
back and forth about compliance.  I may have been aware of a letter that was sent about 9
stopping funding, but the fact that it's to Columbia University, I'm a little puzzled.  Why is 10
it to Columbia University?   11
Mr. Schertler.   So I think the question is, are you familiar with this letter?   12
Dr. Fauci.   I'm not.  I mean, I don't recall being familiar with it.   13
Mr. Benzine.   I'm going to introduce the one I think you might be more familiar 14
with as majority exhibit 16.  15
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 16  16
    was marked for identification.]  17
Mr. Benzine.   This is a letter sent from Dr. Lauer to Drs. Chmura and Daszak from 18
April 24th, 2020  -- so 5 days after this one was sent  -- that terminates the entire grant 19
"Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence."   20
Were you previously aware of this letter?   21
Dr. Fauci.   Let me read it.  Hold on.   22
I was aware that the grant was terminated.  I'm not -- I don't recall this particular 23
letter that I saw at the time.  I think I was shown -- I don't think I was shown this, but I 24
don't recall seeing this letter at the time it was sent.  25

  212
Mr. Benzine.   You testified in June of 2020 before the House Committee on Energy 1
and Commerce.  You were asked about this grant and the cancellation and said, "Why 2
was it canceled?  It was canceled because the NIH was told to cancel it.  I don't know the 3
reason, but we were told to cancel it."   4
Do you have any recollection of who told you to cancel it?   5
Mr. Cooke.   Yeah.  So as I think we covered with  during their hour, we're not 6
going to be able to get into the details of those deliberations.   7
BY MR. BENZINE:  8
Q All right.  I'll relay to you what Dr.  Tabak told us was the chain of events, and 9
you can just tell me if that's accurate to the best of your recollection.   10
Dr. Tabak testified that Chief of Staff Mark Meadows called the Office of General 11
Counsel at HHS, who then called Dr.  Tabak, who then called Dr. Lauer, who was instructed 12
to cancel the grant.  Is that consistent with your memory?  13
A Yes.  14
Q All right.  Did you have any conversations with anyone at NIAID or NIH about 15
the legitimacy of canceling this grant?  16
A I don't remember who I spoke to, but I asked -- no, I didn't ask.  Someone 17
mentioned, and I don't recall who that was.  It may have been Hugh Auchincloss, possibly, 18
because he was the level to which these things came up to.  As I said, I was far removed 19
from the compliance aspects of this, and this is falling under the general category of 20
compliance.  That the question was raised as, can you actually do that?  Can you actually 21
cancel a grant?  I remember discussions about that.   22
Q When the discussion -- first, the kind of chain of events that I just laid out, 23
how did you become aware of those?  24
A I don't recall.  It was likely that Hugh Auchincloss, who was following this, 25

  213
told me that the grant has been canceled.  1
Q How did you become aware of the actual people involved, though?  2
A I wasn't sure.  What I heard was that it was someone from the White House.  3
I didn't know who that was, so it was compatible with my answer to your question.  Mark 4
Meadows, to the Department, to Lauer.  I heard it came from the White House.  I didn't 5
know exactly who in the White House had told him to cancel it.  6
Q Did you express any concerns to anyone regarding the cancellation of this 7
grant?  8
A I don't recall if I expressed concerns, but I do remember that there were 9
concerns on the part of the scientific community that a grant could all of a sudden just be 10
canceled.   11
Q The compliance efforts went well into 2023, past your term as director, and 12
Dr. Lauer ended up -- I mean, EcoHealth was 22 months late on a progress report.  They 13
had faulty subaward agreements.  They hadn't disclosed the Wuhan Institute of Virology 14
as a subaward.   15
Do you recall having any conversations while those efforts were going on that NIH 16
was actually finding troubling aspects about the grant?  17
A No.  That was compliance things that I -- I mean, I may have vaguely been 18
hearing that they were discussing compliance issues, but I was not directly involved in the 19
conversations of what they were and how that was going to be.  Like I said, in general, the 20
compliance issues were things that I didn't get involved in.  21
Q One more kind of on that.  Did you have any -- we went through NIAID and 22
NIH, but did you have any conversations with anyone at the White House regarding the 23
termination of this grant?   24
Mr. Barstow.   I'm going to step in here.  I'm going to step in here.  25

  214
Mr. Benzine.   On what grounds?   1
Mr. Barstow.   It's an executive branch confidentiality interest potentially.  2
Mr. Benzine.   Potentially, but you don't know?   3
Mr. Barstow.   I'm happy to talk to Dr. Fauci.   4
Mr. Benzine.   Yeah.   5
Dr. Fauci.   What's the question?  6
Mr. Benzine.   You're going to talk to Mr. Barstow.  7
[Discussion off the record.]  8
Dr. Fauci.   Question?   9
BY MR. BENZINE:  10
Q Did you have any conversations with anyone at the White House regarding 11
this grant?  12
A The truth is I don't recall having questions at the White House level about 13
this.   14
Q All right.  John touched on it a little bit, and I just want to reiterate or ask if 15
you recall more clearly.   16
When did you become aware that EcoHealth was late on their progress report?  17
A During preparations for one of the hearings that I was going to.  The hearings 18
now, a couple years later, are a bit of a blur.   19
Q I bet.   20
A I've been in a number of hearings, and I remember in preparation for it they 21
were trying to brief me as much as possible about what was going on.  I think I heard it at 22
one of those briefings.  23
Q All right.  Dr.  Daszak testified that EcoHealth attempted to submit the 24
progress report in a timely manner but was locked out of the NIH system, and Dr. Lauer 25

  215
testified that the NIH did a forensic analysis of their system and found no evidence that 1
EcoHealth was unable to submit the progress report.  Did you ever get a briefing on that?  2
A Again, in the same situation in preparation for a hearing.  And in that 3
preparation, it was all compliance things that -- even though I got briefed, I didn't get 4
briefed because I felt I wanted to explain it to anybody.  I just said that I got briefed 5
because that's a compliance issue, thank you very much.   6
Q As much as you can recall the substance of that briefing, was it similar to 7
what I just said, that NIH had done a forensic analysis of their systems to determine --  8
A No, I don't recall that.  I do recall that there was a disagreement, that 9
EcoHealth said that they did this, and the NIH compliance said, no, you didn't.  That may 10
have been what you're talking about.  But there was -- my recollection in one of my 11
briefings that EcoHealth was saying that they were compliant in something, and the NIH 12
compliance people  -- namely Lauer  -- were saying, no, you weren't.  I don't know if it was 13
forensic stuff that you're talking about.   14
Q Okay.  I want to introduce majority exhibit 17.  15
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 17  16
    was marked for identification.]  17
BY MR. BENZINE:  18
Q So this is a letter from Dr.  Tabak to then -Ranking Member James Comer 19
from October 20th, 2021.  I'll give you a minute to familiarize yourself with this.   20
A Both sides.  Okay.  Just give me a minute.  I'm a slow reader.   21
Yes.   22
Q Were you aware of this letter prior to just now?  23
A I believe I got some briefing on this letter, yeah.   24
Q Were you involved at all in the drafting of this letter?  25

  216
A No.  1
Q I want to start on the back page.  And the tiny little paragraph before "if you 2
or your staff have any questions" reads, "The analysis attached confirms that the bat 3
coronaviruses studied under the EcoHealth Alliance grant could not have been the source 4
of SARS -CoV-2 and the COVID -19 pandemic."   5
Were you involved at all in putting together an analysis like that?  6
A No.  7
Q Do you agree with that statement?  8
A Again, I'm not an evolutionary virologist, but every evolutionary virologist 9
without exception that's been asked about that is pretty confident that, when you look at 10
the bat viruses that were studied, that they are phylogenetically so distant that that could 11
not have been the source of SARS -CoV-2.  12
Mr. Schertler.   Bat viruses studied in Wuhan?   13
Dr. Fauci.   In Wuhan, yeah.   14
BY MR. BENZINE:  15
Q And, again, I'm a lawyer, and words -- black -and-white words matter.  And as 16
you discussed with the chairman, I think 2 hours ago at this point, not everyone publishes 17
everything.  Not everyone makes everything available.  This is an unequivocal statement 18
that every bat coronavirus studied under the EcoHealth Alliance grant could not have 19
been the source for the COVID -19 pandemic.   20
A Right.   21
Q It reads to me like an exaggeration of -- and I'm not saying this is what 22
happened.  I'm not saying that an EcoHealth virus started the pandemic.  All I'm saying is 23
that you can't make an unequivocal statement when you don't know all the facts.  And it's 24
impossible to know all the facts.   25

  217
I guess, first, do you agree that this statement would  -- that there are potentially 1
facts missing in this statement?  2
A Well, let's parse it out in saying that the work scope of the grant and the 3
viruses that came in under the work scope are viruses that could not have been the 4
source of SARS -CoV-2.   5
I think the point that you're making is that people cannot know what's going on in 6
another part of Wuhan or in Shanghai or in Beijing, but the NIH subaward work scope was 7
involved with viruses that could not have turned into SARS -CoV-2.  8

  218
[6:40 p.m.]   1
BY MR. BENZINE:  2
Q Would it be  more --  3
A So I think  -- I'm pretty sure that's what Larry was saying.   4
Q Would it be more accurate to say the analysis attached confirms that the 5
published bat coronaviruses could not have been COVID -19?  Peter Daszak has gone on 6
record saying that he has not published every sequence of every coronavirus that he has 7
collected.   8
A There is no  -- there is no record anywhere, I believe, of any virus that was 9
studied that has been described in a bat that is close enough to have been SARS -CoV-2.   10
That's the reason why they're looking for adaptation in an  intermediary host that 11
would have made it closer, because all the bat viruses that are known are distant enough 12
that they could not have been the source of SARS in and of themselves.  13
Q And I'll belabor the point one more time, but that's kind of my point, is that 14
at this point I don't know how  -- what the fatality toll was, but it was pretty significant.  15
And there was obviously a lot of calamity surrounding this grant, calamity surrounding 16
the origins of COVID.  17
And, like, to us and to the people we hear from and the people, you know, our 18
bosses represent, like, words matter.  And when you see an unequivocal statement when 19
you know there are unknowns, you know EcoHealth hasn't published every virus that we 20
have funded, in fact, that's one of the reasons that they're still getting funding, do you 21
think it could have been worded clearer?  22
A I don't want to surmise about how Larry would have worded it.  I'll leave that 23
up to Larry.   24
Q I want to flip over to the front page of this letter and read an excerpt from 25

  219
the fourth paragraph down.   1
"The limited experiment described in the final progress report provided by 2
EcoHealth Alliance was testing if spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses 3
circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse 4
model.  All other aspects of the mice, including the immune system, remained 5
unchanged.  In this limited experiment laboratory, mice infected with the SHC014 WIV 1 6
bat coronavirus became sicker than those infected with the WIV 1 bat coronavirus.  This 7
was an unexpected result of the research, as opposed to something the researchers set 8
out to do."   9
So this is kind of what you were describing earlier in the aims of the grant, that 10
they were using the WIV 1 backbone, dropping spike proteins onto it and seeing if it could 11
bind with ACE2.  Is that right?  12
A Right.  13
Mr. Benzine.   I want to introduce the year 5 progress report as majority exhibit 18.  14
    [Fauci majority exhibit No. 18  15
    was marked for identification.]  16
Mr. Benzine.   And in the nature of time, it's a long report, so I'd ask you not to 17
read the whole report, but I'm going to draw your attention to a discrete paragraph.  It's 18
on page 15 under aim 3.1.     19
Mr. Schertler.   Are you sure you don't want him to read the whole report?   20
Mr. Benzine.   I'm pretty sure I don't want you to read the whole report.  21
BY MR. BENZINE:  22
Q And I believe, and Dr. Tabak has confirmed that in his letter he is referring to 23
the experiment outlined in this paragraph.   24
And I'm going to  -- you have it in front of you, but I'm going to read it in kind of 25

  220
layman's terms so it's comprehendible.   1
But, in essence, it says that mice were infected with four strains of SARS -related 2
coronaviruses with different spike proteins, including full -length recombinant virus of 3
SARS -related WIV 1 and 3 chimeric viruses, with the backbone of WIV 1 and the spike 4
proteins from three other bat coronaviruses.  So that's what we were just discussing.   5
All four of the viruses caused lethal infection in human ACE2 transgenic mice, but 6
the mortality rate varied among the four groups.  Fourteen days post -infection, five out of 7
the seven mice infected with just the WIV 1 backbone remained alive, while only two out 8
of eight mice infected with the SHC014 chimera survived.   9
And the paragraph ends with, "These results suggest that the pathogenicity of 10
SHC014 is higher than other tested bat SARS -related coronaviruses in transgenic mice 11
that express human ACE2."   12
I'll give you a minute to read the full version in the progress report.  I know I kind 13
of summarized it.   14
A [Reviewing.]  Yeah.   15
Q So to me, it sounds like seven mice infected with the full -length WIV 1; five 16
survived.  Eight mice infected with a chimera of WIV 1 and SHC014 and two survived.  Is 17
that your understanding as well?  18
A That's what it says, yeah.   19
Q This to me sounds like the experiment that EcoHealth conducted by creating 20
a chimera increased the pathogenicity of the underlying virus.  Is that fair?  21
A The underlying virus is WIV.  22
Q Correct.   23
A And the spike that they put on indicated that the virus was more pathogenic 24
than the WIV.  25

  221
Q Correct.  Is that right?  So by replacing the WIV 1 spike with the SHC spike  --  1
A Yes, yes.  But, again, you got to put it into context because, again, these 2
viruses, when you  -- if you  -- are you hearkening back to the definition of whether  --  3
Q I'm getting there.   4
A Yeah, but then let's go there, okay?   5
The fact is that what was built into the scope of the conditions was that if you do 6
get an increase in viral load or pathogenesis, you've got to report it or reevaluate it, but it 7
still doesn't change the underlying premise that this is not a PPP.   8
That's the point.  That's the conclusion -- that's the confusion people get.  By the 9
operative definition of gain -of-function of concern, even with this, this is merely an added 10
going the extra mile that if something like this happens you stop and you look at it and 11
discuss whether or not to go forward, et cetera.   12
And, to my understanding, that even if you do that, this still doesn't change that 13
you're not dealing with a virus that's very likely to lead to widespread transmission, et 14
cetera, et cetera.   15
So it doesn't change the definition or the operative guideline for this experiment, 16
but it tells you, you should report this, because that was part of the fail -safe.   17
Q And I don't disagree with you that it's not an ePPP  --  18
A Yeah, right.  19
Q -- and it doesn't fall under the P3CO framework.   20
What I think we're trying to understand is this was submitted, I mean, well, late, 21
but the work was conducted during 2018 for the fiscal year 2018 to 2019 and the year 5 22
progress report.   23
At that time, this definition of gain -of-function was still live on the website of 24
enhancing a biological agent.  And I guess what I'm trying to understand, and the minority 25

  222
talked about it too, is you said what your intent was with Senator Paul, that when you 1
said NIH does not now and has not ever funded gain -of-function research in Wuhan was 2
that you meant to say or you intended ePPP research.   3
A I said that before and I'll repeat it again.  When I talk about gain -of-function, 4
I talk about  -- a gain -of-function of concern  -- I am talking about the operative definition 5
of gain -of-function of concern, which for me is the P3CO that we've discussed multiple 6
times.   7
Q And I agree, again, agree that this experiment did not meet the P3 definition.  8
Would you agree that it meets that broad definition of gain -of-function that was on NIH's 9
website when this research was conducted?  10
A Again, I don't use the terminology "gain -of-function" because it can be very 11
confusing, which was the reason why we went through 3 years of discussion to avoid the 12
kind of confusion that we're going to get into now if we start going back and forth about 13
this.   14
That was the whole reason for 3 years of deliberation to establish a regulatory 15
guideline based on a guiding policy that led to a framework.   16
So, regardless of how you slice it, when I spoke to  -- when I responded to 17
Doctor  -- to Senator Paul, I was referring to the gain -of-function research of concern as 18
defined by the P3CO framework.   19
Q My last question.  That hearing was May 11th, 2021.  When you testified, 20
like -- again, I apologize, but if I was a general C -SPAN watcher or watching the news 21
afterwards it obviously became a big deal, and I went and I googled NIH gain -of-function 22
research, this is what would come up.   23
Do you think you could have -- like, you knew that you meant ePPP.   24
A Yes.  25

  223
Q Do you think you could have been more specific in your answer?  1
A Well  --  2
Mr. Schertler.   I don't think he can really opine as to what CNN news watchers, 3
C-SPAN, whatever  --  4
Mr. Benzine.   No, I'm asking him  -- I'm asking him -- he knew -- he knew the rules, 5
he knew the definition.  6
Dr. Fauci.   I think  -- I think in terms of 3PCO, and that's embedded in my mind, he 7
didn't appreciate what gain -of-function according to the regulatory guidelines are.  I was 8
speaking in that term.  So he was thinking of a different thing.   9
When I spoke to him, I'll stand by my statement that when I said we do not do 10
gain -of-function I was referring to gain -of-function of concern according to the 3PCO 11
guideline, done, full stop.   12
Dr. Wenstrup.   Can I?  13
Mr. Benzine.   Yes, sir.  14
Dr. Wenstrup.   Do you think that would have helped, if you explained that that 15
day?   16
Dr. Fauci.   I'm not so sure, to be honest with you, sir, that -- Rand Paul has a thing 17
about me.  18
Dr. Wenstrup.   I'm not talking about Rand Paul, but for me  --  19
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  20
Dr. Wenstrup.   -- listening and watching.  21
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  22
Mr. Schertler.   And I think he can only talk about his interchange with Rand Paul.   23
Dr. Fauci.   Rand Paul.   24
Dr. Wenstrup.   He can have a retrospective opinion.   25

  224
Mr. Schertler.   Well, I don't know that we need a retrospective opinion of his 1
answer.  I think he's trying to answer your question  --  2
Dr. Wenstrup.   Well, he's saying it now.  3
Mr. Schertler.   -- as straightforwardly as he can.  4
Dr. Wenstrup.   The thing is he's saying it now.  Why didn't he say it that day?  5
That's all.  That's fine.   6
Mr. Schertler.   So maybe Rand Paul could have asked better questions.  And 7
maybe if Rand Paul had asked clearer, better questions, he would have gotten a more 8
specific answer.   9
So it can go both ways.  Wouldn't you agree, Chairman?  I mean, wouldn't you 10
agree with that?   11
Dr. Wenstrup.   What's your answer?  12
Dr. Fauci.   No, I agree with that.  I mean  --  13
Dr. Wenstrup.   So it was his questions that kept you from being more specific?   14
Dr. Fauci.   No, when he asked me  --  15
Mr. Schertler.   I didn't say it was his question.  I said he could have asked better 16
questions.  You're going back now and you're saying, could somebody have said it better?  17
Could somebody have asked it better?  I don't think it's a fair question.   18
Mr. Osterhues.   But this was the definition on the website.   19
Mr. Schertler.   That is not the definition that was referred to.  20
Mr. Osterhues.   That is on the NIH website.   21
Mr. Schertler.   Then if Rand Paul had said, this is the definition on your website, 22
we'd have gone with the definition on your website.   23
Dr. Wenstrup.   Sir, we're going to have a conversation here for a second about 24
what the average American perceives.  You may not be out talking  -- you may not be out 25

  225
talking to the average American every day.  I have to.   1
So all I'm saying is, because as he says this today it's an explanation for why he 2
said it.  So all I'm saying is, in retrospect, do you think it would have been perceived 3
better  -- I think it would have been  -- let me just say it as a statement then.   4
I think it would have been perceived better by the American people if he 5
explained that at the time.   6
Now, regardless of the situation, I'm just giving you that opinion of the average 7
American, because all they heard was that, and what's on the website is not that.  So 8
that's the point I'm trying to make.   9
Mr. Schertler.   Chairman, I appreciate that.  And I appreciate your point.  And I 10
appreciate, you know, dealing and communicating with the average American.  I don't 11
mean  -- I don't mean to  --  12
Dr. Wenstrup.   I'm not doubting your intent and what you thought it meant.  I'm 13
just giving you the perception of the average American, and then you go to the website 14
and it says something different from what you were thinking.   15
Mr. Schertler.   Okay.  So we've got the chairman's statement.   16
BY MR. BENZINE:  17
Q The last thing I'll say is we interviewed Dr. Tabak on Friday  -- it's been a long 18
weekend  -- and we asked him a similar question.  "What's described in the EcoHealth year 19
5 progress report would fit the definition  -- the broad definition of gain -of-function 20
research?"  And he answered, "The generic, broad description of what gain -of-function is, 21
yes."   22
Would you agree with Dr. Tabak?   23
A You know, again, we're going in circles, because it's going to get the same 24
confusion that the chairman was just talking about.   25

  226
Q I'm --  1
A Because then, if I say yes, then, "Ah, yes, he says it was gain -of-function."   2
It is not gain -of-function of concern that is associated with the regulatory 3
operative definition of gain -of-function.   4
Q No.  And I'm entirely willing to stipulate that and stipulate that it didn't need 5
to go through the P3CO and it didn't meet the definition of ePPP.   6
And I'll end on this, and if it's the same answer it's the same answer.  But we've 7
asked Dr.  Auchincloss this question.  We've asked Dr. Tabak this question.  Both have said 8
that it meets the definition, the broad definition of gain -of-function research.   9
I'm not trying to catch you in a trap.  I'm not trying to catch you  --  10
A But the thing is I have been living a life over the last few years of getting 11
total distortion of things that I've said and done, and you know that.  So if you want me 12
to --  13
Mr. Schertler.   So, look, I think you've asked and answered the question.  But if 14
you'd like to answer it again, you can answer it again.  15
Mr. Benzine.   You don't need to answer again.  I'll take that what you meant is 16
what  -- 17
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  18
Mr. Benzine.   And I agree that that is what you meant.  I'm not trying to go against 19
that.  I'm just  -- when people read things in black and white and words are said, it's hard 20
to distinguish sometimes.   21
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.   22
Mr. Benzine.   Our hour is up, and we can go off the record.  Our day is up too.  23
[Whereupon, at 6:57 p.m., the interview was recessed, to reconvene at 10:00 24
a.m., Tuesday, January 9, 2024.] 25

  227
   Certificate of Deponent/Interviewee  1
 2
 3
 I have read the foregoing ____ pages, which contain the correct transcript of the 4
answers made by me to the questions therein recorded.  5
 6
 7
 8
     _____________________________  9
      Witness Name  10
 11
 12
     _____________________________  13
          Date  14
 15

Summary:
Official transcript, Part 1 of Anthony Fauci's 14-hour closed-door transcribed interview before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (8-9 January 2024).

Excerpt: something improper about that process.   6  I think -- it is useful because I think that that timeline sometimes has gotten a little 7  bit foggy.   8  I'm going to introduce just one more draft of the paper that was forwarded on to 9  you, as minority exhibit I.  10      [Fauci Minority Exhibit No. I  11      was marked for identification.]  12  BY   13  Q And I'll give you a moment to look that over.  I may want to chat a little more 14  about the substance in the draft, so take your time.   15  This Bates number, for the record, is REV411.   16  A Yeah.  17  Q Great.  So this email chain is now February 8th.  So we are a full week out 18  from that February 1st conference call.  And it's another similar example, it looks like, 19  where Dr. Farrar is forwarding the current draft, but…