АНУ-ын халдварт өвчин судлалын мэргэжилтэн Энтони Фаучи COVID-19 цар тахлын гарал үүслийн асуудлаарх Сенатын сонсголд оролцохдоо гэрчийн мэдүүлэг өгөхөөс татгалзаж, Үндсэн хуулийн тавдугаар нэмэлт өөрчлөлтийн эрхээ эдлэхээ мэдэгдлээ.
Сенатын Дотоодын аюулгүй байдлын хорооны сонсгол дээр Бүгд найрамдах намын сенатч Рэнд Пол цар тахлын гарал үүсэл, тэр дундаа БНХАУ-ын Ухань хотын лабораторийн нөлөөтэй холбоотой асуудлаар Энтони Фаучиг байцаахыг оролджээ. Үүний хариуд Фаучи сенатч Полыг өөрийг нь улс төрийн зорилгоор яллахыг завдаж, хувийн өдрийн тэмдэглэлийг нь олон нийтэд дэлгэж, нэр хүндэд нь халдсан гэж буруутгав. Тэрээр хуулийн зөвлөхүүдийнхээ зөвлөмжийн дагуу асуултад хариулахаас татгалзаж буйгаа илэрхийлсэн байна.
Рэнд Пол өөрийн байр сууриа хамгаалахдаа, Энтони Фаучиг цар тахлын үеэр хариуцлагаас зайлсхийж, шинжлэх ухааныг улс төрийн зорилгоор ашигласан гэж шүүмжилжээ. Тэрээр АНУ-ын Үндэсний эрүүл мэндийн хүрээлэн (NIH) Ухань дахь лабораторийн судалгааг санхүүжүүлсэн нь өвчний дэгдэлтэд нөлөөлсөн байж болзошгүй гэх хардлагаа дахин илэрхийлсэн байна. Гэсэн хэдий ч мэргэжилтнүүд болон бусад судлаачид уг санхүүжилт нь вирусийн дэгдэлт үүсгэх боломжгүй гэдгийг мэдэгдэж, Фаучиг эсэргүүцэгчдийн үйл ажиллагааг үндэслэлгүй, улс төрийн шинжтэй гэж үзэж байгаагаа илэрхийлжээ.
Хорооны Ардчилсан намын гишүүд Рэнд Полын эхлүүлсэн энэхүү сонсгол нь ирээдүйн аюулгүй байдлыг хангах бус, харин өнгөрсөн үеийн үйл явдлыг улс төржүүлж буй үйлдэл хэмээн шүүмжлэв. АНУ-ын эрүүл мэндийн байгууллагууд болон мэргэжилтнүүдийн эсрэг чиглэсэн энэхүү маргаан нь олон жилийн турш үргэлжилж байгаа бөгөөд талуудын байр суурь эрс тэс хэвээр байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
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Dr. Anthony Fauci is refusing to answer questions from Republican Senator Rand Paul at a congressional hearing on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, which the 85-year-old infectious disease expert and former National Institutes of Health official has labeled a years-long partisan crusade intended to smear him.
After a brief opening statement, Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution under questions from Paul during his testimony to the Senate Homeland Security committee on Wednesday.
“Given Sen. Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently, his publicly releasing my personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that can vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up in his words quote, ‘behind bars,’ end quote,” Fauci said.
“Any person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would come to the same conclusion” to avoid answering his questions, he continued.
“Although it pains me to say so, and because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of the federal government … under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right to the Fifth Amendment to refrain from answering your questions,” Fauci said.
Fauci, who steered the nation’s initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has previously testified to Congress under oath about the pandemic’s origins, including questions from Paul and Senate Republicans who have sought to publicly question Fauci on whether the outbreak began with a lab leak in Wuhan, China.
This week, in his latest escalation of a yearslong feud, Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s personal records, including his notes during Donald Trump’s response to the pandemic and entries detailing his efforts to counter the president’s false statements.
Under the first Trump administration, Fauci contradicted the president and officials over mitigation efforts and unproven treatments and a refusal among Republicans to address the seriousness of the public health threat, which killed more than 1 million people in the U.S.
Despite the speed and efficacy of the Trump administration’s vaccine development, Fauci has attributed the difficulty of a comprehensive response to the rapid mutation and contagion of the disease against a backdrop of patchwork public health infrastructure, conflicting guidance and the politically volatile, anti-science and partisan response.
In April 2021, Fauci wrote that members of the “radical right wing” like Paul were trying to “connect me with the virus from WUHAN.
“They are saying that I deliberately worked with the Chinese together with [zoologist] Peter Daszak to create a virus that would be released to the world,” he wrote at the time. “This sounds very much like a way-out conspiracy theory, which it is. However, there are enough crazy people around to make this a problem.”
The following month, he wrote that the conspiracy theory was evolving again thanks to “the usual cast of characters.”
Fauci, who was preemptively pardoned by Joe Biden, has repeatedly denied allegations of a cover-up. Critics have accused Paul and his allies of abandoning oversight responsibilities during the Trump administration to pursue an ideological crusade.
“No credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges,” a group of more than 150 scientists and physicians wrote in an open letter Tuesday. “These conspiracy theories have led to a five-year period of harassment and threats of violence directed at Dr. Fauci and his family.”
Infectious-disease experts have also insisted to Paul and other Republicans that while the National Institutes of Health funded virus research in Wuhan, that work could not have sparked an outbreak.
Trump and his allies, however, have embraced the narrative. The Trump administration created a website that claims the “true” origin of the pandemic was the result of a lab leak without sharing any definitive evidence.
Paul, who has spent years using his position on the panel to investigate Fauci and the origins of the pandemic, said in his opening statement that Fauci should “come clean” and “ask for forgiveness” to ensure “a man-made epidemic never happens again.”
Fauci, according to Paul, has spent years “avoiding responsibility.”
“There will be another pandemic. There will be another crisis,” he said. “They will invoke science as if it’s a commandment.”
As public support for the nation’s institutions declines under a health agency that elevates conspiracy theories, public health officials “have it backwards,” according to Paul.
It is secrecy, arrogance, censorship and a “refusal to admit error” that destroys trust, Paul said.
Fauci had previously denied that the National Institutes of Health directly funded gain-of-function research — in which a studied pathogen is altered to make it more transmissible in an effort to better predict emerging diseases and combat them with vaccines — at a Wuhan lab that has been scrutinized as a possible source of the disease.
In 2022, the GOP senator suggested Fauci, who was serving at the time as the chief White House medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had lied to Congress over whether the agency supported such research.
“Senator Paul, you do not know what you’re talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially,” Fauci said at the time. “You do not know what you’re talking about.”
Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the panel, slammed Paul for leading a hearing that “looks backwards.”
“We are instead litigating the past,” he said Wednesday.
While “COVID-19 exposed serious deficiencies in our nation’s public health infrastructure,” the committee is avoiding asking “forward-looking, life-saving questions” to “better prepare Americans when the next emergency occurs.”
This is a developing story
