Dr. Anthony Fauci has found himself at the center of a growing scandal. On May 11th, Dr. Fauci vehemently denied that the NIH funded any Gain-of-Function research (GoF) at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and that if there were any NIH-funded GoF research conducted in the US it was done so within the bounds of “guidelines.” Of course, Fauci forgets to admit that much of the research referenced was conducted before those guidelines had even been established or in contradiction to federal moratoriums.

But as we’ve repeatedly reported and as Bonchie wrote this morning, Dr. Fauci has been a long proponent of gain-of-function experiments, including experiments that created viral strains of influenza and SARS which were resistant to any known treatments and vaccines. When it was revealed that the US was conducting these experiments in December 2011, Dr. Fauci was then summoned by the Senate to testify about the admittedly dangerous research.

As I’ve reported in numerous pieces (beginning here) over the last several days, Fauci finally appeared before the Senate on April 26, 2012, and his testimony there was based upon this report.

Now video of the accompanying testimony has surfaced, showing the not-so-good doctor defending the very type of research and admitting that the NIH not only funds GoF but also that the NIH advocates for this type of research – despite the risks (emphasis mine):

“While concerns about dual use research are not new, the Administration continues to take oversight of such research very seriously and has recently strengthened procedures to mitigate any potential risks arising from DURC as scientific progress continues.

“Dual use research is research that ultimately could yield new information critical to the development of technologies needed to improve public health, such as vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics, but also has the potential for malevolent applications if used by people with intent to do harm.

“We must continually examine and balance the immediate and long-term benefit of the critical research for the public health with the risk that the conduct of certain types of DURC and/or the broad communication of the findings might enable a bioterror attack or accidental release of a microbe. NIH plays a role— which we take very seriously— in assessing whether the potential benefits of DURC outweigh the risks, and in mitigating any such risks.

“The NIAID-supported research by Drs. Kawaoka and Fouchier on the transmissibility of H5N1 remains important to global health. Although concerns about the potential dual use applications of their studies brought much global attention to this research, when complete information about these studies became available and data were clarified, the NSABB determined that the benefit of communicating the results of these studies outweighed the risk of potential misuse of the information in the manuscripts.”

Here’s the video of that testimony:

One thing is for sure:  Fauci has a lot of explaining to do.