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Op-Ed: Dr. Fauci warned about coronaviruses
in 2003 but didn’t act on it
[The Center Square] Kirk Allen & John
Kraft | RealClearWire
Few would argue the United
States, or any country for that matter, was prepared for the COVID-19
pandemic, even though, starting in 2003, the U.S. devoted $5.6 billion
to fund Project Bioshield, running through 2013, and another $2.8
billion of funding through 2018. Project Bioshield was designed to
prepare the United States against a bio attack, including provisions for
the stockpiling and distribution of vaccines. |
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 Though Covid-19 was a new virus, congressional testimony from
2003 paints a concerning picture about what we knew – and when – about the
family of viruses from which it originated.
“I am particularly interested in learning how Project BioShield would assist in
addressing the current public health emergency created by the epidemic known as
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome [SARS],” said Tom Davis, chairman of the
Committee on Government Reform. “More than 2,000 suspected cases of this
mysterious disease have been reported in 17 nations, including the United
States, with 78 fatalities. So far, there is no effective treatment or vaccine
to combat this deadly syndrome.”
Among those testifying to the committee in 2003 was Dr. Anthony Fauci, then and
now the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci told the committee:
SARS, standing for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, has now spread through
several countries, at least 17 countries. There are over 2,200 cases, and about
80 deaths. There have now been 100 cases in the United States in 27 states. This
is a new disease. It is what we refer to as an emerging microbe, an emerging
infectious disease. The data from the CDC and from other laboratories indicate
that the corona virus, which is an interesting group – it is a very common
virus. It is what causes about 10 to 20 percent of the common colds. There are
two groups of corona viruses. This is likely a member of a new third group. It
has not been definitively demonstrated that this is the, or the only, cause of
SARS, but the evidence is mounting every day from a variety of approaches that
we are taking.
According to testimony in 2003, Fauci confirmed SARS was an emerging infectious
disease of which data indicated it was tied to the coronavirus, the cause of
10-20 percent of common colds.
“It has the capability of being a very severe syndrome,” Fauci continues. “The
death rate in this is 3.5 percent, which may sound small, but when you think
about the possibility of infecting hundreds of millions of people, this can turn
out to be a major public health threat. In fact, in parts of the world it
already is leading to such draconian measures as quarantines and isolation in
several countries.”
Fauci continues: “The CDC has done a magnificent job thus far,” Fauci said in
2003, “and we know that they will continue to, in not only identifying and
tracking but essentially now moving ahead in collaboration with the NIH and a
variety of other agencies, the FDA, in developing diagnostic therapeutics and on
our way to a vaccine.”
How is it that in 2003, Fauci claimed the CDC, in collaboration with the NIH,
was doing a magnificent job and would work toward therapeutics and an eventual
vaccine – and yet this country was basically blindsided, with few known
therapeutics and no vaccine, 17 years later? The medical advice that became the
norm and remains the norm in many parts of the United States is, if you become
infected with COVID-19, stay home, and wait to see if you get sicker. Looking
back on Fauci’s words, it appears our health officials missed the mark on a
grand scale.
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Even more concerning: in 2003, it was disclosed that monoclonal antibodies have
changed the way we treat everything from heart disease to cancer – yet such
treatments were not being pushed like they are now.
Fauci’s words throughout the 2003 hearing are troubling in light of where we are
today with COVID-19.
“So, in summary, Mr. Chairman, it is a serious threat,” Fauci said then of SARS.
“We must take it very seriously. We don’t feel there is a need to panic at this
point, but we must continue to do the very stringent public health measures that
we are approaching, as well as the research that is going into it.”
Congressman Henry Waxman asks Fauci: “Is there a potential for dual-use where
the research of biodefense may well lead us to research breakthroughs for other
diseases?”
“I think it is not only a potential, Mr. Waxman, I think it is inevitable that
there will be an important contribution to the research that we put into
emerging and reemerging diseases to inform us about biodefense research, and it
is without a doubt that the research that goes into biodefense will help us with
naturally occurring,” Fauci responds. “Because as a matter of fact, as we have
discussed before, as you know we feel that deliberately released microbes is
just another form of emerging and reemerging disease. Instead of occurring
naturally, it is done with malice and deliberately, but the end result can be
the same.”
While Fauci has been extremely reluctant to admit that gain-of-function research
was taking place with American tax dollars and that China was responsible for
the release of the COVID-19 virus, his 2003 testimony makes clear that he felt
deliberately released microbes were just another form of emerging and reemerging
disease.
The bottom line: the United States was not prepared for COVID-19, and the
draconian measures to handle it that have been pushed by Fauci from March 2020
on have not resulted in declining mortality numbers – in fact, the trend we are
seeing is more deaths in the last 10 months than in all of 2020.
As it is clear that he has known for years the serious threat the United States
and the world faced from coronaviruses, and it appears he did very little in the
last 17 years to address the very concerns he raised about them in his testimony
in 2003, Dr. Fauci should resign – in disgrace.
Kirk Allen and John Kraft are founders of the Edgar County Watchdogs and
American Watchdogs, nonprofits focused on local government accountability and
local government educational training for citizens.
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