Anthony Fauci’s department tried to create a mutant monkeypox virus

Dr. Anthony Fauci’s former department “misled” Congress about its plans to create a Frankenstein monkeypox virus with pandemic potential, according to a new report.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) submitted plans to create a more transmissible and deadly strain of Mpox in 2015, when Dr. Fauci was still head of the agency.

The projects did not receive widespread attention until late 2022 – amid fears that Covid had arisen from similar experiments using US government grants in China.

The plan to create a mutant Mpox virus has raised serious concerns among experts and led to an investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which released the results of its investigation this week of a year and a half.

The report said HHS, NIAID and NIH repeatedly “obstructed and misled the committee” on whether the risky experiments had been approved and conducted, calling their cooperation with the investigation “a unacceptable and potentially criminal.”

The investigators added: “HHS and NIH repeatedly told the committee that…the experiments were not ‘formally proposed’ or ‘planned,’ were never approved or conducted, and were not not currently under study.

“(These) repeated claims were false.”

They also said that NIAID, a branch of the NIH, should not be trusted to carry out this type of research: “The main conclusion reached at this point in the investigation is that it cannot be trusted at NIAID to responsibly oversee its own pathogen research.

“This cannot be relied upon to determine whether an experiment on a potential pandemic pathogen or an increased potential pandemic pathogen presents an unacceptable biosafety risk or a serious threat to public health.”

Monkeypox, which belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox, causes a rash and flu-like symptoms and has sparked a global epidemic in 2022, infecting tens of thousands of people.

There are two types of monkeypox virus: Clade I, which causes severe disease and has killed up to 11% of people in previous outbreaks, and Clad II, the type that caused the outbreak worldwide in 2022. These infections are more transmissible but less serious. and almost 100 percent of people survive.

In October 2022, a team of government scientists wanted to insert genes from the more dangerous Clade I Mpox into Clade II, creating a hybrid strain that could have been both deadlier and more contagious.

Investigators said this would be classified as gain of function, meaning research that can result in deadlier, more transmissible viruses and could be behind the creation of Covid.

The new Mpox virus has been estimated to have a mortality rate of up to 15 percent and a reproduction rate of 2.4, meaning one sick person could infect more than two other people.

At this rate, the hybrid strain would have had pandemic potential.

The report follows Dr. Fauci’s recent testimony regarding the origins of Covid, which some government agencies view as risky gain-of-function research underway in China and funded by the United States, including the NIAID.

Dr. Fauci has maintained that his agency was not involved in China’s GOF experiments, but the lack of transparency around Mpox research calls into question the reliability of what HHS, NIH, and NIAID have said.

The scientists said their experiments would have revealed how different genes make monkeypox more deadly and spur the development of better drugs and vaccines.

But the modified virus poses “an exceptionally high risk” to the public if it were to escape accidentally, according to Dr. Richard Ebright, a microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

The Maryland team argued that their work did not involve “improving” a pathogen, because they sought to exchange natural mutations rather than create new ones, meaning the hybrid could not not be more lethal than existing clades.

But the news still shocked experts and Americans, as they expressed concerns about such research continuing in the United States, despite fears that similar practices could have triggered the Covid pandemic.

Despite its approval, the researchers say the work was never done, but the report says “HHS has repeatedly refused to produce documents corroborating this claim.”

The House committee is now seeking additional evidence from HHS, NIAID and NIH to confirm that the risky experiments were never carried out.

Dr. Ebright told this website after the news broke: “A laboratory-generated monkeypox virus… more deadly and as transmissible as the monkeypox virus currently circulating in man, could potentially overcome the protection offered by vaccines and would likely spread beyond the current current. -populations at risk compared to the general population.

Monkeypox can be spread through contact with infected animals or close contact with an infected person. There is no FDA-approved treatment for Mpox, only therapies to manage the symptoms, but there is a vaccine to protect against it.

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In the United States, an outbreak of Mpox began in May 2022 as part of a larger global outbreak resulting from the Clade II strain endemic in West Africa.

The CDC reports that as of January 2024, according to the most recent data available, there have been 32,000 cases of monkeypox in the United States, with 58 deaths. Worldwide, there have been 95,900 cases since the outbreak began.

While the commission began its investigation in October 2022, the agencies repeatedly refused to answer questions.

And lawmakers weren’t given documents to review until March 2024 “after subpoena threats forced” the agencies to provide them, ultimately confirming that the experiments had been approved.

Following their findings, investigators recommended establishing an oversight board to review NIAID-funded research on dangerous pathogens and moving final approval of GOF research from NIAID to another entity.