Kozlov and Wolf in Nature:
Anthony Fauci, the former head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), emphatically fended off allegations at a Republican-led hearing in Washington DC today that his agency funded research that created the COVID-19 pandemic or that he coordinated a cover-up of the pandemic’s origins, calling the claims “simply preposterous”. The 3 June session was one of the most anticipated hearings hosted by the US House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. The subcommittee has held 27 hearings or briefings over the past 15 months to examine the federal government’s response to the pandemic and to uncover the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
As has been the case in most of the hearings, Fauci’s questioning reflected a deep political divide in the US government. Republicans criticized Fauci’s oversight of NIAID-funded research grants and of his staff members, and Democrats sang the praises of the former chief medical adviser to US President Joe Biden, commending him on a distinguished career that has saved lives through his work advancing research on AIDS and developing COVID-19 vaccines. Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, told Nature that the hearing was a Republican “attempt at revisionist history” to ignore the policy failures of the administration of former US president Donald Trump early during the pandemic and to “blame the scientists”.
More here.