Senators Mike Braun and Josh Hawley have recently reintroduced the COVID Origin Transparency Act, a bill that would require Joe Biden to declassify intelligence related to the possible origins of the pandemic. The senators are pushing for this transparency in order to provide the American people with an accurate understanding of how COVID began and potentially prevent future pandemics.
This bill follows a recent bombshell report which exposed how Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), allegedly used his influence to silence virologists who were researching the potential laboratory origins of SARS-CoV-2. Kristian Andersen, one such virologist, had studied the virus’ genome sequence and initially suggested it may have been manmade before later retracting his own theory following a conference call with Fauci. An email from Anderson’s then-supervisor, Dr. Francis Collins, warned that promoting the lab leak theory could cause unfounded conspiracy theories to spread and damage international cooperation efforts on scientific research.
In addition to this legislation from Senators Braun and Hawley, Senator Rand Paul has already called out Fauci for his role in financing gain-of-function research at Wuhan Institute of Virology–research which may have played an integral role in creating or allowing SARS-CoV-2 to escape into the world at large. These events prompted NIH to suspend gain-of-function funding and led President Biden’s administration to review the pandemic’s origins more closely. Finally, Senator Ron Johnson has written letters suggesting that even more should be done in terms of investigating the beginnings of COVID. He also believes certain public health measures implemented by governments around the world have been both ineffective and harmful to economies globally.
BREAKING: The United States Senate just unanimously passed a bill to declassify all U.S. intelligence on the origins of COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/TN3pg1Zvms
— Killer Instinct 🇺🇸 (@SandraYozipovic) March 2, 2023
The controversy surrounding COVID's origins has been highly politicized since its emergence. President Trump even posited that it originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, a claim which many in mainstream media deemed as racist. Yet now, both Democrats and Republicans are pushing for greater transparency regarding where this virus actually came from so we can all work towards preventing similar disasters in future generations.