According to a copy of the bill obtained by Epoch Times, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall of the Republican Party in Kansas is set to introduce a resolution on Tuesday, June 4, to advance legislation prohibiting federal funding for “gain-of-function” research that could make certain viruses more deadly.
On Monday, Marshall told Epoch Times, “We must stop the deadly ‘gain-of-function’ research, and there are over a million reasons why, and that’s 1.1 million Americans who died of COVID-19.”
“History tells us that even in the safest labs conducting ‘gain-of-function’ research, virus leaks have occurred. Until regulatory processes are reformed and sufficient guidelines are put in place to protect us from the dangers of pandemic outbreaks, we must immediately suspend this research.”
Marshall has introduced a resolution calling for unanimous consent of the Senate to proceed with a vote on his legislation titled the “Viral Gain-of-Function Research Moratorium Act,” which he first introduced in 2021.
In January 2023, Marshall, along with nine original co-sponsors, reintroduced the bill (S.81), which will halt all federal research funding involving gain-of-function research aimed at enhancing the pathogenicity or transmissibility of viruses in any organism.
The resolution recognizes that the COVID-19 virus is likely a product of “gain-of-function” research funded by the U.S. government and conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. The resolution cites remarks from Dr. Anthony Fauci, a U.S. virus expert, in 2021, where he stated that, “It can’t be guaranteed that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology didn’t use U.S. funding for coronavirus gain-of-function research from 2014 to 2017.”
Peter Daszak, chairman of the EcoHealth Alliance based in New York, diverted funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) decided to suspend funding to him.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology in China has long been suspected as the source of the COVID-19 virus. The institute houses a P4 laboratory, the highest level of biosafety, not far from a local market where the first cluster of infections was reported at the end of 2019.
In 2021, the U.S. State Department issued a fact sheet indicating the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been conducting experiments on bat coronaviruses at least since 2016. The institute has been conducting “lab animal experiments” for the Chinese military since at least 2017.
The FBI and the U.S. Department of Energy assessments also suggest that the virus likely originated from a Chinese lab.
On Monday, Dr. Fauci, who served as the head of the NIAID from 1984 to the end of 2022, testified before the House’s COVID-19 Pandemic Response Committee.
Fauci stated, “Based on the oversight and operational definitions of the Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight (P3CO) committee, the National Institutes of Health did not fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” He was referring to an overview of the definition of “gain-of-function” as outlined in the HHS Framework for Guiding Funding Decisions about Proposed Research Involving Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens issued in 2017.
In response to Dr. Fauci’s statement, Dr. Marshall criticized the former NIAID chief for lying under oath on the X social media platform.
“After reaffirming, Fauci, under oath, claims that NIH did not fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Dr. Marshall wrote, “We know NIH provided funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been conducting deadly gain-of-function research for years. Even our State Department confirmed this fact.”
Before Dr. Fauci’s testimony in Congress on Monday, Dr. Marshall wrote a column for Epoch Times calling for the former executive to address unresolved issues regarding COVID-19.
One of the questions raised by Marshall in the column: Why did Fauci “possibly manipulate science using his authority to publish articles contrary to the facts, in order to downplay the lab leak theory.”
In March last year, the COVID-19 Pandemic Response Committee released email evidence revealing that Fauci “spearheaded” the drafting of a publication aimed at “refuting” the lab leak theory.
“Equally intriguing, after Dr. Fauci’s appearance before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in May 2021, HHS shut down all Freedom of Information Act requests. Did Dr. Fauci participate in discussions regarding that decision? Why make such a decision?” Marshall wrote in the column.
Dr. Marshall is a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Health and Retirement Security.
In April 2023, after two years of research, Dr. Marshall released a 300-page report on the origin of COVID-19.
In his public statement upon releasing the report, Dr. Marshall stated, “A wealth of evidence in this report indicates that in the fall of 2019, two separate lab accidents occurred in Wuhan, China, with compelling evidence indicating that COVID-19 is a lab-created and modified virus.”
“The report also concludes that well before other parts of the world became aware of the existence of coronaviruses, the CCP had already begun to deal with this virus, but China failed to alert the international community to this ongoing disaster.”