Hawley Questions Jay Bhattacharya On Federal Grant Funding To Chinese Labs And Projects

[00:00:00] One of the things that so badly [00:00:01] undermined public trust in the NIH in [00:00:03] particular, and I think you addressed [00:00:04] this when you were before the committee [00:00:06] the first time for your confirmation [00:00:07] hearing, was the work that NIH did and [00:00:09] funded at the Wuhan Institute of Urology [00:00:12] for Corona virus gain of function [00:00:14] research and of course lied about it for [00:00:16] 2 years or more. NIH denied that there [00:00:18] had been any funding whatsoever that had [00:00:20] gone to Wuhan and then ultimately had to [00:00:23] admit after public reporting that indeed [00:00:25] there had been gain of function research [00:00:28] with NA NIH money through Ecoalth [00:00:30] Alliance that had gone to Wuhan. My [00:00:32] question to you is this. Has the NIH [00:00:34] done under your leadership now a [00:00:36] thorough review of all of the grants or [00:00:39] other funding streams that may have gone [00:00:41] not only to Wuhan but to other labs in [00:00:45] China? Do we have a handle now on what [00:00:47] NIH was doing over the last decade plus [00:00:50] in funding? I think this is so important [00:00:52] because we were misled. I say we, I mean [00:00:55] the American people were misled and lied [00:00:56] to. And those of us who said, "Wait a [00:00:58] minute, we think there's a funding [00:00:59] stream there. We were called conspiracy [00:01:01] theorists, cooks, crazies. It turns out [00:01:05] it was 100% correct." So, has has NIH [00:01:07] done a review of what funding streams [00:01:09] have gone to Wuhan and to other labs? [00:01:12] So, Senator, I've I I've been focused [00:01:13] primarily on on making sure that we [00:01:15] don't concurrently have or in the future [00:01:17] have. So, I put in policies to have [00:01:19] better oversight of foreign [00:01:20] collaborations. I've worked very hard on [00:01:22] the dangerous gain of function. We [00:01:23] paused 40 grants that have some [00:01:25] potential risk of dangerous gain of [00:01:26] function and put in policy so that never [00:01:28] happens again because that's to me [00:01:30] that's the most important thing. We [00:01:31] can't ever do it again. Um I I I'm [00:01:34] working on the review. It's a long long [00:01:36] review. It's going to and I'd love to [00:01:38] work with uh with with uh with with [00:01:40] Congress and uh it's something that [00:01:42] other parts of the administration are [00:01:44] also interested in. It's a comp it's a [00:01:46] long complicated story that [00:01:47] unfortunately doesn't just the involve [00:01:49] the NIH. Uh it also involves partners, [00:01:52] foreign partners and so I think it's [00:01:54] something that we really should do but [00:01:56] we haven't I can't tell you we completed [00:01:58] it at this point. [00:01:58] >> Don't you think that that accountability [00:01:59] is important? I mean, don't you think to [00:02:01] restore public trust, it's important [00:02:02] that we level with the American people, [00:02:04] that there's transparency, that we [00:02:06] correct the record and say, "Here's [00:02:08] actually what your government did with [00:02:09] your tax money." Maybe it'll be little. [00:02:12] I mean, maybe there won't be much beyond [00:02:13] what went to Wuhan. I I hope that's the [00:02:15] answer. Maybe it's more than that. [00:02:16] Whatever it is, I I think the public [00:02:18] deserves to know. And frankly, having [00:02:21] been misled, this body was misled. Maybe [00:02:23] this committee, certainly the Homeland [00:02:25] Security Committee was misled for the [00:02:27] better part of two years when we were [00:02:28] told over and over and over and over no [00:02:31] tax money ever went to Wuhan. No gain of [00:02:34] function research. That was a lie. That [00:02:35] was a lie from the leaders of NIH at the [00:02:39] time. I think those lies need to be [00:02:41] corrected and the facts, all of the [00:02:43] facts, however sorted and unpleasant [00:02:46] they may be for the institution, need to [00:02:48] come out so that the public can say, [00:02:50] "Okay, we've cleaned house here. We've [00:02:52] got some confidence in what our own [00:02:54] government is doing with our tax money. [00:02:55] Don't you agree with that? [00:02:56] >> I do agree with that. After after a [00:02:59] patient dies in a hospital, there's [00:03:00] often a conference, a morbidity [00:03:02] mortality conference where there's just [00:03:03] an honest conversation what went wrong. [00:03:06] I think the United States desperately [00:03:07] needs that. [00:03:08] >> Desperately. Well, will you make that a [00:03:09] priority in your time at and at NIH? [00:03:12] >> Happy to happy to collaborate with you [00:03:14] and others uh in Congress to make that [00:03:15] happen. [00:03:16] >> Good. I think it's absolutely vital.