User:Skakkle/section draft

COVID-19 pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic a number of speculative theories emerged about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and links to gain-of-function research. In January 2021, University of Saskatchewan virologist Angela Rasmussen wrote that one version of the information invoked previous gain-of-function work on coronaviruses to promulgate the idea that the virus was of laboratory origin. Rasmussen stated that this was unlikely, due to the intense scrutiny and government oversight to which GoFR is subject, and it is improbable that research on hard-to-obtain coronaviruses could occur under the radar.

In a congressional hearing on May 11, 2021, about Anthony Fauci's role as the Chief Medical Advisor to the United States Office of the President, senator Rand Paul stated that "the U.S. has been collaborating with Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virology Institute, sharing discoveries about how to create super viruses. This gain-of-function research has been funded by the NIH." Fauci responded "with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect...the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research [conducted at] the Wuhan Institute of Virology." The Washington Post fact-checking team later rated Paul's statements as containing "significant omissions and/or exaggerations". NIH has provided funding to EcoHealth Alliance, a non-governmental organization which does infectious disease research. EcoHealth Alliance later sub-contracted some work to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Washington Post article clarified that this subcontract was not to support gain-of-function experiments, but instead to enable the collection of bat samples in the wild. EcoHealth Alliance spokesperson Robert Kessler has also categorically denied the accusation.

The Washington Post also quoted Rutgers University biosecurity expert Richard Ebright's dissenting opinion about Fauci's testimony, demonstrating that there is disagreement about what qualifies as "gain of function" research. Ebright asserted that experiments conducted under the EcoHealth grant "met the definition for gain-of-function research of concern under the 2014 Pause." MIT molecular biologist Alina Chan has argued that these experiments would not have been affected by the 2014 moratorium, because the experiments involved "naturally-occurring viruses" adding that the moratorium had "no teeth".

Several scientists have criticized the US government's GoFR regulations as having serious shortcomings (especially with regard to the NIH's funding of the EcoHealth Alliance grant proposal). Ebright has remarked that the process is not applied to all experiments which are implicated in the government's policies, while virologists David Relman and Angela Rasmussen have cited a worrying lack of transparency from oversight panels.