[Washington Examiner] Dr. Anthony Fauci says he has not reviewed any U.S. intelligence on lab workers who allegedly got sick at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in autumn 2019, while he also continues to deny that the National Institutes of Health approved funding for gain-of-function research at the lab.Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican, asked Fauci in May if he agreed with World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis required further investigation and whether he believed that further investigations should include looking at sick researchers at the Wuhan lab.
In a late June letter obtained by the Washington Examiner, Fauci replied that he supported President Joe Biden's call for a U.S. intelligence investigation into COVID-19's origins.
He also said that "we have also been working with a cross-regional coalition of 13 countries to urge the World Health Organization to begin the second phase of their study on the origins of COVID-19 without delay."
Gallagher asked Fauci if he had scrutinized everything that the United States knows about the sick Wuhan lab researchers, including the information in a State Department fact sheet from January and all underlying intelligence. Fauci said he had not.
"I am aware of unconfirmed reports of illness in WIV personnel," Fauci said. "I do not have in my possession, nor do I have access to, any of the non-public information, including the intelligence data, that address this point."