EXCERPT:
FAUCI: “We at NIAID being the major funders of most, but not all, of these people, we obviously were connected to that because they wanted to know, 'Since you are our major funders, what kind of research will you fund?' (...) First of all, questions have come up about the concern of the danger of people that you fund. NIAID, NIH, certainly CDC, only funds and conducts gain a function research on H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses for researchers who are highly trained, skilled, experienced and adequately regulated. (...) Now, the reason we are here today in this room with H5N1 highly pathogenic influenza and we’re not in this room discussing so many of the other gain of function research that we do is because... (...) The concern was that the products or information that were generated by these experiments might be used by others in a way that could harm society, either carelessly in an unregulated fashion by inexperienced people or even by deliberate misuse. (...) There's disagreements as to the scientific and/or public health value of these experiments. But I believe the people who feel that they shouldn’t be conducted are in the minority. (...) But the bottom line is that gain and loss of function research is critical to understanding disease pathogenesis, antimicrobial resistance and host responses, as well as to developing better techniques of surveillance, vaccines and therapeutics."