A week after the inauguration, the American Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky published a Flurry of the convention assignments to 14 agencies, including NIH and HHS. The senator said that the continuous investigation was underway to “criticize the process that enabled this dangerous research, which could have led to the pandemic”.
In a summons sent to an agency in the Pentagon, Paul is looking for “all files related to disclosure or complaints of waste, fraud and abuse implying the origins of COVID-19, the gain in function of function, double research Use or life sciences or the life sciences research ”, according to a copy of the assignment provided to Wired. He also requests any funding provided to Ecohealth Alliance by USAID and other departments.
A member of the staff of one of the agencies targeted by the summons said that he has already provided the senator tens of thousands of files under the previous assignments – all proving that their agency does an essential work to follow and contain epidemics of infectious diseases in the world. And yet, they say, they feel that they are still targeted by Paul and other Republicans with the allegation that they build biological weapons. “He will not die.”
Many sources that spoke in Wired said they feared that this witch hunt could accelerate in the coming months. More acute, they fear that America will destroy its ability to anticipate, monitor and respond to infectious epidemics of diseases.
“They assume that virological research is intrinsically dangerous and there are really not many advantages,” explains Angela Rasmussen, virologist in the organization of vaccines and infectious diseases at the University of Saskatchewan.
“They will simply decimate science and our understanding of the world, and our ability to fight pandemics, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires and everything else”, predicts a researcher, “which is stupid like a rock. “”
It doesn’t seem to bother Kennedy. In at least two of his books, he practically characterizes all virological work as research on organic weapons. In a speech in November 2023 to the virulely anti-vaccine group for the defense of children’s health, of which he was president before his abandoned presidential campaign, Kennedy swore “To give a break to infectious diseases for about eight years. »»
The consequences
This potential pivot away from research on infectious diseases and chronic diseases occurs while the United States faces H5N1 avian flu trigger. “Our epidemiologists are [looking for] The very first case of human transmission to human is not even a needle in a hay boot – it is a needle in a stack of needles, “explains the former CDC official.
Last Wednesday evening, a main advisor to the CDC responsible for the political response H5N1, Erin Abramsohn, announced his resignation. In a Linkedin PostAbramsohn quoted to work with his team by “chaos and uncertainty, transition, reorganization, preparation and response” and mentioned his efforts to safeguard his files before resigning.
Rasmussen and some colleagues have also run to archive the massive volumes of government research, fearing that it was completely upline – as was done in the USAID and elsewhere.
The former CDC official adds that the new administration seems to define the modification of how vaccines will be recommended to the public and how the CDC can communicate the effectiveness of vaccines, in particular vulnerable populations. Like most American government agencies, CDCs and NIH have also received edicts to remove references to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
“We had to go through the language of questions and documents of the survey and internal and external websites,” explains the former CDC official. “If you can’t get it, you lower the whole web page down.”
Sources indicate to Wired that this linguistic edict extends to in progress research. Scientists were forced to browse their questionnaires and modify their articles still to be published to eliminate reverences to sex or transgender persons.
“I think we are really worried,” said the former CDC official, “about the amount of damage that will be caused that we cannot undo.”
