Note: This post was last edited on 6/3/24
‘I took an oath to do no harm’: The two doctors wrestling over Fauci’s legacy
Brad Wenstrup was alarmed.
It was February 2020, weeks before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered America’s businesses and schools. But the Ohio congressman, a former military combat surgeon, was reading email from a fellow doctor on how U.S. and Chinese researchers had been experimenting on viruses in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
“Look, I’m military, a military doc. … I started thinking about biological weapons,” Wenstrup recalled in a recent interview with The Washington Post.
Four years later, the Republican congressman is still thinking about China’s potential links to covid, as part of his work to shape America’s understanding of the pandemic. As chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic — the only panel in Congress solely devoted to probing a health crisis that left more than 1 million Americans dead — Wenstrup has led investigations into the origins of the virus as well as hearings on school shutdowns, vaccine mandates and possible side effects from coronavirus vaccines. He recruited another doctor — California congressman Raul Ruiz, an emergency medicine specialist — to serve as the panel’s top Democrat last year, promising they would be two physicians working together to get answers and accountability.
Wenstrup and his fellow Republicans have focused much of their effort on the possible lab origins of the coronavirus, suggesting federal officials worked to cover up U.S. ties to researchers in Wuhan. The issue is set to receive national attention Monday, when Anthony S. Fauci — to many Americans, the face of the nation’s coronavirus response — testifies in front of the panel. Republicans are poised to grill the former National Institutes of Health official on the agency’s funding of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that participated in risky virus research in China before the pandemic. Federal officials in May halted funding to the organization, citing irregularities uncovered by the coronavirus panel.
Last edited by BFR - on 03 June 2024
