[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PRINCIPLES FOR OUTBREAK INVESTIGATION:
COVID-19 AND FUTURE INFECTIOUS DISEASES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS
AND OVERSIGHT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 14, 2021
__________
Serial No. 117-24
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
44-965 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma,
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan, BILL POSEY, Florida
Vice Chair RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina VACANCY
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin VACANCY
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
------
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight
HON. BILL FOSTER, Illinois, Chairman
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado JAY OBERNOLTE, California,
AMI BERA, California Ranking Member
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin VACANCY
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois VACANCY
C O N T E N T S
July 14, 2021
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Bill Foster, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Investigations and Oversight, Committee on Science, Space,
and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.................. 11
Written Statement............................................ 13
Statement by Representative Jay Obernolte, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 14
Written Statement............................................ 15
Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 16
Written Statement............................................ 18
Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 19
Witnesses:
Dr. David Relman, Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor,
Stanford University School of Medicine, and Senior Fellow,
Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford
University
Oral Statement............................................... 20
Written Statement............................................ 23
Dr. Stanley Perlman, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology,
University of Iowa
Oral Statement............................................... 33
Written Statement............................................ 35
Dr. Connie Price, Chief Medical Officer, Denver Health, and
Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases,
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Oral Statement............................................... 41
Written Statement............................................ 43
Dr. Suzan Murray, Program Director, Smithsonian Global Health
Program, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology
Institute
Oral Statement............................................... 52
Written Statement............................................ 54
Discussion....................................................... 58
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. David Relman, Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor,
Stanford University School of Medicine, and Senior Fellow,
Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford
University..................................................... 80
Dr. Stanley Perlman, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology,
University of Iowa............................................. 82
Dr. Connie Price, Chief Medical Officer, Denver Health, and
Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases,
University of Colorado School of Medicine...................... 84
Dr. Suzan Murray, Program Director, Smithsonian Global Health
Program, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology
Institute...................................................... 88
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Documents Submitted by Representative Bill Foster
American Society for Microbiology............................ 90
``Preventing the Next Global Biological Catastrophe,''
Nuclear Threat Initiative.................................. 92
Documents Submitted by Representative Bill Posey
Letters by Representative Bill Posey and Sustainable
Development Solutions Network.............................. 96
``Call for a Full and Unrestricted International Forensic
Investigation into the Origins of Covid-19,'' Colin D.
Butler, et al.............................................. 112
``Call for a Full Investigation into the Origins of Covid
19'' Colin D. Butler, et al................................ 117
``Open Letter to the World Health Organization and the
Members of its Executive Board,'' Colin D. Butler, et al... 126
``Call for a Comprehensive Investigation of the Origin of
SARS-CoV-2, if Possible with Chinese Government
Participation,'' Parise Adadi, et al....................... 136
``Did the SARS-CoV-2 virus arise from a bat coronavirus
research program in a Chinese laboratory? Very Possibly,''
Milton Leitenberg.......................................... 144
``The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora's
box at Wuhan?,'' Nicholas Wade............................. 168
``Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related
coronavirus provides new insights into the origin of SARS
coronavirus,'' Ben Hu, et al., PLOS Pathogens.............. 200
``A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows
potential for human emergence,'' Vineet D. Menachery, et
al., Nature Medicine....................................... 227
``Bat Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Like Coronavirus WIV1
Encodes an Extra Accessory Protein, ORFX, Involved in
Modulation of the Host Immune Response,'' Lei-Ping Zeng, et
al., Journal of Virology................................... 235
Statement submitted by the Association of Public Health
Laboratories................................................... 245
Letter submitted by Dr. Steven Quay, et al.
``Science Not Speculation Should Inform the Investigation of
the Origin of COVID-19''................................... 247
PRINCIPLES FOR OUTBREAK
INVESTIGATION: COVID-19 AND
FUTURE INFECTIOUS DISEASES
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 2021
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:05 p.m.,
via Zoom, Hon. Bill Foster [Chairman of the Subcommittee]
presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Foster. OK. Well, this hearing will now come to
order. And, without objection, the Chair is authorized to
declare recess at any time, and before I deliver my opening
remarks, I wanted to note that today the Committee is meeting
virtually, and I want to announce a couple of reminders to the
Members about the conduct of this hearing. First, Members
should keep their video feed on as long as they are present at
the hearing. Members are responsible for their own microphones.
Please also keep your microphones muted, unless you are
speaking. Finally, if Members have documents that they wish to
submit for the record, please e-mail them to the Committee
Clerk, whose e-mail address was circulated prior to the
hearing.
Well, good morning again, and welcome, and thanks to our
Members and panelists. I guess I don't have to remind people
about the importance of the topic that we are discussing today,
the origins of COVID-19. For the past year and a half the
Science Committee and Congress have been appropriately focused
on optimizing our response to the pandemic, and making sure
that the full power of our country's scientific apparatus is
engaged in that battle. But now that the vaccines are
succeeding in easing--in crushing the national caseload of
COVID-19, it is time to turn some of our attention to how that
international catastrophe started, and what can be done to
lessen the toll of future outbreaks. We are convening this
first hearing to look at the scientific underpinnings of that
investigation.
There is one profoundly correct reason to pursue this
rigorous investigation: to help protect public health and our
national security in the future. If we don't learn everything
that we can about how infectious diseases like COVID-19 get
started, we will be less safe moving forward. Now, as many of
you know, I spent most of my career in science before spending
the last decade in Congress, and I'd like to thank our
witnesses for their very thoughtful written testimony that
allowed me to spend a couple hours last night reading it over,
and remembering what it was like to think like a scientist.
In science, if you see an interesting data set, you look
at the logically possible hypotheses that could explain that
data. You then look at the statistical likelihood of each
hypothesis with a given set of prior assumptions, and then you
ask what additional data or measurements are needed to confirm
or refute each hypothesis. Then, armed with that new
information, including the uncertainties, you enter the
engineering phase of the problem, using the--that information
to make our systems work better. And that is one reason why I
feel so fortunate to have an engineer, Ranking Member
Obernolte, as my partner on this Subcommittee, because in
politics it's often very different. If you see something
interesting, the first question is not--is often not what is
true, but what can you convince people is true? Sort of like a
lawyer convincing a jury. Instead of looking at the full set of
facts, we look to cherry pick facts to support your political
position. And when this happens, it often leads to bad policy
that, in the case of COVID-19, has killed hundreds of thousands
of people around the world. And that's why I'm proud of the way
that the House Science Committee conducts its business, by
letting facts, logic, and science lead the way.
Unfortunately, we do not at present have the full set of
facts. Right now American citizens and senior government
officials have suspicions about China's role, and there is no
disputing that the Chinese government has withheld information
and obfuscated efforts to understand the origins. The Chinese
scientists were very quick to make sure that the genome
sequence of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)-CoV-2 was
available to the public back in January of 2020, which is to
their eternal credit. This is the master key that NIH (National
Institutes of Health) and drug makers needed to start work on a
vaccine, and those Chinese scientists are heroes for publishing
it. But they took this bold step in spite of the Chinese
government, and not with its blessing.
Let the record show that Members of Congress understand
that the lack of transparency from the Chinese government about
health emergencies of international consequence is a very
serious geopolitical and science concern. It is a threat to our
Nation, and it predates the COVID-19 crisis, and it is not
entirely restricted to China. At the same time, China's lack of
transparency is distinct from the body of epidemiological data
around the origins of COVID-19. The absence of data is not
itself evidence of a lab leak, or something more sinister. Our
witnesses today will help us set expectations, and understand
what real evidence is, and what other ingredients comprise a
credible inquiry on disease origins. Patience may be one of
those ingredients. We all remember the SARS virus of 2003.
Well, it took most of 15 years to identify the original source
of that virus. It was ultimately found in a bat cave 1,000
kilometers from the site of the original outbreak.
President Biden has asked the U.S. Intelligence Community
to report back in late August on any new information that could
bring us closer to a conclusion about the origins of COVID-19.
This is a constructive step, but I would caution that there is
a very good chance that we still won't have all the answers
after that report comes back. Like so many important topics in
science, the deliberate endeavor of establishing origins of
COVID is likely nowhere near as simple as we'd like it to be.
If epidemiology were easy, we'd have the answer by now. If the
Intelligence Community were in possession of a smoking gun
about COVID origins, I believe that we had heard of--we had--we
would have heard about it.
At today's hearing I intend today to establish some
expectations of Federal and global leaders in their efforts to
investigate the origins of COVID-19 and future diseases. We
will not tolerate equivocation and innuendo from public
officials. Where the facts aren't clear enough to support a
conclusion, please do not offer one just to humor the news
media. I ask all Members to take care to remember the
distinction between the theories of a journalist or blogger and
the observations of an experienced science professional with
firsthand knowledge of the virus and similar outbreaks.
The Science Committee has a long history of playing the
long game, of seeing the 10,000 foot view on topics that push
the boundaries of human understanding, and of transcending
political noise. Our witnesses are going to help steer the
origins conversation to the high road, where scientific
expertise, transparency, objectivity, and data are paramount.
We have the four corners of outbreak investigative--represented
at today's panel, microbiology, virology, epidemiology, and
zoonotics. To the four of you--too many of your peers have
experienced rancor, and even threats, for speaking out publicly
about this politically hot topic, and that is really, really
appalling, and your participation today is a service to the
republic, so thank you again.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Foster follows:]
Good morning, and welcome and thanks to our members and
panelists.
I guess I do not have to remind people of the importance of
the topic we are discussing today: the Origins of COVID-19.
For the past year and a half, the Science Committee and
Congress have been appropriately focused on optimizing our
response to the pandemic and making sure that the full power of
our country's scientific apparatus is engaged in that battle.
But now that vaccines are succeeding at easing the crushing
national caseload of COVID-19, it is time to turn some of our
attention to how that international catastrophe started, and
what can be done to lessen the toll of future outbreaks. We are
convening this first hearing to look at the scientific
underpinnings of that investigation.
There is one profoundly correct reason to pursue this
rigorous investigation: to help protect public health and our
national security in the future. If we don't learn everything
that we can about how infectious diseases like COVID-19 get
started, we will be less safe moving forward.
As many of you know, I spent most of my career in science,
before spending the last decade in Congress. I'd like to thank
our witnesses for their very thoughtful written testimony, that
allowed me to spend some time reading it over last night and
remembering what it was like to think like a scientist.
In Science, if you see an interesting dataset, you ask what
logically possible hypotheses could explain that data, you then
look at the statistical likelihood of each hypothesis with a
given set of prior assumptions, then you ask what additional
data or measurements needed to confirm or refute each
hypothesis. Then, armed with that new information, including
the uncertainties, you enter the engineering phase of the
problem, using that information to make our systems work
better. That is why I feel so fortunate to have an engineer,
Ranking Member Obernolte, as my partner on this subcommittee.
Because in politics it is often very different. If you see
something interesting, the first question is often not what is
true, but what can you convince people is true, like a lawyer
convincing a jury. Instead of looking at the full set of facts,
we look to cherry-pick facts to support your political
position. When this happens, it leads to bad policy that, in
the case of COVID-19, has killed millions of people around the
world. That is why I am proud of the way the House Science
Committee conducts its business, by letting facts, logic and
science lead the way.
Unfortunately, we do not at present have the full set of
facts. Right now, American citizens and senior government
officials have suspicions about China's role. And there is no
disputing that the Chinese government has withheld information
and obfuscated efforts to understand the origins. Chinese
scientists were very quick to make the genome sequence of SARS-
CoV-2 available to the public back in January of 2020. This is
the master key that NIH and drugmakers needed to start work on
a vaccine, and those Chinese scientists are heroes for
publishing it. But they took this bold step it in spite of the
Chinese government, without its blessing.
Let the record show that Members of Congress understand
that the lack of transparency from the Chinese government about
health emergencies of international consequence is a very
serious geopolitical and science diplomacy challenge. It is a
threat to our nation, and it pre-dates the COVID-19 crisis.
At the same time, China's lack of transparency is distinct
from the body of epidemiological data around the origins of
COVID-19. The absence of data is not itself evidence of a lab
leak or something more sinister. Our witnesses today will help
us set expectations and understand what real evidence is and
what other ingredients comprise a credible inquiry on disease
origins.
Patience may be one of those ingredients. We all remember
the SARS virus of 2003. It took 15 years to identify the
original source of that virus. It was ultimately found in a bat
cave, 1,000 kilometers from the site of the original outbreak.
President Biden has asked the U.S. intelligence community
to report back by late August on any new information that could
bring us closer to a conclusion about the origins of COVID-19.
This is a constructive step, but I would caution that there is
a very good chance that we still won't have all the answers
after that report comes back. Like so many important topics in
science, the deliberate endeavor of establishing origins of
COVID is likely nowhere near as simple as we'd like it to be.
If epidemiology were easy, we'd have the answer by now. If the
intelligence community were in possession of a smoking gun
about COVID origins, I believe we'd know about it.
At today's hearing, I intend today to establish some
expectations of federal and global leaders in their efforts to
investigate the origins of COVID-19 and future diseases. We
will not tolerate equivocation and innuendo from public
officials. Where the facts aren't clear enough to support a
conclusion, do not offer one just to humor the news media. Take
care to remember the distinction between the theories of a
journalist or a blogger with the observations of an experienced
science professional with first-hand knowledge of the virus.
The Science Committee has a long history of playing the
long game, of seeing the 10,000 foot view on topics that push
the boundaries of human understanding, and of transcending the
political noise. Our witnesses are going to help steer the
origins conversation to the high road, where scientific
expertise, transparency, objectivity and data are paramount. We
have the four corners of outbreak investigation represented
today's panel: microbiology, virology, epidemiology and
zoonotics. To the four of you: Too many of your peers have
experienced rancor and even threats for speaking publicly about
this politically hot topic, and that really is appalling. Your
participation today is a service to the public.
I yield to Ranking Member Obernolte.
Chairman Foster. And I now yield to Ranking Member
Obernolte.
Mr. Obernolte. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
and thank you for holding today's hearings on the principles
for investigating the origins of COVID-19. Before I begin, I'd
actually like to thank--take a moment to commend Chairman
Foster for his bipartisanship, and his willingness to hold this
first official House Committee related to the origins of the
epidemic. I'm very hopeful that this hearing can serve as an
example of how Congress can work together to move forward on
investigating the origins of what happened last year. This is
not a partisan issue, and I think it's something that we
definitely all should work together on.
It's also an opportunity for us to begin looking into the
principles and standards by which an effective investigation
into the origins of COVID-19 should be conducted, and, perhaps
more importantly, to reflect on some of the lessons that we've
learned over the past 18 months about scientific communication,
the importance of fair and open public discourt about--
discourse about scientific hypotheses, and the impact that
media censorship, the politicization of science, and a possible
lack of scientific integrity has had on efforts thus far to
investigate the origins of this terrible pandemic.
Since the early days of COVID-19 discussion regarding its
origins have, unfortunately, been hampered by the
politicization of this entire topic. Renowned, reputable
scientists have, at critical times during the pandemic,
presented their opinions unfortunately as if they were
scientific fact, and sometimes avoidable conflict of interests
have called into question the independence and impartiality of
efforts that have been undertaken to examine the origins of
COVID-19, including, unfortunately, some of those at the World
Health Organization (WHO). These shortcomings have made it much
more difficult to have fair and open discourse about this
issue.
Also equally troubling to me have been the actions of
media, Big Tech, and their respective fact-checkers, which have
compounded this difficulty. During the onset of the pandemic
some media outlets latched onto a preordained narrative about
the origins of COVID-19, dismissing competing theories as
false, and even xenophobic conspiracy theories. Social media
companies then censored information about COVID's origins,
labeling posts as misinformation despite there being no
conclusive evidence for one theory over another. The
unfortunate effect of these actions was to shut down legitimate
scientific discourse and inquiry, which I think is important to
everyone on this Committee. Those actions made it more
difficult for scientists and the public at large to challenge
what had been held out by only a few as scientific consensus,
even where the science and facts supported alternative theories
and hypotheses.
Fear of retaliation, of being labeled as xenophobic
conspiracy theorists, and of being ostracized by the scientific
community led some scientists to self-censor and remain silent
instead of searching publicly and transparently for the truth,
which I think is our goal as scientists. To me, censorship in
any form is very troubling, but even the more so when it
prevents scientific inquiry, so we're seeking to understand the
origins of COVID-19. And that matter is not so that we can
point fingers, or assign blame to a specific country or
specific leaders, but more importantly that we can better
prevent future outbreaks. That's certainly my intention today,
as we consider these principles that should inform how we
investigate disease outbreaks in the future, and that includes
acknowledging the shortcomings that have complicated those
inquiries into the origins issue last year.
Certainly we've made a lot of progress. Many scientists,
scholars, and journalists are now publicly calling for renewed
investigation, and it is my fervent hope that we can move
forward with a more open discourse and a productive dialog. And
although I agree with the Chairman, we may never definitively
know the origin of COVID-19, thanks in no small part to a lack
of cooperation by the Chinese government, that certainly does
not mean that investigation into its origins will not bear
fruit. And, to the contrary, I think the facts and evidence
that are uncovered during that--such an investigation will help
us prepare for future pandemics, irrespective of its
conclusions, so I'm looking very much forward today to learning
more about what that investigation should look for, as well as
reflecting on the principles and standards that should form the
framework of investigations in the future.
Again, I want to thank Chairman Foster for holding the
hearing today, and thank our witnesses for appearing before us
to discuss this very important issue. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I
yield back the balance of my time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Obernolte follows:]
Thank you, Chairman Foster, for holding today's hearing on
principles for investigating the origins of COVID-19. And thank
you to our witnesses for appearing before us today.
Before I begin, I'd like to take a moment to commend
Chairman Foster for his bipartisanship and his willingness to
hold the first official House Committee hearing related to the
origins of COVID-19. I'm hopeful that this hearing will serve
as an example of how Congress can work together to move forward
on investigating the origins of this terrible pandemic.
Today's hearing is an opportunity for this Committee to
begin looking into the origins of COVID-19 and to discuss
principles and standards by which an effective investigation
into its origins can and should be conducted. It is also an
opportunity to reflect on some of the lessons learned over the
past 18 months about science communication, the importance of
fair and open public discourse about scientific hypotheses, and
the impact that media censorship, the politicization of
science, and a lack of scientific integrity has had on efforts
thus far to investigate the origins of this pandemic.
Since the early days of the pandemic, discourse and
discussion regarding the origins of COVID-19 have unfortunately
been hampered by the politicization of science.
Renowned, reputable scientists have-at critical times
during the pandemic-presented their opinions as if they were
scientific fact. And avoidable conflicts of interest have
called into question the independence and impartiality of
efforts that have been undertaken to examine the origins of
COVID-19, including those at the World Health Organization.
These shortcomings have made it more difficult to have fair and
open discourse about the origins issue.
Also, the actions of media, big tech, and their respective
fact checkers have compounded this difficulty. During the onset
of the pandemic, some media outlets latched on to a preordained
narrative about the origins of COVID-19 and dismissed competing
theories as false and even xenophobic conspiracy theories.
Social media companies even censored information about
COVID's origins, labeling posts as misinformation, despite
there being no conclusive evidence for one theory over another.
The effect of these actions was to shut down legitimate
scientific discourse and inquiry. They made it more difficult
for scientists and the public at large to challenge what had
been held out by only a few as scientific consensus, even where
the science and facts supported alternative theories and
hypotheses.
Fear of retaliation, of being labeled as a xenophobic
conspiracy theorist, and of being ostracized by the scientific
community led some scientists to self-censor and remain silent
instead of searching publicly and transparently for the truth.
Censorship in any form is troubling, but all the more so
when it prevents scientific inquiry. Understanding the origins
of COVID matters-not so that we can assign blame to a specific
country or politician, but so we can better prevent future
outbreaks.
That's my intention here today as we consider the
principles that should inform how we investigate disease
outbreaks. We must acknowledge the shortcomings that have
complicated inquiries into the origins issue. I'd also like to
acknowledge the progress that has been made, as many
scientists, scholars, and journalists alike are now publicly
calling for a renewed investigation into the origins of COVID-
19.
It is my hope that we can move forward with a more open
discourse and a productive dialogue about the principles and
standards by which an effective origins investigation should be
undertaken. Although we may never definitively know the origin
of COVID-19--thanks in no small part to the Chinese Communist
Party's lack of transparency and cooperation-that does not mean
that an investigation into its origins will not bear fruit. To
the contrary, the facts and evidence that are uncovered during
such an investigation will almost certainly help us prepare for
future pandemics, irrespective of its conclusion.
I am looking forward to learning more today about what a
proper investigation should look like, as well as the
principles and standards that should form the framework of such
an investigation. I also hope we learn how to effectively
screen for conflicts of interest and reinforce the scientific
principles of impartiality, transparency, and openness in this
endeavor.
I again want to thank Chairman Foster for holding today's
hearing, and to thank our witnesses for appearing before us
today to discuss this important issue.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Foster. Thank you. And we are pleased to have the
Full Committee Ranking Member, Mr. Lucas, with us today. The
Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member for an opening
statement.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairman Foster, for holding today's
hearing, and thank you to our witnesses for your participation.
While this Committee has held a handful of hearings over the
last 18 months examining the role of the scientific community
in combatting COVID-19, I would be remiss if I did not mention
that today's hearing is the first official effort in the U.S.
House of Representatives to explore the origins of this
pandemic. I hope we can use today's hearing as an important
first step toward a full congressional inquiry into the origins
of COVID-19.
In the last 18 months the United States has been battling
this pandemic, and over 600,000 American lives have been
claimed by the virus. COVID-19 is unlike anything we've seen in
the United States since the deadly 1918 Spanish Flu, but here
we are, 18 months later, and only just now discussing the
principles of investigating the origins of the virus. This
conversation is long overdue, and over the past several months
Members of House Democratic leadership had made comments that
this Committee is investigating the origins of COVID-19. This
Subcommittee hearing is a good start to determining how this
outbreak started, but this is not an investigation. In order to
get answers on COVID-19 origins Congress needs to step up and
get involved. Relevant Committees of jurisdiction, including
this Committee, need to come together in a bipartisan manner
and take this inquiry seriously.
Understanding the origins of COVID-19 isn't about scoring
political points, or detracting from ongoing efforts to fight
the virus. It's about preventing and mitigating future
pandemics, and ensuring that we can responsibly fund public
health research. We shouldn't have a preferred outbreak origin
theory because we prefer one narrative over another, and we
shouldn't bury our heads in the sand and refuse to investigate
COVID's origins because we're concerned about what might happen
if we get answers we don't like. The job of science isn't to
prop up one argument or another. The job of science is to
determine the facts. And, as policymakers, our job is to take
those facts, weigh them alongside other information, and then
make decisions. We can't do that without a better understanding
of this outbreak. I urge congressional leadership to allow a
transparent and thorough investigation of COVID's origins.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has not been forthcoming
or trustworthy in sharing information about the origins of the
virus, so U.S. Federal agencies must work closely with the
intelligence community to find answers. I hope we can work
together on this Committee to continue to support American
scientists and researchers at Federal agencies, National Labs,
and academia who have been working tirelessly since COVID-19
reached our shores to continue to learn more about where this
virus came from, and to eradicate it for good.
We also need to work together to improve trust in science.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the way science has been
communicated to the general public has not been handled well.
Information has been presented in ways that are confusing,
misleading, and occasionally polarizing. That's created
tremendous problems. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention) reports that roughly 40 percent of adults over the
age of 18 still remain unvaccinated against COVID-19. The only
way COVID-19 will stop spreading in the United States and
around the world is if vaccination rates increase, and herd
immunity is achieved. This message needs to be communicated
urgently to the public, and we need to ensure the public has
reason to trust that information.
For more than a year people were told there was only one
possible explanation for the pandemic, and that any other
theories were not only wrong, but dangerous. But now there's an
acknowledgement that we don't have conclusive evidence for or
against any specific origin theory. That creates mistrust.
Communicating science during a global pandemic can be a matter
of life or death. We need to do so thoughtfully and accurately.
We cannot treat the assumptions and the opinions of scientists
and officials as established fact if their claims are not
supported by evidence. In order to have a credible
investigation moving forward, all available information and
theories must be considered fairly, and the process must be
transparent, free of conflicts of interest, and protected from
political interference. While we may never know the true
origins of COVID-19 virus, we owe it to the American people,
and the rest of the world, to give it our best shot at
investigating where it came from to better prepare for
pandemics to come.
I'd like to thank the witnesses again for their
participation today, and I look forward to this discussion.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]
Thank you, Chairman Foster for holding today's hearing. And
thank you to our witnesses for your participation.
While this Committee has held a handful of hearings over
the last 18 months examining the role of the scientific
community in combatting COVID-19, I would be remiss if I did
not mention that today's hearing is the first official effort
in the U.S. House of Representatives to explore the origins of
this pandemic. I hope we can use today's hearing as an
important first step towards a full Congressional inquiry into
the origins of COVID-19.
For the last 18 months, the United States have been
battling this pandemic, and over 600,000 American lives have
been claimed by the virus. COVID-19 is unlike anything we've
seen in the United States since the deadly 1918 Spanish Flu,
but here we are 18 months later and only just now discussing
the principles for investigating the origins of the virus. This
conversation is long overdue.
Over the past several months, members of the House
Democratic Leadership have made comments that this Committee is
investigating the origins of COVID-19. This subcommittee
hearing is a good start to determining how this outbreak
started, but this is not an investigation. In order to get
answers on COVID-19 origins, Congress needs to step up and get
involved. Relevant committees of jurisdiction, including this
Committee, need to come together in a bipartisan manner and
take this inquiry seriously.
Understanding the origins of COVID-19 isn't about scoring
political points or detracting from ongoing efforts to fight
the virus. It's about preventing and mitigating future
pandemics, and ensuring that we are responsibly funding public
health research. We shouldn't have a preferred outbreak origin
theory because we prefer one narrative over another. And we
shouldn't bury our heads in the sand and refuse to investigate
COVID's origins because we're concerned about what might happen
if we get answers we don't like.
The job of science isn't to prop up one argument or
another. The job of science is to determine the facts. As
policymakers, our job is to take those facts, weigh them
alongside other information, and then make decisions. We can't
do that without a better understanding of this outbreak. So I
urge Congressional leadership to allow a transparent and
thorough investigation of COVID's origins.
The Chinese Communist Party has not been forthcoming or
trustworthy in sharing information about the origins of the
virus, so U.S. federal agencies must work closely with the
intelligence community to find answers. I hope we can work
together on this committee to continue to support American
scientists and researchers at federal agencies, national labs,
and academia who have been working tirelessly since COVID- 19
reached our shores to continue to learn more about where this
virus came from and eradicate it for good.
We also need to work together to improve trust in science.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the way science has been
communicated to the general public has not been handled well.
Information has been presented in ways that are confusing,
misleading, and occasionally polarizing. That has created
tremendous problems.
The CDC reports that roughly 40 percent of adults over the
age of 18 still remain unvaccinated against COVID-19. The only
way COVID-19 will stop spreading in the United States and
around the world is if vaccination rates increase and herd
immunity is achieved. This message needs to be communicated
urgently to the public. And we need to ensure the public has
reason to trust that information.
For more than a year, people were told there was only one
possible explanation for this pandemic and that any other
theories were not only wrong but dangerous. But now there is an
acknowledgement that we don't have conclusive evidence for or
against any specific origin theory. That creates mistrust.
Communicating science during a global pandemic can be a matter
of life or death. We need to do so thoughtfully and accurately
and we cannot treat the assumptions and opinions of scientists
and officials as established fact if their claims are not
supported by evidence.
In order to have a credible investigation moving forward,
all available evidence and theories must be considered fairly,
and the process must be transparent, free of conflicts of
interest, and protected from political interference. While we
may never know the true origins of the COVID-19 virus, we owe
it to the American people, and the rest of the world to give it
our best shot at investigating where it came from to better
prepare for pandemics to come.
I would like to thank the witnesses again for their
participation here today and I look forward to this discussion.
I yield back.
Chairman Foster. And thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. I
should say that if you ever got tired of politics, you may have
a good career waiting for you as a scientist. And if there are
any Members who wish to submit additional opening statements,
your statements will be added to the record at this point.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]
Good afternoon to our witnesses and thank you for joining
us here today.
As we all know, the global pandemic has ravaged our
communities and demanded the attention of this country for the
past 18 months. We have all dedicated our efforts to weathering
this storm. Thanks to the tireless work of the medical
community, and the vaccines they have developed, we can finally
see the light at the end of the tunnel, although it is too soon
to relax our vigilance given the emergence of variants.
We now have the opportunity to examine the lessons to be
learned from this terrible experience. In particular, by
developing principles for how best to investigate the origins
of COVID-19, we can prepare for and possibly prevent the next
pandemic.
Debate over COVID-19's origins has spread far beyond the
sphere of science into the realms of national politics and
international geopolitics. People without scientific expertise
or firsthand knowledge have dominated the discussion.
Scientists on all sides of the debate have hesitated to speak
out in fear of threats or other negative public reactions. Let
me say right now how harmful and destructive this kind of
behavior is to the scientific process specifically. If
anything, it is making it harder for scientists to get to the
truth.
Science communicators have also struggled. The nuances of
this scientific debate have not been communicated to the public
in a particularly clear way. New scientific evidence that
emerged was quickly cited as an argument in favor of one theory
or the other, without being put into proper context. Public
understanding of the origins of COVID-19 is cloudier today than
it was a year ago.
The question of the origins of COVID-19 will not be settled
here today, and that is not the purpose of today's hearing. The
famous Texan epidemiologist Patricia Buffler once said: ``The
work of epidemiology is related to unanswered questions, but
also to unquestioned answers.'' By asking questions about how
an investigation of the origins of COVID-19 should be
conducted, we will improve our approach to outbreak
investigation in the future. We will affirm stronger principles
for international health data sharing and transparency. And we
can take a fresh approach to addressing safety concerns in
laboratories that conduct genomic engineering and gain-of-
function research of concern.
The possibility of an animal origin for COVID-19 tells us
that we must cast a wider net with our animal disease
surveillance. Similarly, the possibility of a laboratory leak
means that there is work to be done to improve laboratory
biosafety.
With this hearing, the Science Committee intends to
recenter the discussion around data-driven investigations and
the expertise of scientists. We will rely on our expert panel
of witness to ground the discussion within the realm of reason.
And, most importantly, we will seek to learn about how best to
investigate the origins of the disease so we can prepare for
the inevitable disease outbreaks of the future.
Thank you and I yield back.
Chairman Foster. So at this time I'd like to introduce
our witnesses. Our first witness is Dr. David Relman. Dr.
Relman is the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor in
Medicine, and a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at
Stanford University, and Chief of Infectious Diseases at the
Veterans' Affairs Palo Alto Healthcare System. He was an early
pioneer in the modern study of the human indigenous microbiome.
He currently serves on the Standing Committee on Emerging
Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats at the U.S.
National Academies.
After Dr. Relman is Dr. Stanley Perlman. Dr. Perlman is a
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of
Iowa. His current research efforts are focused on coronavirus
pathogenesis, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or
SARS, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, MERS, and COVID-19.
His laboratory has developed several novel animal models useful
for studying pathogenesis, and evaluating vaccines and
antiviral therapies. He and his colleagues provided the first
rodent model for--useful for studying MERS, and similar
approaches have been used to develop several mouse models for
COVID-19.
Our third witness is Dr. Connie Price. Dr. Price is the
Chief Medical Officer at Denver Health, and has--a Professor of
Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the
University of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. Price's research
focuses on healthcare, epidemiology, and methods to prevent and
rapidly detect emerging and anti-microbial resistant
infections. She has expertise in outbreak management, and has
served as a consultant for public health authorities around the
world on controlling of emergency--emerging infections,
especially MERS and SARS, as well as Ebola preparedness.
Our final witness is Dr. Suzan Murray. Dr. Murray is
Board--a Board certified zoo veterinarian at the Smithsonian
Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI), and serves as both the
Program Director of the Global Health Program, and as the
SCBI's Chief Wildlife Veterinary Medical Officer. She leads an
interdisciplinary team engaged in worldwide efforts to address
health issues in endangered wildlife and combat emerging
infection--infectious diseases of global significance,
including zoonotic diseases. Dr. Murray's work focuses on
pathogen detection, advanced diagnostics, capacity building,
and collaboration in infectious disease research at the human/
wildlife domestic animal interface.
Now, as our witnesses should know, you will each have five
minutes to--for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony
will be included in its entirety in the record for the hearing.
And when you have completed your spoken testimony, we will
begin with questions. Each Member will have five minutes to
question the panel. And we will start now with Dr. Relman.
You're now recognized for five minutes.
TESTIMONY OF DR. DAVID RELMAN,
THOMAS C. AND JOAN M. MERIGAN PROFESSOR,
STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL
OF MEDICINE, AND SENIOR FELLOW,
CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
AND COOPERATION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Dr. Relman. Chairman Foster, Ranking Members Lucas and
Obernolte, and Members of the Committee, I'm grateful for the
opportunity to join you at today's hearing. My name is David
Relman. I'm a Professor of Medicine, and of Microbiology and
Immunology, at Stanford University. Over the past several
decades the rate, distribution, and diversity of recognized
emerging infections has accelerated and expanded, especially
those involving animal-associated viruses. Among the many
reasons, the intrusion by humans into the natural habitats of
animals and their viruses, as well as urbanization. In response
to these events, scientists have doubled down on efforts to
understand these viruses, creating both benefits and risks.
Soon after disease first appeared in Wuhan, China, the
causative agent was identified, a coronavirus called SARS-CoV-
2, whose closest known relatives are found in bats in Southern
China. The key question became how, when, and where did SARS-
CoV-2 first encounter and infect a human? There are two major
hypotheses: First, a natural spillover, in which the virus
jumped directly from a bat, or indirectly from another animal,
to a human, and second, a laboratory-associated mechanism. Both
hypotheses involve human activities, but suggest different
opportunities for risk reduction going forward.
What is the evidence in support of these hypotheses?
First, despite much analysis and discussion, the sequence of
SARS-CoV-2 tells us only so much. The problem is that the
immediate ancestors of this virus are missing. The most closely
related known virus is not that closely related. Meanwhile,
SARS-CoV-2 has not been found in nature, and it had not been
reported from a laboratory prior to 2020. So, where does this
leave us? We have only circumstantial evidence. In support of a
natural spillover: First, the fact that nearly all previous
outbreaks involving animal viruses are believed to have had a
natural origin. Second, the immense diversity of coronaviruses
in nature, and the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 is out there,
but we simply haven't found it yet. Third, the extensive
wildlife trade, and the risk that it creates. And fourth, the
fact that natural spillovers happen much more often than we had
thought.
In support of a laboratory associated origin, first,
geography. The closest known virus relatives of SARS-CoV-2 had
been found more than 1,000 miles from Wuhan, while the
laboratory with one of the largest collections of bat samples
and bat-associated coronaviruses in the world is located in
Wuhan, where disease first emerged. Second, the risky work at
laboratories in Wuhan. Third, the fact that laboratory
accidents happen much more often than we had thought. And
fourth, the lack of transparency and incomplete information
about samples and sequences at laboratories.
Again, all of this is just circumstantial. Neither
hypothesis can be ruled in, nor ruled out. Both are plausible.
The goals of an outbreak investigation are to provide greater
clarity about the circumstances and factors that contributed to
the event. A definitive answer is often not achieved, nor is it
necessary for an investigation to yield important benefits.
Some of the key elements of a credible investigation concern
process, such as objectivity, transparency, representativeness,
breadth in expertise, independence, and responsible management
of conflicts of interest. Other key elements concern data, such
as archived animal samples and derivative data, archived
clinical samples and derivative data, and multiple kinds of
laboratory information. Importantly, the veracity and
providence of samples and data must be assured.
I will close with some observations and suggested next
steps. It is unfortunate that the origin issue has become
grossly politicized, and opinion valued more than rigorous
analysis. Many scientists are hesitant about addressing this
issue because of fear that their comments will be
misinterpreted. All of this undermines the credibility of
scientists, and of the scientific enterprise. However, there
are signs of progress, including proposals for roles to be
played by National Academies of Science under the oversight,
and with authorities, granted by national and international
political leadership. Meanwhile, effective international
governance is still a work in progress. I applaud your efforts,
and urge you to articulate a plan now for an effective
investigation of this pandemic, and of pandemics that will
inevitably follow. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Relman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Foster. Thank you. And next is Dr. Perlman, who
will be recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Perlmutter. You're still muted.
TESTIMONY OF DR. STANLEY PERLMAN,
PROFESSOR OF MICROBIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY,
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
Dr. Perlman. Chairman Foster, Ranking Member Obernolte,
Ranking Member Lucas, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank
you for the invitation to testify you--before you today about
this incredibly important topic: outbreak investigation for
COVID-19 and future infectious diseases. My name is Stanley
Perlman, and I run a lab at the University of Iowa that has
focused on coronaviruses for almost four decades. I am pleased
to join this distinguished panel.
There are actually two issues to consider in addressing
this question. The first is based on the actual origin of the
virus, and the second is based on determining how the virus
entered human populations. At the beginning of the pandemic it
was postulated by some that that virus was engineered in a
laboratory. However, this is not a viable possibility, in my
opinion, because one would not know how to design a virus like
SARS-CoV-2 from scratch. The next question is whether a
naturally derived virus could have been manipulated in a
laboratory. Certain characteristics of the virus have been
considered as evidence for manipulation in a laboratory. In
general, one would need to correctly identify or guess which
coronavirus to manipulate, and then correctly determine or
guess how to manipulate it.
Another question is whether naturally derived coronavirus-
2 like virus could have been passaged in cells in a laboratory
so that it adapted to growth in a new type of cell. This virus
would have first had to have been present in the library--in
the laboratory, and been growing in cell culture. Most bat
SARS-CoV related viruses do not grow well in cell culture, and
they exist in the laboratory only as non-viable viral RNA. The
general experience is that only some viruses can be grown in
new cross-species tissue culture cells and adapt to the new
environment. Most of these will lose disease potential when
passaged in cell culture, and this also explains how we obtain
vaccines, like the poliovirus vaccine. This leaves a naturally
derived virus not manipulated in the laboratory as the most
likely source of SARS-CoV-2. Such a virus has not been found in
nature, but viruses that are very similar to SARS-CoV-2 have
been found in bats.
A second question is how the virus actually entered human
populations. The possibilities that have been discussed in the
public discourse and elsewhere are that the virus was
transported to Wuhan by an infected human or infected wildlife,
or it was released from a laboratory that had the virus in
hand. The latter possibility has been raised because Wuhan is
the home to several well-established virology laboratories. In
support of the first possibility, there's increasing evidence
that wildlife that is susceptible to infection with SARS-CoV-2,
raccoon dogs, and minks, were, in fact, traded in the Wuhan
Seafood Market. The question of whether release from a
laboratory, a lab leak, is harder to address. For example, if
the virus was brought into a laboratory by someone working with
relevant wildlife, and the virus then infected either that
person or someone else in the laboratory, that person could
then, in theory, infect others in the community. Therefore,
since the--this possibility cannot be ruled out, it must be
appropriately investigated.
Both data transparency and international collaboration are
necessary and critical for investigations of the origin of an
infectious disease. Both the WHO and the U.S. CDC, who have
experts who have a long history of epidemiological
investigations, and both institutions are natural candidates
for working with these studies. It is evident from the COVID-19
pandemic that it is necessary to obtain as many samples as
possible at the early stage of the pandemic from a broad group
of wild, companion, and farmed animals, as well as from humans
with unexplained respiratory or other disease to have the best
chance, or perhaps the only chance, of determining how the
virus crossed species to infect humans. COVID-19 has infected
so many people around the world that it's impossible,
virtually, to get samples now from the--from present
populations.
In addition to surveillance, which needs to be done by
these--both locally and internationally, we need to have risk
assessment associated with the surveillance, otherwise we're
just cataloguing viruses. All the zoonotic SARS and MERS
coronavirus spillover events to date have occurred outside of
the U.S. To reduce the risk of a pandemic like COVID-19
occurring again, we need to know as much as possible about
viruses circulating in bats and other wildlife populations
throughout the world. It should be noted that, while much of
this sounds theoretically--most sounds seemingly theoretical,
we know that there are MERS-like coronaviruses throughout Asia
and Africa. MERS-COV does not spread efficiently between
people, however, we learned in 2019 that even though SARS-CoV
did not transmit readily between people, a fairly close
relative, SARS-CoV-2, does. Similarly, a zoonotic MERS-like
coronavirus could evolve, and potentially cause a pandemic.
Like the SARS-CoV-2, such a virus would pose a great threat to
human populations because, as was the case with SARS-CoV-2, we
lack immunity to this virus. And with this I will conclude my
remarks, and look forward to answering any questions that you
have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Perlman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Foster. Thank you. And after Dr. Perlman is Dr.
Price, who is now recognized for five minutes. And whoops,
you'll have to unmute, I'm afraid.
TESTIMONY OF DR. CONNIE PRICE,
CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, DENVER HEALTH,
AND PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE,
DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES,
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Dr. Price. Chairman Foster, Ranking Members Lucas and
Obernolte, and Members of the Investigations and Oversight
Subcommittee, my name is Connie Savor Price. I am a practicing
infectious diseases physician and healthcare epidemiologist
with experience and expertise in outbreak management. I have
served as a consultant to public health authorities on control
of emerging infections, including Middle East Respiratory
Syndrome for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome for the Ontario Ministry of Health. I am
the Executive Director for HHS (Health and Human Services)
Region 8 Ebola and Special Pathogens Treatment Center and HHS
Regional Disaster Health Response system. I'm a Professor of
Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the
University of Colorado School of Medicine. I'm honored to be
here today to speak with you about the principles for
investigating infectious diseases outbreak.
When a threat to the public's health occurs,
epidemiologists and other relevant experts investigate the
problem so they can identify sources and risk factors,
implement prevention and control measures, and communicate with
stakeholders. Whether the event occurs in a hospital setting or
in a community, there's a well-described--defined process for
performing a complete investigation into the origins of an
infectious diseases outbreak. The process requires significant
collaboration between public health officials, laboratory
personnel, clinicians, and other stakeholders in areas affected
by the outbreak.
The detailed review begins with the initial cases, but
should also include a time period preceding the current problem
to determine whether earlier cases existed, and if so, the
occurrence rates between the period of the current problem and
the comparator period. A high level of data transparency is
required, including full and complete access to patient medical
records and other pertinent clinical information to infected
patients, and their contacts for interviews, and to laboratory
specimens and microbiologic isolates for molecular
epidemiology, and possibly to other environmental sources or
animals, should the investigation lead that way.
In the United States there are data collection and
preservation standards in place at hospitals to ensure they can
track emerging infectious diseases. The Center for Medicare and
Medicaid Services requires that a healthcare facility maintains
an infection prevention and control program in order to
prevent, recognize, and control, to the extent possible, the
onset and spread of infection within a facility, including
surveillance and investigation to prevent the spread of
infection. It also requires that hospital complies with the
reportable diseases requirements of the public health or local
health authority. To comply with this regulation, accrediting
agencies, such as the Joint Commission, survey hospital
infection prevention infrastructure and written plans for
detecting and controlling infections. Public health authorities
may also monitor required data received from hospitals to look
for concerning trends.
As part of standard work, once a trend of concern is
identified by the hospital infection control program, case
ascertainment and maintaining an epidemiologic description of
the outbreak will inform initial hypotheses for explaining a
potential cause, source, and mode of spread of the outbreak's
causative agents. A related step to confirming diagnoses is the
need to proactively save clinical specimens for longer than
conventional holding periods, and not discard them, so they are
available for further analysis. Both the clinical data and the
laboratory data together are essential for tracing an outbreak.
These data should inform next steps, such as environmental
sampling, obtaining specimens from suspect animals such as
bats, or a suspected intermediary host.
When it comes to investigating the emergence and spread of
infectious diseases, hospitals and local or State health
departments will take the lead, but national and international
health authorities are available upon invitation. The CDC, for
instance, provides surveillance data and clinical guidance on
the management of emerging infectious diseases, but they will
also routinely provide consultation and laboratory assistance
to healthcare facilities and health departments that are
working to solve outbreaks and investigate infection control
breaches and other adverse events, but only upon request.
Hospitals will reach out through their local and State
public health, or vice versa, if a concerning reportable or
trend is identified, and that health department in turn may
extend a formal invitation to the CDC for help leading an
onsite team. Public health will help gather additional
information from community cases through interviews, case
reviews, observations, and possibly environmental sampling. In
the case of a multi-State outbreak, the CDC coordinates that
investigation. The World Health Organization will investigate
outbreaks if invited by the government, but currently it is
more often looked to as an important and exclusive source for
global surveillance information.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today
on data and access that investigators need in order to trace an
outbreak to a discrete origin. Upholding the principles for
transparency, scientific integrity and objectivity are critical
to the understanding. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Price follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Foster. Thank you. And our final witness, Dr.
Murray, will now be recognized for five minutes.
TESTIMONY OF DR. SUZAN MURRAY, PROGRAM DIRECTOR,
SMITHSONIAN GLOBAL HEALTH PROGRAM,
SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL ZOO
& CONSERVATION BIOLOGY INSTITUTE
Dr. Murray. Thank you so much, Chairman Foster, Ranking
Members Lucas and Obernolte, and Members of the Subcommittee,
as well as the distinguished panelists. Thank you for calling
the hearing, and inviting me to participate. My name's Dr.
Suzan Murray, and I'm the Director of Smithsonian's Global
Health Program based out of the National Zoo and the
Conservation Biology Institute. Recognizing that 75 percent of
these diseases come from the wildlife population first, and
then jump to the human population, our program was built and
utilizes experts in wildlife medicine, human medicine, public
health, conservation biology, and epidemiology to study and
respond to health issues at the human/animal interface.
Recognizing that human, wildlife, and environmental health are
all inextricably linked, we utilize this multidisciplinary
approach to investigate emerging infectious diseases, we build
in-country capacity, and train the next generation of health
specialists.
Determining the origins of a virus is difficult, and
ongoing investigation and identification of new viruses can
improve and expedite this process. With a robust sample
collection, we can precise--we can more precisely determine how
a virus in question is genetically related to variants. This
can tell us much about geographic location, host species, and
time period over which the virus may have evolved. We learn a
great deal of information from data collection from free-
ranging species, including, but not limited to, bats, primates,
and rodents, and expanding this data set exponentially is the
most critically--the most critical opportunity we have to
better understand the origins of this particular virus.
Over the past decade, as part of a larger consortium, we
have worked in more than 30 countries and discovered over 1,000
new mammalian viruses. Analysis of these viruses has determined
that they represent less than 1 percent of existing viruses. To
more fully understand the origins and evolution of these
viruses, continued sampling at an increasing rate is needed,
and the best way to accomplish this is by forming and utilize a
broad and inclusive approach. The wide variety of factors that
contribute to disease emergence underscores the need to develop
a multi-disciplinary, transparent, and cooperative community
that works together to develop and analyze approaches to data
collection and protocols for sharing this information. Some of
this work is already underway now between multiple agencies and
organizations, such as NSTC's (National Science and Technology
Council's) Health Threats Subcommittee. Additional coordination
could further improve our ability to react to the next
pandemic.
Orchestrating this kind of coordination is not easy.
Managing across governments, researchers, and impacted
communities is a huge undertaking, especially when no one
organization is charged with ensuring that coordination. Even
when there is a commitment to work together, differences in how
places operate can add difficulty. Principles for transparency
and data access range from--and vary from community to
community based upon several factors, including, but not
limited to, shared trust on how data will be interpreted,
utilized, and credited.
We learned a great deal from the current pandemic and
other epidemics about what's working well, as well as areas in
which we must improve. We developed invaluable partnerships
with many countries, forming a strong and growing One Health
workforce to build upon the foundational works in the areas of
bio-surveillance, viral discovery, laboratory protocol
development and implementation, as well as rapid response units
and data sharing. Over the past decade our work has shifted
from primary disease surveillance to investigating and better
understanding the drivers of disease emergence. In this process
we have increasingly incorporated such essential practices such
as modeling, data sharing, and understanding the role of human
behaviors, cultural norms, as well as outreach.
Further, we are recognizing the science is strongest and
most impactful when it draws upon these multidisciplinary
assets, while being inclusive and contextualized for affected
communities, cultures, arcs, and broader societies. For
instance, some of the most critical and inter-related drivers
of disease emergence include land use change, human behaviors,
and education that can affect human behaviors. Recently, with
internal partners from the National Air and Space Museum, the
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian's Occupational
Health Program, and our Office of Communication and External
Affairs, along with outside partners such as UBS's Global
Visionaries Program, we are developing a more comprehensive
approach to pandemic prevention by incorporating previously
underutilized techniques to assess high risk interfaces more--
while--more quickly and truth-find this data. This will ensure
that our approach is iterative, always learning, and--while
incorporating infected communities from the beginning, and then
throughout the process. This will require that we conduct both
human and animal surveillance concurrently, utilizing the most
advanced data collection methodology, such as smartphone
technology and field-based PCR (polymerase chain reaction)
machines. Not only will this more quickly inform scientists and
pharma companies, but it will ensure that the public is engaged
and informed along the way.
Knowledge of pandemic prevention, public health, and
vaccinology are helpful to all of us, from communities living
at the high-risk interfaces, to scientists who study viruses,
to economists interpreting the impacts on global economy, to
people visiting exhibits such as National--the Natural
History's Outbreak Museum outbreak exhibit, to the general
public reading and watching the news. Knowledge is power, and
broadly sharing knowledge is absolutely essential to our global
health. Thank you again for inviting me to participate in
today's hearings, and I look forward to answering any questions
you might have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Murray follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Foster. Thank you. And at this point we will
begin our first round of questions, and the Chair will now
recognize himself for five minutes. Before I get started, I
have a statement here from the American Society for
Microbiology to be entered into the hearing record, and,
without objection, it will be so ordered. Thank you.
Now, Dr. Price, it strikes me that two of the most
significant words in your testimony seem to be ``upon
invitation.'' And, you know, it seems like the very extensive
set of data that you'd like to have before, and during, and
even after the outbreak of a pandemic are things where you're
going to need exceptional local cooperation. One of the lessons
that I take away from this, and probably from other pandemics,
is that there's a big incentive for institutions to cover up
the extent. You know, this, happens, you know, at the family
level, at the business level, at the local government, State,
nation, you know, even at the level of systems of government.
And so how do we--is there an alternative here to doing
our best to try to get treaty level commitments in advance that
spell out exactly what is necessary here? Because, you know, my
fear is that all--the best-intended voluntary data sharing
agreements will not survive the first contact with the enemy.
And what--could you say a little bit about what the thinking of
the scientific community worldwide is on that?
Dr. Price. To establish ground rules before this happens
is important, so treaty level, whatever it may be, but at the
end of the day the host country needs to be collaborative,
needs to cooperate, so forcing it upon them, we have to do
something where it is an agreed upon standard, and make sure
that we are addressing concerns that they may have about
negative impact, and minimizing that for the sake of getting
the data, and for the sake of understanding the science.
Chairman Foster. Um-hum. Are there international efforts
to get data repositories, for example, that will be immediately
accessible ahead of time so you don't have to negotiate that,
at least? It's one way around part of this.
Dr. Price. Well, I think there are some collaborations
internationally, but more ad hoc. One well-established venue we
have for sharing information is a very low-tech e-mail platform
called ProMED. ProMED's been around since 1994, and has--was
established by the International Society for Infectious
Diseases, and basically it is a bunch of frontline doctors,
epidemiologists, sometimes veterinarians, just e-mail about
things they're seeing that seem odd. Sometimes it turns into
nothing, but sometimes it ends up being something. So, for
instance, the first notification the world had of Middle East
Respiratory Syndrome was through ProMED. On December 31, four
days before the World Health Organization announced to the
world the SARS-CoV-2, or what later became known as SARS-CoV-2,
that had been already released through ProMED.
So there are platforms like that that allow early
communication and direct scientist to scientist communication.
The problem is is I think sometimes governments, you know, do
get involved in maybe stifling communication through those
venues.
Chairman Foster. Yeah. And, Dr. Murray, you held out some
optimism that sort of flooding the zone with technology, cheap
handheld PCR machines, potentially, that automatically report
what it is that they've measured in the field, so that, when,
you know, someone is in the--in Barro Colorado Island and finds
a capybara with a weird viral infection----
Dr. Murray. Uh-huh.
Chairman Foster [continuing]. You can immediately--you
know, just to pick a Smithsonian relevant example.
Dr. Murray. I caught that. Thank you.
Chairman Foster. Yeah.
Dr. Murray. Yeah.
Chairman Foster. And so--you know, so that this
automatically gets reported to the relevant international
database. And is there--is that something where potentially the
U.S. Congress could put some money into to get that deployed
nationally and internationally?
Dr. Murray. Yes. Thank you very much. I wanted to also
just echo what Dr. Price said, because I think that, in
addition to what you're saying, if we--with a lot of the
partners that we work with, again, in 30 different countries,
we have to establish the ground rules ahead of time, and also
incentivize our partners that if you participate and follow
these rules, you get something from it, and if you don't, you
don't. So I think that's part of it, and I also think that
there are some other projects funded by USAID (United States
Agency for International Development), as well as the Global
Viral Project, to build platforms upon which a lot of the data
of all these viruses, the sequences, will sit and be available
to everyone. So I think there are some movements afoot.
In combination with that, yes, I think that's one of
Smithsonian's strengths, using our field sites to--as--
especially those that are within the hot spots, the areas in
which the next disease is most likely to occur, and using the--
and using the field technologies to identify in the field, and
then having the relationships where that can be uploaded and
shared very quickly. We have a lot of that existing in Kenya
already, some really great relationships with the Kenyan
government, the Mpala Research Center, Kenya Wildlife Services,
and National Museums of Kenya, whereby that data sharing can
happen very rapidly. So I think another thing we might want to
look at is if something is going well, how do we replicate
that? How do we replicate it broadly and quickly?
Chairman Foster. Thank you, and I am now over my time
allotment, so I will recognize Ranking Member Obernolte for
five minutes.
Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very
much to our witnesses. This has been a fascinating hearing. I
have a question for Dr. Relman. In the early days of the
pandemic there was a letter written by a group of scientists
that was published in the Lancet and Nature Medicine, two
scientific medical journals, in which the theory that anything
other than a natural origin theory for the coronavirus was--
should be considered implausible, and I'll read an excerpt of
it, because I find it a little disturbing. The letter said,
``The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this
outbreak is now being threatened by rumors and misinformation
around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn
conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a
natural origin. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear,
rumors, and prejudice that jeopardize or global collaboration
in the fight against this virus.''
So after the publication of those--of that letter, and
that, you know, was just about a month after the appearance of
the first case in the United States, so very early in the
pandemic, after the appearance of that letter, media and social
media companies would refer back to that letter in having their
fact checkers label as untrue anyone that tried to express the
theory about anything other than a natural origin, so it became
this self-reinforcing cycle. So my question for you, at the
time that letter was published, would you consider that a
statement of scientific fact, would you consider it a statement
of scientific consensus, or would you consider it a statement
of opinion?
Dr. Relman. Well, I think I share with you your concern
about statements that don't properly reflect what we know and
don't know. Many people have opinions, and I think it's
important that people make clear that when they express a point
of view it either is an opinion or based upon something more
concrete. And I agree that that letter did have a chilling
effect on certain elements of public discussion. I understand
where many of those letter writers were coming from. They
were--I think to a large degree, operating from a perspective
of a priori understanding. Past outbreaks have largely occurred
through natural spillover mechanisms, and I think it was a
reasonable assumption to say this one may well be as well.
But every time we, as scientists, make these statements, I
think to your point, we have to be very clear about the basis
on which we make them, and where there is certain--there is
certainly--remaining uncertainty, and then what it is we need
to do to either disprove the counterargument, or prove our own.
And I worry, and found it disheartening early last year, that
there was much too little of that.
Mr. Obernolte. So, a related question, then, how do we
prevent this from occurring in the future? Because obviously we
are in a period of intense polarization in our society. You
know, science has been politicized in a lot of different areas.
How do we prevent this from happening next time? Because,
obviously, I think everyone agrees it was not helpful.
Dr. Relman. Yeah. It's a complicated question. It's
outside my pay grade, but I'll simply point out that there was
a larger sort of cultural problem, societal problem, with the
tenor of discussion at that time. And as you well recall, there
were others outside the scientific community who were making
very forceful, and almost defiant statements that made it
difficult for any of us with more measured arguments to insert
our positions into this public discourse. So I think the
answers come from multiple directions. We need to remember what
the scientific process is about, who--and how it's undertaken,
and simply better inform our public as well about how to judge
statements that are being made, and the questions they should
be asking of all of us.
Mr. Obernolte. Right. Well, thank you. And then, final
question for you, you didn't touch on it a lot in your
testimony today, but in your written testimony I was interested
in--when you were talking about the Wuhan Institute of
Virology, and the possibility of a lab leak from that
institution. You discussed some of the practices for studying
viruses there that you consider risky. Can you talk a little
bit more about that?
Dr. Relman. Sure. Well, I want to start by saying that I
think the rest of us, the rest of the panelists here, and I
share a lot of similar sort of thinking about this. If there is
an origin, or an argument to be made about the possibility of a
laboratory origin here, I think we have to consider first the
possibility that there was unrecognized presence of this virus
either in the laboratory, through samples that were collected,
or an encounter by a laboratorian out in the field, and that
the infection perhaps was asymptomatic, or simply not
recognized.
But I am concerned about the--sort of the--sort of
unregulated--lack of proper discussion about how we go about
examining diversity in nature. And I fully support the
statements that have been made by Doctors Murray, and Price,
and Perlman, but when we collect lots of sequences we have to
ask what's their relevance? And the way in which some of this
relevance is determined is by scientific experimental means,
either by trying to grow the entity that we think resides
within a sample, or by trying to recreate it, or study a piece
of it. And what I think concerns me is that we haven't yet had
a proper discussion about where there may be risk in some of
these experiments, not the majority, but some of it, that
hasn't been properly addressed, and that we need to sort of
confront and discuss more openly.
And I'll just call out a certain set of experiments that
have been published by the Wuhan Institute that I view as
particularly risky. In this work, they started with a natural
isolate of bat coronavirus called WIV-1, which a good friend
and colleague of mine, Ralph Baric, had already studied and
declared to be a virus ``poised for human emergence.'' This is
WIV-1, came out of a bat in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
And their approach for studying novel sequences that they found
in other samples was to take a piece of those genomes, a piece
of that sequence, and swap it into this WIV-1 virus. They then
resurrected a few of those viruses and grew them in the
laboratory, so now we're talking about a chimeric virus with
properties that we don't know yet, we don't--we can't predict
well. That was the purpose of the experiment. Those are
experiments that concern me. And I'm not saying that they led
to this outbreak or pandemic by any means, but it's simply the
kind of work that we, as a scientific society, need to think
much more clearly and more deliberately about before we
undertake it, again, in the search of important--answers to
important questions about the diversity in nature.
Mr. Obernolte. Thank you. Well, thank you, Dr. Relman.
Chairman Foster. Thank you.
Mr. Obernolte. I see my time's expired. Thank you to all
of our panelists for this fascinating discussion. I yield back.
Chairman Foster. Yeah. And I gave you a little extra time
because of the extraordinary interest in that question. It's
one of the threads that this Subcommittee's going to have to be
looking at, just trying to understand what the definition and
limits of dangerous research are, and how we deal with that
internationally. I now recognize Representative Perlmutter for
five minutes.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to the
panelists, thank you very much for your testimony today. I feel
compelled to defend something my--one of my best friends in
life, the Chairman, had to say early in his introduction, and
that is concerning the scientific method, and the ability of--
whether it's a lawyer or a politician, our responsibility is to
make decisions based on the best information we have available
to us at the time, and it may not be perfect in the scientific
method. And, Dr. Relman, you go through the six factors that
you consider as part of the scientific method, but, you know,
it takes time, obviously, to understand the origin of things,
to understand this virus, and decisions had to be made.
And, just for the record, I'll read something President
Trump said at the time in January--late January of 2020.
``China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus.
The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and
transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on
behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi.''
And he goes on for the next two months thanking China for their
tremendous efforts with respect to the coronavirus. And when I
looked, Dr. Relman, at the points that you make as to the
scientific method, you say verifiable and reproduceable,
transparent, representative, expert, independent, and without
conflicts of interest. And so there are a number of things
within that list of components as to how to prove a point where
you introduce people. And when you introduce people, then you
start losing some of the facts that my Chairman and my
physicist friend, Dr. Foster, find so concrete. And so, just to
defend lawyers and people who have to make decisions, I want to
say it's not all that cut and dry.
Now I want to turn my attention to a Coloradan, and a
Buff, and I want to thank her for being part of our panel
today. I want to ask Dr. Price, in Colorado we've now seen the
Delta variant overtake all the other types of viruses, and
variations in viruses, and it makes up three-quarters of the
cases that we now see in our State. From your point of view,
Dr. Price, what steps can the international public health
authorities take to prevent new strains like the Delta variant
from emerging?
Dr. Price. Well, I think we're starting that now with
vaccination, and I think the trick is to get vaccinated before
these new strains emerge, and allow to take hold, and circulate
enough where they can start infecting others, and potentially
even vaccinated people. So that's the first step. And then the
second step, and my virology colleagues are already doing this,
is keeping track of the evolution of this virus, and when we
need to tweak the vaccine or create a booster that will cover
different variants, that we are on top of it, and we're
constantly surveilling very proactively to be able to design a
booster or a new vaccine to overcome it.
Mr. Perlmutter. So in your testimony you talked about sort
of--there has to be a little level of trust among the
scientific community, among the epidemiologists, among the
vaccinologists, the virologists. So how do you--how does one
build that trust so that you can work with Dr. Perlman, or Dr.
Murray, and know that you're getting straight information?
Dr. Price. Yeah. Well, you have to respect that when a
host country, or when another lab, invites you in to
investigate and help them solve a problem that it is their data
that you are working with, and the way to get access to it is
to be invited, and agree on the objective. And you need to have
that collaboration, I mean, both philosophically and
practically. So philosophically it's important for the host
country, in my experience, to be viewed as the lead for solving
the problem, that they want to solve a problem that they might
be viewed as creating, so you are there in the capacity of a
consultant, not to parachute in, and take data, and then
publish on behalf of yourself and the United States. So you
have to remember just basic, you know, human consideration.
And then practically it's very important because you're
going in and reviewing charts in another country. They may be
in a different language, they may have different medical norms,
they may--you know, you need their people there alongside you
to work together and do this collaboratively. So stay focused
on the scientific question you seek to answer, do not make
conclusions with incomplete data, resist the urge to start
making conclusions, and communicate often with their government
authorities. And make sure you're not exploiting the host,
whether it's an underdeveloped country that often this happens
in, or in a developed country, that you're not going in to try
to get something on behalf of, you know, your own country, or
your own institution or academic career.
Mr. Perlmutter. My time has expired. I thank you, and I'll
yield back to the Chair, and I just felt compelled to defend
lawyers and politicians. Thank you.
Chairman Foster. Thank you. And we'll now recognize the
Ranking Member, who is, I believe, neither a lawyer nor a
scientist, and yet a tremendous contributor to this Committee.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Being a farmer by
trade, and my university training is in agricultural economics,
so how to allocate those finite resources, and on the unlimited
demands to achieve the greatest possible rate of return. And if
I wanted to put you to sleep, we would discuss the inelasticity
of the demand for food, but that's a whole different entire
subject.
Turning to Dr. Relman, since the early days of the COVID-
19 pandemic, China's not been transparent with the rest of the
world about how the virus began to spread in Wuhan, China, or
shared reliable data that could inform on the possible origins.
So thinking about the last exchange between my colleague and
one of your wonderful fellow witnesses, recognizing this, how
do we move forward in investigating the origins of COVID-19
without cooperation from China, and how must Congress, Federal
agencies, and scientific community more broadly work together
to do this? I give you the big question, Doc.
Dr. Relman. Thank you for that, Congressman. Well, I have
to turn back to my co-panelist, Dr. Price, and suggest that we
are in dramatic agreement on a number of the points that she
made. But I will call--I will make a distinction between the
importance of relationships amongst scientists and the kinds of
relationships that exist between governments. And here I will
again reflect much of the sentiment by Dr. Price. There have
been, in fact, very good working relationships between
scientists in the United States and those in China at these
very institutes. I've been on trips to those places, and have
met many of those scientists, and greatly respect them. And I
think, in fact, they have much to share if we could create the
right circumstances under which they feel allowed, and
empowered to do so.
That's a very complicated task, and I don't mean to
suggest that any of this is easy, Congressman Perlmutter. It is
not. But it doesn't mean that we shouldn't try. And I'll point
out that our National Academies of Sciences and the Chinese
Academy of Sciences held a series of meetings last summer, of
which I participated, where we had some very fruitful
discussions. They did not involve the governments of our two
countries, and I think there was some useful progress made. So
I'm maybe an idealist or an optimist, but I think that if we
can build these kinds of relationships amongst scientists, we
can start there, and then find ways in which to take into
account the interests of our governments, and other larger
institutions. I'll----
Mr. Lucas. Continuing with you, Doctor, in your written
testimony you disagree with the argument that further clarity
about the origins of COVID-19 is not needed. So could you
explain to us--and remember we are a conduit to the great
American people, the folks who ultimately pay and suffer or
benefit from our actions. Could you explain to us, and them,
why it is so important that we investigate the origins of
COVID-19, and what an investigation into the current pandemic
would--how it would enable future pandemic preparedness and
response?
Dr. Relman. Be happy to. I would say there are at least
four benefits to an effort to understand the origins. The first
is a point that's been made already, that anything we learn
will help us devote resources and design strategies to both
anticipate and prevent the next pandemic. That's first and
foremost. Second, we will learn how better to investigate
outbreaks. That's a point that's already been made by my fellow
panelists. Third, we may deflect further recriminations, and
perhaps some finger pointing, by the gaining of greater
clarity. And then fourth, if there is further evidence that
perhaps accidents occurred in the conduct of science, then I
think we will be forced to have conversations and further
discussions beyond that which we have already had in this
country that look more carefully about where there is risk that
perhaps deserves special attention.
Mr. Lucas. In your written testimony, again, you discuss
the two predominant COVID-19 origin theories. What I would now
ask you is, moving forward, how do we better communicate
scientific and factual evidence so we can continue to
investigate the origins of COVID-19? How do we regain that
trust? How do we convince the American public of the merits of
what we need to do?
Dr. Relman. Yeah. I know we're almost out of time, but let
me just suggest that the first place would be something that
Dr. Price has already mentioned, the great importance of
transparency in all of the information upon which we base our
statements. And that come--that has to come from all corners of
the globe. Not just China, not just the United States, but
every other place where there's useful information about the
virus, the early clinical events, and everything else that we
have to understand about this ecosystem. So data transparency
is where we start, and that should be made available to the
world's public as well.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Doctor. And, with that, Mr.
Chairman, I would yield back, noting that the general public
doesn't necessarily always understand what goes on behind those
lab doors where you worked all those years, and we need to make
sure they understand it is to their benefit, and the future of
everyone, that those things happen. Yield back.
Chairman Foster. I agree. And we'll now recognize one of
our most valued Members of the Investigation Subcommittee, Dr.
Ami Bera, M.D., for five minutes.
Mr. Bera. Great. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. And while my good
friend from Colorado's a lawyer and a politician, I happen to
be a doctor and a politician, and in a prior life was Chief
Medical Officer for Sacramento County, so--did a lot of public
health work.
Again, thank you for holding this hearing. I think, just
from a pure medical, and scientific, and epidemiologic
perspective, it is really important for us to take a look
backwards, and get a sense of what's happened. And, you know,
as the Member of Congress who held the first hearing on that
kind of novel coronavirus, didn't have a name, and had--chaired
multiple hearings on this, one of the first recommendations we
made in early January 2019 or 2020 was that we had to use every
effort and resource to get the best scientists into the hot
zone, into Wuhan, to not just understand what was going on,
understand how this virus was transmitted, but also to help the
Chinese, in terms of containment. Obviously that didn't happen.
I think, you know, China's response was different, which really
was setting up barriers, and I think we'll look back and
certainly see a missed opportunity that slowed down our
response.
That said, the scientists in China, you know, there was a
hero in China who, again, probably not at the request of the
government, released the gene sequence fairly early, and
probably did save untold--tens of thousands of life. You know,
certainly allowed us to develop the ability to do testing
fairly early on, and, you know, it ultimately allowed, you
know, Moderna, Pfizer to start working on vaccines as well. So,
you know, I'm not disparaging any of the Chinese scientists,
per se, because I actually think the scientific community
would've wanted to work in a cooperative, collaborative way.
It's when the politicians get involved, in this case, you know,
the Chinese government, that I think things went awry.
I appreciate all the questions of my colleagues. I do
think, just from a purely scientific perspective, it is
important for us to understand the origins so we can better
prepare ourselves both to address and minimize the next
pandemic, and be prepared for that. You know, as one of the
witnesses talked about, I think we do have to go through and,
you know, get a better understanding of the zoonotic risks that
are out there so we can be better prepared for that. But one
area that, you know, I think is incredibly important for us to
think about as Congress, and--is our own biosecurity. Because
there are bad actors in the world, and, you know, for folks
watching a virus bring the world to its knees, they've just
seen what's possible, and we spend a lot of time--you know, I
chair the Subcommittee on Nonproliferation, and we think about
nuclear threats, but what we've just seen is a biological
threat bring us to our knees. And as we prepare for the next
naturally occurring pathogen, I think we also have to build in
systems to address and think about, you know, potential man-
made pathogens, whether, intentionally or unintentionally, that
could impact us.
I know we were able to get $1.7 billion in the American
Rescue Plan to build out our infrastructure for gene sequencing
of these viruses. It's helping us right now as we deal with the
pandemic, but, you know, maybe--I'll ask Dr. Relman, as we
build out these bio-surveillance tools at the global level, as
we try to put in these institutional norms for lab standards,
as, you know, Chairman Foster and I have talked about, you
know, what is appropriate gene--genetic research, and, you know
this CRISPR technology, you know, is readily available to the
world. We're teaching our high school students how to do gene
editing. There's real risks here. So [inaudible] Dr. Relman
some things we should be thinking about, as Congress, to better
prepare for the next naturally occurring pathogen, but also to
prevent a man-made pathogen from bad actors?
Dr. Relman. Those are all really, really important, good
questions, and there obviously are no simple answers. I think
one response would be say that there are multiple approaches
that will be needed, no one of which would be sufficient. Part
of this, I think, is going to be a question about whether we
think there are discrete, probably very small, defined parts of
this science that deserve special attention. In other words,
might there be a red line? Might there be a place past which we
simply ought not to deliberately go? I personally think that
there are. I also think that those are vanishingly few, and
that we have to be very careful in perhaps drawing a line, if
we do so, so that we don't impair or impede the rest of the
critical science upon which we depend.
So these are really tough problems. I would like to see,
for example, our government sponsoring further international
discussion about whether there are norms of this sort, how we
go about defining them, who needs to be at the table, and
perhaps not just scientists, and not certainly just life
scientists, but social scientists, I think, to some of your
points previously made. But that's a start, and, you know, this
is as much about people as it is about rules. And we're going
to have to have a better understanding of where we all stand on
this, and a mechanism for ongoing discussion as unforeseen
problems arise.
Mr. Bera. Great. Thank you. And maybe that's a topic for a
future hearing, Chairman Foster.
Chairman Foster. I agree, and the analogy between nuclear
nonproliferation and the dangers of, you know, of bioweapons,
and everything from homebrew bioweapons to nation-states. And,
without objection, I'd actually like to enter into the record a
report and--from the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) that they
issued last fall, entitled ``Preventing The Next Global
Biological Catastrophe''. And--recommended, among other things,
stronger mechanisms at the United Nations for determining the
source of a biological threat regardless of origin. And so,
without objection, I'd like to enter that into the record. And
next is Representative Gonzalez for five minutes.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Chairman Foster, and Ranking
Member Obernolte, for holding this timely hearing today, and to
our distinguished witnesses for joining us. Dr. Relman, in your
testimony you labeled the work being performed at the Wuhan lab
as ``unusually risky''. I want to focus on that specifically
because in 2016 the lab reportedly experimented on a live bat
coronavirus that could infect human cells in a BSL-2 lab, a
biosafety level compared to a U.S. dentist's office.
Furthermore, in 2018, the lab's director, Dr. Xi [phonetic]
gave a presentation with slides that exposed some of her
unmasked colleagues working with bats in their bare hands. And
then finally, in 2019, Dr. Peter Daszak, one of the lab's top
contractors, who has coincidentally been charged with leading
The Lancet and WHO investigations, made comments that
researchers in the Wuhan lab have found over 100 coronaviruses,
including some that can get into human cells in the lab, and
are ``untreatable''. I recognize you'll not offer a personal
opinion on this hypothesis, but would you agree that this is a
troubling fact pattern that warrants further investigation?
Dr. Relman. I think my response would be to say we, as an
international community of scientists, have some important
issues to address, some of which you've just alluded to. I do
think that some of the work that they have described, like work
that has been done by others elsewhere in the world, deserves
special attention. I mentioned already some of the experiments
that I think were unusually risky. And it's not just my
opinion, it's the opinion of other well-known coronavirus
experts, in fact. But this is work that they had permission to
do, at least by their own government, so I think there are many
people here that need to be--you know, that need to be in these
discussions to decide how do we go about viewing and assessing
risk, and how are we going to manage it going forward? It's a--
--
Mr. Gonzalez. Yeah, I agree.
Dr. Relman [continuing]. Not a problem of one place.
Mr. Gonzalez. Yeah, absolutely. I think this screams for
more global coordination and pressure, frankly. Given Dr.
Daszak's professional and financial ties to the Wuhan lab, do
you have any--does it give you pause that an investigation
completed by the WHO and Lancet can be considered credible?
Because I struggle with that mightily, if I'm being honest.
Dr. Relman. No, I too--and I've stated this in various
places, I was troubled by the--first of all, the terms of
reference with which they began their investigation, their
exclusion of certain hypotheses just because, and then second
the skewed treatment of just one, and not another. Yes, I think
that was a problem.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you. Dr. Perlman, in a 2020 op-ed you
applauded Chinese efforts to share relevant COVID-19
information rapidly and responsibly. We now know that the--that
following the WHO's 2020 mission to China, the CCP implemented
a gag order to stop the sharing of any information related to
the pandemic so as to coordinate the release of the information
with the Chinese government. They've also silenced their own
scientists, deleted data bases, and, of course, blamed the
United States military for the outbreak, which is ridiculous.
Given how the last year and a half has unfolded, do you still
stand by those comments?
Dr. Perlman. Yeah, so I think that--I think the points you
make are very well taken. I think a lot of those comments were
made at a time when the world was a little different. We talked
about the 2020 Lancet paper, and that did have a big impact,
but it was at a time when the world was really divided into
those who thought this was all man-made versus a natural
origin, and now everything's become more nuanced, and I think
it's very appropriate to be more nuanced. I certainly would--if
I had to do everything over again, and I was really smart, I
would've thought about those nuances back then. But at the
time, that's what we were thinking.
And also the other thing I was thinking about was the SARS
epidemic, it took--the Chinese government was even more opaque
then initially, and it took several months for that to be
admitted to. So this felt like it--in those early days felt
like it was more rapidly done, information was being spread,
but there was no question, even in the very beginning, there
was some coverup, because I have friends in China who were
telling me that they thought things should've been released
more quickly, and this was in the first days of January. So
this--and the problems only got worse, because the things
you're describing are what--going to make it so difficult to
figure out where this virus came from. Destroying farmed
animals, not having specimens available, not having information
available. This is the only way I think we're going to figure
out this particular pandemic.
Mr. Gonzalez. Yeah. I mean, just following up, I mean, if
the Chinese won't permit researchers to conduct field work, and
only offer limited access to granular lab records and data, how
can we carry out an investigation that is credible and immune
to CCP influence when we've already seen such horrible
behavior, whether it was SARS or COVID-19?
Dr. Perlman. Yeah, I think it's something that has to
change, because--if we're going to figure this out.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you. And----
Dr. Murray. And if it's possible to add to that, could I
make a comment?
Mr. Gonzalez. Sure.
Dr. Murray. Yeah, that--one of the things I would just
like to underline as we're talking about this is that, if we're
trying to create the entire puzzle, if we're trying to
understand the entire picture, and if we think about what we
can control, what we do have the access to, if we have a jigsaw
puzzle with 100 pieces, and we only have one or two of those
pieces currently available, it's hard to understand everything.
But I think the more that we can really develop that robust
data set that's independent, perhaps, of--that's--you know,
from the wildlife surveillance that's perhaps independent of
government, it might give us the chance to have a better
understanding, and that might be something we can--that we can
more easily control.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
giving me a few extra seconds there. I yield back.
Chairman Foster. No, I'm happy to--also, if our witnesses
and Members are interested, I think we will continue this sort
of informal procedure we have of, after we've gaveled the
hearing closed, we'll turn off the live feed, and just have the
sort of private discussions that we have typically after in-
person hearings as well, which are often very, very productive
and useful. And so now I will recognize Representative Beyer
for five minutes.
Mr. Beyer. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and--to you
and Mr. Obernolte for hiring the--holding this really
fascinating--I will begin that I am concerned about the low
vaccination rates in Republican-led States, continuing to place
our economic and societal recovery at risk, and Tennessee's
willful abandonment of any attempt at pandemic response is only
the latest example of failed leadership. So while we're focused
today broadly on the origins, which will be very helpful in
trying to understand how to prevent both a future lab leak or
any other future natural origin for a virus, we have to
remember there have been more COVID deaths in 2021 than in all
of 19--in all of 2020.
So we need to also be focused on the variants, and if we
don't get serious about addressing COVID, the next variants of
concerns are likely to be homegrown. They're not in China, not
in the market, not in a lab, and they're preventable in light
of our access to vaccines. So one of the concerns I have is
that--for much of the pandemic is we're not going to know much
about these variants if we don't have good surveillance. For
Dr. Murray, can you offer your perspective on the current
status of U.S. COVID surveillance? What's working well, what
should we be thinking about for the future?
Dr. Murray. There's--we--to be honest, I think that our
COVID surveillance was much more robust just a few years ago.
We knew that--even 3 or 4 years ago that an epidemic--not
necessarily a pandemic, but we knew that an epidemic was likely
on its way, and we knew that it was likely to be an influenza
virus, or a coronavirus, that it was likely to come from bats
or primates, and Asia or Africa. So we knew a lot, and I think
that we were pretty actively involved in a number of different
countries doing that surveillance, and creating the data base
from which all of our scientists and pharma companies need to
access information. For a variety of reasons, I think in part
due to changes in funding structures that--and changing in
priorities, that surveillance isn't as robust right now as it
was, and, from my perspective, I think it's time that we lean
in, because that continuous sampling I think was what's most
critical as we look at trying to understand viral evolution.
One other thing I'll just note is that if we're trying to
understand how the--what--how the viruses might mutate in the
future, it's very helpful to look at past collections as well,
to even, like, historical collections from the museums, the
Museum of Natural History, to look at the coronaviruses 100
years ago, 50 years ago, where they are now. It gives us some
indication of where to go. So we are still, obviously, doing--
there's a number of different groups doing surveillance, but
it's a strange time to be slowing down.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you. Dr. Relman, I was fascinated by your
discussion about how, in the Wuhan lab, they had taken
previously characterized bat-associated coronavirus poised for
human emergence, and then inserting the all-important spike
protein from the novel viruses. This sounds awfully dangerous.
What was the possible gain from introducing the spike protein
into these viruses?
Dr. Relman. Well, the purpose was to understand the very
diversity that you've been hearing about, and trying to
understand what parts of this diversity may prove to be a true
threat to humans. One of the approaches, and I would argue an
approach that we ought to, you know, step back and perhaps
discuss more, is to take the part of the virus that we think is
most likely responsible for interaction with human cells, the
spike protein, and study it in some way, shape, or fashion. The
way they chose to do it was to place it--swap it into another
virus whose properties they had just characterized--and a virus
that they were able to resurrect and propagate.
So these were the chimeric viruses that they created, and
they literally did not know what was going to happen when they
did that. Their purpose was to see if this starting virus, WIV-
1, had now become even more well adapted to human cells, and
more able to grow. They didn't know what the answer would be,
and I would say that that was a pretty risky throw of the dice
that they were undertaking there.
Mr. Beyer. Yeah. Doctor, one last quick question. You've
talked about the COVID Commission Planning Group, Nuclear
Threat Initiative, World Economic Forum. Do you think we can
actually build this new global entity to track these things
ahead of time?
Dr. Relman. I do, I do, and I've admitted my conflicts as
an advisor to a number of those organizations, but the NTI, for
example, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, has a very interesting
proposal for a novel international entity that would routinely
investigate small outbreaks which are happening all the time as
a way of practicing how to do this right for the time that
comes when something large happens, and--so I do like some of
these proposals.
Mr. Beyer. Great. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I
yield back.
Chairman Foster. Thank you. And we'll now recognize
Representative Waltz for five minutes.
Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, just as an
opening statement, I certainly want to state my opinion, and I
think the vast majority of the American people would agree,
that it's a little insane--I mean, it's kind of nuts that 18
months after this outbreak, trillions of dollars spent,
millions of lives lost, millions more disrupted, businesses
ruined, kids falling further behind in school than they already
were, that this is the first hearing that the majority has
hosted on the origins of the coronavirus. I mean, I just think
the total lack of urgency to get to the bottom of this, again,
a year and a half after the outbreak is, just to be candid, a
bit outrageous, and I do hope this is the first of many. This
is a very complicated issue, and I do hope this is the first of
many to get to the bottom of it. But I certainly applaud that--
you know, let's get started in having the hearing today.
You know, Dr. Relman, you walk through in your testimony
what an investigation should look like. I think we all agree it
hasn't looked like that, with all of those elements. Key
factors are objectivity and conflicts of interest. And you also
stated, I just want to make sure I understand you correctly,
neither hypothesis should be ruled out, natural origin or a lab
leak conducting very dangerous research that you just
described, is that correct? They're both viable?
Dr. Relman. That's correct.
Mr. Waltz. Thank you. And I would certainly agree. I
just--trying to wrap my mind around what I think may be the
world's biggest coincidence that the epicenter of this virus
happened in a city--the only city in all of China that is
conducting research--dangerous research on this virus, 1,000
miles away from natural origin, a city larger than Manhattan,
and in a lab that the State Department, in 2018, shared real
concerns for its safety in a cable. So that brings me over to
Dr. Perlman. And, you know, it was already mentioned, but I
think it's worth mentioning again, that in March 2020 you
signed a letter that ``strongly condemned conspiracy theories
that suggested COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.''
And I have to say, the entire world was looking to the
scientific community at that time, just months after the
outbreak, and that really did set the tone, and it's no
surprise, then, we had the media and Big Tech banning any
discussion of anything but natural origin. Dr. Perlman, do you
still stand by that, that any discussion is a conspiracy
theory, that Dr. Relman, who says it's a viable hypothesis that
it's not natural origin, is a conspiracy theorist? Do you stand
by that statement?
Dr. Perlman. So, remember the statement that I said just a
few minutes ago, the statement was based on the notion that
this was constructed from scratch, so that was really what the
letter was about. I don't think it was defined well enough in
that letter. But that's what the discussion was. It wasn't
about----
Mr. Waltz. So----
Dr. Perlman [continuing]. All these other possibilities.
Mr. Waltz. --[inaudible] that it is constructed from
scratch, you would call it conspiracy theory?
Dr. Perlman. Well, it's--I would--I don't know--you know,
conspiracy theory obviously has a lot of pejorative terms with
it, so it's not a term that one would want to use lightly. I
think the idea at the time was, though, that this was all being
convoluted so that a whole bunch of possibilities were put into
the idea that this virus was made from the beginning.
Mr. Waltz. Dr. Perlman, what that letter had the effect of
doing was shutting off very viable lines of investigation into
whether this came from that lab. We--which we are funding with
U.S. taxpayer dollars, indirectly or directly. And we can't
stop the next pandemic, the last three of which have come from
China, without understanding where it came from. And now here
we are a year and a half later just trying to start figuring
this out, and then you sign the Lancet Commission letter, which
Peter Daszak has since resigned and recused himself from
because he's receiving funding, and his livelihood is dependent
on the very type of research that we're asking him to
investigate.
So I think, yes, the Chinese coverup has been abhorrent,
but I think, Mr. Chairman, just as inexcusable is a scientific
community who has not been objective, who has effectively shut
off lines of research, whose livelihoods depend on funding
pertaining to that research, and could be compromised. And I
think we, as a Committee, need to take a hard look at those
backgrounds, and if there are conflicts of interest, as Dr.
Relman pointed out, before we move forward in an objective way.
I thank you for holding this, and I yield back.
Chairman Foster. Thank you. And we will now recognize
Representative Stansbury. If she is willing to activate her
video? Yes.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's nice to be
here this morning. I really appreciate the opportunity ask a
couple of questions during this hearing. Mr. Chairman, my
questions are for Dr. Relman. The first question I have is
about laboratory biosafety. As you pointed out in your
testimony, the lab that--lab accidents involving dangerous
pathogens occur more frequently when--than we would like to
admit, even here in the United States. But, you know, one of
the things I'd like to kind of just put on the record is a
little bit about the biosafety standards in American
laboratories, and your thoughts about how we can ensure that
the highest standards are upheld not only in the United States,
but proliferated internationally.
Dr. Relman. Thank you for the question. I think, from my
perspective, safety and security are about both guidelines,
rules, or regulations, as well as people, and the people part
is as important as any of the other. The finest rules and
regulators, if not properly followed or believed in, simply
don't serve us to the degree that we need. So I agree that this
is a collective responsibility. We here in the United States, I
think, have further soul searching to do, but building upon
good efforts that have started already. And so I would like to
see more attention to this, and more attention to the idea of
how we can provide incentives, positive incentives, for people
to believe that this is important, and worthy of some
attention.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you.
Dr. Price [continuing]. I can add to that, Representative
Stansbury, is that OK?
Ms. Stansbury. Yes. Thank you.
Dr. Price. So in the U.S., you know, the BSL-4 is the
level of laboratory that would require work with this type of
virus, and would have oversight in clinical samples by the
Joint Commission, as--the Clinical Laboratory Standards
Institute. And I suppose if research only, Doctors Relman and
Perlman can correct me, but the CDC would probably oversee
that. And the Joint Commission accredits 22,000 healthcare
institutions in the United States, but there's also an
international arm that accredits hospitals around the globe,
and currently there are 54 such hospitals in China that are
accredited by the JCI (Joint Commission International).
The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services also
regulates some laboratory testing via CLIA (Clinical Laboratory
Improvement Amendments), and there is an ability for
international laboratories seeking CLIA certification to do so.
So I do wonder, in addition to what Dr. Relman said, is if
there is a will to have some regulatory oversight more so at a
global level using some existing structures that we have.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you both, and thank you, Mr.
Chairman. My second question is about the kinds of research
that we're talking about, including gain of function research.
Dr. Relman, you argued in your testimony that we should
consider whether or not there are certain kinds of life
sciences research that is so risky that perhaps it shouldn't be
undertaken, and I wanted to understand a bit more about gain of
function research, and how this research is used in
microbiology, how common it is in vaccine development, and what
we can understand as to how it might apply to what we're
discussing here today.
Dr. Relman. Thank you. I'm not a big fan of this term,
gain of function, because it's confusing, and used in confusing
ways. I would prefer to talk about risky research, risk--
research that is unusually risky, and for several reasons. To
me, the two properties that matter most that we need to be
concerned about the property of something being able to do
harm, so that's pathogenicity, and the property of
transmission. Anything that has both of those properties,
something that can do harm and can transmit easily, is
something that we need to pay attention to. And, to make it
very simple, I would argue that we should not go about
deliberately, intentionally, creating something that has both
of those properties that doesn't exist in nature without a
very, very thorough and well-informed discussion. That's the
kind of thing that gets out of control very quickly, and, if it
hasn't yet happened, it will. I'm just very concerned about
that kind of work.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Dr. Relman. And, with that, Mr.
Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Foster. Thank you. And we will now recognize
Representative Feenstra for five minutes.
Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Chairman Foster, and Ranking
Member Obernolte, for the opportunity participate in this first
official hearing on COVID-19 origins in the U.S. House. And
thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony, and sharing
your extensive research and experience with us on such a
crucial, crucial topic today.
Dr. Relman, in your testimony you mentioned that some say
further clarity about the origin of the COVID pandemic is no
longer needed. I personally think that's absurd, and I was
happy to see that you disagree with them also. Following up on
past questions, can you elaborate on the potential consequences
of not investigating the origin of the virus?
Dr. Relman. Sure. And to clarify, I think the viewpoint
that I was seeking to portray was one where a number of people
have said this seems so difficult, it seems so unlikely that we
are going to gain greater clarity, for some of the reasons that
have been discussed here this morning, that perhaps the effort
is not worth it, that the effort, which will come with a lot of
political difficulty and complication perhaps ought not to be
undertaken. I disagree with that. I do think, for a whole
number of reasons, there are likelihoods of greater insight
into the origins of the pandemic, in part because science is
such an international undertaking, and that there are lots of
useful kinds of information there that could come from all
corners of the globe about how this pandemic began.
But I do think it's critical that we pursue this, and the
reason is that, in part, if we do nothing further, one of these
two hypotheses, in my view, continues to be so difficult for
some of us scientists to discuss, the idea that one of us could
have caused an accident, that's--that one of us made an error,
that it will not be pursued with sufficient rigor and
attention. And that's my concern, should we simply drop this
now.
Mr. Feenstra. Yeah. Dr. Relman, I fully agree with you. I
mean, I think everyone--we owe it to the world to understand,
and that we never let something like this happen again if we
can come up with the way it happened, and then to protect
ourselves that it never happens again.
Dr. Murray, you worked as part of a governmental funded
USAID consortium to collect dormant viruses and study
infection--and the infectiousness, and sometimes implemented
gain of function research to predict disease outbreaks, risk
factors, and create predictive models. I've got two questions.
How does the COVID-19 emergence and spread compare to your
predictive models, and then what are your predictive models and
risk factors your team considers for laboratory accidents?
Dr. Murray. Just to--thank you for the question. Just to
clarify, we were not involved in any gain of function research.
We were doing surveillance, both human and wildlife
surveillance, in several different countries, and--yeah. So--
and then in terms of--we do have modelers on the team who do
look at how diseases can spread. The places we were most active
in is looking at some of the gaps, and recognizing that if we
want to understand how viruses can best spread, there is a
missing gap of social scientists, and looking at what humans do
to put them in--at times in harm's way, and what the riskiest
behaviors are. So we do--we have spent a fair amount of time
developing some strategies, and making sure we're incorporating
social scientists and behavioralists to investigate cultural
norms, and to better understand to build those partnership with
our--with folks in different countries so we can address--so we
can all be part of the solution as part of the problem, per se.
Mr. Feenstra. Well, thank you. And I'm an academic myself.
I'm actually doing research and funding. I'm just going through
an IRB (institutional review board) hearing as we speak, and it
concerns me that, you know, I take into consideration all the
risk factors when I'm doing research, and, you know, here we
have a situation that we're not sure exactly how it happened,
but we have to be very cognizant of the risk factors that
happen. And it--you know, it--I'm sure it didn't happen on
purpose, but how did this--could it have been a laboratory
accident, and how do we make sure that never happens again? I'm
not saying it necessarily was, but it could have been. And I
just hope, Dr. Murray, that your studies can look into this
more, and I would just like to hear a little more of your
thoughts on that.
Dr. Murray. I think that one of the best things that we
can all do is look at what our research so far has identified,
and then also identify the gaps. And part of the gaps I think
is looking at a risk analysis, a risk analysis across the
board. I think my esteemed colleagues on the panel have said
the same thing, and there's many places along the way, from the
human behaviors in the field, and what--and how people come in
contact with wildlife--you know, living, and then also dead
wildlife, the--whether it's the--the risk is in the--a
restaurant, whether it's eating wildlife, or whether it's
preparing wildlife ahead of time, and then what happens when
you bring it back home. So everything, all the way through,
looking at risks--risk factors in laboratories as well. And the
more that we can all feel comfortable, and develop that--
trusting relationships to say, hey, this is an area we should
really look at more closely, the better.
Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, and I yield back. I fully agree
this is very serious, and in all research we take human
subjects very, very, very seriously, and I just hope that we
look at that further. Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairman Foster. Thank you. And now, despite the fact that
he only has a Master's Degree in Biochemical Engineering, we
will recognize Representative Casten for five minutes.
Mr. Casten. Thank you, Doctor. Really appreciate you guys
all being here. I'm--want to be careful picking my words here,
because I want to ask something that's going to sound
controversial, and I hope that my colleagues across the aisle
will take it in the spirit it's intended. I've had this fear
from the start of COVID that we're repeating some of the
mistakes we made in the HIV crisis, in the sense that there are
political conversations we're uncomfortable having, and because
of our discomfort having those political conversations we've
allowed this to spread in ways that it shouldn't. And this is
going to sound political, because we're all politicians, but it
makes me so sad that we're seeing, you know, certain political
populations less likely to get vaccinated, more likely to die.
And if we can't talk about that epidemiologically, then we're
leaving something out of the conversation.
Layered on top of that is the fact that we have created
some real risks to health and welfare because of that politics.
You know, I had an Asian-American constituent who was attacked
with a stick a year ago and told to go back to China, which was
not where he or his family tree was from, but that was the way
he looked. And--so I guess my question for you all as
scientists who, you know, if you do your job well, you are
looking at all the data, and asking questions without any
presumed answer, how would you like us as political figures,
hopefully political leaders, to speak about those issues in a
way that maximizes your ability to do your job effectively? And
it--happy for any of you who have answers to that, but I think
we're all--in our line of work, we could use your guidance and
wisdom to make sure that we don't unnecessarily inflame things,
while still making sure that we don't ignore hard questions as
we did during the early stages of the HIV epidemic. Any
comments would be welcome.
Dr. Murray. Personally, I really like the idea of us, it's
been mentioned a few times along, making big efforts to bring
the public along. As scientists, we do a lot of work, and we
collect data, and we share it with other scientists, but we
don't always make the effort, or sometimes we don't--we're not
effective in translating that information to the general public
along the way. I do feel like we have known a lot about the,
you know, epidemics that were on their way, and had we more
effectively communicated with the general public, I think we
would've had been very able to respond more quickly at--that's
my thought.
Dr. Price. I would follow up and say I've appreciated this
Subcommittee's willingness to consider all theories of the
origins of COVID-19, even though some have somehow generated a
political view or polarization behind each of those theories.
And I think it's important to remember that we don't have the
data. We have to use the science, and back off from anything
that seems to be going to the left or the right, and just look
at the data, and make conclusions based on that alone, and be
open until then.
Dr. Relman. I would simply add that, from an international
point of view, in my humble opinion, it's humility that we, as
a nation, need a little bit more of. I think we've been a
little quick to point fingers and suggest that we're not
equally, you know, culpable in some cases for either promoting
factors that encourage natural outbreaks or for promoting
certain kinds of science that carry unusual risks. And I think,
you know, it's that glass house analogy. We have to be careful
about where we throw stones without first saying, look, we're
fallible, just like everyone else. Here are some examples of
problems that we have discovered amongst our own. Now let's
have a more open conversation about where we each see this
being the case.
Mr. Casten. Well, thank you.
Dr. Perlman. Yeah, could I just add something to that?
Mr. Casten. Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Please go ahead.
Dr. Perlman. Yeah. I'm on the FDA (Food and Drug
Administration) and the ACIP (Advisory Committee on
Immunization Practices) Vaccine Committee, so we actually think
about the first part of your question, about how do we get
vaccines into the whole population? And I think it's not only
politicians being all in agreement about whether vaccines are
necessary or not, but I think we think pretty strongly that
bringing in community leaders, and making sure that everybody's
on the same page about the importance of vaccination. Because
both in the U.S. and the rest of the world, this vaccine
hesitancy is a big deal in terms of having problems in ending
the pandemic. So there's a lot of places in the world there's
not enough vaccine, but even where there is there's still so
much hesitancy. So I think that it's just the--it's--making it
very clear that everyone thinks vaccination is the way for--to
move forward is really an important intervention.
Mr. Casten. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Foster. Thank you. And now, with some relief, we
will return to the other Ph.D. on--in the Science Committee,
Representative Baird.
Mr. Baird. Thank you, Ranking Member Obernolte, and--so
now I'm--is that coming through better?
Chairman Foster. Yes.
Mr. Baird. I really appreciate, Mr. Chairman, holding this
kind of discussion, and it seems to me that the purpose of this
hearing, and I commend you for taking the opportunity to do
that, is to look into how this COVID virus was released. There
are two theories at the present time, one about being an animal
to human situation, or a zoonotic situation, and the other
being the laboratory leak. So my question comes down to--is how
we identify, and how we can be helpful, in trying to re-
establish or re-affirm, as some of you have suggested, the
credibility for our scientific community, because they really
haven't had a chance to weigh in.
So I guess I'm going to start one question with Mr.--or
Dr. Relman. You--in your testimony you had discussion about
international governance mechanism leading to the investigation
of the COVID-19 origins. And so, from your perspective, how do
we re-establish a protocol that is appropriate and effective
for convincing our society that our scientists can make the
appropriate conclusions? And so I would appreciate your
comments on how we can identify the bipartisan, transparent
program for investigating the origins of this COVID-19.
Dr. Relman. Yeah, it's a tough question. There are issues
of governance and of authorities, and then there are a set of
other issues around which I feel I have a little bit
familiarity, which is how do we articulate the questions at
hand carefully, how do we decide upon the kinds of data that
will best address those questions, then how do we decide upon
the right expertise to make use of those data in addressing
those questions? And, finally, the process that will be
purused. All of those four things, I think, still need some
attention. This is where your Committee has, I think, important
standing. You're all about how does a proper investigation
become well-articulated, and empowered, and defined? And that's
what we need here. And I think, once we have those four
elements better articulated, we'll have much greater--a better
ability to decide who is it that can best do this, and how are
we going to proceed?
Mr. Baird. Well, I--if I'm understanding you right, I
think now is a good time to review how we think that protocol
ought to be, and maybe this Committee is a good place to start
with reviewing that. And then that adds credibilities if we
approve that and move forward. Am I understanding that
correctly?
Dr. Relman. Yes, I think so. And there may well be good
partners for you who have already begun this process. The COVID
Planning Commission that I referred to in my testimony, the
U.S. National Academies that's begun to have conversations, and
other National Academies around the world. So I think
partnerships, perhaps informal, between countries with various
kinds of standing and roles to play could be a part of this
discussion with you as well.
Mr. Baird. So thank you very much, and I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Foster. Well, thank you. I think, at this point,
we--unless I--there's someone lurking on Zoom, I think we are
now out of Members with questions. As I mentioned earlier, we
will--after we gavel this hearing closed, we'll be able to have
an opportunity for sort of informal conversation, sort of the
electronic equivalent of hanging around in the anteroom after
this. And--so I'm--any Members or panelists who are interested
in that are very welcome to. So, with that, I will thank our
witnesses again, and gavel this hearing closed.
[Whereupon, at 2:02 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
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