While the review board is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the only member whose name is publicly available is the chairman, Chris Hassell, the senior science adviser for the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.
“As much as it would be good to publicize the individual names, which has been suggested, if that chills anyone being willing to serve on that committee, that would be detrimental,” Hassell said, according to the DCNF.
“When it comes to oversight of U.S. tax dollars headed to the Chinese Communist Party, Dr. Fauci seems like he’s literally whistling past the graveyard,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) told the DCNF, which first reported the lack of review.
“It seems to me this was done by design to allow this kind of research to be done in these kinds of places without any kind of scrutiny,” Perry said, referring to the lack of grant oversight.
The Hawley-Braun proposal text specifies that “the Director of National Intelligence should declassify and make available to the public as much information as possible about the origin of COVID–19 so the United States and like-minded countries can—(A) identify the origin of COVID–19 as expeditiously as possible, and (B) use that information to take all appropriate measures to prevent a similar pandemic from occurring again.”
The declassification that would result from enactment of the Hawley-Braun proposal is needed, Hawley said, because of the country’s growing “cancel culture” that inhibits criticism of official government narratives and policies on the virus.
“That’s why the Biden administration must declassify what it knows about the Wuhan lab and Beijing’s attempts to cover up the origin of the pandemic,” Hawley stated.
“Identifying the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is vital for preventing future pandemics, and as investigations and research into the origins of the virus continue, the Biden administration should declassify intelligence related to any potential links between biological research laboratories in Wuhan, China, and the COVID-19 pandemic,” Braun said in the statement.
The statement also linked to a recent CNN interview with former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield, in which he said he believes the virus didn’t originate with bats being sold for human consumption in a market near the WVI.
“I’m of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathology in Wuhan was from a laboratory. Escaped. Other people don’t believe that. That’s fine. Science will eventually figure it out,” Redfield said.
