COVID subcommittee hearing focuses on safety reporting, injury compensation
Subcommittee also demanded documents from FBI chief related to UNC researcher Ralph Baric
A Feb. 15 hearing held by the House Oversight’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic underscored the Biden administration had mandated vaccines without proper safety protocols in place.
“Biden Administration officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) all testified that America’s vaccine injury and compensation systems have serious deficiencies related to inadequate staffing, lackluster surveillance, and overlapping programs,” a post-hearing press release states.
“Vaccine injury reporting and compensation systems were not prepared to handle the “avalanche” of injury claims caused by the COVID-19 vaccine,” according to the Subcommittee.
“We tried to be prepared for that, but the avalanche of reports was tremendous,” testified Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA Director at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “It, again, required re-tasking people on the fly…We had to usually staff up and had many meetings working to increase our ability to go through these reports.”
Marks also said in response to questions about ineffective government messaging related to vaccine safety, “We probably have not done a good enough job of communicating sometimes the actual numbers of deaths versus what’s in VAERS.”
Additionally, the Subcommittee found that the “FDA accelerated the COVID-19 vaccine approval process to seemingly meet arbitrary mandate timelines set by the Biden Administration.”
The Feb. 15 hearing is one of two hearings on the handling of the pandemic, with the second hearing to “emphasize the importance of the doctor-patient relationship in order to obtain public trust in vaccines during a future public health crisis.”
The wrap-up of the hearing included highlights of questions posed by various members of the subcommittee.
Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) pressed FDA Director Dr. Peter Marks to admit he ignored warnings from his colleagues about the dangers of accelerating the COVID-19 vaccine approval process. Chairman Comer further noted that the timing of the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate and the FDA’s rushed approval of the vaccine appear to correlate.
Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) grilled Marks to explain “why the publicly reported data on vaccine injuries differs significantly from the confirmed death and injury count available to FDA officials.”
In a separate press release, Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was still “stonewalling” and threatened to subpoena officials to compel testimony.
In particular, Wenstrup named HHS Assistant Secretary for Legislation Dr. Melanie Egorin as refusing to answer the subcommittee’s questions at a hearing in January.
“At the hearing, you were asked simple questions regarding the process used by the Department to respond to Congressional inquiries. Answers to these questions would allow the Select Subcommittee to properly evaluate the Department’s record of compliance with the Select Subcommittee’s requests. Unfortunately, you did not have those answers ‘in front of you.’ Again, this is unacceptable,” wrote Chairman Wenstrup in a letter to Egorin.
The letter demands written responses by Mar. 1 to a series of questions, each linked to multiple past letters - some almost a year old.
More To The Story
The same day the COVID Subcommittee issued its press release, it also sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray notifying him they were aware one of his agents had been in "direct and ongoing communications" with "Dr. Ralph Baric, a professor at the University of North Carolina (UNC) and renowned corona-virologist."
"This communication was not just regarding threats Dr. Baric was receiving but also the substance of the origin debate and how UNC was responding to numerous North Carolina Freedom of Information Act requests," the Committee's letter states. "Pursuant to the Select Subcommittee’s February 27, 2023 letter, we respectfully request an in-person transcribed interview with Special Agent [Redacted] on March 8, 2024."
The letter expressed frustration that the House Oversight Committee had not received documents related to COVID's origins that the FBI possesses which the committee had requested almost a year ago.
The letter also demanded the FBI turn over multiple other documents no later than Mar. 1.
All documents and communications between or among employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the origins of COVID-19, EcoHealth Alliance, Inc., gain-of function research, enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogen research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or the Wuhan Center[s] for Disease Prevention and Control from October 2019 through present.
All documents and communications between or among employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, or the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases regarding the origins of COVID-19, EcoHealth Alliance, Inc., gain-of-function research, enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogen research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or the Wuhan Center[s] for Disease Prevention and Control from October 2019 through present.
All documents and communications between or among employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Executive Office of the President, including but not limited to the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Security Council, regarding the origins of COVID-19, EcoHealth Alliance, Inc., gain-of-function research, enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogen research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or the Wuhan Center[s] for Disease Prevention and Control from October 2019 through present.
All documents and communications between or among employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and employees of EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. regarding origins of COVID19, gain-of-function research, enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogen research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or the Wuhan Center[s] for Disease Prevention and Control from October 2019 through present.
All documents and communications between or among employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the following individuals regarding the origins of COVID-19, EcoHealth Alliance, Inc., gain-of-function research, enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogen research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or the Wuhan Center[s] for Disease Prevention and Control:
a. Dr. Jeremy Farrar; b. Dr. Kristian Andersen; c. Dr. Robert Garry; d. Dr. W. Ian Lipkin; e. Dr. Edward Holmes; f. Dr. Michael Farzan; g. Dr. Christian Drosten; h. Dr. Ron Fouchier; i. Dr. Marion Koopmans; j. Dr. Ralph Baric; k. Dr. James LeDuc; l. Dr. Victor Dzau; and m. Dr. Lanying Du.
The organization U.S. Right To Know has been pursuing Baric’s involvement as it pertains to COVID’s origins.
U.S. Right to Know is a “nonprofit public health research group” that investigates “corporate wrongdoing and government failures that threaten our health, environment and food system. We work in the public interest to help keep families healthy,” per its website.
The group has obtained large batches of emails on Baric, including documentation showing Dr. Anthony Fauci had met with the UNC researcher on Feb. 11, 2020 - just weeks after the first case was reported in the U.S.
During hearings in the spring of 2021, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) had even asked Fauci about Baric’s lab and Gain of Function research. Fauci denied it was true. Weeks later, a Feb. 1, 2020, email sent by Fauci would surface that included an attachment of Baric’s 2015 GoF paper; the implication being Fauci had lied to Paul.
Investigations into Baric’s research and involvement, such as those by U.S. Right To Know, were dubbed “conspiracy theories” by the Charlotte Observer in December 2022.
The following year, Time Magazine also did an article of a similar flavor, titled, “The U.S. Scientist At the Heart of COVID-19 Lab Leak Conspiracies Is Still Trying to Save the World From the Next Pandemic.”
Despite all mounting evidence, neither publication appears to have since revisited the positions they took in their respective articles.