Republican Senator
Rand Paul has accused top US virologist Anthony Fauci of lying during his
testimony to Congress, citing newly public documents revealing the extent of
US funding of coronavirus research in Wuhan, China, US media reports said.

According
to Fox News, Fauci had denied any funding by the National Institutes of Health for
gain-of-function research in Wuhan. Paul said in a tweet on Tuesday  that the NIAID director had “lied
again.”

“And I
was right about his agency funding novel Coronavirus research at Wuhan,”
Paul tweeted.

Paul had
quote tweeted a report published in The Intercept that claimed that the United States
government gave $3.1 million as funds to American health organization EcoHealth
Alliance. Those funds were partially used in coronavirus research at the Wuhan
Institute of Virology (WIV).

According
to the report by the Intercept, WIV used almost $600,000 of the federal money to
find and alter bat coronaviruses that could jump to humans and infect them.

The
documents also claimed that it was the Wuhan University Center for Animal
Experiment that conducted the experimental research on genetically engineered
mice with human cell receptors. Earlier it was claimed that the said research
was done by the WIV.

“The
documents make it clear that assertions by the NIH Director, Francis Collins,
and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support
gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are
untruthful,” Rutgers University chemical biology professor Richard Ebright
said in a long thread of tweets.

Paul and
Fauci are both trained medical doctors and it is not the first time the two have
been at loggerheads with each other.

The
Republican Senator from Kentucky has previously accused Fauci of
“lying” about gain-of-function research. This was during a hearing on
the COVID 19 delta variant in July.