The Pandemic Risk of “What I’ve Never Seen Before”

Health Policy Sep 2, 2026 By MIKE MAGEE The world of medical science largely closed ranks last month in defense of Tony Fauci. Dr. Fauci had been hauled before the Senate Homeland Security Committee to face hostile entrapment by long time critique Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Taking no chances, his lawyers had the former head of NIH’s Infectious Disease division plead the 5th to avoid entrapment, fines, and even imprisonment. It has been five years since Dr. Fauci appeared on MSNow (formerly MSNBC) and encourage viewers to “keep an open mind” when it came to “gain-of-function” research and the origins of the Covid pandemic. Since then, a 2025 WHO report stated “As things stand, all hypotheses must remain on the table.” That includes the possibility that the viral tragedy resulted from the inadvertent release of a genetically engineered virus from the Wuhan, China, laboratory of Shi Zhengli, a virologist trained at the University of North Carolina. The risky experiments, termed “gain-of-function” studies, were justified as super-secure, safe, predictive, and preventive. Shi returned to her labs in 2018 and 2019 with grant funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectio...