The former director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Robert Redfield, said Wednesday that he is in complete support of the decision by President Trump to put a moratorium on funding of gain-of-function research, calling it “very important.”
Trump signed an executive order on Monday in order to stop these experiments by cutting off funding to countries where they occur.
“I did an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal back in 2021, really calling on our government to put a moratorium on it," Redfield told Newsmax. "There's really no scientific advantage for doing this type of research and there's a real downside in terms of creating pathogens that may cause problems that we don't have countermeasures [for], like the COVID-19 virus, which I do believe was a direct consequence of gain-of-function research.”
The position that supporters of gain-of-function research take, that scientists need to “create these dangerous viruses to know how to develop countermeasures to them,” is “a mistake,” Redfield added.
“I argue that we have enough scientific capacity that if and when we're challenged with a new pathogen, that we can apply the tools of science to address that pathogen and develop countermeasures," he continued. "We don't have to create the pathogen to figure out how to defend against the pathogen."
“Scientists like to ask questions,” but often forget to ask if certain questions should be asked.
“They like to ask questions, and this was a big part of spending significant resources on scientific research," Redfield said. "But I think it's ill-advised and I really support Trump's decision to put a moratorium on gain-of-function research.”
Redfield added a criticism for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the expert on infectious diseases who advised both Trump and former President Biden on COVID-19. Fauci had told Congress in 2021 that he had “never lied” about funding gain-of-function research.
“I think there's no doubt that the funding was responsible for creating the COVID virus that then caused the COVID pandemic," Redfield argued. "And really, it's a hypothetical argument that Tony keeps using. He says if you take a pathogen that's nonpathogenic for humans and you make it pathogenic for humans, that's not gain-of-function research. You have to start with the pathogen that's already pathogenic for humans. So, he's just playing games with the wording.”