Coronavirus

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, I am here today to talk about the origins of the COVID-19 virus. I want to stop and thank the scientists and journalists who risked and in some instances gave their lives to get the genetic sequence of the virus and some hints of its origin out to the rest of the world to give us a fighting chance.

I also want to thank the NIH and Dr. Francis Collins, whose team was able to stabilize the virus within a matter of weeks and share that technology with the world. This helped to quickly launch the success of Operation Warp Speed, as well as other research for testing, anti- virals, and vaccines.

But now here we are 16 months into the most catastrophic health disaster of our lifetime, and we still have more questions than answers. At least 3 million lives have been claimed by the virus, and we still don't know its origin. More specifically, we don't know its geographical or biological origin. The world deserves to know and needs to know where and how it started. Was it naturally occurring, or was it made in a lab?

I am here today to tell you, the preponderance of evidence suggests that this virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan. But first let's look at the mounting evidence suggesting that COVID-19 is truly a supervirus, the product of lab manipulations, including viral gain of function. In order to do this, we need to look at the world history of two similar events and the great work of scientists surrounding the containment of SARS in 2002 and MERS in 2012.

For SARS, it took 4 months to find an intermediate host, a civet, a raccoon-looking mammal. Yes, it only took 4 months to prove that the SARS virus went from a bat to a civet to a human. Significantly, scientists found 24 viral ancestors to SARS, as the virus spontaneously mutated from a virus that would not easily attach to human cells into a more lethal virus.

For MERS, it only took 9 months to find the virus occurring naturally in bats, and the intermediate host was camels.

Yet, with COVID-19, here we are some 16 months later, and we have no intermediate host and no COVID-19 found in a live bat. The Chinese tell us they tested over 80,000 viral sequences and have come up empty. Coincidence?

No precursors, no grandfather or great-grandfathers, nothing close to resembling COVID-19 has been found in nature. As a matter of fact, the closest virus we know of to COVID-19 is RaTG13, which has called the Wuhan Institute of Virology home for several years. This virus was supposedly from bats in Yunnan and transported by scientists to the Wuhan viral lab, but of course the Chinese won't hand the virus over to the world now for further study.

Is it possible that RaTG13 could have been manipulated into COVID-19? Some experts would say yes. And we know, based upon the words of the WIV researcher, Dr. Shi, that the WIV had eight similar viruses to RaTG13, but China won't share those either. What are they hiding?

Here is another interesting feature of COVID-19. It likes humans more than bats. As a matter of fact, it doesn't harm bats. So the CCP propaganda claims this virus comes from bats, but it doesn't like bats. Riddle me that.

Furthermore, no ancestors of COVID-19 have been found. Recall what typically occurs in nature is multiple mutations, just like with the SARS infection. We should be able to find multiple mutations as the virus goes from bat loving, to an intermediate liking animal, to human liking, to human loving. We would certainly welcome contrary evidence from the Wuhan labs.

Now if you will, forgive me for being a bit of a biology lover, but as a physician, I think we have to consider just how utterly ferocious and seemingly too perfect for nature this virus really is

COVID-19 has a very unique spike protein made up by two units. The first unit has an amazing affinity for human lung cells. It sticks like glue to human lung cells even if you only get a small whiff of it, and it uses the same human lung receptor that researchers in the United States and WIV have been working on together for viral gain of function and similar lab techniques for years. Perhaps this is just another coincidence.

To be fair, I really do think all the research has been done with the best of intentions to develop vaccines for a possible future epidemic. For all I know, the research already done may have significantly sped up the success of Operation Warp Speed.

Next we need to discuss one last point about this protein spike and how it interacts with human lung cells. And if there is a smoking gun, this is it. Remember I talked about this spike, this crown having two components, two units. Well, it just so happens that the human lung cell has a special cleaver, a cleaver that can recognize--you guessed it--a perfect spot on the COVID-19 spike. Bats don't have this ability, but human lung cells do.

Anyway, what happens is, after the COVID-19 virus attaches to the human lung cell like glue, the human lung cell cleaves the COVID-19 in this perfect spot, and only after this cleavage occurs can the virus dump its genetic makeup into the human cell and take over the human genetic machinery.

Now, just don't forget your ninth grade biology class. A virus needs another organism to reproduce, and this COVID-19 virus, once it grabs a human lung cell, it is not letting go until it takes over and starts to multiply like rabbits. After one cell grabs hold and dumps its genetic content, a chain reaction occurs that really reminds me of a nuclear chain reaction. Once viral replication ignites, it is next to impossible to stop.

There are more microbiology nuances we could talk about and why this supervirus is not seemingly a virus from Mother Nature, but I think you get my point. Yes, I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. But only the Wuhan labs have the data to prove me wrong, and I am afraid the data that would prove me right or wrong has been forever destroyed.

The geographical origination of this virus is much less complex to discuss. Today, all evidence points to the geographical start of this virus from or in very close proximity to the Wuhan labs. The wet market origination theory has been completely dismantled and is really nothing more than the usual CCP propaganda and coverup that we have all seen too often.

Now we know without any doubt that multiple infections predated the January 2020 event surrounding the wet market theory, and all these infections can be traced to a close proximity of the Wuhan labs. In fact, U.S. intelligence reports recently confirmed what we have known for months--that some WIV researchers were hospitalized as early as the fall of 2019.

Just to be clear, these bats that are known to harbor this family of viruses have a range of some 50 miles but live in caves in Yunnan Province approximately 1,000 miles away from Wuhan. The chances of a bat carrying this highly infectious virus 1,000 miles away without leaving a trail of infections between Yunnan and the WIV would be like the same person walking from New York to Kansas and being struck by lightning seven times and surviving.

Again, China has the evidence to prove these theories wrong, and I welcome that data. As a physician, a Senator, a father, and a grandfather, we have to assume and prepare for the worst and judge the situation based upon the body of evidence that best describes this event. We have to get to the bottom of this regardless of whose fault it is or isn't. We will need to know how to forgive. We will need to make others take responsibility. But what we can't do is keep burying our heads in the sand, which is why I am calling on the U.S. delegation to the World Health Assembly meeting this week to do everything in their power to ensure that a full and unrestricted international scientific and forensic investigation into the origins will be authorized and also for a parallel comprehensive, bipartisan Senate investigation into the origins as well.

When that is finished, we need to take up the guardrails for viral gain-of-function studies. But in the meantime, the American people-- really the entire world--deserve to know the answers to the origins of the COVID-19 virus.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source