Ranking Member Ruiz’s Opening Statement at Select Subcommittee Hearing on Scientific Journals and the Peer Review Process
Washington, D.C. (April 16, 2024)—Below is Ranking Member Raul Ruiz’s, M.D. opening statement, as prepared for delivery, at today’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing examining the peer review process and the relationship between scientific journals and the federal government.
Ranking Member Raul Ruiz, M.D.
Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic
Hearing on “Academic Malpractice: Examining the Relationship Between Scientific Journals, the Government, and Peer Review”
April 16, 2024
Scientific journals play an important role in informing the public about the world around us, critical issues facing our nation, and advances in science and medicine.
Since their inception, these journals have placed objectivity at the forefront of their efforts to study, review, and publish articles that advance our research enterprise.
And when a once in a generation pandemic struck our nation in 2020, this was no different.
Despite the Majority’s claims, the Select Subcommittee has not uncovered any evidence that directly implicates Drs. Fauci and Collins in a cover up of the pandemic’s origins fueled by their collusion with scientific journals to suppress the lab leak hypothesis.
Under the guise of investigating COVID-19’s origins, the Majority has continually advanced a conspiratorial narrative against our nation’s public health officials relying purely on speculation.
Their probe into federally funded research has spanned more than half a million pages of documents, more than a dozen transcribed interviews, and multiple hearings, and yet it has failed to substantiate any of their claims about Drs. Fauci and Collins or even bring us closer to understanding how COVID came to be.
Instead, it has only further politicized an issue of great importance to our public health and national security, which is not without consequence.
In fact, we’re already seeing growing divides when it comes to trust in our nation’s institutions and how that influences people’s behavior when it comes to protecting their health.
Rebuilding the American people’s trust in public health is critical to our ability to prevent, prepare for, and respond to future pandemics.
And the way we go about that is not by continuing to manufacture distrust in our nation’s institutions by amplifying harmful—and often outright false—information about public health or by jumping to conclusions about how this virus emerged when its origins are still inconclusive.
Instead, it is by having honest conversations—that are rooted in fact—about what we can do better in the future.
So, as we begin today’s hearing, I want to take a moment to address some of the allegations that have been levied by the Majority over the course of this probe and what the facts of the case have actually told us.
First, my Republican colleagues have alleged that Drs. Fauci and Collins orchestrated the “Proximal Origin” paper to suppress the lab leak theory, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Documents and testimony made available to this committee have repeatedly shown that British scientist Dr. Jeremy Farrar played the lead role in organizing and shepherding the paper through publication.
And second, my Republican colleagues have alleged that Drs. Fauci and Collins orchestrated a “takedown” of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Dr. Collins testified before this committee that he had privately called for “a quick and devastating published take down of its premises” out of concern for the public’s health.
Documents and testimony provided to this committee have never shown that Dr. Collins pressured an NIH employee or scientific journal to “take down” the Great Barrington Declaration.
This committee seems to be forgetting that there is a difference between government speech—which the Supreme Court has previously ruled government entities have a right to —and government coercion, which my Republican colleagues are accusing public health officials of without a shred of evidence.
That aside, I have to say, I’m worried that today’s hearing is setting a dangerous precedent—that if Congress doesn’t like what you publish, you’ll be hauled in before a congressional committee to answer for it.
The fact is, Congress should not be meddling in the peer review process.
And it should not be holding hearings to throw around baseless accusations, especially when there is so much work we can and should be doing to prevent and prepare for future pandemics.
Every minute wasted on spurious conjecture, every sentence spoken amplifying false information, and every hearing spent on unsubstantiated allegations comes at a cost.
And at the end of the day, it will be the American people who will pay the biggest price.
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