Dr. Anthony Fauci Misled Trump Administration to Kickstart Gain-of-Function Research in Wuhan, New Book Claims
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci talks to reporters in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on April 13, 2021 in Washington, DC. Federal health agencies called for a pause in the administration of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine after six women in the United States developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within about two weeks of vaccination. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, has reportedly misled the Trump administration on gain-of-function research in a lab in Wuhan, China.

In her new book, investigations editor at "The Australian" Sharri Markson details how Fauci's public persona, as a cautious and careful medical professional, is contradicted by his central role in the gain-of-function of research and his role in funding coronaviruses research in China in unsafe laboratories, Fox News reported.

The book "What Really Happened In Wuhan," which was released last month, detailed how Fauci tried to sway White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to return funding to a research project in China.

The project that Fauci was talking about was run by a U.S. nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance. It was suddenly terminated last year after a decade of studying bats in China to determine coronavirus.

Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar told Fauci that he had "to take it up with the boss," adding that "Meadows is the one making this call." Fauci reportedly had no hesitation meeting with Meadows to talk about EcoHealth's funding.

Gain-Of-Function Research

Former President Barack Obama had hold off federally-funded gain-of-function research in 2014. However, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has lifted the ban in 2017.

In September, the NIH has denied funding studies that would make a coronavirus more dangerous to humans after it was accused of doing so following research proposal documents released in public, according to Newsweek.

Richard Ebright, a board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, noted that the documents show "unequivocally" that the NIH grants were used to fund research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the NIH, has denied the gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab. In May, he told Congress that he has not and "does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

Gain-of-function (GOF) research involves biologically modifying an agent so that it becomes more active. This kind of research on influenza or coronavirus viruses has been under scrutiny by the NIH's own admission as it makes the virus more dangerous to humans.

Some are not equally dangerous, with some examples of the GOF research on modifying bacteria to produce insulin to treat people with diabetes.

'What Really Happened in Wuhan' Book

Markson's book detailed one pandemic and two alleged cover-ups, as well as the global hunt for clarity on the origins of the virus, The Saturday Paper reported.

Markson concluded in her book that it was negligence instead of a terrible accident.

There were two main scientific hypotheses: COVID like Ebola, SARS, and MERS came from zoonotic, wildlife-to-human transmission in nature; and the second one, it leaked from one of the labs of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where it may even have been engineered.

Markson is an ardent advocate of the second. On the other hand, Prof. Dominic Dwyer, the University of Sydney virologist, said that preliminary findings came down strongly for a natural origin.

Dwyer was also part of the WHO team that went to Wuhan in February to investigate the virus origin.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by Mary Webber

WATCH: Sharri Markson's 'What Really Happened in Wuhan' Book Launched - From Sky News Australia