(CNSNews.com) -- Dr. Robert Redfield, a virologist and the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), testified under oath Wednesday that he believes U.S. tax dollars paid for the research that created COVID and that the funds came from several agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense (DoD).
So far, COVID has killed 1.1 million people in the United States and 6.8 million worldwide.
Dr. Redfield testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Redfield was the director of the CDC from 2018-2021. There, he "oversaw the agency's response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the earliest days of its spread and served as a member of the White House's Coronavirus Task Force," his opening remarks state.
During the hearing, House Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) asked Dr. Redfield if he thought Dr. Anthony Fauci lied under oath before the Senate, when he claimed that the NIH was not funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
Dr. Redfield answered, "I think there's no doubt that NIH was funding gain-of-function research."
Malliotakis then asked, "Is it likely that American tax dollars funded the gain-of-function research that created this virus?"
Dr. Redfield said, "I think it did, and not only from NIH, but from the State Department, USAID, and from DoD."
Earlier in his exchange with the congresswoman, Dr. Redfield explained why the coronavirus did not operate as if it had been passed from an animal, such as a bat, to a human. He said he believes the virus was "more likely" the result of a "lab leak," and that the virus likely "evolved in a lab involved in gain-of-function research."
As he explained, "This is a type of research in which scientists seek to increase the transmissibility and or pathogenicity of an organism [virus] in order to better understand the organism and inform preparedness efforts and the development of countermeasures such as therapeutics and vaccines. Under this theory, COVID-19 infected the general population after it was accidentally leaked from a lab in China."
Dr. Redfield testified that he told Dr. Fauci and other government officials that, "As a clinical virologist, I felt it was not scientifically plausible that this virus went from a bat to humans and became one of the most infectious viruses we have in humans."
Despite his view, Redfield was excluded from some of the important telephone conference calls that Dr. Fauci made with other officials in early 2020.
Malliotakis asked him, "Why do you think you were excluded from those calls [with Dr. Fauci]?"
Dr. Redfield said, "It was told to me that they wanted a single narrative and that I obviously had a different point of view. ... I think it's unfortunate. Again, I've said this before, this whole approach that was taken on February 1 and subsequently in the month of February [2020] -- if you really want to be truthful -- it's antithetical to science."
"Science has debate, and they squashed any debate," said Dr. Redfield.
The narrative pushed by Dr. Fauci was that there was not a lab leak in Wuhan but that the virus had somehow transferred from an animal to a human, perhaps at a "wet market" in Wuhan where animals are sold for food.
Although nearly all the scientists mentioned at the hearing who were involved apparently believed the virus came from a lab leak ("engineered"), within three days of a Feb. 1, 2020 tele-conference call with Fauci, they had changed their minds.
"Almost overnight, top figures in virology research and in the public-health establishment went from being worried the virus might be man-made to dismissing that possibility as a 'conspiracy theory,'" reported James B. Meigs in Commentary magazine.
"[I]f the virus -- whether manmade or natural -- did escape the lab, it would mean the pandemic was arguably the worst man-made disaster in history," said Meigs.
In his opening statement before the House Committee, Dr. Redfield, in addition to leading the CDC for four years, noted, "I am a virologist by training and practice. Prior to my time at the CDC, I spent more than 20 years as a U.S. Army physician and medical researcher at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research where I served as the Chief of the Department of Retroviral Research and worked in virology, immunology, and clinical research at the forefront of the AIDS epidemic and other viral threats.
"In 1996, I co-founded the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in partnership with the State of Maryland, the City of Baltimore, and the University System of Maryland where I served as the Director of Clinical Care and Research and also served as a tenured professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology; chief of infectious disease; and vice chair of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine."