当地时间7月20日，美国国会再次就新冠病毒起源和武汉病毒研究所是否得到美国政府资助，对美国首席传染病学专家福奇进行听证。听证会上，共和党参议员兰德·保罗（Rand Paul）再次老调重弹，炒作“美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）资助武汉进行‘功能获得研究（gain-of-function research）’”言论，并暗指福奇此前关于“否认资助研究的声明”是在说谎。
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福奇（右）在国会听证会上斥责兰德·保罗 视频截图
对此，福奇强硬回击，在澄清相关研究并非“功能获得”后强硬回击，怒斥保罗：“你根本不知道你自己在说什么……
要说在座的有谁在撒谎，参议员，那就是你！（You do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially. If anybody is lying here, senator, it is you.）”
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根据兰德·保罗的说法，所谓的“功能获得研究”，是指“对病毒赋予属性，增强其致病性或传播性的研究项目”，试图借此暗示新冠病毒“可能来自中国实验室”。
保罗对新冠病毒“武汉实验室泄漏论”的炒作已久。2021年5月，他曾在国会听证会上宣称武汉病毒研究所与美国病毒学家合作研究“制造超级病毒”，被福奇当场反驳。在7月20日的听证会上，保罗继续炒作这一说法，这也让福奇忍无可忍，当场“发飙”了。
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Dr Anthony Fauci and US Senator Rand Paul have gone at it once again over the COVID-19 pandemic, with the former saying his adversary didn’t know what he was talking about.
Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Paul, a Kentucky Republican, clashed over what is called "gain of function" research, in which a virus can be enhanced in a laboratory to study its transmissibility and how those findings could be used to produce future vaccines.
During their shouting match on Tuesday, Paul accused Fauci of having the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where Fauci is a physician, fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Two top scientists previously had said research did not occur at the lab.
综合来源：新华网，中国新闻网，中国日报
