Comment by Michael Waltz

What that letter had the effect of doing was shutting off very viable lines of investigation into whether this came from that lab. We--which we are funding with U.S. taxpayer dollars, indirectly or directly. And we can't stop the next pandemic, the last three of which have come from China, without understanding where it came from. [...] I think, yes, the Chinese coverup has been abhorrent, but I think, Mr. Chairman, just as inexcusable is a scientific community who has not been objective, who has effectively shut off lines of research, whose livelihoods depend on funding pertaining to that research, and could be compromised.