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Forbes Magazine:

Critics have seized on this reporting to accuse Fauci of lying when he previously told Congress the NIAID had not funded “gain-of-function” research at the Chinese lab, referencing a controversial method that involves researchers modifying a virus to predict its evolutionary trajectory.

But Psaki dismissed these accusations at a Thursday press conference, denying that Fauci lied to Congress about the nature of the research and emphasizing that the viruses studied under the grant program were unrelated to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

The agency has “never approved any research that would make a coronavirus more dangerous to humans,” Psaki said.

The NIH reiterated this point in a statement to Forbes and said that the research green-lighted by the NIAID in China was determined not to be “gain-of-function.”