Rep. Morgan Griffith
Appearances
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
Great to be with you.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
Well, it's bewildering to all of us. And, you know, there's just so many different things. And so we put in a number of bills. But when you look at all the things that the NIH was supposed to do through NIAID, that would be Dr. Fauci's agency, National... infectious disease, allergies and infectious disease department under Francis Collins at the time at the NIH.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
They were doing all this research, spending millions of dollars with EcoHealth Alliance, 800,000 of that, according to their own data, went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And we didn't get the documents we paid for. It's that simple. We didn't get the information we paid for. And isn't it interesting that one of the reports we didn't get was from September of 2019.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
And eventually, EcoHealth would provide us with some of the data, or their report at least. They didn't have the Chinese data, but they gave us their report. But they had doctored some of it, as it turned out. Now, that was the evidence that I believe came out in committee. We had two different transcribed interviews with them. We had transcribed interviews with Dr. Fauci.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
But EcoHealth Alliance was not... straightforward with the NIH. But NIH knew they weren't getting the documents they were supposed to get, knew or should have known, which is where some of these bills come from. I mean, Chip Roy and I are carrying a bill to break up NIAID into three component parts, infectious diseases, allergies, and immunological diseases, because they're different. And
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
Sometimes they overlap. I'm not going to say they don't occasionally overlap, but there's also a lot of differences.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
Infectious diseases and allergies are totally different.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
First off, I think that both Dr. Francis Collins and Dr. Fauci were pushing the envelope on gain of function. Now, I will tell you that my good friend, Senator Paul and Fauci got into a lot of fights. And sometimes I thought they were talking past each other because you can have your standard gain of function, which is breeding a Labrador retriever with a poodle and coming up with a Labradoodle.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
That's technically gain of function. And yet what we really are concerned about is gain of function where there's a risk to human health. And I don't think they pay close enough attention to the grants they gave to EcoHealth Alliance, both in the beginning.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
The mindset is that they fear that there will be a natural mutation. They fear that desperately. And so they want to be in advance of the natural mutation. So they start studying these infectious diseases. And then somewhere along the way- It's not biowarfare.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
They're worried about Ebola. They're worried about Mpox. They're worried about all these other things. And I think what happened, being generous, is they were worried about that. So they kind of looked the other way when they knew that they were doing research in a level two lab. It clearly should have been a level three lab.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
And they kind of looked the other way thinking, well, we got to get this research done. So we'll give it to this third party group, EcoHealth Alliance, and they'll go to a foreign country. And we can march our hands of it. And that's what they tried to do.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
And when they realized it might blow back on them, I think there was some feeling that if it was a lab leak even, which is what I believe happened, they were afraid it would come back on them. Well, I think it has. I think most rational people today would admit that it is the odds-on favorite. that it was a lab leak.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
What I was going to say is I believe that I could get a jury to find on circumstantial evidence that all we have today that there was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, or at least two, eliminating all reasonable doubt that it came out of the lab. I don't think it was intentional. I think it was just sloppy work. Their filtration system was horrible.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
Even with a level two lab, I'm not sure they really met level two, but the Chinese claim they did. But one of their own doctors was advocating in 2019 that they might want to get a better filtration system because basically all they had was your basic charcoal filters. They didn't have filters.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
In my opinion, they closed the barn door after the horses were out. And I think that's what happened. That's exactly right. But they were doing dangerous research. And we've seen signs they might be continuing to try to do some of that. And we've been trying to put a stop to that.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
And some of the legislation that we have, one of the bills that Dr. Paul and I have together, is a bill that would say you got to have an independent group, independent of NIH. They have an internal group that's supposed to be looking at risky research. Nope, nope.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
You didn't do a good job on COVID, whether it came out of the lab or it was somehow natural, which there's no evidence that it was natural. But even if you wanted to buy that, you shouldn't be doing that risky research without an independent review process because it raises all kinds of questions about whether or not you made the right call.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
And mistakes can happen, but we need to have an extra safety net to try to stop as many as we can and as many mistakes as we can at various labs. If the taxpayers are paying for it, we better have some security around it.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
Yeah, I think that's accurate. I think you can make an argument, and look, Congress is equally guilty on this. You can make an argument maybe for the first two or three months with shutting down some stuff. After the first two to three months, there's no argument for having our society shut down. I mean, my favorite one was, I'm a swimmer, I've been a swimmer my whole life.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
We shut down all the swimming pools because they didn't think it was safe to have people swimming in a vat of chlorine. I mean, if you wanted to raise the chlorine level attached, that's fine. But it was not, oh my gosh, you can't be in a swimming pool. Come on, people. They didn't use any reason. Yeah, I mean, it's just a terrible-
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
Cuz he didn't wear a mask. I'm just teasing.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
100%.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
A little bit. We've seen a little bit at the NIH with some of their scientists that they're now sounding the same kind of concerns that were raised by this. So I think there's a little bit. I don't think it's sufficient, which is why I think we need to get legislation passed that, as I said, we break up NIAID.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
We make transparency at NIH more available for people getting royalties on certain types of research and whether or not that's right. There may be an argument for it. To get the top scientists, you may need to pay a little bit of a royalty.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
At the same time, we need the information delivered to Congress so that we can make a decision on behalf of the American people, whether that makes sense or it's just somebody lining their pockets. And then last but not least, that risky research panel that I mentioned is absolutely essential, I believe, because
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
someday, someplace, sometime, maybe not 2024, 2025, or 2026, but by 2029, people will have forgotten. And NIH may go back to not paying as close attention to risky research as I hope they are today. And we need an independent board out there that will make sure that we are studying all of this information and making sure that If we're doing something, there better be a good reason for it.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
As you said, it can't just be, well, we got to do something. No. We need to leave some of these viruses alone. They're very dangerous. Why would we want to spread them around the world to do research and possibly have an outbreak? And the one that I'm most worried about in the midterm is monkeypox. I mean, bird flu is something to keep an eye on. But there's a lot of things we can do on bird flu.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
But monkeypox is a problem, Ebola, it's a problem. Why would we wanna go and stir everything up and spread those viruses around the world with hundreds of researchers or even dozens of researchers working with the virus? Every time you have that virus out there, there's a greater likelihood
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
that it's going to be some kind of an accident or somebody's going to forget they've got it in the back of the freezer. And I mention that because when I first got to Congress a number of years ago, they just finished a study of US labs and it was a government lab. They found a frozen substance in the back of one of the lab freezers. Nobody knew what it was. So they took it out and they tested it.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
They had live smallpox living in, I mean, it was frozen, but it was in the back of the freezer and it was unlabeled. So the more times you put human involved and there was no outbreak as a result, the more time you have that kind of human involvement where they're taking it in and out of the freezers or refrigerators, they're messing with it in the lab, they're goofing around, doing whatever.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
I mean, people do things. And next thing you know, something bad is breaking out on the world that we don't have any information on. And that's what happened. One of those scenarios is what I think happened with COVID-19.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
Yeah, well, I agree with you that there's some denial. They're looking at these significant threats, but ones that are more remote instead of looking at the immediate threat. That's the denial. The hysteria is, I think, and this is an opinion based on some information, but it's just part of my gut feeling.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
I think that the leaders at the NIH thought they could get ahead of this, and they were so good, they could prevent future outbreaks of bad things like Ebola and Mpox and coronaviruses.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
And they didn't look sufficiently at the risks they were taking, and they weren't focused on, and I think this is true across a lot of government agencies, they weren't focused on the day-to-day stuff that's a real problem.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
i mean yeah you're right yeah the the antibiotic resistant bacteria there's a big deal i've been pushing for phage therapy i love the concept uh because we're gonna need it and uh i'm probably one of the few people that's actually visited sewage treatment plants for a different reason but that's where you find the the viruses that attack the antibiotic resistant uh uh
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
Bacteria, great book out of a couple, The Perfect Predator, coming out of San Diego State and how they saved that man's life. It's a fun book to read. Lots of good science in it. It's about five or six years old now. Talking about phase therapy. But those are the kinds of things we need to be looking at because that's a worldwide problem. And it's here today. It's not here next month.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
It's not here five years from now. It's here today. And then the dengue fever, you know, yeah, it's a problem.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
I can't help but laugh a little bit at that because when I was in high school, I read a Scientific American article that posited that perhaps the common cold came in on an asteroid because it didn't exist until something like the 12th century. It was not in the medical records anywhere. And then all of a sudden, it's all over the place.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
And so we say that, but we have seen microbial life in several different places in the space. I mean, it's a little out there, but it's possible.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
Maybe I believe that that's God playing with us. He does these things. He uses different devices, but I think it's God's healing.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
I don't. I mean, my gut again is that they panicked. And I think there was some feeling that in the back of their minds, they would deny this. They have denied it. that they thought maybe it was a lab leak. Even those who most staunchly said it was not a lab leak, I think deep in the recesses of their brain, they woke up at night going, oh my gosh, we might have accidentally contributed to this.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
And I think that led to them going to more severe restrictions because they were trying to put the genie back in the bottle. That's, again, conjecture on my part. And as I said, the scientists who were involved at the time would all deny that.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
I've got to believe that that's part of the explanation for such a, and lasting more than two or three months, such a strong, we have to continue to shut everything down response.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
I have to say I have not seen any evidence in my examination of witnesses and talking with people of any thoughts about bioweapons in this case. Now, you know, and a lot of people early conjectured that maybe it was something the Chinese planned. If the Chinese were going to plan that, which I don't think they did, they would have had it affect non-Hong Chinese people.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
It would have been specific to China. Other races, not them. And they suffer just as badly as the rest of the world. So I think this was, I truly believe, my opinion, and I've stated this to Collins, I think to Fauci too. I think what happened was we gave them the humanized mice, which they didn't have. The Chinese didn't have that. We gave it to them as a part of this coronavirus work.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
And they had the ability to do a lot of mixing and matching. And I know that this is not part of the Chinese culture, but I can see some of my buddies, if they had the capability of doing something, saying, hey, Hey, let's look at this. Let's see what happens if we do this in the lab. And then they accidentally created something and they couldn't figure out how to get it under control.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
That, I think, is your best theory. Bioweapons are a concern, but I think you would see something that was targeted more to the enemies of China if it was a Chinese plot or to some other nation if it had come out of their nation. You would have seen something that triggered... And there's lots of diseases that affect Africans and Greeks sickle cell.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
It does. And there's no question about it. I mean, I have blue eyes. There's a study out there that says you can trace that all the way back to one mutation somewhere in the Nordic countries tens of thousands of years ago.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
I'll just always be keeping an open mind. If you've got some good studies, I always like to read a good study. Sometimes it takes a while because I have to look up a lot of the words if it's not in my field, which some of this is and some of it isn't, but I enjoy learning.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
And so that's what we have to keep doing is pushing forward, getting the information, getting the facts, and make good decisions based on actual facts and real science.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
I look forward to, I've heard her speak, I've met with her before, and I look forward to reading her book.
Ask Dr. Drew
Dr. Simone Gold: Was COVID’s “Public Health Enemy No. 1” Right All Along? AFLDS Founder w/ US Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 467
And that's the key. That's the key. Reduce the possibility of this happening.