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>> neil: all right. the vaccine rush is on. i'm talking specifically for kids. maybe as young as five. an fda panel approved pfizer's vaccine for kids 5-11. right now a similar vaccine by moderna is getting ready for a study from the same fda panel. to dr. francis collins, the nih, the director. glad to have you. >> glad to be back with you, neil. >> neil: let's take about the need for kids to get vaccinated. how you feel about that? >> well, kids don't get the same level of risk of severe disease as adults, but they're not free of it. sadly more than 7,000 -- i'm sorry. 700 children have died...

Mix-and-match studies that are currently being done by the nih. these are individuals who got the j&j vaccine and got a second dose of pfizer or moderna. younger women, we know there's an association that's very rare but that association exists between getting the j&j vaccine and having this very rare but very serious blood clotting disorder. for those individuals, women under the age of 50, they should be getting the option of having a booster dose that's not the johnson & johnson. if they got the j&j a second dose of pfizer or moderna should be available to them. >> they should wait for the ...

Of covid-19. >> gabe in of function research a complicated and controversial topic that rocked the community a decade ago. >> they have create a form of the deadly bird flu virus. >> the n.i.h. funded a dutch signtist that did something really wild. he engineered the avian flu virus to make it more airborne. >> when the virologiest revealed research, he called it quote probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make. >> in the lab, a scientist took that flu virus and infeckcted ferrits. >> they trained it has been to be efficiently transmitted in mammals so that's scary. >> that bird f...

Partially funded by the n.i.h. sparked a debate that led to a 2014 moratorium by the obama administration. that pause was lifted in 2017. under new rules gain of function research was given a very specific definition. >> gain of function works with a potential pandemic pathogen in a way for humans that could enhance its transmissibility. is this sort of gain of function research, was it happening? >> they're working on bats sars like viruses that have never been shown. >> dr. shi told "the new york times" how they conducted experiments that enhance the viruses. >> some how they were trying to ...

Gain of function. >> these exchanges seem to assert that u.s. taxpayer dollars, via the n.i.h. via your organization went to the wuhan institute of virology and funded gain of function research that may, not definitively but may have been a source of this pandemic. what do you say? >> plain not true. dr. fauci testified publicly under oath that that's not true and he's right. we didn't do work that run against any of the rules. >> and dr. francis collins helped to define those rules. let's be clear, there is no evidence that anything we funded did anything wrong. >> he's the long-time director...