Fauci ‘Prompted’ Scientific Paper Purporting to Debunk Covid Lab-Leak Theory, Emails Show
According to House Republicans emails, Dr. Fauci ordered a scientific study to prove that Covid did not escape from a Wuhan laboratory.
The GOP-led House Select Subcommittee for the Coronavirus Pandemic, which is headed by the GOP, revealed on Sunday that the country’s top epidemiologist in February 2020 approved and directed a paper entitled “The Proximal Source of SARS-CoV-2.” He later cited the paper to dismiss the lab-leak theory.
“New evidence from the Select Subcommittee today suggests Dr. Fauci ‘prompted’ the drafting a publication that would disprove’ the laboratory leak theory. The authors of this paper skewed the evidence to achieve that goal and Dr. Jeremy Farrar was uncredited despite his significant involvement,” a memo sent by the committee stated.
Fauci, the then director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (now Dr. Francis Collins), held a conference call with scientists to discuss the origins of Covid’s virus. According to the memo, a group of evolutionary virusologists who were on the call told Collins and Fauci that Covid could have originated from a laboratory accident and was genetically engineered.
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Four of the four experts present at that meeting wrote a research paper three days later. Fauci received it for approval and editing. The paper was published in Nature Medicine. It argued that Covid had “mutations”, which supported the idea that it had been transmitted from animals to humans.
Dr. Kristin Andersen is one of four authors. She admits in an email to Nature that Fauci “prompted the paper’s writing in order to “disprove the lab-leak theory.”
“There have been many speculations, fear-mongering and conspiracies made in this space. [This paper was] Prompted By Jeremy Farrah [sic], Tony Fauci and Francis Collins,” Andersen wrote to the House committee in an email. The email was released Sunday.
Fauci, along with former President Trump, addressed reporters at a White House conference in April 2020. He cited the paper to justify his belief that the laboratory-leak theory was a conspiracy. Fauci denied that he had commissioned the paper, and claimed ignorance about the identities of the authors.
Fauci stated that a recent study by highly qualified evolutionary virologists examined the sequences in bats and the mutations it took to reach this point. This was consistent with a leap of a species, Fauci added.
“So, the paper is available. He said that although I do not have the authors at this time, we could make it available to them.
Fauci later told National Geographic that Covid had not been deliberately or artificially manipulated a month earlier.
Now, flash forward to November 2022. Fauci had just announced his retirement and stated that he was still convinced that the virus originated naturally. He also said that CBS’s Face the Nation presented the evidence supporting that belief. Fauci advised that officials should ensure that any future investigations into Covid’s origin are not motivated by politics. He said that they should keep politics out of these investigations. Fauci pledged to work with House Republicans to oversee his involvement in the U.S. Pandemic Response and said he had “nothing else to hide”.
Fauci stated, “If there’s oversight hearings I will absolutely cooperate fully and testify in front of the Congress.” You may not be aware, but I have testified before Congress several hundred times over the past 40 years. So I am comfortable testifying. We can defend, explain, and stand behind everything we’ve said. I don’t have anything to hide.”
According to an intelligence report that was included in the update to a 2021 document prepared by Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence, Covid was deemed most likely to have been created from a laboratory leak. This assessment was made by the Department of Energy this month. According to a declassified intelligence report, the FBI reached the same conclusion in 2021 with “moderate confidence”. This opinion was shared by Christopher Wray, the Bureau director, to Fox News on Tuesday.
Wray stated that “The FBI has long ago concluded that the pandemic’s origins are most likely due to a Wuhan lab incident.” “Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.”
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