Emails show scientists told Fauci the lab-leak theory was possible. He called it a conspiracy anyway.



New information from previously redacted emails confirms that scientists consulting with government officials believed that the COVID-19 lab-leak origins hypothesis was not only possible but perhaps even likely, before Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins worked to denounce the theory as a conspiracy.

In a letter to the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Committee on Oversight and Reform ranking member Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) revealed the text of redacted emails from February 2020 in which prominent public health scientists discussed the origins of COVID-19 with Fauci and Collins. Some of the emails revealed previously unknown details of what was discussed in a secretive Feb. 1, 2020, conference call in which at least 11 scientists convened to examine the possible origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused a global pandemic and radically transformed the lives of almost everyone in the civilized world.

What was previously known is that prior to this conference call, some of the world's top virologists who participated had raised concerns that features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus "(potentially) look engineered." But after this call, many of those same scientists reversed their opinions and publicly denounced any theory of the origins of the virus that did not claim it came from nature. These details were learned from batches of emails made public through records requests by BuzzFeed News, U.S. Right to Know, and other media organizations, but many of those emails were heavily redacted.

Unredacted copies of those emails have been made available to lawmakers behind closed doors, but have not been released publicly. The Republicans said that committee staff hand-copied the excerpts from those emails to release them to the public.

To read excerpts of emails released today, click here. 2/2\nhttps://republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Letter-Re.-Feb-1-Emails-011122.pdf\u00a0\u2026
— Oversight Committee Republicans (@Oversight Committee Republicans) 1641911354

The new details "reveal that Dr. Fauci was warned of two things: (1) the potential that COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute Virology (WIV) and (2) the possibility that the virus was intentionally genetically manipulated," the lawmakers wrote.

According to the transcripts released by GOP staff, both Collins, the former director of the National Institute of Health, and Fauci, the current director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, were told by prominent scientists that the lab-leak origin of COVID-19 was scientifically plausible.

The first noteworthy email, dated Feb. 2, 2020, was sent by Dr. Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust mega charity, to Collins, Fauci, and Lawrence Tabak, who formerly served as the principal deputy director of NIH and is now its acting director. The email summarized discussions from the conference call, and the arguments of some scientists that said the lab leak hypothesis was possible.

Farrar noted that Dr. Michael Farzan, a Scripps Research professor of immunology and the "discoverer of SARS receptor," was "bothered by the furin site and has a hard time explain that as an event outside the lab." The email is referring to the furin cleavage site of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, a unique feature of the virus that makes it infectious.

Farzan apparently observed that while it is possible that the furin cleavage site developed naturally, it is "highly unlikely." He suggested that a "likely explanation" for the origins of the virus "could be something as simple as passage SARS -live CoVs in tissue culture on human cell lines (under [bio-safety level 2 conditions]) for an extended period of time, accidently creating a virus that would be primed for rapid transmission between humans via gain of furin site (from tissue culture) and adaption to human ACE2 receptor via repeated passage."

“So, I think it becomes a question of how do you put all this together, whether you believe in this series of coincidences, what you know of the lab in Wuhan, how much could be in nature — accidental release or natural event? I am 70:30 or 60:40,” Farzan said, according to Farrar's notes.

Another scientist on the call was Tulane Medical School microbiology professor Robert Garry. Farrar recounted him as saying there was "no plausible natural scenario" for a bat coronavirus to gain certain amino acids and nucleotides observed in SARS-CoV-2.

"I just can't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature," Garry said, according to Farrar's notes.

"Of course, in the lab it would be easy to generate the perfect 12 base insert that you wanted," he added.

Regardless of these arguments, Collins wrote back to Farrar, Fauci, and Tabak later that day that he was "coming around to the view that a natural origin is more likely," appearing to agree with arguments presented by Ron Fouchier, a Dutch scientist that famously authored a controversial gain-of-function study, and Christian Drosten, Germany's leading COVID-19 expert. Fouchier, in a Feb. 2 email thanking conference call participants for having the meeting, referred to the lab-leak hypothesis as a "conspiracy theory" and said it "would need to be supported by strong data, beyond a reasonable doubt."

"It is good that this possibility was discussed in detail with a team of experts. However, further debate about such accusations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular," Foucier wrote.

Collins said he agreed with Farrar's view that "a swift convening of experts in a confidence inspiring framework (WHO seems really the only option) is needed, or the voices of conspiracy will quickly dominate, doing great potential harm to science and international harmony." He then offered to call World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, apparently to lobby for an official response from WHO that would denounce claims that COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

In previously reported emails sent later that day, Farrar wrote back to Fauci and Collins that Tedros had "gone into conclave" with WHO representative in China Dr. Bernhard Schwartländer. "They need to decide today in my view. If they do prevaricate, I would appreciate a call with you later tonight or tomorrow to think how we might take forward," Farrar wrote. At the end of the email, Farrar wrote "Meanwhile" and linked to a ZeroHedge article published that day that reported on claims that COVID-19 was engineered in the Wuhan-based lab. ZeroHedge was banned from Twitter on Feb. 3, 2020, the next day, for promoting a "coronavirus conspiracy theory." On the same day, Tedros gave a speech to the WHO executive board that mentioned, among other priorities, the need to "combat the spread of rumors and misinformation."

More emails show that after becoming convinced COVID-19 had natural origins, Fauci and Collins worked to suppress discussion of the lab-leak hypothesis. An April 16, 2020, email from Collins to Fauci and others shows him attempting to coordinate an NIH response to reporting from Fox News host Bret Baier on the lab leak theory. Baier said that multiple sources told him they've seen documents which indicated it was "increasingly likely" that COVID-19 started in the Wuhan lab.

“Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy, with what seems to be growing momentum," Collins wrote. "I hoped the Nature Medicine article on the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 would settle this. But probably didn’t get much visibility. Anything more we can do? Ask the National Academy to weigh in?”

Collins was referring to "The Proximal Origins of SARS-CoV-2," an article published in the journal Nature Medicine that became the most-cited expert opinion denouncing the lab-leak hypothesis.

Fauci wrote back to Collins the next day.

“I would not do anything about this right now," he wrote. "It is a shiny object that will go away in time.”

But the lab-leak hypothesis did not just go away, despite Fauci's repeated public assertions as the chief COVID-19 spokesman for the White House that the lab-leak hypothesis was a conspiracy theory. Fauci would later be thanked by Proximal Origins author Ian W. Lipkin for his "efforts in steering and messaging."

In September 2021, the Lancet published an alternative view by scientists calling for "objective, open, and transparent scientific debate about the origin of SARS-CoV-2." These scientists raised several points that support the lab-leak hypothesis, while noting that conclusive evidence in favor of that theory or the natural origins theory remains elusive.

An official U.S. intelligence report on the origins of COVID-19 commissioned by the Biden White House and released this summer was inconclusive, noting that stonewalling by China prevented investigators from learning the truth.

Senior Biden officials now say COVID lab leak theory just as plausible as natural origins explanation: report



Top Biden administration officials now view the lab leak theory just as plausible as the natural origin explanation, according to a new report.

"Senior Biden administration officials overseeing an intelligence review into the origins of the coronavirus now believe the theory that the virus accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan is at least as credible as the possibility that it emerged naturally in the wild -- a dramatic shift from a year ago, when Democrats publicly downplayed the so-called lab leak theory," CNN reported.

The report stated that even President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, views the accidental COVID lab leak theory as "as equally plausible to the natural origins theory."

"Intelligence agencies that were skeptical of the lab leak theory a year ago, like the CIA, also now view it as a credible line of inquiry," a source told CNN.

This is a stark contrast to a year ago when corporate media lambasted anyone simply broaching the lab leak theory as a "conspiracy theorist" and when big tech social media platforms censored users for questioning the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

The early narrative in the COVID-19 pandemic was that novel coronavirus emerged from a wet market in Wuhan, China. As more details emerged, many people, including former President Donald Trump, hypothesized that the coronavirus may have originated from a lab, specifically the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) grilled Dr. Anthony Fauci about the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic was a product of gain-of-function research that may have accidentally leaked coronavirus from the Wuhan lab.

Facebook previously prohibited users from writing posts suggesting that COVID-19 was man-made, but reversed the decision to ban those types of posts in May. Twitter banned a user for suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic originated from the now-infamous Wuhan lab.

The Washington Post labeled the lab leak theory a "conspiracy theory," and maligned Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) for asking questions about the Wuhan Lab. Then 15 months after WaPo said the lab leak theory was "debunked," the outlet edited its article to say the theory is "disputed."

In February, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 leaking from the Wuhan lab was "extremely unlikely." However, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admitted this week that the health agency was wrong to prematurely dismiss the lab leak theory.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the Biden administration's chief medical adviser and part of his COVID-19 response team, dismissed theories that COVID-19 could have originated from a lab, but then walked back the claims last month.

In May, Biden's administration reportedly shut down a Trump-era State Department investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leaked State Department cables revealed that U.S. officials who visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2018, two years before the COVID-19 pandemic, had concerns about inadequate safety measures and risky research being conducted at China's only biosafety-level 4 lab.

WHO director admits to prematurely dismissing lab leak theory, says China needs to be more transparent



After dismissing the lab leak theory and praising China for being so transparent, the director of the World Health Organization changed course on Thursday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admitted that China had been less than forthcoming about requests for information related to the source of the pandemic and called for their cooperation.

He told reporters that the WHO was "asking actually China to be transparent, open and cooperate, especially on the information, raw data that we asked for at the early days of the pandemic."

Tedros went on to admit that experts had been too hasty in ruling out the possibility that the coronavirus had leaked from a Chinese government laboratory in Wuhan.

"I was a lab technician myself, I'm an immunologist, and I have worked in the lab, and lab accidents happen," Tedros explained. "It's common."

The lab leak theory had been ridiculed by many experts and those in the media as a right-wing conspiracy theory animated by racial animus against Asians and political expediency.

Public opinion turned toward the possibility of the laboratory leak theory after a team of online amateur sleuths trudged through official documents online and undermined the official narrative from China and the Wuhan lab. Scientists and experts were forced to reluctantly admit that there was evidence enough to investigate the hypothesis.

In May, President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. intelligence community to reassess the lab leak theory.

Many accused the WHO and its director for not taking a strong enough stance against China. Some critics have claimed that China aided Tedros' campaign to become WHO's director in 2017 despite his problematic past.

In February, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the U.S. had stopped cooperating with the WHO because they believed it had become corrupted.

"It had been politicized. It was bending a knee to General Secretary Xi Jinping in China," said Pompeo. "I continue to know that there was significant evidence that this may well have come from that laboratory."

Although Tedros asked for greater transparency from China in the investigation for the source of the pandemic, he framed it as an opportunity to exonerate the communist government.

"We need information, direct information on what the situation of this lab was before and at the start of the pandemic," the director said.

"If we get full information, we can exclude (the lab connection)," he added.

Here's part of Tedros' statement:

Tedros urges China to be more transparent in COVID-19 probewww.youtube.com

Scientists who rejected lab-leak theory publish second Lancet letter doubling down on claims



Twenty-four of the 27 prominent public health scientists who were signatories of an influential letter that condemned the COVID-19 lab-leak hypothesis as a "conspiracy theory" have signed a new statement doubling down on their claims that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in nature.

The new letter published in the Lancet on Monday asserted that there is no "scientifically validated evidence that directly supports" the lab-leak hypothesis while "new, credible, and peer-reviewed evidence" cited suggests "that the virus evolved in nature." The letter also defended the "integrity" of Chinese scientists working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, some of whom have been accused of deleting key data that could help identify the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

"On Feb 19, 2020, we, a group of physicians, veterinarians, epidemiologists, virologists, biologists, ecologists, and public health experts from around the world, joined together to express solidarity with our professional colleagues in China," the letter began. "Unsubstantiated allegations were being raised about the source of the COVID-19 outbreak and the integrity of our peers who were diligently working to learn more about the newly recognised virus, SARS-CoV-2, while struggling to care for the many patients admitted to hospital with severe illness in Wuhan and elsewhere in China.

"Recently, many of us have individually received inquiries asking whether we still support what we said in early 2020," the scientists wrote. "The answer is clear: we reaffirm our expression of solidarity with those in China who confronted the outbreak then, and the many health professionals around the world who have since worked to exhaustion, and at personal risk, in the relentless and continuing battle against this virus."

Among the signatories is EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak, who's nonprofit organization provided the Wuhan Institute of Virology with federal funding from the National Institute of Health to conduct coronavirus research. Daszak is a forceful critic of the lab-leak hypothesis, but last month he recused himself from the Lancet COVID-19 Commission's investigation into the origins of the virus because of his ties to the Wuhan lab.

Debate over the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus centers on two main theories. The first is that the virus occurred naturally, was carried by an animal host, and evolved to become transmissible among human beings. But since the pandemic began, scientists have been unable to find a sample of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in nature and have failed to identify an animal host, leading many to consider an alternative theory.

The second hypothesis is based on the fact that Chinese researchers at the Wuhan lab were conducting risky experiments with coronaviruses in potentially unsafe conditions. These gain-of-function experiments involved genetically manipulating viruses to make them more transmissible among humans in order to study how pathogens might evolve to become a threat to human life. The hypothesis suggests that SARS-CoV-2 or one of its progenitors was created artificially in the Wuhan lab and somehow was leaked, leading to a global pandemic.

If true, the lab-leak hypothesis would mean that the federal government and Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance were possibly responsible for funding the research that led to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Throughout most of 2020, the lab-leak hypothesis was attacked as a "conspiracy theory" by mainstream media outlets. Discussion of the Wuhan lab's role in the origins of the virus was censored on social media and discouraged by National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease Director Dr. Anthony Fauci and other prominent public health experts.

Behind the scenes, many of these same experts coordinated a campaign to discredit the lab-leak theory. Daszak drafted and recruited several of the scientists who signed the original Feb. 19, 2020, Lancet letter denouncing "conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." The 27 scientists who signed this statement proclaimed that individuals questioning the supposed natural origin of COVID-19 were creating "fear, rumours, and prejudice."

As recounted by Vanity Fair in a bombshell exposé on the efforts to discover the origins of the virus, the first Lancet letter "effectively ended the debate over COVID-19's origins before it began."

It wasn't until a year since the pandemic began that scientists' failure to find conclusive evidence proving the natural origins of SARS-CoV-2 made consideration of the lab-leak hypothesis mainstream.

In this second Lancet letter, Daszak and 22 of the original Lancet signatories pushed back, accusing lab-leak proponents of making "allegations and conjecture" to support their hypothesis, rather than relying on peer-reviewed research.

The letter cited several peer-reviewed studies supporting the natural origins hypothesis.

"It is time to turn down the heat of the rhetoric and turn up the light of scientific inquiry if we are to be better prepared to stem the next pandemic, whenever it comes and wherever it begins," the scientists wrote, welcoming "scientifically rigorous investigations" into the origins of the virus.

Notably, Dr. Peter Palese, a professor of microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, did not sign the second letter. Palese was an original signatory of the February 2020 letter, but last month said "disturbing information has surfaced" since he signed the letter, which necessitated further investigation into the origins of the pandemic.

NBC News report ties Wuhan lab director Shi Zhengli to Chinese military scientists after previous denials



The chief Chinese scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been linked to at least two Chinese military scientists who collaborated with her on coronavirus research, according to a report from NBC News.

Dr. Shi Zhengli, nicknamed China's "bat woman" for her field research collecting coronavirus samples from bat caves, has previously denied accusations that her Wuhan lab conducted studies with the military. But NBC News found that she collaborated with two military scientists on coronavirus work, one of whom is now deceased under unknown circumstances.

The report says that Shi collaborated with Chinese military scientist Tong Yigang on coronavirus research in Spring 2018. And Shi reportedly worked with another military scientist, Zhou Yusen, in December 2019. A scientific paper published in 2020 listed Zhou as decreased, and NBC News was unable to confirm the cause of his death.

Shi's research is known to involve gain-of-function experiments that genetically alter virus samples to make them transmissible among humans for the purpose of studying how naturally occurring pathogens might evolve to become dangerous to human beings.

In January 2021, the Trump administration State Department published a fact sheet that stated "the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China's military."

Former State Department official David Asher, one of the co-authors of the fact sheet, told NBC News that he believes the research was related to Shi's coronavirus work.

"I am confident that the military was funding a secret program that did involve coronaviruses. I heard this from several foreign researchers who observed researchers in that lab in military lab coats," Asher said.

In March 2021, Shi denied that her Wuhan lab was anything more than a civilian institution.

"At the beginning of COVID-19, we heard the rumors that it's claimed that in our laboratory we have some projects blah blah with the army blah blah. These kind of rumors. But this is not correct," Shi told Jamie Metzl, a member of the World Health Organization's advisory board.

Metzl, the "origins COVID-19 whistleblower," was among the first to hypothesize "the most likely starting point of the coronavirus crisis is an accidental leak from one of the Chinese virology institutes in Wuhan."

Reacting to the NBC News report, he said that if Shi lied about her work with the Chinese military, it's hard to trust her claims that the Wuhan Institute of Virology did not have the SARS-CoV-2 virus or a "precursor virus" stored in its lab.

"If they did, that would prove the pandemic stems from a lab incident," Metzl said.

.@NBCNews on PLA role at WIV. If #ShiZhengli not telling the truth, we couldn't trust her that the WIV didn't have… https://t.co/zrwRYlg18N

— Jamie Metzl (@JamieMetzl) 1625060549.0

Metzl is one of 31 international scientists who signed an open letter to WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on June 28 calling for a "comprehensive investigation" into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The Chinese government's well documented measures to hide records and prevent Chinese experts from sharing critical information and granular data make it very clear that the current process has no possibility, without significant changes, of fully and credibly investigating all plausible origin hypotheses," the letter states.

The scientists suggest international investigators adopt a "two-track" approach for determining how the pandemic started, one that invites China to fully cooperate and be transparent, and a second plan should China continue to obfuscate evidence.

"While the Chinese government must be offered every opportunity to join a comprehensive investigation into pandemic origins, it should not be afforded a veto over whether or not the rest of the world carries out the fullest possible investigation," the scientists state.

Lab-leak denying EcoHealth Alliance president recuses self from COVID-19 investigation amid conflict-of-interest claims



EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak has recused himself from a U.N.-partnered commission that is investigating the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus after vigorously working to discredit the lab-leak hypothesis and failing to disclose his organization's ties to the Chinese lab at its center.

Daszak is a highly influential scientist who since the onset of the pandemic has fiercely attacked anyone who suggested the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was manufactured and somehow leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Between 2014 and 2019, his organization funneled $3.4 million in National Institutes of Health grants to the Wuhan lab to study bat coronaviruses. A naturalized U.S. citizen, Daszak was the only American representative of a 10-member World Health Organization team sent to investigate the origins of the virus. He is also a member of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, an interdisciplinary initiative established by the Lancet medical journal to make recommendations on how to prevent and contain future pandemics.

The Lancet COVID-19 Commission announced Tuesday that Daszak recused himself from the investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic after it came to light that his nonprofit group had funded research at the Wuhan lab that some claim could be related to the virus' origins.

"The Lancet COVID-19 Commission will carefully scrutinize the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in advance of its final report, with the overriding aim of recommending policies to prevent and contain future emerging infectious disease outbreaks. The Commission's technical work will be conducted by independent experts who were not themselves directly involved in US-China research activities that are under scrutiny. Dr. Peter Daszak has recused himself from the Commission's work on the origins of the virus," the statement said.

"The Commission urges all scientists who were involved in the US-China research to explain fully and transparently the nature of their work. In the meantime, the Commission will tap global experts in biosafety and other fields to help assess the relevant hypotheses on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and to recommend ways to prevent and contain future outbreaks, whether from naturally occurring zoonotic events or research-related activities."

There is controversy surrounding Daszak because of his failure to be fully transparent about the nature of his work. Aside from failing to disclose his organization's ties to the Wuhan lab and his interests in the research performed there, Daszak worked both in public and behind the scenes to organize a campaign to discredit the lab-leak theory.

Publicly, Daszak has made misleading statements about the nature of the work conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and accused those who've suggested it's possible the virus leaked from the lab there of promoting conspiracy theories.

EXCLUSIVE: The Wuhan Institute of Virology kept live bats in cages, new footage from inside the facility has reveal… https://t.co/oCMYixUTpE

— Sharri Markson (@SharriMarkson) 1623580513.0

World Health Organisation investigator Peter Daszak initially denied there were bats at the WIV in this now deleted… https://t.co/zHgAKkF4LT

— Sharri Markson (@SharriMarkson) 1623580871.0

Privately, he led a campaign to give the appearance of authoritative scientific weight to his preferred natural origin hypothesis and ostracize opposing views. Last year, Daszak organized and drafted a statement signed by 27 prominent public health scientists that denounced "conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." The letter contained a declaration by the authors of no competing interests, despite Daszak's personal interest in ensuring that the research he supported in Wuhan continued uninterrupted by accusations that it caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

The statement was published by the Lancet in February 2020 and became the dominant media narrative about the origins of the virus throughout 2020. Big tech social media companies took action to de-platform all dissenting opinions, labeling claims that contradicted the "science" as "misinformation." As Vanity Fair noted in its explosive report on the various investigations into the origins of the virus, the Lancet statement "effectively ended the debate over COVID-19's origins before it began."

On Monday, the Lancet published an addendum acknowledging Daszak's potential conflicts of interest regarding the February 2020 statement.

"In this letter, the authors declared no competing interests. Some readers have questioned the validity of this disclosure, particularly as it relates to one of the authors, Peter Daszak," the Lancet wrote. "In line with guidance from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, medical journals ask authors to report financial and non-financial relationships that may be relevant to interpreting the content of their manuscript.

"There may be differences in opinion as to what constitutes a competing interest. Transparent reporting allows readers to make judgments about these interests. Readers, in turn, have their own interests that could influence their evaluation of the work in question," the journal stated, adding that it invited each of the 27 authors of the February 2020 letter to "re-evaluate their competing interests."

The Lancet then provided an updated disclosure statement from Daszak (edited for readability):

[Peter Daszak]'s remuneration is paid solely in the form of a salary from EcoHealth Alliance, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation. EcoHealth Alliance's mission is to develop science-based solutions to prevent pandemics and promote conservation. Funding for this work comes from a range of US Government funding agencies and non-governmental sources. All past and current funders are listed publicly, and full financial accounts are filed annually and published.

EcoHealth Alliance's work in China was previously funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Neither PD nor EcoHealth Alliance have received funding from the People's Republic of China.

PD joined the WHO–China joint global study on the animal origins of SARS-CoV-2 towards the end of 2020 and is currently a member. As per WHO rules, this work is undertaken as an independent expert in a private capacity, not as an EcoHealth Alliance staff member. The work conducted by this study was published in March, 2021.

EcoHealth Alliance's work in China includes collaboration with a range of universities and governmental health and environmental science organisations, all of which are listed in prior publications, three of which received funding from US federal agencies as part of EcoHealth Alliance grants or cooperative agreements, as publicly reported by NIH. EcoHealth Alliance's work in China is currently unfunded. All federally funded subcontractees are assessed and approved by the respective US federal agencies in advance and all funding sources are acknowledged in scientific publications as appropriate.

EcoHealth Alliance's work in China involves assessing the risk of viral spillover across the wildlife–livestock–human interface, and includes behavioural and serological surveys of people, and ecological and virological analyses of animals. This work includes the identification of viral sequences in bat samples, and has resulted in the isolation of three bat SARS-related coronaviruses that are now used as reagents to test therapeutics and vaccines. It also includes the production of a small number of recombinant bat coronaviruses to analyse cell entry and other characteristics of bat coronaviruses for which only the genetic sequences are available.

NIH reviewed the planned recombinant virus work and deemed it does not meet the criteria that would warrant further specific review by its Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight (P3CO) committee.

All of EcoHealth Alliance's work is reviewed and approved by appropriate research ethics committees, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, Institutional Review Boards for biomedical research involving human subjects, P3CO oversight administrators, and biosafety committees, as listed on all relevant publications.

Dr. Jeffrey D. Sachs, an economics professor and the the chairman of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, wrote a related op-ed Tuesday explaining the state of the debate on the origins of the virus. While the op-ed does not mention Daszak by name, it does discuss the issues the commission will consider in its investigation of the origins of the virus, from which Daszak recused himself, and states: "The Commission's overriding aim is to recommend policies to prevent and contain future disease outbreaks, and its technical work will be conducted by independent experts who were not themselves involved directly in the US-China research under scrutiny. The scientists who were involved should explain fully the nature of their work."

Sachs emphasized that both the lab-leak hypothesis and the natural origin hypothesis "are viable at this stage of the investigation."

"Those who have claimed that a natural origin is the only viable hypothesis overlook the extensive research activity that was underway in the field and in laboratories on SARS-like viruses, including in Wuhan, China, where the first outbreak was identified, and in the United States," Sachs wrote. "Those who claim that a research-related infection is the only viable hypothesis overlook the frequency of natural zoonotic transmissions of viruses, such as the SARS outbreak. There are many ways that a natural event could have occurred with SARS-CoV-2 somewhere in China and then been brought to Wuhan by an infected individual or an animal brought to market."

He clarified that research seeking to prove the virus has natural origins remains inconclusive. It's still possible that the virus was transmitted to humans from some animal, though scientists have not yet identified an animal host. It's also possible that the virus originated from coronavirus research without being artificially created, which would be the case if a researcher contracted it in the field, brought it back to the lab, developed mild symptoms or no symptoms at all, and it spread from there.

The third possibility is that the virus was engineered in the Wuhan lab through gain-of-function research, which involves modifying viruses to be more transmissible among humans.

"The public and policy community have become increasingly aware of the intensive research on SARS-like viruses that was underway in the US, China, and elsewhere, both in collecting viral samples from the field and in studying their infectivity and pathogenicity (ability to cause disease) in the laboratory," Sachs wrote. "We have learned that much of this work can be classified as 'gain of function' (GoF) research ... Experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) involving the modification of bat-origin coronaviruses to express proteins that are likely to enhance entry into human cells are viewed by many scientists as falling squarely into the category of GOFROC."

Sachs acknowledged that the NIH funded U.S. and Chinese scientists to work collaboratively on collecting SARS-like viruses, taking them back to the Wuhan lab for study, though he did not mention EcoHealth Alliance by name.

"If there was indeed a laboratory-related release of SARS-CoV-2, it may well have occurred in a project funded by the US government, using methods developed and championed by US scientists, and as part of a US-led and US-financed program to collect and analyze potentially dangerous viruses, including in China," Sachs wrote.

He called on the NIH and on the Chinese government to release more information on the research that was funded and conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He also called for "an international and independent investigation" to learn the truth and for both the U.S. and Chinese governments to cooperate "fully and transparently" with such an inquiry.

US Defense Dept. agency tasked with countering WMDs gave $37.5 million to nonprofit with ties to Wuhan virology lab



A subagency of the U.S. Department of Defense reportedly gave $37.5 million to a global nonprofit organization with ties to the virology lab in Wuhan, where some believe the coronavirus might have originated.

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is dedicated to counteracting weapons of mass destruction, but in records documented by The Daily Caller, the DRTA gave millions to EcoHealth Alliance.

EcoHealth Alliance is headed by Dr. Peter Daszak, one of the main figures accused of covering up the evidence that the coronavirus might have originated from a laboratory leak instead of coming from nature.

Daszak organized a letter in February from prominent public health officials strongly condemning "conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin."

Daszak also emailed Dr. Anthony Fauci in April 2020 to thank him for knocking down the lab-leak theory publicly.

EcoHealth helped the Wuhan laboratory obtain $600,000 in National Institutes of Health subgrants to study coronaviruses in bats between 2014 and 2019. The NIH has denied funding research that included gain-of-function experiments that some experts have identified as a possible explanation for a lab leak.

None of the EcoHealth contracts with the DTRA are directly related to China.

While the lab-leak theory was derided and mocked by many experts and others in the media, a group of online sleuths worked for many months to undermine efforts by the Chinese government and the Wuhan laboratory to cover up evidence that might lead to the explosive possibility.

Eventually, officials were forced to admit that the lab-leak theory was possible and President Biden ordered a reevaluation of the lab leak scenario by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Here's more about EcoHealth and the Wuhan Lab:

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Scientist who signed influential statement condemning lab-leak 'conspiracy theory' now calls for 'thorough investigation' into COVID-19 origins



One of the leading voices in the scientific community who was among the first to come out strongly against the coronavirus lab-leak hypothesis, calling it a "conspiracy theory", now says a thorough investigation into the origins of COVID-19 is needed.

Dr. Peter Palese, a professor of microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, was one of the 27 prominent public health scientists who signed a February 19, 2020 statement denouncing "conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." The statement was published in the Lancet, a highly respected medical journal. It was organized by EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak, who drafted the statement to condemn the lab-leak hypothesis and recruited several of the scientists who signed it.

EcoHealth Alliance receives millions of dollars in research grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under director Dr. Anthony Fauci's leadership. Between 2014 and 2019, Daszak's nonprofit funneled $600,000 of those grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology — the lab at the center of the lab-leak hypothesis — to study bat coronaviruses.

Daszak's Lancet statement proclaimed that individuals questioning the supposed natural origin of COVID-19 were creating "fear, rumours, and prejudice." This became the dominant media narrative throughout 2020 and big tech social media companies took action to deplatform all dissenting opinions, labeling claims that contradicted the "science" as "misinformation." A bombshell Vanity Fair exposé on the investigation of the origins of COVID-19 noted that the Lancet statement "effectively ended the debate over COVID-19's origins before it began."

But now there is renewed interest in the lab-leak hypothesis as scientists have been unable to find evidence conclusively proving that the SARS-CoV-2 virus occurred naturally. Many of the people who last year attempted to stamp out discussion of this "conspiracy theory" are now reconsidering their opinions, including top White House health adviser Fauci.

Dr. Palese can be counted among those reevaluating their opinions.

"I believe a thorough investigation about the origin of the Covid-19 virus is needed," he told the Daily Mail. "A lot of disturbing information has surfaced since the Lancet letter I signed, so I want to see answers covering all questions."

Another signatory of the letter reached by the Daily Mail, Dr. Jeremy Farrar — director of the London-based nonprofit Wellcome Trust — said that while it is still "most likely" the virus came from an animal "'there are other possibilities which cannot be completely ruled out and retaining an open mind is critical."

Farrar is one of the scientists that was in communication with Dr. Fauci in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Emails belonging to Fauci that were made public through a records request by BuzzFeed News and the Washington Post reveal that on Feb. 1, 2020 Farrar organized a conference call that Fauci participated in discussing the origins of the coronavirus. Notes on the content of the call sent in further emails were redacted, but what is evident from Fauci's emails and by the public behavior of those involved is that since the call there was an organized messaging campaign to discredit the lab-leak hypothesis.

The fact that Palese, Farrar, Fauci, and others now acknowledge that the lab-leak hypothesis shouldn't be ruled out, even if it is unlikely, demands the question, why did they work so hard to condemn it as a conspiracy theory? Why didn't they push back against censorship by social media companies? Who will be held accountable for harms done if the lab-leak hypothesis proves true?

Timeline: How top health experts colluded to bury the COVID-19 lab-leak theory



In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci and his colleagues both within the federal government and in the broader scientific community appear to have coordinated their response to public reporting of the hypothesis that the SARS-CoV-2 virus did not originate naturally, discrediting the suggestion that it was engineered in a laboratory and accidentally leaked.

An examination of over 3,200 pages of Dr. Fauci's emails, made public by a Freedom of Information Act request from BuzzFeed News, shows how on the weekend of Jan. 31, 2020, Fauci and his associates engaged in discussions on the scientific evidence related to the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and on reports that the virus was possibly leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

In the months following these discussions, Fauci, other public officials, members of the scientific community, and their media echo chamber would strongly push back against the lab-leak hypothesis, and would successfully prevail upon major media outlets and social media companies to silence anyone who asked questions about the hypothesis.

Perhaps most troubling about this episode is that there is no obvious, science-based reason for any of the people involved in the coordinated messaging effort to shut down public discussion of the lab leak theory. Public discussion of the lab leak theory, after all, would have had no scientific bearing on how the pandemic should be treated or managed from a public health perspective. Even if the lab leak theory was completely wrong or contrary to the best scientific evidence, what scientific, non-nefarious reason could there possibly have been to prevent public discussion of the theory? None springs readily to mind.

The consensus narrative that emerged was that scientific evidence supported an alternative theory — that the virus began in bats and evolved naturally to be transmissible among humans. Researchers traced the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to a so-called "wet market" in Wuhan, China, where live wild animals were sold for human consumption. From there, they said, the virus spread globally, infecting more than 172,903,158 people and leading to as many as 3,717,197 deaths worldwide.

There were those who questioned the prevailing narrative, who wondered if it was more than coincidence this novel coronavirus emerged in a city located near the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That premier research institution is one of only three laboratories in the world that performs "gain-of-function" research — altering virus strains to be more transmissible to humans in order to study how they may evolve naturally and create more effective vaccines — on bat-related coronaviruses.

Many virologists, including Dr. Fauci and several of his colleagues, believe such research is necessary to understand how viral pandemics could strike and needed to develop preventative countermeasures to mitigate the loss of human life. Others say the work to make viruses deadlier is dangerous and, if an accident happens, could cause a pandemic not unlike the ongoing one.

What if, some wondered, Chinese scientists in a lab known to have security issues had fiddled with a bat coronavirus, made it transmissible to humans, and accidentally released it upon an unsuspecting world?

But the people asking such questions were viciously attacked. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), for instance, was denigrated as a conspiracy theorist. As were countless others. For more than a year, the mainstream media left the authoritative consensus view unchallenged, defending it against all dissent. The expert opinions of Fauci, WIV lead researcher and "bat woman" Shi Zhengli, zoologist and EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak, and others in government and respected positions of academia were accepted as scientific law by social media companies, which proceeded to deplatform dissenting voices in the name of combatting "misinformation."

But now the "fringe" lab-leak theory is getting a second look. Those that insist SARS-CoV-2 is a naturally occurring virus have failed to produce a bat or other animal that carries a virus with a matching genetic signature. Fauci and others involved in last year's discussions are walking back their assurances that SARS-CoV-2 was not engineered in a lab and somehow released. The White House's top health adviser now says he's keeping an "open mind" about the lab-leak theory and that a "fair, open investigation" is needed to determine the source of the pandemic.

In the interest of a "fair, open" inquiry, it is worth reviewing media reports, public statements by prominent scientists, and private email communications disclosed by records requests made in the course of the last year that raise questions about the campaign against the lab-leak hypothesis and the possible motivations interested parties had in protecting "gain-of-function" research from public outrage by stamping out discussions linking it to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Key figures

Dr. Anthony Fauci: a NIAID bureaucrat approaching 40 years of service who was the federal government's most visible spokesman for all things coronavirus-related throughout last year. His agency is responsible for approving research grants to EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit research organization, as well as virtually every similar organization in the United States.

Peter Daszak: a fierce opponent of the lab-leak theory and president of EcoHealth Alliance. Between 2014 and 2019, his organization funneled $3.4 million in National Institutes of Health grants provided by Fauci's subagency to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study bat coronaviruses. He was also the only American on a 10-member team that the World Health Organization sent to China last winter to investigate the origins of the virus. At least one major virologist has claimed that Daszack's nonprofit helped fund risky "gain-of-function" research.

Dr. Ralph S. Baric: the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of North Carolina. He is a world leader in the study of the coronaviruses. He has conducted gain-of-function research at his institution and in 2015 he began collaborating with Shi Zhengli, the lead Chinese researcher at WIV, nicknamed China's "bat woman." Shi is a virologist who has identified dozens of deadly coronaviruses by exploring bat caves and collecting samples. Her coronavirus research is funded in part by the NIH grants provided by EcoHealth Alliance.

Timeline of events

  • November 2011: Dutch scientist Ron Fouchier publishes a controversial gain-of-function study showing how an H5N1 avian influenza virus could be genetically altered in a lab to be transmissible between ferrets, animals that closely mimic the human response to flu. The study ignites heated debate over gain-of-function research and support begins building to ban federal funding for such research in the United States. Dr. Fauci, his colleague National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, and NIAID director of vaccine research Gary Nabel write an op-ed in the Washington Post defending Fouchier's gain-of-function study.
  • June 2012: Three men working in a copper mine in southwestern China fall ill with pneumonia-like symptoms and die. Six months later, Chinese researchers led by Shi Zhengli investigate the mine shaft, collecting samples from bat guano and discovering a diverse group of coronaviruses in six bat species. Among the samples collected is a virus called RaTG13, which scientists believe is the closest known relative of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19.
  • May 2014: Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance receives a $3.4 million grant from Fauci's NIAID to study bat coronaviruses in China. Over the next four years, it provides $133,000 annually to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and $66,000 in the fifth year.
  • October 2014: After high profile lab accidents involving anthrax and smallpox, and media attention surrounding the Ebola outbreak, Fauci reconsiders his position and the Obama administration announces a moratorium on funding for gain-of-function research for influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses. At the time, Dr. Ralph Baric, described by a colleague as the "foremost coronavirus biologist in the United States," was conducting several gain-of-function experiments in his North Carolina laboratory. He would tell NPR, "It took me 10 seconds to realize that most of them were going to be affected" after he learned of the moratorium.
  • November 2015: Dr. Baric publishes a collaborative study with Shi Zhengli that showed how the spike protein of a novel coronavirus could infect human cells. The researchers used mice as test subjects and "generated and characterized a chimeric virus" by inserting the protein from a Chinese rufous horseshoe bat into the molecular structure of the 2002 SARS virus, engineering a new pathogen. The acknowledgements of the study note it was funded by grants from Fauci's NIAID. "Experiments with the full-length and chimeric SHC014 recombinant viruses were initiated and performed before the [gain-of-function] research funding pause and have since been reviewed and approved for continued study by the NIH," the authors note.
  • December 2017: "The National Institutes of Health will again fund research that makes viruses more dangerous," read an article from Nature after the Trump administration lifted the moratorium on gain-of-function research. The Department of Health and Human Services was instructed to create a framework to review proposed gain-of-function research before approving funding for these projects. It creates the Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight (P3CO) Framework.
  • January 2018: U.S. Embassy officials visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology and reportedly become very concerned about a shortage of appropriately trained technicians at the lab, which is storing dangerous virus samples. They reviewed Shi Zhengli's research and concluded "continued surveillance of SARS-like coronaviruses in bats and study of the animal-human interface critical to future emerging coronavirus outbreak prediction and prevention." Because they deemed the research so important, they requested that the U.S. government provide additional resources to the Wuhan lab to address safety concerns.
  • December 2019: Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China, reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. On Dec. 31, 2019, at 8:16 a.m., Dr. Baric emails EcoHealth President Peter Daszak with the subject line, "RE: have you heard any news on this? maybe as many as 27 cases with 7 severe in wuhan---ards like pneumonia." Daszak responds a half an hour later informing Baric that his EcoHealth colleague Hongying Li is feeding him information on the pneumonia cases in what appears to be real time. Daszak's emails were obtained as part of a public records request issued by U.S. Right to Know.
  • Jan. 6, 2020: Erik Stemmy, the program officer for the Respiratory Diseases Branch Division of Microbiology and Infections Diseases at NIAID, emails Daszak asking if he had any new information on the viral outbreak in China. Daszak replies that he has some off-the-record information and in follow-up emails discusses receiving emerging data on from his Chinese contacts.
  • Jan. 12, 2020: China publishes what it claimed was the genetic sequence of a new coronavirus believed to be responsible for the pneumonia cases emerging in Wuhan. EcoHealth Alliance analyzes the Chinese data and determines the virus is related to SARS. Daszak writes in an email to Stemmy that the virus is "close to SARr-CoV Rp3 that we published from our past NIAID work. This came from a Rhinolophus bat in S. China." He notes that Dr. Baric was "already working to reconstruct and rescue the virus in the lab from the sequence, so he can do further work on it."
  • Jan. 22, 2020: A World Health Organization delegation to China announces there is evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus in Wuhan. A day earlier, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control confirmed the first U.S. COVID-19 case.
  • Jan. 23, 2020: Shi Zhengli's research team reports the novel coronavirus' genetic sequence is 96.2% similar to a previously identified bat coronavirus named RaTG13, information Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance appeared to have access to before it was published.
  • Jan. 30, 2020: U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) suggests that China is lying about the role of the Wuhan seafood market in the origins of the coronavirus. He refers to an article in the Lancet that found of the 40 original COVID-19 cases, 14 of them had no contact with the market, including the person believed to be Patient Zero.
  • Jan. 31, 2020: Reporter Jon Cohen publishes an article in Science discussing efforts by researchers to investigate the origins of the virus. The article covers Zhengli's work and leans into the emerging hypothesis that the virus occurred naturally in bats and evolved to be transmissible to humans. Cohen also discusses "conspiracy theories" linking China's coronavirus research to weapons research. Molecular biologist Richard Ebright of Rutgers University is quoted raising concerns over gain-of-function research and expressing his opinion that what became to be known as the SARS-CoV-2 virus is "consistent with entry into the human population as either a natural accident or a laboratory accident." Daszak is also quoted blasting the suggestion the virus was engineered.
  • Jan. 31, 2020 8:43 PM: The article is forwarded in an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci. Fauci in turn forward the article to several of his NIH colleagues and to Jeremy Farrar, the head of a British non-profit organization and Kristian Andersen, a professor at Scripps Research, writing "This just came out today. You may have seen it. If not, it is of interest to the current discussion." Both of these individuals would go on to strongly denounce the lab-leak hypothesis in the coming weeks.
  • Jan. 31, 2020 10:32 PM: Andersen replies to Fauci, praising the article but noting difficulties in tracing the origins of the virus. "The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered." Andersen would later say that while he and other scientists strongly considered the lab leak a possibility, further research led him to the conclusion that the virus was not engineered.
  • Feb. 1, 2020 7:29 AM: Fauci sent an email to NIAID Principal Deputy Director Hugh Auchincloss, writing "It is essential that we speak this AM. Keep your cell phone on ... read this paper as well as the e-mail that I will forward to you now. You will have tasks today that must be done." Attached to the email was a copy of the 2015 gain-of-function study authored by Baric and Zheng-Li that was funded by NIAID. Fauci soon after forwarded Cohen's Science magazine article to Auchincloss.
  • Feb. 1, 2020 8:19 AM: Fauci emailed the 2015 study to NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak with the subject line "IMPORTANT." "Here it is," Fauci wrote.
  • Feb. 1, 2020 10:34 AM: Farrar sent an email blast announcing a 2 p.m. conference call. In bold lettering, his email declared "information and discussion is shared in total confidence and not to be shared until agreement on next steps." The email also included an agenda for the call, with Farrar presenting "Introduction, focus and desired outcomes", Andersen giving a "summary," "comments" from Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney, a "Q&A" session for everyone, and "summary and next steps" presented by Farrar again to conclude the call. There were 13 people, including Fauci and Andersen, listed on the agenda.
  • Feb. 1, 2020 10:34 AM: Auchincloss responds to Fauci's email, writing "The paper you sent me says the experiments were performed before the gain of function pause but have since been reviewed and approved by NIH. Not sure what that means since Emily is sure that no Coronavirus work has gone through the P3 framework. She will try to determine if we have any distant ties to this work abroad."

    The Washington Examiner notes "Emily" likely refers to Emily Erbelding, the director of NIH's division of microbiology and infectious diseases. The "P3 framework" refers to the P3CO framework HHS set up in 2017 to review gain of function research proposals before issuing grants. Since the paper in question was published in 2015, before the P3CO framework was created, it wouldn't have been reviewed by that body, raising questions about how NIH reviewed and approved Baric's gain of function research in 2015 while the Obama moratorium was still in place.

    Fauci told Auchincloss, "OK. Stay tuned."
  • Feb. 1, 2020 2:00 PM: The conference call organized by Farrar is presumably held on time. Emails recapping what was discussed are redacted, including notes from Ron Fouchier, the Dutch scientist who in 2011 authored the controversial gain-of-function study that inspired a campaign to ban that research. But following this discussion, the public campaign against the lab-leak theory intensified.
  • Feb. 2, 2020: NIH Director Francis Collins emails Farrar to tell him he is available to call WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "Let me know if I can help get through his thicket of protectors," he wrote, copying Fauci and Tabak. About two hours later, Collins emails Farrar again, with Fauci copied, writing "Really appreciate us thinking through the options ..." before a redacted line.

    At 11:28 a.m., Farrar emails Fauci and Collins, writing: "Tedros and [WHO representative in China Dr. Bernhard Schwartländer] have apparently gone into conclave … they need to decide today in my view. If they do prevaricate, I would appreciate a call with you later tonight or tomorrow to think how we might take forward." At the end of the email, Farrar wrote "meanwhile" and linked to a ZeroHedge article published that day that reported on claims that COVID-19 was engineered in the Wuhan-based lab.
  • Feb. 3, 2020: ZeroHedge is banned from Twitter for publishing a "coronavirus conspiracy theory." On the same day, Tedros delivers a speech to the WHO executive board that mentions, among other priorities for the organization, the need to "combat the spread of rumors and misinformation." Twitter did not respond to a request for comment from TheBlaze about whether Fauci or anyone else from the NIAID contacted them about the ZeroHedge article to flag it for "disinformation."

    "We have worked with Google to make sure people searching for information about coronavirus see WHO information at the top of their search results," Tedros said. "Social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Tencent, and TikTok have also taken steps to limit the spread of misinformation."

    Also on this day, Business Insider publishes an article juxtaposing Sen. Cotton's remarks from several days ago with "conspiracy theories" alleging that the virus originated in a Chinese lab linked to a biowarfare program. Cotton made no such allegations, but his sensible concerns that China lied were tied to the conspiracy theory.
  • Feb. 4, 2020: Four days after writing to Fauci about the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus looks "engineered," Kristian Andersen provides input on a statement EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak is drafting to strongly condemn the lab-leak hypothesis. Andersen advises the authors of the statement to "be more firm on the question of engineering." "The main crackpot theories going around at the moment relate to the virus being somehow engineered with intent and that is demonstrably not the case," Andersen wrote. He argues that data conclusively shows the virus causing COVID-19 was not engineered.
  • Feb. 6, 2020: Daszak continues to organize colleagues and associates to sign "a statement in support of the scientists, public health and medical professionals of China." The statement is intended to authoritatively discredit the lab-leak hypothesis. In emails, Daszak writes that he intends the statement "not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person" but rather to be seen as "simply a letter from leading scientists". Daszak also writes that he wants "to avoid the appearance of a political statement."

    In an email to Dr. Baric with the subject line, "No need for you to sign the 'Statement' Ralph!!" Daszak suggests it would be best if he and Baric refrain from signing the statement "so it has some distance from us and therefore doesn't work in a counterproductive way." Baric agrees in reply, writing "otherwise it looks self-serving and we lose impact."
  • Feb. 9, 2020: Margaret Brennan falsely claims Cotton "suggested that the virus may have come from China's biological warfare program" on "Face the Nation." A tweet from "Face the Nation" summarizing the TV segment accuses Cotton of latching on to a "conspiracy theory" and Cotton's account fires back. But the horse is out of the barn and for the next year or so the media denigrated Cotton as a conspiracy theorist. In May 2021, with the benefit of hindsight, Matthew Yglesias would finally clear up the truth about what Cotton said for his progressive audience.
  • Feb. 19, 2020: The completed statement is published in The Lancet with 27 prominent public health scientists signing on to condemn "conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." Notably, Andersen is not among the signatories even though he helped draft the statement. A year later when his emails were made public, Andersen claimed, "I did not sign the Lancet letter because I (+ coauthors) found it premature to conclude there was no lab leak without carefully analyzing available data first." It is not clear why, if it was premature for Andersen to sign the statement, it was NOT premature for him to help write it. It is difficult to overstate the importance of the publication of this statement. As noted in a Vanity Fair article probing the investigation of the virus's origins, when this statement was issued, it "effectively ended the debate over COVID-19's origins before it began."
  • March 5, 2020: Science Feedback, one of Facebook's fact-checking platforms, releases a "fact check" of a New York Post article that cited Daszak as an expert source to rule there was "no evidence" supporting the lab-leak hypothesis. Daszak wrote a section of the fact-check called "Reviewer's Feedback" that disclosed his ties to the WIV, and heavily criticized the Post article as "appalling." Publishers who are negatively rated by Facebook's "fact-checkers" are subject to severe penalties from Facebook that can affect their financial solvency.
  • March 6, 2020: Andersen writes an email to Fauci, Farrar, and Collins announcing that a paper he authored on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 was just accepted by the journal Nature Medicine and would be published shortly. He encourages Fauci and the others to provide comments or suggestions about the paper or its press release if they have them. Two days later, Fauci replies, "Nice job on the paper."
  • March 15, 2020: Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, reaches out to Fauci about the possibility of collaborating with Fauci regarding what constitutes "authoritative information" about COVID-19. Part of this communication remains redacted.
  • March 17, 2020: Andersen's paper, "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2" is published and becomes the most influential study on the origins of the virus. "We do not believe any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible," the authors wrote. National media outlets seized on the study as the definitive final word on the matter. The lab-leak hypothesis was put to death and those repeating President Donald Trump's claims to the contrary were just as ignorant, anti-Science, conspiracy-minded, and racist as the president, as far as the media was concerned.
  • March 21, 2020: Daszak champions Andersen's study on social media. In the following months, he would continue to use his Twitter account to forcefully attack the "conspiracy theorists" contradicting Andersen's study.
  • April 16, 2020 5:02 PM: NIH Director Collins emails Fauci with the subject line "conspiracy gains momentum. The text is redacted, but there is a link to a Mediate story covering Fox News host Brett Baier reporting that "multiple sources" believe COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab before escaping and infecting the population. Fauci's response is redacted.
  • April 18, 2020: Dr. Fauci, in his capacity as the chief spokesman for the White House at the daily coronavirus response briefings, endorses Andersen's study and rejects the lab-leak hypothesis. The narrative that "science" says the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not engineered in a lab prevails.

    Later that day, Daszak emails Fauci: "I just wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. From my perspective, your comments are brave, and coming from your trusted voice, will help dispel the myths being spun around the virus's origins."
  • April 12, 2020: Fauci shares three articles with Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz arguing in favor of a natural origin for COVID-19 and pushing back against the lab-leak theory.
  • April 30, 2020: The U.S. Intelligence Community releases a statement endorsing the "scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified." Later that day, President Donald Trump claims to have seen evidence that the coronavirus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, contradicting his administration's official position. He tells the media he is "not allowed" to share the evidence with them. Trump's contradiction of the "scientific consensus" ignites a media firestorm and any public questioning of Fauci's determination on the origins of the coronavirus became taboo.
  • May 4, 2020: Fauci dismisses the possibility that COVID-19 escaped from a lab during an interview with National Geographic, likening it to a "pie in the sky" theory.
  • May 5, 2020: Fauci receives a forwarded email from Ian W. Lipkin, a virologist at Columbia University and one of the five co-authors of Andersen's "proximal origin" paper. Lipkin shared an email communication he had with former Chinese minister of health Chen Zhu about COVID-19's origins. The redacted message reads in part, "Uncertainty about the origin of COVID-19 pandemic is causing friction worldwide, particularly between China and the United States. There is agreement that the causative agent, SARS-CoV-2 originated in a bat. There is also a high level of confidence that the virus was not deliberately modified in any laboratory."

    Lipkin tells Fauci, "We deeply appreciate your efforts in steering and messaging."
  • Aug. 27, 2020: Under Fauci's leadership, NIAID awarded 11 new grants with a total first-year value of $17 million to establish the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID). CREID will be a global network that will investigate how and where viruses and other deadly pathogens emerge in the wild and cause people to get sick. Over the next five years, NIAID will provide $82 million to support this network. Kristian Andersen and Peter Daszak, who worked with Fauci on messaging about the origins of the coronavirus, are among the recipients of this funding.
  • Dec. 9, 2020: Months later, State Department officials reportedly gathered to discuss an upcoming fact-finding mission to Wuhan organized in part by the World Health Organization. The State Department had classified intelligence that three Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers were conducting gain-of-function experiments in autumn 2019, before the COVID-19 outbreak happened. Christopher Park, the director of the State Department's Biological Policy Staff in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, allegedly warned the officials not to say anything that would draw attention to the U.S. government's role in gain-of-function research.

    Four former State Department officials interviewed by Vanity Fair claim they were told not to open a "Pandora's box" by investigating the lab-leak theory. The warnings "smelled like a cover-up," said Thomas DiNanno, who wrote a memo obtained by Vanity Fair accusing the State Department of warning his staff not to pursue an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
There are several fascinating articles detailing how after America's top health experts spent the last year discrediting the lab-leak hypothesis, their failure to produce a sufficient explanation for COVID-19's natural origins has brought alternative views back into the mainstream. But what is astounding is that after repeated assurances that there was nothing worth investigating, after a year of messaging to the contrary, Fauci and other proponents of the natural-origin theory are now hedging their bets.
The question should be asked, were those discrediting the lab-leak hypothesis working to find the truth about COVID-19's origins in order to best inform and protect the public? Or were they defending millions of dollars of funding for experimental research, lifetimes of work, their jobs, and their credibility against a hypothesis that put it all at risk?