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Bombshell emails show Fauci COMMISSIONED a 2020 study that he then used to disprove COVID leaked from Wuhan lab
Bombshell emails show Fauci COMMISSIONED a 2020 study that he then used to disprove COVID leaked from Wuhan lab
Dr Anthony Fauci commissioned and edited the report he cited to disprove the lab leak theory, House Republicans found
Many media outlets then started to dismiss the lab leak theory, only to later suggest that it may be possible
In January, a government watchdog agency blasted the NIH for failing to keep tabs on US-sponsored virus experiments in China
By Melissa Koenig For Dailymail.Com
Published: 01:39 EST, 6 March 2023 | Updated: 10:36 EST, 6 March 2023
Dr. Anthony Fauci commissioned a February 2020 paper to disprove the possibility that COVID originated in a lab — before publicizing the study at a White House news conference weeks later.
Newly-released emails uncovered by House Republicans probing the COVID-19 pandemic show the former head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases both commissioned and had final approval on a scientific paper which claimed it was ‘improbable’ that the virus leaked out of a lab in Wuhan, China.
Just a few weeks later, he stood next to then-President Donald Trump at a press conference and cited that very paper as evidence that the idea of a lab leak was implausible - without admitting he commissioned it.
Many media outlets then started to dismiss the idea, only to later suggest the lab leak theory is possible as new evidence arose supporting the claim.
And in January, the Energy Department and the FBI both concluded that the virus did likely spread from a lab leak in Wuhan. The CIA is yet to declare a definitive position.
The bombshell emails released by House Republicans on Sunday shows that Fauci commissioned and edited a paper entitled The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 before he cited it as evidence that COVID did not originate from a lab in Wuhan.
It was written just four days after Fauci, and his NIH boss Francis Collins, held a call with the authors to discuss reports that COVID may have been leaked from a genetic testing lab in Wuhan and ‘may have been intentionally genetically manipulated.’
And in the emails, Dr. Kristian Andersen admits that Fauci ‘prompted’ him to write the paper with the goal of ‘disproving’ the lab leak theory.
He submitted the peer-reviewed paper to Nature Medicine on February 12, 2020 with a cover email reading, ‘There has been a lot of speculation, fear-mongering and conspiracies put forward in this space.
‘[This paper was] Prompted by Jeremy [Farrar], Tony Fauci and Francis Collins.’
A letter sent by Scripps Research on his behalf later insisted that Andersen objectively researched he origins of COVID and claimed that Fauci did not influence his work.
Dr. Kristian Andersen (pictured) admits that Fauci ‘prompted’ him to write the paper with the goal of ‘disproving’ the lab leak theory
Dr. Kristian Andersen (pictured) admits that Fauci ‘prompted’ him to write the paper with the goal of ‘disproving’ the lab leak theory
But the report by House Republicans says, ‘According to previously-released emails, this assertion is demonstrably false.’
It points to a February 8, 2020 mail in which the doctor stated: ‘Our main work over the last couple of weeks has been focused on trying to disprove any type of lab theory.’
Others also apparently worked to ensure the paper strongly dismissed the idea of a lab leak.
Farrar — who was then the head of the British nonprofit the Wellcome Trust, which has historic ties to the pharmaceutical industry, and is now the Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization — tried to push through an edit replacing the word ‘unlikely’ to ‘improbable’ in a statement about the possibility of a lab leak origin.
Under the changes, a sentence in the report read: ‘It is improbable that SARS CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of an existing SARS-related coronavirus.’