Did COVID-19 originate in a lab? To answer this question, let’s revisit the early days of the pandemic and see what people close to Anthony Fauci said privately about the virus’s origins — discussions that only came to light through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.
evolutionary biologist kristian andersen wrote“The likelihood of a lab escape event is very high, because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is completely consistent with that scenario.”
Epidemiologist Ian Lipkin Stressed on “The nightmare of assessing circumstantial evidence” about the possibility of an inadvertent release given the scale of research conducted on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.
Virologist Bob Gary Said At the time, “I can't really think of a possible natural scenario when you get infected with a bat virus or, very similar to it, COVID-19, where you insert exactly four amino acids, 12 nucleotides, and they all have to pair at exactly the same time to get this thing to work. I just can't fathom how that's accomplished in nature.” According According to Gary, “It's not crazy to say this may have happened, because we know that beneficial research was taking place in Wuhan.”
Even Ralph Baric, a world-renowned gain-of-function researcher and colleague of Doctor Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, accepted“so [the Wuhan Institute of Virology has] He has a very large collection of viruses in his lab. And so that's – you know – proximity is a problem. It is a problem.”
Federal court orders reveal that Fauci himself privately accepted He expressed concerns about gain-of-function research in Wuhan and “mutations in the virus that suggest it may have been engineered” a few days before the commission of the proximal origin paper.
Despite these private doubts, publicly, these so-called experts and their colleagues were dismissing the lab leak theory as a conspiracy. Within days, Anderson, Lipkin, and Garry had put the finishing touches on what would be remembered as one of the most remarkable reversals in modern history.
In their Proximal Origin paper, these scientists concluded“We do not believe that any type of lab-based scenario is possible.” Media pundits repeated this statement, while social media platforms censored discussions about the lab leak, labeling it misinformation and suppressing open discussion about the virus’s origins.
The matter goes far beyond public statements. Federal agencies and key officials have concealed and continue to conceal critical information from both Congress and the public.
For example, David Morens of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Deleted Emails The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and NIH have not produced documents related to gain-of-function research that Senate Homeland Security Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and I requested nearly a year ago. And just last week, a House committee released its findings that HHS and NIH engaged in a deliberate, long-term effort to deceive the committee about certain gain-of-function research experiments funded by the agencies.
Thanks to brave informants, we learned EcoHealth Alliance partnered with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on an NIH grant to conduct research into making the virus more dangerous. It was revealed that three scientists working at the Wuhan Institute fell ill with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019. Additionally, a courageous whistleblower revealed that in 2018, EcoHealth, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the University of North Carolina submitted a proposal to military research agency DARPA to insert a furin cleavage site similar to COVID-19 into a bat coronavirus, a modification that was expected to make the virus more deadly.
These revelations have provided crucial evidence about the origins of COVID-19. The FBI And this Department of Energy It is now being concluded that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory.
The American people need full transparency about the origins of COVID-19. The pandemic killed millions and shut down global economies. Our federal and state governments used the pandemic as justification to strip Americans of their civil liberties and freedoms. Children lost critical developmental opportunities, families lost jobs, and businesses were forced to close.
Today's full committee hearing, the first of its kind in the Senate, is an important step toward getting answers for the American people on the origins of COVID-19. The next step is to ask government officials to testify publicly before our committee, and I look forward to working with Chairman Peters to hold that hearing.
Understanding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic isn't just about assigning blame – it's about learning from what happened so we can prevent even more deadly pandemics and their associated negative societal consequences in the future. My goal is to uncover the truth, implement the necessary safety measures, and prevent a tragedy like this from happening again.