Emails Show Fauci Was Part Of Group Created To “Disprove” Lab Leak Theory

According to at least one scientist, Dr. Anthony Fauci was part a group that included scientists who were involved in research to address the issue. “disprove” Emails show that the lab-leak theory was prevalent in the early days and weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fauci, who at the time was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, worked alongside others, including National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, Wellcome Trust director Jeremy Farrar, Scripps Research’s Kristian Andersen and Dutch Virologist Ron Fouchier to investigate early evidence on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, emails obtained by journalist Jimmy Tobias revealed. On Feb. 8, 2020, Andersen wrote in an email that the group’s work was “focused on trying to disprove any type of lab theory.”

Andersen was eventually the first to be listed on the paper. “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” This paper was the most influential about COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic. The Intercept reports that the paper was cited over 2,000 times by media outlets, and nearly six million times online.

Unredacted NIH records detail early efforts to rule out lab origin of Covid — my latest for @theintercept and @thenation. It took more than a year of #FOIA litigation to obtain the documents featured in this story: https://t.co/U1Lqq4ZgHS

— Jimmy Tobias (@JamesCTobias) January 19, 2023

“Proximal Origin” Promoted a natural origin theory for COVID-19, and was co-authored with several scientists who were in contact with Fauci In the weeks preceding its publication date. The group included several members. at first supportive The lab-leak theory, before suddenly changing their course. Andersen claimed that the group was there to disprove the theory at the end.

“Our main work over the last couple of weeks has been focused on trying to disprove any type of lab theory, but we are at a crossroad where the scientific evidence isn’t conclusive enough to say that we have high confidence in any of the three main theories considered,” In that Feb. 8 email, he sent the following message to the scientists.

Andersen initially objected to publishing a paper on this subject. However, he was later informed. Fauci and others Nature Medicine accepted “Proximal Origin” For publication. “Nice job on the paper,” Fauci replied. (RELATED: House Republicans Demand NIH Not Destroy Docs On COVID-19 Origins)

The Intercept was contacted by scientists who stated that the evolution in views displayed in the emails is a sign of scientific progress. However, others were puzzled at why some researchers had changed their minds so quickly. Andersen of Tulane University and Robert Garry from Tulane University had both received large NIH grants to support their research over the previous years. Fouchier and others were critical of the lab leak theory. Fouchier is well-known in the world of virology for dangerous research to increase the pathogenicity and spread of H5N1.

Tobias secured the email exchanges in November following a year-long legal battle with NIH. initially redacted There are a lot of documents.