Top scientists involved in the controversy over the origins of Covid have admitted the decision to downplay the lab leak theory was political in nature.
Internal Slack communications obtained by a House subcommittee examining the early days of the pandemic showed how scientists who authored an article dismissing the idea of a lab accident feared retaliation from the Chinese government.
dr Edinburgh University biologist Andrew Rambaut co-authored the March 2020 Nature Medicine research article entitled The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2, which degenerated supporters of the lab leak theory into conspiracy theorists and racists.
Private news shows that Dr. Rambaut feared blaming China for the “accidental release” of the virus would lead to a geopolitical “shit show,” so he was content to blame it on a natural process.
One of the respondents to this news was the Danish biologist Dr. Kristian Andersen, a Danish evolutionary biologist and co-author of the paper written in response to Dr. Rambaut said he “completely agreed”.[s] that’s a very reasonable conclusion,” adding, “While I hate it when politics gets mixed up with science, it’s impossible not to, especially given the circumstances.”
Private messages indicate that Dr. Rambaut feared blaming China for the “accidental release” of the virus would lead to a geopolitical “shit show,” so he was content to attribute it to a natural process.
dr Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research testified during a hearing with the Special Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on July 11, 2023 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC
dr Robert Garry (left), a professor at Tulane University School of Medicine, was also present. Committee members met to hear testimonies from medical researchers on the origins of Covid-19
The infamous paper on the proximal origin was partially edited by Dr. Anthony Fauci, then head of the US National Research Agency, which had funded risky viral research at the Wuhan lab.
Republicans in the House of Representatives today targeted two doctors at the center of the argument over whether the coronavirus originated in nature or in a lab in Wuhan.
They cited the newly disclosed communications between scientists in early 2020 as evidence of a cover-up — something the scientists firmly refuted.
In a report released early Tuesday ahead of the hearing, House Republicans pointed to myriad efforts by scientists to probe the origins of Covid, and what they say has amounted to blatantly quashing voices calling for a more serious investigation advocated the theory that the virus leaked from the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The witnesses Dr. Kristian Andersen and Dr. Robert Garry co-authored the February 2020 report, The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2, which was released just days after a conference call attended by top scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins attended, receiving desperate messages from virologists about the possibility that parts of the virus appeared to be man-made.
Internal news reports that even Dr from the investigation group Right to Know.
In the message, Dr. Andersen: “The most popular crazy theories right now are that this virus was somehow manipulated on purpose, and it has been proven not to be the case.”
dr Andersen also said in a series of now-public responses highlighted by the House GOP, “While I hate it when politics gets mixed up with science — it’s impossible not to, especially given the circumstances that should.” we be sensitive.”
dr Andersen was treated by Dr. Wenstrup rebuked for grinning when asked about his involvement.
dr Wenstrup said: “You’re grinning like that, Dr. Andersen, that’s how you grin.”
Around the same time scientists were suggesting that pinning the origins of Covid to China would set off a “shit show,” Dutch scientist Dr. Whether intentional or accidental, “would cause unnecessary harm to science in general and to science in China in particular.”
Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives, typically belligerent toward China, rushed into what they felt overly considerate and forgiving of the ruling Communist Party there. One of those congressmen, New York Congressman Nicole Malliotakis, turned his attention to the incriminating message from Dr. Rambaut and said: “His concern was whether he would upset China, that was his concern.”
“Something happened here.” [in the brief time between Dr Fauci’s first contact with Dr Andersen in early 2020]. Politicians can flip-flop. “Scientists don’t make a flip-flop in 72 hours.”
As China insists the virus originated elsewhere, scientists, politicians and the media have pondered the possibility that it leaked from a top-level biochemistry lab in Wuhan – raising suspicions that Chinese officials are simply hiding evidence of its early spread have
Shi Zhengli — also known as “bat lady” or “bat woman” because of her work on bat coronaviruses — was investigating the possibility that Covid might have emerged from her lab as early as 2020, according to colleagues. Here she is pictured working with other researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2017
dr Andersen and Dr. Garry refuted this statement, saying they had not committed a reversal, but rather learned new information about the virus and changed their hypothesis, a textbook application of the scientific method.
Republican efforts to find out exactly where the virus came from, whether from a Wuhan wet market selling animals contaminated with the virus or from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, have focused on getting to the inner workings of scientific authorities like Dr. Uncover Fauci and Dr. Collins – colloquially referred to by Republicans as “the Bethesda Boys”.
After years of certain scientists, including Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins, who was at the center of the debate when it was branded as openly biased in favor of the theories of many Democrats and government scientists, the issue has become largely political.
These include the theory that Covid-19 likely jumped from an intermediate animal host before infecting humans.