Private transcripts and notes from previous meetings show that U.S. scientists who publicly attributed the COVID-19 pandemic to natural origins were not as confident as they could have been.
According to conversations between public officials, some experts may have chosen to suppress evidence that could fuel racists.
I can not think of a scenario where you can get from the bat virus to nCoV.
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In his comments at the time, he said that he couldn't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature.
Questions are being raised about what American scientists and federal health officials knew about the origins of the coronaviruses and whether they hid it from the public.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which Dr. Fauci oversaw, was linked to the notorious Wuhan lab through EcoHealth, a U.S.-based scientific nonprofit.
Fauci will try to determine if there are any distant ties to the U.S. government after Hugh Auchinloss suggested that the research may not have gone through the proper bio safety evaluations.
Dr. Anderson told Fauci that the genome is inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.
A conference call with dozens of experts around the world was arranged after Fauci was made aware of Anderson's observations.
Dr. Mike Farzan, a researcher at the Scripps lab, expressed doubts about the origins of the virus at the time. Fauci and others in the meeting pointed to evidence that the virus came from a seafood and wild animal market.
The investigation into the food hypothesis was complicated by the market being shut down and scrubbed clean by Chinese authorities before a full analysis could be performed.
By the end of the meeting, Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, was in agreement with the natural causation theory.
Collins shared his view that a swift convening of experts in a confidence inspiring framework is needed.
Five researchers who were on the call abandoned their private beliefs that the virus was the result of a lab leak. The March 17, 2020, article published in Nature Medicine stated that COVID is not a laboratory construct or a deliberately manipulated virus.
The concerns and questionable evidence that were debated by experts just months earlier were not just dismissed but went completely unacknowledged in the article. Private communications show that drafts were sent to Fauci and Collins for approval, but it is not clear what new evidence prompted the reversal of opinion.
The federal government continued to suppress accusations of human involvement with the COVID-19 outbreak despite the evidence against it.
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After President Trump said he would not discount the theory that the virus spread from a Chinese wet market due to unsafe hygiene practices, Collins wrote to Fauci wondering if the National Institute of Health could do something to put down the conspiracy.
I wouldn't do anything about it right now. Fauci assured Collins that the shiny object would go away in time.
Fauci assured the public at an April 17 press conference that the makeup of COVID-19 was in line with what could be expected from a natural virus.
Collins focused on natural explanations until his last days in office.
In an interview near the end of his time at the head of the NIH, Collins did not deny any possibility of human influence on the virus, but he stopped short of entertaining the idea that COVID-19 was made from the ground up.
I don't think I have any more new information that I can give you to tip the balance.
The natural cause hypothesis was the one that Collins stood by.
Facebook suppressed reporting on the lab leak theory, using false information and warnings, until May 2021.
The Chief Medical Adviser to the President, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is one of the Portrait of a Nation Honorees announced by the National Portrait Gallery.
The Portrait of a Nation Honorees who embody creativity, individuality, excellence, and service to the people of our country will be honored at the National Portrait Gallery.
Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter for Fox News.
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