Anthony Fauci’s former boss admitted to Congress that the Covid lab leak theory was credible – despite previously calling it a ‘very destructive conspiracy’.
Dr Francis Collins, former head of the National Institutes of Health, testified in a closed-door session with the House coronavirus subcommittee on Friday about his role during America’s pandemic response.
Dr Collins was involved in suppressing the theory that Covid likely escaped from a Chinese biolab, a theory which implicated the sprawling agency he headed up. It was previously revealed that the NIH oversaw grants funding risky ‘gain of function’ research to make viruses more transmissible and/or deadly.
In a significant U-turn, House Republicans who led the hearing revealed that Dr Collins, 73, told them that the lab leak hypothesis was not a conspiracy theory.
Dr Collins is pictured during a 2021 hearing before Congress. Dr Collins, as head of the National Institutes of Health, was Dr Fauci’s boss
In an email to the publisher of Nature Medicine, the journal which published the Proximal Origins paper, co-author Dr Kristian Andersen writes that Drs Collins and Fauci ‘prompted’ the paper
His answers were similar to those of Dr Fauci, who sat for a marathon 14 hours of questioning last week when he finally acknowledged that the lab leak theory – that Covid escaped from a Chinese biolab – should not have been so easily dismissed.
Republicans also said that, like Dr Fauci, Dr Collins muddied the definition of gain of function research ‘in an effort to hide the NIH’s involvement in funding the dangerous research in Wuhan.’
Dr Collins served as Fauci’s boss during his tenure as head of NIH from 2009 to 2021.
The sainted doctors are said to have pushed for the publication of an influential scientific paper that shaped the narrative that Covid originated in nature while discrediting the theory that gain of function was the cause.
The centerpiece of questioning pertained to the March 2020 ‘Proximal Origins’ paper, in which scientists said the theory that gain of function research triggered the release of a genetically modified coronavirus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was ‘improbable.’
Ohio Republican Brad Wenstrup, who heads the Covid subcommittee in the House, said: ‘Dr. Collins acknowledged that Dr Fauci invited him to attend the infamous February 1, 2020 conference call that prompted the “Proximal Origin” publication.
‘This testimony directly contradicts Dr. Fauci’s previous statements and raises further concerns about the U.S. government’s role in suppressing and vilifying the lab-leak hypothesis.’
He added that Dr Collins said the lab leak hypothesis was not a conspiracy.
Dr Collins, along with Dr Fauci, sat in on a confidential conference call four years ago, ahead of the 2020 paper’s publication, which would set the tone for the public’s perception of the pandemic’s origins for years to come.
Republicans said that both used their influence that to pressure researchers to jettison the lab leak theory in favor of a natural origin one.
Drs Fauci, Collins, and other authors of the Proximal Origins paper have denied that the top doctors strongarmed the researchers into publishing one theory over another, though bombshell emails made public last spring by Republicans showed that Dr Kristian Andersen, a co-author of the paper, wrote that ‘[This paper was] Prompted by Jeremy [Farrar], Tony Fauci and Francis Collins.’
Dr Collins was said to have blurred the definition of risky gain of function research, with Dr Fauci denied having any role in funding as head of an NIH sub-agency
Dr Collins tried to silence authors of a petition criticizing blanket lockdowns in the early days of the pandemic. Those authors instead called for selectively isolating people at the highest risk of becoming severely ill
An earlier investigation completed by House Republicans uncovered an email Dr Collins sent to Dr Fauci two months after the ‘Proximal Origins’ paper was published that said: ‘I hoped the Nature Medicine article on the genomic sequence of SA RS-CoV-2 would settle this… Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy … Anything more we can do?’
During his closed-door testimony, Dr Collins also stood firm on his previous statements denouncing the Great Barrington Declaration.
This petition criticized government efforts to shut down the economy, including schools, and favored isolating just those people at the highest risk of severe illness, such as the elderly.
Collins sent an email to Dr Fauci in October 2020 saying the ideas from ‘fringe’ epidemiologists who wrote the declaration required a ‘quick and devastating published take down.’
The widespread lockdowns that dominated most of 2020 have since been found to have inflicted harm on people’s mental health, particularly in children, who were barred from attending school in person, extracurricular activities such as sports teams, and spending much-needed time with peers.
Lockdowns also lead to coddling of our immune systems, which are typically primed to fight pathogens simply by exposure to different germs in the environment.
But without that baseline level of immunity, cases of a range of respiratory viruses, common colds, the flu, and even measles skyrocketed.
In addition to imposing lockdowns, the government endorsed ‘social distancing’ by maintaining a six-foot distance from others. But Dr Collins said, just as Dr Fauci did, that this rule was not informed by science.
Dr Collins also mimicked Dr Fauci’s murky definition of ‘gain of function’ research ‘in an effort to hide the NIH’s involvement in funding the dangerous research in Wuhan,’ according to Rep Wenstrup.
Dr Fauci was also accused of ‘playing semantics’ during his closed-door testimony last week, when he backtracked on earlier claims that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases never allocated government money to gain of function research.
He had insisted to Senators last summer that his former department ‘has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.’
Yet, emails dated February 1, 2020, showed Fauci acknowledged that ‘scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments to determine that molecular mechanisms associated with bat viruses adapting to human infection, and the outbreak originated in Wuhan.’
A transcript of Dr Collins’ testimony is expected to be made public, though it’s unclear when.
Dr Fauci’s private line of questioning before the same committee last week ‘uncovered drastic and systemic failures in America’s public health systems.’
