The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Tuesday released its interim report on efforts by US public health officials and their international partners to cover up the origins of the new coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2.
According to the subcommittee’s authors, led by Representative Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), the actions of scientific researchers, in consultation with public health officials such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Allergy Institute and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Francis Collins, the former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Sir Jeremy Farrar, the former director of the Wellcome Trust and now chief scientist of the World Health Organization, skewed the results of their medical research on the origins of the virus to discredit it considers it was probably from a laboratory leak as a “conspiracy theory”.
This was intended to cover the possibility that the virus had mutated as a result of gain-of-function research, or alternatively, a serial passage between laboratory animals, and had escaped the laboratory, even if it had passed without want, the authors of the subcommittee argued.
“The goal of Proximal Origin was not to discover the origin of COVID-19 or protect against future pandemics, but instead to disprove the lab leak theory,” the report states. “On two different occasions, Dr. [Kristian] Andersen said exactly that.”
“First, on February 8, 2020, Dr. Andersen wrote: “Our main work in recent weeks has focused on trying to disprove any kind of laboratory theory, but we are at a crossroads where the evidence scientific is not found. conclusive enough to say that we have high confidence in any of the three main theories considered,’” the report continues.
“Secondly, on February 20, 2020, Dr. Andersen, in attempting to defend the feasibility of a proximal origin, wrote: ‘Unfortunately, none of this helps disprove a laboratory origin and the possibility has to be considered as a serious scientific theory (which we do) and not otherwise dismissed as another “conspiracy” theory. We all really wish we could do that (that’s how this started), but unfortunately it’s not possible given the data,” the report notes.
The subcommittee then laid out one of the most persuasive reasons for the effort to dissuade people from believing that the origins of the virus could have come from a laboratory leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
“Dr. [Andrew] Rambaut, on February 2, 2020, communicating via a private Slack channel with Drs. Andersen, Holmes, and Garry wrote, “given the crappy demonstration that would happen if one were to seriously accuse the Chinese of even accidental release, my view is that we should say that, since there is no evidence of a specifically designed virus, we cannot possibly distinguish between natural evolution and escape, so we are content to attribute it to the natural process,” the report notes.
“In response to Dr. Rambaut’s previous message, Dr. Andersen replied: ‘Yes, I fully agree that this is a very reasonable conclusion. Although I hate it when politics is injected into science, it’s impossible not to, especially given the circumstances,” he continued.
“Dr. [Ron] Fouchier, in emails following the Feb. 1 conference call, stated, “…further debate about these allegations would needlessly distract top researchers from their active work and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular,” the report continued.
“Dr. [Francis] Collins, in emails following the Feb. 1 conference, stated, “…conspiracy voices will quickly dominate, doing great potential damage to science and international harmony,” added the report
Throughout the writing process, the authors of Proximal Origin were “very aware of the influence of Dr. Fauci, Dr. Collins, and Dr. Farrar,” the subcommittee stated.
“Within hours of receiving the draft, Dr. Fauci was clearly concerned about the possibility of serial passage of animals in a laboratory and asked the entire panel: ‘The serial passage of an animal in the laboratory would give the same result as a prolonged adaptation in animals to the wild? Or is there something that is fundamentally different about what happens when you do a serial step versus the natural adaptation of animals?’ Dr. [Robert] Garry replies, “It is possible to select for more pathogenic variants quite quickly in the laboratory.” In this way, confirming Dr. Fauci’s fear of a possible laboratory leak,” the report states.
Critically, the subcommittee shows that the infamous Near Origins paper is based on three deeply flawed assumptions.
“The conclusions of Proximal Origin are based on three main arguments: (1) the presence of a non-optimal RBD and this RBD appearing in other viral sequences, especially pangolins, (2) the presence or cleavage sites of furin in other coronaviruses, and (3) the concept that any laboratory manipulation would have used an already published viral backbone.115 Each of these arguments is flawed and based on unsupported assumptions,” the committee states.
In conclusion, the interim report describes the documentation of the debate on the origins of Covid as “anatomy of a cover-up”.
“After publication, Proximal Origin was used to downplay the lab leak hypothesis and call out those who believe it may be genuine conspiracy theorists. Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins followed up on the paper in through the review and publication process. And finally, Dr. Collins expressed dismay when Proximal Origin did not kill the lab leak theory. He later asked Dr. Fauci if there was anything else they could do. The the next day, Dr. Fauci directly quoted Proximal Origin from the White House podium,” the report notes.
“On January 31, 2020, Dr. Fauci pushed Proximal Origin, which aimed to ‘debunk’ the lab leak theory to avoid blaming China for the COVID-19 pandemic,” adds the report “Proximal Origin used fatally flawed science to achieve its goal. And finally, Dr. Collins and Dr. Fauci used Proximal Origin to try to kill the lab leak theory. This is the anatomy of a cover-up”.
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