Dr. Anthony Fauci falsely claimed that a February 2020 letter on COVID-19’s origins did not dismiss the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis despite the letter signed by dozens of scientists clearly condemning the idea that it emerged from a Chinese government lab as a conspiracy theory.
Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was asked during an appearance on BBC One’s Sunday Morning about the scientists who signed the February 2020 letter in the Lancet condemning theories suggesting COVID-19 didn’t have a natural origin and whether the scientific community was too quick to dismiss the lab leak possibility.
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“I don’t think they were dismissing it. I think it’s been misinterpreted. Everyone has always kept an open mind,” Fauci said. “But the circumstances of how this evolved, the epidemiology as well as the similarity with what we know was a jumping of species from an animal to the human, had many scientists, including myself, say again — and I have to repeat because I see the direction you’re going — no one ever said they were absolutely certain. … I told you what I thought the most likely origin is. And many highly qualified scientists agreed with that.”
Fauci’s claim that no one dismissed the lab leak hypothesis is demonstrably false.
The February 2020 letter praised China’s response: “The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin … Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear.”
Peter Daszak, a longtime collaborator with the Wuhan Institute of Virology who steered hundreds of thousands of dollars in National Institutes of Health funding to the Chinese lab, helped organize the letter despite clear conflicts of interest. Daszak was also a key World Health Organization-China joint study team member in early 2021.
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A follow-up July 2021 Lancet letter, signed by 24 of the 27 scientists who signed the first one, included a citation to an article titled “The lab leak theory doesn’t hold up. The rush to find a conspiracy around the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins is driven by narrative, not evidence.”
Daszak, who leads the EcoHealth Alliance, dismissed the lab leak hypothesis in March 2021 when he admitted he took Wuhan lab workers at their word. Meeting minutes from discussions between lab scientists in Wuhan, China, and the WHO-China COVID-19 origins joint study team reveal lab leak concerns were referred to as “myths” and “conspiracy theories.”
In July 2021, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admitted there was a “premature push” to dismiss the lab escape possibility, but China has repeatedly shot down another investigation.
“I was never certain so early on,” Fauci said Sunday. “I have always kept an open mind.”
Scientists consulting with the U.S. government early in the pandemic believed COVID-19 originating from a lab in Wuhan was possible or even likely, but Fauci and then-NIH Director Francis Collins worked to shut the hypothesis down.
Emails include notes from a Feb. 1, 2020, conference call in which at least 11 scientists theorized about the virus’s origin, with many leaning toward the lab leak theory.
Dr. Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust, sent an email to Collins and Fauci on Feb. 2, 2020, indicating that multiple scientists believed the lab leak hypothesis was viable.
But in another email from the same day, Ron Fouchier, the deputy head of the Erasmus MC Department of Viroscience, warned that lab leak discussions could “do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.”
Collins sent an email that day, saying he was “coming around to the view that a natural origin is more likely” and alluding to the lab leak as a “conspiracy theory.”
An email from Collins to Fauci dated April 16, 2020, showed him trying to push back against reporting from Fox News saying multiple sources believed SARS-CoV-2 came from the lab.
“Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy, with what seems to be growing momentum,” Collins wrote.
Fauci dismissed it as “a shiny object that will go away in time.”
But when asked about the possibility of a lab leak during a White House press conference that day, Fauci argued in favor of a natural origin.
On Sunday, when asked if the world would ever learn about the origins of COVID-19, Fauci said he wasn’t sure given “such restrictions on ability to really investigate it,” although he said the data leaned toward it being a natural occurrence.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an assessment last summer stating that one U.S. intelligence agency assessed with “moderate confidence” that COVID-19 most likely emerged from a lab in Wuhan, while four U.S. spy agencies and the National Intelligence Council believed with “low confidence” that COVID-19 most likely had a natural origin.
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Fauci was also asked why China prevented investigators from seeing key details and speaking to key people when investigating the origins in Wuhan, and he offered up something of a defense of China.
“I don’t want to create any or mention any disparaging remarks about that, but the Chinese are very closed, in a way of being very reluctant, particularly when you have a disease that evolves in their country,” Fauci said. “They become extremely secretive — even though there’s no reason to be secretive. I think they were very concerned and maybe embarrassed that the virus evolved from their country. But there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Fauci continued: “So when they see something evolving in their own country, they tend to have a natural reflex of not necessarily covering things up, but not being very open and transparent.”
