Now flip-flopping Fauci wants answers from China: Embattled doctor urges Beijing to RELEASE records of three Wuhan lab workers and six miners who got sick from a bat cave BEFORE the pandemic
Dr. Anthony Fauci has now demanded China release the medical records of six mine workers who got sick with COVID-like symptoms when they visited a bat cave in 2012, as well as three Wuhan lab researchers who fell ill just as the pandemic began.
President Biden's embattled chief medical advisor, who is facing growing calls to resign from Republicans after the release of his emails, upped his calls for Beijing to hand over evidence that could provide clues to the origins of the virus that has killed 3.6million people worldwide.
Fauci's call for the Chinese medical records comes as evidence mounts supporting the theory that COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the three lab workers fell ill in November 2019, despite his longstanding insistence that 'natural spillover' from animals was the most likely scenario.
In an interview with The Financial Times on Thursday night, Fauci said the records could answer critical questions over the contested origins COVID in Wuhan.
'I would like to see the medical records of the three people who are reported to have got sick in 2019,' Fauci said. 'Did they really get sick, and if so, what did they get sick with?
'The same with the miners who got ill years ago... What do the medical records of those people say?' he asked.
'It is entirely conceivable that the origins of Sars-Cov-2 was in that cave and either started spreading naturally or went through the lab.'
He made the latest statements as he deals with the fallout of the release of his emails that show he communicated with Dr. Peter Daszak, the head of a non-profit that funneled U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Dr Fauci has urged the Chinese government to release the medical records of six miners who fell ill in 2012 and three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick in 2019 after visiting a bat cave in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan. An image of researchers at a similar mine in Guangdong is pictured above
British-born Peter Daszak, 55, is the president of EcoHealth Alliance, the nonprofit that funneled US grant money to gain-of-function research at WIV and elsewhere. He is seen above participating in the World Health Organization's COVID-origins investigation in Wuhan
Early in the pandemic, Daszak thanked Fauci for publicly downplaying the lab leak theory when he said COVID likely came from a natural spillover rather than the lab.
'I just wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,' Daszak wrote to Fauci.
Daszak leads the EcoHealth Alliance non-profit, which takes in some $15 million in federal grants per year and passes the funds along to coronavirus researchers in Wuhan and elsewhere.
Fauci has insisted the emails were taken out of context, and has defended the Chinese scientists.
He also said he was never anti-Trump, but admitted who could never fully guarantee what was going on in the Wuhan lab after the National Institutes of Helath (NIH) gave them a US taxpayer-funded grant.
Shi Zhengli, the so-called 'bat woman' and a coronavirus expert at the lab, insists there were no infections at the lab and claims to have ruled out the possibility of a lab leak.
Fauci has not contested her claims, but has now called for further investigation.
Fauci has previously said he believes Covid-19 was a natural occurrence, though he has admitted to not being '100 percent' certain.
Fauci said the records could answer critical questions over the contested origins of Covid-19 in Wuhan, where a pandemic that has killed over 3.6 million people worldwide began. Shi Zhengli (left), the so-called 'bat woman' and a coronavirus expert at the lab, insists there were no infections at the lab
On Thursday, former Trump Secretary of State Mike Popeo hit out at Fauci for parroting the same 'crazy talk' excuses and theories as China about the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak and says the National Institute of Health tried to thwart the State Department's investigation.
Pompeo addressed the fight to uncover the origins of COVID-19 following a bombshell Vanity Fair report that revealed some State Department officials had advised against investigating the possibility virus leaked from a Wuhan lab.
In an interview with Fox News' The Ingraham Angle on Thursday night, Pompeo said it was no surprise that some within the State Department tried to suppress the probe because they didn't like President Trump or himself.
He added that he had to deal with a lot of internal bureaucracy and debate from the NIH.
Pompeo also criticized Fauci, who runs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under the NIH, for suggesting that China has an interest in the US discovering how the outbreak started.
'To hear Fauci... talk about how the Chinese have an interest in us discovering what happened is just crazy talk. The Chinese have a deep interest in covering it up. They have done so pretty darn effectively,' he said.
Former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday addressed the fight to uncover the origins of COVID-19 following new report that exposed the tug-of-war
China wholly rejects the lab leak theory, and has instead accused the US of peddling conspiracies and politicizing the pandemic to divert attention from the high death rates there. Evidence to support the hypothesis is also scant.
The natural origin theory holds that the virus emerged in bats then passed to humans, likely via an intermediary species.
That theory was backed by a tightly-controlled team of World Health Organization investigators, whose number included Daszak, the only US-based member of the team that visited Wuhan in February.
Beijing's foreign ministry Friday cited the findings of that visit in dismissing Fauci's comments -- and cited unsubstantiated claims that the virus first appeared at a US biological research center at Fort Detrick.
It pointed to a Wuhan Institute of Virology statement from March when asked if Beijing would share the medical records.
'We hope that people who do not hold conspiracy theories, who do respect the facts and who do respect the truth can get factual answers from this statement,' Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a briefing.
A widely accepted theory at the start of the pandemic, scientists have yet to find a virus in either bats or another animal that matches the genetic signature of SARS-CoV-2.
Biden last week ordered US intelligence agencies to report to him in the next three months on whether the Covid-19 virus first emerged in China from an animal source or from a laboratory accident.
No comments