A House subcommittee has subpoenaed a group of academics who wrote an article meant to discredit the so-called COVID-19 “lab leak theory” at the start of the pandemic in early 2020.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), who chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, has requested private messages between Dr. Kristian Andersen and other co-authors and contributors to a February 2020 scientific paper titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2.”
According to earlier emails that the subcommittee obtained, Andersen said Dr. Anthony Fauci, who maintains that the virus most likely was not engineered in a Chinese lab, “prompted,” edited and gave final approval to the paper.
“We are following the breadcrumbs of a COVID-19 cover-up straight to the source,” Wenstrup said in a statement. “Dr. Kristian Andersen played a pivotal role in potentially suppressing the lab leak hypothesis, and Americans deserve to know why this happened, who was involved, and how we can prevent the intentional suppression of scientific discourse during a future pandemic.”
Wenstrup also said the Nature Medicine paper’s authors — which include Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes and Robert F. Garry — “may have possessed conflicts of interest for supporting a zoonotic origin of COVID-19.”
“Fully investigating the internal messages between the co-authors and contributors is a crucial step to inform future legislation and hold guilty parties accountable,” he added. “The Select Subcommittee looks forward to Dr. Andersen’s speedy and comprehensive response to today’s subpoena.”
The communications are due June 30. Andersen did not respond to a request for comment.
Andersen in a transcribed interview last week told the subcommittee that the co-authors and contributors used Slack messages to draft the paper.
On Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence also released declassified information confirming the Wuhan Institute of Virology had “biosafety concerns” about “genetic engineering” at the Chinese lab.
Scientists at the lab conducting experiments fell ill in fall 2019 with symptoms “consistent with but not diagnostic of COVID-19,” according to ODNI’s report.
Researchers Bun Hu, Ping Yu and Yan Zhu, who were conducting “gain-of-function” experiments were among the first patients to contract the virus, other reports show.
The FBI and Energy Department have also determined the coronavirus most likely escaped from a Chinese research lab.
Shi Zhengli, who led the coronavirus research team at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said in a March 2021 World Health Organization report that all researchers tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
“The law explicitly requires the Director of National Intelligence to release details on these researchers, including their names, symptoms, and involvement in coronavirus research at the WIV,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a Friday statement. “This DNI release does none of that and, in many ways, obscures more than it illuminates.”
Emails obtained by Wenstrup’s committee in March reveal Fauci sought to “disprove” the lab leak theory and that the paper was published four days after the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director and National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins held a conference call with its authors.
Weeks after publication, Fauci cited the paper at a White House press conference as evidence that the lab leak theory was implausible, and even implied he did not know the authors.
The COVID subcommittee also asked for messages from EcoHealth Alliance President and CEO Peter Daszak, whose organization sent more than $2 million in subgrants from NIH and the US Agency for International Development to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to a June Government Accountability Office report.