Washington DC : The White House has reignited the debate over the origins of COVID-19, accusing former US Chief Medical Adviser Dr Anthony Fauci of pushing a "preferred narrative" that the virus originated naturally. The White House made the allegations in a report titled 'Lab Leak (The True Origins of Covid-19)', which also questioned the role of US health officials, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and EcoHealth Alliance in research linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
According to the report, the publication 'The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2', which was repeatedly used by public health officials and the media to discredit the lab-leak theory, was "prompted by Dr. Fauci to push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated naturally." The report said a lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research was "the most likely origin of COVID-19", while arguing that existing government mechanisms for overseeing such research were "incomplete, severely convoluted, and lack global applicability."
The White House cited several factors in support of its claim, including a "biological characteristic that is not found in nature" in the virus and data suggesting that all COVID-19 cases stemmed from "a single introduction into humans".
It also pointed to Wuhan being home to China's foremost SARS research laboratory and alleged that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had a history of conducting gain-of-function research at inadequate biosafety levels.
The report further claimed that Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers were sick with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market. "By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn't," the report stated.
The White House also levelled allegations against EcoHealth Alliance, saying that under the leadership of Dr Peter Daszak, the organisation used US taxpayer dollars to facilitate 'dangerous' gain-of-function research in Wuhan.
It said the US Department of Health and Human Services had commenced official debarment proceedings and suspended all funding to EcoHealth after the Select Subcommittee released evidence that the organisation had violated the terms of its NIH grant.
The report further alleged that the Department of Justice had opened an investigation into EcoHealth's pandemic-era activities. On the NIH, the report said its procedures for funding and overseeing potentially dangerous research were "deficient, unreliable, and pose a serious threat to both public health and national security."
It also accused the Biden Administration's Health and Human Services (HHS) of engaging in a "multi-year campaign of delay, confusion, and non-responsiveness" to obstruct the Select Subcommittee's investigation and hide evidence that could incriminate or embarrass senior public health officials. The report separately accused Daszak of obstructing the congressional investigation by limiting the scope and pace of document production and alleged that he provided false statements to Congress.
It also levelled allegations against Dr David Morens, a senior adviser to Fauci, claiming that he "deliberately obstructed the Select Subcommittee's investigation, likely lied to Congress on multiple occasions, unlawfully deleted federal COVID-19 records, and shared nonpublic information about NIH grant processes with EcoHealth President Dr. Peter Daszak."
The report also criticised the World Health Organization (WHO), alleging that its response to the pandemic was "an abject failure" because it "caved to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party and placed China's political interests ahead of its international duties." On pandemic restrictions, the White House questioned the scientific basis of the six-foot social-distancing recommendation, saying it was "arbitrary and not based on science."
It cited Fauci's closed-door testimony in which he said the guidance "sort of just appeared." The report also criticised mask mandates and lockdowns, arguing that public health officials "flipped-flopped" on mask efficacy and that prolonged lockdowns caused significant economic, mental and physical harm.
The White House further accused public health officials of misleading Americans through "conflicting messaging, knee-jerk reactions, and a lack of transparency." "Most egregiously, the federal government demonized alternative treatments and disfavored narratives, such as the lab leak theory, in a shameful effort to coerce and control the American people's health decisions," the report said.
"When those efforts failed, the Biden Administration resorted to 'outright censorship--coercing and colluding with the world's largest social media companies to censor all COVID-19-related dissent.'" The report comes as on Wednesday (local time) Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment during a Republican-led Senate hearing on Wednesday, declining to respond to questions regarding his oversight of the federal COVID-19 strategy after being subpoenaed to testify.
Fauci said he was acting on legal counsel and called the decision difficult. He accused Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who requested the proceedings, of pursuing a political drive aimed at securing his indictment.
"The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this Committee is to prompt me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, 'behind bars,'" Fauci said.
Paul, in response, asserted that Fauci helped finance viral research that contributed to the global pandemic and subsequently sought to conceal his role. The hearing focused heavily on US-funded research channelled through EcoHealth Alliance in partnership with a laboratory facility in Wuhan, with Republican lawmakers arguing that the research may have been connected to the emergence of COVID-19.
Fauci has denied any impropriety, maintaining that the research subsidised by the NIH did not involve the high-risk gain-of-function experiments alleged by critics. He has also maintained that while he considered various hypotheses, the most compelling evidence continued to point towards a natural origin of the pathogen.
The controversy has drawn sharp criticism from Democrats, with Senator Gary Peters calling the hearing a partisan effort focused on historical grievances rather than pressing policy matters. Fauci's legal representative, David Schertler, called the accusations "false and disgraceful" and said potential legal avenues were being evaluated.
Meanwhile, more than 150 scientific professionals signed an open letter in defence of Fauci, maintaining that "no credible evidence has been produced" to substantiate the allegations and calling on Congress to halt "witch-hunts".