Scientists who were silenced for questioning or repudiating the government’s narrative regarding the origin or response to the COVID-19 pandemic are speaking out on Capitol Hill — and their reports are damning for the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institute of Health (NIH).
NIH, CDC, and FDA leaders, previously shielded by the White House and Democrat-controlled House committees, are now being scrutinized by investigative committees established by new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The priority targets seem to be NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins and lead White House COVID policy chief Dr. Anthony Fauci.
In scathing testimony before a House subcommittee on Wednesday, former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield reported that Fauci “sidelined” him in early 2020 after he questioned Fauci’s contention the COVID virus was naturally occurring.
Speaking to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Redfield said: “This was an a priori decision that there’s one point of view that we’re going to put out there, and anyone who doesn’t agree with it is going to be sidelined. And as I say, I [as] CDC director … was sidelined.”
Redfield, 71, testified that his reluctance to support the natural emergency theory promoted by Fauci “likely prompted his exclusion from high-level discussions of the outbreak,” according to a report in the New York Post.
“I think I made it very clear in January [2020] to all of them why we had to aggressively pursue this,” Redfield said. “And I let them know as a virologist that I didn’t see that this was anything like SARS or MERS. … And they knew that was how I was thinking.”
Redfield added that he became angry when, several years later, he learned that Fauci, Collins, and other high-ranking health officials engaged in secret meetings that excluded those who opposed their conclusions.
“I didn’t know there was a Feb. 1 [2020] conference call until the Freedom of Information came out with the emails,” said Redfield. “I was quite upset [that I] as the CDC director … was excluded from those discussions.”
“Why would they do this?” Rep. James Comer asked.
Redfield replied: “Because I had a different point of view. And I was told that they had made a decision that they would keep this confidential until they came up with a single narrative — which I will argue is antithetical to science.”
The former CDC Director added, “Science never selects a single narrative. We foster — as my colleagues just said — we foster debate. And we’re confident that with debate, science will eventually get to the truth.”
Redfield also testified Fauci excluded him from a Jan. 31, 2020, email chain involving Fauci, Dr. Kristian Andersen, and Dr. Robert Garry. Both health experts questioned the COVID natural occurrence theory but silenced their opposition under pressure from Fauci.
Subcommittee member Rep. Jim Jordan said: “Three years ago, if you thought it came from a lab, you got called a nutjob, you got censored on Twitter, you got blacklisted on Twitter. You were even called a crackpot by the very same scientists who in late January [2020] sent emails to Dr. Fauci and said it came from a lab. They called you crackpot. Is that right, Dr. Redfield?”
Redfield agreed with Jordan’s statement, adding: “I think the most upsetting thing to me was the Baltimore Sun calling me a racist because I said this came from a Wuhan lab.”
In another severe blow to Fauci’s reputation and previous statements, newly released emails appear to show that Fauci attempted to support his contention that the virus was naturally occurring by commissioning a paper designed to disprove the “lab leak theory.”
In briefings from the White House, Fauci repeatedly referred to the paper as evidence the scientific community did not support the “lab leak theory.”
Nicholas Wade, a former New York Times science editor and current editor for the Nature and Science journal, shared his theory regarding why Fauci would commission a paper to support a particular narrative.
Wade testified, “Fauci was probably not too pleased to hear that the virus might have escaped from research that his agency had funded.”
Wade noted that Fauci facilitated funding from the National Institutes of Health and Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases budgets for experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Funding was allegedly routed to China from the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance.
Alleging that Fauci and Collins colluded to misdirect the public, Wade testified: “It’s hard to believe that in the twilight of their long careers, they would seriously mishandle an issue as important as the origin of the COVID virus, yet that is what the evidence seems to point to.”
Wade also faulted legacy media outlets for not questioning the narrative, even when scientists worldwide expressed opposing views, sometimes at great risk to their professional careers.
“The national media swallowed the natural origins story unskeptically,” said Wade, “and once committed to it, failed to report important contrary evidence.”
Wade also testified that many scientists who met with Fauci and Collins quickly changed their opinion regarding the “lab leak theory” to align with the CDC and NIH narrative.
Wade noted how Dr. Anderson initially strongly endorsed the “lab leak theory,” but “within four days [of meeting with Fauci and Collins], “derided the lab leak as a crackpot theory” in a Feb. 4 email.
“What made him change his mind?” Wade asked. “No new scientific evidence came to light.”
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