Chris Lange, FISM News
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Former CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield told lawmakers Wednesday that he believed that he was deliberately excluded from early discussions about the origins of COVID-19 because he didn’t follow the “single narrative” being pushed by the White House.
His now corroborated belief that the global pandemic resulted from a leak at a lab in China was at the time deemed to be a “conspiracy theory” and countered the mainstream media’s assertion that it was caused by animal-to-human transmission of the virus.
Redfield said that he only learned about a Feb. 1, 2020, phone call between Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIH director Dr. Francis Collins, Wellcome Trust director Jeremy Farrar, and other scientists after emails concerning the call were released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request.
“I was quite upset as the CDC director that I was excluded in those discussions. Why would they do this? Because I had a different point of view and I was told they made a decision that they would keep this confidential,” Redfield testified.
He went on to explain the basis for his belief that the virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China in the course of U.S. taxpayer funded gain-of-function research into the coronavirus by
I felt it was not scientifically plausible that this virus went from a bat to humans and became one of the most infectious viruses we have in humans. All viruses are not the same. So when you look at coronaviruses, SARS and MERS for example, when they entered the human species which they did via an intermediate, they never learned how to go [from] human to human. Even to this day they don’t know how to go [from] human to human.”
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) asked Redfield: “Has gain-of-function stopped a pandemic in your opinion?” The doctor replied: “No, on the contrary, I think it probably caused the greatest pandemic our world has seen.”
.@RepBradWenstrup: “Has gain-of-function stopped a pandemic in your opinion?”
Dr. Robert Redfield: “No, in the contrary, I think it probably caused the greatest pandemic our world has seen.” pic.twitter.com/EBixJt0qCO
— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) March 8, 2023
Redfield avoided a question as to whether he believes that Dr. Fauci lied under oath when he vehemently denied that he had any knowledge of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding of gain of function research, saying “I think there is no doubt that NIH was funding gain of function research.”
He also stated that he believes taxpayers essentially funded the creation of the virus through the (NIH), the State Department, The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Department of Defense (DOD).
Redfield, however, stressed that he believes Dr. Fauci and other scientists who supported gain-of-function research were acting in “good faith because they truly believe it’s gonna lead to a potential benefit. ”
According to the NIH, gain of function (GOF) research involves creating more dangerous strains of a virus or disease for the purpose of obtaining a scientific benefit.
The Senate in May 2021 unanimously approved legislation to ban U.S. funding of gain of function research in China. Five months later, NIH admitted to funding GOF research in Wuhan, contradicting Fauci’s assertions to the contrary.
‘NINE MILLION REASONS WHY THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS’
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) focused on Dr. Fauci’s role in pushing the natural origin theory and discrediting – potentially even bribing – scientists who disagreed with him:
If it may have been a lab, may have been nature, and we’re supposed to look for it, then why did Dr. Fauci work so hard for just one of those theories? Why was it so important to push one over the other? Three years ago, if you thought it came from a lab, if you raised that, you were called a nutjob, you got censored on Twitter, you were blacklisted on Twitter, you were even called a crackpot by the very scientist who in late January sent emails to Dr. Fauci that said it came from a lab.
Redfield replied that “the most upsetting thing to me was the Baltimore Sun calling me a racist because I said it came from a Wuhan lab.”
Jordan pointed out during the hearing that in early 2020, Fauci received an email from a physician colleague, Dr. Robert Garry, stating that the virus appeared to be “engineered” and incompatible with “evolutionary theory.” Another researcher, Dr. Kristian Andersen, reportedly wrote: “I don’t know how this happens in nature, but it would be easy to do in a lab.”
The Ohio Congressman went on to note that days later, following a phone conference with Fauci, both doctors abruptly reversed their positions in an article titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” published in April 2020 by the scientific journal Nature Medicine that promoted Fauci’s natural origin theory. Jordan noted that following the article’s publication, Andersen’s lab received an $8.9 million grant from Fauci’s agency.
“There’s nine million reasons why they changed their minds,” Jordan said.
He continued, “So, three days after they say it came from a lab, they change their position, and the only intervening event is a conference call with Dr. Fauci and Dr. [Francis] Collins, a call that Redfield was not allowed to be on — the head of the CDC and on the coronavirus task force. And then three months later — shazam! They get $9 million bucks from Dr. Fauci. Now isn’t that something?”
Wednesday’s previously scheduled hearing came after the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Department of Energy had concluded, “with low probability,” that the COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a lab leak, an opinion shared by the FBI.
This article was partially informed by Washington Examiner and a Daily Caller reports.