Suppression of COVID Lab Leak Hypothesis Was Unscientific

Was it politics or science that covered-up and censored the discussion of COVID lab origins? A new hearing sheds light.

Virologists Robert Garry, left, and Kristian Andersen listen patiently at a Congressional hearing Tuesday as they were questioned regarding the origins of COVID. (House Oversight Committee)

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Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic was making headlines, we here at The Pulse began publishing information and evidence around the idea that COVID may have originated in a lab.

Our discussions, which employed critical thinking and a plethora of credible and scholarly sources, were shut down instantly by Big Tech. We were censored, ridiculed, demonetized and lost the ability to share news with our followers.

That experience was unfortunate. What was perhaps even more hurtful were the attacks that came from people who relied on mainstream media networks and government health organizations for their information. These people were presented with one side of the story and mimicked the ridicule seen from these organizations that were directed to those who were questioning the ‘official’ narrative.

But now things have changed. Talking about this is no longer taboo and it’s quite clear something fishy has happened.

Getting Caught Up

For those who are unfamiliar, the lab leak theory states that instead of COVID-19 originating via a naturally occurring spillover from the animal kingdom, COVID-19 may have been the result of a leak during laboratory experiments—either deliberately as an act of bioterrorism or accidentally because of bad laboratory safety practice.

The lab leak theory is once again trending. On July 11, 2023, The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic held a hearing titled “Investigating the Proximal Origin of a Cover Up.” This was a GOP driven hearing, but to be clear, the facts are non-political.

The purpose of the hearing was to examine conflicts of interest and suppression of scientific discourse by the National Institutes of Health surrounding the publication of the infamous “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” (Proximal Origin) correspondence.

This was the paper that appeared in Nature Medicine (March 17, 2020). It served as the foundation and backbone of scientific opinion that seemed to be instantaneously erected to stave off and contain the “conspiracy theory” that the virus was a product of human intention. The authors are well-respected and published scientists.

Select Subcommittee members asked Dr. Kristian Andersen and Dr. Robert Garry — co-authors of Proximal Origin — about their effort to slant scientific evidence to fulfill and push one single narrative to support a natural COVID-19 origin. Both of the Drs. testified to the political motivations for suppressing the lab leak hypothesis. They also detailed the lack of science available to support their declared conclusions.

It was quite clear to many experts in the field that the conclusions in this paper were full of inaccurate assumptions and have never been proven or verified.

It’s noteworthy to mention that former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci and Former NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins were directly involved in the drafting, publication, and public promotion of Proximal Origin — a paper written to suppress the COVID-19 lab-leak hypothesis.

Even shortly after the papers’ publication, the GOP Oversight Committee released emails showing Dr. Anthony Fauci may have concealed lab leak info. They showed that Fauci knew at the beginning of 2020 that a genetically manipulated virus may have leaked, intentionally or unintentionally, from the lab in Wuhan.

This new testimony also adds to the plethora of evidence that already exists exposing a coordinated effort between public health officials in the United States government and ‘expert scientists’ to craft a narrative that would advance the natural origin of COVID-19 perspective.

You may be surprised to know that leaks during the pandemic detailed how the authors of the paper in question initially believed that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab. Yet, within three days of speaking to Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins on a conference call, they abandoned this belief.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) questioned the authors about this.

Rep. Malliotakis: “Dr. Anderson, do you believe that the former CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield is a conspiracy theorist?”

Dr. Anderson: “I think to the question of whether the former director is a conspiracy theorist is not really something I’ve thought about.”

Rep. Malliotakis: “Well, I don’t know, you just accused everyone who belives there was a lab leak to be a conspiracy theorist. And back in March Dr. Redfield, the former director of the CDC, came before this committee and said that it was not scientifically plausible that the virus went from a bat to humans and subsequently became one of the most infectious viruses in history.

When asked why he was excluded from the February conference call that both of you, as well as 10 other scientists had with Dr Fauci, Dr. Redfield told us that Dr. Fauci wanted a single narrative surrounding the origins of COVID. But both you, Anderson, and Garry also expressed concernes about the genetic makeup of the virus just days before the initial draft of this paper came out.

So were you both conspiracy theorists at that time? On January 29, 2020, Dr. Fauci emailed you after you had expressed concerns to him on a phone call that you believed COVID would have been engineered. He told you that if this was true you had to contact the FBI. You did not do that correct?

Dr. Anderson: “I believe the email says that he will contact the FBI.”

Rep. Malliotakis: “Then you reaffirmed those engineering concerns in an email to Dr. Fauci, which you say the unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome. And that after discussions earlier today, Eddie, Bob, Mike, and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory. Again, were you a conspiracy theorist at that time and did you share these same concerns on the February 1st conference call?

Because Dr. Garry went so far as to say, ‘I really can’t think of a plausible natural scenario when you get from the bat virus or one very similar to it where you insert 4 amino acids, 12 neucliotides and all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function. I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature.

So then within a matter of days, something changed. And that’s what this committee is trying to get to the bottom of. What happened within that three day period between the conference call and the paper, that all of a sudden you did a 180.”

Dr. Garry: “Well, we eamind the genomes more closely, we looked at other coronaviruses and um, there was new data that came.”

Rep. Malliotakis: “Where did that data come from?”

Dr. Garry: “Umm, the scientific literature. The publication of the penguin genomic sequence, showed that there was a receptor binary domain that was very close [...] It was a very important piece of data because it showed that alot of the theories about the virus having been engineered or put together in a laboratory were not true because here was a virus in nature that had a receptor binding domain with exactly the same structure.

Rep. Malliotakis: I find it interesting […] something else that happened between those 2 days is one of your colleagues who is not here today but was invited Dr. Rambutt, he said ‘Given the shit show that would happen if anyone serious accused Chinese of even accidental release, my feeling is that given there is no evidence of a specifically engineered virus, we cannot possibly distinguish between natural evolution and escape so we are content with ascribing it to natural process.’ His concern was would he piss of China!

The big thing to ask here is obviously: What honestly and truly happened with these scientists where they suddenly flipped so quickly? They didn’t just flip-flop, but chose to hold with certainty that this could not have come from a lab, and proceeded to call those who didn’t agree with this a conspiracy theorist.

As mentioned, there was a lot of communication with Dr. Fauci that could have easily been a big part of how this could have been covered up. That’s all we can truly know, and to take Fauci's, Garry’s or Anderson’s word as truth at this point simply isn’t possible.

Another notable moment during the hearing came from Rep. Ron Jackson to summarize this point.

Rep. Jackson: “You completely changed your hypothesis. You collaborated with your coauthors and you wrote the Proximal Origins paper all in that period of time….I just want you to know that sounds completely ridiculous to the American people. And it’s completely in step with what a lot of people think is going on here, is that Dr. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins realized that they had been implicated in the production or in the creation of this virus. And they were doing everything they could, including getting both of you to come on board as tools or vehicles to undermine that theory.”

The official explanation right now remains, unknown, and it seems no matter what evidence comes forward, it will stay that way.

On 23 June 2023, for example, the director of national intelligence in the US published findings from intelligence services about the links between COVID-19 and a laboratory in the city of Wuhan. Many had hoped that the report would provide evidence that might sway, or even settle, the debate about the laboratory leak theory. But the report found no evidence to prove definitively that a laboratory leak did or did not occur. “Both a natural and laboratory-associated origin remains plausible,” the report states.

Many US federal departments have conducted their own separate investigations and have come to unclear and conflicting conclusions. The Energy Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation both lean towards a laboratory leak as being most reasonable—FBI director Christopher Wray made headlines in March by saying he personally thinks a laboratory origin is more likely. Five other US intelligence agencies, however, concluded that natural transmission is more likely.

What I hope is clear is that as citizens we have no reason to believe that anything government or government agencies say is true. Their lies are in the tens of thousands, and to believe even their ‘investigations’ seems misplaced.

So what do we do?

A World of Corruption

We live in a world where scientific integrity is abandoned in favour of advancing false narratives for political (and other) gain. Perhaps why some people still refer to these facts as a “conspiracy” is because it’s depressing to hold it as true. Or maybe it’s such a shock to their worldview that they don’t want to consider how it would have to change the way they think.

This to me is like watching a child drown when you have the ability to rescue them. For us to change aspects of our human experience that don’t resonate with us, we must at the very least acknowledge that they are actually happening.

The point of this article is to shed light on the drastic efforts that were, are and have been taken to suppress the idea that COVID-19 may be an act of bioterrorism. To me, this seems a very obvious hypothesis with a plethora of evidence to support its consideration.

That being said, it’s something that will likely never be “officially” acknowledged, just like other events that have occurred in recent history.