'Preponderance of evidence': Paul presses lab leak theory in hearing on Covid origins


Read full article// Lexington Herald-LeaderLexington Herald-Leader

David Catanese Tue, June 18, 2024, 9:42 AM PDT·2 min read

Sen. Rand Paul accelerated his case Tuesday that thecoronavirus pandemic likely originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, China, castigating government scientists for continually concealing information favorable to that conclusion more than four years after the outbreak.

"Do we know for certain it came from the lab? No," Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said during a Senate Homeland Security hearing on Capitol Hill. "But there's a preponderance of evidence indicating that it may have come from the lab."

Paul billed Tuesday's event as the first bipartisan full committee hearing focused on one of the most crucial unanswered questions facing the globe: What caused the COVID-19 pandemic that took the lives of over 1.1 million Americans and 11,500 Kentuckians?

The panel heard from four scientists, two who are sympathetic to the lab leak theory and two who believe that animal-to-human transmission most likely sparked the outbreak.

There's still no government consensus on which theory is true.

While the FBI and Energy Department have each sided with the lab leak premise, the National Intelligence Council thinks infected animals in a market are the most likely original source of the disease.

During his time questioning, Paul outlined how scientific publications originally cast sweeping doubts on the lab leak theory while privately expressing doubts about their level of confidence.

"We know that it went back and forth with Dr. [Anthony] Fauci and with editors who say, 'We want the statements to be stronger. We want the conclusions to be stronger,'" Paul said. "That's when we should've known we were off track. That these people were politicians and that they were pushing an idea because ... This is about the business of science with China. This will disturb our relations with China if anybody questions this."

Paul went on to contend that the idea COVID came from a fish market has been discredited by "virtually all scientists."

"I'm really surprised it's still being presented here," Paul argued.

While the lab in Wuhan contained bat samples which have been used in coronavirus research, there's no previous example of a major virus escaping from a lab.

Dr. Steven Quay, a former Stanford University School of Medicine professor, noted that of the 457 animals tested in the market, zero were found to be infected.

With SARS-1, the respiratory illness that took flight between 2002-2004, of the 92 animals tested, 100% were infected with that virus, according to Quay.

Fauci, the chief medical adviser to former President Donald Trump when the coronavirus began, said this week, "We don't know what the origin of this virus is. I keep a completely open mind."

In a contentious House hearing earlier this month, Fauci denied suppressing the lab leak theory but reiterated that he believes the most likely origin of the pandemic was animal-to-human transmission.

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Rand Paul grills doctor on COVID-19 origins during Senate hearing: 'Pushing an idea'

Anders Hagstrom Tue, June 18, 2024, 10:22 AM PDT·2 min read

Sen. Rand Paul , R-Ky., grilled a medical expert who opposes the lab leak theory for COVID-19's origins during a hearing on Tuesday.

Paul questioned Dr. Robert Garry, a professor at the Tulane School of Medicine, during his appearance before the Senate Homeland Security Committee. The senator criticized Garry for a lack of "open-mindedness" when it comes to the origins of COVID-19.

"So, just in the last few minutes, Doctor Garry has told us that this couldn't have come from bats. It had to go through an intermediate host. That may well be true, but arguing against that is they tested 90,000 some-odd animals and there is no animal host that's been found," Paul said.

"But what he also doesn't tell you is the animal host could be a laboratory animal. It could be passed serially through that. And that's one way of quickly adapting and pushing natural selection to adapt a virus toward humans," he continued.

*_HIGH-RANKING FAUCI ADVISER USED PERSONAL EMAIL TO AVOID FOIA REQUESTS, DISCUSS COVID ORIGIN_*

Rand Paul

Sen. Rand Paul grilled a medical expert who opposes the lab leak theory for COVID-19 during a congressional hearing on Tuesday.

"Doctor Alina Chan has written extensively about this, how this virus didn't show up clunky and poorly transmissible, this virus showed up immediately, very transmissible in humans, as if it had been pre-adapted in a lab," he added.

*_READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP_*

*_FAUCI ADVISER'S ALLEGED DESTRUCTION OF COVID ORIGIN DOCS MUST BE PROBED BY AG: RAND PAUL_*

Paul went on to target Dr. Anthony Fauci and others.

"I know of no other example in modern scientific history or publications where a publication has come forward pronouncing with such authority that the lab leak is implausible and is not a laboratory construct, while privately saying this is no friggin' conspiracy theory, it looks like it did," Paul said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci on CBS

Paul once again went after Dr. Fauci during Tuesday's Senate hearing on the origins of COVID-19.

"We know that it went back and forth with Dr. Fauci, with editors who say we want the statements to be stronger, we want the conclusions to be stronger...because we're making a political point here. That's where we should have known we were off track, that these people were politicians and that they were pushing an idea because, as Doctor Collins finally admitted in one of the emails, this is about the business of science with China," he finished.

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Garry countered that there was evidence that COVID-19 had spilled over into the public at least twice at the Wuhan food market , where it is alleged to have originated.

/Original article source:/ Rand Paul grills doctor on COVID-19 origins during Senate hearing: 'Pushing an idea'

Up next Read full article// The HillThe Hill

Senate hearing explores COVID-19 origins: Takeaways

Joseph Choi Tue, June 18, 2024, 1:50 PM PDT·5 min read

A Senate hearing Tuesday on the origins of the COVID-19 virus explored the foremost theories, with lawmakers and witnesses exchanging arguments over which one they believed.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs heard from four scientific experts on what the current information suggests about the beginnings of SARS-CoV-2.

The natural origins theory, the lab leak theory and the data supporting them were all heavily discussed, with the witnesses at times arguing among themselves while testifying.

The expert witnesses invited by Democrats were Gregory D. Koblentz, associate professor and director of the biodefense graduate program at George Mason University, and Robert F. Garry, professor and associate dean of the Tulane University School of Medicine as well as an author of an early COVID-19 origins theory opinion piece that sparked widespread debate.

The GOP expert witnesses were Steven C. Quay, CEO of Atossa Therapeutics and a former faculty member at Stanford University School of Medicine, and Richard H. Ebright, board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University.

Here are few a takeaways from the hearing:

Lab leak not ruled out

Straight off the bat, committee Chair Gary Peters (D-Mich.) set the tone of the hearing by giving credence to both the natural origins and lab leak theories .

"There are theories that indicate that COVID-19 began either by entering the human population through an entirely natural means or possibly through a lab incident or accident," Peters said in his opening remarks.

"Given the likelihood that the Chinese government may never fully disclose all the information they have about the initial COVID-19 outbreak, we want to use the scientific information available to better prepare for future potential pandemics."

Committee ranking member Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) expressed a general openness to either theory, though he indicated his inclination leaned toward the lab leak origins theory.

"Do we know for certain it came from the lab? No, but there's a preponderance of evidence indicating that it may have come from the lab. Do we know viruses have come from animals in the past? Yes, they've come from animals in the past, but this time, there's no animal reservoir," Paul said.

Panel mixed on origin beliefs

The witnesses were evenly divided when it came to which theory they favored.

Neither Koblentz nor Garry completely ruled out that the COVID-19 virus could have originated from a laboratory incident, but they said they believed evidence supported the natural origin theory.

"I believe available evidence points most strongly to a natural zoonotic spillover event as the origin of the pandemic. However, a research-related accident can't be ruled out at this time," Koblentz told the committee.

"I do not believe that the available scientific evidence when considered holistically supports that the virus was created in a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology," Garry said.

"However, I am first and foremost a scientist, and I will adhere to the scientific method. So, I will continue to evaluate new evidence and reassess the validity of my scientific hypotheses regarding the origins of SARS-CoV-2."

Quay argued that SARS-CoV-2 has several features that are only found in synthetic viruses and don't occur in natural viruses. "The probability that SARS-CoV-2 came from nature based on these features is one in a billion."

Ebright said that the virus could only have originated from a lab, given the research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). He argued it was too coincidental that viruses proposed for research at the Wuhan institute shared certain characteristics with COVID-19.

"A virus having the exact features proposed in the 2018 NIH and DARPA proposals emerged on the doorstep of Wuhan Institute of Virology," Ebright said. "SARS-CoV-2 is the only one of more than 800 known SARS viruses that possesses a furin cleavage site. Mathematically, this observation alone implies that the probability of finding a natural SARS virus possessing a furin cleavage site is less than one in 800."

COVID origins paper author takes a lashing

Garry, who co-authored the paper "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" in 2020, faced a disproportionate degree of ire from Republican committee members. The piece did not rule out a lab leak theory, but the authors did conclude that a "laboratory-based scenario" was not believed to be plausible.

Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci cited the publication when speaking in support of a natural origins theory. Subsequent reporting revealed that Fauci, along with other federal health officials, were in communication with the authors shortly before the piece was published.

This has led GOP lawmakers to accuse Fauci and the authors of the analysis of colluding to suppress the lab leak theory.

"It's absolutely disgraceful, Dr. Garry. You are part of this propaganda effort. I mean, you are right at the center of it. It's astounding," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said.

"I was simply just writing a paper about our scientific opinions about where this virus came from," Garry responded.

Paul directly asked one of the GOP witnesses, Ebright, what he thought of the "Proximal origin" paper.

Ebright emphasized that it was not a research article but an opinion piece.

"The authors were stating their opinion, but that opinion was not well-founded. In 2020, there was no basis to state that as a conclusion, as opposed to simply being a hypothesis," Ebright argued. "You'd never, under any circumstances, in a scientific journal, state conclusions that you note to be unsound that represents scientific misconduct."

Garry has spoken to Congress on numerous occasions since the paper's publication, speaking with the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in a closed-door interview last June and testifying publicly on his paper the following month.

He has maintained that his paper was not influenced by Fauci or other federal health officials to explicitly favor a natural origins theory.

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