Fauci Accused Of 'Disproving' Coronavirus Lab Leak Theory - Memo

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th March, 2023) Republican lawmakers have accused former US chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci of requesting a publication that was meant to disprove the theory that the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from a laboratory in China, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Majority Staff said in a new memo.

"New evidence released by the Select Subcommittee today suggests that Dr. Fauci 'prompted' the drafting of a publication that would 'disprove' the lab leak theory, the authors of this paper skewed available evidence to achieve that goal," the memo says, as quoted by Fox news on Sunday.

According to the memo, Fauci was warned during a February 2020 phone call with several scientists about the possibility that COVID-19 may have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Nonetheless, soon after the conference call, "Fauci 'prompted' Dr. Kristian Andersen, Professor, Scripps Research (Scripps), to write (an article titled 'The) Proximal Origin (of SARS-CoV-2') and that the goal was to 'disprove' any lab leak theory," the memo says.

In February, Republican lawmakers re-requested information from the Biden administration on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the select subcommittee investigation. They also renewed a request for a classified briefing on the matter from the US intelligence community.

Earlier this month, the US Senate passed a bill requiring that the Biden administration declassify intelligence about any alleged potential links between China's Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.