The erstwhile health official agreed with the so-called "lab leak theory" during a closed-door interview with the House COVID-19 Select Subcommittee on Jan. 12. Based on the interview summary the committee released, Collins remarked that the idea that SARS-CoV-2 spilled from a laboratory to the outside world "is not a conspiracy theory."
Proponents of the lab leak theory argue that COVID-19 leaked from a facility owned by the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the city of Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province. This contrasts with earlier reports that the pathogen first emerged at the Huanan Seafood Market in the city.
The 73-year-old Collins, who is currently the science advisor to President Joe Biden, led the NIH as its director from 2009 to 2021. He served as the boss of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the NIH. Fauci helped craft America's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Epoch Times. (Related: Former NIH Director Francis Collins says it's "really unfortunate" that government authorities ignored devastating societal impacts of COVID tyranny.)
The 83-year-old Fauci, who left the Biden administration at the end of 2022, also told subcommittee members that the lab leak hypothesis is not a conspiracy theory. Both Fauci and Collins were invited by the panel for its investigation on how the U.S. government responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The recent remarks by the two former health officials followed a growing list of entities validating the lab leak theory. "A number of experts and outlets have backtracked on their earlier position that COVID-19 did not come from a lab, including the Washington Post and the … World Health Organization," the Epoch Times stated.
Fauci and Collins previously smeared lab leak theory
According to the subcommittee, Collins disclosed that Fauci invited him to attend a February 2020 conference call that featured scientists who went on to write the so-called "Proximal Origins" study. The paper published in Nature Medicine early that year claimed to disprove the lab leak theory, according to an email from one of the study authors. Despite Fauci and Collins' alleged involvement in the paper, neither of them was listed as a co-author or named in the acknowledgments.
Two months after the paper was published, Collins emailed Fauci regarding public discussions about the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen responsible for COVID-19.
"I hoped the Nature Medicine article on the genomic sequence of SARS-COV-2 would settle this," the former NIH director wrote. "[I'm] wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy. Anything more we can do?"
"This testimony directly contradicts Fauci's previous statements and raises further concerns about the U.S. government's role in suppressing and vilifying the lab leak hypothesis," the committee said. It added that Collins also reiterated attacks he previously made against the Great Barrington Declaration. The declaration called for protecting vulnerable people like the elderly while letting younger healthy people live largely without restrictions.
In an October 2020 email, Collins told Fauci that the declaration was written by "three fringe epidemiologists," adding: "There needs to be a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises." However, the authors of the document were far from fringe – as some of its authors included professors from Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Stanford Medical School.
"You have a federal government figure abusing his power," Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the declaration's authors, previously told the Epoch Times. "Why? Because he couldn't stand the idea that there were prominent scientists that disagreed with him about pandemic policy."
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Watch Dr. Jay Bhattacharya discuss the COVID-19 propaganda campaign led by Drs. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins on "The Megyn Kelly Show" below.
This video is from the Russia Truth channel on Brighteon.com.
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