NIH’s Collins Told Fauci the Wuhan Theory is Gaining Momentum in Email
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, in April 2020, received an email from Francis Collins, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) director, with the subject line noting, “conspiracy gains momentum,” which includes a link to a report outlining multiple sources believing the Chinese coronavirus started in a lab.
In the newly released email obtained by BuzzFeed News from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Collins and Fauci discussed what appears to be a “conspiracy.” Still, the important parts of the email are redacted.
The original email from Collins, which has almost every part redacted besides name, includes a link to a new report from Mediaite, talking about a Fox News segment with Brett Baier and Sean Hannity speaking about the “alleged” conspiracy theory of the Chinese coronavirus starting in a Wuhan lab having some merit, according to BuzzFeed.
The email response from Fauci was redacted.
Email from NIH Collins to Fauci
Subject: "conspiracy gains momentum"
From: April 2020
The email includes a link to a Mediate article with Bret Baier detailing a new report that “multiple sources” believe the virus originated in a lab
(Obtained by BuzzFeed News via FOIA) pic.twitter.com/kGorSwvmsG— Jacob Bliss (@jacobmbliss) June 2, 2021
The Mediaite report showed a video of Baier detailing his alleged “multiple sources” who believed at the time the Chinese coronavirus had originated in a Chinese lab before the virus “accidentally” escaped and started to infect the population.
The Mediaite report shows the back and forth conversation:
“This is from multiple sources who have been briefed at the beginning part of the origins of China and the beginning of the virus. They’ve also seen documents, open source and classified,” Baier said of his reporting on Hannity Wednesday night. “We’ve asked to see those documents directly, but they are saying that it is increasingly likely, that there is increasing confidence that the virus — Covid-19 — started in a Wuhan lab.”
“Not as a bio-weapon, let’s just be clear about that, there is no one who’s saying this was a bio-weapon,” he clarified, prompting host Sean Hannity to ask, “How would we know that?”
“Well, we wouldn’t, but these sources are not saying that. They’re saying it occurred naturally because China was trying to show that they could be as good or better than the U.S. in handling viruses, discovering viruses, and that this was a botched effort to contain this and it got out to the population,” Baier explained. “So there’s increasing confidence that’s how it starts.”
“They are 100 percent confident that China altered the data, the statistics, they did a lot of things to contain the information,” he concluded. “Meanwhile, they cut down, as you mentioned, travel from Wuhan internally, but left the international flights going, and there obviously is how you have a spread like this.”
BuzzFeed reported, Fauci declined to comment on the story that encompasses this email.
Fauci has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.