Former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx alleges efforts to suppress the lab-leak theory of COVID-19's origins, claiming partisan divisions and bias against scientists advocating for its consideration.
In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Dr. Deborah Birx, who served as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator under former President Donald Trump, raised concerns about alleged efforts to suppress the lab-leak theory in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Birx believes this suppression stemmed from partisan divisions and a tendency to discredit scientists proposing the theory.
"I think early on, people did take very definitive sides, and it did divide along party lines, and we're still suffering from that four years later," Birx told CNN's Kasie Hunt. She highlighted the example of former CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield, who had suggested the lab leak hypothesis but faced criticism and skepticism from the media and other health officials.
"I do think it happened. If you look at what people said about Bob Redfield and how they disparaged him as a scientist because he wanted to bring forward the lab leak potential," Birx said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has denied allegations of suppressing the lab leak theory. During a congressional hearing on Monday, Fauci stated that he did not seek to suppress the theory and emphasized that the origins of COVID-19 remain uncertain.
Despite Fauci's denial, Birx believes that the lab-leak hypothesis should have been considered more seriously. "And I think the reason he [Redfield] felt he [Redfield] needed to bring it forward to push, was to push against this, ‘it had to be this way.’ Because we didn‘t know, and we knew we would never know. I mean, we knew as SARS that China was not transparent. We knew with the second SARS, China was not transparent, so we were not going to get an answer, but that shouldn‘t have held us back 4.5 years later from both ensuring that we protect against lab leaks and we protect that public."
Birx emphasized the importance of strengthening regulations and guidelines to prevent future lab leaks, noting that such incidents can occur and require proactive measures to safeguard public health. "We can do that. We‘ve done that before," Birx affirmed.
Birx also discussed the recent House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing, which examined the origins of COVID-19. She expressed hope that the hearing would foster a more balanced and objective approach to investigating the virus's origins.
"The one thing good coming out of the hearing, I believe, and I think Dr. Fauci made this point over and over again, we’re at a place where we can definitively say we do not know if it was lab or zoonotic, from animals. We do a lot of zoonotic work. It’s our opportunity to really decide as a global community how we’re going to control laboratory experiments in a way that protects the public," Birx said.
The debate over the origins of COVID-19 continues, with scientists actively researching and considering various hypotheses. Dr. Birx's allegations regarding efforts to suppress the lab-leak theory have added fuel to the discussion and underscore the need for thorough and unbiased investigations to fully understand the genesis of this global pandemic.
