Anthony Fauci urges China to provide medical records to Wuhan laboratory staff

Chief Medical Adviser Joe Biden has asked China to publish the medical records of nine people who could provide key clues about the disease to find out whether it was created as a result of an escape from the Covid-19 laboratory.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told the Financial Times that the records could help discuss the origins of the disease, which has killed more than 3.5 million people worldwide.

The said records made three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology sick in November 2019 and six miners who fell ill after entering a bat cave in 2012. Scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology visited the cave to take samples. bats. Three of the miners were killed.

Shi Zhengli, who is a leading expert on coronaviruses at the institute previously denied there were infections in the lab – Fauci didn’t hesitate, but said more research was needed.

“I would like to see the medical records of three people who are said to be ill in 2019,” Fauci he said. “They really got sick, and if so, what did they get sick of?

“The same thing happened a few years ago with the miners. . . What do these people’s medical records say? He was there [a] virus in these people? What was it? It is entirely conceivable that the origin of Sars-Cov-2 may have been in that cave and began to spread naturally or pass through the laboratory. “

The state department did not immediately respond to the question of whether the Biden administration had requested a medical record from China.

I’ve always felt absolute probability. . . was that the virus jumped the species. But we need to keep researching until we prove a chance

The origin of Covid-19 has become one of the most controversial questions pandemic. Former U.S. President Donald Trump said last year that he believed the coronavirus escaped from the Wuhan lab, but was rejected by most scientific communities, arguing that it was much more likely to jump naturally from animals to humans.

However, laboratory escape theory has gained attention in recent weeks after a letter was signed by a team of famous scientists arguing that it should be taken seriously. There has also been a renewed focus on existing Wuhan researchers sent to the hospital The first case of Covid-19 was officially recorded a few weeks before.

Biden last week He ordered U.S. intelligence services to reach a conclusion about 90 days after the pandemic began. The White House said two branches of the intelligence community believe the Sars-Cov-2 virus was transmitted naturally, but a third believes it came from the Wuhan Institute. None of the branches has a high degree of confidence in its consequences.

Fauci has been accused, especially by conservatives, of reducing the laboratory’s escape theory, partly to protect NIAID’s reputation, which has helped fund the money. controversial bat research Wuhanen.

David Asher, the former head of the State Department’s Covid-19 origin research study, asked Fauci why he was not looking for medical records now. He noted that the Trump administration publicly said in January that U.S. intelligence believed Wuhan scientists had become ill with symptoms of the virus.

“I’m amazed that Fauci would ask this question now,” said Asher, now at the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based conservative thinking group.

Asher added that while respecting Fauci, NIAID and its parent agency, the National Institutes of Health, were disinterested in the possibility that the virus could be released from the laboratory.

Fauci told FT that he continues to believe that the virus was transmitted to humans through animals, and noted that laboratory researchers said that although Covid-19 could infect the disease from a wide population. But he said he thought the question needed more research, mainly because of the renewed public interest.

“I’ve always felt an absolute likelihood – Sars, Mers, Ebola, HIV, bird flu, considering my experience with the 2009 swine flu pandemic – that the virus jumped a species,” he said. “But we have to keep researching until the opportunity is proven.”

He dismissed the idea that his organization could have been responsible for the pandemic, however, and said, “Are you really saying we’re accused of giving a $ 120 billion a year organization for bat care?”

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