Four prominent scientists who played key roles in shaping the natural origin narrative received over $50 million from Fauci’s NIAID during 2020 and 2021. This is a substantial increase when compared to what these scientists had received before their participation in promoting Fauci’s desired narrative of natural origin.
Three of the scientists who received funding increases from Fauci were Kristian Anderson, Robert Garry, and Michael Farzan. These scientists were participants in Fauci’s secret teleconference on Feb. 1, 2020, which took place after public reports revealed a funding correlation between Fauci’s organization and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In the call, these scientists said they were 60 to 80 percent sure that the coronavirus had come out of a lab. However, these same three scientists were instrumental in the writing and publication of a paper entitled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” which was published only two days after the teleconference and advocated for a natural origin theory for the virus.
In fact, the first draft of the Proximal Origin article was completed the exact same day as the teleconference and attempted to discredit the lab leak theory, despite the scientists expressing their personal sentiments that the virus very likely could have been from a lab leak. Both Anderson and Garry were co-authors of the paper, while Farzan was acknowledged in the Nature version of Proximal Origin for his participatory discussions in the article’s creation.
Anderson, who privately told Fauci on Jan. 31, 2020, that the virus looked potentially engineered, later helped spearhead Fauci’s efforts to promote the natural origin narrative. He then went on to receive a total of $7.4 million in funding in 2020 compared to only $4.5 million in 2019. Anderson’s total grant funding increased to nearly $9 million in 2021. Of the 11 grants provided in Fauci’s $82 million Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID) initiative, three scientists chosen had been integral in promoting the natural origin narrative, despite their private concerns that the virus was created in a lab.
Garry told the teleconference members that “I really can’t think of a plausible natural origin scenario where you get from the bat virus” to the virus that causes COVID-19. Garry received $5.7 million in grants in 2019 and $7 million in 2020. He also received $6.6 million in 2021. During the Feb. 1 teleconference, Garry recited the sequence of mutations that would have had to take place in order for SARS-CoV-2 to happen naturally, saying “I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature.” However, he noted that a lab-created virus could easily explain the virus data. Garry later admitted that he had been advised by the leaders of the teleconference not to discuss the option of lab origin in the Proximal Origin theory. That same day, they completed the first draft of Proximal Origin, which actively promoted a natural origin and made an effort to discount any possibility of a lab leak. It was published online Feb. 16, 2020. Anderson was chosen as the lead author, despite Anderson having no material experience studying coronaviruses.
Fauci’s NIAID also provided a substantial increase in funding to EcoHealth President Peter Daszak, through whom NIAID had funded controversial gain-of-function coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A significant portion of the funding increase for these scientists was provided through the NIH’s CREID. The timing of Fauci’s grant to Daszak is suspicious, coming right after President Donald Trump’s cancellation of Daszak’s previous grant.
Daszak received a total of $1.5 million in both 2020 and 2021, whereas in 2019 he had received only $660,000 in NIAID grant money. Daszak had a proven track record throughout the COVID-19 pandemic of heavily promoting a natural origin theory. He has published a letter with other scientists wrongly condemning a lab origin theory, while failing to disclose his conflict of interests, including his personal involvement in gain-of-function work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that continued through at least April 2020. He also authored a disturbing 2018 research proposal detailing the creation of a virus in a lab that has a remarkable similarity to the defining features of the COVID-19 virus. Other scientists who had expressed their concern on the teleconference that it had originated from a lab leak and then later advocated for natural rigin also saw an increase in grant money.
What prompted the scientists to actively push a narrative that they themselves did not believe was likely? The scientists may claim that they changed their mind about the virus origins gradually over the next few months. However, within only two days following the teleconference, these same scientists were actively pushing a natural origin theory to the National Academy of Sciences in their Feb. 3 and Feb. 4 Proximal Origin draft paper. What really changed? The only thing we can say for sure is that the teleconference leaders wanted to suppress the possibility of a lab leak origin, and the scientists who followed their orders received increased funding.
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