House Oversight Report Supports Chinese Lab-Leak Theory for COVID-19 Origin

Laboratory technicians wearing personal protective equipment work on samples to be tested for COVID-19 at the Fire Eye laboratory, a COVID-19 testing facility, in Wuhan in Hubei Province, China, on Aug. 4, 2021. STR/AFP via Getty Images

A Republican-led oversight subcommittee has concluded that the COVID-19 virus likely originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, following a two-year investigation into the pandemic.

The House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a 520-page report on Dec. 2, detailing the findings of the subcommittee’s investigation.

The report found that the U.S. National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and that EcoHealth Alliance Inc. used U.S. taxpayer dollars to facilitate this research at the lab.

It also found that the Chinese communist regime, agencies within the U.S. government, and some members of the international scientific community sought to cover up facts concerning the origins of the pandemic.

The committee said that COVID-19 possesses biological characteristics not found in nature and that data indicates that all COVID-19 cases stemmed from a single introduction into humans, unlike previous pandemics, where there were more spillover events.

“By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced,” the oversight subcommittee said in a statement.

The report said that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has a history of conducting “gain-of-function” research under low biosafety precautions.

Several researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell sick with a COVID-like virus months before the first case of the outbreak was allegedly detected at a wet market, according to the report.

The report said that in January 2021, the U.S. State Department published an unclassified fact sheet that stated: “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness.”

Citing the fact sheet, the report stated that the Wuhan Institute of Virology “has a published record of conducting ‘gain-of-function’ research to engineer chimeric viruses.”

The report said the June 2023 ODNI assessment supported this conclusion and went further, stating, “Scientists at the WIV have created chimeras, or combinations of SARS-like coronaviruses through genetic engineering, attempted to clone other unrelated viruses, and used reverse genetic cloning techniques on SARS-like coronaviruses.” The June 2023 ODNI Assessment said that some of the “WIV’s genetic engineering projects on coronaviruses involved techniques that could make it difficult to detect intentional changes.”

Among those interviewed during the panel’s investigation was Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), who stepped down from his role in December 2022.

The report stated that Fauci had “prompted” a research study titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”—which dismissed the idea that the virus was laboratory constructed—to “disprove” the lab leak theory.

Fauci testified at a June hearing that he did not suppress the lab leak theory and did not view it as inherently a conspiracy theory but said that “some distortions on that particular subject are,” according to the report.

Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on Feb. 3, 2021. Thomas Peter/Reuters

“Although Dr. Fauci believed the lab-leak theory to be a conspiracy theory at the start of the pandemic, it now appears that his position is that he does have an open mind about the origin of the virus—so long as it does not implicate EcoHealth Alliance, and by extension himself and NIAID,” it stated, citing Fauci’s memoir published just weeks after the hearing. “Understandably, as he signed off on the EcoHealth Alliance grant.”

In a May 2021 Senate hearing, Fauci said his agency did not provide funds for “gain of function” research into coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Fauci told the hearing.

The report also stated that Taiwan notified the World Health Organization (WHO) on Dec. 31, 2019, about “atypical pneumonia cases” reported in Wuhan and asked the agency to investigate, but the WHO ignored the warnings.

The WHO response to the COVID-19 pandemic was “an abject failure because it caved to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party and placed China’s political interests ahead of its international duties,” the subcommittee said.

In a statement accompanying the report, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chairman of the committee, said, “The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted a distrust in leadership. Trust is earned. Accountability, transparency, honesty, and integrity will regain this trust.”

A study published in the journal Risk Analysis on March 15 found a high probability that the COVID-19 virus had an unnatural origin. Although the study did not prove the origin of the COVID-19 virus, its authors said that “the possibility of a laboratory origin cannot be easily dismissed.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Anthony Fauci, NIAID, EcoHealth Alliance Inc., and the WHO for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Naveen Athrappully contributed to this report.