It’s The Cover Up, Stupid: Emails Impeach Kristian Andersen’s Congressional Testimony on the Pandemic’s Origin

Do not "follow the science." Follow the documents, follow the money.

9 minute read

Three and a half years after the COVID pandemic began taking lives and destroying communities, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Congress will start hearings today to investigate how the epidemic kicked off. A group of highly conflicted virologists and U.S federal scientists have argued COVID started naturally—jumping from bats to humans—while others point to evidence of a lab accident in Wuhan, China. Neither side has a smoking gun, but the greatest proof against the virologists’ natural outbreak story is a constant stream of evidence pointing to a scientific cover up.

People don’t lie, deceive and misdirect unless they’ve got something to hide. And scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their allied virologists sure act like they’re guilty of something.

From the beginning of the pandemic, virologists have behaved like magicians using slight of hand to misdirect people’s gaze away from a possible lab accident—“Nothing to see here!” Meanwhile, proof of a cover up continues to accumulate, as more and more scientists’ emails become public.

Scientists love to talk about transparency and politicians’ conspiracies against them, but virus researchers have done little but conspire and obscure. And then conspire some more. The Committee released the testimony of today’s two witnesses last night, and both have provided falsehoods in their written statements.

Robert Garry, a virologist at Tulane University School of Medicine, has long attempted to dismiss any possibility of a lab accident as a “conspiracy theory.” In his statement, Garry attempted to explain away a possible lab accident by referencing a now pretty much discredited paper he wrote that argued the pandemic started from infected raccoon dogs that were being sold in a market. He writes that he and colleagued obtained the data for this paper in November 2022. But, in that very same paper that Garry co-authored on this raccoon dog hypothesis, he and other authors wrote that they discovered the data on March 4, 2023.

Hopefully, Committee Members will ask Garry to explain this discrepancy.

The testimony by Scripps Institute researcher Kristian Andersen is much more problematic and is blatantly misleading. As I previously reported, emails show that NIH officials Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins helped to orchestrate a March 2020 Nature Medicine paper, with Andersen as lead author, that concluded a lab accident was not “plausible.”  

Weeks prior to the paper’s publication, Andersen emailed Fauci and Collins a draft of the manuscript, thanking them for their “advice and leadership” on the paper. Andersen also invited Fauci and Collins to comment and offer suggestions about the paper.

Fauci responded, “Thanks for the note. Nice job on the paper.”

Neither Fauci nor Collins are mentioned in the final version published by Nature Medicine.

Both Collins and Fauci then promoted the Nature Medicine paper as evidence of “independent science” pointing against a possible lab accident—Collins in a post for the NIH Director’s blog that alleged the study left “little room” for argument in favor of a lab accident, and Anthony Fauci in a White House press briefing.

In both cases, neither Collins nor Fauci disclosed their involvement in orchestrating Andersen’s study. This last March, Congress released further emails showing that Fauci helped to orchestrate the Nature Medicine paper.

In his testimony, Andersen provides a bit of hand waving and semantic sorcery to explain away the involvement of Fauci and Collins. Referencing the email he sent to Fauci and Collins, Andersen wrote in his testimony, “Note, that I say ‘about the paper’, not e.g., ‘on the paper.’”

Apparently, Andersen finds some monumental difference between asking someone to comment or offer suggestions about a paper instead of on a paper. I guess that depends on what the meaning of the word “is” … is.

But Andersen keeps stumbling. He then asserts in his testmony, “Sending a copy of a paper that has been accepted and is in ‘proof’ (i.e., at a stage where only changes directly requested by the journal can be introduced) is simply a professional courtesy.”

Andersen’s allegation that Fauci and Collins were only provided the paper after it had been “accepted” and was in “proof” is simply false. Emails impeach this portion of Andersen’s testimony.

A month before Andersen sent Fauci and Collins the proof of the accepted manuscript, Jeremy Farrar forwarded Fauci and Collins a “rough first draft” of Andersen’s paper on Feb. 4. Andersen’s co-author Edward “Eddie” Holmes had sent around this early draft version.

“Please treat in confidence—a very rough first draft from Eddie and team—they will send on the edited, cleaner version later,” Farrar emailed Fauci and Collins. The following day, Farrar emailed Fauci and Collins, “Tony and Francis, The revised draft from Eddie, copied here.”

How do we know this draft Farrar sent to Fauci and Collins is the same paper as Andersen’s Nature Medicine paper? Because much of the structure and footnotes are the same, and portions of this “rough first draft” appear verbatim in the article Nature Medicine published with Andersen as first author. Just compare a few passages side by side.

Unless Andersen can explain his misleading statement implying that Fauci and Collins were only sent a “proof” of the accepted paper, staff should consider referring Andersen over to the Department of Justice for a 1001 violation.

Here's a rundown of some of the best examples of scientists and science writers caught covering up a possible Wuhan accident.

The Lancet’s orchestrated statement

Barely six weeks after the pandemic started, a group of scientists published an essay in the The Lancet claiming that a possible lab accident in Wuhan, China, is a “conspiracy theory.” However, emails show that Peter Daszak of the NIH-funded nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance orchestrated that statement while hiding his financial ties to Chinese researcher Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Other authors on the essay then hid their ties to EcoHealth by signing with university titles, instead of disclosing their affiliations with Peter Daszak. The Lancet later had to shut down their commission looking into the pandemic’s origin because of all these hidden financial ties.

Ghostwritten essay in Emerging Microbes & Infections (EM&I)

A week after The Lancet statement made news, other virologists published a commentary in “Emerging Microbes & Infections” that claimed it was a “conspiracy theory” to speculate if the pandemic started in a lab. Almost a year later, emails became public that showed the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Shi Zhengli secretly helped to edit the essay, while University of North Carolina’s Ralph Baric ghostwrote some sections.

After submitting comments in track changes, Baric emailed the authors that he wanted to hide his contribution to the paper. “[D]on’t want to be cited in as having commented prior to submission.”

Neither Shi Zhengli nor Ralph Baric were included as authors or contributors, and the journal now lists this essay in their collection of “Best Paper Award.”

Nature Medicine’s orchestrated “Proximal Origins” paper

See above.

Anthony Fauci lied about funding gain-of-function studies in China

During several congressional hearings last year, the NIH’s Anthony Fauci denied funding gain-of-function studies at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But Fauci had already been exposed.

A year before Fauci lied about this funding, Newsweek reported in April of 2020 that Fauci’s National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses: “In 2019, with the backing of NIAID, the National Institutes of Health committed $3.7 million over six years for research that included some gain-of-function work.”

More evidence accumulated. Some months after Fauci’s heated testimony, The Intercept reported that Fauci had in fact funded gain-of-function studies at the WIV: “NIH DOCUMENTS PROVIDE NEW EVIDENCE U.S. FUNDED GAIN-OF-FUNCTION RESEARCH IN WUHAN.”

Scientists have also pointed out that Fauci has not been honest about his funding of dangerous gain-of-function research in China. Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs wrote in an essay last summer that it is “common knowledge in the US scientific community” that Fauci funded gain-of-function studies in China.

And during an investigative documentary that ran on the UK’s Channel 4, Stanford’s David Relman also explained that Fauci funded gain-of-function studies at the WIV.

How do we know? They published it. And to answer the question, “Was it supported by the NIH?” The answer is, “Yes. Indirectly, but yes.” 

How do we know? The paper says right on the front page “supported by NIAID, NIH.” It says it right there.

Science Magazine’s Jon Cohen diming out a whistleblower

No science writer has chosen to carry more water for the NIH and conflicted virologists than Science Magazine’s Jon Cohen. In late 2021, Cohen hosted an awkward “debate” by scientists that allowed virologist Linfa Wang to dissemble about the virus research happening at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Cohen then published a softball interview with Peter Daszak, who had previously dodged interviews with The BMJ, The Atlantic, The Intercept, and The Daily Mail.

But then…well, the emails of course.

Reporter Jimmy Tobias got his hands on some emails showing that Cohen had been contacted by a whistleblower claiming that the authors of the Nature Medicine paper were not the true authors. Instead of seizing on this information for a possible scoop, Cohen forwarded the email to the Nature Medicine lead author Kristian Andersen, writing: “Here’s what one person who claims to have inside knowledge is saying behind your backs …”

Cohen then never wrote about the allegations he had received.

NIH’s David Morens deleting government emails

Emails released just last month show that the NIH official who spent decades as Anthony Fauci’s right hand man was deleting government emails to hide government documents from FOIA requests. “As you know, I try to always communicate on gmail because my NIH email is FOIA’d constantly,” Morens wrote to several virologists in late 2021. “Don’t worry, just send to any of my addresses and I will delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times.”

Deleting government records is illegal, and congressional investigators sent Morens a demand that he turn over more documents. Morens also goaded virologists by email to sue reporters at The Intercept for their reporting on a possible lab accident. “Do not rule out suing these assholes for slander.”

Wuhan Institute’s disappeared online database of virus sequences

On Sept. 12, 2019, the Wuhan Institute of Virology deleted its online database of coronavirus bat sequences. This database documented which viruses Wuhan researchers had collected. The Chinese government has never provided an adequate explanation for why they disappeared this database. 

NIH forcing lawsuits to uncover records

Nobody is getting documents out of the NIH unless they hire lawyers and take the NIH to court, forcing the agency to release documents they are legally required to make public under FOIA requests. And when judges then demand that the NIH to release the records, the NIH heavily redacts them.

When Buzzfeed first reported on Anthony Fauci’s emails back in 2021, the outlet noted “They represent just a portion of what was requested, and they are filled with redactions, making them an incomplete record of the time period and Fauci’s correspondence.”

The NIH also forced The Intercept to sue them.

“The documents were released in connection with ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation by The Intercept against the National Institutes of Health,” reads one Intercept article. In another piece, The Intercept reported that the NIH fully redacted 292 pages related to virus research at Wuhan and “continues to withhold critical documents that could shed light on the origin of the coronavirus pandemic.”

In a Newsweek essay last year, a writer reported that numerous public interest groups have been forced to spend money on lawyers and sue the NIH to get documents requested through FOIA.  This includes liberal groups, such as the Center for Food Safety, Knowledge Ecology International, US Right to Know, and Public Citizen, as well as conservative groups, such as Judicial Watch and White Coast Waste Project.

As recently as this January, a journalist writing in The Nation reported on heavily redacted NIH documents that Buzzfeed sued to get back in 2021. After even more time in litigation with the NIH, the reporter finally got them unredacted.

Many of the documents analyzed in this article were first obtained in 2021, in heavily redacted form, by the journalist Jason Leopold. Some of them were later presented to Congress, where staffers were allowed to look at them and take notes but could not keep full copies. It was only after more than a year of litigation that the NIH released these documents without redactions.

More incidents document the Wuhan cover up. These are just the examples that I felt were the most easily understood. Expect more evidence at today’s hearing.