Former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield says he was “threatened and ostracized” by scientists after telling CNN he believes that COVID-19 most likely originated in a lab in China.
“I was threatened and ostracized because I proposed another hypothesis,” Redfield told Vanity Fair.
He added, “I expected it from politicians. I didn’t expect it from science.”
During his CNN interview in March, Redfield said he believes COVID-19 most likely “was from a laboratory” in Wuhan, China, that “escaped,” as IJR reported.
He continued, “Science will eventually figure it out.”
Stressing he does not believe the virus “somehow came from a bat to a human,” Redfield also said it does not make “biological sense” for one of the “most infectious viruses that we know in humanity for human transmission” to transmit from animals to humans so effectively.
In case you missed it:
Despite a lack of clear evidence, former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said in a CNN documentary clip released Friday that he believes the novel coronavirus began transmitting in fall 2019 and that the virus may have originated in a lab in China. https://t.co/r4CpbrNsBl pic.twitter.com/GZl1BbM5ZO
— CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt (@CNNThisMorning) March 26, 2021
The debate over the lab-leak theory gained momentum after The Wall Street Journal reported on a State Department fact sheet, issued during the Trump administration, that revealed several researchers at the lab fell ill in the fall of 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness,” as IJR reported.
President Joe Biden asked the intelligence community to “redouble” its investigation into the origins of COVID-19, as IJR reported.
“I have now asked the Intelligence Community to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to me in 90 days,” Biden said in a statement last week.
He continued, “The United States will also keep working with like-minded partners around the world to press China to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci said during an interview with MSNBC on Thursday, the United States should not be “accusatory” toward China amid the investigation into the origins of the virus.
“I think the accusatory part about it is only going to get them to pull back even more,” Fauci said.