Trump’s Former CDC Chief Suggests US Origin for COVID: ‘Can’t Prove That’

The theory that a lab in North Carolina was the “birthplace” of COVID-19 has resurfaced in an interview with a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who has said it is a “real possibility.”
Robert Redfield, who headed the CDC during Trump’s first administration, told author and podcaster Dana Parish during a 90-minute interview on her 3rd Opinion podcast released on November 14 that he believes that the SARS-CoV-2 virus—which causes COVID-19—was developed as part of a “biodefense program” in a lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The theory is not supported by evidence and the majority of scientists agree that there is no evidence to suggest that COVID-19 originated in a lab in any country.
The COVID-19 pandemic began with an outbreak documented in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It spread globally in 2020, and has been the subject of various conspiracy theories, including that the virus had originated in a local laboratory, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). By May 2023, more than 1.1 million deaths from the coronavirus had been reported, according to Statista.
Around the 44:30 mark in the interview, Redfield stated that he thinks the virus was “intentionally engineered as a part of a biodefense program,” by the U.S. Parish then asked what role the U.S. played in the origins of the virus, to which Redfield responded: “Substantial.”
“When you look at the accountability for China, their accountability is not in the lab work and in the creation of the virus. Their accountability is not following the international health regulations after they realized that they had a problem. And allowing people like me at CDC to come in and to help them within 48 hours like they were obligated to, based on the treaty. But the U.S. role was substantial,” he said.
“One is they funded the research both from NIH [National Institutes of Health], the State Department, USAID, and the Defense Department. All four of those agencies helped fund this research. Secondly, the scientific mastermind behind this research is a guy named Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina, and he was very involved in this research. I think he probably helped create some of the original viral lines, but I can’t prove that. But he was very involved.”
Redfield noted that he does not have any definitive proof to support this claim.
Baric has been the subject of a fringe theory that he was partly responsible for the virus since early 2020, a claim repeated by Senator Rand Paul at a congressional hearing in May, 2021.
Baric has previously called for an investigation into the origins of the virus, signing an open letter in 2021 published in Science. The virus expert dismissed as premature the findings of a joint probe by the World Health Organization and China that said the chance of a lab leak was “extremely unlikely.”
In January this year, Baric told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis that the regulations at the WIV in China “state pretty clearly that they don’t consider culturing bat viruses at BSL-2 (Biosafety Level 2) as a biosafety concern.” He said he urged the researchers to move the biosafety one level higher to 3.
Newsweek has contacted Baric, the NIH, the State Department, USAID, and the Defense Department for comment by email. Newsweek has contacted Redfield via an online contact form.
Redfield said in the podcast that there is a “real possibility that the virus’s birthplace was Chapel Hill.”
“In August, September, the initial cases of COVID in Wuhan began. Clearly, by the middle of September, there was a significant problem. OK, because—and I can’t remember the exact date. I think it’s in the public domain now, it was classified, but I think it was Sept. 19—but they did three things,” Redfield said.
“They changed the leadership of the lab. So it was a dual-use lab. They changed it from civilian to military. So the military was now put in charge of the lab. They did something highly irregular, which is they deleted the research sequences of COVID viruses that they had done years before. So the whole database was deleted.”
“There is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was human-made let alone that it escaped from a lab. All of the scientific data clearly points to a virus naturally circulating in horseshoe bats being transmitted to humans most probably via contact with infected live animals at the Huanan Seafood market in Wuhan in late 2019,” David Robertson, Head of Viral Genomics and Bioinformatics (Centre for Virus Research), University of Glasgow, said in a statement last year.
Additionally, earlier this year, U.S. officials released an intelligence report stating that they had ” no information, however, indicating that any WIV genetic engineering work has involved SARS-CoV-2, a close progenitor, or a backbone virus that is closely-related enough to have been the source of the pandemic.”
U.S. intelligence does note that inquiries into the virus’ origin have been stymied by the Chinese government.
According to scientific research, SARS-CoV-2 likely originated in bats, as it shares significant genetic similarities with other coronaviruses found in bats. Many studies show the virus likely arose naturally, as its genome lacks markers of deliberate manipulation. The virus may have passed through an intermediate species, such as pangolins or other animals sold at live markets, before infecting humans.
“Unfortunately, the politics has meant the science is harder, and we are unlikely to ever resolve it beyond the point we are now,” Alice Hughes, group leader of the Biodiversity Analytics of Terrestrial Ecosystems (BAT) group at the University of Hong Kong, said in a statement last year.
“What matters now is preventing future epidemics, which requires both reducing the chance of spillover from wildlife, and improving lab biosecurity so there can be no doubt for future spillovers—which will happen from wildlife, livestock and possibly lab conditions, unless we learn how to reduce all risks,” she said.
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