After a two-year investigation the subcommittee released findings on a wide range of topics. The lead in the 520-page report addresses the origin of the virus, a lab leak, and not an unfortunate act of nature that has been claimed, the committee report concludes.
The lead in the 520-page report addresses the origin of the virus, a lab leak and not an unfortunate act of nature, the committee says.
It offered five key arguments supporting the “lab leak” theory for the start of a virus that killed 6.29 million people, according to World Health Organization estimates. The committee found:
- The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature.
- Data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events.
- Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research at inadequate biosafety levels.
- Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with a COVID-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market.
- By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced.
CNN won’t let it go
Some media aren’t convinced. In its reporting CNN went to great lengths to refute the lab leak theory.
Most US intelligence agencies say the virus was not genetically engineered, but it is still not totally clear how the pandemic started. A US intelligence analysis released last year either a laboratory or natural origin was possible, and the community remains split on the issue. The US Department of Energy assessed last year that it had “low confidence” in the lab leak theory. No U.S. federal agency believes that the virus that causes Covid-19 was created as a bioweapon.
The subcommittee report says that if evidence of the virus’ natural origin existed, it would have surfaced by now.
Scientists have not found an animal infected with the ancestral virus that sparked the pandemic, but searches like that are not an easy task. It took more than a decade to identify the origin of the first SARS outbreak, for example, and the origins of Ebola are still unclear.
However, researchers have continued to accumulate years worth of strong but circumstantial evidence pointing to a natural origin for the pandemic, most likely at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan.
Despite its findings, the congressional report is not wide enough in the eyes of Dr. Robert Malone, an internationally recognized physical who specializes in the development of countermeasures to infectious diseases.
“I'm going to be doing a report on this topic in which CNN is still dug in on natural origin and is denying and obfuscating the importance of the committee's decisions and conclusions regarding the laboratory origin," Malone said on Washington Watch Tuesday. "But throughout much of the world, this is considered to be the truth...that this was an engineered virus."
“The committee correctly points out it has characteristics that are not found in nature, and it has the characteristics of a single point of emergence into the population at Wuhan adjacent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Malone told show host Tony Perkins.
The committee’s report wasn’t strong enough against many aspects of the pandemic, Malone said.
“There is a lot of concern and complaints that the committee did not delve into, in particular, the adverse events associated with the vaccine,” Malone said.
There were contradictions in the report, such as a strong endorsement of Operation Warp Speed followed by a statement in the summary that the effectiveness of the vaccines was overstated, their safety understated, Malone said.
“This is what a lot of people find perplexing and speaks of a compromise within the committee … the kind of usual D.C. process of speaking out of both sides of one’s mouth,” he said.
The committee praised the speed with which an ineffective vaccine was brought to market while noting that those harmed by the vaccine are not being efficiently and adequately compensated. Those are contradictions, Malone said.
The report was critical of then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s actions regarding the elderly and nursing homes.
Committee chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) in October sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice recommending that Cuomo be charged with making false statements to Congress. Wenstrup says Cuomo knowingly made false statements to the committee on numerous occasions about his pandemic nursing home policies, failures and the ensuing cover-up.
Lacking at the finish line
When the ink dried the final report lacked the necessary bite, Malone said.
“There’s clearly an attempt here to be fair and balanced and to take into consideration the positions of the minority,” Malone said.
“The big question is, will this have the impact of preventing the failed attempts that were taken during COVID-19 to, if any, future pandemic arises? Forgive my cynicism on that, but I don't see the federal government at this point in time taking these suggestions in and acting appropriately to respond to them.”
