Report: Dr. Forch attended a “secret meeting” with scientists on the origin of COVID-19 in February 2020

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President’s chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, confirmed this week that a meeting with prominent scientists was held to discuss the origin of the outbreak of COVID-19 in China.

A few days after the meeting, a scientist who had previously expressed concern that the COVID-19 genome was unnatural completely overturned their opinion and suggested that COVID-19 did not appear naturally was a conspiracy. It was rejected as a theory.

The news of the conference is particularly noteworthy, as the theory that COVID-19 has escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virginology has received a lot of attention in recent weeks. This theory was previously dismissed as a conspiracy theory, even though there was no evidence to deny the possibility.

What are the details?

according to To USA TodayThe conference, held on February 1, 2020, said, “Several major sciences that helped close the legitimate debate as to whether the published papers and official statements were laboratories in Wuhan, China. It played a vital role in shaping one’s early views, which may have ignited the COVID-19 pandemic. “

The call says Christian Andersen, an infectious disease genomics expert at California’s renowned Scripps Research Translational Institute, is concerned that COVID-19 may have been artificially designed. Was convened after talking to.

“Because the anomalous features of the virus make up a very small part (<0.1%) of the genome, all sequences have been scrutinized so closely that some features have been (potentially) manipulated. You need to make sure it looks like "Andersen Written by email “I feel the genome is inconsistent with evolutionary expectations,” he and other scientists added before the conference call.

Andersen’s email was one of over 3,000 Fauci work-related emails acquired by BuzzFeed News in early June.

Among those who attended the call were Forch, Andersen, Wellcome Trust Director Jeremy Farrer, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins, and “Other International Experts in Emerging Infectious Diseases and Virology.” Was included, USA Today reported.

“I remember it very well,” Forch said in an interview with USA Today. “We decided that we needed to carefully investigate the situation over the phone.”

“It was a very productive conversation before and after, and some of the phones felt it could probably be an artificial virus,” Forch added to the meeting.

After the meeting, the group decided that Tedros Adhanom Gebreyes, Director of the World Health Organization, should be involved in their conversation. It is not clear what happened from the controversial contact with WHO.

What happened after the meeting?

Just three days later, Andersen told scientists that “the data are definitive” that COVID-19 was not designed, accusing the proposal that COVID-19 did not appear naturally.

Andersen’s Remark as feedback To scientists Helped inform the government With COVID-19.

“I think it’s great to read the letter, but do we need to be more solid about engineering issues,” Andersen said. “The main crackpot theory that is prevalent today is related to the fact that this virus is somehow deliberately designed, but that’s clearly not the case. Engineering means a lot, and It may be carried out for basic research or fraudulent reasons, but the data definitively show that neither was done … “

“If one of the main purposes of this document is to counter these fringe theories, I think it is very important that we do it in strong and plain language (“consistent “). [natural evolution] It’s my favorite when talking to scientists, but not when talking to the general public, especially conspiracy theorists, “he added.

A few weeks later, Andersen and other scientists Published a report on the origin of COVID-19, Explaining their work, “clearly shows that SARS-CoV-2 is neither a laboratory structure nor a deliberately manipulated virus.”

According to USA Today, the report “is so influential that it is the main reason why laboratory-related hypotheses of all kinds, including either natural or artificial viruses, have been rejected by many for so long. It’s one. “