Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens during a news conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021. Biden in his first full day in office plans to issue a sweeping set of executive orders to tackle the raging Covid-19 pandemic that will rapidly reverse or refashion many of his predecessor's most heavily criticized policies. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Fauci Publicly Dismissed Concerns About U.S. Ties to Wuhan Lab — But Privately He Worried, Emails Suggest
As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, Anthony Fauci met with a U.S. collaborator of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) about his gain-of-function research, emails obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests suggest.
On Feb. 11, 2020, Fauci met with U.S. virologist Ralph Baric, according to a copy of his schedule.
Baric, a professor in the departments of epidemiology and microbiology of the University of North Carolina, has come under scrutiny for sharing reverse genetics techniques, mice engineered to exhibit human airway cells and possibly a risky research proposal with WIV senior scientist Zhengli Shi.
A newly unearthed email — a notification revealing the private Slack chat between two virologists close to Baric — provides a glimpse into what Fauci and Baric discussed.
“I talked to Ralph for a long time last night, [h]e sounds beat,” wrote Matt Frieman, a University of Maryland professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology on Feb. 18, 2020. “He said he sat in Fauci’s office talking about the outbreak and chimeras.”
A term adopted from ancient mythology, a “chimera” in virology is a hybrid virus generated by joining fragments from two or more viruses.
Baric responded seriously when Frieman mentioned the WIV, according to the Slack message.
“I joked about his link to WIV, he wasn’t very amused,” Frieman continued.
Source: CHD
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