Mainstream Puppets Now Admit Lab Leak Caused Pandemic

For nearly two years, there was a complete ban on discussing the COVID-19 lab leak theory, and as noted by Robby Soave in a June 2021 Reason article,¹ this is a perfect example of why banning “misinformation” is a terrible idea. Often enough, what’s labeled as “misinformation” one day has turned out to be true the next.

I first raised the lab leak theory February 4, 2020, and it wasn’t until June 2021 that Facebook finally reversed its censorship policy on this particular topic, stating, “In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps.”

“Facebook’s concession that the lab leak story it once viewed as demonstrably false is actually possibly true should put to rest the idea that banning or regulating misinformation should be a chief public policy goal,” Soave wrote.²

Scientists Told to ‘Shut Up’

In a February 15, 2023, article³ in the British Express, Angus Dalgleish, a professor of oncology at St George’s, University of London, recounts how he and his Norwegian colleagues, Birger Sørensen (a virologist) and Andres Susrud (a molecular biologist), were systematically silenced.⁴

The trio had assessed the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2, concluding a bat origin was “extremely unlikely … as it had inserts around the receptor binding region … that would make it more infectious.” But no matter how they tried, they couldn’t get the paper published.

They even sent their findings to the British government and Cabinet members, only to be told “quite categorically that there was no way it could have been a laboratory escape.”

“What was to follow was a complete suppression of any debate about the origin, which would appear to have been driven by Tony Fauci from the NIAID in America,” Dalgleish writes.⁵

“Indeed, he was so intent on quashing any evidence of the origin that he commissioned a paper from a group of scientists, who we now know also had concerns that it may not be natural but nevertheless, they published the paper in Nature Medicine saying all the evidence showed it was completely natural and was not a laboratory leaked virus.

This paper was published in Nature Medicine and then used by Tony Fauci as absolute proof that it was not a lab leak. What was incredible was that this narrative was picked by governments throughout the world, all the mainstream media and the majority of scientists, who should have known better than to accept the narrative rather than look at the evidence …

China’s put-down was especially strong and it was so very obvious that they were covering up something as all specimens and databases were either altered or withdrawn. Very belatedly, China allowed a team of international experts to investigate the cause of COVID and a team were allowed into China to essentially come up with an official report saying that it was clearly of natural origin.

Now, more than two years later, two of the people involved with this, Professor Colin Butler from Australia and Delia Randolph from the University of Greenwich, London, have spoken out that it is clear now that all the evidence DOES support a lab leak and that there has been a suppression of the truth.

There has been secrecy and cover-up of this issue on a truly Orwellian scale … [In the] future, any new threat, infectious disease or pandemic, must be addressed with open scientific debate and not the complete suppression of the truth, secrecy and coverup …”

Evidence Supports Lab Leak and Always Did

As noted by Dalgleish, Butler and Randolph have recently spoken out about the fact that evidence for a lab leak was there from the start. That’s why Butler signed an open letter⁶ to the World Health Organization in March 2021 calling for a “full and unrestricted international forensic investigation into the origins of COVID-19.”

The letter was sent after the WHO’s team issued a clearly biased report dismissing the lab leak theory as unworthy of further investigation. January 28, 2023, Butler, along with Randolph, published a joint statement in the Daily Mail, noting that:⁷

“[The] crucial debate over Covid’s origins has been shackled … And this refusal to discuss openly what everyone suspects to be true — or at the very least strongly possible — has the disastrous consequence of eroding public trust in science.”

Butler and Randolph are now trying to set the record straight. As explained in their article, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) commissioned each of them in early 2020 to investigate and write reports on the possibility of the pandemic being the result of “humanity’s abuse of nature.”

Randolph’s report, which came out first, ended up not addressing the possibility of a non-natural origin, even though it was “actively considered in the drafting.” “[E]ven in early 2020, it appeared that UNEP was averse to including anything so controversial as the lab-leak theory in the report,” the pair write.

Butler authored the second UNEP report. Early on, he’d been skeptical about a lab link, but “as circumstantial evidence in support of a laboratory pathway grew, thanks to the work of a few brave scientists, internet detectives and journalists,” Butler finally concluded that the lab leak theory had to be considered. Butler’s report therefore did include an extensive discussion about the possibility of a lab leak.

‘Laboratory Pathway Seems the Most Likely’

Butler’s initial drafts were strongly criticized by internal UNEP reviewers, and as the report neared finalization, Butler started suspecting that publication was being “deliberately stalled.” According to Butler and Randolph:⁸

“The first report was published within weeks of completion, but the second one took ten months — and only appeared after an increasingly alarmed author contacted influential figures … It was eventually released with little publicity three months ago.

These two reports are substantial with a combined length of 152 pages, citing 387 scientific publications and with 94 reviewers. They cannot be dismissed as scientifically lightweight, nor the product of biased or naive authors.

Unlike some key players in the COVID origin debate, neither of us has been involved in ‘gain of function’ work that includes manipulation of virological structures to increase virulence. Nor do we have any history of collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

Neither of us has received funds from the US National Institutes of Health, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or EcoHealth Alliance — all of which have been involved with funding work at WIV that falls within the definition of ‘gain of function.’

Nor have either of us been financially rewarded for work with the Wellcome Trust … whose director Sir Jeremy Farrar was, we believe, a key figure alongside US funding chiefs in the scandalous suppression of debate on this issue …

Most recently discovered pathogens ‘burn out’ in human populations. Some are then held in laboratories, including in Wuhan … Are some of these being experimented upon? Almost certainly, yes. Yet a pall of suspicious secrecy, deceit and conflicts of interest shroud this work …

We can see incompetence, too. A new report by the US Office of Inspector General found fault with both the National Institutes of Health, the world’s biggest public funder of biomedical research, and EcoHealth Alliance, which it was supposed to help monitor.

This report damningly noted that each organization failed to ‘understand the nature of the research conducted, identify potential problem areas and take corrective action.’ It is of critical importance that these risks are better understood, that scientists accept the dangers and that this field is better regulated.

Our view is that, on current balance of evidence, a laboratory pathway seems the most likely cause of the pandemic … Irrespective of the origin of the pandemic, however, this debate has exposed that self-regulation of ‘gain of function’ research has been a dismal failure.”

Department of Energy Report Supports Lab Leak Theory

February 26, 2023, one month after Butler and Randolph’s joint statement, The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Energy Department has now revised its assessment of the origin of SARS-CoV-2, concluding the pandemic “most likely arose from a laboratory leak:”⁹

“The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office …

The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory …

The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.

The Energy Department made its judgment with ‘low confidence,’ according to people who have read the classified report. The FBI previously came to the conclusion that the pandemic was likely the result of a lab leak in 2021 with ‘moderate confidence’ and still holds to this view.”

US Intelligence Suspected Lab Leak All Along

So, in 2021, the FBI thought the lab leak theory was not only plausible but likely, yet the agency was instrumental in censoring public discussion about it. What’s more, the Energy Department reportedly prepared a study all the way back in May 2020, which concluded “that a lab-leak hypothesis was plausible and deserved further investigation.”