Interestingly, one of the more prominent voices when it comes to the potential that a lab leak is behind the COVID-19 pandemic is Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. In February, he put forth this theory three different times on CBS' Sunday morning news program Face the Nation. It should be noted that he believes a zoonotic explanation is most likely, but he doesn't discount the possibility of a lab leak.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You're an epidemiologist. You specialize in zoonotics, which means you know a lot about how these viruses jump between species like COVID did. These new variants, you've described them as a combination of mutations all at the same time. What does that mean?
Note how Brennan says, ". . . these viruses jump between species LIKE COVID DID." That is a definitive statement that excludes the idea of a lab leak. Later in the program, Scott Gottlieb rebukes this absolute belief.
. . . SCOTT GOTTLIEB: . . . I don't think we're going to find out and we're certainly not going to be able to find out with any level of certainty that's going to put to rest some of the speculation that this could have been a lab source. Now, most people believe that this was a zoonotic source. You know as well as I do, there's still speculation even in the government that it could have been from an accident in a laboratory. We know that that Wuhan laboratory was doing a lot of experimentation. It had a big repository of coronaviruses. I don't expect that the WHO mission is going to firmly put that to rest. We would need access to the source strains. I suspect they're not going to get that. That information, if it's available, the Chinese government would have that. And so far they have not made that available.
DR. GOTTLIEB: A lot of data. Well, first of all, they have antibody testing on the people who worked in that Wuhan lab. They didn't make that available. So you'd want to know if they have antibodies to the coronavirus. That would be an indication that maybe they- they got infected. Now, those antibodies will- will wane over time. But you at least want to look at that data. We want to see sequencing data on retained samples from people who were admitted to the hospital in October and November with viral syndromes that looked like COVID to see if this infection was spreading earlier and try to get closer to the source of the initial outbreak. That data is certainly available, the Chinese have that.
Finally, on February 21st:
DR. GOTTLIEB: Yeah, look, the most likely scenario here is that this came from nature, that this was bouncing back and forth between people and animals for a period of time and finally broke out. I think the lab leak theory, the fact that this could have been an accident out of that lab is never going to be fully dispelled. And the WHO shouldn't walk away from that so easily. I think the one thing that Matt said in that interview, which is interesting and I think is new, is that the Chinese military was in that institute doing experiments and doing experiments with animals. That does create increased risk that this could have jumped from animals to people inside that laboratory.
The first time he voiced this opinion was on February 7th.
I'll start first with a quick exchange between Maria Van Kerkhove of the WHO and Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan.MARIA VAN KERKHOVE, PhD (World Health Organization COVID-19 Lead/@mvankerkhove): Hi, Margaret. Thanks for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You're an epidemiologist. You specialize in zoonotics, which means you know a lot about how these viruses jump between species like COVID did. These new variants, you've described them as a combination of mutations all at the same time. What does that mean?
Note how Brennan says, ". . . these viruses jump between species LIKE COVID DID." That is a definitive statement that excludes the idea of a lab leak. Later in the program, Scott Gottlieb rebukes this absolute belief.
. . . SCOTT GOTTLIEB: . . . I don't think we're going to find out and we're certainly not going to be able to find out with any level of certainty that's going to put to rest some of the speculation that this could have been a lab source. Now, most people believe that this was a zoonotic source. You know as well as I do, there's still speculation even in the government that it could have been from an accident in a laboratory. We know that that Wuhan laboratory was doing a lot of experimentation. It had a big repository of coronaviruses. I don't expect that the WHO mission is going to firmly put that to rest. We would need access to the source strains. I suspect they're not going to get that. That information, if it's available, the Chinese government would have that. And so far they have not made that available.
To re-emphasize, the context here is the WHO mission that was heading to China during that timeframe to do further research into how COVID-19 started.
The following week on February 14th, he pushed again on the topic of a lab leak:
DR. GOTTLIEB: A lot of data. Well, first of all, they have antibody testing on the people who worked in that Wuhan lab. They didn't make that available. So you'd want to know if they have antibodies to the coronavirus. That would be an indication that maybe they- they got infected. Now, those antibodies will- will wane over time. But you at least want to look at that data. We want to see sequencing data on retained samples from people who were admitted to the hospital in October and November with viral syndromes that looked like COVID to see if this infection was spreading earlier and try to get closer to the source of the initial outbreak. That data is certainly available, the Chinese have that.
Finally, on February 21st:
DR. GOTTLIEB: Yeah, look, the most likely scenario here is that this came from nature, that this was bouncing back and forth between people and animals for a period of time and finally broke out. I think the lab leak theory, the fact that this could have been an accident out of that lab is never going to be fully dispelled. And the WHO shouldn't walk away from that so easily. I think the one thing that Matt said in that interview, which is interesting and I think is new, is that the Chinese military was in that institute doing experiments and doing experiments with animals. That does create increased risk that this could have jumped from animals to people inside that laboratory.
The Matt here is Matthew Pottinger, former Deputy National Security Advisor.
Shifting away from Scott Gottlieb, here's a quote from Politico (Mar 8):
In late 2017, top health and science officials at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing attended a conference in the Chinese capital . . . These researchers, the American officials learned, had found a population of bats from caves in Yunnan province that gave them insight into how SARS coronaviruses originated and spread. The researchers boasted that they may have found the cave where the original SARS coronavirus originated. But all the U.S. diplomats cared about was that these scientists had discovered three new viruses that had a unique characteristic: they contained a "spike protein” that was particularly good at grabbing on to a specific receptor in human lung cells known as an ACE2 receptor.
Shifting away from Scott Gottlieb, here's a quote from Politico (Mar 8):
In late 2017, top health and science officials at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing attended a conference in the Chinese capital . . . These researchers, the American officials learned, had found a population of bats from caves in Yunnan province that gave them insight into how SARS coronaviruses originated and spread. The researchers boasted that they may have found the cave where the original SARS coronavirus originated. But all the U.S. diplomats cared about was that these scientists had discovered three new viruses that had a unique characteristic: they contained a "spike protein” that was particularly good at grabbing on to a specific receptor in human lung cells known as an ACE2 receptor.
. . . When they sat down with the scientists at the WIV, the American diplomats were shocked by what they heard. The Chinese researchers told them they didn’t have enough properly trained technicians to safely operate their BSL-4 lab. The Wuhan scientists were asking for more support to get the lab up to top standards.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory was working on a coronavirus that had the now infamous spike protein. And when American diplomats sat down with the Chinese researchers, they realized that the Chinese weren't properly trained. The article goes on to describe how the Chinese, using CRISPR technology, created mice with lungs that had the human ACE2 receptor (the receptor that is vulnerable to the spike protein). What's the possibility that a mice escaped? Hmm . . .
People who are totally against the lab leak hypothesis will say that Dr. Shi Zhengli who was researching the coronavirus in bats had this to say, "Could they have come from our lab?" She looked into it and didn't find any evidence and ended with, "That really took a load off my mind." My question: maybe she wasn't the source of the leak, but go back to what Gottlieb said on Feb 21st about the Chinese military doing experiments at the lab. She might not be lying, but how far did she look into the matter. Did she explore what the military had?
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