Dr Anthony Fauci, the US’s chief medical adviser at the start of the pandemic, has described a book by News Corp investigative journalist Sharri Markson backing the “lab leak” theory of Covid-۱۹’s origins as a “bunch of nonsense” in his newly released diaries.
This week, Fauci, ۸۵, was subpoenaed by the Republican senator Rand Paul to appear at a Senate hearing into Covid-۱۹ and his handling of the pandemic.
The physician and veteran former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who retired in ۲۰۲۲, accused Paul of an “unhinged” campaign lobbying for his imprisonment and refused to answer questions at Wednesday’s hearing.
The hearing was a continuation of Paul’s years-long support of the lab leak theory, or the idea that the Covid-۱۹ pandemic began as a release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Ahead of his appearance, Paul published ۱,۱۴۱ pages of Fauci’s pandemic-era journal entries. In the entries, Fauci criticised reporting in The Australian newspaper and a book by Markson that claimed a facility in Wuhan was “immersed in genetically manipulating bat-coronaviruses in perilous experiments”.
On ۷ May ۲۰۲۱, Markson reported in The Australian that Chinese military scientists “discussed the weaponisation of Sars coronaviruses five years before the Covid-۱۹ pandemic” and predicted a third world war would be fought with biological weapons.
Fauci, who served under seven US presidents but became a household name overnight in ۲۰۲۰, wrote in his private diary that the article “does not make any sense”.
“Why would someone want to make an agent that could equally infect your own population. Something is wrong with this report. I will have to follow up on it,” he wrote.
Guardian Australia later found the “chilling” document produced by Chinese military scientists in the article was based on a discredited ۲۰۱۵ book containing conspiracy theories about biological warfare which is freely available on the internet.
Markson’s story was criticised as misleading and alarmist by China analysts. A deputy editor of Foreign Policy magazine and China expert, James Palmer, said the article had links to conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus which are popular with the political right.
The story was published to promote Markson’s debut book, What Really Happened in Wuhan, which argued there was “no scientific consensus that Covid-۱۹ has a natural origin” and that China had conspired to cover up the truth.
Fauci also took aim at Markson’s book, writing in his diary that “the same old crap is going on with the far right continuing to attack me”.
“The latest written by an Australian person who says I’m the father of gain of function research quotes from the infamous Richard Ebright saying that I’m a liar and I have misled everybody about gain of function,” he wrote. “What a bunch of nonsense! The far right continues to try and discredit me.”
Ebright is an American molecular biologist and proponent of the lab leak theory.
Markson told Guardian Australia “the majority of the intelligence community now concludes that Covid-۱۹ likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory”.
“I led the way internationally exposing the role of Anthony Fauci’s agency funding ۶۵ projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, funnelling the money through EcoHealth Alliance,” she said on Thursday.
The origins of the Covid-۱۹ pandemic remain the subject of intense debate among scientists and the wider public.
There are two competing theories – the natural-origins hypotheses, which suggests the pandemic began when a close relative of Sars-CoV-۲ jumped from a wild animal to a human through the wildlife trade, and lab leak theories, which argue that the virus emerged when Chinese scientists became infected through research-associated activities.
News Corp was approached for comment.
