Republican Rep. Jim Jordan baselessly suggested that former NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci gave scientists one of the grants — worth $9 million — to alter the scientific narrative on how the COVID-19 pandemic started.
Misconception: The Origins of COVID-19
Still No Determination on COVID-19 Origin
Navarro Falsely Links Fauci to Pandemic Origin
The U.S. indirectly funded some bat coronavirus research at a lab in Wuhan, China. But those experiments could not have led to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, because the viruses used were very different. Yet former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro repeated a false claim that Dr. Anthony Fauci “killed a lot of people” by funding the lab.
Republicans Spin NIH Letter About Coronavirus Gain-of-Function Research
Republicans say a letter from a National Institutes of Health official is an admission that the agency funded so-called gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in China, with some falsely linking the work to the pandemic coronavirus. But the research, which the NIH maintains is not gain-of-function, could not have led to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Fauci and Paul, Round 2
The Facts – and Gaps – on the Origin of the Coronavirus
The Wuhan Lab and the Gain-of-Function Disagreement
What do we know about the origins of SARS-CoV-2?
The exact origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19, remains unknown. Many scientists think that the virus likely originated in bats and then jumped to humans either directly or indirectly, through contact with an animal. Such zoonotic transfers have happened before with the coronaviruses responsible for SARS and MERS.
A paper published in Science in July 2022 analyzed the available evidence and implicated the wildlife trade and the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan,
New ‘Plandemic’ Video Peddles Misinformation, Conspiracies
The second part of “Plandemic” — a documentary-style video that presents a sweeping conspiracy theory about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, patents and vaccines — landed on Aug. 18, spinning together many of the falsehoods about the disease that we’ve been debunking for months, plus some new misleading claims.