Gottlieb Weighs In on COVID-19 Origin Theories: ‘Lab Leaks Happen All the Time’
As the intelligence community continues to probe the origins of COVID-19, former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says lab leaks are not uncommon. During an appearance on CBS News’ “Face…
As the intelligence community continues to probe the origins of COVID-19, former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says lab leaks are not uncommon.
During an appearance on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” on Sunday, Gottlieb said, “These kinds of lab leaks happen all the time, actually. Even here in the United States, we’ve had mishaps.”
“And in China, the last six known outbreaks of SARS-1 have been out of labs, including the last known outbreak, which was a pretty extensive outbreak that China initially wouldn’t disclose that it came out of a lab,” he added.
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If officials determined the origin of the virus, it would not help with addressing the current outbreak, Gottlieb added.
However, he said, “I think it informs how we go forward and how we prepare ourselves against these threats in the future and reduce these likelihoods. That’s where this becomes very important.”
President Joe Biden asked the U.S. intelligence community to “redouble” its investigation into the origins of COVID-19, as IJR reported.
He said that intelligence agencies “do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other.”
“The United States will also keep working with like-minded partners around the world to press China to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence,” Biden added.
The discussion of the origin of the virus received renewed attention after The Wall Street Journal reported, based on a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report, that several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill and sought hospital care in November 2019.