CNN – In a meeting with National Institutes of Health researchers and other staff last week at agency headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya acknowledged that he was going to get into uncomfortable territory.
“It’s possible that the [Covid-19] pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings,” he said, according to a video obtained by CNN. “And it’s also possible that the NIH partly sponsored that research. And if that’s true – ”
At that point, Bhattacharya paused to watch as dozens of NIH staffers stood and filed out of the auditorium.
“It’s nice to have free speech,” he said with a smile. “Welcome, you guys.”
Bhattacharya then persisted.
“If it’s true that we sponsored research that caused a pandemic – and if you look at polls of the American people, that’s what most people believe, and I looked at the scientific evidence; I believe it – what we have to do is make sure that we do not engage in research that’s any risk of posing any risk to human populations,” he said.
The walkout was a gentle protest, one Bhattacharya – a former Stanford professor of health policy and economics who frequently claimed to have been censored during the Covid-19 pandemic for communicating views in opposition with those held by US scientific leadership at the time – referred to later in the town hall as “silent dissent.”
It represented not just disagreement with – and dismay over – Bhattacharya’s assertion that the NIH may bear some responsibility for the pandemic, which killed more than 7 million people worldwide, by sponsoring so-called gain-of-function research that created the SARS-CoV-2 virus that then leaked from a lab.
That’s a view not shared by a large number of expert virologists and epidemiologists, who think it’s more likely the virus emerged via a spillover from animals … READ MORE.
OUR VIEW: Virologists and epidemiologists have a vested interest in promoting the idea that the COVID virus “emerged via a spillover from animals” at a meat market that just coincidentally happened to be located down the street from the NIH-funded Wuhan Institute of Virology that was performing gain-of-function experiments on bat viruses.
The notion that one dollar of US taxpayer money should be used fund any research activity whatsoever in China is absurd. All federal employees connected with this funding should be terminated and should be glad they are not being prosecuted for crimes against humanity. – HEADLINE HEALTH
