04-19-2025, 01:52 AM
White House embraces lab leak as ‘true’ pandemic origin, axes covid website
https://wapo.st/3YC5NzS
The White House on Friday launched a website deeming a laboratory leak as the “true” origin of the coronavirus, embracing a theory that has become a popular explanation for a pandemic that has killed more than 1 million Americans but remains divisive in the intelligence community and is opposed by many virologists.
The new website, which features an image of President Donald Trump striding between the words “Lab Leak,” appears to draw entirely upon a report overseen by House Republicans last year that concluded the outbreak began with a lab leak in China. The White House site also echoes the report’s allegations that Anthony S. Fauci, a former senior National Institutes of Health official who became a target of Trump’s ire, “prompted” scientists to instead focus on a possible “natural” explanation for the outbreak that included a potential virus spreading to humans from a Wuhan market where wild animals were sold.
“By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t,” the White House website reads, encouraging visitors to download the embedded House Republicans’ report.
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The Trump administration’s new lab-leak website also replaced a five-year-old webpage, Covid.gov, that was first set up to share resources and information for Americans on how to fight the virus, including how to access free coronavirus tests, seek treatment or how to stay up to date on vaccination to “protect you and your loved ones.” It also highlighted resources for those suffering from long covid.
Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, criticized the White House for removing public health information from a website in favor of a page intended to “score partisan points.” He also said that the origin of the pandemic remains an open question and that he is open to both the lab-leak and natural origin theories.
“The Trump administration is rewriting some of history and making covid-19 out to be a political event rather than a biological event that happened,” Adalja said.
https://wapo.st/3YC5NzS
The White House on Friday launched a website deeming a laboratory leak as the “true” origin of the coronavirus, embracing a theory that has become a popular explanation for a pandemic that has killed more than 1 million Americans but remains divisive in the intelligence community and is opposed by many virologists.
The new website, which features an image of President Donald Trump striding between the words “Lab Leak,” appears to draw entirely upon a report overseen by House Republicans last year that concluded the outbreak began with a lab leak in China. The White House site also echoes the report’s allegations that Anthony S. Fauci, a former senior National Institutes of Health official who became a target of Trump’s ire, “prompted” scientists to instead focus on a possible “natural” explanation for the outbreak that included a potential virus spreading to humans from a Wuhan market where wild animals were sold.
“By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t,” the White House website reads, encouraging visitors to download the embedded House Republicans’ report.
>>>>
The Trump administration’s new lab-leak website also replaced a five-year-old webpage, Covid.gov, that was first set up to share resources and information for Americans on how to fight the virus, including how to access free coronavirus tests, seek treatment or how to stay up to date on vaccination to “protect you and your loved ones.” It also highlighted resources for those suffering from long covid.
Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, criticized the White House for removing public health information from a website in favor of a page intended to “score partisan points.” He also said that the origin of the pandemic remains an open question and that he is open to both the lab-leak and natural origin theories.
“The Trump administration is rewriting some of history and making covid-19 out to be a political event rather than a biological event that happened,” Adalja said.