A Senate hearing on the origins of the COVID-19 virus explored the leading theories, with lawmakers and witnesses trading arguments about what they believed.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee heard from four scientific experts about what current information suggests about the onset of SARS-CoV-2.
The theory of natural origins, the laboratory leak theory, and the data supporting them were all heavily debated, with the witnesses sometimes arguing among themselves during their testimony.
The expert witnesses invited by Democrats were Gregory D. Koblentz, associate professor and director of the biodefense graduate program at George Mason University, and Robert F. Garry, professor and associate professor at Tulane University School of Medicine, as well as author of a early opinion piece on the origin theory of COVID-19 that sparked widespread debate.
The GOP experts were Steven C. Quay, CEO of Atossa Therapeutics and former faculty member at Stanford University School of Medicine, and Richard H. Ebright, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University.
Here are some conclusions from the hearing:
Lab leak not excluded
Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) immediately set the tone of the hearing by giving credence to both natural origins and lab leak theories.
“There are theories suggesting that COVID-19 may have begun by entering the human population naturally, or possibly through a laboratory incident or accident,” Peters said in his opening statement.
“Given the likelihood that the Chinese government may never fully make public all the information it has about the initial outbreak of COVID-19, we want to use the available scientific information to better prepare for future potential pandemics.”
Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a member of the committee, expressed a general openness to both theories, although he indicated that his leaning was toward the theory of the origins of laboratory leaks.
“Are we sure it came from the lab?” No, but there is a preponderance of evidence that suggests it could have come from the laboratory. Do we know that viruses historically came from animals? Yes, they have come from animals in the past, but this time there is no animal reservoir,” Paul said.
Panel mixed on origin beliefs
The witnesses were evenly divided when it came to which theory they preferred.
Neither Koblentz nor Garry completely ruled out that the COVID-19 virus could have come from a laboratory incident, but they said they believed evidence supported the theory of natural origins.
“I believe that the available evidence most strongly points to a natural zoonotic spillover event as the origin of the pandemic. However, an investigation-related accident cannot be ruled out at this time,” Koblentz told the committee.
“I do not believe that the available scientific evidence, when considered holistically, supports that the virus was created in a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Garry said.
“However, I am a scientist first and I will follow the scientific method. Thus, I will continue to evaluate new evidence and reassess the validity of my scientific hypotheses about the origins of SARS-CoV-2.”
Quay argued that SARS-CoV-2 has several characteristics found only in synthetic viruses and not found in natural viruses. “Based on these characteristics, the chance that SARS-CoV-2 came from nature is one in a billion.”
Ebright said the virus could only have originated in a laboratory, given the research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). He argued that it was too coincidental that viruses presented for research at the Wuhan Institute shared certain characteristics with COVID-19.
“A virus with the exact characteristics proposed in the 2018 NIH and DARPA proposals appeared on the doorstep of the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Ebright said. “SARS-CoV-2 is the only one of more than 800 known SARS viruses to possess a furin cleavage site. Mathematically, this observation alone implies that the probability of finding a natural SARS virus possessing a furin cleavage site is less than one in 800.”
Author of the COVID origins article takes a beating
Garry, co-author of the 2020 article “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” faced a disproportionate amount of anger from Republican committee members. The piece did not rule out a laboratory leak theory, but the authors did conclude that a “lab-based scenario” was not considered plausible.
Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci quoted the publication when speaking in support of a natural origins theory. Subsequent reporting revealed that Fauci, along with other federal health officials, communicated with the authors shortly before the piece was published.
This has led Republican lawmakers to accuse Fauci and the analysis’s authors of conspiring to suppress the lab leak theory.
‘It’s absolutely disgraceful, Dr Garry. You are part of this propaganda effort. I mean, you’re in the middle of it. It’s amazing,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).
“I was just writing an article about our scientific opinions on where this virus came from,” Garry replied.
Paul directly asked one of the GOP witnesses, Ebright, what he thought of the “Proximal origin” article.
Ebright emphasized that it was not a research article, but an opinion piece.
“The authors gave their opinion, but that opinion was not well substantiated. In 2020, there was no basis for stating that as a conclusion, rather than simply being a hypothesis,” Ebright argued. “You would never, under any circumstances, draw conclusions in a scientific journal that you perceive are flawed and represent scientific misconduct.”
Garry has spoken to Congress repeatedly since the paper’s publication, speaking to the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in a closed-door interview last June and testifying publicly in his newspaper the following month.
He has maintained that his article was not influenced by Fauci or other federal health officials to explicitly favor a natural origins theory.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports and streaming video, visit The Hill.