Fauci Toadies Privately Called Lab Leak ‘Highly Likely’

The latest revelations from Sen. Rand Paul’s investigation into the origin of Covid expose what may be one of the most consequential scientific deceptions in history.

The 1,123 pages of private Slack messages exchanged among the authors of the highly influential “Proximal Origin” paper reveal that the scientists who publicly declared that a laboratory origin of Covid was not plausible privately held a very different view. They repeatedly acknowledged that a laboratory origin remained possible, discussed flaws in their own arguments, and struggled to defend the natural origin theory.

In the first batch of Slack messages between the authors, which was released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2023, Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research, the lead author of “Proximal Origin,” privately described the possibility of a laboratory origin as “friggin’ likely.” In another exchange, he wrote, “The main issue is that accidental escape is in fact highly likely — it’s not some fringe theory,” and elsewhere another author acknowledged that Covid “easily could have” leaked from a laboratory. Yet only weeks later, on March 17, 2020, they published “Proximal Origin,” declaring that a laboratory-based scenario was not plausible.

When those earlier messages became public, Andersen offered a simple explanation. He argued that his initial doubts had been resolved before publication and that the messages merely reflected a normal scientific process of considering possibilities before reaching a conclusion.

The latest Slack disclosures completely destroy that claim.

The doubts did not disappear after publication. The newly released messages show the authors continuing to wrestle with evidence they found troubling. In one exchange from June 2020, Andersen wrote: “Gotta say — some smoking(ish) guns starting to appear that I’m not comfortable with.”

But rather than publicly admitting that their paper got it wrong, they instead discussed strategies for defending the natural-origin theory and finding arguments that could preserve it despite mounting problems.

The Genesis Of The Paper And The Hidden Hand Of Anthony Fauci

To understand why the scientists doubled down on their deception, it is necessary to understand how “Proximal Origin” came into existence and how it became one of the most influential scientific papers of the modern era.

“Proximal Origin” was conceived during a secret teleconference convened by Anthony Fauci on Feb. 1, 2020, as concerns grew that Covid might have originated from a laboratory. During that call, Fauci directed a group of scientists, led by Andersen and Robert Garry of Tulane University, and including Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh and Edward Holmes of the University of Sydney, to produce a paper addressing the possibility of a laboratory origin. Lipkin did not participate in the Slack exchanges that have since become public.

Upon its March 17, 2020 publication in Nature Medicine, the article reached a sweeping conclusion that a lab-based scenario was entirely implausible.

Despite Fauci’s central involvement in initiating the effort and shaping the discussion around the paper, his role was not disclosed to the public. The public was left with the impression that “Proximal Origin” represented an independent scientific assessment rather than a paper whose creation had been facilitated by the nation’s leading infectious disease official. That omission was particularly consequential because Fauci had himself been involved in funding gain-of-function research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology after similar research had been restricted in the United States, making him not merely a commentator on the controversy but a figure directly implicated in the questions the paper sought to settle.

When President Donald Trump raised the possibility of a laboratory origin on April 17, 2020, Fauci cited “Proximal Origin” as evidence that the theory was unsupported. Fauci even told reporters that he could not recall the names of the authors. The reality was that he had been involved with them from the beginning.

Quickly becoming one of the most cited scientific publications in history, “Proximal Origin” established itself as the definitive authority on the origins of Covid, serving to dismiss anyone who argued that a laboratory leak deserved serious investigation. After the paper’s publication, several of the authors received tens of millions of dollars in grant funding through Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

The newly released Slack messages show that Fauci’s involvement did not end once the paper was published. On May 23, 2021, the day reports emerged that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been hospitalized with Covid-like symptoms in November 2019, Andersen revealed that he had just met with Fauci and his team. “Just had a meeting with Fauci and his team this morning,” he wrote. “They get it and deeply appreciate what we’re doing, so we’ll keep dancing …” Three days later, President Biden ordered an intelligence review into Covid’s origins. Days after that, Fauci’s emails revealing the secret February 2020 teleconference became public under FOIA.

Technical Flaws And Private Admissions

In truth, the problems with “Proximal Origin” were visible from the beginning. One of the most important examples involved the authors’ claim that Covid could not have been engineered because it did not contain a known viral backbone.

The argument was presented as a decisive reason to reject a laboratory origin. Yet the paper’s own citation pointed to a list of known viral backbones from 2014. Even if that list had been complete, it could not possibly account for years of subsequent research.

The authors were effectively arguing that because the virus did not match something contained in an incomplete historical catalog, laboratory manipulation was impossible. Like so much else in the paper, this was an assumption presented as a conclusion.

Another flawed assumption that has since been exposed involved the authors’ claim that because the Covid virus did not bind tightly to human cells, it could not have been engineered. This was essentially an exercise in speculation: assuming what a hypothetical designer would or would not have done. More importantly, the theory had already been challenged by another scientist, Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina. Baric had shown that excessively tight binding could actually make a virus less effective because it could cause the virus to become trapped rather than spread efficiently.

The newly released Slack messages also revisited one of the paper’s principal arguments. In “Proximal Origin,” the authors argued that engineering the Covid virus would have been difficult. Yet Andersen later wrote:

In our paper we argue against (a) manipulation and (b) tissue culture. Our main arguments were that manipulation is hard. But the German’s [sic] came out and created a reverse genetics system of SARS2 in less than two weeks, so clearly it’s not that hard.

The exchange reflected a reassessment of one of the paper’s central technical arguments. But again, neither Andersen nor the other authors ever publicly acknowledged this central flaw. Perhaps the most damaging revelation concerns one of the paper’s central claims. In “Proximal Origin,” the authors wrote: “Basic research involving passage of bat SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses in cell culture and/or animal models has been ongoing for many years in biosafety level 2 laboratories across the world.”

That statement created the impression that this type of coronavirus research was a widespread and routine activity being conducted in laboratories around the globe. But in private, Andersen acknowledged that this description was misleading: “We describe this in the paper and say that this work is performed ‘all of the world’ [sic], but that isn’t true — it has exclusively been going on at WIV [Wuhan Institute of Virology].”

Had they not deceived the public, a striking coincidence would have been laid bare: A virus sharing the exact characteristics of those studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology emerged right on the doorstep of the laboratory conducting the research.

Other scientists recognized many of these fundamental flaws when the “Proximal Origin” preprint was published in February 2020. Microbiologist Rossana Segreto offered detailed critiques of the paper and issued an eerily prescient warning in a contemporaneous message: “Are some virologists scared that the tru[th] will come out and their research will be limited? I am ready to take the risk to see also my work limited. Playing with fire is dangerous without precautions …”

Institutional Power And The Enduring Lesson

When we zoom out, perhaps the biggest question raised by this scandal is how a paper with such profound flaws, and whose own authors privately continued to question its conclusions, became one of the most cited scientific papers in history. How did it happen that Fauci, the media, universities, public health institutions, and countless others embraced it so completely? How did a paper built on deception become a tool for shutting down debate?

The “Proximal Origin” episode demonstrates the danger that arises when institutional authority becomes a substitute for evidence. Experts provide authority, prestigious journals provide legitimacy, government officials lend credibility, and the media amplifies the resulting message. Together, these institutions can create an environment in which a contested conclusion is elevated into accepted fact.

That is the enduring lesson of “Proximal Origin.” The greatest threat to public trust does not come from disagreement or scientific uncertainty. It comes when powerful people and institutions use their authority to suppress the truth.