{"id":546444,"date":"2021-05-30T21:51:23","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T01:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=546444"},"modified":"2021-05-30T21:51:27","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T01:51:27","slug":"former-fda-commissioner-theres-one-piece-of-evidence-needed-to-determine-pandemics-origin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/former-fda-commissioner-theres-one-piece-of-evidence-needed-to-determine-pandemics-origin\/","title":{"rendered":"Former FDA Commissioner: There\u2019s One Piece Of Evidence Needed To Determine Pandemic\u2019s Origin"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fformer-fda-commissioner-theres-one-piece-of-evidence-needed-to-determine-pandemics-origin%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=546444&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/SCOTT-GOTTLIEB-1200x800-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CBS News on Sunday that China likely knows where the coronavirus pandemic originated from based on some of the evidence that they have.<\/p>\n<p>Gottlieb\u2019s comments come as the narrative in the legacy media has shifted in recent weeks toward considering the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 might have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.<\/p>\n<p>When asked if he believes that the Chinese know the answer about the pandemic\u2019s origins, Gottlieb responded, \u201cThey would know the answer to the question because they would have blood samples from the workers in that lab.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd that\u2019s the evidence that they haven\u2019t made public,\u201d Gottlieb continued. \u201cIf, in fact, the blood samples show that a high prevalence of people in that lab have been exposed to this virus, that\u2019s pretty definitive proof that this coursed through that lab. And they would also have the samples from the time that they were first drawn, which was the time when they had those illnesses. There\u2019s no question that when they had an outbreak of an illness in that lab that they would have done routine blood sampling in that lab. That\u2019s just normal controls in a lab of that quality. So they would have that information\u201d<\/p>\n<div id>\n<p><em>JOHN DICKERSON: We go now to former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who sits on the board of Pfizer and joins us from Westport, Connecticut. He has just finished work on a book that will be out this fall titled: \u201cUncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed US and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic.\u201d Good morning, Dr. Gottlieb.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>DOCTOR SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Good morning.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>JOHN DICKERSON: So usually when we\u2019re together, we talk about the past and look towards the future, but this week, we\u2019ve been talking a lot about the past. Why is it that there is now a conversation about how this pandemic started, and why is that important?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, look, I think the challenge is that the side of the ledger that suggests that this could have come out of a lab has continued to expand. And the side of the ledger that suggests that this could have come from a zoonotic source, come out of nature, really hasn\u2019t budged. And if anything, you can argue that that side of the ledger has contracted because we\u2019ve done an exhaustive search for the so-called intermediate host, the animal that could have been host to this virus before it spread to humans. We have not found such an animal. We\u2019ve also fully disproven the market, the food market that was initially implicated in the original outbreak as the source of the outbreak. And so that side of the ledger probably has shrunken, and China could provide evidence that would be exculpatory here. They could provide the blood samples from those who worked in the lab in Wuhan. They\u2019ve refused to do that. They could provide the source strain, some of the original strains. They\u2019ve refused to do that. They [could] provide access to some of the early samples that we could sequence. They could provide an inventory of what was in the lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab that has been implicated in a potential lab leak. They have refused to do that. And we know that that lab was poorly constructed, had poor controls. That was reported at the time that it was first opened. We know the lab was engaging in very high-risk research, including infecting transgenic animals, animals with fully human immune systems. We know they were working with SARS-like viruses that have never been disclosed before. And now we have new evidence that some lab workers became infected right at the time that this virus was believed to be first introduced. That\u2019s been publicly reported. So that side of the ledger has expanded. And I think that\u2019s why there is renewed focus on this. In terms of your final question, why this is important, I think if we assess that there is a probability or a possibility that this came out of a lab, it\u2019s going to affect how we respond to this. We\u2019re going to need to focus on trying to get better controls in this sort of high-risk research going forward and get better controls over these BSL-4, these high security labs that conduct this research. Incidentally, China was not conducting this research in a BSL-4 lab. They were doing it in a lower security BSL-2 lab.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>JOHN DICKERSON: So in terms of looking at this going forward, back to the title of your book, \u201cHow We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic,\u201d your argument is it\u2019s important to know how this started in this case because there is this specific lab. But there have been also other cases where security has been lax and there have been leaks. And so it\u2019s important to figure out what happened here in order to kind of lock the doors tight, to keep it from happening again.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>DR. GOTTLIEB: That\u2019s right. These kinds of lab leaks happen all the time, actually. Even here in the United States, we\u2019ve 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\u2019t disclose that it came out of lab. It was only for \u2014 it was only disclosed finally by some journalists who were able to trace that outbreak back to a laboratory. So it\u2019s important to understand what the possibility is that this came out of a lab so we could focus more international attention on trying to get better inventories around these labs, what they\u2019re doing, better security, make sure they\u2019re properly built. We need to also look at public health through the lens of national security. This was an asymmetric harm to the United States. COVID hurt the U.S. a lot more than it hurt many other countries. And that\u2019s another thing I talk about in the book, looking at these kinds of risks through the lens of national security, including getting our intelligence services more engaged in this mission. Traditionally, we\u2019ve relied on international conventions and scientists working together, multilateral agreements to try to assess the risks and try to uncover these kinds of outbreaks. I think we also need to get better surveillance in place and use our tools of national security to help engage in that mission as well.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>JOHN DICKERSON: If there were an answer to this question, would it help with any way in which we are covering and responding to the coronavirus now? In other words, dealing with variants or anything, is there a public health benefit to knowing this at this moment?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>DR. GOTTLIEB: Not right now. I think what we know about the virus, we already know about the virus. And there\u2019s nothing that we\u2019re going to learn about the characteristics of the current virus by knowing its origin. Quite frankly, we\u2019ve had enough experience with this virus to fully understand it. I think it informs how we go forward, and how we prepare ourselves against these threats in the future, and reduce these likelihoods. That\u2019s where this becomes very important.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>JOHN DICKERSON: And what about in the past? There was discussion of this very early in the response to the pandemic. People thought this might be one of the places it might have come from. If we had known for certain, which, it\u2019s an open question whether we ever could have known. But if in the early days of the pandemic, we had known that it came from this lab, would that have changed in any way the response to the pandemic?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>DR. GOTTLIEB: I\u2019m not sure it would have affected how we responded to it. Once this became epidemic in China and once it escaped China, it was going to behave the way it behaved. I\u2019m not sure there\u2019s things we would have learned or gleaned by knowing that it came out of a lab and perhaps was manipulated or humanized in a lab. We could ascertain that this was pretty humanized by the time it started to spread in humans. Again, I think this is more of a question going forward. And we may never really determine with precision whether or not this came out of a lab. I think what we\u2019re likely to end up with is an assessment, a probability, unless we get very lucky and we either find the intermediate host, we find a colony of civet cats or pangolins where this is epidemic and it could have first spilled over into humans, or we have a whistleblower in China or regime change, which we\u2019re not going to have. I don\u2019t know that we\u2019re going to find out with certainty that this came out of a lab. I think we\u2019re going to ultimately come up with an assessment and a probability on whether this came out of a lab versus a zoonotic source. And it\u2019s going to take some more data to get a better overall assessment in terms of the probability that this could have come out of a lab. But we might get that information.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>JOHN DICKERSON: Is it your view that the Chinese know the answer to this question?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>DR. GOTTLEIB: They would know the answer to the question because they would have blood samples from the workers in that lab. And that\u2019s the evidence that they haven\u2019t made public. If, in fact, the blood samples show that a high prevalence of people in that lab have been exposed to this virus, that\u2019s pretty definitive proof that this coursed through that lab. And they would also have the samples from the time that they were first drawn, which was the time when they had those illnesses. There\u2019s no question that when they had an outbreak of an illness in that lab that they would have done routine blood sampling in that lab. That\u2019s just normal controls in a lab of that quality. So they would have that information.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>JOHN DICKERSON: All right, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, congratulations on finishing the book. Thanks again for being with us, as always.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><i><span>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i><span>member<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CBS News on Sunday that China likely knows where the coronavirus pandemic originated from based on some of the evidence that they have.Gottlieb\u2019s comments &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2313567,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/SCOTT-GOTTLIEB-1200x800-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Former FDA Commissioner: There\u2019s One Piece Of Evidence Needed To Determine Pandemic\u2019s Origin","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/SCOTT-GOTTLIEB-1200x800-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Former FDA Commissioner: There\u2019s One Piece Of Evidence Needed To Determine Pandemic\u2019s Origin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2313567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}