Dr. Anthony Fauci Discusses COVID Origins in New Book Weeks After Being Grilled in Congressional Hearing

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who became the public face of the United States' response to the COVID-19 pandemic, reiterated in his new book that the virus mostly likely did not emerge from a lab leak in Wuhan, China, RadarOnline.com has learned.

"Although U.S. intelligence agencies are not uniform in their opinion about COVID's origin, the majority favor a natural occurrence," Fauci, who also served as chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden until his retirement in December 2022, wrote in his memoir On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service, per The U.S. Sun.

"Importantly, experienced evolutionary virologists throughout the world, while acknowledging the lack of definitive proof, have published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature their belief, based on geospatial information from the Huanan wet market in Wuhan as well as on epidemiological and virological data, that the virus emerged as a natural spillover from infected animals brought illegally into the market."

Fauci maintained that the origins of SARS-CoV-2 are still "uncertain" and that he keeps an open mind about the subject weeks after he was grilled by Republican lawmakers as he testified about the origins of the virus before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic during a hearing earlier this month.

In his testimony, Fauci rejected Rep. Jim Jordan's allegations that he intentionally tried to "downplay" or suppress the lab leak theory after it emerged that the National Institutes of Health gave grants to EcoHealth Alliance, an American nonprofit group that had partnered with international scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the outbreak of the pandemic.

"Any qualified evolutionary virologist would confirm that the bat viruses that were studied at WIV under the NIH-funded grant were phylogenetically so far removed from SARS-CoV-2 that it would be molecularly impossible for those viruses to be turned into SARS-CoV-2," Fauci said in his opening remarks. "Any suggestion that the viruses studied under the NIH-funded sub-award to WIV resulted in the creation of SARS-CoV-2 is without the slightest bit of evidence or feasibility."

In his new book, Fauci also detailed his battles with former president Donald Trump over the use of of anti-malaria medication hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.

Although Trump allegedly accused him of having "blood on your hands" for not supporting the use of the drug, Fauci wrote, "The fact was, however, there were no clinical studies proving that this antimalarial drug would help people. And it might hurt them. The president seemed unable to grasp that anecdotes of how hydroxychloroquine might have helped some people with COVID did not translate into solid medical advice."

A study published by researchers earlier this year found that hydroxychloroquine use may have led to nearly 17,000 deaths in the U.S., France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Turkey in the early days of the pandemic.

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One subject that Fauci didn't mention in the book was the misinformation promoted by controversial podcaster Joe Rogan suggesting that Ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug used for horses, could be used to treat COVID.

"Don't do it," warned in 2021 when asked about taking the drug. "There’s no evidence whatsoever that it works and it could potentially have toxicity ... with people who have gone to poison control centers because they’ve taken the drug at a ridiculous dose and wind up getting sick. There’s no clinical evidence that indicates that this works."

Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration settled a lawsuit brought by three Texas doctors over social media posts discouraging the use of Ivermectin. "You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it," a since-deleted viral tweet read. The FDA agreed to remove the posts after the Fifth Circuit ruled that the agency’s tweets overstepped its authority by sharing medical advice or recommendations.