Dr. Anthony Fauci Dismisses Emails About Man-Made Coronavirus, Claims Leaked Correspondence Was 'Taken Out Of Context'
June 3 2021, Published 11:34 a.m. ET
Dr. Anthony Fauci is dismissing claims he downplayed the theory that COVID-19 was a man-made virus after leaked emails seemed to show it was being taken seriously behind closed doors.
The scientist was once again under fire after Buzzfeed published several of Fauci's emails from the beginning of the pandemic, warning him the virus may have originated at Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Speaking candidly about the controversy with MSNBC on Wednesday, Fauci fiercely claimed his emails with NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins were "taken out of context."
He also said he "can't guarantee everything that is going on in the Wuhan lab."
Fauci didn't hesitate to address the hate he collects from Donald Trump supporters either, adding he was never "anti-Trump" and insinuating that the former president's backers just don't understand science.
"There is no doubt that there are people out there who, for one reason or another, resent me for what I did in the last administration, which was not anything that was anti-Trump at all," Fauci told MSNBC's Deadline.
Explaining the challenges he faced during the pandemic, he continued, "It was just trying to get the right information, to try and get the right data. What they didn't seem to understand, I guess that it is understandable that they didn't understand it, is that science is a dynamic process."
"So something that you know in January, you make a recommendation or a comment about it, but as you get more and more information, the information leads you to change because that is what science is, it is a self-correcting process," Fauci said.
Doubling down about his feelings on Trump, the scientist added, "That is what I was trying to do, always tell the truth on the basis of what the data is. It was never deliberately something against the president."
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In a separate interview with NewsNation Now, Fauci talked about his leaked emails.
"The only trouble is they are really ripe to be taken out of context where someone can snip out a sentence in an email without showing the other emails, and say 'based on an email from Dr. Fauci, he said such and such' where you don't really have the full context,'" he explained.
When it comes to the Wuhan lab, Fauci said, "I can't guarantee everything that is going on in the Wuhan lab, I can't do that. But it is our obligation as scientists and public health individuals to study the animal-human interface in the aftermath of the original SARS virus in 2002."
