(ReclaimingAmerica.net) – Dr. Robert Redfield, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief, accused former White House adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci of “sidelining” him from the COVID-19 origin debate because Redfield defended the Chinese lab leak theory.
Redfield, who led the CDC from 2018 until the end of the Trump administration, testified before the select subcommittee on the COVID-19 pandemic at the Republican-dominated US House of Representatives.
Fauci had a decisive voice in determining the pandemic policies of the US government. At the end of 2022, he retired as both White House Chief Medical Advisor and Director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He served in the latter capacity for 38 years, becoming the highest-paid federal government employee ever.
“This was an a priori decision that there’s one point of view that we’re going to put out there, and anyone who doesn’t agree with it is going to be sidelined,” former CDC chief Redfield told House members.
“And as I say, I was only the CDC director, and I was sidelined,” complained the 71-year-old expert, as cited by The New York Post.
Redfield declared that he was likely excluded from high-level discussions of the pandemic because he supported the theory that the coronavirus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Communist China.
Responding to a question by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), he made it clear he did not believe that the virus had jumped “naturally” from animals to humans.
“I think I made it very clear in January [2020] to all of them why we had to aggressively pursue this. And I let them know as a virologist that I didn’t see that this was anything like SARS or MERS… And they knew that was how I was thinking,” Redfield said.
He added he had no idea that Fauci and his boss, the then-head of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins, had held a conference call on February 1, 2020, on the worldwide coronavirus outbreak.
The former CDC learned about that only in June 2021 when The Washington Post and Buzzfeed leaked internal emails.
“I didn’t know there was a February 1 conference call until the Freedom of Information came out with the emails, and I was quite upset, as the CDC director, that I was excluded from those discussions,” Redfield said.
“Why would they do this?” Comer asked.
“Because I had a different point of view. And I was told that they had made a decision that they would keep this confidential until they came up with a single narrative — which I will argue is antithetical to science,” the virologist responded.
“Science never selects a single narrative. We foster — as my colleagues just said — we foster debate. And we’re confident that with debate, science will eventually get to the truth,” Redfield insisted.
What is your opinion about Fauci? Do you believe he lied to the American people? Share your view by emailing [email protected]. Thank you.
