The select subcommittee’s leader sat down with The Messenger to discuss the embattled search for the origin of COVID-19

Published 11/02/23 Mansur Shaheen The Messenger

Ask anyone about the origins of COVID-19 and you might hear that it came from a wet market in Wuhan. Or a lab leak. Or bats. Or another animal entirely.    

Globally, hundreds of scientists, politicians, doctors and yes, conspiracy theorists, have invested countless hours uncovering the origins of the virus that took over the world in 2020. Leading that search in the United States is Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), who chairs the COVID Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The relatively unknown congressman has emerged as one of the most influential voices not just in matters related to public health, but also America’s relationship with China. Rep. Wenstrup, like many other Republicans, believes that the virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and was a product of risky research being conducted at the facility — the so-called “lab leak” theory.

He not only says China covered up the lab leak, but that it received help from some of America’s leading public health voices — including Dr. Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and many of his close associates.

Rep. Wenstrup, who is also a physician, told The Messenger about the current investigation, and how he fears that Americans are being lied to by people they should trust the most.

Why did you take such interest in finding COVID’s origins?

I’m a physician so obviously I took an interest in this topic. During the March 2020 lockdowns, another doctor here in Ohio reached out to me and he was saying “Look, I can’t do surgeries. I can’t do anything. I’m just doing research.” We started discussing things together. He even was on the phone with infectious disease doctors in China. And we were looking to see what was actually going on with this new virus. We had no vaccine, no real antiviral. We had no way of testing. We just had people getting sick and dying, some getting sick and not dying. And so a lot of decisions were being made blind because we didn’t know much about the virus.

While we were doing research into the virus and how it affects people, we came across something that I thought was very interesting — and apparently was interesting to Dr. Fauci, too, based on emails we saw later. We came across an article from 2015 that showed that doctors in North Carolina and China had successfully created a gain of function virus. [Ed’s note: Gain of function viruses are essentially naturally occurring viruses that have been altered for the purposes of research.] 

We’re like, holy cow. You can take parts of one virus and add it to another and make it more infectious and do all these things. Well, why would you want to do that?  

So that struck a nerve with the two of us. We thought,  well wait a minute, this type of research is going on in Wuhan. Wuhan is where we see the initial outbreaks of this virus. We got a bigger problem here. 

I have sat on the intelligence committee for the last nine years, and the committee just started looking at what we know, and what information we can get. Then, when Republicans took control of the House, Kevin McCarthy [R-CA] called me and said, I’d like you to lead this subcommittee — and it’s not only the origins of COVID but it’s on everything related to the pandemic.

What evidence is there that COVID leaked from a lab? Would proof require China to cooperate with the U.S. for the investigation?

I don’t think China ever will [cooperate], which is even more leaning towards the cover up, right?  Because why did they destroy their data? Why did they destroy evidence? Why did they get a new ventilation system right when COVID started? Why did the military take over the Wuhan Institute of Virology? 

Some say there’s not a lot of evidence for the lab leak, but I guess that’s in the eye of the beholder, and that’s fair enough. But I will tell you what we haven’t found and that’s any animal in nature carrying this virus. Not only that, we haven’t even found any animal in nature that is capable of carrying this virus. 

There were some things, for example, that Dr. Robert Garry [a virologist at Tulane University, and prominent acquaintance of Dr. Anthony Fauci] brought to the table saying that some sequences found were consistent with coronaviruses found in pangolins. Okay, fair enough. Then where are the pangolins that carried COVID? Pangolins in the wild are 603 miles away from Wuhan, and they were studying pangolin viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. How can that not look curious to someone?

We knew that scientists at the institute have genetically engineered coronaviruses. We know they were doing this research and did not use adequate biosafety precautions. 

China’s not helping. And if it didn’t come from the lab, I guarantee you, they would be making sure that we knew everything. [Chinese scientists] tested thousands of animals and have not found one in nature that could have transmitted the virus to humans. 

With other viruses that jumped from humans to animals, we found that interim animal. But China hasn’t found any and they’ve tested so many, how can that not be part of the conversation? 

But you do see these things that were taking place in the lab. You do know that there’s a risk that something like this could get down to the lab. Why is that? Why is that being eliminated from the conversation? 

Tell me about the investigations into Dr. Fauci, Dr. Garry and other associates

We’ve held three hearings investigating all available intelligence on the infamous Proximal Origin publication. [Ed’s note: The Proximal Origin publication is a paper published by Dr. Garry, Dr. Fauci and others early in the pandemic that dismisses the lab leak theory.] We sent a lot of letters to government agencies to get information. 

We learned the proximal origins authors were communicating via Slack [a common inter-office communication tool]. So we subpoenaed the Slack messages and they revealed a lot. They basically revealed that there was an intentional suppression of the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis. It involved Dr. Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins [who then served as the National Institutes of Health director] and all the co-authors of Proximal Origin.

Then we got Dr. Fauci these emails. He was aware of the risky gain of function research in Wuhan. I mean, he gets told by Dr. Kristian Andersen [a California-based biologist, Dr. Fauci associate and Proximal Origins author] in an email: “Hey, this thing looks engineered.” 

Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins knew they were doing gain of function research there before February of 2020. Why didn’t they tell the American people? Why did they keep it to their own conference call? 

And then, why did the same doctors that are sitting there saying, “Well, this thing sure looks engineered” then go out and publish a paper that said, “Oh, it came from nature.”

This issue has become very partisan, and almost taboo to discuss, how did that happen?

I’ve wanted more open discussion about whether the virus leaked from a lab or came naturally. Why can we not have an open debate about this? Why are we trying to put down one theory over the other — that’s not science. 

I’ll tell you it was bipartisan at the very beginning. To prepare for the next pandemic, whether it comes from nature, or whether it comes from a lab, we have to know how to respond and to respond better than we did.

But it has become partisan and broken down. Two sides will not work with each other, and China isn’t helping either.

You know, my counterpart on the Democrat side [Rep. Raul Ruiz of California] said we’re cherry-picking information. But we’re putting it all out there, I don’t know how that’s cherry-picking.

I understand that some might have the opinion that COVID-19 came from nature. I get that. But a lot of very smart people have the opinion that it came from the lab. So why are Democrats shutting out that conversation and the debate?

What would the consequences be for China if it was a lab leak? What about Dr. Fauci?

I don’t know.

What is important to me is that we get the truth to the American people. And if laws were violated in the process of the search for the virus’s origins, then certainly it’s more than just not being truthful with the American people. If we release facts, and it shows that something was a violation of the law, then I guess we do move forward with more serious consequences. It’s unfortunate. 

I want people in America to be able to trust the public health officials, and right now they can’t and for a lot of good reasons. They cannot because we weren’t being upfront.

Some people say you, and other lab leak theorists, are racist and xenophobic, crackpots and more. How would you respond to them?

I know how my parents raised me. And I know what honesty looks like, and I know what serving others looks like. I was in the military for 25 years. I served one year as Chief of Surgery of Abu Ghraib prison, taking care of the enemy. I don’t think that makes me a crackpot. And I don’t think it makes me any of the other names. I’m here to serve others and serve mankind. 

It’s up to them what they want to call me or anybody else that has a theory that’s different from theirs. I can at least entertain their theories, and we’ll talk to them about their theories and have a conversation. So if they want to do that, have at it. Shame on them if that’s all they got. And that’s all they got, that’s pretty weak.