{"id":14773,"date":"2026-05-08T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=14773"},"modified":"2026-04-29T13:04:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T17:04:00","slug":"covid-cover-up-hiding-star-researcher-ralph-barics-ties-to-global-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=14773","title":{"rendered":"COVID Cover-Up: Hiding Star Researcher Ralph Baric\u2019s Ties to Global Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Paul D. Thacker<\/a>, RealClearInvestigations
April 28, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ralph Baric<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 2020, a couple of months after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States, editors at the journal Nature Medicine appended a note to a coronavirus study it had published five years prior. \u201cWe are aware that this article is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered,\u201d the journal editors wrote<\/a>. \u201cThere is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prestigious journal appears to have taken this extraordinary action for two reasons. First, the study described cutting-edge gain-of-function research that mixed different viruses together to create a man-made chimera, or hybrid of both viruses \u2013 experiments some suspected were the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the pandemic. Second, the study\u2019s authors were Shi Zengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology \u2013 a research lab in the city that was ground zero for the pandemic \u2013 and Ralph Baric, the world’s leading expert on coronaviruses, of the University of North Carolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Anthony Fauci dismissed claims that the virus that causes COVID-19 could have been created in a lab as a “conspiracy theory.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The renowned virologist Simon Wain-Hobson said that note was an early sign of the years-long effort by the scientific establishment to distract the public and obscure the link between lab studies to create dangerous viruses and the COVID pandemic that wrecked the global economy and killed millions across the planet. During a March talk at the National Institutes of Health, Wain-Hobson blasted former NIH leaders Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci for funding these lab studies and then misleading the public about their dangers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorry to be blunt,\u201d Wain-Hobson told NIH researchers<\/a>. \u201cI know these are former colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the pandemic\u2019s outbreak six years ago, a slew of emails and documents released by Congress and through public records requests cast a dark shadow on the NIH and the virologists it funded, with nearly two-thirds of Americans<\/a> now believing the virus came from a laboratory in China. Although the question of whether the virus that causes COVID-19 originated in a lab or in the wild is still a subject of debate, there is no doubt that scientists at the highest level worked to dismiss the lab-leak theory and shut down their connections to the work in Wuhan. Efforts by Collins<\/a> and Fauci<\/a> to delegitimize dissenting voices have been reported, but the central role played by Baric has been obscured. The UNC researcher\u2019s work on coronaviruses and his connection to the Wuhan lab are now receiving renewed attention after RealClearInvestigations learned that the federal government has quietly removed Baric from all his NIH grants. RCI has also learned that UNC placed Baric on leave. UNC has also refused to cooperate with NIH officials as they have attempted to gather more facts and emails about Baric\u2019s coronavirus research, which evidence leads them to believe led to the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric did not respond to multiple, detailed requests for comment and clarification about these matters and other issues reported by RCI. UNC Chancellor Lee H. Roberts did not respond to multiple requests for comment about actions taken against Baric nor UNC\u2019s lack of cooperation with the federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RCI\u2019s months-long review of hundreds of pages of emails and interviews with more than a dozen current and former congressional staffers and administration officials shows that Baric\u2019s public proclamations about his work, which has been connected to tens of millions of dollars in federal research grants, have not always reflected his own private reservations about risky experiments. Baric has also participated in campaigns to cast doubt on the dangers of virus research, while politicians and the FBI have sought to protect him. In addition, the University of North Carolina has blocked both private individuals and federal agencies demanding more transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got good PR people at the University of North Carolina helping him, but nobody has strung together his entire history,\u201d said Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right to Know. Ruskin has been suing Baric\u2019s university since 2020 to obtain access to his communications, and his nonprofit has published thousands of emails spotlighting Baric\u2019s work and ties to research in Wuhan, China. \u201cSix years later, we still know so little,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s just amazing to me. The public deserves to know what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe investigations have been terrible,\u201d said a senior congressional staffer who has followed the Senate and House probes of the COVID pandemic. \u201cAnd Ralph Baric\u2019s fingerprints are everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A researcher whose security clearance allowed him to view still-classified documents told RCI there is no doubt the virus came from a lab in Wuhan. \u201cThis is a good view of what happened to virology,\u201d he said. \u201cThey started willy nilly mutating viruses, and then got upset when this led to 20 million deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Controversial History<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric\u2019s virus research has long been controversial as he pioneered \u201cgain-of-function\u201d studies, which design viruses with unique genetic features that make them either more deadly to humans or more likely to cause an infection. This line of research posits that generating deadly viruses in labs allows scientists to create treatments before a similar pathogen evolves in the wild and begins killing humans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal funding for studies to enhance viruses hit a snag in 2011 when Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center and Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin created a new and deadly flu virus that could spread through the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fearing the virus could be used as a bioweapon, the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity asked two scientific journals<\/a> to delete details of the scientific methods and specific mutations in the Fouchier and Kawaoka studies on the lab-engineered bird flu. Public outcries then prompted the Obama administration to call for new rules on gain-of-function studies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former NIH Director Francis Collins supported the kind of gain-of-function research pursued by Baric. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2014, the federal government released guidelines which NIH director Francis Collins said would <\/a>help \u201cpreserve the benefits of life-science research while minimizing the risk of misuse.\u201d But these rules did little to slow dangerous studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within weeks, the virology community was hit with a bracing setback<\/a>. Following poor safety procedures, dozens of CDC workers were potentially exposed to anthrax, and vials of smallpox virus were found unsecured in an NIH storeroom. In response, the Obama White House announced a pause<\/a> on all gain-of-function virus research so the risks and benefits could be better assessed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researcher most affected by the pause was Ralph Baric, who was described as America\u2019s \u201cforemost coronavirus biologist\u201d in an NPR report headlined, \u201cHow A Tilt Toward Safety Stopped A Scientist\u2019s Virus Research.\u201d<\/a> Referring to gain-of-function research, David Relman<\/a>, a microbiologist at Stanford University, told NPR, \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s wise or appropriate for us to create large risks that don\u2019t already exist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric, however, countered that his animal experiments on the SARS and MERS viruses posed no threat to people. \u201cNo. 1, mice don\u2019t sneeze,\u201d he told NPR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric also told NPR that he would accede to the ban. \u201cThe NIH has asked me to stop those experiments,\u201d Baric said, \u201cand so we have stopped those experiments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the waning days of the Obama administration, the government sought to draft new guidelines that would lift this pause on dangerous studies. Newly disclosed emails acquired by RCI show that NIH officials under Anthony Fauci and Baric\u2019s former employee, virologist Matt Frieman, began a secret lobbying campaign to influence the Obama White House to ensure recommendations would not inhibit scientific funding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These emails have never been reported and were provided by a researcher familiar with this effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secret Lobbying<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election \u2013 but before he was inaugurated \u2013 White House employees in the Office of Science Technology Policy (OSTP) began to finalize a new government-wide guidance for gain-of-function research. Suggesting the importance of this effort both to science and national security, senior officials from multiple agencies were working with OSTP to finalize<\/a> the new advice, including HHS, FDA, USDA, FBI, CDC, DOD, State Department, DNI, CIA, and branches of the military, according to leaked emails. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But while senior officials at agencies across the government fought for the ear of the White House, OSTP invitedFrieman for a personal visit from the nearby University of Maryland, and he appears to have acted as a lobbyist for his fellow gain-of-function researchers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While waiting for a train, Frieman dashed off a group email<\/a>, urging coronavirus researchers for examples of gain-of-function studies that had been halted by White House policies. The first person listed on the group email was Frieman\u2019s former boss, Ralph Baric. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"RCI\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe all know that our work has been impacted in grants but also in projects that were stalled, or didn\u2019t pursue because of the moratorium,\u201d Frieman wrote<\/a>. He then asked the scientists for examples of gain-of-function studies that had been stopped for safety reasons. \u201cSpecifically, I need examples of people that have been impacted and a brief description of the experiment(s).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with Frieman, researchers then compiled a five-page list of virus studies<\/a> \u2013 which included constructing new SARS chimeric viruses \u2013 that had been stopped by the Obama White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the emails, Frieman reported back to NIH officials<\/a> working for Tony Fauci that he met with OSTP associate director Jo Handelsman<\/a>. He was joined at the meeting by Stacy Schultz-Cherry<\/a>, an NIH-funded infectious disease researcher at St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schultz-Cherry remains a strong proponent of gain-of-function research. In 2023, she and two of the virologists Frieman contacted to lobby Handelsman led a report by the American Society of Microbiologists arguing for \u201ca balanced scientific discussion<\/a>\u201d that emphasized the benefits<\/a> to society of gain-of-function virus research. Handelsman, who is now a professor at the University of Wisconsin, served as a participant for the American Society of Microbiologists\u2019 report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House OSTP released the recommendations<\/a> weeks before Trump was sworn into office in 2017. While calling for more rigorous review of research involving enhanced potential pandemic pathogens, it also stated that, \u201cProjects that have been paused under the existing moratorium will now be reviewed utilizing a process consistent with the recommended policy guidance. Any projects that are determined suitable to proceed will do so with appropriate risk mitigation measures in place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Wain-Hobson\u2019s telling, the American Society of Microbiology reports on gain-of-function virus research put self-interest and continued taxpayer funding ahead of the public good. \u201cThis is to defend the boys and keep the money coming in for microbiology,\u201d he said. \u201cThey see themselves as the defenders of the faith; they are the self-anointed priests.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVID Blueprint<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric and his colleague at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Shi Zhengli, proposed research that many now see as a blueprint for the COVID virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About a year after the White House passed new guidance for safer gain-of-function studies, Baric, his Wuhan colleague Shi Zhengli, and a slew of other researchers presented one of the first major tests of the guidelines. In 2018, they submitted a grant<\/a> to DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DARPA is a research agency housed within the Department of War, known for funding high-risk, high-reward projects. The existence of this proposal \u2013 which many see as a blueprint for the COVID virus \u2013 remained hidden until late 2021 when a military officer leaked it to a group of online investigators called DRASTIC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLots of people knew about it and chose not to tell us,\u201d said author Matt Ridley, in a recent talk at the NIH discussing evidence that the pandemic started at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Led by Peter Daszak at the NIH-funded EcoHealth Alliance, the DEFUSE grant lists studies that stretch on for several pages and includes research in both the lab and in the field, such as collecting bat viruses from different caves in China to study them back at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists wrote that the studies in the DEFUSE proposal were important because the viruses they planned to collect and engineer were so dangerous. \u201cThese viruses are a clear and present danger to our military and to global health security,\u201d read the DEFUSE proposal<\/a>, \u201cbecause of their circulation and evolution in bats and periodic spillover into humans.\u201d They also proposed studies that seem more science fiction than science research, such as vaccinating wild bats using aerosolized, lab-created viruses to prevent them from infecting American soldiers in some possible future war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But one specific study that Baric and the other virologists planned may have had tragic global consequences. The researchers proposed taking the backbone of a bat virus and inserting a spike protein with a furin cleavage site<\/a>. A furin cleavage site allows viruses to infect the cells of human lungs. To see whether these lab-created viruses could cause SARS-like disease, the DEFUSE researchers planned to test them in mice whose genes had been modified to make their lungs more like those of humans. The particular line of humanized mice Wuhan researchers use in such experiments was created many years ago in Baric\u2019s lab. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A DARPA official rejected the proposal<\/a> but wrote that the research was interesting and could merit funding in the future. However, he added that the virologists would need a gain-of-function \u201crisk mitigation plan\u201d if DARPA funded the studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year after DARPA denied this proposal to create chimeric bat viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a novel bat virus with a furin cleavage site began infecting humans in Wuhan. No other closely related virus has this furin cleavage site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When members of DRASTIC published the DEFUSE proposal in late 2021, people began pointing the finger at DEFUSE as the blueprint for the COVID virus that had, by this time, killed millions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf all the gin joints in all the towns, in all the world, the virus walks into the city where this research is happening, the year after someone has proposed to put a furin cleavage site into [coronavirus],\u201d author Matt Ridley<\/a> quipped during a talk on the DEFUSE proposal last month at the NIH. \u201cThat\u2019s quite a coincidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virologists have pushed back, asserting that the DEFUSE proposal was never funded, so the research never took place. However, this argument has been received with widespread skepticism. Research labs have multiple streams of funding, and scientists often do many of the proposed experiments to get initial results before submitting grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most famous example involves University of Utah professor Mario Capecchi. After the NIH rejected a proposed line of research<\/a>, he used other NIH money to do studies on creating transgenic mice in which specific genes had been turned off. When the NIH later awarded him a grant for research they had previously rejected, they wrote, \u201cWe are glad that you didn\u2019t follow our advice.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first rejected for NIH funding, Capecchi\u2019s study led to a Nobel Prize in 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cScientists tend to write their grants based on research they have already done,\u201d said an NIH official not cleared to speak to the media. She added, \u201cIt\u2019s a classic joke inside the research community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congressional investigators questioned Baric<\/a> about the DEFUSE proposal in a 2024 deposition. Baric testified that, when a SARS virus that never before had a furin cleavage site appeared in the same city as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he forgot that he had proposed, the year prior, to insert furin cleavage sites into SARS viruses at the Wuhan lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had forgotten about the DEFUSE proposal, quite frankly,\u201d Baric testified. \u201cThe grant was not funded, so I moved on.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield is convinced the COVID virus came from a lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virologist and former CDC Director Robert Redfield told RCI that Baric was probably misleading Congress in the interview. He believes virologists did the research in the DEFUSE proposal and then submitted the grant for funding because that\u2019s how science advances. \u201cI know enough about these proposals,\u201d he said. \u201cAbout 50% of the work you propose in a grant is already done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric appears to have a habit of forgetting details of virus research when disclosure and transparency might cast a bad light on the scientific field. After giving a private briefing in January 2020 to intelligence officials, where he discussed a possible lab accident in Wuhan, he gave a public talk to congressional staff a month later that omitted the possibility of a lab accident and failed to note that the pandemic virus had a unique furin cleavage site that made it deadly to humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Missing Slide<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January 2020 \u2013 when the COVID-19<\/a> virus began circulating in the U.S. \u2013 an official inside the intelligence community emailed Baric about \u201cthe current coronavirus situation<\/a>,\u201d asking him to give a presentation. \u201cVery timely and appropriate,\u201d Baric wrote back. \u201cI was going to email this suggestion to you when I finally shed myself of reporters today.\u201d Although the exact date of his talk is not disclosed, Baric emailed a slide presentation<\/a> to his intel contact on January 29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On one of the slides, Baric detailed the possibility that the pandemic started from an accidental release at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which he noted<\/a> studies bat viruses closely related to the new coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"RCI\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That same month, NIH officials and Baric\u2019s academic colleagues began an intensive campaign to discredit as a \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d any question that the pandemic started in a Wuhan lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week after Baric\u2019s private presentation, Fauci appeared on a podcast hosted by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who asked if the COVID virus could have leaked from a Wuhan lab. \u201cI\u2019ve heard these conspiracy theories,\u201d Fauci said<\/a>, \u201cAnd like all conspiracy theories, Newt, they\u2019re just conspiracy theories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following day, virologist Vincent Racaniello at Columbia sent Baric and an NIH colleague a disturbing email, recounting rumors that the new virus had a furin cleavage site \u201cthat might have been engineered<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf true this is very bad for all of virology research,\u201d wrote Racaniello<\/a>, in an email made public only last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wain-Hobson said the intent of this email was not transparency. \u201cWhat Racaniello has in mind is to shut down the discussion,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By mid-February 2020, suggestions that the pandemic could have been unleashed by a lab accident in Wuhan were attacked in the media. \u201c[Arkansas Sen.] Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus fringe theory that scientists have disputed,\u201d reads a Washington Post headline<\/a>. The Post quoted an MIT professor castigating Cotton for spreading a \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d and said he should focus more on funding virologists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the New York Post published a column arguing that the virus may have leaked from a lab, one of Baric\u2019s colleagues on the DEFUSE proposal, virologist Danielle Anderson<\/a>, called the claim \u201cappalling<\/a>\u201d in a supposed fact-check on the piece. Like Baric, Anderson remained mum about the experiments in the DEFUSE proposal. Two days later, Facebook began blocking the New York Post article for promoting \u201cfalse information.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of February, Baric gave a public talk<\/a> to congressional staffers about the virus and presented many of the same slides he used to brief intelligence officials a month prior. However, the slide discussing a possible lab accident in Wuhan did not appear, and Baric made no mention of the DEFUSE experiments. Nor did Baric bring up the virus\u2019s furin cleavage site, which makes it uniquely adapted and deadly to humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric did not respond to requests for comment about why his public talk to congressional staff did not contain the slide discussing a possible lab accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former CDC Director Redfield told RCI that in the first month of the pandemic, he was given classified material that highlighted the COVID virus\u2019s furin cleavage site. He then briefed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a SCIF, a secure room that holds secret government documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Mike, this is the smoking gun. This virus came from a lab.\u2019\u201d Redfield added that he believes NIH and allied virologists began a full-court press in February 2020 to smear people as conspiracy theorists about a possible lab accident, because they needed to protect their money and reputations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emails make it hard to believe Baric did not understand that his colleagues were mounting a push to smear people questioning the bat-in-the-wild origin story as \u201cconspiracy theorists.\u201d In fact, Baric himself participated in this campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choreographed Censorship<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effort to shut down debate about the pandemic\u2019s origins gained steam as the death toll mounted rapidly in 2020 and draconian lockdown policies kicked in. During the first few months of the pandemic, virologists published three scientific papers that labeled the possibility of a lab accident a \u201cconspiracy theory.\u201d These papers shut down chatter about a Wuhan accident during the pandemic\u2019s first year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In what many see as a sign of Baric\u2019s singular connection to the unfolding health catastrophe, the ramifications of his signature on these papers were weighed strategically by his close associates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first example was a widely reported February letter in The Lancet, signed by 27 scientists, that cast a Wuhan lab accident as a \u201cconspiracy theory.\u201d<\/a> Emails show the letter had been orchestrated by Baric\u2019s ally, Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While gathering signatures, Daszak wrote to Baric saying he should not sign the letter \u201cso it has some distance from us and therefore doesn\u2019t work in a counterproductive way.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric\u2019s ally, Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, helped rally scientists to delegitimize the lab-leak theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll then put it out in a way that doesn\u2019t link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice,\u201d Daszak added<\/a> in his email to Baric. The Lancet later added a lengthy disclosure to this letter. Like Baric, Daszak had extensive financial ties<\/a> to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but he had hidden them from the Lancet editors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When congressional investigators questioned Baric about the Lancet statement, he testified that he had a conflict of interest due to his collaborations with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. \u201cSo I didn\u2019t think it was appropriate to sign it,\u201d Baric said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric\u2019s close ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology were such a problem that his fellow virologists excluded him from the Nature Medicine \u201cProximal Origins\u201d<\/a> of SARS-CoV-2 paper published in March 2020. \u201cWe decided not to invite Ralph Baric,\u201d said one of the paper\u2019s authors<\/a> in a podcast. \u201cJust because we thought he was too close to the WIV.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This became the most highly cited paper published in the scientific literature for all of 2020. But like the Lancet Letter, the Nature Medicine Proximal Origins paper is widely seen as discredited. Republicans later charged that Fauci had helped orchestrate the paper<\/a>. House Democrats released a report making the same accusations against Jeremy Farrar<\/a>, a funder of virologists, then at the Wellcome Trust and now at the World Health Organization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite his documented, even self-professed, conflict of interest with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, evidence shows that Baric directly influenced the third paper that helped stifle talk about a virus accident in Wuhan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commentary, titled \u201cNo credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2<\/a>,\u201d appeared in the journal Emerging Microbes & Infections, and became one of the most widely read papers published by Taylor and Francis in 2020. Media outlets such as The Week<\/a>, Buzzfeed<\/a>, and Baric\u2019s local newspaper, the Raleigh News & Observer<\/a>, cited the article in passages that downplayed a possible lab accident. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, emails show that both Baric and his Wuhan colleague Shi Zhengli<\/a> provided secret edits to the manuscript. After one of the paper\u2019s authors sent Baric a draft, asking for his input, he responded<\/a>, \u201cSure, but don\u2019t want to be cited in as having commented prior to submission.\u201d After then submitting alterations to the text in track changes, Baric added, \u201cI think the community needs to write these editorials and I thank you for your efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although failing to disclose authors on a paper is considered a form of research misconduct,  the journal failed to take action. Five years after publication<\/a>, the journal added a disclosure in January 2025 that acknowledged Ralph Baric\u2019s contribution to the commentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congressional Cover<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats never showed much interest in demanding answers from virologists or the NIH about a possible lab accident once Fauci set the tone that asking such questions was a \u201cconspiracy theory.\u201d But in late 2022, Republicans on the Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) began to finalize a report on the pandemic\u2019s origin<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet that investigation also seems to have been designed to distract from dangerous research and to insulate Baric, in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To give the report more traction among liberals, Republican committee investigators worked very closely with journalist Katherine Eban, whose exclusive on the report\u2019s details ran in Vanity Fair and ProPublica. \u201cA new Senate report concludes that SARS-CoV-2 \u2013 the virus that causes COVID-19 \u2013 likely resulted from \u2018a research-related incident,\u2019\u201d ProPublica posted on social media<\/a>, announcing Eban\u2019s investigative exclusive. \u201cThe report includes evidence of alarming biosecurity issues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Senate report, however, omitted any mention of dangerous gain-of-function research funded by the NIH, and gave no notice of virus studies conducted in the United States, even though Baric is the top researcher in the field. The report pointed the finger only at China as the sole problem with dangerous virus research. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a complete whitewash and really screwed over the other senators,\u201d explained a former congressional investigator. Instead of uncovering these flaws, Eban\u2019s story for ProPublica and Vanity Fair parroted the report\u2019s findings in a 9,000-word puff piece for the HELP committee, with a highly colorful and flattering account of the staff who wrote it and gave her insider access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Ebright, a microbiologist at Rutgers University and long-time critic of gain-of-function studies, said he<\/a> \u201cwas surprised the released report omitted discussion of U.S. actions, including the role of USAID, NIH, and EcoHealth Alliance in funding research on SARS-related coronaviruses in Wuhan.\u201d Ebright said Senate staff interviewed him several times about NIH\u2019s funding for gain-of-function research and NIH funding for Wuhan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After leading a Senate committee that ignored Baric’s work in its report on the pandemic’s origins, former Sen. Richard Burr joined Baric’s company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One expert interviewed by the Senate said that staff stripped out any mention of NIH funding for gain-of-function research in the United States, while another pointed the finger at the Republican who ran the committee: Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, who was months from retirement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his decades in Congress, Burr was a strong supporter of pandemic preparedness and virus research, ushering through legislation that turned on the spigot for biodefense spending, such as the 2006 legislation that created<\/a> the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Burr\u2019s final year in the Senate, President Biden\u2019s 2022 budget<\/a> asked for an historic $88.2 billion for pandemic and biodefense funding spread across five years. Working to finalize the report, Burr then introduced legislation <\/a>that established ARPA-H within the NIH to support billions more in taxpayer spending for companies to manage pandemic preparedness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the greatest successes to come out of the pandemic was the federal government\u2019s partnership with the private sector to deliver life-saving vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics with unprecedented speed,\u201d Burr said in a statement<\/a> when introducing the ARPA-H bill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months after Burr sponsored the bill, the NIH awarded a $65 million grant<\/a> to develop antivirals to a North Carolina biotechnology company called READDI that was co-founded by none other than Ralph Baric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After retiring, Burr became a lobbyist for  DLA Piper<\/a> on biodefense and biomedicine, taking with him two of his staffers<\/a> who worked on the committee. Burr also joined Baric\u2019s company<\/a>, READDI, as a member of the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked to comment on this matter, former Senator Burr told RCI that UNC is a client of DLA Piper. \u201c<\/strong>Accordingly, I am unable to comment or provide information, on or off the record.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House investigators later deposed Baric in 2024, but critics say it was a softball interview in which Baric was not pressed for answers. Democratic investigators spent much of Baric\u2019s deposition trying to defend him, while Republican investigators got tied in knots by Baric\u2019s responses, drowned in technical scientific details. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with Senate staff, House investigators gave Vanity Fair\u2019s Katherine Eban exclusive access to the deposition, which she broadcast in a story before the transcript was even released. Vanity Fair\u2019s exclusive<\/a> portrayed Baric in a positive light as a hard-nosed, objective researcher who remained undecided yet committed to finding out how the pandemic began. Instead of dismissing the lab-leak theory as a conspiracy theory, Baric testified that he had warned his Chinese colleagues that the Wuhan Institute\u2019s safety protocols were insufficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And like Senator Burr, Baric pointed the finger at China as the source for any answers to explain if the virus came from a lab. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A month after deposing Baric, House investigators sent a letter to the director of the FBI<\/a> demanding to interview one of their agents who they had caught communicating with Baric. The House redacted the name of the agent but wrote that he had been discussing \u201cthe substance of the origin debate and how UNC was responding to numerous North Carolina Freedom of Information Act requests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House investigators never made anything public afterward about this matter, and the committee investigating the pandemic\u2019s origin has since been disbanded. A source close to the House investigation told RCI that emails show the FBI agent was discussing with Baric how to withhold emails requested by the nonprofit U.S. Right to Know under the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FBI did not respond to RCI\u2019s repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accountability at Last?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once hailed as \u201cthe big cheese\u201d of coronavirus research, Baric\u2019s scientific career now seems imperiled with the NIH\u2019s decision to remove him from all grants because of that very same work. \u201cThere\u2019s a real possibility that the virus\u2019s birthplace was Chapel Hill,\u201d said former<\/a> CDC Director Redfield on a 2024 podcast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Redfield told RCI that virologists went ahead with dangerous virus experiments for money and fame. \u201cThis is a real big source of grant money. It\u2019s a big source of fame. A big source of science prizes,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re not thinking about whether there\u2019s a downside. But there\u2019s a huge downside. And I think we experienced it. It was called the COVID pandemic.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Redfield is not alone in assigning some blame for the pandemic to Baric. Columbia University economics professor Jeffrey Sachs published a 2022 essay in PNAS that called for an open inquiry into COVID<\/a> origins and full transparency by U.S. labs for \u201cindependent analysis\u201d of collaborations with Wuhan scientists. At the time, Sachs led a task force commissioned by The Lancet into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, Sachs pointed to Baric<\/a> as the likely creator of the COVID virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hits to Baric\u2019s reputation are not likely to end. Ruskin has spent over $100,000 in staff time and attorney fees filing over a dozen freedom of information requests, while UNC has never released all its documents. For the year prior to the COVID outbreak, UNC has released only six pages of Baric\u2019s documents that Ruskin has asked to review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is obviously the most important time, because it\u2019s the time when the pandemic started, but only six pages?\u201d Ruskin said. \u201cWhy is that? UNC has never explained.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A senior official inside the Department of Health and Human Services told RCI that the answer is obvious. After reviewing the government\u2019s classified material, the official said that UNC is terrified that the public will learn that they were complicit in starting the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBaric designed the gun,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the Chinese built it, and then they pulled the trigger.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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