Fauci, top Wuhan scientist cite same study to dismiss lab leak theory: media
Xinhua
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WASHINGTON, July 25 (Xinhua) - White House Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci has repeatedly cited a scientific paper that largely dismissed the possibility that the coronavirus escaped from a lab, U.S. media reported.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, responds to questions by Senator Rand Paul during the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on July 20, 2021. (Photo: Xinhua)

The weekly magazine Washington Examiner reported on Friday that in an interview with CNN last weekend, the top U.S. infectious disease expert "repeatedly cited a scientific paper from July that argued in favor of zoonosis and largely dismissed the lab leak hypothesis."

The paper titled "The Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review" was also cited by a top scientist from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology when arguing in favor of a natural origin for COVID-19 and against the lab leak hypothesis, the report said.

In the paper, a group of 20 internationally renowned virologists and evolutionary biologists from all over the world have noted that theories about a lab leak are almost all based on coincidence, not hard evidence.

"I mean ... although we keep an open mind that it's possible that it could be, as they say, a lab leak, that the most likely explanation is a natural evolution from an animal reservoir to a human," Fauci said in the interview.