Rand Paul: Strange How the Scientist Who Originally Warned About a COVID Lab Leak Helped Call it a 'Conspiracy Theory' Later

The senator has questions. #15

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In 2015, coronavirus scientist Ralph Baric, along with the leading coronavirus researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Shi Zhengli, warned about the gain-of-function research each had pursued.

“Scientific review panels may deem similar studies…too risky to pursue,” they concluded.

According to a Vanity Fair story in May 2024, at the time “Baric testified that he had specifically warned Shi Zhengli that the WIV’s (Wuhan Institute of Virology) critical coronavirus research was being conducted in labs with insufficient biosafety protections.”

The Obama administration had paused such research in October 2014 precisely to avoid any threats to public health.

So there was acknowledgment, by both a Democratic administration and scientists involved in this research, that a significant risk was posed.

Then the pandemic happened. We all suffered through the horrors of it.

But this week, scientist Alina Chan took a stroll down memory lane.

“5 years ago, a republican senator raised the possibility of a lab leak origin of Covid,” Chan wrote on X. “This was called a racist conspiracy theory. Only a handful of scientists & biosecurity experts from reputable institutions dared to say a lab origin was plausible & should be taken seriously.”

Many will remember this as well, that when Sen. Cotton and others suggested a lab leak in China might have been the cause of COVID, they were called everything from conspiracy theorists to racists.

But why would Cotton have made something like this up out of thin air?

He didn’t. Cotton heard the theory from…

Scientist Ralph Baric. Who had openly warned about the inherent dangers of the research prior.

Independent reporter Gilles Demauneuf commented on Chan’s X post, “What has never been reported in the mainstream media, is that when Sen. Tom Cotton discussed some supposedly xenophobic 'fringe theory' of SARS-CoV-2 origins, he was effectively paraphrasing the expert opinion delivered by Baric during a classified BSEG (intel) meeting on 25 or 26 January 2020.”

A classified intel meeting is where a Senator Cotton might have heard such a theory from an expert scientist that ostensibly knows more about this stuff than himself.

Scientist > Senator.

The same goes for Sen. Rand Paul, who had one important question for Mr. Baric as a follow up question to Mr. Demaneuf’s comment.

Paul wrote on Monday, “It is quite interesting that coronavirus scientist Ralph Baric informed US intel on Jan. 25, 2020, that he was worried about a lab leak origin for COVID-19 but two months later worked on a letter to Lancet describing the lab leak theory as a conspiracy theory…”

The letter to The Lancet that Sen. Paul references was indeed published less than two months after Baric reportedly warned a senate intel committee about the risk of a lab leak in Wuhan, China.

And the purpose of the letter was for a bunch of scientists involved in this admittedly risky gain-of-function research, particularly in a lab in Wuhan, China, was to reject the idea that COVID could have ever been made in a lab or came from any other origin than nature.

Get a load of this letter, published March 7 2020, less than two months after Baric was warning senators like Cotton about the dangers posed by this research.

LOTS of authors…

Here’s the part Sen. Paul was referring to:

The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.

So it’s a “conspiracy theory” to suggest it came from a lab? What Baric had warned about prior? What the Obama administration was once concerned about?

The Lancet story continued with some of their evidence for why COVID could have never, ever been made in a lab.

Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,2–10 as have so many other emerging pathogens.11,12 This is further supported by a letter from the presidents of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine13 and by the scientific communities they represent. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.

This is called covering your ass.

Baric’s name is not found among the primary authors. But the very first reference, citing research to back their conclusion that a lab leak theory was mere fantasy, you see…

“Baric, RS.”

This study was published February 11th, 2020.

Two weeks after Baric had reportedly warned Cotton about a lab leak risk.

And one month before the scientists open letter in The Lancet.

Again, this certainly appears to look like people COVERING THEIR ASSES.

As Sen. Paul said in a June 2024 senate committee hearing on the origin of Covid-19, “Even Ralph Baric, world-famous gain-of-function researcher and collaborator with Wuhan’s Dr. Shi, admitted, ‘So they [the Wuhan Institute of Virology] have a very large collection of viruses in their laboratory. And so it’s—you know—proximity is a problem. It’s a problem.”

Now that today even the FBI and the CIA acknowledge a Wuhan, China lab leak was the likeliest culprit in the pandemic, why haven’t any of the scientists involved been made to face the music?

All those lives and damage done.

Why would Ralph Baric say one thing to Sen. Cotton and do a complete 180 over the next two months?

Sen. Rand Paul keeps asking these questions for good reason.

Maybe now that we have a new administration, he can finally get some answers.