Outgoing NIH Director Francis Collins Knocks Lab Leak Theory: ‘Huge Distraction’

Outgoing National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins joined his subordinate, Dr. Anthony Fauci, in dismissing the coronavirus lab leak theory as little more than a “huge distraction.”

Joining Bret Baier on Fox News Sunday, Collins finished his term as NIH director by saying there was “no evidence” to support the Wuhan lab leak theory and apologized for it becoming a distraction.

“I’m really sorry that the lab leak has become such a distraction for so many people because frankly, we still don’t know,” Collins said, who insisted on the animal-to-human transition theory.

“There is no evidence really to say. Most of the scientific community, myself included, think that is a possibility, but far more likely, this was a natural way in which a virus left a bat, maybe traveled through some other species and got to humans,” he added.

Collins said that the Wuhan lab leak theory will not be entirely proven until China opens up the lab for a proper investigation. As to those who continue pushing the theory, Collins said that history will judge them harshly:

We in this country have somehow gotten all fractured into a hyperpolarized politicized view that never should have been mixed with public health. It has been ruinous and history will judge harshly those people who have continued to defocus the effort and focus on conspiracies and things that are demonstrably false.

“Shame on all us that we’ve gotten into this kind of pickle,” he added.

In early October of this year, Collins resigned as head of the NIH just weeks after documents exposed that he made “untruthful” comments about U.S. federal funding of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Just weeks before this announcement, Richard Ebright of Rutgers University accused Collins of making false public statements about National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which have since been proven to fund the study of “chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses” which “could infect human cells.”

Ebright said bluntly that Collins had not told the truth when asked about this research: “assertions by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are untruthful.”

Collins insisted that controversy over gain-of-function “absolutely” had nothing to do with his resignation.

Later in October, a letter from NIH to House Oversight Committee Ranking Member James Comer (R-KY) showed that the institute did fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through a grant awarded to Eco-Health Alliance.