Documentary shows Fauci laughing at lab leak theory

dr Anthony Fauci has been shown laughing at the widely accepted lab leak theory as “molecularly impossible” in a new documentary – while saying he had introduced quarantines and mask mandates earlier.

The then-White House adviser was followed by PBS in 2021 and 2022 as he became a polarizing figure while leading President Biden’s response to the pandemic.

In it, he railed against Senator Rand Paul “insidious,” who proposed in Congress in July 2021 that his National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab where COVID first emerged.

Fauci confirmed that the “number of experiments that have had to be done with viruses” “do something under certain circumstances that makes a pathogen more transmissible or pathogenic”.

“What some people refer to as ‘gaining function,'” he said with a disgusted look at the term, which he’s always denied.

“Rand Paul insidiously put forward his suggestions that work at the Wuhan lab, funded by a small grant from the NIH … created a virus that produced COVID,” Fauci said.

The Wuhan lab leak theory is now considered a likely source of the virus by many government agencies, including the US Department of Energy and the FBI.

However, Fauci laughed when he poked fun at the theory in one of 10 interviews he gave to PBS during the 23 months of filming.

“Not only was the microbe we were working on not SARS-CoV-2, it would be molecularly impossible for it to turn into SARS-CoV-2,” he said of the scientific name.

“They were so different, it’s like you have a Chevrolet and a motorcycle and you say, ‘I want to make a motorcycle out of this Chevrolet.’

“No matter what you do with this Chevrolet. You’re not going to make it a motorcycle.

“Like, what are you talking about?” he said, probably addressing the criticism rather than his analogy.

“You’re being attacked by right-wing lunatics,” he said dismissively of criticism from “very far-right conservative congressmen.”

“People believe anything anyone puts in front of them,” he said of the now-widespread belief that the Wuhan lab was the source.

“American Masters: Dr. Tony Fauci,” which aired Tuesday, caught Fauci enjoying his then-rising fame while working from home, which is covered in images of his own face, including on pillowcases and even his own bobblehead.

He was seen wiping away tears while watching President Biden’s inauguration, then said the White House is not approving “anything” on COVID “unless I say yes.”

He was seen looking at interviews he gave early in the pandemic, dismissing masks as ineffective – and later being the driving force behind mandating them.

“Have you done a flip flop? No,” he said of his own change in messaging. “You have received additional information that has caused you to change your statement.”

Although Fauci was behind his change of heart, he admitted he regrets not ordering quarantines and telling people to wear masks earlier, although numerous studies now suggest both were ineffective.

“Maybe I should have done that,” he said. “Yes, I was wrong.”

With mail wires