by Frank Bergman
Newly obtained documents reveal that Dr. Anthony Fauci was scrambling to destroy evidence after he was warned that his dangerous research could have devastating consequences for humanity.
Fauci ordered an aide to permanently delete an official email exchange after a journalist warned that dangerous gain-of-function research could unleash an “engineered doomsday.”
The extraordinary exchange occurred in 2012, eight years before the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and reignited a global battle over risky laboratory experiments and the possibility of a lab-related origin.
The documents show Fauci privately fuming over New York Times science writer Phil Boffey’s scrutiny of experiments that created an airborne strain of bird flu.
After complaining about Boffey in an NIH email, Fauci gave his subordinate an explicit instruction.
“Please delete this e-mail and then delete from the deleted file,” Fauci wrote.
The revelation adds to growing evidence that Fauci sought to destroy government records despite later testifying under oath that he never did so.
Destroying federal government records is prohibited under federal law.
Journalist Warned of ‘Engineered Doomsday’
The controversy began during the first major public reckoning over gain-of-function research in 2011.
Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier had conducted experiments, funded by Fauci’s institute at the National Institutes of Health, that produced an airborne strain of bird flu.
The natural virus had an estimated 50% fatality rate.
Fouchier described the laboratory-created strain as “probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make.”
The research immediately triggered fears over what could happen if such a virus escaped from a laboratory or the methods used to create it fell into the hands of terrorists.
Fauci publicly defended the research.
In a December 2011 Washington Post editorial co-authored with then-NIH Director Francis Collins and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Center official Gary Nabel, Fauci argued that research involving manmade pandemic viruses represented a “risk worth taking.”