Author of Scientific Paper, Subpoenaed by House Committee to Testify in Support of COVID Lab Leak Theory

On Friday, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic issued a subpoena for Dr. Kristian Andersen’s private correspondence regarding a study intended to refute the COVID-19 lab leak scenario.

A subpoena has been filed for papers and conversations from Andersen’s Slack chat channel, according to subcommittee chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio).

This is in relation to an academic paper titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” which was co-written by Andersen and released in Nature Medicine in March 2020. According to the report, the virus had a natural origin.

In his testimony to the panel on June 16, Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute, stated that he and the other authors largely corresponded via Slack while preparing the report.

Andersen said at the hearing that he had not disclosed all messages pertinent to the subcommittee’s inquiry because not all users of the Slack channel, which he personally owned, had consented to their release.

Wenstrup said the subpoena was issued to compel the production of Andersen’s Slack messages relating to the “drafting, publication, and critical reception” of the academic article and the origins of COVID-19.

“We are following the breadcrumbs of a COVID-19 cover-up straight to the source,” Wenstrup said in a press release.

“Andersen played a pivotal role in potentially suppressing the lab leak hypothesis, and Americans deserve to know why this happened, who was involved, and how we can prevent the intentional suppression of scientific discourse during a future pandemic,” he added.

Wenstrup said the authors “may have possessed conflicts of interest for supporting a zoonotic origin of COVID-19.”

According to a copy of the subpoena obtained by The Epoch Times, Andersen must turn over any Slack correspondences and documents pertaining to the history of COVID-19 from January 1, 2020, to June 23, 2023. These correspondences and documents include references to former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins and former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Director Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Fauci’s Alleged Role in Drafting Study

The subcommittee issued a memo (pdf) on March 5 saying that it uncovered new email evidence suggesting that Fauci “prompted” the drafting of the study.

The document described a conference call that took place in early February 2020 involving Collins, Fauci, and at least 11 other researchers. This was approximately a week after the first American case of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, also known as the new coronavirus, was identified.

According to the document, Collins, Fauci, and others were informed on the call on February 1, 2020, about the potential that the virus may have spilled from a facility in Wuhan, China, in late 2019.

Citing internal emails, the committee asserted that Fauci “prompted” Andersen to write the paper and that it was designed “to ‘disprove’ any lab leak theory.”

The Proximal Origin paper’s abstract suggested that the virus may have emerged via Malaysia pangolins because they “contain coronaviruses similar to SARS-CoV.”

“The presence in pangolins of [a virus’ receptor-binding domain] very similar to that of SARS-CoV-2 means that we can infer this was also probably in the virus that jumped to humans,” the paper reads.

On the other hand, the March 5 letter said that Anderson “did not find the pangolin data compelling” and only wrote the paper after being “prompted” by Fauci, Collins, and the others.

“Privately, Dr. Andersen did not believe the pangolin data disproved a lab leak theory despite saying so publicly. It is still unclear what intervening event changed the minds of the authors of Proximal Origin in such a short period of time,” the House committee stated.