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Did the pandemic start with a lab leak? Is natural immunity protective? Should healthy children be vaccinated against COVID-19? Lawmakers discussed these and other questions during a hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Tuesday afternoon.
Underlying each of these questions were tensions over who should be trusted to answer them.
Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) cited reports in the media of Li-Meng Yan, MD, PhD, a Chinese virologist who said SARS-CoV-2 was “intentionally released,” and that an accidental leak from a Chinese laboratory was not possible.
Marty Makary, MD, MPH, chief of islet transplant surgery, professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and former editor-in-chief of MedPage Today, appeared to agree that a lab leak occurred.
That there is debate at all over the origins is due to the U.S. funding the lab, a connection that is “embarrassing” for the government to acknowledge, he argued. “The epicenter of the world [outbreak] is 5 miles from one of the only high-level virology labs in China … It’s a no-brainer that it came from the lab. I mean, at this point, it’s impossible to acquire any more information, and if you did, it would only be affirmative.”