Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Robert Redfield said Monday that he was happy that the Trump administration is being transparent about the origins of COVID-19.
“I'm glad that they've come out clearly, not ambiguously, said that it came from the lab," Redfield told Newsmax. "I think we're going to see the rest of the intelligence agencies redo their analysis between now and July, and they'll all conclude unanimously that it came from the lab. Get this behind us. This virus was created by gain-of-function research. And it was funded, unfortunately, by the United States government.”
Redfield, who was President Trump’s CDC director during his first term, had said previously that he was “‘ostracized,’ ridiculed, and called a racist, and received death threats” for saying that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
However, the White House’s new report on the virus’s origins condemns the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, for his role in burying the lab leak theory to give cover for gain-of-function research, a research practice that Redfield believes needs a global “moratorium.”
“I think Trump's going to do that, I've been told soon — it can't be soon enough — and provide leadership, you know, in the United States and hopefully, the rest of the world, that we shouldn't be intentionally trying to make pathogens more infectious, more dangerous for humans," Redfield said. "It's not a smart use of our scientific capacity. And so hopefully, we'll do that and then hopefully, we'll begin to block any funding that goes to gain-of-function research or any institutions that do it or any countries that are involved."
Redfield also expressed support for a congressional investigation as to why the true origins of the pandemic were covered up, stating that, “I think the answer was Fauci and [physician-scientist Francis] Collins thought they were protecting science and protecting gain-of-function research, and they didn't want government regulated science, and that's why they did it and the scientific community. Doesn't justify it. It's wrong. I don't know why the media played on with it.”