Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., confronted a medical expert who dismisses the lab leak theory for COVID-19’s origins during a hearing on Tuesday. Paul questioned Dr. Robert Garry, a professor at the Tulane School of Medicine, during his testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee. The senator criticized Garry’s perceived lack of openness to different possibilities regarding the virus’s origins.
Paul argued that while Garry stated the virus couldn’t have come directly from bats and must have passed through an intermediate host, no such animal host has been identified despite testing over 90,000 animals. Paul suggested that the intermediate host could have been a laboratory animal, implying that the virus might have adapted to humans through serial passage in a lab, accelerating natural selection.
He referenced Dr. Alina Chan’s writings, which propose that the virus appeared in humans already highly transmissible, suggesting pre-adaptation in a lab setting.
Paul also criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci and other scientists, noting the inconsistency between their public dismissal of the lab leak theory and their private acknowledgments of its plausibility. He accused these scientists of prioritizing political narratives over open scientific inquiry, particularly regarding their collaborations with China.
In response, Garry argued there is evidence indicating COVID-19 had at least two spillover events at the Wuhan food market, where it is thought to have originated.
