WHO advisory board member: I was called a ‘conspiracy theorist’ and ‘right wing nut’ for posing Wuhan lab leak theory
Jamie Metzl discusses the media and scientific community’s recent heel turn on possible COVID-19 origin
An advisory board member to the World Health Organization said Wednesday he was labeled a "conspiracy theorist" and "right-wing nut job" by the media and members of the scientific community last year after posing the theory that COVID-19 may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
"The small number of people who were raising this issue early last year were labeled conspiracy theorists—I know because I was one of them," said Jamie Metzl during an appearance on "Fox & Friends."
"And yes there were some people who were called right-wing nuts. But I’m not a right-wing nut. I’m actually a progressive Democrat."
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Members of the scientific community, including EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak, attempted to shut down "conspiracy theorists" last year.
Daszak spearheaded a letter in The Lancet signed by 27 scientists in 2020 that "strongly condemn[ed] conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin," without disclosing to readers that Daszak's group had funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab through government grants.
The letter was subsequently utilized by members of the media to fact-check claims that asserted COVID-19 may not have been of natural origin.
Yet, since the publication of the letter three of the signers have since said a laboratory accident is plausible enough to merit consideration, according to Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post.
Metzl said he considered the letter to be an "outrage."
"It was not data-driven science—it was scientific propaganda and thuggery."
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Metzl has since asked editor-in-chief of the Lancet, Richard Horton, to step down.
The WHO advisory board member added that he doesn’t consider the question of COVID-19’s origins a right-wing or left-wing issue and urged people to just look at the data and "be honest."
Fox News' David Rutz contributed to this report.
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