New WHO Chief Scientist Made Crucial Change to Paper Claiming COVID-19 Didn’t Come From Lab

Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 19, 2017. Ruben Sprich/Reuters

The World Health Organization’s new chief scientist made a crucial change to an influential 2020 paper that claimed it was “improbable” that COVID-19 came from a laboratory, a newly disclosed email shows.

Jeremy Farrar, the chief scientist, was credited in one message with helping guide the paper about the origin of COVID-19, according to an email released by the U.S. House select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic on March 5.