Former NIH Head Secretly Helped With Paper Dismissing Theory COVID-19 Came From Lab

Dr. Francis Collins made the admission in a newly disclosed email.

Dr. Francis Collins speaks in Washington on Sept. 9, 2020. Michael Reynolds/Getty Images

Then-National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins, around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, acknowledged that he secretly assisted with a paper stating the virus that causes COVID-19 “is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” according to a newly released missive.

“This is work that Tony, Jeremy, Larry, and I helped with, but are appropriately not mentioned explicitly in the paper,” Collins said in the March 6, 2020, email to NIH officials, which was released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on June 11.