Former CDC Director Robert Redfield: The WHO Is 'Compromised'

Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Fox News that he believes the COVID-19 pandemic most likely was caused by a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that the World Health Organized was “too compromised” to be fully transparent in their investigation into COVID’s origins.

“…I said before that I didn’t think it was biologically plausible that COVID-19 went from a bat to some unknown animal into man and now had become one of the most infectious viruses,” Redfield told Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel. “That’s not consistent with how other coronaviruses have come into the human species. And it does suggest that there’s an alternative hypothesis that it went from a bat virus, got into a laboratory, where, in the laboratory, it was taught, educated, it evolved, so that it became a virus that could efficiently transmit human to human.”

Despite being written off as a conspiracy theory for nearly a year, the lab-leak theory, though not definitively proven, has been recognized as a legitimate theory. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had developed severe COVID-like symptoms in November 2019. Since then, not only has Facebook reversed its policy banning articles alleging the virus was man-made, but Dr. Fauci admitted the theory could be true, and emails released by FOIA showed that Fauci was informed that the virus had “unusual features” that “potentially look manmade.” and that he even briefed world leaders that the virus may have leaked from the lab.

Redfield lamented the scientific community’s “lack of openness” to “pursue both hypotheses.”

“I’m just giving my best opinion as a virologist, and I don’t think it’s plausible that this virus went from a bat to an animal – we still don’t know that animal – and then went into humans and immediately had learned how to be human-to-human transmissible to the point of now causing one of the greatest pandemics we’ve had in the history of the world,” Redfield said.

According to Redfield, the World Health Organization is part of the problem. Back in March, the WHO concluded in a joint report with China that the lab-leak theory was “extremely unlikely.” Redfield believes that the WHO, heavily influenced by China, was “too compromised” to conduct a legitimately transparent investigation. “Clearly, they were incapable of compelling China to adhere to the treaty agreements that they have on global health, because they didn’t do that. Clearly, they allowed China to define the group of scientists that could come and investigate,” Redfield said. “That’s not consistent with their role.”