and what we re learning now is that the intelligence community, being really on the fence about where this originated has also led senior biden administration officials to that theory that it escaped from a lab accidentally very seriously. now, it is important to note that this is not necessarily a theory that this was engineered as a bio weapon. this is not gaining credence within the biden administration. what they believe is that this could have escaped from a lab as they were conducting research on bat. and therefore, it s also somewhat of a natural origin theory. but right now, the two theories being treated very credible, both of them and the administration emphasizing to us that they re reserving judgment until the intelligence community completes its review in 30 days. natasha bertrand, cnn. a new court ruling put a questions over hundreds of thousands of immigrants here in
every 21 scientists that lean toward the natural origin, i can find you 21 scientists that lean toward the lab leak, amongst them robert redfield, the head of the cdc, david baltimore who won a nobel prize. scientists totally disagree with this. and i respect dr. schaffner s opinion but he doesn t have the information that jake sullivan has. we don t have it. so we ll have to let the investigation play out. to my mind, it seems like if you really do have an open mind, that you don t say, i think it s the natural origin theory, the truth is we don t know. i could make a circumstantial argument in either direction, if we re being honest. you just have to say we don t know. let me ask you, dr. schaffner, and i want you to respond to what josh has said, but isn t it true that this could have been a sample taken from a bat and brought to the lab and accidentally leaked out and you wouldn t be able to determine that just through science alone? sure. that s exactly right. and that s why w
of coronavirus. and to be clear about what josh s reporting has suggested, it s that the lab leak theory was dismissed too early and too definitively without compelling evidence, right, josh? so when you hear professor gary talk about the evidence he s looking at, what s your take away? right, john. it s very clear that professor gary and a bunch of scientists who agree with him have been of the opinion that the natural origin theory is more likely ever since the pandemic emerged last year. this is the position that professor gary and his friends established for themselves a year ago. their position hasn t changed. i didn t hear anything new actually in what professor gary said or in what they wrote that would add to their the strength of their position. there s another group of scientists out there including robert redfield the former head of the cdc and david baltimore, the former president of cal tech have the exact opposite opinion. there s no scientific consensus. you can look
email to tony fauci in april basically congratulating him for his support of the natural origin theory. i think dr. thought she really believed even believes now in the natural origin theory, but there has been no intermediary features found, and there is much more evidence pointing to that lab. there is a lack of open-mindedness there. john: no smoking gun? no smoking gun, but it is fun thing to do with the structure of the virus that is a little unusual, and why is china suppressing everything and continuing? that could be seen as a smoking gun. why not let cdc and at the beginning? boots on the ground, figure it out. john: he will not have that opportunity. not now, anyway. thanks for your perspective on these things. very helpful. gillian. gillian: breaking news out of afghanistan. the taliban and seizes control in the last 24 hours.
course, of his involvement in te wuhan lab and research into coronavirus. nih and anthony fauci has said categorically that no u.s. money ever went to this function at wuhan. do we know that to be true? while, not directly, john. they were supporting the lab, but they say not directly. i think you realize it is naive at best you think that chinese scientists working under the thumb of the chinese communist party are going to be able to do for your research that doesn t have an issue with suppression or with motivation. that is one thing. the other point you ve already brought up here is when i say bias, i m talking about the fact that people that are heavily involved with manipulating viruses are not going to want there to be a lab link, so they are biased in that direction of this natural origin theory, and that is why peter daszak sent an