Aug 18, 2026 05:15 PM
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the...-more-than
INTRO: Today I am pleased to publish an invited guest post by Sigrid Bratlie, molecular biologist and author of The Wuhan Mystery. An earlier version of this post was first published in Norwegian at Minerva. —RP
Behind the controversy over Anthony Fauci’s silence lies decades of American investment in risky virus research as part of a global arms race – and new questions about how authorities, scientists and intelligence handled the suspicion of a laboratory leak.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that few American bureaucrats in recent years have been more polarizing than Anthony Fauci — best known as the leader of the US pandemic response.
Now the debate is raging after he was found in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions about the origins of the pandemic under oath. Republicans have made him almost solely responsible for everything that went wrong during the pandemic. Democrats call it a conspiratorial vendetta and an attack on science.
The rhetoric is disappointingly superficial on both sides — and so is the coverage in most media so far, which portrays the whole thing as vengeful Republicans against a somewhat inexplicably silent Fauci.
The matter is far more complex.
There are at least two, each complicated, layers to this story. The first is about decades of misguided bipartisan policy on research into dangerous viruses. The second is about how the US government and academia have communicated the relationship between this strategy and the origin of the virus from 2020 onward. The first may have had disastrous consequences for global health security; the second has contributed to eroding trust in American democracy... (MORE - details)
INTRO: Today I am pleased to publish an invited guest post by Sigrid Bratlie, molecular biologist and author of The Wuhan Mystery. An earlier version of this post was first published in Norwegian at Minerva. —RP
Behind the controversy over Anthony Fauci’s silence lies decades of American investment in risky virus research as part of a global arms race – and new questions about how authorities, scientists and intelligence handled the suspicion of a laboratory leak.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that few American bureaucrats in recent years have been more polarizing than Anthony Fauci — best known as the leader of the US pandemic response.
Now the debate is raging after he was found in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions about the origins of the pandemic under oath. Republicans have made him almost solely responsible for everything that went wrong during the pandemic. Democrats call it a conspiratorial vendetta and an attack on science.
The rhetoric is disappointingly superficial on both sides — and so is the coverage in most media so far, which portrays the whole thing as vengeful Republicans against a somewhat inexplicably silent Fauci.
The matter is far more complex.
There are at least two, each complicated, layers to this story. The first is about decades of misguided bipartisan policy on research into dangerous viruses. The second is about how the US government and academia have communicated the relationship between this strategy and the origin of the virus from 2020 onward. The first may have had disastrous consequences for global health security; the second has contributed to eroding trust in American democracy... (MORE - details)