Former NSC official: Theory that coronavirus originated in Wuhan wet market is 'baloney'
WHO adviser Jamie Metzl calls for 'full and thorough investigation' on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight'
The United States should be aggressively investigating whether the COVID-19 virus originated from a virology lab in Wuhan, China, ex-Clinton administration official and World Health Organization (WHO) adviser Jamie Metzl told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Monday.
Metzl, labeled by Carlson as the "original whistleblower," was roundly denounced by fellow Democrats at the onset of the pandemic for pushing the "fringe" theory that the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab before claiming hundreds of thousands of lives across the globe. But with Dr. Anthony Fauci Dr. Anthony Fauci becoming the latest leading health figure to support Metzl's claim, media outlets and leading political figures are increasingly treating it as a serious possibility.
"Early last year when I was looking at the evidence that was being presented, I saw a couple of things. As someone who understands the science, I knew that it was complete baloney to say that the pandemic started in the Wuhan wet market when 40 percent of the earliest cases had no contact with the market," said Metzl, "and as somebody who understood China, it really raised a lot of alarm bells when China was so aggressively peddling that fake story that the pandemic started, the outbreak started in the markets."
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Metzl, a self-described "progressive" said he was offended when he'd be frequently dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist" by other scientists and mainstream media outlets.
"I was coming from a very honest place asking that tough questions that I felt needed to be asked and I spent an entire year last year on, among a small number of others fighting this uphill battle, because there was a fake and forced consensus among scientific journals and mainstream media, not even allowing us, not even creating the space for the essential question to be asked," he said.
"I'm glad that that is opening up, but we have a lot of work to do."
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Metzl said the U.S. and other countries are dragging their feet on properly investigating his claim because of China's deep "political influence."
"It will shock your viewers to know that there is no international investigation into the origins of COVID right now," Metzl told Carlson.
"That's why the government representatives meeting now at the World Health Assembly, they must authorize a full and unrestricted investigation into the origins of the pandemic with full access to the personnel in China and beyond."