Former CDC Director Robert Redfield’s biggest fear for a future pandemic is a genetically manipulated bird flu, given that NIH-funded scientists in 2012 published instructions for making such a pathogen cross the “species barrier” to humans, a highly unlikely result from viral evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I didn’t think we needed to give terrorists a recipe” for modifying a bird flu to kill 5%-50% of people it infects, Dr. Redfield told “Just the News, No Noise,” recalling his argument to then-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci \u2014 his future antagonist on COVID origins and gain-of-function research \u2014 against publishing the research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I think it’s a miracle that no one’s used that yet,” Redfield said. “But I do think we’re at high risk for laboratory-created bird flu that will have high pathogenicity for man,” given the “highly inadequate” biosecurity of dozens of labs handling dangerous pathogens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The “probability of a spillover event” from a lab “is very, very high,” he warned, “and I suspect that in the next decade we will have, unfortunately, a major pandemic as a consequence of either gain-of-function research or bioterrorism.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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“And this is why I think we need to really look seriously about not only having a moratorium in our own country, but actually having a global moratorium on gain-of-function research until society can decide: Should it really be done? Is the benefit there? And if they decide the benefit’s there, then how do you do it in a safe, responsible and effective way?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Redfield is highly critical of officials in both the Trump and Biden administrations for squelching an “honest public debate” on both COVID origins and public health response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NIH organized a “single narrative” that COVID emerged from a “spillover event,” contrary to Redfield’s favored lab-leak explanation, and “really tried to sideline anybody that didn’t agree with them,” he said, claiming to have received “hate mail,” including a suicide suggestion from “good scientists in the National Academy” of Science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n