The watchdog on government Judicial Watch says it has obtained emails showing Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institutes of Health accommodated the communist Chinese regime’s terms for confidentiality as the world sought information in the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak.
Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation received 301 pages of emails regarding communications between Fauci and Dr. H. Clifford Lane of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The emails showed NIH officials tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health Organization conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” COVID-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.
Ethan Barton, editor-in chief for the Daily Caller News Foundation, commented that the emails “set the tone early on in the coronavirus outbreak.”
“It’s clear that the WHO allowed China to control the information flow from the start. True transparency is crucial,” he said.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the emails “show WHO and Fauci’s NIH special accommodations to Chinese communist efforts to control information about COVID-19.”
Judicial Watch and the DCNF previously uncovered emails showing a WHO entity pushing for a press release, approved by Fauci, “especially” supporting China’s COVID-19 response.
The documents also reveal an independent journalist in China pointed out to Lane the inconsistent COVID numbers reported by Beijing.
The emails were obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington after HHS failed to respond to Daily Caller’s April 1, 2020, request.
The messages include a conversation about confidentiality forms on Feb. 14-15, 2020, between Lane and WHO Technical Officer Mansuk Daniel Han.
Han writes: “The forms this time are tailored to China’s terms so we cannot use the ones from before.”
Further, a WHO briefing package sent on Feb. 13, 2020, to NIH officials traveling to China as part of the COVID response asks that the officials wait to share information until they have an agreement with China.
“IMPORTANT: Please treat this as sensitive and not for public communications until we have agreed communications with China.”
In an email dated Jan. 20, 2020, a WHO official discusses the epidemiological analysis they conducted of COVID-19 earlier that month.
The analysis is “strictly confidential,” “only for” the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infection Hazards and “should not be further disseminated,” the emails says.
Chinese journalist Zeng Jia sent an email to Lane on March 4, 2020, that points out the number of cases reported in the WHO Joint China Mission’s report are inconsistent with the number reported by the Wuhan Public Health Committee.
Zeng writes:
It says on Page 6 [in the WHO report] that there was at least one clinically diagnosed case of coronavirus on December 2th, 2019, in Wuhan; and from Jan 11th to 17th there were new clinically diagnosed and confirmed cases every day in Wuhan, which is not consistent with Wuhan Public Health Committee’s numbers.
A Feb. 15, 2020, email from Gauden Galea, head of the WHO office in China, informs the joint mission members traveling to China that all of their activities in China would be arranged by the Chinese Government’s National Health Commission
Via Wnd
