The former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Scott Gottlieb defends Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top COVID-19 adviser of the president, because of his recently released work emails. Fauci in the face of the country’s coronavirus response, drawing both criticism and praise.

Furthermore, pushing back against allegations from the Republican party that the nation’s top infectious disease expert at first downplayed questions over the origins of the pandemic, former FDA head Scott Gottlieb stated that Mr. Fauci brief world health leaders on the possibility the outbreak came from a Wuhan lab last spring.

Gottlieb, who led the FDA from 2017 to 2019 under former American President Donald Trump, said on CBS’ Face the Nation that senior Trump officials informed him, and they reconfirmed that conversation. Moreover, he said that former president officials told him at that time in the spring that Fauci was gone over to a conversation with global health leaders in Europe during the World Health Assembly.

The ex-FDA chief said that Fauci briefs them at the meeting on the information American officials were investigating, including that the virus may come because of a potential lab leak, that this strain looked unusual. During those discussions, Fauci explained to the health leaders that they started to lessen as deep analysis dismissed some of those reservations.

Fauci Defended the Emails

Gottlieb’s revelation follows the criticism from Republican leaders who apprehended the recently released trove of Fauci emails to blame him for dismissing the Wuhan lab leak theory in 2020. In the emails which made public after Buzzfeed News and the Washington Post obtained his emails through a request of the Freedom of Information Act, Dr. Fauci thanks Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-governmental and nonprofit organization, for praising him for openly dismissing the lab theory.

Since then, Fauci defended the emails and argued that his stance remained the same, as he always said and still believes the possible origin of coronavirus is from an animal species to a human, but he has an open mind about the option of a lab leak. Gottlieb said that he doesn’t think there was anything extraordinary in those emails. Further, he adds that he doesn’t think about the possibility that there was anything that Dr. Fauci expressed any ill intention and nothing that was new.

Gottlieb previously backed for detailed investigation into the origins of coronavirus, suggesting it has highly possibility COVID-19 originated from a Chinese lab as these types of leaks occurred all the time.

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