"No evidence" to support former CDC director's theory that coronavirus escaped from lab, scientists say
CBSN
Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN he believes the coronavirus originally escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China. But a team of experts from the World Health Organization, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and a number of virology experts have said the evidence to support such a claim just isn't there.
"I do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human. And at that moment in time, the virus came to the human, became one of the most infectious viruses that we know in humanity for human to human transmission," Redfield told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta during an interview taped in January, to be aired in full on Sunday. "Normally, when a pathogen goes from a zoonot to human, it takes a while for it to figure out how to become more and more efficient." Redfield, a virologist who headed the CDC under President Trump, stressed several times that this is just his opinion, not a proven fact. "I'm allowed to have opinions now," he said. According to Redfield, the extremely fast transmission of the then-novel coronavirus, in his view, indicates that it was likely grown in a lab for that exact purpose. "Most of us in a lab, when trying to grow a virus, we try to help make it grow better, and better, and better, and better, and better, and better so we can do experiments and figure out about it. That's the way I put it together," he said of his theory.On May 7, health influencer Paul Saladino, M.D.. posted a video to his X account that promoted feeding "raw dairy" to infants. The post received over 90,000 views and sparked strong backlash before it was removed the following day. Saladino regularly advocates for "animal-based" diets featuring raw milk, including on his TikTok channel where he has over half a million followers.
Everywhere you look, things are getting more complicated. Our phones have over a thousand settings. Showerheads come with apps. Cars have touchscreens. Ovens have touchscreens. "There's no doubt that 'featuritis' is real," said design consultant Jakob Nielsen. "Most of these things are too complicated."
New research is adding to the evidence linking ultra-processed foods to health concerns. The study tracked people's habits over 30 years and found those who reported eating more of certain ultra-processed foods had a slightly higher risk of death — with four categories of foods found to be the biggest culprits.