Tracing COVID-19 Origins: In a shift, US spy agency targets China over 'lab leak', agency admits 'low confidence' in own judgement
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The United States' Central Intelligence Agency on Saturday released an assessment outlining its views on the origins of the COVID pandemic, and hyping up what's known as the lab leak theory that scientists and the World Health Organization believe is "extremely unlikely." Zhou Jiaxin has more. 

ZHOU JIAXIN CGTN Reporter "A new broom doesn't necessarily sweep clean, it can also bring dirt. 

The new CIA director John Ratcliffe, who has long argued the COVID virus most likely emerged from a Chinese lab, now leads the spy agency shifting its previous neutral stance on the pandemic origins. 

Over the weekend, US media cited the nuanced finding as saying the agency believes the totality of evidence makes a lab origin more likely than a natural origin. But they noted the assessment assigns a low degree of confidence to this conclusion, suggesting the evidence is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory.

But the CIA's reputation means it is definitely in no position to make scientific assessments."

MIKE POMPEO Former CIA Director "We lied, we cheated, we stole, we had entire training courses."

What Mike Pompeo meant is they can't be trusted. 

Former US defense official John Hamre also said the CIA is "an organization that thrives on deception." 

During the US pursuit of Bin Laden, the CIA infamously staged a fake hepatitis vaccination program in Pakistan. And what they were actually doing was collecting DNA samples without informed consent in an attempt to track down Bin Laden's family members. 

False scientific claims have been the US intelligence community's stock-in-trade. Though they and other US government departments have been divided over the origins of the virus, the new CIA leadership spooked the science community with assessment only on analysts reviewing existing information. 

And there's actually no "smoking gun" evidence. 

Last month, a two-year investigation by a Republican-led committee on the pandemic produced a 520-page report defending the lab leak theory while offering no new direct evidence of a lab origin. 

Democrats on the same panel released their own report, concluding that the viruses studied at the Wuhan lab were "distantly related to SARS-CoV-2."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, US government advisor during Trump's first term, also argued that it would be "molecularly impossible."

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI Infectious Diseases Expert "Because they were distant enough molecularly that no matter what you did to them, they could never ever become SARS-Covid-2."

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the US report "a fabrication led by anti-China senators, which has no scientific credibility and is purely a deliberate smear and political manipulation." The ministry also cited a 2021 report by the World Health Organization saying the lab leak theory was "extremely unlikely."

ZHOU JIAXIN CGTN Reporter "Tracing the virus origins has always been a scientific task that may never be achieved. 

Now, the US withdrawing from the WHO is likely to complicate international health cooperation and create a more politicized space for the lab leak theory to spread. And the CIA is doing the science community no favors, nor rebranding its reputation by perpetuating a conspiracy theory."