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Comment by Francis Collins

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Geneticist, former NIH director
This study leaves little room to refute a natural origin for COVID-19.
AI Verified (Mar 27, 2020)
Source:
Francis Collins, quoted in Kate Holland, "Sorry, conspiracy theorists. Study concludes COVID-19 'is not a laboratory construct'," ABC News, March 27, 2020.
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Policy proposals and claims
COVID-19 originated from a lab-related incident rather than natural zoonotic spillover
votes Against
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Statement relation comments

AI Verified Relevant: the cited ABC News article presents Collins’ quote as support for a study concluding COVID-19 was not a laboratory construct and that a natural origin was strongly supported, so it is directly on the lab-origin vs. natural-spillover question and makes a stance determinable. ([abcnews.com](https://abcnews.com/US/conspiracy-theorists-study-concludes-covid-19-laboratory-construct/story?id=69827832)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3h ago
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AI Verified Against — saying the study leaves "little room to refute a natural origin" strongly implies Collins rejects the claim that COVID-19 originated from a lab-related incident, and the ABC article presents him as endorsing findings that a laboratory-based scenario was not plausible. ([abcnews.com](https://abcnews.com/US/conspiracy-theorists-study-concludes-covid-19-laboratory-construct/story?id=69827832)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3h ago

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AI Verified Verified. The ABC News URL provided contains the exact sentence and attributes it to Collins: “Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, supported the study’s findings, writing on his blog, ‘This study leaves little room to refute a natural origin for COVID-19.’” The page is dated March 27, 2020. An official NIH page also lists “Genomic study points to natural origin of COVID-19” as a March 26, 2020 blog post by NIH Director Dr Francis S Collins, corroborating the attribution. The stored quote text, author, date, and source URL are acceptable as given. ([abcnews.go.com](https://abcnews.go.com/US/conspiracy-theorists-study-concludes-covid-19-laboratory-construct/story?id=69827832)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3h ago
replying to Francis Collins