According to newly unredacted emails, after Collins and Fauci reviewed multiple drafts of the paper over several weeks, the study’s lead author then thanked the two for their “advice and leadership” on the paper before publishing the piece in Nature Medicine without noting their participation. After helping with the manuscript, both Collins and Fauci then cited the paper as proof of a natural origin for COVID-19—Collins in a post on the NIH Director’s blog, and Fauci during a White House pandemic briefing with President Donald Trump.
Last week, I sent copies of these unredacted emails, as well a link to Collin’s 2011 letter, and asked HHS and NIH a series of questions about how they handle evidence of ghostwriting and plagiarism as defined by Collins. Both HHS, NIH have refused to respond.