“I think the most upsetting thing to me was The Baltimore Sun calling me a racist because I said this came from a Wuhan lab.”
Those words came out of the mouth of Dr. Robert Redfield, the former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, toward the end of a three-hour hearing conducted Wednesday morning by the select House subcommittee investigating the origins of the COVID-19 virus. It was in response to a question from U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio about whether scientists who espoused the theory of a Chinese lab leak, as Redfield had in a 2021 CNN interview, were branded as “crackpots” by other scientists.
When Redfield made his comments — at the height of concerns over an uptick in violence against Asian people in this country, we might add — he was no longer a federal employee, but an unpaid adviser to Gov. Larry Hogan, and Maryland officials came down on him hard. Senate President Bill Ferguson deemed Redfield’s comments “inappropriate, unacceptable and beyond unfortunate.” House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A. Jones accused him of “spreading conspiracy theories.” State Sen. Susan Lee said Redfield was furthering a “very toxic and dangerous climate that could subject us to violence and hate crimes.” And Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot called for the state to sever ties with Redfield, saying his comments were “especially concerning and reckless as hate crimes and bigotry against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have skyrocketed over the last year.”
