MSNBC’s Mehdi Hassan insisted that "the right" was to blame for efforts to squash discussion on the lab leak theory in a rant from his Twitter account on Sunday and Monday.
The "Mehdi Hassan Show" host originally retweeted a comment from FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver who blasted scientists and public officials who sought to suppress dissenting opinions on the origins of the coronavirus.
"Welp. The behavior of a certain cadre of scientists who used every trick in the book to suppress discussion of this issue is something I'll never forget. A huge disservice to science and public health. They should be profoundly embarrassed," Silver tweeted Sunday.
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Hasan responded, "The simple reason why so many people weren’t keen to discuss the ‘lab leak’ *theory* is because it was originally conflated by the right with ‘Chinese bio weapon’ conspiracies and continues to be conflated by the right with anti-Fauci conspiracies. Blame the conspiracy theorists."
The U.S. Energy Department reportedly found that the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from an accidental lab leak in China in contrast to initial claims from scientists that it had developed naturally from a Wuhan wet market. Dissenting scientists have since revealed that although the lab leak theory was always considered a possibility, many were shunned and even silenced from attempting to research the possibility.
Many in the media claimed early on that the lab leak theory had been debunked and was racist misinformation.
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According to Hasan, however, this was due to "bad faith" agitators.
"It’s hard to have a good faith disagreement about a major issue if the issue itself has been hijacked by bad faith folks," Hasan tweeted.
He added, "Incidentally, some of us did try and host good faith debates on the ‘lab leak’ theory, even back in 2021," along with a tweet promoting a discussion with Dr. Angela Rasmussen and Dr. Alina Chan on his show in June 2021.
Hasan continued the thread on Monday, reiterating his attack on "the right" and "lay people" who were "obsessed" with the lab leak theory during the onset of the pandemic.
"Also: ask yourself why so many people on the right, lay people, were obsessed with this one specific aspect of the science of Covid, which by the view is still not the majority view amongst scientists? Was it because of their scientific curiosity? Lol," Hasan wrote.
Hasan continued to reply to criticism of his tweets and repeated his suggestion that the theory was not suppressed.
"Loads of rightwing and centrist non-scientist dudes on this site have now convinced themselves that the lab leak theory wasn’t just ‘suppressed’ but is also ‘the most likely factual explanation of the origin’ of Covid - when most scientists don’t think that’s the case at all!" Hasan responded to one user.
To another, he commented, "It was dismissed - and continues to be dismissed - because there was no hard evidence for it, and there still isn’t!, and because it has always been part of broader rightwing conspiracies - including the online hysteria and faux outrage right now!"
He concluded in a separate Twitter thread that the real scandal was not any efforts to suppress the lab leak theory but efforts to undermine masks and vaccinations.
"Millions dead from Covid, many of which could have been prevented by masks and/or vaccines. Same folks who refused to endorse either, and don’t want to talk about the ongoing death toll, are now whining about whether the coronavirus leaked from a lab or came from a wet market," Hasan tweeted.
He added, "Sure it could have come from a lab, even though most scientists/studies say otherwise. But hey, fine. It came from a lab. Now what? How does that help boost our abysmally low vaccination and booster rates? How does that help us hold Trump to account for dropping the ball in 2020?"
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In the past two weeks, a new scientific review found masks made ‘little to no difference’ in preventing spread of COVID, while another study said prior COVID infection provides just as much protection as vaccines.
