NIH Admits It “Suppressed” Wuhan Lab Genetic Data, But Disputes Watchdog’s “Deleted” Label

A National Institutes for Health (NIH) spokesperson is disputing a non-profit watchdog group’s claim that the agency “deleted” genetic sequencing data on Covid-19 from a Chinese lab, but the same official acknowledged the data was “suppressed.”

“The headline says the sequences were deleted which is inaccurate. They were not deleted. This is a really important point, and I’ve highlighted what did happen from what we provided to you earlier this week,” NIH Media Branch Chief Amanda Fine told The Epoch Times in a March 31 email.

Fine was referring to a March 29 Epoch Times story headlined “NIH Deleted Info Received From Wuhan Lab on Covid-19 Genetic Sequencing, Watchdog’s FOIA Finds.” The information Fine referenced as having been provided to The Epoch Times by NIH earlier in the week was included in the published story:

“’In June 2020, in response to a request by the same [Wuhan] researcher, National Center for Biotechnology [NCBI] gave the sequence data the status of ‘withdrawn,’ which removes sequencing data from all public means of access but does not delete them.

“NCBI subsequently reassigned the status of the sequence data to ‘suppressed,’ which means that sequence data are removed from the search process but can be directly found by accession number. This action to reassign the data was identified as part of NLM’s ongoing review into the matter. We are working to make more information available,” the spokesperson said. – READ MORE