Carrie Wolinetz, past Chief of Staff of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), asserted in no uncertain terms last Thursday that there was no suppression of the lab leak theory throughout the Covid-19 drama. This denial, made during the Senate Homeland Security hearing, came in response to queries from Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, regarding her potential role in suppressing the theory – suggesting that the virus was inadvertently released from a lab in China – across internet platforms.

Hawley sought to ascertain if Wolinetz had any regrets about not resisting supposed censorship attempts orchestrated by her then-superior, NIH’s previous Director Francis Collins, or Dr. Anthony Fauci. Hawley asked Wolinetz directly, putting forth, “Do you regret your role in helping censor millions of Americans who were kicked off social media, who were disciplined at work for saying ‘maybe a lab was involved?’” Her response was firm, maintaining that she never played the role he suggested. When posed with the question of whether she regretted not standing against such censorship, Wolinetz adamantly reiterated, “I don’t believe censorship took place, sir.”

In light of her insistence that no such suppression efforts had been carried out, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky responded by revealing Wolinetz would not be considered for a role in a proposed board – introduced by himself and aimed at overseeing federal funding for high-priority life sciences research and assuring agency accountability – under the Executive Branch.

Despite Wolinetz’s denial, evidence and instances that hint at a strict censorship regime have surfaced. One significant account of such censorship involves Facebook labeling and suppressing stories relating to the controversial lab leak theory a “false.” The Biden Administration even called for curbing “misinformation,” an action that included requests to Facebook to limit private conversations on WhatsApp, as revealed by emails from 2023 under the lawsuit: Missouri v. Biden, (later Murthy v. Missouri) revolving around freedom of speech.

The release of the Twitter Files further unveiled Twitter’s broadened practice of handling content moderation requests from various federal and state agencies, the State Department, and the intelligence community during the pandemic. This collaboration between the government and social media magnates reportedly involved restricting the Hunter Biden laptop story, blacklisting prominent conservative figures, and subtly restricting conservative content. Records obtained by the House Republicans expose another probable suppression effort wherein Fauci’s advisor David Morens toned down the lab leak hypothesis at Fauci’s directive as per the instructions documented in the files.