The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously voted on Friday to declassify intelligence about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 419-0 vote was the final approval of the bill, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
The debate was brief and to the point: Americans have questions about how the deadly virus started and what can be done to prevent future outbreaks. "The American public deserves answers to every aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic," said Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, Chairperson of the House Intelligence Committee.
That includes, he said, "How this virus was created and, specifically, whether it was a natural occurrence or was the result of a laboratory-related event."
The order to declassify focused on intelligence related to, citing "potential links" between the research that was done there and the outbreak of COVID-19, which the World Health Organization announced on March 11, 2020.
U.S. intelligence agencies are divided over whether a laboratory leak or a spillover from animals was the likely source of the deadly virus.
Experts say the true origin of the coronavirus pandemic may not be known for many years – if ever.
"Transparency is a cornerstone of our democracy," said Rep. Jim Himes, of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, during the debate.
Led by Republicans, the focus on the virus origins comes as the House launched a select committee with a hearing earlier in the week delving into theories about how the pandemic started. It offers a rare moment of bipartisanship despite the often heated rhetoric about the origins of the coronavirus and the questions about the response to the virus by U.S. health officials, including a former top health adviser.
The legislation from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was already approved by the Senate.
If signed into law, the measure would require within 90 days the declassification of "any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the coronavirus disease." That includes information about research and other activities at the laboratory and whether any researchers grew ill.
The COVID-19 outbreak began in 2019 in the eastern Chinese city of Wuhan, leading to almost 7 million deaths worldwide so far, according to official counts, over a million of them in the United States.
The U.S. Energy Department concluded with "low confidence" that the virus probably escaped via a laboratory accident, agreeing with the assessment of the FBI but contradicting the conclusions of several other agencies.
Robert Redfield, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Protection, argued for the laboratory leak theory before senators on Wednesday, while the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institutes of Health identified an infected animal as the likely culprit.
"Basically there's a broad consensus in the intelligence community that the outbreak is not the result of a bioweapon or genetic engineering. What there isn't a consensus on is whether or not it's a laboratory leak," Haines added.
When the Senate version of the bill was introduced in February, its co-author Josh Hawley said anyone asking whether COVID-19 had originated in a lab was "silenced and branded as a conspiracy theorist."
"Now these prudent skeptics stand vindicated. The American people deserve to know the truth," he added.
In a separate effort, House Republicans reintroduced a legislation on Friday allowing U.S. citizens the right to sue China – which rejects the laboratory leak theory – over its "large-scale misrepresentation campaign" during the outbreak.
"We must finally get to the truth about what happened and who was involved in this deception in order to bring justice to those who suffered profoundly from COVID-19," said New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith.