Rupar evolving from naked partisan flacking to straight up fake news.

The reporter might work for Newsmax but she says nothing that isn't widely-reported basic fact. Rupar goes farther than the admin itself in reflexively calling the lab leak hypothesis a "conspiracy theory." https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1390725903714508800

Which part is a conspiracy theory? That NIH funded bat coronavirus research done in conjunction with the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Here's a report affirming that from that crazy right-wing MAGA fringe conspiracy outlet, National Public Radio. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/29/907237520/group-whose-nih-grant-for-virus-research-was-revoked-just-got-a-new-grant

Here's more confirmation from...an article expressly devoted to *debunking* the lab leak hypothesis as a "conspiracy theory." https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2021/02/09/covid-dr-anthony-fauci-did-not-fund-research-tied-creation/4450338001/

Or is the conspiracy that Fauci was a proponent of gain-of-function research? Here's a page from NIH's own website, with the program of a conference on gain-of-function research. One of the presenters was...Dr. Anthony Fauci. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/videos/gain-function-research-hpai-h5n1-viruses-welcome-introductory-remarks

Here's video of Fauci at a conference on gain-of-function research. He refers to NIH's decades of work on influenza viruses and says that "integral to that study has always been the issue of gain-of-function research." (20:21)

Here's the slide he shows when he says it. In case you're unfamiliar with gain-of-function research, he spells it out: it's when scientists "create such mutations" as would make a naturally occurring virus more transmissible or more deadly.

Here's the NIH describing gain-of-function research, specifically in relation to the NIH's work on SARS and MERS coronaviruses.

I could go on and on like this — this stuff isn't hard to find, it's just a google search away. But why research it yourself when you can rely on Aaron Rupar and Vox dot com to just tell you what you need to know: that it's a cONsPiRaCy ThEOrY concocted by QAnon lunatics?