Did the CIA arrest a Harvard scientist for creating the novel coronavirus? No, that's not true: The headline on a YouTube viral video is inaccurate. Charles Lieber, the chair of Harvard University's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, was arrested on January 28, 2020, for making fraudulent statements to federal authorities about his relationship with the Chinese government.
The case was not related to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The claim is found in a video published on YouTube by Efo Dzimado on March 30, 2020, titled "CIA Arrested China Scientist For Creating Corona Virus" (archived here). It opened:
CIA Arrested China Scientist For Creating Corona Virus. It is coming and going
Click below to watch the video on YouTube:
Several of the claims made in the post have previously been debunked by fact checkers. On February 21, 2020, FactCheck.org concluded that there was no link between the arrest of Lieber and the coronavirus outbreak.
The New York Times also reported that Lieber was not accused of disclosing information with China:
Dr. Lieber, a leader in the field of nanoscale electronics, has not been accused of sharing sensitive information with Chinese officials, but rather of hiding -- from Harvard, from the National Institutes of Health and from the Defense Department -- the amount of money that Chinese funders were paying him.
Lead Stories has previously fact checked an element of this video that contained a news report making several speculative claims about the origins of the coronavirus. It cited The Washington Times newspaper, which had reported on January 26, 2020, that the new coronavirus might have originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. That story quoted an Israeli biological warfare analyst who was speculating about this possibility.
Lead Stories has written about similar claims before (here and here).
The journal Science reported on February 19, 2020, that a group of 27 health officials had issued a statement, which was published by The Lancet a day earlier. In it, the authors "strongly condemned" the rumors and conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus outbreak.
They added that scientists from several countries "overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife," which is how many other viruses have spread. The statement went on to say:
Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.
London's Daily and Sunday Express newspaper quoted a scientist from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chen Quanjiao, who said:
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has no infections, and the patient zero did not come from us.
The arrest of the Harvard scientist was not related to the coronavirus pandemic and, as we have previously reported, COVID-19 is not a lab-made bioweapon.
There is a lot of misinformation online about the coronavirus. Here are some other fact checks by Lead Stories you may want to check out:
- Fact Check: Black People Are NOT Immune To The Dangers Of Coronavirus
- Fact Check: 60 Democrats Did NOT Vote Against Coronavirus Stimulus Bill
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- Fact Check: Sky News Video About Coronavirus Victims In Italian Hospital Did NOT Get Taken Down
- Fact Check: Using A Sauna Or Hairdryer Will NOT Kill Coronavirus
- Fact Check: Helicopters Are NOT Spraying Disinfectants To Try To Eradicate Coronavirus
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- Fact Check: Massachusetts State Police DO Warn Of Possible Scam Related To Coronavirus
- Fact Check: NOT A Photo Of Hundreds Of Coronavirus Dead In Italy
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- Fact Check: Joe Biden Did NOT Test Positive For Coronavirus, As African Hoax Website Claims
- Fact Check: Homeland Security Is NOT Preparing To Mobilize The National Guard To Combat Coronavirus
- Fact Check: Italy Has NOT Mandated No Treatment Of All Elderly With Coronavirus
- Fact Check: A Banana A Day Does NOT Keep The Coronavirus Away
- Fact Check: 15 Minutes In Sauna Will NOT Kill The Coronavirus
- Fact Check: A Dog Vaccine Can NOT Be Used To Inoculate People Against Coronavirus
- Fact Check: The CDC Is NOT Warning People The Morel Mushroom Increases Coronavirus Risk By 200%
- Fact Check: Baby Formula NOT Necessarily Being Shipped For Free During Coronavirus Outbreak
- Fact Check: Train Was NOT Marked With "COVID-19" On Its Side
- Fact Check: NOT 10,000 Deaths In Virus Outbreak in Michigan, Washington, Idaho, North Dakota, Missouri, Mississippi
- Fact Check: CDC Did NOT Recommend Men Shave Their Beards To Protect Against Coronavirus
- Fact Check: Florida Man NOT Arrested For Robbery Using Cough As A Weapon
- Fact Check: Lysol Products Can Kill Older Strains Of Coronavirus, But Tests Have NOT Scientifically Proven They Kill Novel Coronavirus
- Fact Check: Hair Weaves And Lace Front Wigs Made In China NOT Likely To Contain Coronavirus
- Fact Check: Scientists Did NOT Discover That Cocaine Kills Coronavirus
- Fact Check: NO Evidence Coronavirus Is Bioweapon Leaked From Wuhan Lab
- Fake News: Six Coronavirus Cases NOT Confirmed In Wichita, Kansas (Or Several Other U.S. Cities)
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