On Tuesday, Michael R. Gordon, who helped launch the Iraq war by promoting Bush administration allegations that Saddam Hussein was using aluminum tubes to build nuclear weapons, claimed, citing anonymous government sources, that world-renowned researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were among the first people to be infected with COVID-19.
Gordon’s article, published in the Wall Street Journal, serves to lend credibility to the conspiracy theory, invented by the fascist ideologue Stephen K. Bannon and his wealthy Chinese anti-communist associates, that scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology created COVID-19.
Like Gordon’s earlier reporting, this is, in the words of the late Consortium News journalist Robert Parry, a “Michael Gordon Special,” using alleged statements by anonymous government officials to promote completely false claims in line with US foreign policy.
Gordon has perfected the technique of endowing what are essentially baseless claims, unsupported by established facts, with an aura of credibility. In his latest article, he writes:
“A prominent scientist who worked on coronavirus projects funded by the U.S. government is one of three Chinese researchers who became sick with an unspecified illness during the initial outbreak of Covid-19, according to current and former U.S. officials.”
What is the “unspecified illness”? Gordon does not answer this question. He writes that the “nature of their illness hasn’t been conclusively established.” As for...
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