An article circulated on social media claims that dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), ‘patents possession of an HIV component used to create COVID-19’. This is false.
This claim is in line with the conspiracy theory that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is ‘man-made’. In this case, it is argued that it was developed with the genetic code of HIV. Both of these claims have been rejected by the health authorities (here, here, here) and scientists largely agree that the virus’ genetic sequence reflects that of a virus that occurs naturally and not in a laboratory (here).
The article written by Jerome Corsi, a right-wing political commentator and conspiracy theorist (here), has been circulating since April 28, 2020 and is visible here. Recent Facebook posts with screenshots or text from the article are visible here, here and here.
THE PATENTS
The article refers to “four patents on which Fauci is named as inventor”, but actually contains two patents (9896509, bit.ly/35gz2Ne and 9441041, bit.ly/2L42yim) and two patent applications (20160333097, bit.ly/ 3nrXTnb and 20160075786 , bit.ly/3onwNPH).
The two patents, which have been active since the publication of this article (here, here), license a possible treatment for HIV, not the glycoprotein or ‘HIV component’ as the title of the article claims. While Fauci is listed among other authors, the patents are actually granted (here) by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The treatment under investigation, as set out in the patents, involves the administration of a “therapeutically effective amount of an agent that interacts with the interaction of GP120 and α4 integri”, which means that it interacts with an important protein in HIV and a protein in the cells of the body, “which treats the HIV infection”.
THE REPORT
As evidence to support the claim that COVID-19 was created by the laboratory using GP120, and in an attempt to link it to Fauci by mentioning the patents on which its name appears, Corsi refers to a report visible here is, who has not yet judged peers. It was published on 31 January 2020 and was withdrawn on 2 February 2020 (archive.vn/IxsEn). In the comments section of the article, authors later said that they do not intend to ‘introduce the conspiracy theories’.
The report, published in the early days of the virus and entitled “Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag”, claims that he found 4 insertions in the spike glycoprotein (S) which is unique to the 2019 nCoV and does not occur in other coronaviruses, adding that these four “unique” nails were similar to some DNA sequences in HIV-1 (the most common type of HIV).
EXPLAIN THE FOUR INTRODUCTIONS, HIV AND GLICOPROTEINS
Dr. Catherine Blish (here), a specialist in infectious diseases at Stanford Medicine, told Reuters in an email that the “insertions” mentioned in the withdrawn report refer to the “extra amino acids, the building blocks of proteins”, which in the vein protein of SARS-CoV-2.
The spike protein of coronavirus, Blish explained, is the protein that “mediates access to the cell”. In HIV, the analog-entry protein is the gp160 (which is made up of the two glycoproteins gp120 and gp41 here). “These viral proteins interact with cellular proteins to get the virus into a cell,” she said.
In the patents mentioned in this claim, the potential treatment in question focused on inhibiting the interaction of the glycoprotein gp120 with the proteins in the body (here).
Blish explained the issue with the author’s interpretation: “the authors did not include coronaviruses from bats, including the bat strain that has the strongest similarity to SARS-CoV-2.” (here)
Blish referred to another paper compiled by virus expert Feng Gao (here), who concluded that the marked patterns in the withdrawn report were not HIV-specific. According to Gao’s paper, the motifs were also found in at least ‘100 identical or highly homologous’ series in’ gas genes of mammals, insects, bacteria and others’ and also in ‘all kinds of viruses from bacteriophages, influenza, to giant eukaryotes. ”
According to Blish, this suggests that these sequence patterns are ‘merely ordinary motifs in nature’.
According to Gao’s article, the four insertions mentioned in the withdrawn report are not only in SARS-CoV-2, but also in three series of bat coronavirus found in 2018 and 2013.
A team of global health scientists and infection preventers at the Meedan Digital Health Lab, a public health information center, has also addressed the false allegations surrounding HIV and SARS-CoV-2.
Coincidentally, experts noted that in addition to SARS-CoV-2 and HIV, the DNA-protein sequences mentioned in the withdrawn study ‘occur in many different organisms, including those that cause cryptosporidiosis and malaria’. Further evaluation shows that ‘these proteins are not unique to coronaviruses and are a common source of viral biology in a large number of ailments caused by different actors’.
Fact Check Health Feedback addressed the withdrawn report here and found that ‘the ranges analyzed by the study authors were so short that it was easy to find similarities with a wide range of organisms’.
Other scientists took to Twitter to refute the article’s findings here , here .
“Although we need to sequence and understand more bats and other coronaviruses to fully understand the source of SARS-CoV-2, there is no evidence to support the idea that it was made by HIV,” said Dr. Blish assured.
Reuters had earlier made other false allegations about dr. Fauci shut down, which was a frequent target of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic here, here, here.
VERDICT
Untrue. Evidence so far suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is a natural virus, not human. In an article, patents for a possible treatment for HIV are falsely linked, in which dr. Fauci is listed as a co-inventor and refers to a withdrawn article refuted by scientific experts, arguing that the virus that causes COVID-19 is bio-engineering.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.