Fact check: Viral photo shows Obama, Fauci visiting NIH lab in 2014, not a 'Wuhan lab' in 2015

Ella Lee, USA TODAY
·5 min read

The claim: An image depicts Barack Obama, Melinda Gates and Anthony Fauci at a Wuhan lab in 2015

A viral photo claims to depict Anthony Fauci, President Barack Obama and philanthropist Melinda Gates at the “Wuhan Lab” (presumably China's Wuhan Institute of Virology) five years before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in that city.

“You mean this Dr. Fauci who was with Obama in 2015 in the WuHan lab where they paid the lab 3.7 million for a ‘bat’ project?” reads the Instagram post by user @patriciabrookx, which screenshots a Twitter reply no longer available, featuring the photo, to a tweet by former Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. “We know that we’ll now right? He is of the deep state you get instructions from him. Cut the crap! All to take Trump down!”

The photo was shared on Facebook by rock 'n' roll guitarist Ted Nugent in a post that garnered more than 8,000 reactions and was shared 7,200 times. Nugent and his team did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment and clarification.

Instagram user @patriciabrookx said she expects the claim to be proved.

"Stark as this would seem to be, again, given the current of state of political chaos being fomented and driven ultimately by the deep state and the obvious shenanigans under the covers in both parties vying to outdo each other in accusations, it would surprise me if this were not true," @patriciabrookx told USA TODAY in an Instagram direct message. "I have no desire to add to the mass of misinformation that is already proliferating across social media and mainstream media."

The photo is taken out of context

The original image pops up in a 2014 blog post made by Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. The photo was taken when then-President Obama visited NIH – in Maryland, not Wuhan – to learn about its progress with Ebola research.

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President Barack Obama learns about the results of the experimental Ebola vaccine, which just completed Phase 1 clinical trials, from Dr. Nancy Sullivan, Chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Center Biodefense Research Section. HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci accompanied the tour.

“Today, we had the great honor of welcoming President Barack Obama to the campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD – to see first-hand the progress that biomedical research is making against Ebola virus disease,” Collins wrote in the post.

A photo from the same visit can also be found on the Obama White House archives website. USA TODAY reported on the visit in 2014.

Obama called on Congress to help pass a $6.2 billion emergency budget request designed to help get rid of Ebola in West Africa, where it originated.

"We can't just fight this epidemic," Obama said. "We have to extinguish it."

The Associated Press also photographed the 2014 NIH visit, as did Getty Images.

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US funding of lab in Wuhan

The posts from NIH and Obama’s White House archives make no mention of a “bat project,” as the post alleges.

It’s possible the original post was referring to a grant approved in 2014 to the EcoHealth Alliance, a non-governmental research group that focuses on emerging diseases caused by human and animal interactions. The grant was for research into “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” The project involved collaborating with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study coronaviruses in bats and the risk of transfer to humans.

The five-year grant was reapproved by the Trump administration in July 2019, USA TODAY reported. In total, about $3.4 million in NIH funding was directed from the government to the project.

Still, the Wuhan Institute received only about $600,000 from the NIH, according to Robert Kessler, a spokesperson for EcoHealth Alliance.

On April 23, the NIH informed EcoHealth Alliance that it would no longer receive funding from the agency and that the remainder of its grant had been rescinded.

Fact check: Obama administration did not send $3.7 million to Wuhan lab

Melinda Gates wasn’t there

Fauci and Obama are depicted in the image. But Gates wasn’t there.

The woman in the red top, as noted in the photo’s original caption, is Sylvia Burwell, who at the time was secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Now, she’s the president of American University.

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Our rating: False

We rate this claim FALSE as it was not supported by our research. The photo was taken in December 2014 at the National Institutes of Health’s campus in Bethesda, Maryland, not in Wuhan, China. The woman in the photo is not Melinda Gates; it’s Sylvia Burwell, who was secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at the time.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Viral photo shows Obama, Fauci visiting NIH lab in 2014