Claim: Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Originally Came from a Lab Leak

Verdict: False and very misleading

“Clearly, [the] COVID-19 pandemic and many other global pandemics that we have, have come from gain of function research. The RSV epidemic that we have – that's the biggest killer of kids in this country today – came from these kinds of [gain of function] experiments.”

– RFK Jr

RFK Jr: Lyme Disease, RSV, Covid-19 "Almost Certainly" Created By Gain-of-Function Research - And U.S.…

RFK Jr. has had some strange ideas about RSV since at least 2021, and in August he mentioned it on both CNN and Fox News. In both cases, he pointed the finger at “gain-of-function” research for creating the virus, suggesting that it was created in a lab leak.

The RSV Lab Leak Hypothesis

As usual, RFK Jr.’s public comments don’t offer much detail. But as Tom Bartlett notes in an Atlantic article, RFK explains his theory in his book The Real Anthony Fauci, and cites an article written for Children’s Health Defense.

This article covers many aspects of the true history of the disease, but leaves out crucial details and – in the process – lurches towards a misleading conclusion.

The True Story of RSV

The true story of RSV is basically how the article describes it. In 1955, chimpanzees at the Walter Reed Army Institute for Medical Research came down with a mysterious respiratory illness, which the researchers called chimpanzee coryza agent (CCA). They also infected other chimps to prove it was transmissible. However, one worker who spent a lot of time with the chimpanzees also got sick, and it also infected his barrack-mates.  

More research came quickly, as an identical virus was isolated from children with respiratory illnesses, and the virus itself was characterised and tested in tissue cultures. Scientists eventually combined CCA with the identical viruses found in humans, under the name RSV.

This is all basically in line with the blog post RFK Jr. cites. However, RFK Jr. and the post he’s citing mistake this as the origin of the virus itself, when in fact it was simply when we first discovered it.

The Evidence They Ignore

Firstly, the initial wave of research found that 80% of healthy children in the state already had an antibody to it by age 4. However, later studies make it unavoidably clear. Working with historical samples, researchers confirmed a case of what we now call RSV dating back to 1931. This is 25 years before the supposed “lab leak.”