Yet emails obtained pursuant to a FOIA request later
revealed that these attacks were not the products of an independent objective news-gathering process of the type that publications like the
Times and the
Guardian still like to advertise. Rather, they were the fruits of an aggressive attempt to shape the news by the same government officials whose policies the epidemiologists had criticized. Emails between Fauci and Collins revealed that the two officials had worked together and with media outlets as various as
Wired and
The Nation to orchestrate a “takedown” of the declaration.