(The Blaze)—National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya hosted his first staff town hall on Monday.
The event, held on the NIH’s main campus in Bethesda, Maryland, was packed with nearly 500 attendees and even more individuals tuning in online to watch Bhattacharya answer some of the 1,200 submitted questions, Science reported.
Yet when Bhattacharya attempted to answer a question about the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak, many staffers fled the room in apparent protest.
Ahead of his response, Bhattacharya noted that some of those attending the event would likely disagree with his perspective.
“It’s possible that the pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings. And it’s also possible that the NIH partly sponsored that research,” Bhattacharya told the crowd.
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