Widow of scientist who invented PCR test hits out at Covid denier conspiracists who claim he was murdered by Fauci
THE widow of the genius Nobel Prize-winning scientist who invented the PCR test has hit back at the “Covid loony resistance” for spreading wild conspiracy theories about him online.
Biochemist Kary Mullis came up with the polymerase chain reaction in 1983 but died from pneumonia in August 2019, months before it was rolled out across the world during the pandemic to diagnose Covid.
Since then several old video interviews have gone viral online where Mullis can be seen saying that the PCR “doesn’t tell you if you’re sick” and slamming Dr Anthony Fauci for his role in the AIDS crisis.
Conspiracy theorists have used the videos to claim the maverick man of science was murdered because he would supposedly have revealed that PCR tests produce fake Covid cases.
Some have gone to the extreme of suggesting that Fauci, 80, may have somehow orchestrated his scientific rival’s death to keep him quiet.
The Sun reached out to his grieving widow Nancy Mullis, who blasted the allegations as “annoying and egregious”.
Addressing the conspiracy theories for the first time, the former teacher, 74, said: “These Covid loonies have come out of the woodwork to tell me that Kary was probably killed to keep him from talking about Covid and that Fauci might be behind it.
“This is so ludicrous. I had to make my Facebook page private because of these kinds of people.
“What Kary said about Fauci and PCR being used to diagnose AIDS was 25 to 30 years ago.
“What people have done now is cobble together snippets of various videos but conveniently left out the AIDS part to make it seem that he’s talking about Covid.
“It’s terribly annoying since Kary died in August 2019 before Covid was even in the news.
“It’s completely egregious to me.
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“I can promise you that Fauci’s name was never mentioned in our household for a couple of decades.
“It was not an issue that Kary was concerned about but you see people on the internet who say that for the last 30 years he tried to get rid of Anthony Fauci.
“There is so much online that is completely false about Kary but there’s nothing I can do about it.
“Normally when people send me things about how Kary has been mentioned I ask them not to.
“It’s uncomfortable for me to see how they have used him as kind of the face of the Covid loony resistance.
“The other salient point is that PCR has advanced since it was first invented. Just like cars or airplanes advanced, PCR did too.
“To say that it shouldn’t be used for Covid is harkening back to what Kary said about AIDS in the 1990s but PCR has advanced since then.”
Mullis – who was 74 when he died at home in Newport Beach, California – was described as a “wide-angled genius” during his lifetime but also courted controversy over some of his views.
The Berkeley-educated DNA chemist maintained that HIV had never been proven to cause AIDS and questioned whether human beings are causing global warming.
The avid surfer and guitar player was also open about having tripped on LSD in his youth and believed in astrology and reincarnation.
His views on HIV and AIDS in particular meant that he was highly critical of Fauci’s leadership during that epidemic.
In one of the videos from the 1990s currently being circulated online, father-of-three Mullis says of Fauci: “He doesn’t know anything really about anything, and I would say that to his face. Nothing.
“Tony Fauci does not mind going on television in front of the people who pay his salary and lie directly into the camera.”
But Nancy, who became Mullis’ fourth wife in 1998, says that he was simply “disappointed” by the scientific establishment represented by Fauci.
She also revealed that she wrote an email to Fauci to assure him that neither she nor any of Mullis’ family are behind the conspiracy theories.
Nancy said: “Kary was such a fully, completely out there person. Anything he felt, he would say.
“I think he was disappointed in science in general because it was all about money and grants and scaring people and he was totally about the truth.
“(After the conspiracy theories emerged) I wrote to Fauci’s email on the government website.
“I said ‘I know you and Kary had your complete disagreement, but in no way is his estate behind any of these lies on the internet’.
“I just felt better saying that because I don’t support any of it.
“I got a Dear Nancy and signed Tony email but whether he wrote it or staff wrote it, it’s hard to say.
“It was just ‘thank you very much, hope you’re well’, just something very simple.
“It’s got to be hard seeing all this stuff on the internet with Kary maligning him over and over and over again.
“I just felt like I have got to say that this is not coming from me or his family or anyone that is close to Kary, it’s coming from these completely weird people that thinks this is just a scam.”
Nancy also revealed that North Carolina-born Mullis – who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1993 – had suffered from ill health for years before he passed away.
She said: “Kary died at home so how do they (the conspiracy theorists) think somebody had access to him?
“Where would they have access to him, would they have come into our house?
“Kary had a six-way heart bypass when he was 60. He had a lot of health issues over the years but he was tough and self-reliant and always thought he could overcome anything.
“The six-way open heart surgery led, over the years, to blood pressure problems, several ablations, a pacemaker inserted for erratic and low heart beat, and a stent.
“Heart disease ran in his family, his mother had heart attacks and his two brothers had issues with their hearts too.
“Pneumonia probably just finished him off. He had it for a couple of weeks and was being treated at home by a nurse.
“I am completely bereft and devastated by his loss and I will never get over it.”
A representative for Dr Fauci was contacted but did not respond to a request for comment.
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