PolitiFact removes 2020 report stating theory that COVID leaked for Wuhan lab 'debunked conspiracy'

PolitiFact, a Pulitzer Prize winning fact check group, has retracted a September 2020 report calling a Hong Kong virologist's analysis that COVID-19 originated in a lab a "debunked conspiracy theory."

"The claim is inaccurate and ridiculous," the original fact check reads, according to The Epoch Times. "We rate it Pants on Fire!"

An editor's note Monday said the group has removed but archived the original statement. 

"When this fact-check was first published ... PolitiFact’s sources included researchers who asserted the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not have been manipulated. That assertion is now more widely disputed. For that reason, we are removing this fact-check from our database pending a more thorough review. Currently, we consider the claim to be unsupported by evidence and in dispute."

Some of the new evidence is include in a report by Republicans on the Democrat-controlled House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that point to a possible leak in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.