[LegionMammal978]

I don't think you'd easily catch him put it in precisely the terms of a "conspiracy theory". He wouldn't have had such a long career if he weren't careful with his words on air.

But he did consider that research to adequately "address" the concerns of a "manmade" virus, and I don't think it would be uncharitable to interpret that as a dismissal of those concerns. After all, he always could have ended his statement with a noncommittal "but this is just one study, and we need more evidence to really know for sure".

And a lot of people do specifically mean a virus that was genetically modified or otherwise selected for human transmissibility when they talk about a "lab leak", so at least he was trying to talk down that version of a lab leak theory.

(Personally, I do think a lot of the theories of an genetically-modified virus are overblown, both then and now, I just wanted to give some perspective for what he actually said.)