Gain of function research -- a backdoor for creation of bioweapons
The shadow of bioChernobil over the mankind: is this yet another technogenic catastrophe similar to Chernobyl and Fukushima caused
by greed, ambition and incompetence ? With "gain of function" experiments like conducted by UNC Dr. Baric group and
other groups and continued
in Wuhan lab, the 21st century is effectively one giant game of Russian roulette.
“Gain-of-function” is the euphemism for biological research aimed at increasing the virulence and lethality of pathogens and
viruses. GoF research is government funded; its focus is on enhancing the pathogens’ ability to infect different species and to
increase their deadly impact as airborne pathogens and viruses. Ostensibly, GoF research is conducted for biodefense purposes.
These experiments, however, are extremely dangerous. Those deadly science-enhanced pathogens can, and do escape into the
community where they infect and kill people. What’s more, this line of research can be used for biological warfare.
Rumors that Iraq was preparing to use weaponized anthrax – as a “weapon of mass destruction” – provided the US government
with a justification for the 2003 invasion.
In 1992, Meryl Nass, MD, analyzed the characteristics of an anthrax epidemic in Zimbabwe, Rhodesia in 1978-1980, that was
claimed to be a natural occurrence. Dr. Nass demonstrated that the pattern of the epidemic, the spread, and weather conditions,
could not have occurred due to a natural event; it must, therefore, have been triggered as a bioweapon. She reported her findings
in the journal Physicians for Social Responsibility Quarterly, 1992.[1]
Government officials and the recipients of government grants and contracts for “gain-of-function” research argue that these
experiments are critical for understanding the subtle changes that can make a bird virus a pandemic threat.
Anthony Fauci, MD
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, has played a
major role in promoting and funding gain-of-function research, both in the US and China. Newsweek reported:
“He argued that the research was worth the risk it entailed because it enables scientists to make preparations [ ] that
could be useful if and when a pandemic occurred.”
Those claims are belied by the empirical evidence GoF experiments have neither prevented a pandemic, nor provided useful information about safe and effective pandemic
countermeasures. Numerous prominent scientists argue that these experiments deviate from morally justifiable research, and the
experimentally altered pathogens have put the entire human species at risk.
However, GoF research is defended by a closed circle of scientists within government and those who are contracted by
government to conduct this line of research.
Drs. Yoshihiro Kawaoka & Ron Fouchier
In 2011, controversy erupted when two separate teams of researchers – one headed by Ron Fouchier from the Netherlands, another
headed by Yoshihiro Kawaoka from the University of Wisconsin and the University of Tokyo – announced that they had modified the
H5N1 avian flu virus so that it jumped from birds to mammals and between mammals.[2],[3]
Both research teams were funded by the NIH – NIAID. They used reverse genetics to build a more lethal virus by combining directed
mutations and natural selection, suggesting that this H5N1 variant could be efficiently transmitted between humans.
The UK Independentreported:
“An increasing number of scientists outside the influenza field have expressed concern over attempts to deliberately increase
the human transmissibility of the H5N1 bird-flu virus. This is done by mutating the virus so that it can pass by airborne
droplets between laboratory ferrets, the standard “animal model” of human influenza.”
Scientists, who are committed to the precautionary principle in medicine, medical research, and in public health policy,
eschew GoF experimentation. These critics cite the Nuremberg Code prohibition against conducting experiments that pose a risk to
human life. Such experiments “should be undertaken only if they provide humanitarian benefits that sufficiently offset the
risks and if these benefits are unachievable by safer means.”
The risks posed by influenza GoF experiments include frequent documented escapes of deadly pathogens into the community, which
have a potential for triggering a pandemic. These risks far outweigh any speculative benefits. What’s more, as Dr. Marc Lipsitch
of Harvard and Dr. Alison Galvani of Yale argue:“the creation and manipulation of potential pandemic pathogens are too risky
to justify…there are safer more effective experimental approaches that are both more scientifically informative and more
straightforward to translate into improved public health.” [PLoS
Medicine, 2014][4]
The considerable risk of laboratory enhanced transmitability of influenza viruses was obvious. Dr. Andrew Pavia, Chief,
Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Utah stated: “A readily transmitted H5N1 virus could be
extraordinarily lethal; therefore, the risk for accidental release is significant, and deliberate misuse of the data to create a
biological weapon is possible.”[6]
The controversy escalated when the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) issued its recommendation (December
2011) that the controversial H5N1 reports be published with significant redactions.“Methodological and other details that
could enable replication of the experiments by those who would seek to do harm” are to be redacted. The research and the
NSABB recommendation polarized the scientific community which recognized that the easily transmitted H5N1 laboratory creation
could be extraordinarily lethal. This laboratory-engineered virus poses a significant risk for accidental release into the
community.[7]
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota
and a vocal critic of the decision to publish the H5N1 research, stated that the flu research community has not rigorously
weighed the risks and benefits of gain-of-function studies. He stated that proponents of “gain-of-function” research have
overstated the benefits, including the potential for developing better vaccines and antiviral drugs, or improving surveillance
measures. “We still do H5N1 surveillance in the same way a year later.”
Adel A. F. Mahmoud, an infectious disease specialist at Princeton University and the former president of Merck Vaccines is
quoted in Science: “The scientific
justification presented for doing this work is very flimsy, to put it mildly, and the claims that it will lead to anything useful
are lightweight… The mutations guided nothing.”
Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, cautioned that the security
precautions are “insufficient and amazingly lame.” He stated in the journal Science:
“Now scientists financed by the National Institutes of Health have shown in a laboratory how [an avian influenza virus]
could kill tens or hundreds of millions of people if it escaped confinement or was stolen by terrorists. […]
The most frightening research was done by scientists at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, who sought to discover
how likely it is that the “bird flu” virus, designated A(H5N1), might mutate from a form that seldom infects or spreads among
humans into a form highly transmissible by coughing or sneezing. Thus far the virus has infected close to 600 humans and
killed more than half of them, a fatality rate that far exceeds the 2 percent rate in the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed
as many as 100 million people.
… it looks like the research should never have been undertaken because the potential harm is so catastrophic and the
potential benefits from studying the virus so speculative.”
Professor Lord May of Oxford, the former president of the Royal Society and a former chief science adviser to the UK
government, is an outspoken critic about this line of research.
“The work they are doing is absolutely crazy. The whole thing is exceedingly dangerous.”
Yes, there is a danger, but it’s not arising from the viruses out there in the animals, it’s arising from the labs of
grossly ambitious people.” [5]
He noted China’s poor safety track record: “The record of containment in labs like this is not reassuring. They are taking
it upon themselves to create human-to-human transmission of very dangerous viruses. It’s appallingly
irresponsible.”[Independent, 2013
Professor Simon Wain-Hobson, PhD, an eminent
virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris is an outspoken critic of viral-engineering, and the risk this research poses. In a
column in the journal Nature (2013), Dr. Wain-Hobson noted:
“Influenza virologists are going down a blind alley and the powers that be are blindly letting them go down that
alley.”
He said it is very likely that some or all of “these hybrids could pass easily between humans and possess some or all of
the highly lethal characteristics of H5N1 bird-flu.”
H5N1 GOF work — indeed all virological GOF work — should be suspended until virologists open up and engage in public
discussion of their work and the issues it raises. Given that the flu community failed utterly to use the year-long hiatus to
good effect, it is clear that an independent risk–benefit assessment of GOF work is needed.” Read H5N1 Viral-Engineering
Dangers, Nature.pdf
Prof. Wain-Hobson stated: “The virological basis of this work is not strong. It is of
no use for vaccine development and the benefit in terms of surveillance for new flu viruses is oversold.” He emphasized
in Nature
News the fact that this chimeric virus “grows remarkably well” in human cells: “if the virus escaped, nobody could
predict the trajectory.”
As veteran investigative reporter, Sam Husseini, the communications
director of the non-profit, Institute for Public Accuracy, who has closely followed this line of research, states there are
probably hundreds of high containment biosafety (BSL-3 and BSL-4) laboratories. As of 2017, at least 263 laboratories were
registered in the US as level BSL-3 and level BSL-4.
According to a report
by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the probability of a flu virus release from a government laboratory
into the community could become pandemic requires that “the Precautionary Principle should apply [in proceeding with this
line of research]”. Numerous pathogen escaped accidents have occurred at BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs.
The journal SCIENCE reported that
multiple laboratory accidents at CDC’s highest security laboratories released smallpox vials, anthrax samples, H5N1 influenza
samples, and H9N2 avian influenza pathogen. The lapses, Science reported, “at the world-renowned infectious disease research
agency, are sure to raise questions about safety at other labs studying highly pathogenic agents, including university labs that
are modifying
influenza strains to make them more virulent.:
Former CDC director, Dr. Thomas Frieden stated:
“whatever you think about [such so-called gain-of-function studies],“I think it’s clearly the case that these incidents
indicate that we need to really ensure that whatever work is done needs to be done safely and securely.”
These accidents led the government to temporarily suspend funding for gain-of-function research from 2014 to 2017 for SARS,
MERS and avian flu viruses.
Husseini notes that exceptions from suspended funding included laboratories at Harvard University, the University of North
Carolina, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) laboratory, whose high risk coronavirus research was backed by Dr. Anthony
Fauci, who awarded the Wuhan laboratory with a $3.7 million contract AFTER the government had suspended funding for avian flu
viruses research.
When the “Ban on Making Lethal Viruses [was]
Lifted,” the review process became even more secretive and opaque. Dr Francis Collins, head of the NIH, announced that there
would be no public disclosure about the projects funded by the government. Critics, including microbiologist Richard Ebright of
Rutgers University stated the lack of openness is “disturbing and indefensible.” He stated that clearer minimum safety standards
and a mandate that the benefits ‘outweigh’ the risks were needed, rather than merely ‘justifying’ them.”
The Washington Post reported that in January 2018, urgent cables from the US Embassy warned that the Wuhan laboratory’s
operations had serious safety problems. One of the cables specifically warned that the lab’s work on bat
coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.[8]
Dr. Fauci appears to have ignored those cables and the Wuhan Institute’s requests for assistance. Despite alarms raised about
lax safety at the Wuhan laboratory, Dr. Fauci provided an additional $3.7 million grant in 2019 for “gain-of-function
research for the purpose of understanding how bat coronaviruses could mutate to attack humans”
Currently, a heated disagreement about
the origin of the global COVID-19 pandemic is raging because the proponents of GoF research – those who fund and those who
receive funds – are desperate to distance the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Chinese laboratory that has engaged in high risk GoF
experiments; experiments that put humanity at risk.
Read: Is COVID-19 the Result of a US
Government- Funded Experiment in China?
Newsweek reported that this phase of the research at the Wuhan laboratory in 2019, was run by Peter Daszak, of
EcoHealth Alliance, a so-called nonprofit that has received millions of dollars from the US government during the Obama and Trump
administration .
Peter Daszak
On May 12th, The
Washington Post reported that EcoHealth is a “longtime partner” of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Given the Post’s
earlier report about the US Embassy cables warning about major safety hazards at the Wuhan lab, and in light of the Chinese
government refusal to allow an independent investigation into the origins of the global pandemic, the Washington Post acknowledged:
“Theoretically, an accident during such activities could prompt an outbreak. If researchers, for example, had found
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19, and cultured the virus in the lab, it could have infected humans as the result of a
mishap.”
Daszak, who has a multi-million dollar stake in Chinese bat research, dismissed the possibility outright: “I have never
heard anything suspicious from this lab. It’s a preposterous idea”.
Honest scientists recognize and warn about the danger posed by GoF research and the potential for unleashing a lethal
pandemic. Documented indisputable evidence confirms continued safety hazards at the high security laboratories from which
pathogens regularly escaped into the community.
A report by GM
Watch (May 20th) focuses on the hazardous bat and coronavirus experiments at the Wuhan laboratory. Dr Richard Ebright alerted the
public about evidence that the Wuhan Institute and US-based researchers were genetically engineering bat viruses to investigate
their ability to infect humans. He stated that they experimented with commonly used methods that leave no sign or signature of
human manipulation. He cited a scientific paper published
in PLoS (2017) by Wuhan scientists, including Shi Zhengli, the virologist leading the research into bat coronaviruses,
who worked in collaboration with Peter Daszak.
that funding for the experiment was shared between Chinese and US institutions, including the National Institutes of Health
and US Agency for International Development.
“The researchers report having conducted virus infectivity experiments where genetic material is combined from
different varieties of SARS-related coronaviruses to form novel “chimeric” versions. This formed part of their research into
what mutations were needed to allow certain bat coronaviruses to bind to the human ACE2 receptor – a key step in the human
infectivity of SARS-CoV-2.
The WIV scientists did this, Ebright points out,
“using ‘seamless ligation’ procedures that leave no signatures of human manipulation”. This is noteworthy because it is a type
of genetic engineering that Andersen and his team excluded from their investigation into
whether SARS-CoV-2 could have been engineered – and it was in use at the very lab that is the prime suspect for a lab escape.
The evidence rebuts claims by journalists and some scientists that the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the current
COVID-19 pandemic could not have been genetically engineered because it lacks the “signs” or “signatures” that supposedly
would be left behind by genetic engineering techniques.”
Dr. Ebright cited a just-published pre-print scientific report by the Wuhan scientists who describe how they “spiked proteins
from bat SARS-related CoV (SARSr-CoV), among other coronaviruses, to bind to bat and human ACE2 receptors – in other words, how
efficiently they infect humans.” He points out that the
paper states, “All work with the infectious virus was performed under biosafety level 2 conditions” which is not
suitable for such high risk experimentation. This level is suitable for
work involving agents of only “moderate potential hazard to personnel and the environment”.
Dr Jonathan Latham, a virologist, is Executive Director of the Bioscience Resource Project, which conducts independent
scientific analysis of genetic engineering and its risks. He is the Editor of Independent Science News. He criticised the
research on bat coronaviruses that has been taking place in Wuhan and the US. He argues that these experiments are “providing
an evolutionary opportunity” for such viruses “to jump into humans.” He emphasized that the experiments were “providing
opportunities for contamination events and leakages from labs, which happen on a routine basis”.
GM Watch notes: “Given that lab accidents are common,
including in China where the SARS virus has escaped from
high-level containment facilities multiple times, the details emerging about the research activities of the WIV and US scientists
again underline the need for a credible independent investigation of
the most forensic kind into the origins of the current pandemic. And a broader investigation is also needed into the full range
of biological threats arising from various areas of potentially
hazardous but laxly regulated biotechnology research.”
Inside
America’s Secretive Biolabs, an investigative report by USA Today May 2015 reveals hundreds of accidents,
safety violations and near misses put people at risk.
“Vials of bioterror bacteria have gone missing. Lab mice infected with deadly viruses have escaped, and wild rodents
have been found making nests with research waste. Cattle infected in a university’s vaccine experiments were repeatedly sent
to slaughter and their meat sold for human consumption. Gear meant to protect lab workers from lethal viruses such as Ebola
and bird flu has failed, repeatedly.
A team of reporters who work for the USA TODAY Network of Gannett newspapers and TV stations identified more than 200
of these high-containment lab facilities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia operated by government agencies,
universities and private companies. They’re scattered across the country from the heart of New York City to a valley in
Montana; from an area near Seattle’s Space Needle to just a few blocks from Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza restaurant and
shopping district.”
“Incidents causing potential exposures to pathogens occur frequently in the high security laboratories often known by
their acronyms, BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) and BSL4. Lab incidents that lead to undetected or unreported laboratory-acquired
infections can lead to the release of a disease into the community outside the lab; lab workers with such infections will
leave work carrying the pathogen with them. If the agent involved were a potential pandemic pathogen, such a community release
could lead to a worldwide pandemic with many fatalities. Of greatest concern is a release of a lab-created,
mammalian-airborne-transmissible, highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, such as the airborne-transmissible H5N1 viruses
created in the laboratories of Ron Fouchier in the
Netherlands and Yoshihiro Kawaoka In
Madison Wisconsin.
Such releases are fairly likely over time, as there are at least 14 labs (mostly in Asia) now carrying out this
research. Whatever release probability the world is gambling with, it is clearly far too high a risk to human lives.
Mammal-transmissible bird flu research poses a real danger of a worldwide pandemic that could kill human beings on a vast
scale.”
Dr.
Fauci, the head of the NIAID since 1984, has been in the forefront in supporting highest risk pathogen experiments. Dr. Fauci
bears grave responsibility for having ignored a continuous series of documented reports — all of which warned of impending
catastrophic pandemics, directly caused by experimental. laboratory-created pathogens.
It should be evident to everyone, that as long as irresponsible government officials continue to fund and promote experiments
whose aim is to increase the virulence and lethal capacity of biological pathogens and viruses, the risk that those lethal
pathogens can, have, and will escape from laboratories, is certain.
Those accidental escapes pose catastrophic existential risk for the global human community.
If we want to preserve our existence on the planet, our government must stop funding this line of research.
Gain of function research was essentially a backdoor for development biological weapons.
Poerful forces wnated to keep thisdoor open. And then we got SAV-CpV-2 virus and they now try to
swipe the dirt under the carpet.
Six months ago, I began my first article on scientific censorship during COVID-19 by
introducing Dr. Fauci as a surprise character that had emerged unexpectedly while digging
through what was then 83,000 FOIA emails, published by US Right-to-Know over the course of the
last year:
I've been trying for quite some time to get people to understand the full scope of the Dr.
Fauci 'situation,' but it's clear that segments of our national leadership are preventing an
honest and open inquiry into his actions because they fear the backlash/collateral damage that
will result from the tarnishing of their sacred cow. It's time Americans were told the truth -
that the grant money sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV] is merely a footnote in this
narrative. After all, Dr. Fauci controls nearly $4 billion of annual grant funding for the
NIAID, the institute within the NIH he has directed since 1984; over 37 years, more than 50,000
research projects have been supported with more than $50 billion [conservatively] of taxpayer
funds have been doled out to them.
It's reasonable to hold him accountable for the results of his organization's efforts, but
the direct funding received by the WIV for Gain-of-Function (GOF) research represents only a
tiny fraction of Fauci's involvement in enabling risky research - the
2017 repeal of the GOF ban was decided without the consultation of the Trump
administration, even though news coverage during the pandemic blamed him for the decision.
Neither Fauci nor his boss Francis Collins [the NIH director] bothered to clarify the record,
which looks especially disgusting in the wake of persistent rejections of Senator Rand Paul's
assertions [with accompanying evidence] that the NIH ever financially supported such
research:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pnb2Yxri6eY
Contents:
Dr. Fauci's true legacy
The evidence of his involvement
The questions Congress [and everyone else] should be asking Dr. Fauci
The impact of his efforts
First, do no harm to Fauci's Legacy
It's important to plainly state that I'm aware of the intense politicization of virtually
every aspect of the pandemic and the pandemic response. Since many readers may not be aware,
I'll point out that my specific motivation for building a COVID-19 website and speaking to a
broader audience about the various facets of the pandemic was to offer unfiltered information
to counter the disgusting polarization
I observed:
I felt obligated to re-iterate my stance, but the nature and importance of the situation
can't be ignored any longer, because Congress is now actively engaged in investigating the
pandemic's origins, and we must confront the truth if we are to gain meaningful insight that
can help us prepare for future crises. There is no level of partisanship that justifies
ignoring a tragedy of this magnitude.
"Everything rises and falls on leadership" - John Maxwell
It's hard to place a dollar value on the impact of Fauci's leadership decisions upon almost
all aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is why it's not difficult to understand the
willingness of some to avoid a legitimate inquiry into the issue altogether. After all, he sits
at the nexus of -
A) the NIH's role in supporting the research & development of mRNA technology and new
antiviral drugs like Remdesivir, and the resulting conflicts of interest that the NIH continues
to ignore
B) His role in pushing those NIH-sponsored inventions; specifically, advocating for
Remdesivir on the basis of weak evidence while rejecting legitimate investigations into generic
alternatives with no less statistical support, as well as
C) His role in obfuscating concerning data and censoring public debate over the risk/benefit
evidence emerging about COVID-19 vaccines. Had Fauci been bluntly honest about the unknowns
involving the new technology throughout the pandemic, Americans would still largely have
assumed the risk - at least, assuming that antibody dependent enhancement [ADE] was not a
likely outcome. Oops.
D) His evolving stances on masking, lockdowns, school closures and other non-pharmaceutical
interventions [NPI], largely the result of growing public awareness that those decisions have
consistently been based upon reducing the accountability of cowardly officials, not the best
interest of their constituents [Note: this is a conclusion from my research focus last year,
that I will return to once the origin issue allows me to do so].
E) His refusal to address the blatant censorship of vaccine side-effect data; it takes a
disturbing level of cynicism to witness the large-scale skepticism and uncertainty that has
resulted from such censorship and then vilify those willing to speak up - and blaming them for
any future vaccine breakout when one of the most likely causes would be ADE. ADE with
SARS-CoV-2 would most likely result from the specific targeting of the MRNA vaccines, not
vaccine hesitancy [in the absence of a simultaneous global administration of the jabs - which
was never feasible under the geopolitical and temporal constraints of the pandemic.
Each of those factors has contributed to the fading perception of Fauci as 'America's
Doctor, but each has also become a divisive litmus test for which the evidence for and against
is hotly debated. My purpose here is not to offer judgment on those issues; rather, I want to
highlight the fact that Dr. Fauci's legacy includes elements far beyond the scope of my
research - and the context of those debates is directly relevant for the proper framing of the
failures illuminated here. The same hubris and gaslighting in defense of ' Science' has plagued
everything.
My disgust doesn't stem from casual reflection & an exaggeration of weak assertions to
fan partisan flames. It stems from my analysis of 100K pages of FOIA documents, 1,000+ research
articles reviewed, and my own published analysis of the
the impact of Fauci's censorship , which was the 1st of its kind:
My approach was external to science - from the perspective of an historian seeking to
understand the 'why' behind the further collapse of trust in our institutions during the
pandemic. My conclusions were formed over six months of investigation, and focused on the
realization that one of the worst developments of the pandemic is the evaporation of public
trust in scientists [see
Edifice Wrecks ]. I've never sought to inflame conspiracies or ignore evidence in support
of zoonosis , but I've personally entered into discussions with a half-dozen of the scientists
highlighted below, and none of them ever addressed the emerging evidence that, under normal
circumstances, would've been part of the open debate that Fauci pretends already took
place.
Every additional moment spent in denial and suppression just adds fuel to the coming
backlash, and thus far discussions have ignored what I believe is the largest and most
consequential elephant in the room:
F) Fauci quietly but directly ensured that scientific censorship was implemented, in large
measure, to prevent public awareness of the extent of his role in GOF research and the
controversies surrounding it. The evidence proves that, at the start of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci
and many leading scientists moved to protect themselves - not us, who weren't yet aware of the
potential calamity at our doorstep. Fauci LED the efforts to obstruct research into COVID's
origins, colluding with the President's Science Advisor Kelvin Dreogemeier and Wellcome Trust
head Jeremy Farrar, to proactively undermine consideration of the evidence that directly tied
their global research initiatives to the lab at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To date, all of their efforts have been focused on preventing disclosure of embarrassing
connections - not preventing another novel pathogen from sparking a global pandemic; to prevent
future scrutiny, not future tragedy .
Scientists, if you're struggling to understand the distinction between degrees of commitment
to truth, I offer the example of Thích
Quảng Đức , pictured here protesting the corrupt S. Vietnam regime in a
prologue of the Vietnam War:
You see, the message for scientists who believe that a threat is existential is that words
gain true meaning when they are supported by the actions & sacrifices of the speaker. What
message are we supposed to derive from the COVID-19 pandemic?
I'd recommend pausing for reflection - on the image above, specifically - because what the
world is beginning to see is that the scientific establishment made a mockery of the trust it
had been given. The world's leading experts in virology and public health called attention to a
threat by setting the world on fire, rather than themselves - and then blaming us for being too
simple to believe their noble lie.
Priorities
The baseline assumption of the public at large has been that Dr. Fauci has earned the
benefit of the doubt thanks to his five decades of public service and consistency in defending
establishment science - the admiration of which has risen nearly to cult worship in recent
decades. The cognitive dissonance between appearance and reality have created a situation where
trust in 'science' has reached its sacred peak at the exact moment when such trust is least
deserved .
At the center of this incestuous arrogance is Dr. Anthony Fauci, the recipient of
unquestioned adulation by those in the political sphere who have spent more than a century
arguing that a Platonic 'philosopher-king' ideal must be forced upon intellectually vacuous
masses whom, left to their own devices, would inevitably self-immolate.
Scientists reached new heights in the ivory tower when they warned us that man's evil nature
had left previous generations protected only by the horrific death equation of Mutually
Assured Destruction . Setting aside the obvious complicity of scientists in the creation of
nuclear weapons, trusting science over many decades has simply led to a new formulation of that
Faustian bargain - Mutually Assured Corruption.
A Study in Scarlet
Before heading down the long and winding road, it's important to explain what zoonosis is
and why Fauci's denial of basic facts simply kicks the accountability can down the road. Should
we really be surprised that Dr. Fauci is 'confused' by the definition of "Gain if Function?"
After all, not that long ago, he also ridiculed the idea that the virus could've come from a
lab before finally admitting that it was a statistical possibility.
Zoonosis in the context of viral emergence doesn't mean a virus originally sprung from
nature - all viruses do. It means that the jump from animals to humans happened in the wild, as
the result of a fortuitous combination of mutations that allow a virus to survive the switch.
If human intervention artificially encouraged the process of adaptation by experimentation, or
simply by virtue of bringing a virus to a lab and increasing the odds of such exposure, then
the origin of a viral pandemic is a lab.
What's sickening about his tortured twisting of language is that Fauci knows this better
than almost anyone; thus his lies aren't borne of ignorance. What he's done is use his
scientific gravitas to pretend that observers' understanding of literal definitions is flawed
because we are too ignorant to appreciate the complexity of the issues. The truth, however, is
that our generation's most prominent infectious disease expert is gaslighting the citizens of the country he
swore an oath to protect [one could also use the term epistemic injustice ].
... ... ...
... ... ...
10 questions for Fauci:
1) Where did the buck stop? In 2014, who served as the final approval authority for Baric's
pending research, which ultimately allowed it to be grandfathered under the impending GOF ban?
Why did the experiment not get forwarded to Chris Hassell's committee for review?
-why did no one notice that the experiment included the use of humanized mice to increase
human pathogenicity, which David Relman had asked Ralph Baric about directly in November of
2014, and which Baric denied any current research interest in that area?
-Coincidentally, it was also the research that Zheng-Li Shi was in North Carolina working
with Baric on, and then immediately returned to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and continued
in 2016?
2) Holding Dr. Fauci to his word - In 2012, Dr. Fauci called for an open, public debate on
the GOF issue, saying that scientists should justify their research to the broader public any
time the risks of such research carried a non-negligible probability of an accident that could
affect them. Why then, in 2017, did the NIH rescind the GOF pause - without first engaging the
public or its constitutionally elected president/representatives?
3) Secrecy - What did Peter Daszak tell Erik Stemmy & Alan Embry "off the record" on
1/8/20? When did they pass on the contents of that discussion to Dr. Fauci?
4) Redactions - When did you first learn of the existence of the furin cleavage site within
the genome of SARS-CoV-2 -What were the insert/backbone referred to by Marion Koopmans? Was the
insert the FCS? Why were emails with the topic heading "humanized mice" redacted?
5) Silence - Why did Victor Dzau and the other two academy presidents of NASEM ultimately
remove the forceful pro-zoonotic statements inserted by Daszak et al from the final version of
their public letter to the OSTP? What reservations justified that decision, and why did they
not speak out when censorship prevented the doubts of others from being published?
6) Selective Inclusion - Why was Robert Kadlec, the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness
& Response, not included in any correspondence with Jeremy Farrar or your gathered audience
of world-renowned virologists? His deputy is the chair of the PPP oversight panel and he is an
expert on C-WMD & biological weapons. The existence of any doubt in the possibility of a
zoonotic source [doubts which you harbored] should've made his inclusion mandatory.
-instead, you shaped the information provided to those outside the scientific community.
7) Why were you and Francis Collins the only US officials involved in the 2/1 conference
call?
8) Subversion - Did you, Collins or Droegemeier alert Matt Pottinger, Robert Redfield,
President Trump or any member of the National Security Council to the substance of the 2/1
conference call, or the decision-making over the next 3 days that led to an un-announced
censorship of non-natural origin hypothesis for the origin of SARS-CoV-2? Why not?
9) Diverging Narratives - Jeremy Farrar's experts decided on natural origins of COVID-19 on
3/17? So, Fauci & the Pres. Sci. Adv. lied to us/Trump in the OSTP letter on 2/7? And in
'Proximal,' on 2/16? -written by your future dream team? What was the basis of the 2/4 decision
to reject a lab-leak origin and produce " Proximal Origin" - if no additional evidence was
added to the 2/16 version prior to its 3/17 online appearance in Nature?
Both Fauci & Farrar explained the general make-up and purpose of a 'group of
experts:'
By this point [2/13] 10 days had passed since the 'Proximals' & Fauci had held a second
conclave, this time with the OSTP director, that was followed directly by a flurry of
peer-reviewed letter, articles and 'collaboration' [collusion] to smother the scientific
community with pro-zoonotic propaganda.
10) Prove it? Which evidence, specifically, led to the 'Proximals' reversal from 2/1 to 2/4?
The arguments made in the following weeks were pathetically unsubstantiated. If stronger
evidence exists, why wouldn't it have been shown.
The answer, of course, is that the driving force behind the shift had nothing to do with the
quality or quantity of the supporting evidence.
Paved by Good Intentions
The only proper action for Dr. Fauci to take at this point is to resign immediately, and
apologizing for prioritizing the suppression of embarrassing & extensive conflicts of
interest, double standards and political decisions masked as sound policy. Ideally, such a
statement would include a call for the retraction of Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 , the
most-read [and potentially most impactful] scientific propaganda published in at least a
generation. Each of its 5 authors intentionally framed the COVID origin debate around
'evidence' and 'facts' that they couldn't prove, and a finality of their conclusions that the
known facts couldn't justify.
These actions are independent of the ultimate answer to the origin question, because the
failures of leadership I've described are ethically and morally indefensible, regardless of
China's guilt or innocence in the sparking of the pandemic. Any remaining shreds of credibility
left in the public's perception of scientists must be salvaged by new leaders who are willing
to do what needs to be done to clean the Augean Stables.
Sufficient evidence already exists for Congress to do the right thing moving forward. Given
the enormity of the failures, and of the efforts to hide, censor and destroy the credibility of
anyone who spoke out against lockdowns, vaccines, masks, generic drugs, mRNA efficacy vs.
risks, and the curtailment of numerous constitutional/human rights in the last 18 months, it
will take historic leadership to honestly converse with a righteously indignant citizenry [in
the US and everywhere else]. We must accept that our current representatives have proven
manifestly unqualified to assume such leadership - in the last 6 months, censorship has been
expanding, not receding.
The COVID-19 pandemic has manifestly proven that there is no lie so 'noble' that it
overrides the rights and wisdom of a free and informed public. That doesn't mean that the
public will inherently do better.
It's just acknowledging the inescapable conclusion - that we can't possibly do worse.
C. H. Rixey
PREMIUM 6 hours ago remove link
Doctors take an oath to do no harm.
Fauci is not a doctor! lay_arrow
Dred Nought 4 hours ago
Does this sound like your town:
Everything looks as if it's been patched, needs a coat of paint, needs a repair here and
there.
The buildings are worn and the style is from the 1970's or 80's.
But there are lots of brand new sparkling buildings:
The Urology Center. The New Heart Clinic. Women's Health Clinic. Southwest Diaylasis
Center, A -1 Testing Labs, Home Health Care of Anytown, etc.
The ONLY business thriving truly are those related to the health scams.
When was the last time you had a doctor or a nurse treat you as if they actually gave a
flying crap if you live or die?
For us, not since I was a very small child and they gave us a lollipop when we
visited.
We need to quit feeding the beast.
Gwar6.0 2 hours ago
Wow, that was kind of a long winded article when all he needed to say was:
Fauci/Big Pharma/China colluded to make make bioweapons and the vaccines simultaneously
so they could release the bioweapons to make money and benefit China and the global
elites.
It was a premeditated genocidal attack on humanity. Just say it.
gregga777 5 hours ago (Edited)
This is terrible writing. No one will read this. Why is there no abstract at the
beginning? I'm not contesting what he says. But I have no time to read this sort of
thing.
Abstract: [Neoliberal] Governments are amoral. Evil people, like Dr. Fauci, thrive
within amoral organizations like governments. Give a government unlimited money to spend
and expect to see an exponential increase in its Evil acts.
11th_Harmonic 5 hours ago
Need to dig deeper than this little worm named Fauci. He's not the grandmaster of this
scheme; he's just one among a group of useful henchmen tasked with rolling-out an agenda
that is way above his exorbitant pay grade.
desertboy 3 hours ago remove link
Indeed - this article/author includes far too much self-indulgent poetic-horse****,
while (ignorantly) not providing much of the core evidence that has been out there for
decades.
As have been articulating here since March 2020, the key issue is not GoF in general,
but GoF on Potential Pandemic Pathogens (PPP). That is the where this stuff gets evil, and
needs to be the focus.
What is hilarious is that anyone can read/watch "Gain of Function" sessions from last 15
years with cheerleader Fauci, Baric, and his DARPA buddies as the dominant promoters, who
glibly dismiss the vocalized concerns (on such GoF on Potential Pandemic Pathogens) by
prominent university researchers in these various sessions and conferences.
Clashes between Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci have become a routine feature of the
latter's testimony before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which
Dr. Fauci is required to provide in accordance with the COVID stimulus legislation.
And on Tuesday, they clashed again after Sen. Paul accused Dr. Fauci of lying to Congress
during his May testimony, during which Dr. Fauci claimed the US had never financed
gain-of-function projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. For those who aren't familiar
with the term,
'gain-of-function' research involves making viruses more contagious or deadly in a
laboratory.
Sen. Paul started by asking Dr. Fauci if he would like to revise some of his statements
about the NIH's research, reminding him that it's a crime to lie to Congress. Here's what was
said during the rest of the brief back-and-forth.
"Do you with to retract your statement from May 11 where you claimed that the NIH never
funded gain of function research in Wuhan?"
"Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement
...this paper you're referring to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not
being gain of function."
"You take an animal virus and you increase it's transmissibility to humans, you're saying
that's not gain of function?"
"That's correct... and Sen. Paul, I want to say you do not know what you are talking
about," Dr. Fauci replied. "I just want to say that officially."
Paul said that during his May 11 testimony, Fauci "stated that the NIH has never and does
not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And yet,
gain-of-function research was done entirely in the Wuhan institute by Doctor Shi [Zhengli] and
was funded by the NIH."
Readers can watch the clip below:
When Sen. Paul tried to press the issue, he was chastened by the (Democratic) committee
chair, who said she would allow witnesses to come before the committee to respond at a later
date.
Without offering any examples to support his claim, Dr. Fauci got the last word by saying
"you are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals, and I totally
resent that...if anybody is lying here it is you."
Dr. Fauci then claimed that the viruses from the paper Paul had cited were "molecularly
impossible to result in SARS-CoV-2".
While Dr. Fauci's denial might have sounded convincing on the surface, we of course already
know what he said to be false.
As
we have previously reported , the Dr. Fauci-led NIH effectively helped finance much of the
'gain of function' research involving bat coronaviruses going on at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology. Not only
has Dr. Fauci argued that 'gain of function' research is 'worth the risk' that a powerful
hyper infectious virus might escape and cause an international pandemic. Why not perform this
research in the US? Well, because 'gain-of-function' research has been illegal in the US for
years
We
first noted back in March , the NIH - headed by Fauci - had funded a number of projects
that involved WIV scientists, including much of the Wuhan lab's work with bat
coronaviruses.
Even the Washington Post has confirmed that the WIV "had openly participated in
gain-of-function research in partnership with US universities and institutions" for years under
the leadership of Dr. Shi 'Batwoman' Zhengli.
Paul has repeatedly accused Dr. Fauci of using a middle-man - an organization called
EcoAlliance, headed by Peter Daszak, the same scientist who led the WHO's team of scientists
tasked with 'investigating' the origins of the virus. The money provided to EcoAlliance via the
NIH was used mostly to finance research at the WIV conducted by "batwoman" - or Zhengli
Shi.
When the US government created obstacles to this research during the Obama years, Dr. Fauci
found a workaround.
Via The Australian:
Multiple Trump administration officials told The Weekend Australian Dr Fauci had not
raised the issue of restarting the research funding with senior figures in the White
House.
"It kind of just got rammed through," one official said.
"I think there's truth in the narrative that the (National Security Council) staff, the
president, the White House chief-of-staff, those people were in the dark that he was
switching back on the research."
The Weekend Australian has also confirmed that neither Mike Pompeo, the then director of
the Central Intelligence Agency, nor National Security Council member Matthew Pottinger, was
briefed.
The experiments are also opposed by prominent scientists, including the Cambridge Working
Group of 200 researchers which issued a public warning in 2014.
"Accident risks with newly created "potential pandemic pathogens" raise grave new
concerns," the group's letter read. "Laboratory creation of highly transmissible, novel
strains of dangerous viruses, especially but not limited to influenza, poses substantially
increased risks.
"An accidental infection in such a setting could trigger outbreaks that would be difficult
or impossible to control. Historically, new strains of influenza, once they establish
transmission in the human population, have infected a quarter or more of the world's
population within two years."
And Steven Salzberg, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in 2015 said the benefits of
gain-of-function research were "minimal at best" and they could "far more safely be obtained
through other avenues of research".
"I am very concerned that the continuing gain-of-function research on influenza viruses,
and more recently on other viruses, presents extremely serious risks to the public health,"
he wrote.
Looking back, was it worth the risk?
Lt. Frank Drebin 45 minutes ago remove link
Well, if he is a liar, draw up charges and call the U.S. Marshal service.
Otherwise this is just what it has always been.
Theater.
Paul Revere2 41 minutes ago
My point exactly.
mikka 30 minutes ago remove link
Reminds me of Bill's definition of "I did not have sex with that woman".
Donnie Duvanie 11 minutes ago (Edited)
Fauci: "I did not have sex with that bat!"
keeper20 26 minutes ago (Edited)
" by qualified staff up and down the chain "
see, now there's your problem right there.
what qualifies this sort of staff is blind obedience and willingness to go along to get
along.
fauci's staff's opinions are worthless because they are forced to toe fauci's line, true or
not.
fauci appealing to their authority to hide behind is lamentably despicable because
insincere.
he knows they wrote what he wanted. he knows the purpose of bioweapon enhancement.
he lied to the american public and to the entire world, and we see him and his fraud
friends.
his wife the communist bioethicist, cultural supremacist, confucious-butt-licking sycophant
of totalitarianism in the name of peace and freedom for the downtrodden people including
herself wife is the person who should be taken to task in the field of morality. she is a
fraud. ethics indeed. enough about those two and their pandemic murder cabal system
(tedros, etc).
there are competing paradigms for social control in play; hierarchical versus
peer-to-peer.
in digital terms, it is master/slave or peer-to-peer. those two paradigms are the
epitome of human social construction, like the two towers, like jachim and boaz, like north
and south, yin and yang. yes and no. theology and atheism. government and anarchy. truth
and lie.
peer to peer versus master/slave
the holocene predicament - what to do with all these people?
consider the alternative - pantheism, respect, live and let live, kill only when necessary
to live.
the world is not always going to be polarized as it is now, we will change with our
environment.
rgraf 13 minutes ago remove link
The whole system was corrupt from the ratification of the conjobstitution.
Plus Size Model 25 minutes ago remove link
Eco Health is located in NY. All communications between Eco Health and Wuhan went
through the NSA and are stored by the NSA for prevention of crimes like this.
There is a copious amount of information circulating in media that warrants a raid on
the Eco Health offices and a Daszak indictment.
From there, a bigger case can be built up and other players will most likely be
indicted. Anything else is a distraction.
Dragonlord 42 minutes ago
He is scared and afraid because Rand is telling and showing everyone the truth about him
and his lies.
Clashes between Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci have become a routine feature of the
latter's testimony before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which
Dr. Fauci is required to provide in accordance with the COVID stimulus legislation.
And on Tuesday, they clashed again after Sen. Paul accused Dr. Fauci of lying to Congress
during his May testimony, during which Dr. Fauci claimed the US had never financed
gain-of-function projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. For those who aren't familiar
with the term,
'gain-of-function' research involves making viruses more contagious or deadly in a
laboratory.
Sen. Paul started by asking Dr. Fauci if he would like to revise some of his statements
about the NIH's research, reminding him that it's a crime to lie to Congress. Here's what was
said during the rest of the brief back-and-forth.
"Do you with to retract your statement from May 11 where you claimed that the NIH never
funded gain of function research in Wuhan?"
"Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement
...this paper you're referring to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not
being gain of function."
"You take an animal virus and you increase it's transmissibility to humans, you're saying
that's not gain of function?"
"That's correct... and Sen. Paul, I want to say you do not know what you are talking
about," Dr. Fauci replied. "I just want to say that officially."
Paul said that during his May 11 testimony, Fauci "stated that the NIH has never and does
not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And yet,
gain-of-function research was done entirely in the Wuhan institute by Doctor Shi [Zhengli] and
was funded by the NIH."
Readers can watch the clip below:
When Sen. Paul tried to press the issue, he was chastened by the (Democratic) committee
chair, who said she would allow witnesses to come before the committee to respond at a later
date.
Without offering any examples to support his claim, Dr. Fauci got the last word by saying
"you are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals, and I totally
resent that...if anybody is lying here it is you."
Dr. Fauci then claimed that the viruses from the paper Paul had cited were "molecularly
impossible to result in SARS-CoV-2".
While Dr. Fauci's denial might have sounded convincing on the surface, we of course already
know what he said to be false.
As
we have previously reported , the Dr. Fauci-led NIH effectively helped finance much of the
'gain of function' research involving bat coronaviruses going on at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology. Not only
has Dr. Fauci argued that 'gain of function' research is 'worth the risk' that a powerful
hyper infectious virus might escape and cause an international pandemic. Why not perform this
research in the US? Well, because 'gain-of-function' research has been illegal in the US for
years
We
first noted back in March , the NIH - headed by Fauci - had funded a number of projects
that involved WIV scientists, including much of the Wuhan lab's work with bat
coronaviruses.
Even the Washington Post has confirmed that the WIV "had openly participated in
gain-of-function research in partnership with US universities and institutions" for years under
the leadership of Dr. Shi 'Batwoman' Zhengli.
Paul has repeatedly accused Dr. Fauci of using a middle-man - an organization called
EcoAlliance, headed by Peter Daszak, the same scientist who led the WHO's team of scientists
tasked with 'investigating' the origins of the virus. The money provided to EcoAlliance via the
NIH was used mostly to finance research at the WIV conducted by "batwoman" - or Zhengli
Shi.
When the US government created obstacles to this research during the Obama years, Dr. Fauci
found a workaround.
Via The Australian:
Multiple Trump administration officials told The Weekend Australian Dr Fauci had not
raised the issue of restarting the research funding with senior figures in the White
House.
"It kind of just got rammed through," one official said.
"I think there's truth in the narrative that the (National Security Council) staff, the
president, the White House chief-of-staff, those people were in the dark that he was
switching back on the research."
The Weekend Australian has also confirmed that neither Mike Pompeo, the then director of
the Central Intelligence Agency, nor National Security Council member Matthew Pottinger, was
briefed.
The experiments are also opposed by prominent scientists, including the Cambridge Working
Group of 200 researchers which issued a public warning in 2014.
"Accident risks with newly created "potential pandemic pathogens" raise grave new
concerns," the group's letter read. "Laboratory creation of highly transmissible, novel
strains of dangerous viruses, especially but not limited to influenza, poses substantially
increased risks.
"An accidental infection in such a setting could trigger outbreaks that would be difficult
or impossible to control. Historically, new strains of influenza, once they establish
transmission in the human population, have infected a quarter or more of the world's
population within two years."
And Steven Salzberg, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in 2015 said the benefits of
gain-of-function research were "minimal at best" and they could "far more safely be obtained
through other avenues of research".
"I am very concerned that the continuing gain-of-function research on influenza viruses,
and more recently on other viruses, presents extremely serious risks to the public health,"
he wrote.
Looking back, was it worth the risk?
Lt. Frank Drebin 45 minutes ago remove link
Well, if he is a liar, draw up charges and call the U.S. Marshal service.
Otherwise this is just what it has always been.
Theater.
Paul Revere2 41 minutes ago
My point exactly.
mikka 30 minutes ago remove link
Reminds me of Bill's definition of "I did not have sex with that woman".
Donnie Duvanie 11 minutes ago (Edited)
Fauci: "I did not have sex with that bat!"
keeper20 26 minutes ago (Edited)
" by qualified staff up and down the chain "
see, now there's your problem right there.
what qualifies this sort of staff is blind obedience and willingness to go along to get
along.
fauci's staff's opinions are worthless because they are forced to toe fauci's line, true or
not.
fauci appealing to their authority to hide behind is lamentably despicable because
insincere.
he knows they wrote what he wanted. he knows the purpose of bioweapon enhancement.
he lied to the american public and to the entire world, and we see him and his fraud
friends.
his wife the communist bioethicist, cultural supremacist, confucious-butt-licking sycophant
of totalitarianism in the name of peace and freedom for the downtrodden people including
herself wife is the person who should be taken to task in the field of morality. she is a
fraud. ethics indeed. enough about those two and their pandemic murder cabal system
(tedros, etc).
there are competing paradigms for social control in play; hierarchical versus
peer-to-peer.
in digital terms, it is master/slave or peer-to-peer. those two paradigms are the
epitome of human social construction, like the two towers, like jachim and boaz, like north
and south, yin and yang. yes and no. theology and atheism. government and anarchy. truth
and lie.
peer to peer versus master/slave
the holocene predicament - what to do with all these people?
consider the alternative - pantheism, respect, live and let live, kill only when necessary
to live.
the world is not always going to be polarized as it is now, we will change with our
environment.
rgraf 13 minutes ago remove link
The whole system was corrupt from the ratification of the conjobstitution.
Plus Size Model 25 minutes ago remove link
Eco Health is located in NY. All communications between Eco Health and Wuhan went
through the NSA and are stored by the NSA for prevention of crimes like this.
There is a copious amount of information circulating in media that warrants a raid on
the Eco Health offices and a Daszak indictment.
From there, a bigger case can be built up and other players will most likely be
indicted. Anything else is a distraction.
Dragonlord 42 minutes ago
He is scared and afraid because Rand is telling and showing everyone the truth about him
and his lies.
I agree. If the US scientists are so worried about the possibility the SARS-CoV-2 leaked
from a laboratory, why don't they also ask their government to investigate their own
labs?
And also, the corruption of the medical profession, to which he is now speaking (it's
running as I write this). The interviewer is using the words "medical mafia", citing the
later manifestations we've seen this year. But this interview seems that it will do much to
illustrate the long process of corruption that has happened over the years and decades, and
this is very valuable to learn.
The interviewer is using the words "medical mafia", citing the later manifestations
we've seen this year
Yes, the circuitous depravity they've engaged, the 'offer you can't refuse' has worked
wonders, as the interviewer attests his young peers who've taken the jab only to
regain their 'freedom', like my youngest daughter, 30, against my spoken preference, and my
silent prayers.
The scientist who funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology's "˜gain of function'
research on coronaviruses, which many now believe to be the source of the pandemic, has finally
been removed from
a position of investigative authority.
As we
previously reported , Peter Daszak - a noted friend and colleague of Dr. Anthony Fauci -
was tapped to head up The Lancet's UN backed commission to investigate the origins of the
coronavirus that caused a global pandemic.
The British scientist was picked despite the fact that he was intimately associated with the
Wuhan lab, had repeatedly dismissed the lab leak hypothesis a "˜dangerous conspiracy
theory', and
created a pressure campaign via a letter published by The Lancet to force the scientific
community into avoiding looking into the lab as a potential source of the outbreak.
Daszak was also the lead investigator for the World Health Organisation investigation t
hat determined within 3 hours of visiting the Wuhan lab in February 2021 that there was no
leak purely based on the word of researchers there.
Daszak was later employed
as an "˜expert fact checker' by Facebook when it was monitoring and removing
"˜misinformation' about the origins of COVID on its platform, much of which was
credible scientific research. Facebook has since
reversed the policy of banning any posts containing information suggesting COVID-19 was
"man-made".
It became abundantly clear that Daszak has the biggest motive to dismiss the lab leak
notion, yet he kept landing roles in investigating it.
No longer it appears as The Lancet's origins commission website
lists Daszak as "recused from Commission work on the origins of the pandemic."
At the beginning of this week, The Lancet also issued a
statement saying it has invited the other scientists who signed Daszak's original letter,
several of whom are involved in the investigative commission, to "re-evaluate their competing
interests."
As we previously noted, other members of The Lancet's task force are practically all minions
of Daszak, some of whom helped him draft the letter that unequivocally stated the lab leak
theory was dangerous, and others who either worked with him on "˜fact checking' for
Facebook, or were cited as sources during that activity.
The new statement also includes an expanded disclosure by Daszak in which he denies that he
or his company EcoHealth received any money directly from the Chinese government.
It also states "EcoHealth Alliance's work in China "¦ includes the production of a
small number of recombinant bat coronaviruses to analyse [sic] cell entry and other
characteristics of bat coronaviruses for which only the genetic sequences are
available"¦ NIH reviewed the planned recombinant virus work and deemed it does not meet
the criteria that would warrant further specific review by its Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care
and Oversight (P3CO) committee."
Essentially, Daszak is still claiming he had nothing to do with gain of function research,
perhaps because it is now clear that this is the likely cause of the outbreak.
As Daszak also states, he is still currently a member of the WHO investigative team that
continues to study the animal origins of the virus in tandem with China.
vova_3.2018 12 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Lancet was used for COVID propaganda, ....
The Lancet COVID-19 commission has nothing to do with the UN commission to investigate
COVID-19 origins & it has no given a mandate by the UN to investigate anything.
The Lancet has created a commission on its own to investigate the origin of the
SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) https://covid19commission.org/
Dr. Peter Daszak is head of EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based organization that conducts
research on global health, conservation and international development.
Peter Daszak is also a member of the UN commission investigating the COVID-19
origins.
The UN commission investigating the COVID-19 origins & the Lancet commission to
investigate the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) are 2 different animals
(Virus?).
AntiOligarchy 17 hours ago (Edited)
Big deal. Kissinger was 'recused' from the 9/11 Commission and what happened? Plenty of
'experts' to take this Pentagon-connected psychopath's place and plenty of the remaining
commissioners are his virtual underlings. All about optics. Won't make any difference,
except now the MSM/social media can say he was removed for conflicts of interest, thus
implying the new head is clean and the commission will now be unbiased. Not exactly a new
trick and probably part of the plan.
SoDamnMad 16 hours ago
," We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19
does not have a natural origin. "
Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance, New York
Charles Calisher, Colorado State University
Dennis Carroll, Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, Texas
Luis Enjuanes, National Center of Biotechnology, Madrid
Jeremy Farrar, The Wellcome Trust, London
Hume Field, EcoHealth Alliance, New York
Josie Golding, The Wellcome Trust, London
Alexander Gorbalenya, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands
Bart Haagmans, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands
James Hughes, Emory University, Atlanta
William Karesh, EcoHealth Alliance, New York
Gerald Keusch, Boston University
Sai Kit Lam, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Juan Lubroth, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome,
Italy
John Mackenzie, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Larry Madoff, Massachusetts Medical School
Jonna Mazet, University of California at Davis
Peter Palese, Icahn School of Medicine, New York
Stanley Perlman, University of Iowa
Leo Poon, The University of Hong Kong
Bernard Roizman, University of Chicago
Linda Saif, The Ohio State University
Kanta Subbarao, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Mike Turner, The Wellcome Trust, London
Marloes1 16 hours ago remove link
Ok, so I agree with most comments. But would like to make the point that most nazi's
(well known for their methods) were in fact model citizens, no maniacs but law abiding
folks, in fact the guys that lead the "sonder kommando's" in the baltics (reporting the 3
states "Judenfrei" within a year) were scholrs/academics.
Yeah just like fauci and daszak. How can they be involved in this cluster#@ck?
Well, Gain of function research was banned to take place on us soil (for good reasons)
but is very significant in further developing knowledge and to find cures for viral
candidates that could be able to jump to humans. Of course this has to happen in an
extremely secure environment, like the level4 biolab in Wuhan was supposed to be. While
forbidden in the US and the bats living in China, subcontracting some of this work to the
Wuhan lab made excellent sense (I guess) at the time, also because the chinese scientist
currently known as "bat lady" is a top researcher in this field. So far, so good apart from
evading the us ban (same happened with uranium enrichment ultra centrifuges in the past,
not allowed on us soil, produced currently in the Netherlands, stolen by Pakistan, now
active in Iran).
Than the impossible happens, some low level lab worker got sloppy and started spreading
a.o. to a wet market, incorrectly identified as the virus originating from an infected
animal, which was nonsense.
Next the entire industry, fauci and daszak included realize the consequences if the
truth comes out: public outcry and blanket ban on research. Their careers in tatters. So
the lying begins. It cannot be a lab escape, has to come from an (intermediate) animal,
while in fact sars-cov2 can hardly infect the very animal its supposed to have originated
from, contrary, due to its specific furin cleavage site (not found in natural viruses) sars
cov2 specifically attaches to human ace2 receptors. Yet, once the lie began, that was a
point of no return.
Not only academia had their reasons to deny the lab origin story, the Chinese government
is about to loose face really badly, the US funded the research (and has many level 4 labs
doing all kinds of stuff) and the WHO is as fundamentally corrupt as any of these supra
national organizations.
Bottom line, call it a cabal, but do realize that it is a mix of incompetence and cover
their asses policies. Getting rid of trump was just a bonus. Story sold!
risk.averse 18 hours ago
Article states that "Daszak was picked" to be on the Wuhan investigating committee. If
that's accurate then a question remains as to the circumstances of his selection. Was it
done because WHO insiders knew he had a vested interest in finding the lab blameless (thus
also pleasing the WHO's CCP friends) --as a way of obscuring his involvement.
If instead, he put his name forward to investigate the lab then it was a massive case of
chutzpah to think he could get away with this. Or maybe he knew how incompetent the WHO
were and his vested interest wouldn't raise any flags.
Every which way one looks at this it smells to high heaven.
radical-extremist 16 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Of course they desperately tried to cover it up. The worst thing that can happen to the
virologist community is an experimental pathogen leaks from one of their labs creating a
pandemic and killing millions of people. They don't want to believe it happened and would
much rather the world focus on zoonotic transmission. Now if only they could find the
illusive animal.
katagorikal 15 hours ago remove link
A pangolin kissed a turtle.
BigJJ 15 hours ago
After it shagged a bat.
smacker 17 hours ago
An approximate translation of that article is to confirm that The Lancet and a large
section of the medical scientific community is utterly corrupt, cannot be trusted and is
unfit for purpose. Their corruption is to make money from what they're doing or to advance
hidden agendas. Or both.
Daszak should be totally banished from any involvement in anything to do with CovID.
'It's a really shocking story, and it just adds to this increasingly big mountain of
evidence that we have got a massive establishment cover-up going on because the people at
the heart of this know what they did.
'People like Peter Daszak, people like (Dr Anthony) Fauci himself who, of course,
initiated the work that Daszak then sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to make bat
coronaviruses more airborne and more transmissible and more infectious to the human
respiratory system "" (a theory) we now know as the most likely origin of the
pandemic.
'They're covering it up because they know they've got a guilty conscience.'
ktulu 14 hours ago (Edited)
All these 'prestigious' institutes and publications, all of them are compromised beyond
redemption. The likes of the WHO, CDC, Lancet, EMA, Oxford, Pfizer, Moderna LSM etc are
loaded with self serving narcissistic psychopathic lying corrupted megalomaniacal
egotistical charlatans. Somewhere science still exists but scientists (for the main part)
have sold out to the Cult. A Dark Age for the 21st century. A widespread whole scale purge
is required to redeem the scientific community, but who is there to trust with such a
herculean undertaking?
Max21c 15 hours ago (Edited)
Fauci should have resigned and recused himself immediately
when his personal pet project for outsourced GoF research
caused a worldwide pandemic that has killed millions.
Be for real! Yeah like this was one little country doctor at NIH? And he signed the
checks from the CIA, Pentagon, and US State Department. He also signed off on all the
approvals and authorizations. He is such a mastermind that he planned and ran the spying
operation of multiple countries all on his own. He said "boo" or "jump" and the DOJ
lawyers, and FBI, and National Security Council all just miraculously fell in line. One
little country doctor from NIH did this all on his own?
Max21c 15 hours ago remove link
Covering it up, with lies, fraud, deception and self-interested pleading
should have made them the target for appropriate charges.
You realize of course that people in Washington and likely other places knew what was in
the Wuhan lab all along and they never said anything all along and allowed a cabal to push
the "natural origins" theory and debunk the "Lab Leak" conspiracy theory. Washingtonians
knew all along and said nothing. So it's not just Fauci and Daszak... There are other
Kingpins behind the scenes and hiding in the woodwork and all along they knew what was in
that Wuhan Lab and they knew it from the beginning and they said nothing all along.
Max21c 15 hours ago
Londoners and Washingtonians may want him out of the way per out of sight & out of
mind... so it'll make the coverup of funding Wuhan and the PLA's BW programs so much
easier.
It's kind of hard to sweep 600k bodies under the rug as well as millions more around the
world... but they do have the BBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, WaPo & NYT, UK's
Guardian, and maybe even they'll be able to get Fox News onboard as they have sometimes in
the past at times.
He may eventually be moving into an MI6 safehouse in the same neck of the NZ woods as
the Skripals..
The Cambridge Working Group was formed by Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch with fellow
scientists at a meeting held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, following a "trifecta" of biosecurity
incidents involving the CDC, including the accidental exposure of viable anthrax to personnel
at CDC's Roybal Campus,[40][41] the discovery of six vials containing viable smallpox from the
1950s mislabeled as Variola at the FDA's White Oak campus,[42] and the accidental shipping of
H9N2 vials contaminated with H5N1 from the CDC lab to a USDA lab.[43]
On July 14, 2014, the group published a Consensus Statement authored by 18 founding members,
including Amir Attaran, Barry Bloom, Arturo Casadevall, Richard H. Ebright, Alison Galvani,
Edward Hammond, Thomas Inglesby, Michael Osterholm, David Relman, Richard Roberts, Marcel
Salathé and Silja Vöneky. Since its initial publication, over 300 scientists,
academics, and physicians have added their signature.[44][45]
The statement advocates for all work involving potential pandemic pathogens to be halted
until a quantitative and objective assessment of the risks has been undertaken. It then argues
that alternative approaches that do not involve such risks should be used
instead.[44][46][47]
The group engaged in public advocacy, influencing the US Government's decision in Dec 2015
to issue a moratorium on funding research creating certain types of novel potential pandemic
pathogens.[48]
June 17, 2021 at 1:53 pm GMT • 5.3 days ago • 300 Words ↑
I think the thing missing from this article and most others is the really important fact
that the bioweapons development at Ft. Detrick has gradually been replaced over the years by
bioweapons development in universities and private labs like EcoHealth Alliance. This is the
great legacy of Fauci. He has made the NIH the center of the US bioweapons research
programs.
In 1972 most nations of the world signed an agreement absolutely banning bioweapons. At that
time, the research in bioweapons at Ft. Detrick was massive -- and suddenly illegal and an
embarrassment to the US. As Ron Unz and Glen Greenwald have reminded, the Anthrax bioweapons
case in 2001 proved that in 2001 Ft. Detrick was still developing bioweapons. But the process
of moving all of this research into universities and private labs was well under way.
Gain of Function research is essentially bioweapons research. You can't combat a pathogen of
natural origins by creating some "Franken-virus" that could never evolve naturally. SARS Cov 2
cannot have evolved naturally. It is a pure product of genetic engineering.
The interview with Peter Daszak and Virology Today shows Daszak describing the creation of a
virus very much like SARS Cov 2. This was Dec. 2019 before anyone knew about SARS Cov 2. He
notes pieces came from Wuhan (the spike protein) and other parts from other viruses. They were
all assembled by Ralph Baric's group at the Univ. of North Carolina. All was funded by Fauci
and the NIH.
EcoHealth Alliance is a private bio-research corporation now doing a very large part of the
work that used to be done at Ft. Detrick. It operates about 50 labs in 30 nations around the
world. Its funding comes from three main sources: the NIH, USAID (a CIA front), and the
Pentagon. It is not about health. It is about bioweapons.
But for six years our website had been publishing a wide variety of extremely
controversial articles on all sorts of different subjects, and we had never had any
problems with either Facebook or Google.
Then in late April 2020, I published my first long article laying out the substantial
evidence that the global Covid outbreak might have been due to an American biowarfare
attack against China (and Iran), and that article got very strong early traffic, with more
Facebook Likes in the first few days than anything I had previously published.
But about ten days after it ran, our website was suddenly banned by Facebook. A few days
later, our entire website was deranked by Google, so that all our web pages would appear
near the very bottom of Google searches and almost no one would see them. The coincidental
timing of these actions seems very suspicious.
I still think an accidental lab leak is the more likely explanation, although your theory
is plausible. What I have excerpted here, though, is the most important aspect of all.
Why panic over this particular piece at all?
I don't know whether you agree or not, and it really doesn't matter, but the social media
networks are propaganda organs for the intelligence services. Your theory hit a nerve with
the IC for whatever reason. My gut is US intelligence was working very closely with China to
develop bioweapons. It was memoryholed, of course, and may have been false, but early reports
were the Chinese had developed an ethnic-specific bioweapon to target Whites. Given the
current genocidal bent of the US government, is it possible this bioweapon that directly
targeted Whites was funded by American intelligence to use against the indigenous population
here? Don't discount it. Those weapons also may have been to target Russians, who are
overwhelmingly White, but given the ties China has with Putin that seems implausible. All
that aside, how many people even realized that the United States government was pumping funds
to a Chinese laboratory experimenting with viruses and making them more lethal? In what world
does that pass any smell test?
A more benign explanation is the United States was involved with China in extremely risky
behavior with biological experimentation and a virus leaked. Neither nation has much of an
incentive to discuss the actual origins if that is the case.
I agree with you that the Fauci emails themselves were a MacGuffin, but disagree that his
circuitous funding of the Wuhan lab is anything short of breathtaking.
And, of course, you may be one hundred percent correct. Recent events certainly bolster
your case, not the least of which is the Neocon/Zionist sabre rattling against China and the
180 on Putin as they realize a Russia-China alliance would defeat and devastate their home
base in a matter of weeks. There are also indications Zionist financial interests are
becoming scared that they are about to be swallowed alive by the Chinese, who refuse to allow
them to corrupt and financialize their economy. It appears the Chinese, and to a lesser
extent the Koreans, have overtaken the Jews as the biggest player in the Los Angeles real
estate market and are now moving into the financial sector. Again, don't discount financial
motives.
If we get a firm fix on the date the virus first emerged, it will help unravel what
actually happened. Your theory will depend of whether the spread of the virus predates the
military games.
@Brás Cubas sted only in developing WMD and incompetent at managing nuclear wastes
(the USA for instance). No, for those able to deliver a clean, carbon-free energy and with an
impeccable and proven safety record (France).
Yet, I meet all the time with childish moral virgins who are against nuclear energy and
carbon emission, but still want their homes to be lit and heated for cheap, all year long,
without adding to global warming. Well, in the real life , there is no free lunch.
The same principle applies to GOF. It is easy enough to figure out why some would have
wanted to develop epidemiological models in advance , considering the catastrophic s ** t the
world found itself in since Covid19 struck.
"... During the 2018 conference "Imagining the Next Flu Pandemic - and Preventing it!" Baric uses the graphics to extrapolate investment assistance on how to "make money in the next pandemic" by showing which stocks and industries soared during the Ebola crisis. ..."
"... Before pointing out that "there are real mutual funds for outbreak preparedness Baric adds that the abovementioned sectors and firms would "probably do very well." He also added "Some items are successful. "It was the same thing in 1918, with masks, and it's the same thing today." According to Baric, pandemics are periods of fortune, amid times of societal instability, there is a potential for people to achieve political, financial, and personal gain, and this will almost certainly happen. ..."
"... Baric said if one wants to make money from the pandemic then purchase stock in firms that create Lab coats and protective clothes, or firms that develop antiviral medications for that epidemic. ..."
During the 2018 conference "Imagining the Next Flu Pandemic - and
Preventing it!" Baric uses the graphics to extrapolate investment assistance on how to "make
money in the next pandemic" by showing which stocks and industries soared during the Ebola
crisis.
China's 2018 leaked video of Wuhan Institute of Virology concludes that the COVID-19
originated from China's Wuhan lab and during the 2018 conference, Dr. Ralph Baric of the Wuhan
Institute of Virology, a collaborator and gain-of-function advocate, gave attendees advice on
how to "make a profit" in the next pandemic.
Wuhan lab's researchers immediately started brainstorming ways of making money from a
pandemic. Baric shows a slide titled "Global Catastrophe: Opportunities Exist" during his 2018
conference "Imagining the Next Flu Pandemic – and Preventing it!" He uses the graphics to
extrapolate investment assistance on how to "make money in the next pandemic" by showing which
stocks and industries soared during the Ebola crisis.
Before pointing out that "there are real mutual funds for outbreak preparedness Baric
adds that the abovementioned sectors and firms would "probably do very well." He also added
"Some items are successful. "It was the same thing in 1918, with masks, and it's the same thing
today." According to Baric, pandemics are periods of fortune, amid times of societal
instability, there is a potential for people to achieve political, financial, and personal
gain, and this will almost certainly happen.
Baric said if one wants to make money from the pandemic then purchase stock in firms
that create Lab coats and protective clothes, or firms that develop antiviral medications for
that epidemic.
The question of the novel coronavirus' origins is easy to answer: what is its first known
scientific identification? What is the first published description of its structure, and when
did it take place?
Sophisticated bioinformatic modeling of SARS-CoV-2's possible evolutionary history
is completely irrelevant without this its first medical identification.
The raison d'etre of all ambitious scientists is to be the first to discover
something, a new planet, particle, plant, bug, virus, or the geometry of a speck of dust. Every
PhD on the planet dreams of lead authorship on a Nature published article describing the DNA,
RNA, physiology, or habits of this or that previously unknown amoeba, bacillus, or novel
chemical polymer, with the reward being a Nobel prize and getting a crater, or a creepy-crawly
to carry one's surname.
In 2015 American scientists predominantly from the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, working together with colleagues from Harvard and Wuhan, the American FDA, and
Gilead Sciences, altered the genetic properties of an S-protein on a Corona strain. They
published their findings in a 2015 paper. No work prior to this
paper, documents the current novel coronavirus with its tell-tale furin driven HIV orthologs
(furin = PRRAR , TMPRSS2 and gp120).
Unless evidence to the contrary emerges, it becomes a fact that the "discovery" of the virus
which causes Covid-19 is attributable to this group of researchers. Ralph S. Baric was its
leader, and described without any inhibition how he took what appears to be a natural strain of
a bat virus, and altered its properties by adding HIV strains to its Spike Protein. He did this
while speculating about a possible jump from bats to
humans of an analogous mutation to be expected from nature, and in 2016 pointed out the
danger to humans of such "evolution." Baric's namesake laboratory claims direct responsibility for
the development of Gilead's Redemsvir anti-Corona drug (via Timothy
Sheahan ) as a result of a massive collaboration
between academia, government, and industry. In his own words:
"We generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus,"
making it the mutant that is ravaging the nerves and fragile psyches of the planet.
The original virus that Baric manipulated in his team's 2015 work, was provided by a team of
Chinese scientists which claimed its discovery in a 2013 Nature
article. All were employees of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases in Wuhan, China,
and their original coronavirus strain lacked the dangerous HIV derived peptides.
As one i nternet
savant quipped about the question of Baric's role in creating SARS-CoV-2, what are the
chances that nature waited for 4 million years of evolution to catch up with something made in
a laboratory only 4 years ago?
Until scientist, experts or authorities can demonstrate that the current strain of the novel
coronavirus was identified previous to Baric's 2015 manipulation, which involved the
introduction of furin cleavage sites on HIV ortholog glycoprotein there is not a shred of
evidence that SARS-CoV-2 in its present infectious form emerged naturally, following the laws
of evolution, from a host population of bats, or intermediary vector species .
As such, some of its complexity and unpredictable behaviors fall into the domain of
artificial selection , with which humanity has little experience in the epidemiological
domain.
Corona's pathogenicity remains baffling and incomprehensible, while understanding people's
immune reactions is in its infancy. No government bothered with serological testing of asymptomatics and the
under-30s. As antibodies are not required to gain immunity to the virus the only possible
measure of herd immunity would have been randomized sample population testing from onset of
pandemic. These were never performed. Increasingly, it is becoming probable that any long-term
human immunity to Covid-19 derives from B-cell copies of N-proteins. Antibodies to Spike
proteins cannot confer such immunity.
Not a single government performed the most commonsense tests, and as a result countries
enforcing lock-downs and mask wearing are in for a nasty surprise. Without population-wide
natural virulation they are stuck with policies which exacerbate Covid's virulance, and will
result in increased mortality once restrictions can no longer be maintained. A further
question no one (!) has asked about the relationship between treatment and immunity, is whether
various antivirals, anti-influenza, and assorted products prevent, improve, increase, or block
acquired immunity? Does Ivermectin or hydro-chloroquine treatment preempt it or does it
facilitate its emergence?
A vicious media frenzy whipping up fear and hysteria is crushing the morale of humanity.
Confined to closed spaces, devoid of natural socialization, faced with repressive police
measures from frustrated, stressed, and off-their-leash police forces, people's immune systems
are faltering in ways that weaken, rather than strengthen our inevitable need to submit to a
virus from which hiding is a mere deferral.
The withdrawal of many doctors from face-to-face consultation, often explained by the age of
practitioners, means that for the first time in history victims of various diseases, including
influenza, pneumonia, and covid-19 are left to fend for themselves , unless reaching a critical
state by which time a trip to the hospital is tantamount to an all expense paid visit to a
morgue.
The cowardice of doctors outside of hospital practice (from which many would also flee
if they could) , along with politicians whose policies exacerbate this cowardice, is
sufficient to explain the massive divergence in fatalities between countries like Germany,
where private doctors remain accessible to the general public and see their patients face to
face, and shit-holes like France, where the Benguiguis and Tobuls (common surnames of doctors
in Paris) have fled to their country residences. America's MD's have reacted in both the German
and French manner, to which the country's patchy results with battling Covid-19 are a
testament.
The lingering symptoms of Covid-19 after hospital discharge suggest psychotic stress. Cases
of post-discharge deaths, where swab tests were corona-negative, are the result of noxious
hospital conditions.
In Asia, where some cases of re-admittance for Covid-19 have occurred, the picture of
potential reinfection is blurred by the inconsistency of testing protocols, noting that
nasopharyngeal samples are the first to show absence of Covid-19, while blood and fecal
demonstrate its persistence. Corona lasts longest in the bowels and fecal mater, but it may be
biologically inactive there. Readmission most likely doesn't indicate re-infection, but
inconsistency in testing technique and the potential intractability of symptoms only
incidentally related to Covid-19.
The details of the persistence of Covid-19 symptoms past hospital discharge (that is,
isolation of Corona RNA in patients) is not something Asian countries shared with the world,
belying a lack of media freedom in Asian populations, or the lack of language skills among
Western journalists and editors.
Reddit pages, rather
than journalists, leaders, and doctors, have become the lifeline for recovering patients facing
a disease reality ignored by a death-obsessed media. Academic studies have yet to assuage those
who two months after doctors no longer detect corona in their mucus, are still partly invalids
from what were supposedly "moderate" cases of infection.
Covid-19 is puzzling on immunity, communicability, and persistence, and its pathology, in
the susceptibility of high-end athletes to severe infections is no exception.
Infections in healthy, or athletic individuals often overlook a history of protein and
steroid use, as well as the fact that high-end athletes are technically not healthy individuals
across their lifespans. By age 40 most suffer from chronic diseases masked by performance
enhancers.
Marijuana, vaping, and a slew of other habits may contribute to poor immunity reactions in
otherwise healthy individuals, although they seldom result in fatalities, like comorbidities of
which obesity (not just diabetes!) – is a lifestyle disease chosen by individuals,
industries, and governments.
The penchant of otherwise intelligent people to confuse deaths on the job, with on the job
infection, reveals the decrepitude of intelligence when bereft of emotional stability. It is
not because a store employee or a police officer die on the job, that he or she had been
infected there. Most severe Covid-19 cases originate with relatives in a domestic setting,
followed by hospital exposure. Many dying on the job , or claimed as job deaths, leave
behind families and partners, which are unambiguously the source of their infection. The use by
teachers unions, journalists, politicians, and wannabe scientists and failed medical students
of these deaths to score Twitter/Facebook points is criminal.
The ability to crack the complexity of novel coronavirus is impeded by the mental
instability of high-IQ individuals, by the cowardice of experts and general populations, but
laboratory manipulation, and chimerical status, is perhaps its objective cause.
Evidence does point to the very real possibility that the novel coronavirus was artificially
grafted in a laboratory with HIV derived molecules, and not subject to natural selection. Had
it undergone the test of bat, rat, dog, or human bodies prior to experiments in a laboratory it
would not have caused the global pandemic.
*
Gilead Science's stock shot up 8% on the news that its "Baric lab" designed drug
Redemsivir exhibited
positive test results in hospital studies, even if its actual test history is patchy
to say the least. Together
with Japan's Favipiravir and Avigan (both made by Fuji), Redemsivir gives false
hope to stock markets and big pharma
.
All three drugs pale in efficiently to the
preventive use of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, but do promise fat corporate
profits, and do not require functional medical systems, i.e. are attractive in the current
situation in which patients can't access general practitioners (MDs, i.e. "doctors")
services.
With its penchant for Biblical references, (Gilead is a word plucked from the Bible –
a balm , the "redem"
in Redemsivir sounds like "Redemption" at least for stock markets) Gilead wasn't turning a
profit for 14 years , until Donald Rumsfeld
became its Chairman .
Bush's Secretary of War didn't study biology in Princeton, but he sat on Gilad's board since
1988, and had nearly ten years of previous experience running a sizable pharmaceutical company.
Whitney Webb points to a
link between Gilead, Rumsfel, and Philip Zack who partook in some strange shenanigans with
anthrax in the run up to the Iraq invasion.
Gilead's board includes George Schultz, the omnipresent Reagan insider, Secretary of State
and member of Stanford's neocon Hoover institution which sends a second Gilead board member
– John
Cogan with his long career working with Schultz and other presidents in USGOV.
Trump's claims that China had produced the novel coronavirus in a failed attempt to imitate
an American experiment comes on the back of FBI arrest of several Chinese scientist central to
a collaboration between Harvard and the same Wuhan institute which provided Baric with the
original coronavirus strain on which he performed his laboratory experiments.
Charles Lieber, the head of Harvard's collaboration with Wuhan, a recipient of
prestigious medical prizes in Israel, was also arrested by the FBI.
Seeing that Trump's charges against China are spread by the "faux alternative media" circuit
of Infowars and Breitbart, and the sell-out mainstream media led by Fox, Trump's charges
against China no doubt bear some ground in truth.
Because American scientists were behind the creation of the novel coronavirus in
collaboration with Gilead since 2015, a company which is now marketing a "miracle" drug
Redemsvir, it is unlikely that Trump's anti-China charges lack evidence.
As with all successful statecraft, China will take the fall for what is likely to be merely
a partial responsibility, skillfully manipulated by America's foreign policy establishment to
suit the Deep State's national security interests. Concessions on trade, international
politics, many genuinely needed, will be the costs exacted from a politburo outmaneuvered in
the court of global opinion; Wuhan, the poster child of modern China, a metaphorical castration
of its prowess.
China certainly played a part in the creation of the novel coronavirus, but it is unlikely
to carry more responsibility for the subsequent pandemic than Ralph Baric, his colleagues,
Gilead Sciences, and America's intelligence agencies. Certainly not more than stupid policy
responses, cowardly doctors, overheating ventilators, the hysterical predisposition of
intellectuals, the ignorance of the uncouth masses, and the triumph of the police state that
are the real drivers of Covid-19 fatalities.
Prior to Ralph Baric's grafting of a chimeric Spike Protein to the nucleocapsid of a
Coronavirus using HIV pseudotyping , Coronaviridae
S-proteins were not a source of viral potency. Baric did not invent pseudotyping nor was he the
first to muck about with the Coronavirus family. His breakthrough came from a highly specific HIV
pseudotyping which resulted in improved S-protein fusion with the human ACE-2 receptor.
This may be the precursor or even the original Covid-19 strain, and should be refereed to as
the Covid-19 "pseudovirus." Populations are now being coerced into infecting their bodies with
synthetic mRNA derivatives mimicking some of the more potent glycoproteins of HIV. These are
toxins, and cannot confer anything but extremely short-lived immunity. It is more than likely
that "booster" shots of such material will result in increased mortality due to inflammation.
Such "vaccines" cannot confer any lasting immunity to future coronavirus infections , instead
they will function as enhancers of future pathogenicity for any Coronavidae infection,
including those flues in which this family is traditionally found (about 25% of every flu).
Do not "pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19 because it would 'open a can of
worms' if it continued". This was the instruction given by the US State Department to its
investigators over a year ago, as reported by Vanity Fair in a long piece on
Lab Leak . State Department investigators were warned against "digging in sensitive places"
and repeatedly advised not to open a "Pandora's box".
What were they afraid of? They were afraid that someone might reveal that the deadly virus
was cooked up by Chinese cooks under American guidance. The hands were Chinese, but the voice
was that of Uncle Sam (Gen 27:22). In plain words, if the Chinese altered (Gain-of-Function'ed)
the natural coronavirus, they did so on the orders of their American partners and according to
their instructions. It is even more probable that the Chinese contribution was secondary, for
they do not possess the know-how necessary to alter a virus. Whether it was an accidental leak
of a bioweapon or the intentional deployment of bioterror (as Ron Unz expounded
), in either case the US is the leading actor in the story.
President Trump threatened to sue Beijing for ten trillion dollars for the Wuhan lab leak.
Good idea! But this princely sum should be charged to Washington (or rather New York with its
Wall Street) as well as to Beijing. Actually, we didn't have to wait until the end of May 2021
for this revelation. The basic facts were covered in the viral videos Plandemic and
Plandemic II, released almost a year ago and promptly banned. Here you can watch a condensed (7 minutes),
yet very convincing version of these two long videos, published last August. The creators
conclude their story with 'a plague on both your houses' statement: "The US could say China did
it, China could say the US did it. And both were right."
The video (narrated by Dr David E. Martin and released by London real , the company owned by Brian Rose, a Jewish
businessman from San Diego, CA, who is closely connected to the City of London) shows that work
on Coronavirus began in 1999; the CDC filed a patent application on SARS-CoV in 2004; it was
granted in 2007. They kept tampering with the virus for a few years, trying to make it more
infectious and more deadly. After gain-of-function research was forbidden by the US government
in 2014, it was promptly offshored to Wuhan lab. The research was quietly continued with US
grants coming (partly) from the notorious Dr Fauci via the equally notorious Peter Daszak and
his EcoHealth Alliance, the beneficiary of
$39 million grant from the Pentagon . The Pentagon is a great humanitarian organization
known for its love of mankind, right? If they forwarded so much money to Wuhan, they surely had
our good in mind. Probably it was out of sheer modesty that they hid the grants, via a web of
multiple transactions, passing money from one NGO to another until reaching its final
destination in Wuhan. In 2017, the work on weaponising the virus was resumed in the US, while
President Trump stopped the grants to Wuhan.
The united media and social networks unleashed their ferocious
fact-checkers against the video and its conclusion that the Chinese did it on US orders.
And for a long time the story disappeared. But now that the Lab Leak story has been unbanned
(thanks to Nicholas Wade's impactful story )
we can check the fact-checkers and find them sorely missing actual arguments. Their main
reasoning, beside labelling different opinions "debunked" or "discredited", was
based on an article in Lancet that was commissioned and produced under the guidance of the
very same Peter Daszak who admitted (in
2016) that he commissioned and funded Chinese scientists to create a 'Killer Coronavirus'. Thus
the debunkers were debunked and the discrediters were discredited.
The conclusion that the virus was made by Chinese under US instructions was also reached
over a year ago, in April 2020, by Tsarfat,
a French-Jewish blogger , who claimed that Ralph S. Baric was the man who weaponised the
virus in 2015, "and described without any inhibition how he took what appears to be a natural
strain of a bat virus and altered its properties by adding HIV strains (the Spike Protein in
question). The original virus that Baric manipulated in his team's 2015 work was provided by a
team of Chinese scientists which claimed its discovery in a 2013 Nature
article." What about suing Dr Baric and Gilead Sciences for some of the billions? Or
Facebook for blocking this important information? Or, indeed, Dr Fauci, who covered up for
Baric and for Daszak?
(Fauci has been declared the sexiest
man alive , no more and no less like Henry Kissinger in his time, and probably by the same
sort of people. Recently another Fauci, Jacob Fauci, made his
appearance in East Jerusalem , where he argued that he intends to steal a Palestinian house
because "if I don't steal it, someone else is going to steal it." Jacob (or Yaakov) Fauci is a
fervent Jewish nationalist settler. Is he a close relative of Tony the Sexiest? I wonder!)
The Russians agree with Ron Unz. They think the virus was crafted by US scientists. While
Putin avoided answering this question directly, Sergei
Glazyev , an adviser to Putin and a minister of the Eurasian Commission, provided the whole
script. In his view,
The virus was synthesized in a well-known US laboratory by order of a scientific foundation
closely associated with certain structures of the American financial oligarchy, then moved by
ethnic Chinese to a Wuhan laboratory and released into the environment there. The purpose of
this operation was to destabilize the socio-political situation in the PRC in order to create
the prerequisites for a revolutionary situation. It fully fits into the logic of the global
hybrid war, unleashed by the American financial oligarchy in order to maintain world domination
in the confrontation with the rapidly growing China.
The Wuhan institute, says Glazyev, worked closely with a more advanced American laboratory.
The Chinese scientists who worked in Wuhan had previously trained and conducted research in the
United States. The United States is the only country in the world that has the necessary
competencies to create such a virus. The United States is the only major country that has not
signed the international convention on bioweapons. The Chinese specialists who worked at the
time in the Wuhan laboratory came from the United States, where they conducted experiments on
the synthesis of coronavirus using quasi-secret American funds.
Glazyev, a leading economist by trade, explained why the people behind creating a novel
Coronavirus didn't mind that it might spread all over the world. They needed to deflate the
global financial bubble that had been inflated by the US Federal Reserve, the ECB, the Banks of
England and Japan through a decade of quantitative easing. Throughout the decade the volume of
the dollar money supply increased fivefold, and the euro increased fourfold. Financial collapse
was inevitable. Thanks to the global pandemic, the bubble deflated peacefully and manageably,
without any unpleasant excesses. A million or two million dead is reasonable collateral damage
in the eyes of the American super-rich.
If the 2020 pandemic did not exist, it would have to be invented. And it was invented: back
in 2010, the Rockefeller Foundation published the Lock Step report, a scenario for the
deployment of a pandemic; all measures of social isolation and violation of the citizens' civil
rights were predicted and actually implemented last year, says Glazyev.
I looked up the "
fact checkers ". Like Wikipedia, it can be a useful source as long as you are aware that it
is a hostile source. It's like reading a well-sourced Nazi apology for their own atrocities.
Not a stupid essay claiming there never were any atrocities, but a clever report full of
half-truths. The fact checkers say this report (technically speaking, The Rockefeller
Foundation, Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development included a
section called Lock Step ) has been removed from the Rockefeller Foundation site, but
they did find it somehow. And indeed they declared it was
a scenario of authoritarian control in the wake of a hypothetical novel influenza pandemic
similar to COVID-19. Lock Step envisions "a world of tighter top-down government control and
more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback," according
to the report. Another excerpt on the "mandatory wearing of face masks" and "body-temperature
checks at the entries to communal spaces like train stations and supermarkets" parallels
ongoing practices to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The Lock Step scenario describes a
continuation of authoritarian policies after the pandemic "fades"
Despite the eerie similarity to reality ten years later, the Fact Checkers pronounced it
fake news , because "The report makes no reference to COVID-19, a vaccine against the
disease or plans to introduce a police state during a pandemic." Well, they are hard to
please!
Russian Vaccine
Russia is living like there is no virus. Last week, there was the International Economic
Forum in St Petersburg, SPIEF, probably the biggest international gathering since the beginning
of the pandemic anywhere in the world. The US delegation was the biggest of all. They made
deals by the hundreds of billions. St Petersburg, definitely the most beautiful and most
European of Russian cities, was overflowing with Forum participants and sundry tourists. It is
a wonderful time of White Nights, when sun is hardly going down in this city on the Northern 60
th parallel like Alaska and the Yukon. Lilac is blossoming now, and the city is full
of its sweet and delightful scent.
The city was established by Tsar Peter the Great on former Swedish territory in the delta of
the Neva River, and it consists of many islands and islets connected by bridges. The Russian
Tsars embellished their capital with wonderful palaces and cathedrals, making it into the
Venice of the North. The local people are calm, predominantly dark-blonde and blue-eyed; there
aren't many southerners, as there is in Moscow, for the city is not as prosperous as the
Russian capital and offers fewer opportunities to those seeking decent wages. However, it is a
very pleasant city, with tourist boats sailing its canals and rivers while the sun shines on
the golden domes of its churches. It is also a city of great museums, and it is the base for
the Baltic Fleet. It is but a short ride away from the Finnish border; though that border is
still shut down by the pandemic.
There is no outdoor mask mandate, but masks are recommended on public transport, and many
people choose to use them. In a few days, St Petersburg will host seven postponed UEFA EURO
2020 matches, and a lot of people are expected, though probably less than they had two years
ago- before the pandemic. Russians go through the motions of the global pandemic response:
current tests are required for Forum visitors, temperatures are checked; but the fear is gone,
and that is a good thing.
The Russians decided to allow vaccine tourism: visiting foreigners will be able to get
vaccinated with the Russian vaccine for a small sum (for locals it is free). The Russian
Sputnik V vaccine is NOT mRNA experimental therapy, and that is a strong selling point. mRNA
vaccines have been around for many years, but never have they been used on humans, for they
kill ferrets right away. Sputnik V is a traditional vaccine; it is cheap and does not need to
be stored at minus 70 Celsius. Its efficacy is over 90 per cent, so it is good stuff, just like
the other Russian Covid vaccines. I am not a vaccination fan, but I think Russian vaccines are
the safest, if you already decided you want one.
But its fate outside Russia depends on the local bureaucracy. In the EU, the licensing
authorities took huge bribes from Pfizer (according to Putin at the St Petersburg Economic
Forum) and that is the only reason why Sputnik V is not recognized in Europe. Western companies
are eager to preserve their market share and want to keep all poachers out. Americans are as
generous with bribes as European politicians and experts are keen on graft, no matter if the
people of Europe would love to get access to Russian vaccines.
"We have only one disagreement with the United States: their desire to hold back our
development,"
said Putin . Indeed, the refusal of the EU and WHO to recognize the Russian vaccine can be
seen, beyond bribes, as more of the standard US policy of hindering development in other
countries. (Israel has a similar policy of de-development applied to Gaza).
Wherever they come to conquer, they work to keep all other countries (Russia included) limited
to supplying raw materials, while the expensive final products are made under US licence,
bringing the maximum profit to US corporations.
After the fall of the USSR, US advisers to then-president Boris Yeltsin led Russia onto a
quick road to de-industrialisation. They envisaged its future as a Gas Pump State. But Russians
rejected the idea. They are active, well-educated folks; they like science and technical
innovations; they are good workers, probably less diligent than Germans or Swedes, but head and
shoulders above Eastern Europe. Putin sees the vaccine as a way to promote modernisation and a
new industrialisation of his country. Still, he does not want to force Russians to 'get a jab',
as they say in England. There are Russian adepts of mandated vaccination, among them Dmitry
Medvedev, the former President and Prime Minister, and Sergei Sobyanin, the powerful Moscow
City Mayor. Offering vaccines to tourists seems a good way to bypass the EU officials'
reluctance to recognise it.
The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, also offers the Russian vaccine to the
citizens of its neighbouring countries. He placed vaxx points at border crossings so that
Lithuanians, Poles, Latvians and Ukrainians will be able to come and get vaccinated
inexpensively. For Lukashenko, it is a way to endear Belarus to its NATO-leaning neighbours.
Perhaps it will work. The old fox is a smart politician, full of tricks, and he may be able to
break the blockade NATO is continuously trying to impose on this small nation.
However, Russia needs its vaccine to be recognised in Europe; otherwise all cross-border
tourism will remain in abeyance for the second year in a row. Switzerland refused to let
Russian journalists vaccinated by Sputnik V cover the Putin–Biden summit. This is part
and parcel of the many indignities the West unleashed upon disobedient Russia, like banning its
national flag and anthem from sport events. Unwillingly, Russians recognise they are at war, a
hybrid war, but still a war. In this war,
Russia supports the American people against the American authorities. They loudly wonder
whether summits make any sense at all. We shall know the answer in a week, but expectations in
Russia are very low.
In collaboration with Paul Bennett.Israel Shamir can be reached at[email protected]
Money quote: " There's no way every nation on earth adopts the exact same stupid strategy to fight it unless they were told it was
man-made and potentially extremely dangerous."
Dr Fauci's emails have been
released
via a Freedom of Information Act request , and there is some pretty interesting stuff in them, particularly one email where
a researcher who funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology thanks Fauci for publicly dismissing the lab leak theory early on during
the pandemic.
... ... ...
The email states:
"As the Pl of the ROl grant publicly targeted by Fox News reporters at the Presidential press briefing last night, I just
wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific
evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of
Virology.
From my perspective, your comments are brave, and coming from your trusted voice, will help dispel the myths being spun around
the virus' origins . Once this pandemic's over I look forward thanking you in person and let you know how important your comments
are to us all."
Fauci responded to the email the day after, writing
"Peter:
Many thanks for your kind note.
Best Regards,
Tony"
Daszak, who also works for the World Health Organisation, is on record admitting that he was involved with manipulating coronaviruses.
Here is a video of him talking
in DECEMBER 2019
about how 'good' the viruses are for messing around with in a lab:
Daszak notes that "coronaviruses are pretty good you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily the spiked proteins drive a
lot about what happens. You can get the sequence you can build the protein, we work with Ralph Baric at UNC to do this, insert into
the backbone of another virus and do some work in a lab."
AUS-AUD 8 hours ago
It's simply because it was an American that is responsible for covid, what's worse a government agency. Not China.
vova_3.2018 7 hours ago (Edited)
It's simply because it was an American that is responsible for covid, what's worse a government agency. Not China.
There's no need to dismiss the lab leak theory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, just consult the research papers released
by those working at the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill .
NIH (Fauci) may well be worried about the possibility of prosectution for allowing the continuation of chimeric research
even after it was prohibited. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjv8yTkpkh4
The research cited in Nature from 2015 is bad enough, since it directly states the researchers created an experimental virus
with the spike protien by combining two different ones: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797993/
"...we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronovirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV
backbone."
AUS-AUD 6 hours ago (Edited)
In June of 2019 a nursing home in Springfield was the first to report a mysterious respiratory condition. In July ft detrick
biological lab was closed due to a leak. Both events were widely reported. That pre-dates wuhan, the military Olympic games
held in wuhan and event 201 held in October 2019.
While I understand that there is a possibility of a leak from wuhan, I doubt it. There's too much material evidence implicating
Fauci et al. Whom is a long standing US government employee.
The wuhan lab studies of gain of function was also funded with US Gov grant monies. Moved from the US.
Nonetheless ground zero was in June of 2019 from Ft Detrick lab. It was likely US military who brought it, perhaps unknowingly,
to wuhan when attending the military games?
Regardless, this has US government officials print's all over it. If it was a genuine mistake then fauci and friends need
to be held accountable for it.
A group of SARS-like CoVs (SL-CoVs) has been identified in horseshoe bats. SL-CoVs and SARS-CoVs share identical genome
organizations and high sequence identities, with the main exception of the N terminus of the spike protein (S), known to
be responsible for receptor binding in CoVs. In this study, we investigated the receptor usage of the SL-CoV S by combining
a human immunodeficiency virus-based pseudovirus system with cell lines expressing the ACE2 molecules of human, civet, or
horseshoe bat. In addition to full-length S of SL-CoV and SARS-CoV, a series of S chimeras was constructed by inserting
different sequences of the SARS-CoV S into the SL-CoV S backbone. Several important observations were made from this study.
First, the SL-CoV S was unable to use any of the three ACE2 molecules as its receptor. Second, the SARS-CoV S failed to
enter cells expressing the bat ACE2. Third, the chimeric S covering the previously defined receptor-binding domain gained
its ability to enter cells via human ACE2, albeit with different efficiencies for different constructs. Fourth, a minimal
insert region (amino acids 310 to 518 [of HIV/BJ01-S]) was found to be sufficient to convert the SL-CoV S from non-ACE2
binding to human ACE2 binding , indicating that the SL-CoV S is largely compatible with SARS-CoV S protein both in structure
and in function.
Journal of Virology, February 2008
Sergio1 2 hours ago remove link
And there I was thinking that the holier than thou US government had signed an agreement on a moratorium on the advancement
of biological weapons. Side door those studies into vaccine development for potential mutations; for your safety, of course.
Birdbob 10 hours ago
People will be held accountable on the day after doomsday:
Brit. Government is preparing to halt the coroner's court inquest into allegations that Novichok caused the death of
Dawn Sturgess in Salisbury on July 8, 2018.
After replacing the Salisbury coroner in January of this year, and after a single hearing on March 30 by secret service
advisor and ex-judge Baroness Heather Hallett, briefings by the Cabinet Office and the security services have led to the
decision that the only way of preserving the government's narrative of a Russian nerve agent attack, first against Sergei
and Yulia Skripal, then against Sturgess, is to introduce Defence Ministry and MI6 evidence in secret session.
Don't hold you breath for any improvements!!!
(- see Craig Murray for details - if he's not in jail by then).
No cover up in the works there then!
HungryPorkChop 10 hours ago
A large and well funded CoronaVirus Pandemic War Game happened 6 months before the outbreak. Coincidence? Watch the first
5 or 10 minutes of this movie (PlanDemic - Indoctrination) and see for yourself.
The overnight SOFR rates spiked (read:collapsed) in Sept 2019. THAT was the end of the road. They printed overnight, papered
over everything, but that was their signal the system had broken. Then I got what had to be COVID in mid-Nov. Then the news
really hit in Dec 2019. I don't believe in coincidences any
NickelthroweR 12 hours ago
It was the September collapse that caused me to immediately hire a real estate agent to look for a home in a very rural area.
I knew it was a race against time so I bought a home sight unseen. No joke, I saw that collapse and knew that everrything was
on the table - famine, plague, nuclear war, military takeover - anything.
I arrived at my new home two weeks before the lockdowns began and settled in a place where mask mandates and social distancing
were 99% ignored.
In September of 2019 I began telling anyone that would give me their ear that the iceberg had been struck and that they needed
to get on the lifeboats as we were now in a global game of musical chairs and, though they didn't know it, the music had stopped.
Because most people are financially illiterate, I could not get them to understand the significance of what was happening.
Now, when I try to warn them about the dangers of the "vaccine", that message, too, falls on deaf ears.
WuhanJohnny 10 hours ago remove link
95% won't get it, chalk it up to normalcy bias.
Their is a small, intelligent group of critical thinkers who hear you.
Most of them saw what you saw and have been making similar moves.
GreatCaesar'sGhost 12 hours ago
Obviously this was a manufactured virus. There's no way every nation on earth adopts the exact same stupid strategy to fight
it unless they were told it was man-made and potentially extremely dangerous. But we'll never know the truth. Put it up there
with the JFK murder, Roswell and Obama's homosexuality as things you'll never get official confirmation about.
Not Your Father's ZH 12 hours ago
For sure, the narrative was coordinated globally. The bigger the lie, the more widespread the effect of convincing mass compliance.
JimmyJones 10 hours ago (Edited)
I am way more comfortable being one of the ones who didn't. Since we now KNOW that Vitamin D + C + Zinc + Quercetin and or
Ivermectin are basically a insanely great virus killer combo.
Rehypothecation 12 hours ago
I'm surprised no one mention Bill Gates who coincidentally funded a coronavirus pandemic simulation in 2019 and is now the
biggest farmland owner in the US.
The Nuremberg Code 1947 Permissible Medical Experiments
The great weight of the evidence before us to effect that certain types of medical experiments on human beings, when kept
within reasonably well-defined bounds, conform to the ethics of the medical profession generally. The protagonists of the practice
of human experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments yield results for the good of society that are
unprocurable by other methods or means of study. All agree, however, that certain basic principles must be observed in order
to satisfy moral, ethical and legal concepts:
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal
capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of
any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have
sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding
and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental
subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment ; the method and means by which
it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which
may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.
2. The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs,
or engages in the experiment . It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.
3. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means
of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.
4. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural
history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results justify the performance of the experiment.
5. The e xperiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
6. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur;
except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
7. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be
solved by the experiment.
8. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote
possibilities of injury, disability or death.
9. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should
be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.
10. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has
reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.
11. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage,
if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him,
that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.
"... Today's commentary was submitted to CIDRAP by the authors. They respond to critiques of their recent journal article in which they argued that there are safer and better ways to investigate influenza virus transmissibility, prevention and control than to conduct experiments that lead to the creation of more-contagious viruses. ..."
"... Dr Lipsitch ( [email protected] (link sends e-mail) ) is a professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston. Dr. Galvani ( [email protected] (link sends e-mail) ) is a professor of epidemiology (microbial diseases) and of ecology and evolutionary biology and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Conn. ..."
"... recent experiments that create novel, highly virulent and transmissible pathogens against which there is no human immunity are unethical. ..."
"... We note that they impose a risk of accidental and deliberate release that, if it led to extensive spread of the new agent, could cost many lives. While such a release is unlikely in a specific laboratory conducting research under strict biosafety procedures, even a low likelihood should be taken seriously, given the scale of destruction if such an unlikely event were to occur. Furthermore, the likelihood of risk is multiplied as the number of laboratories conducting such research increases around the globe. ..."
"... Given this risk, ethical principles, such as those embodied in the Nuremberg Code , dictate that such experiments would be permissible only if they provide humanitarian benefits commensurate with the risk, and if these benefits cannot be achieved by less risky means. ..."
"... He asserts, "The truth is that scientific research has never triggered a virus pandemic," a statement that is hard to reconcile with the evidence, described in an article authored by Kawaoka and others, that the H1N1 strain that emerged in 1977 was likely the result of a virus that had been frozen (physically and genetically) since the 1950s, for which a laboratory accident is the most likely scenario ( a view shared even by proponents of PPP research such as Vincent Racaniello, PhD). ..."
"... mammalian transmissibility may not exist as a general phenomenon ..."
"... determinants of ferret transmissibility can be identified only in relation to a specified genetic background, and may differ if the genetic background changes only slightly ..."
"... studies of the more fundamental properties of viruses, such as receptor binding and pH and temperature requirements, can be performed without creating PPP ..."
"... understanding transmissibility is not an end in itself, at least when risky experiments are involved ..."
"... Logical structure of the potential lifesaving benefits of PPP experiments, required intermediate steps to achieve those benefits (blue boxes), and key obstacles to achieving those steps highlighted in our original paper (red text). ..."
Editor's note:Today's commentary was submitted to CIDRAP by the authors.
They respond to critiques of their recent journal
article in which they argued that there are safer and better ways to investigate influenza
virus transmissibility, prevention and control than to conduct experiments that lead to the
creation of more-contagious viruses.Dr Lipsitch ( [email protected] (link sends e-mail) ) is a
professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Harvard
School of Public Health, Boston. Dr. Galvani ( [email protected] (link sends e-mail) ) is a
professor of epidemiology (microbial diseases) and of ecology and evolutionary biology and
director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling, Yale School of Public Health, New
Haven, Conn.
We note that they impose a risk of accidental and deliberate release that, if it led to
extensive spread of the new agent, could cost many lives. While such a release is unlikely in a
specific laboratory conducting research under strict biosafety procedures, even a low
likelihood should be taken seriously, given the scale of destruction if such an unlikely event
were to occur. Furthermore, the likelihood of risk is multiplied as the number of laboratories
conducting such research increases around the globe.
Given this risk, ethical principles, such as those embodied in the Nuremberg Code , dictate that such
experiments would be permissible only if they provide humanitarian benefits commensurate with
the risk, and if these benefits cannot be achieved by less risky means.
We argue that the two main benefits claimed for these experiments — improved vaccine
design and improved interpretation of surveillance — are unlikely to be achieved by the
creation of potential pandemic pathogens (PPP), often termed "gain-of-function" (GOF)
experiments. We support our arguments with published studies showing that the phenotypic
effects of many mutations in influenza are contingent on interactions with other mutations in
the genetic background of the pathogen—the phenomenon of epistasis.
As alternatives to PPP experiments, we cite a diversity of other promising approaches that
we believe are more likely to improve our ability to control influenza. For example,
experimental and sequence-based analyses of existing, human-transmissible influenza strains and
their avian-transmissible ancestors are aimed at generating similar basic scientific knowledge
as the GOF experiments. Other approaches, such as the development of host-targeted
therapeutics, novel "universal" influenza vaccines, and improved vaccine manufacturing
technology, obviate the practical value of understanding influenza transmission by providing
alternative, direct means of mitigating influenza’s threat to public health.
Risk
of lab-related infections
The
CIDRAP News report quotes the response of Ron Fouchier, PhD, of Erasmus University in the
Netherlands, and Yoshi Kawaoka, DVM, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin, the heads of two labs
that published the most cited of a growing list of PPP experiments. Fouchier claimed that we
miscalculated the likelihood of a laboratory-associated infection and the further probability
that such an infection would lead to sustained transmission.
He asserts, "The truth is that scientific research has never triggered a virus
pandemic," a statement that is hard to reconcile with the evidence, described in an article authored by Kawaoka and
others, that the H1N1 strain that emerged in 1977 was likely the result of a virus that had
been frozen (physically and genetically) since the 1950s, for which a laboratory accident is
the most likely scenario ( a view shared
even by proponents of PPP research such as Vincent Racaniello, PhD). Moreover, even if
there had been no laboratory escapes of influenza to date, this does not provide grounds for
complacency that it will never happen, particularly when the estimates of the probability that
it will occur are low but not zero.
Fouchier asserts that our estimates of accidental laboratory infections are inapplicable,
because our estimates are based on instances of accidental laboratory infection that occurred
for bacteria, rather than viruses, and where onward transmission did not occur. We would
counter that, if anything, these differences would make our estimates more conservative: the
PPPs being designed are likely to be more transmissible than the bacteria on which our
estimates are based.
In addition, while the US-based infections used in that particular calculation were not
viruses and did not lead to further infections, many of those conducted in other countries did,
including China, where PPP experiments have been recently reported . The laboratories involved in
these leaks had been certified as BSL-3 or -4, and Fouchier’s assertion that these
laboratories were not maintained to necessary standards demonstrates that safety certification
is not a guarantee of perfect safety.
In short, "safe" is a relative term; PPP experimentation always has a nonzero probability of
failure, and we have proposed an estimate of that probability. No proponent of PPP
experimentation to our knowledge has proposed an alternative estimate, other than the
qualitative description "safe."
Questionable benefits
None of the responses quoted from Fouchier and Kawaoka address our critiques of the
purported benefits of PPP experiments and our explanations for why PPP experiments are unlikely
to improve surveillance or outbreak containment.
Regarding vaccines, Kawaoka writes, "The information obtained by ferret transmission studies
can be used to evaluate which of the circulating H5N1 viruses have more pandemic potential."
This claim could perhaps be true if a manufactured PPP strain turned out to have exactly the
same sequence as a strain that happened to evolve from nature. Otherwise, individual mutations
that happen to confer pandemicity in a given PPP strain are not reliable predictors of that
phenotype in another strain, as a consequence of epistatic interactions with different genetic
backgrounds.
The power of epistasis in this context was demonstrated by an MIT study that engineered mutations
identified in the laboratories of Kawaoka and Fouchier into a closely related but distinct H5N1
virus and found the phenotype was not as predicted.
Another example of epistasis in influenza is highlighted by the PB2 protein mutation from
glutamic acid (E) to lysine (K) at position 627. Several studies prior to the PPP experiments
we reviewed showed that this mutation enhanced virulence and transmissibility of diverse
influenza A viruses. And the appearance of this mutation during the 2009 H1N1 influenza
pandemic raised concern.
Consequently, it is ironic that Kawaoka asserts in response to our critique, “The
mutations in PB2 proteins at positions 627K and 701N are important, specific amino acid
residues that promote efficient growth of avian influenza viruses in mammalian cells. . . .The
authors failed to recognize that these residues were identified by gain-of-function experiments
with H5N1 viruses.”
The irony is twofold: first, because the supposed universal importance of the 627 mutation
was both claimed and then disproven prior to the GOF experiments in H5N1, and second, because
this mutation remains a paradigm case of how little is understood of the scope of a
mutation’s phenotype in the context of different genetic backgrounds. In the paper, we
cite multiple other examples of this phenomenon in influenza.
Kawaoka further argues that the initial PPP experiments with H5N1 demonstrated that H5N1
influenza viruses could transmit in mammals, a proposition that some prominent virologists had
questioned: “the ferret transmission studies in my lab and Ron Fouchier’s lab
demonstrated that H5N1 viruses have pandemic potential and it is important to continue to
stockpile H5N1 vaccines. . . . This is a critical point since vaccines expire and decisions by
policy makers as to whether we continue to stockpile H5N1 vaccines should be based on
scientific facts.”
Formally, while ferret transmission has been demonstrated, efficient human-to-human
transmission has not. The ferret model, while possibly the best animal model for human
influenza, is imperfect, and the quantitative correspondence between ferret transmission and
human transmission is questionable . More
important, despite skepticism regarding whether H5N1 viruses could cause a pandemic in humans,
public health officials had not neglected the possibility of an H5N1 pandemic in the face of
emerging human cases. The United States, for example, has stockpiled tens of millions of doses
of H5N1 vaccines.
Doubts about worth of ferret studies
Lastly, both scientists assert that studies in ferrets are necessary if we are to understand
mammalian transmissibility. Three significant caveats, however, are worth considering.
First, mammalian transmissibility may not exist as a general phenomenon . Ferret
transmissibility is a reasonably well-defined phenotype, but the quantitative correlation with
human transmissibility is imperfect, as we have noted previously .
Establishing the conditions under which the model is reliable would require impractically large
numbers of experiments, each involving many more ferret pairs than the two to four that have
become standard in many published experiments .
Thus, human transmissibility can be inferred, but not proven, in PPP experiments, barring an
accident that demonstrates it inadvertently.
Second, because of epistasis, as described above, the determinants of ferret
transmissibility can be identified only in relation to a specified genetic background, and may
differ if the genetic background changes only slightly .
Third, as we argue in the paper, studies of the more fundamental properties of viruses,
such as receptor binding and pH and temperature requirements, can be performed without creating
PPP .
We believe that alternative approaches of reductionist science that explore these
fundamental viral properties will ultimately lead to deeper understanding than selecting for
the determinants of transmissibility in a handful of arbitrarily selected viruses, without
understanding the generality of the mutations’ effect on phenotypes.
Most important, understanding transmissibility is not an end in itself, at least when
risky experiments are involved . The goal that can ethically justify experiments that
place human life at risk is confidence that more human lives will be saved than lost by the
research. We suggest in our PLoS Medicine article many lines of research – most
currently underway -- that seem more promising in achieving that end, by reducing
influenza’s impact on humanity, even if the scientific means to that end do not always
include unraveling the molecular basis of transmissibility. On this comparison, Fouchier and
Kawaoka are silent.
Adding up the negatives
In summary: On the issue of safety , the proponents of PPP experiments start from the
mistaken premise that laboratory accidents have never led to pandemic spread of influenza, when
the 1977 H1N1 release probably was exactly that. They proceed to make the logically invalid
argument that because laboratories have been safe to date, they will continue to be, when the
question is whether an unlikely but catastrophic event may happen in the future.
While the leading virology laboratories in the world are likely to pose a very low
probability of an accidental infection, the research published from these laboratories may
facilitate the replication and extension of risky research in less stringently controlled
settings. Moreover, given the potentially devastating consequences of an accidental infection,
the burden should be on the proponents to quantify that nonzero risk and show why it can be
neglected.
Proponents of PPP experimentation have not yet responded to the particulars of our critiques
of the benefits of PPP experiments, especially the problem that virus phenotype is not
predictable at present from sequence, because of the complex and poorly understood dependence
on genetic context. As shown in the figure below, multiple obstacles stand in the way of
achieving each of the two purported benefits to public health—better vaccines and better
response to surveillance findings. Almost all of these barriers remain unaddressed by
proponents of PPP experiments.
Logical structure of the potential lifesaving benefits of PPP experiments, required
intermediate steps to achieve those benefits (blue boxes), and key obstacles to achieving those
steps highlighted in our original
paper (red text).
On the alternatives proposed, Fouchier and Kawaoka correctly note that these may not
answer the exact same scientific question that is targeted by PPP experiments, but they fail
to refute the criticisms of PPP experiments’ own ability to inform public health
preparedness and response.
Asking the right question
We should move beyond the question "Should PPP experiments be banned?” which ignores
the opportunity cost of performing these experiments relative to the safer, more efficient
approaches that could be more vigorously pursued with the considerable resources that PPP
experiments consume.
In the setting of one uniquely dangerous experimental program and others that may achieve
the same goals without appreciable risk to human life, the question should be: "Is there a
unique public health benefit of PPP experiments, unachievable by safer means, that outweighs
their risk?"
We believe that the answer to the latter question is no, and that in light of that answer,
shifting resources from expensive, low-throughput, and otherwise limited GOF experiments to
these more promising alternatives is both ethically right and scientifically sound.
New
study highlights risk-benefit illogic
Just last week, Kawaoka's group published a new paper that
highlights the questionable reasoning underlying the public health justification of PPP
experiments. The new study details the construction of a "1918-like," novel,
ferret-transmissible, virulent influenza virus, with the highly speculative conclusion that
since the genetic materials from which they started all exist (in different viruses) in
nature, there is a continuing pandemic threat of a 1918-like virus.
The logic is elusive, but in defending the public health value of the latest work, Kawaoka
says that the study "strongly supports stockpiling antiviral drugs. If this is not a
'life-saving benefit,' what is?"
Like the claims from the H5N1 papers about vaccines, this is a misrepresentation of the
public health value of the work. Indeed, indications of pandemic threats do support pandemic
preparedness. But as with H5N1 vaccines, antivirals are an appropriate part of pandemic
preparedness for any population with the resources to stockpile them. This was true before
the PPP experiments, and it remains true.
To cite the justification of an existing, already justified policy as a significant public
health benefit is an exaggeration.
"... The most significant problem came from the scientific community. "Some of the scientists in this area very quickly closed ranks," she says, and partisanship wasn't their only motive: "Like most things in life, there are power plays. There are agendas that are part of the scientific community. Just like any other community, there are strong vested interests. There were people that did not talk about this, because they feared for their careers. They feared for their grants." ..."
"... Ms. Lentzos counsels against idealizing scientists and in favor of "seeing science and scientific activity, and how the community works, not as this inner sacred sanctum that's devoid of any conflicts of interests, or agendas, or any of that stuff, but seeing it as also a social activity, where there are good players and bad players." ..."
"... Take Peter Daszak, the zoologist who organized the Lancet letter condemning lab-leak "conspiracy theories." He had directed millions of dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology through his nonprofit, EcoHealth Alliance. A lab mistake that killed millions would be bad for his reputation. Other researchers have taken part in gain-of-function research, which can make viruses deadlier or easier to transmit. Who would permit, much less fund, such research if it proved so catastrophic? Yet researchers like Marion Koopmans, who oversees an institution that has conducted gain-of-function research, had an outsize voice in media. Both she and Mr. Daszak served on the World Health Organization's origin investigation team. ..."
"... She says that regardless of Covid's origin, lab safety is crucial for preventing a future pandemic. "There needs to be a body, an international body that has a mandate to track and keep oversight of these kinds of facilities," she says. "You've got to ingrain more of a safety and security culture in people and the labs." ..."
"... Mr. O'Neal is a European-based editorial page writer for the Journal. ..."
The problem with poeople such as Ms. Lentzos is that they promote the thoery of lab origin
also due to thier political intirests, and affiliations.
Why she ignores the possibility that virus emerged much erlier, possibly in summer of 2019
and not in China? And BTW couple it emerge from UK "novichok" lab in Porton Down ?
Looks like she is another witch hunter.
Ms. Lentzos, who places her own politics on the Swiss "center left," thought that conclusion
premature and said so publicly. In May 2020, she published an
article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists weighing whether "safety lapses in the
course of basic scientific research" caused the pandemic. While acknowledging there was, "as of
yet, little concrete evidence," she noted "several indications that collectively suggest this
is a serious possibility that needs following up by the international community."
She was suggesting an accident, not a deliberate release: "If you're culturing a virus that
is readily able to infect humans, particularly via the respiratory tract, then any droplet
caused by a simple splash or aerosolization of liquid can be inhaled without you realizing it,"
she wrote. "Could an unknowingly infected researcher showing no symptoms unwittingly have
infected family, friends, and anyone else he or she was in contact with? Or was there perhaps
an unnoticed leak of a coronavirus from the lab, from improperly incinerated waste material or
animal carcasses that found their way to rubbish bins that rats or cats could have
accessed?"
She was confident in her argument but "a bit wary about writing it" given that it challenged
the enforced consensus. "It was really sticking my neck out, because no one else was saying it
at the time, even a lot of people who know better. Everyone was just going with the narrative:
"˜Yeah, no, it's natural,' and there's no discussion."
The article barely made a ripple. "If you look at the argumentation that's used today, it's
exactly the same basically as what I laid out, which was, accidents happen," she says. "We know
that they're having questions around safety. We know they were doing this field work. We see
videos where they're in breach of standard biosafety protocol. We know China is manipulating
the narrative, closing down information sources""all of that stuff. All of that is in there.
But it didn't get much traction."
That began to change early this year. Media outlets published articles considering the
possibility of a lab leak. At least five of the Lancet signers have distanced themselves from
the letter. Anthony Fauci and the World Health Organization's Director-General Tedros
Ghebreyesus said the theory merits further study. President Biden ordered the intelligence
community to investigate the question. Even Facebook reversed its ban.
The most significant problem came from the scientific community. "Some of the scientists
in this area very quickly closed ranks," she says, and partisanship wasn't their only motive:
"Like most things in life, there are power plays. There are agendas that are part of the
scientific community. Just like any other community, there are strong vested interests. There
were people that did not talk about this, because they feared for their careers. They feared
for their grants."
Ms. Lentzos counsels against idealizing scientists and in favor of "seeing science and
scientific activity, and how the community works, not as this inner sacred sanctum that's
devoid of any conflicts of interests, or agendas, or any of that stuff, but seeing it as also a
social activity, where there are good players and bad players."
Take Peter Daszak, the zoologist who organized the Lancet letter condemning lab-leak
"conspiracy theories." He had directed millions of dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology
through his nonprofit, EcoHealth Alliance. A lab mistake that killed millions would be bad for
his reputation. Other researchers have taken part in gain-of-function research, which can make
viruses deadlier or easier to transmit. Who would permit, much less fund, such research if it
proved so catastrophic? Yet researchers like Marion Koopmans, who oversees an institution that
has conducted gain-of-function research, had an outsize voice in media. Both she and Mr. Daszak
served on the World Health Organization's origin investigation team.
A scientific consensus isn't always true, and peer review can look like peer pressure. "How
do we know what we know? Well, the way we know in science is you provide references to
everything, all the claims that you make, and you can trace it back," Ms. Lentzos says. The
lab-leak theory began to be treated "like an attack on science, the sciences. And so the
scientists were like, "˜Well, I trust other scientists,' without actually doing the
groundwork." Few nonscientists, including journalists and social-media executives, even have
the capacity to do the groundwork. "For many," she says, "it was a shortcut. "˜Yeah,
scientists are saying this and we also believe in those scientists.' "
... ... ...
The problem is, it matters who speaks. "Your institution, the fact that you have a
doctorate, or the fact that you have previously gotten all of these grants make what you say
weightier than what somebody else, even though they're saying the same thing""even though they
use the same evidence." Ms. Lentzos has a doctorate in sociology and is an associate professor
at King's College London.
As an example, she compares a letter signed by several biologists and immunologists and
published May 14 in Science with another, published earlier in the year, by a less specialized
collection of experts known as "the Paris group." The latter received "a lot of media attention
and stuff, but scientists didn't take that as seriously because it wasn't the right voices
saying it in the right outlets, even though there were many scientists in the group, and a much
more diverse group, including biosafety experts like myself." The difference in reception was
striking, because both letters "said exactly the same thing."
Ms. Lentzos says it's possible Covid-19 originated in the wild, but "as time goes on, there
has been more and more circumstantial evidence for the lab-leak theory that's come out, and
less and less from the natural-spillover theory." With evidence mostly circumstantial, and the
Chinese Communist Party stonewalling, can we ever know? "In a perfect world, it would be open;
we'd have a serious forensic investigation," she says. "Evidence has been deliberately taken
away, or erased, but even time would have just done that anyway."
She says that regardless of Covid's origin, lab safety is crucial for preventing a
future pandemic. "There needs to be a body, an international body that has a mandate to track
and keep oversight of these kinds of facilities," she says. "You've got to ingrain more of a
safety and security culture in people and the labs."
Are international institutions capable of the task? Ms. Lentzos has experience working with
United Nations agencies, including the World Health Organization. "It was incredibly exciting
to finally go in. And then you become more disillusioned when you see how things operate, how
things don't operate," she says. "Like any large organization, they are slow, and inflexible,
and bureaucratic." But, she asks rhetorically, "What is the alternative?"
Last month she co-published a
study on global lab safety, along with an interactive map that tracks biosafety level 4
laboratories such as the one in Wuhan. These labs work with the most dangerous pathogens, but
"there's no international body that has a mandate to track where they are, and to have any
oversight over them. There's no official list of how many of these labs there are in the world,
or where they are." The new project tracks each lab's "levels of transparency, or training, or
membership in various biosafety associations," to assess its potential threat.
... ... ...
She concedes it's unlikely "we'll get anywhere on the origins. We're not going to find the
smoking gun. But I do think we have power to change that narrative."
Mr. O'Neal is a European-based editorial page writer for the Journal.
I give credit to the writer of this op-ed for just sticking to facts and keeping unhinged
right-wing bloviation out of it.
And the facts are:
(1) When researchers like Ms. Lentzos started looking into lab leak theory they had no
evidence whatsoever to refer to. It was just hypothesis and speculation. In science there is
room for such, and it wasn't ever presented as anything different.
(2) Trump, Cotton, and the rest of right-wing blowhards took up lab leak hypothesis as
fact to serve their unhinged narratives in effort to deflect from their abysmal, deadly, and
disastrous handling of the pandemic. They prevented serious researchers from being taken
seriously. Pompeo specifically is so dumb and ignorant that he thinks ACE2 receptor is on the
virus.
(3) When researchers gathered more corroborating evidence the media started taking them
seriously. That's how science works. I do recommend reading up in detail on the group of
researchers calling themselves DRASTIC and their arguments.
Derek M
Why are you so angry toward people that don't share your beliefs and opinions?
MARK KOFMAN
On the contrary" I consider ALL arguments intelligently presented. You, on the other hand,
are too vested in your unhinged right-wing ideology and get angry when reasonable people
debunk and dismiss it. Unhinged right-wing bloviation with no basis in fact whatsoever is
what undermines real scientific research. If Trump and his minions kept their mouths shut
real scientists would be able to do their work unimpeded.
MARK KOFMAN
(4) Peter Daszak is the real anti-hero. He indeed orchestrated effort to silence lab leak
theory researchers to protect his parochial turf, and unhinged right-wingers helped him do it
by conflating serious research with unhinged bloviation and conspiracy theories. Peter Daszak
also conspired with Shi Zhengli (the "Bat Woman" who runs the Wuhan lab), Chinese government,
and WHO to whitewash the Wuhan lab. He and Chinese government made sure that no US scientist
except him (he is of British origin, to be exact) would be allowed to visit China as part of
WHO "investigative" team. Individuals such as this have no place in science and deserve utter
contempt, scorn, and condemnation.
However, lab leak theory has received rebuttals to its key arguments:
(1) Lack of identifiable intermediate animal is not pre-requisite for possibility of
natural transmission in the wild being dismissed, as intermediate animal is not identified in
many cases of confirmed natural transmission in the wild.
MARK KOFMAN
(2) Furin cleavage which is claimed as smoking gun marker of genetic engineering also occurs
naturally, so it isn't necessarily a smoking gun. Furin cleavage makes virus protein binding
to ACE2 cell receptor much easier, and its deliberate engineering is consistent with gain of
function research, but if it also occurs naturally then it's no smoking gun at all.
(3) CGG coding sequence can also occur naturally and isn't necessarily proof of
engineering.
The key point that lab leak theory hinges on is that if virus is engineered then it
definitely came from the lab. But whether it was engineered is still debatable among
scientists.
Lab leak is suggested by pure circumstantial evidence: bat caves being far away from Wuhan
and bats not sold in Wuhan wet market, lab's database of viruses taken offline, deliberate
stonewalling by the Chinese government.
Occam's Razor suggests that lab leak is most likely, but there is no hard proof, so the
most rational response is to keep mind open.
Stephen Gardner
We don't know much more today than we knew a year ago. But we did know:
1. There was NO evidence for the zoonotic origin of the virus.
2. The bats implicated lived a thousand miles away and had no link to the wet market.
3. There was a research lab in Wuhan involved in gain-of-function work which had a bad
grade from State as far as safety protocols went.
4. The CCP destroyed or suppressed evidence, including physical evidence and actual
scientists involved.
(That perhaps is most damning. at this point.)
5. Democrats bend over backwards to protect China, much like Lebron.
6. Democrat media jumped to the conclusion that only racists and conspiracy theorists
could accuse China of a lab leak.
(For Democrat ideologues and hacks, that's the default mode of argument, not just for this
but for everything.)
7. The Democrat media was keen to deny it before any such evidence could be considered one
way or another.
Yes--that's how science works--today.
MARK KOFMAN
You did fine with points 1-4 and then drove into the ditch and proceeded to go off the cliff
with 5-7.
There is also no evidence whatsoever disproving zoonotic origin. SARS-CoV-1 virus was
PROVEN to be zoonotic. Based on what reasoning do you conclude that SARS-CoV-2 is not?
It is precisely this type of ideological bloviation that undermines real researchers. Lab
leak is a theory, NOT a fact. It is a theory that is as EQUALLY valid as zoonotic origin.
The points 2-4 that you cite are all circumstantial at best. Chinese government does not
trust its scientists and doesn't want any investigation whether Chinese scientists are guilty
or not. Better safe than sorry. So Chinese government stonewalling is important
circumstantial data point, but not smoking gun proof by any stretch.
Real researchers present scientific evidence far stronger than your points. Read up on
furin cleavage and CGG coding. It will be far more useful than bloviating purely
circumstantial points as hard fact.
Lilly Wu
Circumstantial evidence points to one conclusion over the other. Read Nicholas Wade's
article. You will see the light.
Oh yeah, and everything he says is true about the Democrats.
MARK KOFMAN
You need to look up the definition of circumstantial evidence. You clearly have no idea what
it means.
Nicholas Wade has his own problems with reputation. The fact that you bring Democrats into
scientific debate only proves that your pursuit is trivial partisan ideology, not science or
search for truth. Read what DRASTIC researchers write.
Lilly Wu
Stephen,
Don't forget this point too. "Both American experts explained that COVID-19 has the genome
sequencing CGC-CGG or "˜ double CGG' which is one of the 36 sequencing patterns. CGC is
rarely used in the class of coronaviruses that can recombine with CoV-2 which is a "damning
fact.". Quay wrote, "The insertion sequence of choice is the double CGG." they further said,
"That's because it is readily available and convenient, and scientists have a great deal of
experience inserting it...An additional advantage of the double CGG sequence compared with
the other 35 possible choices: It creates a useful beacon that permits the scientists to
track the insertion in the laboratory.""
MARK KOFMAN
This point has rebuttal. CGG coding can occur naturally.
Jeffrey Sonheim
Here is the flaw in this ointment:
Ms Lentzos opines: "Well, the way we know in science is you provide references to
everything, all the claims that you make, and you can trace it back". This is not science. It
is not the Scientific Method. And it is not even rational dialog.
The key to Science is Open Ended Questioning. The canary in this mine is the stopping of
exactly this - Open Ended Questioning. And this is exactly what happened by Agenda driven
people hiding under their purported scientific credentials. Once the canary in this mine was
snuffed out, for however long, only politicians remained. Making their silly points. Using
the word "debunked" with nary a shred of proof.
A Scientist with a conflict of interest is no Scientist. At all. Yet we read of exactly
this in the telling of this saga. "Take Peter Daszak", Ms Lentzos further opines. I say take
him and banish him from the realm of Science. Malpractice deserves exactly this outcome.
Bruce Fegley
Worldwide, liberal scientists allowed their political beliefs to destroy the scientific
method and to issue propaganda disguised as scientific facts that argued against the common
sense obvious explanation - accidental release from the virus lab sitting right there at the
center of the COVID outbreak.
Mass Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Pamela Rose
I am reminded of The Story of Louis Pasteur. There are always those in the scientific
community / medical community / publishing communities that have not evolved much in 160+
years. Egos, personal gain & power are still headwinds to real science. Humanity applauds
those that choose actual research & results.
Anne Hall
Then there is the account of Doctor Semmelweis, who hypothesized that physicians and their
unwashed hands were carrying infections to newly delivered mothers, which killed quite a few.
He endured quite terrible treatment from his medical community in 19th century Vienna.
GARY FIELD
In May 2020, she published an article
By then, many of us already suspected the Chinese lab.
In April 2020, Australia called for a full and honest CV-19 reckoning at the World Health
Organization. China immediately responded with economic warfare, targeting Australian imports
and encouraging Chinese citizens to avoid tourism in Australia, and to stop sending their
children there for secondary school and university education..
Normal people thought: "Australia's a well respected country. Why the punitive reaction by
China?" Sadly, either through incompetence or malfeasance, we have come to expect that
journalists and politicians ignore or cover up inconvenient facts. But scientists? Spineless
and/or corrupt. Ms. Lentzos is a brave and welcome exception.
A child would understand that when China reacted furiously, to a respectful call by
Australia for an independent investigation, China was trying to deflect from their guilty and
reckless behavior.
John Brady
I have to agree with Michael McElfrish "This is a conspiracy theory whether the lab is true
or not, because it is irrelevant to what happened. and diverts from the real issue, i.e. how
come the US did not contain ihe disease early when it had the chance to do so?" To have the
esteemed WSJ give voice to conspiracy theories is frustrating. It only supports more COVID
denialism. What does appear to be clear is that regardless there is NO human engeneering.
Rupert Murdoch has destroyed the Journal's once impeccable reputation with drivel like
this.
David Lacey
To the voices that were against the lab leak theory in the beginning, we need to follow the
money trail and how much of that trail would be threatened if it was realized that research
like this was done and supported. Scientists get their funding largely via government grants.
If GOFR was banned, deeply investigated, or funding diminished or dropped due to political
pressure, this group would find perhaps their life's work called into question and funding
imperiled. It would be a natural human response to circle the wagons and point investigators
away from anything that would threaten your work. Readers, connect the dots yourself........
Gary Goodman
SOCIOLOGIST'S GUT SAID NO TO COVID GROUPTHINK
This would have been a more accurate headline. Referring to Dr. Lentos as a "Scientist" in
the article's actual title, is misleading.
From the article it seems she did no rigorous research to support the lab leak inference.
She used casual observation along with email chats with a cohort of frequent doubters.
And her only tentative conclusion is, we may never confirm the source of the virus.
Inadvertently, through its attempts to prop-up Dr. Lentos, the article does support the
useful caveat that any reference to a source's authority and credibility should be treated
with skepticism.
EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak – who collaborated with the Wuhan Institute
of Virology on research funded by Dr. Anthony Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Disease – appears to boast about the manipulation of "killer" SARS-like
coronaviruses carried out by his "colleagues in China" in a clip unearthed by The National
Pulse.
Daszak made the admission at a 2016 forum discussing "emerging infectious diseases and the next
pandemic ," which appears to be at odds with Fauci's repeated
denial of funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
While describing how his organization sequences deadly viruses, Daszak describes the process
of "insert[ing] spike proteins" into viruses to see if they can "bind to human cells" as being
carried out by his "colleagues in China":
"Then when you get a sequence of a virus, and it looks like a relative of a known nasty
pathogen, just like we did with SARS. We found other coronaviruses in bats, a whole host of
them, some of them looked very similar to SARS. So we sequenced the spike protein: the
protein that attaches to cells. Then we
Well I didn't do this work, but my colleagues in China did the work. You create pseudo
particles, you insert the spike proteins from those viruses, see if they bind to human cells.
At each step of this you move closer and closer to this virus could really become pathogenic
in people.
" You end up with a small number of viruses that really do look like killers ," he
adds.
https://rumble.com/embed/vfmkr9/?pub=4
The comments follow growing evidence that Fauci's NIAID has deep financial and personnel
ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology – and that Daszak's EcoHealth alliance was one of
the primary proxies funneling the
money to the Chinese Communist Party lab.
Over a
dozen research papers carried out under a $3.7 million National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Disease (NIAID) grant list the Wuhan Lab's Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases
Director Shi Zhengli as a co-author alongside Daszak. Shi has included
these Fauci-backed grants on her resume.
The Wuhan lab has also listed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as one of its
"partners," secretly erasing
the mention in March 2021.
That's how long "The Science" has been working on getting an mRNA vaccine approved by
the FDA...and in all that time, XERO, ZERO, NOT A SINGLE vaccine ( for prevention ) has
"made it to market".
Why did they fail?
Answer that before you let them inject you with an "emergency use" mRNA that has SKIPPED
all of the testing that killed 30 years worth of previous mRNA drug trials.
And it's true that no mRNA vaccine has ever made it to market, but some have tried. These
will be the first to be approved, if they are...
If mRNA is so great, has "
spectacular " initial findings for effectiveness at preventing transmission of
COVID-19, and works so cleverly, then why are we hesitating?
Well, how something performs in a clinical trial, where circumstances are closely
controlled, doesn't show all the sides of its use in real life...
Well I didn't do this work, but my colleagues in China did the work. You create pseudo
particles, you insert the spike proteins from those viruses, see if they bind to human
cells. At each step of this you move closer and closer to this virus could really become
pathogenic in people.
lwilland1012 6 hours ago
"Pathogenic priming." The bastards knew all long
Mr. Bones 5 hours ago
I'm a simple hairless monke, can someone make this complicated for me because I think I
understand:
Peter Daszak is in charge of the 2021 WHO investigation to determine if covid-19, a bat
coronavirus which has very specific 'spike proteins,' came from the Wuhan Institute of
Virology (WIV).
Peter Daszak is also on video bearing the C-SPAN logo talking about how WIV was
manipulating 'spike proteins' in bat coronaviruses to make them more virulent to humans in
2016.
Odd that he didn't disclose this knowledge that he seemed so proud of just 5 years ago.
I wonder why he didn't?
The messages started coming a little more than a month ago, first on social media and
eventually by email.
By March, Kari Debbink, a professor at Bowie State University who holds a doctorate from
UNC-Chapel Hill, had received her first death threat.
The reason: She was being accused of helping create the novel coronavirus, which has caused
the COVID-19 pandemic that has shut down much of the world, in a lab in North Carolina.
"To me it is just unbelievable that I would end up in a position to have someone think I
could start a global pandemic," she said in a phone interview with The News & Observer. "I
reported it to the police and they were just like, 'What is going on?'"
As COVID-19 spread at the start of the year, so did rumors and speculation about its origin.
Some said it was a biological weapon developed by the Chinese, or that it escaped from a
laboratory accidentally or even that the disease was amplified by 5G technology.
One unfounded theory that many internet users have latched onto and that
has been amplified by right wing news channels, like One America News, has placed its
sights on North Carolina. It claims -- falsely -- that COVID-19 was created at UNC-Chapel Hill,
specifically in the lab of Ralph Baric, where Debbink once worked.
Baric is one of the world's preeminent researchers of coronaviruses -- having studied the
family of viruses known for their crown-like shape for 30 years. His lab on the UNC campus was
one of the first places in the U.S. to
receive a sample of the novel coronavirus earlier this year to begin conducting tests.
And while experts and researchers in the field who have examined the genomic structure of
COVID-19 have overwhelmingly concluded that the virus originated in wildlife, the UNC rumor has
continued to spread on social media and message boards.
Stated simply, scientists have reported that the makeup of the virus points to it being the
result of natural evolution rather than bio-engineering.
Debbink worked in Baric's lab while pursuing her doctorate at UNC, which is how she came to
be a target online. She believes Baric has been tied up in conspiracy theories because of a
lack of scientific knowledge among the general public.
"Not everybody is able to read a scientific paper and understand it," she said. "It
is very easy for someone to watch a video that makes [false information] seem like a totally
legitimate idea."
It's unnerving, she added, to see people make threats over something they likely don't
understand.
Baric's name appears to have been swept up into theories around the new coronavirus because
of a 2015 paper he co-authored with more than a dozen other scientists, including
one associated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology , a lab located near the epicenter of
the COVID-19 outbreak.
That paper showed
coronaviruses in bats were capable of directly infecting humans rather than evolving in another
animal first. Bats have been shown to be responsible for other coronaviruses in the past, like
SARS and MERS, though the virus passed through a different animal host before infecting humans
in those cases.
To prove this, the scientists created a a hybrid version of a bat coronavirus and used it to
infect mice whose modified genomes mimicked human lung receptors. Creating an infectious virus
for experiments -- also known as "gain-of-function research" -- had become a topic of debate
around the time of the 2015 study.
Some fellow scientists, Nature
reported , questioned whether the insights from gain-of-function research were worth the
risks, however slim they might be. Baric told Nature that without the research that particular
coronavirus strain -- which is different from the one causing COVID-19 -- would not be viewed
as a threat that requires more attention.
In 2014, the U.S. government decided it would stop funding
gain-of-function research , though Baric's study was underway and was grandfathered in. The
National Institutes of Health deemed the study not risky enough to fall under the moratorium on
funding, Baric told Nature in 2015.
The lingering literature around the debate appears to have drawn attention to Baric's work.
An editor's note attached to the top of Nature's article about the debate now reads: "We are
aware that this story is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel
coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true."
Debbink, who helped author Baric's 2015 paper, said everyone involved with that research has
been targeted online by harassers who are accusing them of creating a biological
weapon.
EXPERT RESEARCH SHOWS THE VIRUS DIDN'T COME FROM A LAB
But since COVID-19, just one of several known coronavirus strains in the world, has had a
chance to be studied, scientists have been resolute in saying there's no proof of it being
engineered by humans. On the contrary it appears to be quite natural in origin, likely coming
from bats, they say.
The authors of the study found no connection between Baric's research and the new pandemic
-- because the hybrid Baric used and the virus that causes COVID-19 are completely different
strains.
"This claim lacks any scientific basis and must be discounted...," the authors wrote.
"[T]here is no credible evidence to support [it]."
Susan Weiss, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and an author of
the article, said she didn't have time to talk to an N&O reporter about the false theories
but added, "The conspiracy theory is ridiculous."
In February, The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal, published
a statement "strongly condemn[ing] conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not
have a natural origin."
The group of scientists who published the statement cited nine different genomic analyses
that all pointed overwhelmingly toward a natural origin of the virus.
"Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumors, and prejudice that jeopardize our
global collaboration in the fight against this virus," the scientists in The Lancet wrote.
Debbink said she doesn't expect researchers to slow down their work because of the
conspiracy theories, but she is worried about the long-term consequences of them.
"I think conspiracy theories are very harmful to the public discourse," she said, "... less
so because of people like me getting death threats ... but because they degrade the public
trust in science and confuse people."
Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses. So the possibility
that the SARS2 virus had escaped from the lab could not be ruled out. Two reasonable scenarios of origin were on the table.
From early on, public and media perceptions were shaped in favor of the natural emergence scenario by strong statements from two
scientific groups. These statements were not at first examined as critically as they should have been.
"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin," a group of
virologists and others wrote in the
Lancet
on
February 19, 2020, when it was really far too soon for anyone to be sure what had happened. Scientists "overwhelmingly conclude that
this coronavirus originated in wildlife," they said, with a stirring rallying call for readers to stand with Chinese colleagues on
the frontline of fighting the disease.
Contrary to the letter writers' assertion, the idea that the virus might have escaped from a lab invoked accident, not conspiracy.
It surely needed to be explored, not rejected out of hand. A defining mark of good scientists is that they go to great pains to
distinguish between what they know and what they don't know. By this criterion, the signatories of the Lancet letter were behaving
as poor scientists: they were assuring the public of facts they could not know for sure were true.
It later turned out that the Lancet letter had been
organised
and drafted
by Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance of New York. Dr. Daszak's organization funded coronavirus
research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. If the SARS2 virus had indeed escaped from research he funded, Dr. Daszak would be
potentially culpable. This acute conflict of interest was not declared to the Lancet's readers. To the contrary, the letter
concluded, "We declare no competing interests."Virologists like Dr. Daszak had much at stake in the assigning of blame for the
pandemic. For 20 years, mostly beneath the public's attention, they had been playing a dangerous game. In their laboratories they
routinely created viruses more dangerous than those that exist in nature. They argued they could do so safely, and that by getting
ahead of nature they could predict and prevent natural "spillovers," the cross-over of viruses from an animal host to people. If
SARS2 had indeed escaped from such a laboratory experiment, a savage blowback could be expected, and the storm of public indignation
would affect virologists everywhere, not just in China. "It would shatter the scientific edifice top to bottom," an MIT Technology
Review editor, Antonio Regalado,
said
in
March 2020.
A second statement which had enormous influence in shaping public attitudes was a
letter
(in
other words an opinion piece, not a scientific article) published on March 17, 2020, in the journal
Nature
Medicine.
Its authors were a group of virologists led by Kristian G. Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute. "Our analyses
clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus," the five virologists declared in
the second paragraph of their letter.
Unfortunately this was another case of poor science, in the sense defined above. True, some older methods of cutting and pasting
viral genomes retain tell-tale signs of manipulation. But newer methods, called "no-see-um" or "seamless" approaches, leave no
defining marks. Nor do other methods for manipulating viruses such as serial passage, the repeated transfer of viruses from one
culture of cells to another. If a virus has been manipulated, whether with a seamless method or by serial passage, there is no way
of knowing that this is the case. Dr. Andersen and his colleagues were assuring their readers of something they could not know.
The discussion part their letter begins, "It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related
SARS-CoV-like coronavirus". But wait, didn't the lead say the virus had
clearly
not
been manipulated? The authors' degree of certainty seemed to slip several notches when it came to laying out their reasoning.
The reason for the slippage is clear once the technical language has been penetrated. The two reasons the authors give for supposing
manipulation to be improbable are decidedly inconclusive.
First, they say that the spike protein of SARS2 binds very well to its target, the human ACE2 receptor, but does so in a different
way from that which physical calculations suggest would be the best fit. Therefore the virus must have arisen by natural selection,
not manipulation.
If this argument seems hard to grasp, it's because it's so strained. The authors' basic assumption, not spelt out, is that anyone
trying to make a bat virus bind to human cells could do so in only one way. First they would calculate the strongest possible fit
between the human ACE2 receptor and the spike protein with which the virus latches onto it. They would then design the spike protein
accordingly (by selecting the right string of amino acid units that compose it). But since the SARS2 spike protein is not of this
calculated best design, the Andersen paper says, therefore it can't have been manipulated.
But this ignores the way that virologists do in fact get spike proteins to bind to chosen targets, which is not by calculation but
by splicing in spike protein genes from other viruses or by serial passage. With serial passage, each time the virus's progeny are
transferred to new cell cultures or animals, the more successful are selected until one emerges that makes a really tight bind to
human cells. Natural selection has done all the heavy lifting. The Andersen paper's speculation about designing a viral spike
protein through calculation has no bearing on whether or not the virus was manipulated by one of the other two methods.
The authors' second argument against manipulation is even more contrived. Although most living things use DNA as their hereditary
material, a number of viruses use RNA, DNA's close chemical cousin. But RNA is difficult to manipulate, so researchers working on
coronaviruses, which are RNA-based, will first convert the RNA genome to DNA. They manipulate the DNA version, whether by adding or
altering genes, and then arrange for the manipulated DNA genome to be converted back into infectious RNA.
Only a certain number of these DNA backbones have been described in the scientific literature. Anyone manipulating the SARS2 virus
"would probably" have used one of these known backbones, the Andersen group writes, and since SARS2 is not derived from any of them,
therefore it was not manipulated. But the argument is conspicuously inconclusive. DNA backbones are quite easy to make, so it's
obviously possible that SARS2 was manipulated using an unpublished DNA backbone.
And that's it. These are the two arguments made by the Andersen group in support of their declaration that the SARS2 virus was
clearly not manipulated. And this conclusion, grounded in nothing but two inconclusive speculations, convinced the world's press
that SARS2 could not have escaped from a lab. A technical critique of the Andersen letter takes it down in
harsher
words
.
Science is supposedly a self-correcting community of experts who constantly check each other's work. So why didn't other virologists
point out that the Andersen group's argument was full of absurdly large holes? Perhaps because in today's universities speech can be
very costly. Careers can be destroyed for stepping out of line. Any virologist who challenges the community's declared view risks
having his next grant application turned down by the panel of fellow virologists that advises the government grant distribution
agency.
The Daszak and Andersen letters were really political, not scientific statements, yet were amazingly effective. Articles in the
mainstream press repeatedly stated that a consensus of experts had ruled lab escape out of the question or extremely unlikely. Their
authors relied for the most part on the Daszak and Andersen letters, failing to understand the yawning gaps in their arguments.
Mainstream newspapers all have science journalists on their staff, as do the major networks, and these specialist reporters are
supposed to be able to question scientists and check their assertions. But the Daszak and Andersen assertions went largely
unchallenged.
Natural emergence was the media's preferred theory until around February 2021 and the visit by a World Health Organization
commission to China. The commission's composition and access were heavily controlled by the Chinese authorities. Its members, who
included the ubiquitous Dr. Daszak, kept asserting before, during and after their visit that lab escape was extremely unlikely. But
this was not quite the propaganda victory the Chinese authorities may have been hoping for. What became clear was that the Chinese
had no evidence to offer the commission in support of the natural emergence theory.
This was surprising because both the SARS1 and MERS viruses had left copious traces in the environment. The intermediary host
species of SARS1 was identified
within
four months
of the epidemic's outbreak, and the host of MERS within nine months. Yet some 15 months after the SARS2 pandemic
began, and a presumably intensive search, Chinese researchers had failed to find either the original bat population, or the
intermediate species to which SARS2 might have jumped, or any serological evidence that any Chinese population, including that of
Wuhan, had ever been exposed to the virus prior to December 2019. Natural emergence remained a conjecture which, however plausible
to begin with, had gained not a shred of supporting evidence in over a year.
And as long as that remains the case, it's logical to pay serious attention to the alternative conjecture, that SARS2 escaped from a
lab.
Colorised
transmission electron micrograph showing particles of the MERS coronavirus that emerged in 2012. Image: NIAID/Flickr, CC BY 2.0
PIN
IT
Why would anyone want to create a novel virus capable of causing a pandemic? Ever since virologists gained the tools for
manipulating a virus's genes, they have argued they could get ahead of a potential pandemic by exploring how close a given animal
virus might be to making the jump to humans. And that justified lab experiments in enhancing the ability of dangerous animal viruses
to infect people, virologists asserted.
With this rationale, they have recreated the 1918 flu virus, shown how the almost extinct polio virus can be synthesised from its
published DNA sequence, and introduced a smallpox gene into a related virus.
These enhancements of viral capabilities are known blandly as gain-of-function experiments. With coronaviruses, there was particular
interest in the spike proteins, which jut out all around the spherical surface of the virus and pretty much determine which species
of animal it will target. In 2000 Dutch researchers, for instance, earned the gratitude of rodents everywhere by
genetically
engineering
the spike protein of a mouse coronavirus so that it would attack only cats.
Virologists started studying bat coronaviruses in earnest after these turned out to be the source of both the SARS1 and MERS
epidemics. In particular, researchers wanted to understand what changes needed to occur in a bat virus's spike proteins before it
could infect people.
Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, led by China's leading expert on bat viruses, Dr. Shi Zheng-li or "Bat Lady",
mounted frequent expeditions to the bat-infested caves of Yunnan in southern China and collected around a hundred different bat
coronaviruses.
Security
personnel stand outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology, February 3, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Thomas Peter
PIN
IT
Dr. Shi then teamed up with Ralph S. Baric, an eminent coronavirus researcher at the University of North Carolina.
Their
work
focused on enhancing the ability of bat viruses to attack humans so as to "examine the emergence potential (that is, the
potential to infect humans) of circulating bat CoVs [coronaviruses]." In pursuit of this aim, in November 2015 they created a novel
virus by taking the backbone of the SARS1 virus and replacing its spike protein with one from a bat virus (known as SHC014-CoV).
This manufactured virus was able to infect the cells of the human airway, at least when tested against a lab culture of such cells.
The SHC014-CoV/SARS1 virus is known as a chimera because its genome contains genetic material from two strains of virus. If the
SARS2 virus were to have been cooked up in Dr. Shi's lab, then its direct prototype would have been the SHC014-CoV/SARS1 chimera,
the potential danger of which concerned many observers and prompted intense discussion.
"If the virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,"
said
Simon
Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
Dr. Baric and Dr. Shi referred to the obvious risks in their paper but argued they should be weighed against the benefit of
foreshadowing future spillovers. Scientific review panels, they wrote, "may deem similar studies building chimeric viruses based on
circulating strains too risky to pursue." Given various restrictions being placed on gain-of function (GOF) research, matters had
arrived in their view at "a crossroads of GOF research concerns; the potential to prepare for and mitigate future outbreaks must be
weighed against the risk of creating more dangerous pathogens. In developing policies moving forward, it is important to consider
the value of the data generated by these studies and whether these types of chimeric virus studies warrant further investigation
versus the inherent risks involved."
That statement was made in 2015. From the hindsight of 2021, one can say that the value of gain-of-function studies in preventing
the SARS2 epidemic was zero. The risk was catastrophic, if indeed the SARS2 virus was generated in a gain-of-function experiment.
Dr. Baric had developed, and taught Dr. Shi, a general method for engineering bat coronaviruses to attack other species. The
specific targets were human cells grown in cultures and humanised mice. These laboratory mice, a cheap and ethical stand-in for
human subjects, are genetically engineered to carry the human version of a protein called ACE2 that studs the surface of cells that
line the airways.
Dr. Shi returned to her lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and resumed the work she had started on genetically engineering
coronaviruses to attack human cells.
How can we be so sure?
Because, by a strange twist in the story, her work was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),
a part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). And grant proposals that funded her work, which are a matter of public
record, specify exactly what she planned to do with the money.
The grants were assigned to the prime contractor, Dr. Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, who subcontracted them to Dr. Shi. Here are
extracts from the grants for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. "CoV" stands for coronavirus and "S protein" refers to the virus's spike
protein.
"Test predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. Predictive models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) will be tested
experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments across a range of
cell cultures from different species and
humanised
mice
."
"We will use S protein sequence data,
infectious
clone technology
,
in
vitro
and
in
vivo
infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein
sequences predict spillover potential."
What this means, in non-technical language, is that Dr. Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible
infectivity for human cells. Her plan was to take genes that coded for spike proteins possessing a variety of measured affinities
for human cells, ranging from high to low. She would insert these spike genes one by one into the backbone of a number of viral
genomes ("reverse genetics" and "infectious clone technology"), creating a series of chimeric viruses. These chimeric viruses would
then be tested for their ability to attack human cell cultures ("in vitro") and humanised mice ("in vivo"). And this information
would help predict the likelihood of "spillover," the jump of a coronavirus from bats to people.
The methodical approach was designed to find the best combination of coronavirus backbone and spike protein for infecting human
cells. The approach could have generated SARS2-like viruses, and indeed may have created the SARS2 virus itself with the right
combination of virus backbone and spike protein.
It cannot yet be stated that Dr. Shi did or did not generate SARS2 in her lab because her records have been sealed, but it seems she
was certainly on the right track to have done so. "It is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing
novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice," says Richard H.
Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and leading expert on biosafety.
"It is also clear," Dr. Ebright said, "that, depending on the constant genomic contexts chosen for analysis, this work could have
produced SARS-CoV-2 or a proximal progenitor of SARS-CoV-2." "Genomic context" refers to the particular viral backbone used as the
testbed for the spike protein.
The lab escape scenario for the origin of the SARS2 virus, as should by now be evident, is not mere hand-waving in the direction of
the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It is a detailed proposal, based on the specific project being funded there by the NIAID.
Even if the grant required the work plan described above, how can we be sure that the plan was in fact carried out? For that we can
rely on the word of Dr. Daszak, who has been much protesting for the last 15 months that lab escape was a ludicrous
conspiracy
theory
invented by China-bashers.
On December 9, 2019, before the outbreak of the pandemic became generally known, Dr. Daszak gave an
interview
in
which he talked in glowing terms of how researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been reprogramming the spike protein and
generating chimeric coronaviruses capable of infecting humanised mice.
"And we have now found, you know, after 6 or 7 years of doing this, over 100 new SARS-related coronaviruses, very close to SARS,"
Dr. Daszak says around minute 28 of the interview. "Some of them get into human cells in the lab, some of them can cause SARS
disease in humanised mice models and are untreatable with therapeutic monoclonals and you can't vaccinate against them with a
vaccine. So, these are a clear and present danger
"Interviewer: You say these are diverse coronaviruses and you can't vaccinate against them, and no anti-virals – so what do we do?
"Daszak: Well I think coronaviruses – you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily. Spike protein drives a lot of what happen
with coronavirus, in zoonotic risk. So you can get the sequence, you can build the protein, and we work a lot with Ralph Baric at
UNC to do this. Insert into the backbone of another virus and do some work in the lab. So you can get more predictive when you find
a sequence. You've got this diversity. Now the logical progression for vaccines is, if you are going to develop a vaccine for SARS,
people are going to use pandemic SARS, but let's insert some of these other things and get a better vaccine." The insertions he
referred to perhaps included an element called the furin cleavage site, discussed below, which greatly increases viral infectivity
for human cells.
In disjointed style, Dr. Daszak is referring to the fact that once you have generated a novel coronavirus that can attack human
cells, you can take the spike protein and make it the basis for a vaccine.
One can only imagine Dr. Daszak's reaction when he heard of the outbreak of the epidemic in Wuhan a few days later. He would have
known better than anyone the Wuhan Institute's goal of making bat coronaviruses infectious to humans, as well as the weaknesses in
the institute's defense against their own researchers becoming infected.
But instead of providing public health authorities with the plentiful information at his disposal, he immediately launched a public
relations campaign to persuade the world that the epidemic couldn't possibly have been caused by one of the institute's souped-up
viruses. "The idea that this virus escaped from a lab is just pure baloney. It's simply not true," he declared in an April 2020
interview
.
WSJ became much like ZH pushing "china lab leak" hypotheses. Why the possibility of Fort
Detrick leak or Barric lab leak ( Dr Ralph Baric didn't
create Covid-19 - weehingthong ) is ignored ? "In 2014, the U.S. government decided it would
stop funding
gain-of-function research , though Baric's study was underway and was grandfathered in. The
National Institutes of Health deemed the study not risky enough to fall under the moratorium on
funding, Baric told Nature in 2015...Debbink, who helped author Baric's 2015 paper, said everyone
involved with that research has been targeted online by harassers who are accusing them of
creating a biological weapon."
Top scientist said the virus couldn't have evolved naturally
-- then reversed his position weeks later.
Notable quotes:
"... The Andersen team in its letter discusses how the virus could have acquired the furin cleavage site naturally. Their best suggestion is that SARS-CoV-2 picked up the necessary genetic information from people after it had made its jump from bats. But no evidence for this idea has emerged. And it's hard to see why the Andersen team decided that this conjecture should outweigh the appearance of laboratory manipulation. ..."
They told the world that the Covid-19 virus clearly couldn't have been manipulated in the
laboratory. But what they actually thought at first sight was that it had been.
The letter from five virologists published in Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020, was the
single most influential statement in capturing the public narrative about the origin of
SARS-CoV-2. Here was an authoritative statement from leading experts assuring the public that
in terms of the virus's origin "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is
plausible."
But that's the exact opposite of what these experts thought after taking their first look at
the virus. A large batch of emails exchanged with Anthony Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was made available this week to BuzzFeed and the
Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act. For the most part the emails concern
meeting arrangements or messages from cranks and have been redacted of any meaningful
information. But one significant email escaped the censor's black marker.
On Jan. 31, 2020, shortly after the SARS-CoV-2 genome had been decoded, Kristian Andersen,
the five virologists' leader, emailed Dr. Fauci that there were "unusual features" in the
virus. These took up only a small percentage of the genome, so that "one has to look really
closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look
engineered."
Mr. Andersen went on to note that he and his team "all find the genome inconsistent with
expectations from evolutionary theory." It isn't clear exactly what he meant by this striking
phrase. But anything inconsistent with an evolutionary origin has to be man-made.
This remarkable email establishes that the Andersen team's initial reaction was to suspect
that SARS-CoV-2 had been engineered in a lab. Their subsequent letter doesn't adequately
explain how they overcame this impression.
The furin cleavage site, a small element of the virus that they doubtless had in mind when
referring to "unusual features," is an anomalous genetic insertion that could be a sign of
laboratory manipulation. The distinguished virologist David Baltimore has called it a smoking
gun and "a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for SARS2."
The Andersen team in its letter discusses how the virus could have acquired the furin
cleavage site naturally. Their best suggestion is that SARS-CoV-2 picked up the necessary
genetic information from people after it had made its jump from bats. But no evidence for this
idea has emerged. And it's hard to see why the Andersen team decided that this conjecture
should outweigh the appearance of laboratory manipulation.
As virologists, all had a professional interest in not provoking a storm of public
condemnation over gain-of-function experiments, the bland name for genetically enhancing the
pathogenic power of viruses. After taking one look at the horrific possibility that a lab leak
origin for SARS-CoV-2 might cause virology labs all over the world to be closed down, it would
seem, the Andersen team decided to disregard their first impressions of possible manipulation.
Recall what they said in their letter: "We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based
scenario is plausible."
Dr. Fauci has long suggested that the virus emerged naturally -- until the past few weeks,
when he started to allow that lab escape is possible and should be investigated. The Jan. 31,
2020, email from Mr. Andersen shows that Dr. Fauci knew from the beginning that experts had
serious suspicions about the virus's origins. There were many other matters on his agenda at
the time, but it's too bad he didn't ask for an independent panel, one not dominated by
virologists, to look into the possibility that Chinese researchers genetically manipulating
coronaviruses in low-level safety conditions had sparked a global pandemic.
Mr. Wade is a science writer who has worked for Nature, Science and the New York Times .
Former President Donald Trump planned to haul Anthony Fauci in front of a US presidential
commission as part of a larger effort to hold China and its collaborators responsible for the
pandemic, according to The Australian .
Trump's team, spearheaded by adviser Peter Navarro, had gone so far as to draft an executive
order and compile a reparations bill , however the advanced plans were scrapped at the last
minute after Trump's ever-helpful advisers (Larry Kudlow in particular) talked him out of it,
according to an upcoming book on the origins of COVID-19, What
Really Happened in Wuhan .
Mr Trump was "enthusiastic" about creating a presidential commission similar to those
whichprobed the 9/11 terror attacks and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
A White House executive order was drafted in August 2020 stating: "By the authority vested
inme as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is
hereby ordered as follows: The National Commission on the Origins and Costs of COVID-19 is
hereby established." -
The Australian
The executive order was adviser Peter Navaro's idea, and had the support of Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo. Trump wanted Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) to head up the commission, according to
the draft Executive Order, while Pompeo's senior policy adviser Mary Kissell and China adviser
Miles Yu were slated to act as co-chair and vice co-chair or executive director.
Sessions on geopolitics and a general from Fort Detrick - home to the US biological defense
program in Maryland, would run the virology portion of the inquiry - during which Fauci would
be brought in to explain why he funded risky coronavirus research in Wuhan . Peter Daszak, head
of nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance (who received millions in funding from Fauci's NIH) would be
grilled on the missing WIV virus database, among other things.
Other revelations from the book include:
President Biden scrapped a State Department effort by its Arms, Control, Verification and
Compliance Unit to formally confront China in Geneva over its cover-up of the rapidly
spreading virus, as well as alleged breaches of the biological weapons convention in the
Wuhan lab.
US officials suspected that China had developed a vaccine prior to the COVID-19 outbreak
in a "sensitive but unclassified" internal report.
US intelligence agencies sought advice from the highly-conflicted Daszak and Ralph Baric
over whether the virus had a 'natural origin' or a laboratory origin. Daszak and Barick (of
the University of North Carolina) both have long histories working with bat researchers at
the Wuhan Institute of virology , and have insisted the virus could have only emerged via
natural origin. As a result, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a
statement saying it could not have been man-made.
According to the book, the executive order states that the commission would be tasked with
investigating "the origins of the COVID-19pandemic; the economic, political social, human, and
other costs of the pandemic borne by the United States; and whether the People's Republic of
China or the Chinese Communist Party have used the pandemic to advance their own economic,
geopolitical, military, or territorial agendas," and would tally a bill to send to Beijing "to
recover any damages as well as all costs estimated."
Abridged version. See the original for full version.
Notable quotes:
"... In October 2014, the Obama administration imposed a moratorium on new funding for gain-of-function research projects that could make influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses more virulent or transmissible. But a footnote to the statement announcing the moratorium carved out an exception for cases deemed "urgently necessary to protect the public health or national security." ..."
"... the review process shrouded in secrecy. "The names of reviewers are not released, and the details of the experiments to be considered are largely secret," said the Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Marc Lipsitch, whose advocacy against gain-of-function research helped prompt the moratorium. ..."
"... In May 2014, five months before the moratorium on gain-of-function research was announced, EcoHealth secured a NIAID grant of roughly $3.7 million, which it allocated in part to various entities engaged in collecting bat samples, building models, and performing gain-of-function experiments to see which animal viruses were able to jump to humans. The grant was not halted under the moratorium or the P3CO framework. ..."
"... Shi Zhengli herself listed U.S. government grant support of more than $1.2 million on her curriculum vitae: $665,000 from the NIH between 2014 and 2019; and $559,500 over the same period from USAID. At least some of those funds were routed through EcoHealth Alliance. ..."
"... EcoHealth Alliance's practice of divvying up large government grants into smaller sub-grants for individual labs and institutions gave it enormous sway within the field of virology. The sums at stake allow it to "purchase a lot of omertà" from the labs it supports, said Richard Ebright of Rutgers. ..."
"... now the spin doctors come around pointing the finger at china. Sure, china may have done the experimentation and research, but where did the funding, research resources, training, and direction come from? ..."
"... The US banned bioweapon development (in the US) and moved it to China with Fraudci in charge so that they could do human experiments and make lots of money on GMO "vaccines" And now the US is trying to spin the story and put the blame on China ..."
As the NSC tracked these disparate clues, U.S. government virologists advising them flagged
one study first submitted in April 2020. Eleven of its 23 coauthors worked for the Academy of
Military Medical Sciences, the Chinese army's medical research institute. Using the
gene-editing technology known as CRISPR, the researchers had engineered mice with humanized
lungs, then studied their susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2. As the NSC officials worked backward
from the date of publication to establish a timeline for the study, it became clear that the
mice had been engineered sometime in the summer of 2019, before the pandemic even started. The
NSC officials were left wondering: Had the Chinese military been running viruses through
humanized mouse models, to see which might be infectious to humans?
In October 2014, the Obama administration imposed a moratorium on new funding for
gain-of-function research projects that could make influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses more
virulent or transmissible. But a footnote to the statement announcing the moratorium carved out
an exception for cases deemed "urgently necessary to protect the public health or national
security."
In the first year of the Trump administration, the moratorium was lifted and replaced with a
review system called the HHS P3CO Framework (for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and
Oversight). It put the onus for ensuring the safety of any such research on the federal
department or agency funding it. This left the review process shrouded in secrecy. "The names
of reviewers are not released, and the details of the experiments to be considered are largely
secret," said the Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Marc Lipsitch, whose advocacy against
gain-of-function research helped prompt the moratorium. (An NIH spokesperson told Vanity
Fair that "information about individual unfunded applications is not public to preserve
confidentiality and protect sensitive information, preliminary data, and intellectual
property.")
Inside the NIH, which funded such research, the P3CO framework was largely met with shrugs
and eye rolls, said a longtime agency official: "If you ban gain-of-function research, you ban
all of virology." He added, "Ever since the moratorium, everyone's gone wink-wink and just done
gain-of-function research anyway."
British-born Peter Daszak, 55, is the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York
City–based nonprofit with the laudable goal of preventing the outbreak of emerging
diseases by safeguarding ecosystems. In May 2014, five months before the moratorium on
gain-of-function research was announced, EcoHealth secured a NIAID grant of roughly $3.7
million, which it allocated in part to various entities engaged in collecting bat samples,
building models, and performing gain-of-function experiments to see which animal viruses were
able to jump to humans. The grant was not halted under the moratorium or the P3CO
framework.
By 2018, EcoHealth Alliance was pulling in up to $15 million a year in grant money from an
array of federal agencies, including the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland
Security, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to 990 tax exemption
forms it filed with the New York State Attorney General's Charities Bureau. Shi Zhengli herself
listed U.S. government grant support of more than $1.2 million on her curriculum vitae:
$665,000 from the NIH between 2014 and 2019; and $559,500 over the same period from USAID. At
least some of those funds were routed through EcoHealth Alliance.
EcoHealth Alliance's practice of divvying up large government grants into smaller sub-grants
for individual labs and institutions gave it enormous sway within the field of virology. The
sums at stake allow it to "purchase a lot of omertà" from the labs it supports, said
Richard Ebright of Rutgers. (In response to detailed questions, an EcoHealth Alliance
spokesperson said on behalf of the organization and Daszak, "We have no comment.")
In July, the NIH attempted to backtrack. It reinstated the grant but suspended its research
activities until EcoHealth Alliance fulfilled seven conditions, some of which went beyond the
nonprofit's purview and seemed to stray into tinfoil-hat territory. They included: providing
information on the "apparent disappearance" of a Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher, who
was rumored on social media to be patient zero, and explaining diminished cell phone traffic
and roadblocks around the WIV in October 2019.
Ebright likened Daszak's model of research -- bringing samples from a remote area to an
urban one, then sequencing and growing viruses and attempting to genetically modify them to
make them more virulent -- to "looking for a gas leak with a lighted match." Moreover, Ebright
believed that Daszak's research had failed in its stated purpose of predicting and preventing
pandemics through its global collaborations.
It soon emerged, based on emails obtained by a Freedom of Information group called U.S.
Right to Know, that Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet
statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific
unanimity.
Under the subject line, "No need for you to sign the "Statement" Ralph!!," he wrote to two
scientists, including UNC's Dr. Ralph Baric, who had collaborated with Shi Zhengli on the
gain-of-function study that created a coronavirus capable of infecting human cells: "you, me
and him should not sign this statement, so it has some distance from us and therefore doesn't
work in a counterproductive way." Daszak added, "We'll then put it out in a way that doesn't
link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice."
Baric agreed, writing back, "Otherwise it looks self-serving and we lose impact."
Baric did not sign the statement. In the end, Daszak did. At least six other signers had
either worked at, or had been funded by, EcoHealth Alliance. The statement ended with a
declaration of objectivity: "We declare no competing interests."
Daszak mobilized so quickly for a reason, said Jamie Metzl: "If zoonosis was the origin,
it was a validation of his life work . But if the pandemic started as part of a lab leak, it
had the potential to do to virology what Three Mile Island and Chernobyl did to nuclear
science." It could mire the field indefinitely in moratoriums and funding restrictions.
In a CNN interview on March 26, Dr. Redfield, the former CDC director under Trump, made a
candid admission: "I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of
this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped." Redfield added that he
believed the release was an accident, not an intentional act. In his view, nothing that
happened since his first calls with Dr. Gao changed a simple fact: The WIV needed to be ruled
out as a source, and it hadn't been.
After the interview aired, death threats flooded his inbox. The vitriol came not just from
strangers who thought he was being racially insensitive but also from prominent scientists,
some of whom used to be his friends. One said he should just "wither and die."
Peter Daszak was getting death threats too, some from QAnon conspirators.
Inside the U.S. government, meanwhile, the lab-leak hypothesis had survived the transition
from Trump to Biden. On April 15, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the House
Intelligence Committee that two "plausible theories" were being weighed: a lab accident or
natural emergence.
Even so, lab-leak talk was mostly confined to right-wing news outlets through April,
gleefully flogged by Tucker Carlson and studiously avoided by most of the mainstream media. In
Congress, the Energy and Commerce Committee's Republican minority had launched its own inquiry,
but there was little buy-in from Democrats and the NIH didn't provide responses to its lengthy
list of demands for information.
The ground began to shift on May 2, when Nicholas Wade, a former New York Times
science writer known in part for writing a controversial book about how genes shape the social
behavior of different races, published a lengthy
essay on Medium. In it, he analyzed the scientific clues both for and against a lab leak,
and excoriated the media for its failure to report on the dueling hypotheses. Wade devoted a
full section to the "furin cleavage site," a distinctive segment of SARS-CoV-2's genetic code
that makes the virus more infectious by allowing it to efficiently enter human cells.
Within the scientific community, one thing leapt off the page. Wade quoted one of the
world's most famous microbiologists, Dr. David Baltimore, saying that he believed the furin
cleavage site "was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus." Baltimore, a Nobel Laureate
and pioneer in molecular biology, was about as far from Steve Bannon and the conspiracy
theorists as it was possible to get. His judgment, that the furin cleavage site raised the
prospect of gene manipulation, had to be taken seriously.
Weedlord Bonerhitler, 1 hour ago
Gain of function research is weaponization. We are under attack by a biological weapon
designed in a laboratory to kill people. We are, in effect, at war.
KickIce, 1 hour ago, (Edited)
With who, Washington DC? FWIW, that would be my pick.
ted41776, 1 hour ago
Yes, except "we" moved this "research" to china many years ago to speed up the weaponization
of bioweapons. the original researchers came to the us from nazi Germany after WW2 (Project
Paperclip). it wasn't moving fast enough here because of that whole experimenting on humans
thing was looked down upon here in the US (at least in the past). so "we" hired china what "we"
couldn't do domestically on "our" own.
And now the spin doctors come around pointing the finger
at china. Sure, china may have done the experimentation and research, but where did the
funding, research resources, training, and direction come from?
gregga777, 1 hour ago
Gain of function research is weaponization
It's also insane. Hey, look at what we did! We made smallpox* in our gene sequencing
laboratory. Oops! It's release into the 'wild' was an unfortunate accident.
Anyone engaged in the research & development of making viruses or bacteria more lethal
or the resurrection of presumably extinct pathogens (e.g., smallpox*) are International War
Criminals. They should be arrested and placed on trial in a suitable jurisdiction. At the very
least they should be barred forever from working in any kind of even remotely related
laboratory research.
*The complete gene sequence of smallpox is apparently freely available over the
Internet.
is an example of GOF engineering that bat lady Shi Zhengli participated in, engineering
chimeras of SARS and SARS like coronaviruses and splicing with HIV to make it more
transmissible to humans.
Pax Romana, 1 hour ago
10 page article could have been condensed into one sentence: Fort Detrick -> Canadian Lab
-> Wuhan -> Spooks -> Election Fraud -> Vax -> State Control
ted41776, 1 hour ago
The US banned bioweapon development (in the US) and moved it to China with Fraudci in charge
so that they could do human experiments and make lots of money on GMO "vaccines" And now the US is trying to spin the story and put the blame on China
no, this covaids was MADE IN THE USA even if it was produced and manufactured in China under
US funding, direction, and supervision
brian91145, 1 hour ago
100% right that is the truth that everyone will know very soon
ted41776, 1 hour ago, (Edited)
not sure if it will make any difference
911: US training and funding bin laden for over a decade? WMDs, they got WMDs! pools of
molten metal caused by... kerosene (jet fuel)? building 7...
we gotta get that f||cker bin laden though
bammy arming cartels (fast and furious) and guns they got from him used to kill americans
(including cops and border patrol)? crickets
there is no election fraud, after seeing them spend 4 years trying to overthrow a president
who allegedly used fraud and russian collusion to get elected?
and on and on and on, the neverending 24/7 stream of lies and distortion
unfortunately, truth has become pretty worthless in this sick reality most people live
in
konputa, 1 hour ago
Designed in the US, manufactured in China. We've known this since early 2020.
CheapBastard, 1 hour ago
(((Vanity Fair))) has the same editorial weight that Teen Vogue has.
The article is meant to obfuscate the truth, not clarify it.
CheapBastard, 51 minutes ago, (Edited)
The author carefully avoids inconvenient but important truths including::
Fauci funded the Wuhan bioweapons lab thru NIH (proven by emails) Fauci lied repeatedly from
day#1 about the characteristics and origin of the deadly virus (also proven by emails) the
WHO lied repeatedly about the origin the involvement of Gates in this entire fiasco
S.Parker, · 1 hour ago
Fort Detrick, USA
Handful of Dust, · 4 minutes ago
· Bumbler-in-Chief Biden in the White House Backs 'Incredible' Dr. Anthony Fauci;
Refuses Comment on Explosive Emails Exposing the Lies & Deceit
Its a book! Damn Tylers it will take me days to read. · The Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 states:
"Whoever knowingly develops, produces, stockpiles, transfers, acquires,
retains, or possesses any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system for use as a weapon, or
knowingly assists a foreign state or any organization to do so, shall be fined under this title
or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both."
Weedlord Bonerhitler, 1 hour ago
Don't need a next leak. Just need time for the leaky vaccines to do their work. A
vaccine that doesn't stop transmission and merely reduces symptoms, is not a vaccine, but an
evolutionary pressure upon the virus.
This is Marek's disease, found in chickens. A few decades ago, it was fairly
benign, but then it was treated with a vaccine that merely reduced symptoms to a minimum
without stopping the virus. Now, after evolving over a few decades while butting heads with
that leaky vaccine, it's so deadly to chickens that any unvaccinated flocks tend to be wiped
out by it, making vaccinating every chicken on Earth a necessity.
This is our future. They want people completely dependent on their vaccines to
survive.
Following Friday's bombshell revelation that Dr. Anthony Fauci has supported 'gain of
function' research, even arguing that the "risks" (which include a worldwide pandemic caused by
a potential lab accident) were outweighed by the potential benefits to humanity, it's worth
revisiting a vote that quietly took place earlier this week in the Senate.
Sen. Paul has been arguing with Dr. Fauci about the merits of the research and whether
they're outweighed by the risks of deadly lab leaks for weeks now. He memorably took the good
doctor to task during a hearing of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee
hectoring over his prior support for gain of function research in China, to which Dr. Fauci
insisted that was not the case.
Now, reporting by the Australian, which brought to light an obscure 2012 paper written by
the doctor, has proven the doctor's comments to be disingenuous.
Here's what we wrote about that earlier.
"In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with
the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?" Fauci wrote in the
American Society for Microbiology in 2012, adding "Many ask reasonable questions: given the
possibility of such a scenario "" however remote "" should the initial experiments have been
performed and/or published in the first place, and what were the processes involved in this
decision?"
"Scientists working in this field might say "" as indeed I have said "" that the benefits of
such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks," Fauci continued. "It is more
likely that a pandemic would occur in nature, and the need to stay ahead of such a threat is a
primary reason for performing an experiment that might appear to be risky."
In the paper, Dr Fauci also writes: "Within the research community, many have expressed
concern that important research progress could come to a halt just because of the fear that
someone, somewhere, might attempt to replicate these experiments sloppily. This is a valid
concern."
Coincidentally, the mainstream was silent when just days ago, Sen. Paul proposed an
amendment that would ban the use of federal money to support 'gain of function' research in
China, an effort that hasn't garnered widespread support in the Democrat-dominated body for
obvious reasons. But despite this, the amendment received unanimous support, and was attached
to the bill.
"We may not know whether this rose out of a Wuhan lab, but I think gain-of-function research
- where we take a deadly virus, sometimes much more deadly than COVID, and then we increase its
transmissibility to mammals - is wrong. In 2014, NIH stopped all of this research. I'm using
the same definition to say any gain-of-function research should not be funded in China with
U.S. taxpayer dollars, and I recommend a yes vote."
But with President Biden now giving the government 90 days to release something conclusive
about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, some believe public interest in this type of
research is about to surge. And in a sign of just how much public opinion has shifted so far, a
group of supporters gathered cheered when Rand's amendment was passed unanimously.
Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, Paul delivered a brief speech, pointing out that the
NHS had banned this type of research in 2014.
The amendment, Senate Amendment 2003, was appended to the Endless Frontier Act which bans
Fauci's National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other U.S. agencies from funding any
gain-of-function research in China.
The article cites Indian papre "n January 2020, a team of Indian scientists wrote in a
now-retracted paper that the coronavirus may have been genetically engineered to incorporate
parts of the HIV genome" which discredit all the content.
Two notable virologists claim to have found "unique fingerprints" on COVID-19 samples that
only could have arisen from laboratory manipulation , according to an explosive 22-page paper
obtained by the
Daily Mail .
... ... ...
The paper detailing their months-long "forensic analysis," which looked back at experiments
done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology between 2002 and 2019, is set to be published in the
scientific journal Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery.
More via the Mail :
Digging through archives of journals and databases, Dalgleish and Sørensen pieced
together how Chinese scientists, some working in concert with American universities,
allegedly built the tools to create the coronavirus.
Much of the work was centered around controversial ' Gain of Function ' research –
temporarily outlawed in the US under the Obama administration.
Gain of Function involves tweaking naturally occurring viruses to make them more
infectious, so that they can replicate in human cells in a lab, allowing the virus's
potential effect on humans to be studied and better understood.
Dalgleish and Sørensen claim that scientists working on Gain of Function projects
took a natural coronavirus 'backbone' found in Chinese cave bats and spliced onto it a new
'spike', turning it into the deadly and highly transmissible SARS-Cov-2.
One tell-tale sign of alleged manipulation the two men highlighted was a row of four amino
acids they found on the SARS-Cov-2 spike.
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Sørensen said the amino acids all
have a positive charge, which cause the virus to tightly cling to the negatively charged
parts of human cells like a magnet, and so become more infectious .
But because, like magnets, the positively charged amino acids repel each other, it is rare
to find even three in a row in naturally occurring organisms, while four in a row is
'extremely unlikely,' the scientist said.
'The laws of physics mean that you cannot have four positively charged amino acids in a
row. The only way you can get this is if you artificially manufacture it,' Dalgleish told
DailyMail.com.
Their new paper says these features of SARS-Cov-2 are 'unique fingerprints' which are 'i
ndicative of purposive manipulation ', and that 'the likelihood of it being the result of
natural processes is very small.'
' A natural virus pandemic would be expected to mutate gradually and become more
infectious but less pathogenic which is what many expected with the COVID-19 pandemic but
which does not appear to have happened,' the scientists wrote.
' The implication of our historical reconstruction, we posit now beyond reasonable doubt,
of the purposively manipulated chimeric virus SARS-CoV-2 makes it imperative to reconsider
what types of Gain of Function experiments it is morally acceptable to undertake .
When Sørensen and Dalgleish floated their findings last year, it was 'debunked'
with the thinnest of logic -
however former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove pointed to the pair's findings as an
"important" development which could prove that the pandemic may have originated at the WIV.
... ... ...
Sørensen and Dalgleish
aren't the first scientists to find unusual features within COVID-19. Last June, the
Daily Telegraph reported that there are two unique features to COVID-19:
First , the virus binds more strongly to human ACE2 enzymes than any other species,
including bats.
Second , SARS-CoV-2 has a "furin cleavage site" missing in its closes bat-coronavirus
relative, RaTG-13, which makes it significantly more infectious - a finding
we reported in late February .
According to Israeli geneticist, Dr. Ronen Shemesh, the Furin site is the most unusual
finding .
"I believe that the most important issue about the differences between ALL coronavirus types
is the insertion of a Furin protease cleavage site at the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2," he
said. " Such an insertion is very rare in evolution, the addition of such 4 Amino acids alone
in the course of only 20 years is very unlikely ."
arrow
Oilwatcher PREMIUM 50 minutes ago (Edited)
I certainly think the virus came from the lab and could well have been part of a bio
weapon program. However I'm not convinced the release in the format and at the time it
occurred was deliberate. Three main questions:
Would a country release a bio weapon without having a vaccine ready? Maybe there was a
secret vaccine for leaders, or it was decided having a vaccine ready would be too
suspicious, but it's still a question.
If releasing a bioweapon to destabilize the West, wouldn't it likely have been more
deadly? It couldn't have been known for sure in advance that governments would overreact so
wildly to a low mortality threat.
Would a country release a bio weapon on the doorstep of the very lab where it was
created? China seems too smart for that. And wouldn't the work to "cover tracks" described
in the article have been done first?
gregga777 55 minutes ago
Just yesterday NBC or CNN was blaming their disinformation of virus on Trump's So
expect the disinformation to continue.
Exactly as one would expect from the Marxist Mockingbird Media & Entertainment
Oligopoly who owe their allegiances to Little Winnie Xi and the Chinese Communist Party.
Hopefully, some will receive their just desserts in the coming Hunger Games. If they flee
to their boltholes in New Zealand they'll probably be quite surprised when USSOCOM
"extradition" teams land there with orders to bring them back for trial in the United
States.
Londo 1 hour ago
Trump did it to himself. This is a CIA/Pompeo project. Finance Wuhan lab then release
the virus let China take the blame. Really brilliant false flag operation.
Fauci has no authority over CIA secret unit inside NIH.
Dragonlord 49 minutes ago (Edited)
Dr Fraud began funding that lab indirectly during obama era, not Trump era. Get your
facts right.
He did it through EcoHealth Alliance which had received at least $3.7 million starting
from 2014 to 2020, and Daszak from Ecohealth, was also a member of a controversial
WHO-China study team into the origins of COVID-19,
Ol Man PREMIUM 57 minutes ago
Oligarchies are still made up of individuals... They are accountable as perpetrators and
conspirators...
williambanzai7 PREMIUM 1 hour ago (Edited)
I think the virus originated at twitters HQ. It fell out of that dirtbag CEOs beard. We
should be calling it the Twitter virus.
America's top virologist, Anthony Fauci, argued
in 2012 that the risks of a lab accident sparking a pandemic are outweighed by the potential benefits of manipulating viruses
via gain-of-function research , according to previously unsurfaced remarks reported by Sharri Markson via
The Australian .
"In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak
and ultimately triggers a pandemic? " Fauci wrote in the American Society for Microbiology in 2012, adding "Many ask reasonable questions:
given the possibility of such a scenario "" however remote "" should the initial experiments have been performed and/or published
in the first place, and what were the processes involved in this decision?"
"Scientists working in this field might say "" as indeed I have said "" that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting
knowledge outweigh the risks ," Fauci continued. "It is more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature, and the need to stay ahead
of such a threat is a primary reason for performing an experiment that might appear to be risky. "
In the paper, Dr Fauci also writes: "Within the research community, many have expressed concern that important research progress
could come to a halt just because of the fear that someone, somewhere, might attempt to replicate these experiments sloppily.
This is a valid concern."
Dr Fauci has led the US response to the outbreak but is now facing serious questions about his role in funding the radical
experiments being conducted inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
...
Dr Fauci on May 11 reversed his position on whether Covid-19 had leaked from the WIV, and said he was now "not convinced" the
virus had developed naturally and authorities needed to find out "exactly what happened" .
Gain-of-function experiments "" often with bat-derived coronaviruses "" centre on manipulating, splicing and recombining viruses
potentially into strands of highly infectious and little understood diseases. -The Australian
Earlier this month, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) went to town on Dr. Anthony Fauci Tuesday during a hearing in front of the Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions committee. Paul alleged that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had used a middle-man to funnel
money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology via EcoHealth Alliance - which worked with the lab on bat coronavirus projects.
Paul specifically referenced "gain-of-function" research which in this case has been focused on how to make animal viruses more
transmissible to humans - specifically bat coronaviruses .
"Government scientists like yourself who favor gain of function research," Paul began...
...only to have Fauci interject "I don't favor gain of function research in China," adding "You are saying things that are
not correct."
Paul pushed back - continuing:
"[Those who favor gain of function] say that COVID-19 mutations were random and not designed by man."
"I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done," Fauci shot back, adding that he's in favor of further investigation,
but that the NIH had nothing to do with the origins of COVID-19.
"We have not funded gain of function research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology," he added.
"No matter how many times you say it, it didn't happen."
As we
noted in March , the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) - headed by Fauci, "had funded a number of projects that involved
WIV scientists, including much of the Wuhan lab's work with bat coronaviruses."
In 2017, Fauci's agency resumed funding a controversial grant without the approval of a government oversight body, according to
the Daily
Caller . For context, in 2014, the Obama administration temporarily suspended federal funding for gain-of-function research on
bat coronaviruses . Four months prior to that decision, the NIH effectively shifted this research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology
(WIV) via a grant
to nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance, headed by Peter Daszak.
The NIH's first $666,442
installment of EcoHealth's $3.7 million grant was paid in June 2014, with similar
annual payments through May 2019 under the " Understanding The Risk Of
Bat Coronavirus Emergence " project.
Notably, the WIV "had openly participated in gain-of-function research in partnership with U.S. universities and institutions"
for years under the leadership of Dr. Shi 'Batwoman' Zhengli, according to the
Washington Post 's Josh Rogin.
Meanwhile, Fauci 'rammed through' gain-of-function research in December of 2017 without approval .
Via The Australian :
Multiple Trump administration officials told The Weekend Australian D r Fauci had not raised the issue of restarting the research
funding with senior figures in the White House.
" It kind of just got rammed through ," one official said.
"I think there's truth in the narrative that the (National Security Council) staff, the president, the White House chief-of-staff,
those people were in the dark that he was switching back on the research."
The Weekend Australian has also confirmed that neither Mike Pompeo, the then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, nor
National Security Council member Matthew Pottinger, was briefed.
The experiments are also opposed by prominent scientists, including the Cambridge Working Group of 200 researchers which issued
a public warning in 2014.
"Accident risks with newly created "potential pandemic pathogens" raise grave new concerns," the group's letter read. " Laboratory
creation of highly transmissible, novel strains of dangerous viruses, especially but not limited to influenza, poses substantially
increased risks.
" An accidental infection in such a setting could trigger outbreaks that would be difficult or impossible to control. Historically,
new strains of influenza, once they establish transmission in the human population, have infected a quarter or more of the world's
population within two years."
And Steven Salzberg, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in 2015 said the benefits of gain-of-function research were "minimal
at best" and they could "far more safely be obtained through other avenues of research".
"I am very concerned that the continuing gain-of-function research on influenza viruses, and more recently on other viruses,
presents extremely serious risks to the public health," he wrote.
Worth the risk, Fauci says? ay_arrow
truth or go home 4 hours ago (Edited)
Seems like Biden doesn't really need an investigation after all. Confirm the facts in the above article. Done. All this
could be known in January 2020, but the details are interesting.
What kind of government allows a guy to create a pathogen then when it gets out lets him be the central figure in combating
it? We are living in clown world.
On October 16, 2014, the White House Office of Science and Technolog y Policy announced the launch of the U.S. Government
(USG) gain-of-function (GOF) deliberative process to re-evaluate the potential risks and benefits associated with certain GOF
experiments. During this process the USG paused the release of federal funding for GOF studies anticipated to enhance the pathogenicity
or transmissibility among mammals by respiratory droplets of influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses..... errrr ..... so they moved
it to China
lay_arrow
truth or go home 4 hours ago
Wow about 12 million from NIH and DoD to study BatBourne viruses in Asia starting in 2014 and going through 2020 - wonder
what that was all about?
Lorenz Feedback 3 hours ago remove link
truth or go home: Look at the 3rd Author. Anthony S Fauci
.. they knew in 2008.
They studied it, then gain of functioned it: deliberate weaponization...
What is so ironic is that people bristle, when you compare these wicked men to Nazis, when they ARE your evil Nazis. Consider,
for two seconds:
Plan A. Not even contemplate playing around with things that an oops could result in mass death, heaven forbid! That is,
righteousness.
Plan B. Play around with things that an oops could result in mass death. That is, evil, make that very evil.
We choose Plan B, have a pandemic, mass death that has killed hundreds of thousands, and nobody arrests Fauci.
What conceivable gain were these monsters looking for, that weighs positively against mass death of innocent, civilian lives,
I ask you? This Fauci demonstrates a mentality they tried monsters at Nuremburg over.
What's hilarious is they put this Mengele in charge of public health matters, make him the highest paid bureaucrat!
It is the mind of a Nazi, a psycho, that would engage in crimes against humanity.
Truly,
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
(While, what, the DHS and FBI are hunting down people who eat white rice or use the wrong gender pronouns, or voted for
Trump, while ignoring criminal, racist communists, burning the cities? The U.S. has a ****, wicked government, all anybody
can say. Perverts.)
1) They said the reward of learning how to combat new threats outweighed the risk from gain-of-function research on existing
risks.
2) They emergency planned for this before the gain-of-function strain escaped.
3) After gain-of-function strain escapes, they said the reward of protection outweighed the risk from the emergency use
of experimental DNA altering vaccine.
4) Makes one wonder if the reward of the experimental vaccine was the only thing they were really concerned with.
5) We the people get the risks, Fauci, Gates and drugmakers get the rewards.
ZorbasStep 2 hours ago
Fauci keeps being referred to as "America's top" virologist, since his corrupt *** has been sitting at a very high level
of the medical industrial complex, in a coveted position at NIH for decades, hanging on to power when much more able people
should have been given the reigns.
Fauci is a liar, and a psychopath, more than he is a science expert. Conflicts of interest abound. In a fair world, he would
be executed or sent to prison for life.
hardright 2 hours ago
Dr. Fauci is not boarded in infectious disease.
He is a rheumatologist/allergist.
Make_Mine_A_Double 5 hours ago
Faux-chi finances need to be looked at very closely. I'd bet somewhere along the line the Chicoms paid him off either directly
or through an academic cut out. This is the Slants favorite grooming method and being (((special))) dropping a coin on the
floor I'm sure he bent over the grab it and that's when the Chicoms goosed him.
Than he steers grants, contracts, technology to the Chicoms under the aegis of 'research' and the Chicoms not only get a
100 to 1 return on investment, but they also get a compromised upper echelon flak in DC to pimp for them.
This is the whole 'Russia, Russia, Russia" scam in a nutshell. It's basically a 'look squirrel!' to draw your eye away from
MASSIVE CHICOM PENETRATION AT ALL LEVELS OF DC.
janus 3 hours ago
Senator Paul, perhaps better informed on the subject than most scientists, does not fully appreciate just how terrifying
gain of function truly is.
Did a deepdive into the science a couple weeks ago, didn't sleep well the week following. Without getting into the details,
one of the most alarming aspects of gain of function is in mutability. You guys remember how all previous viruses virility
attenuated with each successive mutation? Like all of them except for covid and its alleged variants. The reason has to do
with gain of function. Viruses do not themselves mutate, as they are not alive. Instead, the copy of a virus is mistranscribed
by your cells ribosomes, and other times through in the nucleus through reverse transcription (like with retro viruses); in
the case of the latter (and possibly the former) those mutations can be choreographed, or more properly programmed, within
a chimera virus' genetic code.
This process can be augmented and conducted by, you guessed it -- mRNA and adrenovirus drug tech.
I'm done, guys. If there's no appetite to line these people up and execute them on live television, i just don't care about
anything anymore. I"ll be drinking heavily this weekend to try and forget about it all. Happy memorial day! Your political
and technocratic elite are using your money to devise ways to kill you all stealthily and en masse...and no one gives a ****!
Just bring the curtain down on this ****show already.
play_arrow 1
Southern_Boy 3 hours ago
Now instead of Spy vs Spy we have mutation vs mutation. That is, until the curing mutation is worse than the disease.
judgement put 6 hours ago remove link
It's becoming more a more clear that Fraudci has been deliberately concealing important facts since at least January 2020,
all the while maintaining a pretense of being an innocent white-hat trying to help with a situation about which he knew more
than he was letting on.
He should be immediately removed from any positions of responsibility pending an investigation of his conduct.
noctevolens 2 hours ago (Edited)
You called Fauci America's top virologist at the begining of the article. Kary Mullis (nobel prize for inventing the PCR
test) more accurately described Fauci as a career bureaucrat who doesn't know anything about anything. Perhaps you could use
this description in future articles.
Rest Easy 1 hour ago
This isn't strange? Guess they explain it with science.
For a year now, the world has obsessively poured over
news and statistics on COVID-19 . Although cases
of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus, have seemingly plateaued among a rapidly expanding
vaccination
effort , there's another story hidden just beneath the surface:
The flu
has almost disappeared this winter.
Last fall, epidemiologists warned of an oncoming "twindemic" of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza""and although cases of the
former virus exploded this winter, it appears as though increased flu vaccinations, universal masking, and social distancing
helped tamp down spread of the latter.
During the 2019 -2020 influenza season, CDC estimates that influenza was associated with 38 million illnesses, 18 million
medical visits, 405,000 hospitalizations, and 22,000 deaths .Oct 6, 2020
Unfortunately getting caught doesn't mean **** to the Globalists.
They'll launch an investigation. Won't be able to talk because there's an investigation going on. Drag it out. Distract
and send some prominent conservatives down multiple rabbit holes until the whole thing is "Pizzagated."
And we'll be so knee deep in their next planned crisis, that figuring out the last one seems worthless.
Wash..Rinse..Repeat
FlipSide 4 hours ago
That's why I don't bother watching the dog and pony show that are these hearings. After decades of these hearings, nothing
has ever been done afterwards.
Before the war, Mengele had received doctorates in
anthropology and medicine, and began a career as
a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and
the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the
Nazi concentration camps service in
early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments
focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims. [3] [4]
After the war, Mengele fled to South America
. He sailed to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by
a network of former SS members
. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires
, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and
Brazil in 1960, all the while being
sought by West Germany ,
Israel , and
Nazi hunters such as
Simon Wiesenthal , who wanted to bring him
to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations
by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad . He drowned
in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming off the coast of
Bertioga , and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang
Gerhard. [2]
His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.
Three things: One, the rate at which Fauci and Gates are being thrown under the bus has me very suspicious. Two, the media
is now writing articles about what happens if the audit shows Trump won Arizona. Three, the establishment has done a complete
180 on COVID lab leak in a matter of days. WTF is happening?
Those of us keeping an ear to the ground understood back in December of 2019 that the China Virus likely came from Wuhan
lab with stipulation of Fort De-trick, MD. George Webb talked about the 2019 Wuhan Military Games as a potential vector.
Those of us keeping an ear to the ground learned really fast about Fauci NIH, AIDS, WHO, Tedros, Chinese researches at Harvard,
in Canada, elsewheres.
Kat PREMIUM 6 hours ago remove link
Fauci isn't the fall guy. Fauci is the source of this pandemic, even if he didn't do it intentionally. GoF research became
legal again in 2017 (thanks in large part to Fauci's whining), but came with a ton of restrictions. Realizing he would never
get SARS-related Corona GoF research funded in the US or EU, he funded it in China and through a third party so that it wouldn't
blow back on him in case the enhanced virus got out.
The politicians are merely being opportunistic. They don't want any viral spikes blamed on them and they're trying to expand
their power. Typical political stuff. nothing new.
Janet_the_Gannet 6 hours ago
Government officials and the recipients of government grants and contracts for "gain-of-function" research argue that
these experiments are critical for understanding the subtle changes that can make a bird virus a pandemic threat.
This is what came up when I did a search on the use of gain of function research. To me, it's analagous to someone doing
research on the causes of alcoholism by drinking two bottles of vodka a day.
BennyBoo 1 hour ago
Interesting how all of a sudden msm is now publicizing the wuhan lab leak story - anybody paying attention was aware over
a year ago this was part of the narrative. Now it's distraction from something else, and serving to cement the notion that
the as yet un-isolated virus cov-sars-2 actually exists. Oh, yeah, drums are beating for war with China...
This paper was funded by the NIAID grant and most of the author's names are people from the Wuhan lab. In this paper:
In this study, we confirmed the use of human ACE2 as receptor of two novel SARSr-CoVs by using chimeric viruses with
the WIV1 backbone replaced with the S gene of the newly identified SARSr-CoVs. Rs7327's S protein varied from that of WIV1
and WIV16 at three aa residues in the receptor-binding motif, including one contact residue (aa 484) with human ACE2.
And there are more references to producing chimeric viruses in it. That's gain of function research that Fauci lied about.
Aim 3. In vitro and in vivo characterization of SARSr-CoV spillover risk, coupled with spatial and phylogenetic analyses
to identify the regions and viruses of public health concern. We will use S protein sequence data, infectious clone technology,
in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds
in S protein sequences predict spillover potential.
That's gain of function research that Fauci lied about.
ponchoramic 3 hours ago
Either they cultured it in human ACE2, over and over again. Serial culturing OR they used ferrets because Ferret ACE2 is
very similar to ours. I think it was Ferrets because the antibody response was not exact and some people experienced serious
autoimmune disfunction.
El Vaquero 3 hours ago
I believe they were using cell lines with humanized ACE2, but I'd have to do more digging to be sure. I'm pretty sure that
the virus is some bat coronavirus where they put the receptor binding domain from a pangolin coronavirus on the S protein and
inserted a polybasic furin cleavage site. They could have then run it over and over through cell cultures with human ACE2 receptors.
JohnGault 4 hours ago (Edited)
So Fauci promotes funding chinese viral labs to accelerate the lethality in a virus, then continued to secretly push funding
for the project even after the government banned precisely that activity, then denied being involved with the research at the
Chinese lab, then cast doubt that the lab that he was paying to develop the very virus that first emerged in the town where
the lab was located, was involved in the outbreak.....
Huh?
If Fauci was paying the chinese lab to do the work, why doesnt he have all the data???? I'm betting Fauci hasnt told us
the whole story....are these people looking at their potential liability in a million deaths???
RC2 4 hours ago
I am guessing Fauci doesn't fund a project like this all on his own there are other players as well
MASTER OF UNIVERSE 5 hours ago
The Obama administration listened to the 2014 Cambridge Working Group Call-to-Action and honoured our group collective as
researchers because of the eminent names on the list of signatories which the White House and Pentagon knew they could not
take on.
My name is Robert Gordon White and I signed for Carleton University in 2014.
"Scientists working in this field might say "" as indeed I have said "" that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting
knowledge outweigh the risks ," Fauci continued. "It is more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature, and the need to
stay ahead of such a threat is a primary reason for performing an experiment that might appear to be risky. "
In the paper, Dr Fauci also writes: "Within the research community, many have expressed concern that important research
progress could come to a halt just because of the fear that someone, somewhere, might attempt to replicate these experiments
sloppily. This is a valid concern."
Dr Fauci has led the US response to the outbreak but is now facing serious questions about his role in funding the radical
experiments being conducted inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
For a long time, the Deep State has covered up this whole episode.
Soloamber 52 minutes ago
The deep state covered it up and the MSM helped .
paranoid.dragon 4 hours ago
Covid-19 was worked on at the following places:
-> UNC ;
-> Ft. Detrick ;
-> Canada ;
-> Wuhan Lab ;
WHERE-ELSE and WHO-ELSE?
What other viruses have been engineered and prepped for release???
Every bio lab in the world needs a complete audit and to be burned down.
paranoid.dragon 4 hours ago
i think every single biologist, chemist, "scientist", etc in the world working on anything that has to do with genetic engineering
or mind control or "gain of function", or nanotech, etc should be questioned deeply about the capabilities and dangers of their
work at the Covid Nuremburg Trial.
We need to know the full scope of what we're facing and exactly what bio weapons have been created.
If it cannot exist outside the lab without killing people, then it gets burned along with the entire lab it's in.
To be on the safe side, every biolab in the world should be burned to the ground.
Yesterday, China predictably
blasted the
entire premise as a "conspiracy theory" and demanded an global investigation into U.S. bioweapons labs.
I Write Code 9 hours ago (Edited)
Maybe it helps to back off and get some perspective. That starts with the fact that gain-of-function research is hideously
dangerous , and has been *voluntarily* banned by the biology community itself for 40 years (basically since it became technically
feasible). So when our genius Fauci manages some back-door funding to some joint in China that does level-4 research in the
back and a wildlife kitchen in the front, and then something happens that's exactly what EVERYONE FEARED WOULD HAPPEN, and
then they try to blame it on a passing pangolin, I mean, really.
The *good* news is that they feared it would be really, really, really bad, like killing billions of people . So in those
terms, it's been kind of a dud.
HAL9000rev1 8 hours ago remove link
Very well stated.. they were doing rip&run BSL-4 work in a BSL-2 lab because they were lazy and did not want to follow BSL-4
protocol.
the CCP Wuhan lab is dirty and Fauci is dirty
JaxPavan 6 hours ago
The intelligence agencies and security services of all the major powers have all this information already. They are ALL
withholding it from their own people and the third world.
NIRP-BTFD 8 hours ago
Fort Detrick
CheapBastard 9 hours ago remove link
The NAAB (National Association for the Advancement of Bats) has filed suit against the Wuhan lab for defamation, I read.
ðŸ'
What a mess_man 8 hours ago
Fantastic comment. I needed the laugh today.
19331510 8 hours ago remove link
A 2 1/2 hr Masterclass on Sars-Covid-2 by Dr. Richard Fleming.
(00:00 Background;14:30 Tests; 20:00 precursor; 30:30 Reason for the presentation; 34:50 Gain-of-Function Research History/Funding;
50:30 Responsibility; 1:03:45 Implications of G-O-F; 1:15:00 Treatments; 1:31:50 Treatment results ; 1:49:00 Research validation;
1:54:45 Vaccines function (2:01:30); 2:02:20 Concerns ; 2:05:36 Biological Weapons Convention/Nuremmberg Code/Rights/Medical
Ethics; 2:08:40 Call to Action ; 2:14:00 Ideology/Controlled Opposition: 2:23:45 Additional resources)
Dr. Lee Merritt has several videos on the subject. drleemerritt.com
(The Weaponization of Medicine. Speech at Liberty Center Tulsa and Bio-warfare & Weaponization of Medicine Amid Covid)
The US sent a group of about 300 soldiers to Wuhan in October of 2019 to the international military games which were held
- you guessed it - in Wuhan that year. Reports were that 6 of these soldiers soon after arriving there got very, very sick
and a special US military transport had to be flown in to evacuate them back to the US. Meanwhile, these soldiers and others,
who were infected, went sightseeing in Wuhan. It was shortly after the visit from the US troops that Covid hit Wuhan and started
to spread not only in China but in the US and the world as well.
My guess was that some idiots in the US intelligence agencies or military or perhaps even Bolton or Pompeo themselves authorized
"vaccinations" from Ft Detrick for the troops going to the games. I guarantee that these soldiers had no clue what they were
being infected with. Don't forget that at the time, the US was panicking about China's economy outpacing that of the US and
tarrifs were being considered or were being implemented, along with blockade of some technologies to China. The US was looking
for a way to slow down or cripple the Chinese economy by any means necessary .
Covid 19 wasn't developed in China and didn't originate in Wuhan, it is a US weapon that spectacularly backfired for the
US perpetrators. The US couldn't imagine that China would be able to bring it under control in almost no time. Stupidity and
criminality in the ranks of the US government - so what else is new?
This is not the first time the US used biowarfare on a nation they were "competing" against. The US deliberately sold smallpox
infested blankets to the indigenous people in the continental US. Millions died. The US also sent biowarfare agents into North
Korea during the Korean war, using many vectors, some of them insects.
So, there is a prior M.O. already in place, a motive and many top level biowarfare labs in the US as a means. This time
they used US soldiers as vectors, instead of insects or blankets.
ch25061 5 hours ago remove link
You have excellent English for a freaking Communist Chinese Monster.
liberty2day 9 hours ago
in the end, who runs our gov? who is top comrade?
dozens of agencies, all seemingly beholden to nobody but themselves, all covering their rears, all running secret agendas
and programs, often completely at odds with what America was intended to be.
and there seems no checks in place to halt criminality and fraud.
JGResearch 8 hours ago (Edited)
The dark side of microbiology finds its haven inside the dozens of veterinary schools outside the authority of the WHO,
CDC, NIH and equivalent professional supervisory bodies and reporting-review systems.
Have a sip of Assam tea while pondering how four GP120 and Gag protein strands from HIV, the virus associated with AIDS,
just happen to be strategically located inside this SARS-modified virus. The key word here is "insert", as in gene-engineered.
Wuhan CoV was created in a lab.
Here in Part 28 of this series on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, smoking gun evidence against microbiologist Yoshihiro
Kawaoka has surfaced in an RNA analysis run by microbiologists Prashant Prashant and colleagues at the Indian Institute of
Technology and The University of Delhi.
Exhibit B is a 2011 research paper by Y. Kawaoka and two colleagues at his animal virology lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
titled "HIV reverse-binding protein is essential for influenza A virus replication and promotes genome-trafficking in late-stage
infection". Published in the Journal of Virology, September 201l, it's an admission of guilt for preparing the emergence of
the Wuhan contagion.
To summarize, a decade ago at his lab in Wisconsin with generous funding from Japanese state institutions, Kawaoka was developing
an "unstoppable flu", secretly derived from an illegal exhumation of the Arctic frozen corpse of an Alaskan native who died
in the 1918-19 influenza pandemic, which killed up to 80 million worldwide.........................
While searching for candidate viruses with hard-working proteins, the Japanese microbiologist noticed the highly efficient
replication rate of HIV, which had spread like wildfire since the 1980s at the cost of demolishing fatigued bed-ridden patients.
Peering through the electron microscope of your mind's eye, can you see his wicked grin?
Due to constraints of word count and attention span, I have to postpone until my next essay, Part 5, the stunning revelations
about the biological warfare research by Kawaoka at his home base at the University of Tokyo and his Japanese colleagues at
the (Japan) National Institute for Infectious Diseases (NIID) in Musashi-Murayama, a bedroom community on the western fringe
of Tokyo; his alma mater Hokkaido University, and the new Shinzo Abe-sponsored Kake School of Veterinary Medicine with its
underground labs on an spearhead-shaped bluff overlooking Imabari, Ehime Prefecture on Shikoku Island, the Inland Sea and the
University of Okayama on the opposite mainland shore.
The planned bio-strike was to trigger a food-poisoning scare with the aim of shutting down China's aquaculture economy,
which now controls 70 percent of the world fish market.
Look for Yoichi Shimatsu: Yoichi Shimatsu is a Hong Kong-based freelance journalist, He is 'Editor at Large' at the 4th
Media and former editor of The Japan Times Weekly in Tokyo
and Pacific News Service in San Francisco . Read part
three first.
.................................It was made in Japan., and the U.K.
Japan's Demon Of BioWar Kawaoka Inserted HIV Force Multipliers Inside The Wuhan Virus - No governments will ever state this
truth. It would lead to war and even the Chinese do want that. They want business back to normal. The Chinese are not so concern
about some workers and elders who are on the public welfare.
It is still a Bio-engineered virus, but it is from Veterinary labs that are not being watched like Bio 4 labs, from second
generation of Unit 731. Who knows bat and fish better than anyone else, it is the Veterinary labs. Imperial Japanese have a
long history with China. For the most part, Suzuki's military-dominated cabinet favored continuing the war. For the Japanese,
surrender was unthinkable""Japan had never been successfully invaded or lost a war in its history, plus they were hit with
two Atomic weapons. You think they forgot about at that?
popeye 5 hours ago
Who gets their biology education from the US State Department? They can't even prosecute their primary function: diplomacy.
Mr Asher is either a liar or a moron. we don't know where SARS-CoV-2 originated, only that it was first identified in Wuhan
China. Evidence suggests it was circulating in the human population before being identified in Wuhan in Dec 2019. But when
& where did it first enter the human population? No-one appears to be seeking that answer.
If Mr Asher genuinely did research the virus he would know this, but instead he repeats the narrative du jour. Why would
he do that?
And of course PJ Watson, click-bait hack that he is, loves it.
novictim 4 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Evidence suggests it was circulating in the human population before being identified in Wuhan in Dec 2019.
Do you know what constitutes that "evidence"? Antibodies. I have addressed this before. Cross reactive antibodies are not
equal proof of prior exposure.
Pareto 9 hours ago remove link
"What does it matter anyways" (Cankles)
toejam 8 hours ago
Isn't that a good thing?
''The project, called Predict, had been run by the US Agency for International Development since 2009. It had identified
more than 160 different coronaviruses that had the potential to develop into pandemics, including a virus that is considered
the closest known relative to Covid-19.''
post-truth PREMIUM 8 hours ago
yah, fund virus research all over the world and then dont want to know if it escapes...
radical-extremist 8 hours ago remove link
The WHO "investigative" team speaks, as of yesterday.
"... The inserted furin cleavage site in the genome, might well be the WTC7 smoking gun of this Corona saga ..."
"... if so, Bat Woman [and] the Wuhan institute of Virology, might be the newest patsy ..."
"... Would make a certain amount of sense; kindly consider: Lemma: At any crime-scene, one must consider means, motive and opportunity, but a more complete list includes premeditation, presence, any modus operandi and cui bono? ..."
In 2011, a team led by virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center-Netherlands, working with American funding, succeeded
in engineering a H5N1 virus that could cause a human pandemic.
The H5N1 "bird flu" virus, which had killed about six in 10 people who had gotten it -- a total of at least 550 people since 2003
-- and had laid to waste hundreds of millions of domestic fowl and wild birds, was known to be impossible to transmit from human
to human; humans who got it caught it from poultry. A H5N1 human pandemic was therefore believed to be impossible.
Ron Fouchier proved the contrary.
First, his team "mutated the hell out of H5N1" and looked at how readily it would bind with cells in the respiratory tract. What
they found is that by giving it as few as five single mutations, the virus gained the ability to latch onto cells in the nasal and
tracheal passageways. By doing so, they engineered the virus' affinity with the human host.
Second, they tried to get the virus to easily spread by making specific changes to its genome, using a process called reverse
genetics. When that failed, they used the low-tech and time-honoured method of passing the virus from one ferret to another multiple
times. After 10 generations, they succeeded and the virus became airborne, contaminating healthy ferrets kept in cages next to sick
ones.
Ferrets are the mammals that closest replicate the human pandemic reaction. Ferrets aren't humans, but in studies to date, any
influenza strain able to pass among ferrets has also been transmissible among humans, and vice versa
The work of Ron Fouchier was funded by the US National Institute of Health. A similar experiment with conclusive results was carried
in parallel at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
The results of this experiment were qualified as terrifying by many scientists. U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity
(NSABB) chair Paul Keim
"I can't think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one," adds Keim, who has worked on anthrax for many
years. "I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this."
Doesn't this story sound like that of SARS-CoV-2? Speculation:
– A Coronavirus is bio-engineered to match the genetic heritage of East Asians, and is released into the population. Because,
at the time, it lacks the ability to spread easily from human to human, contamination cases are sparse and go unnoticed. (Strain
A)
– But the virus evolves by its own dynamics. By October 2019, having been passed many times over from human to human, it has acquired,
on top of its affinity to East Asians, a much greater ability to spread (longer survival in airborne state). The epidemic begins
in Wuhan (Strain B).
Yes. Then, to thoughts on how "the epidemic begins:" There are apocryphal reports of earlier extremely foul influenza-type
cases from varying places around the world, including France as you relate, and the USA [like the asserted 'vaping' cases, say].
I noticed something interesting when looking at the primary graphic produced by the
COVID-19 Genome Tracker tool; look to the upper-left corner where
there is quite a big cluster of related mutations, 'centered' on H44.
If you now click on the USA:Washington blob in the Collection
Site frame, what you see is a lot right there = left top.
IIRC, Washington state was one of the 1st outbreak centres in the USA.
Next, note that the Haplotype closest to the bat = H13 corresponds to Forster's A-strain.
So now a thesis: Both A and B [Haplotype
H1] were already 'in hand' in *some* lab [somewhere=currently unknown to us] and A was [accidentally/on purpose? Whatever, but
prematurely] released *somewhere in USA* .
Ooops!
Q: What to do? A: Release a bit of A and a lot of B – in/around Wuhan.
Note that one of Forster's videos is entitled: "No proof that COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, and another is
"Is Wuhan the origin of COVID-19｜Dialogue between Two Scientists," Sooo, we wait, we read and we research
rgds
The inserted furin cleavage site in the genome, might well be the WTC7 smoking gun of this Corona saga
Quite possible, and thanks again for that article from Yuri Deigu [whose 'technology' appears legit but opinions may vary].
if so, Bat Woman [and] the Wuhan institute of Virology, might be the newest patsy
Would make a certain amount of sense; kindly consider: Lemma: At any crime-scene, one must consider means, motive and opportunity, but a more complete list includes premeditation,
presence, any modus operandi and cui bono?
We can add a sort of 'codicil:' Consider the word 'form' [=British informal a criminal record, Aussie slang=known for doing
a certain type of thing]; is there any entity which/who would be both a best-fit for the lemma *and* with form? rgds
CNN host Chris Cuomo said on April 17 he believes there will be revelations showing the novel coronavirus was spreading
in the United States as early as October.
One question the media and other investigators ought to focus on more:
Who was that female lab employee – the presumptive patient zero – who disappeared?
Here is more from Daily Mail , featuring interesting information amid cautiously worded qualifiers ("believed to be",
"allegedly shows", "appear to have been"):
• Chinese scientists published paper saying the market doesn't even sell the bats
• Wuhan Institute of Virology believed to be the 'only plausible source' of the virus
• Index case believed to be a female employee of the BSL-4 lab – now disappeared
• Cell phone data analysis allegedly shows the lab suddenly shut down in October
• Medical and scientific community increasingly suspicious of the Wuhan lab
• Inserted sequence of nucleotides in the RNA strand 'could not be a mutation
US-based pathologist Chris Martenson said a suspicious sequence of nucleotides in the RNA coding of the Sars-Cov-2 coronavirus
appear to have been inserted as they do not occur in any of the close or even distantly related viruses.
Even more suspicious, the nucleotide sequence appears right at a point in the RNA sequence called a furin cleavage site,
a place where the enzyme furin can precisely cut proteins, he said.
The climate of fear that today governs much of our academic world, with future grant applications and even careers at risk if
researchers depart from perceived orthodoxy on certain issues is a clear sign of Lysenkoism...
Those measures as well as control of scientific publications were "amazingly effective" in suppressing dissent and reaching desirable
for authorities academic consensus.
Notable quotes:
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Associated Press ..."
"... The Wall Street Journal ..."
"... The Associated Press ..."
"... The Wall Street Journal ..."
"... For decades, scientists have been hot-wiring viruses in hopes of preventing a pandemic, not causing one. But what if " ..."
"... New York Magazine ..."
"... New York Times, Science, ..."
"... Did people or nature open Pandora's box at Wuhan? ..."
"... as Wade demonstrates, that supposed consensus was largely illusory, having been shaped by two early items that appeared in prestigious scientific publications. On February 19, 2020, the Lancet ..."
"... Nature Medicine ..."
"... Wade notes that the former statement had actually been organized behind the scenes by Peter Daszak, an American closely associated with the Wuhan lab and therefore hardly a disinterested party, while the latter relied heavily upon very dubious scientific reasoning. ..."
"... Moreover, Wade also emphasizes the climate of fear that today governs much of our academic world, with future grant applications and even careers at risk if researchers depart from perceived orthodoxy on certain issues, perhaps including disputing the origins of Covid-19. He argues that although the Lancet ..."
"... Nature Medicine ..."
"... A Troublesome Inheritance ..."
"... We would also expect an animal virus that became dangerous to humans would require a lengthy series of intermediate mutational steps as it gradually evolved the ability to effectively infect our own species, just as had been the case with SARS and other previous diseases. But Covid-19 seems to have suddenly appeared in a maximally infectious form, perfectly pre-adapted to humans and apparently derived from a single original source. ..."
"... Finally, an important structural element of the virus, the "furin cleavage site," is entirely absent from all other members of its viral family ..."
"... Moreover, the particular genetic sequence found in that Covid-19 element is extremely rare in other coronaviruses, strongly suggesting that it was added from a different source. ..."
"... Exactly the same glaring omission is found in Wade's 11,000 word article. Taken together, Lemoine, Baker, and Wade have produced a large collection of high-quality articles on the origins of the global Covid-19 epidemic, but nowhere among their 54,000 words is there even a hint that the virus might possibly have had its origins in America's well-documented and lavishly funded biowarfare program. ..."
"... Associated Press ..."
"... Associated Press ..."
"... It therefore appears that elements of the Defense Intelligence Agency were aware of the deadly viral outbreak in Wuhan more than a month before any officials in the Chinese government itself. ..."
As every fan of the old Perry Mason show remembers, courtroom witnesses swear "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth."
There's a reason for that particular choice of words. A pattern of selective omissions in an otherwise entirely truthful presentation
can easily mislead us as much as any outright lie. And under certain circumstances, such omissions may be made necessary by powerful
outside forces, so that even the most well-intentioned writer is faced with the difficult choice of either excluding certain elements
from his analysis or having his important work denied a proper audience.
I have sometimes faced this dilemma myself , but
over the last few years, my lengthy American Pravda series
has charted those gaping lacunae in our received accounts of modern world history, as I have sought to provide
a historical counter-narrative of the last
one hundred years .
Careful reexaminations of events from fifty or sixty years ago may be interesting, but those of the present day have far greater
importance, and this is particularly true with regard to the Covid-19 epidemic that has engulfed the world since early 2020. Millions
have already died, including many hundreds of thousands of Americans, with
a newly released research study by the University of Washington's authoritative Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)
now suggesting that our domestic death-toll has already exceeded 900,000. This global outbreak first began in Wuhan, and the nature
of its origin has become a major flashpoint in the new Cold War between China and America, with the trajectory of that conflict having
only slightly changed as Trump Neocons have been replaced by Biden Neocons at the helm of our foreign policy.
Two months ago I published a lengthy article summarizing much of the information from the first year of the outbreak and focusing
upon the heated debate regarding the origins of the virus. Aside from the reports of the teams of investigative journalists at the
New York Times , the Wall Street Journal , and the Associated Press , several very long articles by independent
journalists and researchers have constituted my main sources of information, including:
For decades, scientists have been hot-wiring viruses in hopes of preventing a pandemic, not causing one. But what if "
Nicholson Baker "New York Magazine "January 4, 2021 " 12,000 Words
This compendium of crucial research has now received a major addition, a 11,000 word analysis of the likely origins of Covid-19
by Nicholas Wade, a distinguished former science reporter and editor, who had spent more than four decades at the New York Times,
Science, and Nature , and the author of several excellent books dealing with anthropology and evolutionary biology.
The central focus of both Baker and Wade is indicated by their closely-related titles, namely the origins of the virus and whether
it was the product of a laboratory, presumably the Wuhan Institute of Virology, then later released in a tragic accident. Both these
authors strongly lean toward that latter possibility, but take somewhat different approaches. While Baker, a prominent novelist and
liberal public intellectual, must rely upon general arguments or merely reports the opinions of the experts that he interviewed,
Wade deploys his strong scientific background to build a persuasive case for that same conclusion.
From nearly the beginning of the epidemic, the position taken by the mainstream media had been that Covid-19 was very likely natural
in origin, and although President Trump and some of his political allies soon loudly claimed otherwise, the perceived scientific
consensus remained unchanged.
But as Wade demonstrates, that supposed consensus was largely illusory, having been shaped by two early items that appeared
in prestigious scientific publications. On February 19, 2020, the Lancet had published
a statement signed
by 27 virologists and other noted scientists that declared: "We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting
that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin," and that "[scientists] overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in
wildlife." Then the following month Nature Medicine published
an analysis by five virologists providing some theoretical
arguments against any artificial origin, stating that: "Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or
a purposefully manipulated virus."
These published pieces became far more influential than was warranted. Wade notes that the former statement had actually been
organized behind the scenes by Peter Daszak, an American closely associated with the Wuhan lab and therefore hardly a disinterested
party, while the latter relied heavily upon very dubious scientific reasoning. But once these emphatic conclusions had appeared
in influential periodicals, few microbiologists were willing to challenge this newly established orthodoxy, especially because doing
so would have placed them in the same political camp as Trump, a much vilified figure in their community. Baker had earlier made
similar criticism and I had fully endorsed his verdict in my own March article, but Wade's analysis provides far greater depth.
Moreover, Wade also emphasizes the climate of fear that today governs much of our academic world, with future grant applications
and even careers at risk if researchers depart from perceived orthodoxy on certain issues, perhaps including disputing the origins
of Covid-19. He argues that although the Lancet and Nature Medicine letters were actually political statements
rather than scientific findings, they were "amazingly effective" in suppressing dissent and led the overwhelming majority of journalists
to accept them as reflecting a research consensus that actually did not exist.
Wade's own personal experiences have surely informed this shrewd analysis of the underlying political dynamics. His most recent
book A Troublesome Inheritance had appeared in 2014, and its subtitle "Genes, Race, and Human History" reflected the potentially
explosive nature of his subject matter. Although I considered it
an outstanding treatment of the controversial
topic , Wade's work soon attracted a lynch-mob of critics, who organized a denunciatory public statement that they persuaded
139 prominent genetic scientists to sign. All these individuals were soon humiliated
once it was proven
that not a single one of them had actually bothered examining the true contents of the book that they were so fiercely attacking.
In the case of Covid-19, Wade demonstrates that once the political barriers have been removed and we are allowed to consider the
evidence objectively, our conclusions are transformed. The scientific case for the natural origins of the virus becomes pitifully
weak, thereby automatically elevating the competing lab-leak hypothesis, which had previously been denounced and stigmatized as a
so-called "conspiracy theory."
For example, despite fifteen months of presumably intensive effort, the Chinese have failed to locate evidence of any wildlife
population hosting a closely-related precursor virus, which had easily been found in the previous cases of emergent viral epidemics
such as SARS and MERS. Indeed, the closest natural relative to Covid-19 only exists among bats in the caves of Yunnan, nearly 1,000
miles distant from the Wuhan outbreak.
We would also expect an animal virus that became dangerous to humans would require a lengthy series of intermediate mutational
steps as it gradually evolved the ability to effectively infect our own species, just as had been the case with SARS and other previous
diseases. But Covid-19 seems to have suddenly appeared in a maximally infectious form, perfectly pre-adapted to humans and apparently
derived from a single original source.
Finally, an important structural element of the virus, the "furin cleavage site," is entirely absent from all other members
of its viral family, and crucially contributes to its dangerously infectious nature. A natural origin for that structure seems
implausible, while the scientific literature is replete with such additions having been made in laboratory experiments, including
those conducted by the Wuhan researchers. Moreover, the particular genetic sequence found in that Covid-19 element is extremely
rare in other coronaviruses, strongly suggesting that it was added from a different source.
Having now twice read Wade's long article, I can say that I find nearly all of his scientific arguments quite compelling, and
I have almost no points of significant disagreement. Yet my overall conclusions are entirely different from his.
The explanation of this seeming paradox comes near the very beginning of his article, when he accurately states:
As many people know, there are two main theories about its origin. One is that it jumped naturally from wildlife to people.
The other is that the virus was under study in a lab, from which it escaped.
A paragraph later, the text contains his first major section heading, entitled "A Tale of Two Theories."
Although Wade is absolutely correct in stating that "there are two main theories" about the origins of Covid-19, this duality
has been enforced by political pressures quite similar to those that had earlier excluded discussion of the "lab-leak hypothesis,"
but with the sanctions being far harsher and more extreme.
Wade's analysis masterfully demonstrates that once we are actually willing to explore the much-vilified "conspiracy theory" of
an accidental lab-leak, we discover that it is far more plausible than the case of a natural origin, partly because the latter appears
so unlikely. And if these were the only two possible theories, all arguments against the one would necessarily support the other.
But this framework is upended once we recognize that there is a third logical possibility, far more vilified and excluded than that
of the "lab-leak hypothesis" but also far more plausible and supported by much stronger evidence.
In my March discussion of Baker's long article, I summarized how he first became involved in the topic, and described the crucial
omission I had noticed in his 12,000 word opus:
Baker may not have been a professional virologist or expert in biowarfare, but as the Covid-19 outbreak began he had just completed
Baseless , a lengthy non-fictional account of American national security secrets, which appeared to glowing reviews in
July 2020. One of his major elements was an account of America's massive 1950s bioweapons research program, which had been accorded
resources and importance matching that of our nuclear weapons efforts. Based upon his years of research, the author was not a
complete neophyte on biological warfare issues and was also fully aware of our own long history of laboratory accidents, which
had claimed a number of lives. So he was naturally alert to the possibility that a similar accident had occurred in Wuhan, which
contained China's most secure facility of that same type.
The greatest weakness of Baker's comprehensive analysis is not the controversial theory that he carefully examines, but the
even more controversial possibility that he seems to totally ignore. At one point, he notes the remarkable characteristics of
the pathogen, whose collection of features allowed it to so effectively target humans and which had first appeared in a city having
one of the very few world laboratories engaged in exactly that type of viral research, closing his paragraph with the sentence
"What are the odds?" But other, even more implausible coincidences were entirely excluded from his discussion, and the same had
also been true for Lemoine.
Both these authors seem to assume that there exist only two possible scenarios: a natural virus that suddenly appeared in Wuhan
during late 2019 or an accidental lab-leak of an enhanced disease agent in that same city. But there is an obvious third case
as well, clearly suggested by Baker's focus on America's own very active biowarfare program, which he extensively discussed both
in his long article and in his highly-regarded book. We must surely consider the possibility that the Covid-19 outbreak was not
at all accidental, but instead constituted a deliberate attack against China, occurring as it did near the absolute height of
the international tension with America, and therefore suggesting that elements of our own national security apparatus were the
most obvious suspects. Given the realities of the publishing industry, any serious exploration of such a scenario would probably
have precluded the appearance of the important Baker or Lemoine articles in any respectable publication, perhaps helping to explain
such silence. But as I have argued in my long American
Pravda series , many historical accounts that were blacklisted for exactly those sorts of reasons appear quite likely to be
true.
Exactly the same glaring omission is found in Wade's 11,000 word article. Taken together, Lemoine, Baker, and Wade have produced
a large collection of high-quality articles on the origins of the global Covid-19 epidemic, but nowhere among their 54,000 words
is there even a hint that the virus might possibly have had its origins in America's well-documented and lavishly funded biowarfare
program. For several years, our newspapers have proclaimed that we are now locked into a new Cold War against China, with some
risk that it might turn hot. But the obvious possible implications of the sudden, potentially-devastating outbreak of a dangerous
viral epidemic in our leading international adversary remains unmentionable, too explosive even to dismissed or ridiculed, let alone
carefully considered.
As I noted towards the end of my long March article:
I can easily understand why all these simple facts and their obvious implications regarding the likely origins of the worldwide
epidemic might be considered extremely uncomfortable, perhaps too uncomfortable to be discussed in our media outlets, and therefore
have been so widely ignored. Most of these crucial points were already presented in my original April 2020 article on the subject,
which quickly began to attract enormous traffic and interest in social media. Yet just days after it ran, our entire website was
suddenly banned from Facebook and all our web pages were deranked by Google, perhaps underscoring the very dangerous nature of
this material, and the reasons why so few others have been willing to raise the same points.
I find almost nothing to dispute in the comprehensive analyses provided by Lemoine, Baker, and Wade, but I do think my own work
represents a crucial supplement to their research, given that I have primarily focused on that third possibility, a possibility that
they were necessarily forced to avoid considering. Readers may judge for themselves, but I believe that my articles have demonstrated
that the evidence supporting that excluded hypothesis is considerably stronger than that favoring either of those other two possibilities,
whether the mainstream narrative of a natural virus or the much-vilified "conspiracy theory" of a lab-leak in Wuhan.
For convenience, I am excerpting substantial portions of my original April 2020 and my most recent March 2021 articles:
Although the coronavirus is only moderately lethal, apparently having a fatality rate of 1% or less, it is extremely contagious,
including during an extended pre-symptomatic period and also among asymptomatic carriers. Thus, portions of the US and Europe
are now suffering heavy casualties, while the policies adopted to control the spread have devastated their national economies.
The virus is unlikely to kill more than a small sliver of our population, but we have seen to our dismay how a major outbreak
can so easily wreck our entire economic life.
During January, the journalists reporting on China's mushrooming health crisis regularly emphasized that the mysterious new
viral outbreak had occurred at the worst possible place and time, appearing in the major transport hub of Wuhan just prior to
the Lunar New Year holiday, when hundreds of millions of Chinese would normally travel to their distant family homes for the celebration,
thereby potentially spreading the disease to all parts of the country and producing a permanent, uncontrollable epidemic. The
Chinese government avoided that grim fate by the unprecedented decision to shut down its entire national economy and confine 700
million Chinese to their own homes for many weeks. But the outcome seems to have been a very near thing, and if Wuhan had remained
open for just a few days longer, China might easily have suffered long-term economic and social devastation.
The timing of an accidental laboratory release would obviously be entirely random. Yet the outbreak seems to have begun during
the precise period of time most likely to damage China, the worst possible ten-day or perhaps thirty-day window. As
I noted in January, I
saw no solid evidence that the coronavirus was a bioweapon, but if it were, the timing of the release seemed very unlikely to
have been accidental.
Consider also the preceding waves of other unfortunate viral epidemics that had recently ravaged China:
[D]uring the previous two years, the Chinese economy had already suffered serious blows from other mysterious new diseases,
although these had targeted farm animals rather than people. During 2018 a new Avian Flu virus had swept the country, eliminating
large portions of China's poultry industry, and during 2019 the Swine Flu viral epidemic had devastated China's pig farms, destroying
40% of the nation's primary domestic source of meat, with widespread claims that the latter disease was being spread by mysterious
small drones. My morning newspapers had hardly ignored these important business stories,
noting that the
sudden collapse of much of China's domestic food production might prove a huge boon to American farm exports at the height of
our trade conflict, but I had never considered the obvious implications. So for three years in a row, China had been severely
impacted by strange new viral diseases, though only the most recent had been deadly to humans. This evidence was merely circumstantial,
but the pattern seemed highly suspicious.
Another even more remarkable coincidence has received far greater distribution, becoming a staple of anti-American "conspiracy
theories" and even resulting in a diplomatic incident involving the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
According to the widely accepted current chronology, the Covid-19 epidemic began in Wuhan during late October or early November
of 2019. But the World Military Games were also held in Wuhan during that same period, ending in late October, with 300 American
military servicemen attending. As I've repeatedly emphasized in
my articles and comments for more than a year , how would Americans react if 300 Chinese military officers had paid an extended
visit to Chicago, and soon afterward a mysterious and deadly epidemic had suddenly erupted in that city?
It surely would have been very easy for our intelligence services to have slipped a couple of their operatives into that large
American military contingent, and the presence of many thousands of foreign military personnel, traveling around the large city
and doing sightseeing, would have been ideally suited to providing cover for the quiet release of a highly-infectious viral bioweapon.
None of this constitutes proof, but the coincidental timing is quite remarkable.
Biological warfare is a highly technical subject, and those possessing such expertise are unlikely to candidly report their
classified research activities in the pages of our major newspapers, perhaps even less so after Prof. Lieber was dragged off to
prison in chains. My own knowledge is nil. But in mid-March I came across several extremely long and detailed comments on the
coronavirus outbreak that had been posted on a small website by an individual calling himself "OldMicrobiologist" and who claimed
to be a retired forty-year veteran of American biodefense. The style and details of his material struck me as quite credible,
and after a little further investigation I concluded that there was a high likelihood his background was exactly as he had described.
I made arrangements to republish his comments in the form of
a 3,400 word article
, which soon attracted a great deal of traffic and 80,000 words of further comments.
Although the writer emphasized the lack of any hard evidence, he said that his experience led him to strongly suspect that
the coronavirus outbreak was indeed an American biowarfare attack against China, probably carried out by agents brought into that
country under cover of the Military Games held at Wuhan in late October, the sort of sabotage operation our intelligence agencies
had sometimes undertaken elsewhere. One important point he made was that high lethality was often counter-productive in a bioweapon
since debilitating or hospitalizing large numbers of individuals may impose far greater economic costs on a country than a biological
agent which simply inflicts an equal number of deaths. In his words "a high communicability, low lethality disease is perfect
for ruining an economy," suggesting that the apparent characteristics of the coronavirus were close to optimal in this regard.
Those so interested should read his analysis and assess for themselves his credibility and persuasiveness.
Some of this same speculation eventually reached Chinese social media, and led to articles in Chinese government publications,
which immediately provoked a very hostile response by Trump Administration officials.
This latter sequence of events is carefully recounted in
a massive 17,000 word, 54 page report released a few weeks ago by DFRLab, a social media-oriented research unit within the
establishmentarian Atlantic Council, with the work being based upon nine months of research and preparation by a dozen staffers,
together with the Associated Press investigations team. The study seemed aimed at tracking the appearance and Internet
dissemination of a wide range of supposedly false or unsubstantiated "conspiracy theories" regarding the Covid-19 outbreak, and
AP journalists soon publicized
the results , denouncing "the superspreaders" of such allegedly spurious and potentially dangerous beliefs.
But while this project did produce a very useful compendium of the chronology and source references of the various unorthodox
narratives surrounding the disease, many of which were certainly erroneous or implausible, few effective rebuttal arguments were
provided, notably regarding the extremely suspicious timing of the American military presence in Wuhan. Blogger Steve Sailer and
others have often ridiculed this "point-and-sputter" school of refutation, in which non-mainstream theories need only be described
in order to be considered conclusively disproved.
Although the Atlantic Council/Associated Press team certainly included numerous skilled social media researchers, journalists,
and editors, there is no indication that any of these individuals possessed serious national security credentials, let alone specialized
expertise in the arcane topic of biowarfare. This may help to explain why the weighty report which drew upon such enormous resources
was almost entirely descriptive and made so little effort to analyze or evaluate the plausibility of the various conflicting "conspiracy
narratives" that it treated at great length.
One further oddity of the very comprehensive DFRLab/Atlantic Council report was its own rather curious omissions. Given that its
entire focus was on the full range of absurd "conspiracy theories," the authors naturally explored speculation regarding an American
biowarfare attack, and attributed this theory partly to Kevin Barrett, whom the report characterized as "a US Holocaust denier who
has also claimed that the September 11 attacks were an "˜inside job' by the George W. Bush Administration."
The resulting news story
by its Associated Press partners prominently featured Barrett as one of the America's leading "super-spreaders" of Covid-19
conspiracy-nonsense. Yet Barrett's only real role had been to quote and endorse my own very substantial writings in that area, and
although
he unsuccessfully urged the AP journalists to contact me directly , my name was entirely absent from either the news
articles or the lengthy underlying research report. Since my own writings had constituted the longest and most comprehensive presentation
of the American Biowarfare Hypothesis, such an omission appears curious. I suspect that the editors concluded that any attack on
me would bring my articles to much wider attention, and therefore ruled it out as being obviously counter-productive.
I find it highly unlikely that the DFRLab staffers were unaware of my existence. Their comprehensive report appeared in February
2021, and since it was based upon nine months of investigation, the project would have begun in May 2020. But on April 21, 2020,
I had published
my long original
article making the case for an American biowarfare attack, and its rapidly growing popularity on Facebook only came to an end
after the social media giant quickly banned our entire website, a sudden action that had been based upon
a very doubtful report produced
by that very same DFRLab team , with which
Facebook has long partnered . Indeed
this remarkable coincidence of timing raises the interesting possibility that the appearance of my article and its considerable popularity
had actually prompted DFRLab to undertake its nine month investigation into the general subject of Covid-19 "conspiracy theories."
Furthermore:
The extensive material collected by the Atlantic Council researchers lent further support to an important point
I had made
last April about the curious nature of the early Covid-19 coverage:
One intriguing aspect of the situation was that almost from the first moment that reports of the strange new epidemic in China
reached the international media, a large and orchestrated campaign had been launched on numerous websites and Social Media platforms
to identify the cause as a Chinese bioweapon carelessly released in its own country. Meanwhile, the far more plausible hypothesis
that China was the victim rather than the perpetrator had received virtually no organized support anywhere, and only began to
take shape as I gradually located and republished relevant material, usually drawn from very obscure quarters and often anonymously
authored. So it seemed that only the side hostile to China was waging an active information war. The outbreak of the disease and
the nearly simultaneous launch of such a major propaganda campaign may not necessarily prove that an actual biowarfare attack
had occurred, but I do think it tends to support such a theory.
During January, American media outlets, including those under the authority of Secretary of State and former CIA Director Mike
Pompeo, began focusing attention on the Wuhan lab as the potential source of the viral outbreak, while journalists disputing this
narrative and attempting to raise other possibilities had serious difficulties even getting their articles published on alternative
websites:
Scientific investigation of the coronavirus had already pointed to its origins in a bat virus, leading to widespread media
speculation that bats sold as food in the Wuhan open markets had been the original disease vector. Meanwhile, the orchestrated
waves of anti-China accusations had emphasized Chinese laboratory research on that same viral source. But we soon published
a lengthy article by investigative journalist Whitney Webb providing copious evidence of America's own enormous biowarfare
research efforts, which had similarly focused for years on bat viruses. Webb was then associated with MintPress News
, but that publication had strangely declined to publish her important piece, perhaps skittish about the grave suspicions it directed
towards the US government on so momentous an issue. So without the benefit of our platform, her major contribution to the public
debate might have attracted relatively little readership.
All the evidence thus far presented has merely been circumstantial, strongly establishing that elements of the American national
security establishment had the means, motive, and opportunity to stage a biowarfare attack in Wuhan. However, in April 2020 certain
additional facts appeared that some have characterized as "smoking gun" proof of that disturbing scenario:
But with the horrific consequences of our own later governmental inaction being obvious, elements within our intelligence agencies
have sought to demonstrate that they were not the ones asleep at the switch. Earlier this month,
an ABC News story cited four separate government sources to reveal that as far back as late November, a special medical
intelligence unit within our Defense Intelligence Agency had produced a report warning that an out-of-control disease epidemic
was occurring in the Wuhan area of China, and widely distributed that document throughout the top ranks of our government, warning
that steps should be taken to protect US forces based in Asia. After the story aired, a Pentagon spokesman officially denied the
existence of that November report, while various other top level government and intelligence officials refused to comment. But
a few days later,
Israeli television mentioned that in November American intelligence had indeed shared such a report on the Wuhan disease outbreak
with its NATO and Israeli allies, thus seeming to independently confirm the complete accuracy of the original ABC News
story and its several government sources.
It therefore appears that elements of the Defense Intelligence Agency were aware of the deadly viral outbreak in Wuhan
more than a month before any officials in the Chinese government itself. Unless our intelligence agencies have pioneered
the technology of precognition, I think this may have happened for the same reason that arsonists have the earliest knowledge
of future fires.
According to these multiply-sourced mainstream media accounts, by "the second week of November" our Defense Intelligence Agency
was already preparing a secret report warning of a "cataclysmic" disease outbreak taking place in Wuhan. Yet at that point, probably
no more than a couple of dozen individuals had been infected in that city of 11 million, with few of those yet having any serious
symptoms. The implications are rather obvious. Furthermore:
As the coronavirus gradually began to spread beyond China's own borders, another development occurred that greatly multiplied
my suspicions. Most of these early cases had occurred exactly where one might expect, among the East Asian countries bordering
China. But by late February Iran had become the second epicenter of the global outbreak. Even more surprisingly, its political
elites had been especially hard-hit, with
a full 10% of the entire Iranian
parliament soon infected and at least
a dozen of its officials and politicians dying of the disease, including some who were
quite senior
. Indeed, Neocon activists on Twitter began gleefully noting that their hatred Iranian enemies were now dropping like flies.
Let us consider the implications of these facts. Across the entire world the only political elites that have yet suffered any
significant human losses have been those of Iran, and they died at a very early stage, before significant outbreaks had even occurred
almost anywhere else in the world outside China. Thus, we have America assassinating Iran's top military commander on Jan. 2nd
and then just a few weeks later large portions of the Iranian ruling elites became infected by a mysterious and deadly new virus,
with many of them soon dying as a consequence. Could any rational individual possibly regard this as a mere coincidence?
Most of the material quoted above had originally appeared in my April 2020 article and was afterwards extended and further discussed
in my later pieces, the most recent appearing in March 2021. Taken together, they have been read at least a couple of hundred thousand
times, and have provoked more than 500,000 words of comments. Yet the undeniable facts I presented have remained almost entirely
excluded from the ongoing public debate, presumably for the practical political reasons I have suggested, so it is difficult to know
exactly who has become aware of them.
Donald Trump's departure from the White House seems to have finally encouraged our timorous mainstream media organs to admit that
their longstanding presumption of the entirely natural origin of Covid-19 might not be correct, and
they
have begun giving some consideration to the long-derided competing theory of a man-made virus released in an accidental lab-leak.
But under these changed circumstances, I consider it entirely unreasonable if they continue ignoring that very real third possibility
of an American biowarfare attack. The key pieces of evidence I have provided that favor this hypothesis over the competing lab-leak
scenario may easily be summarized:
(1) For three years, China had been locked in growing conflict with America over trade and geopolitics, and for three years in
a row, China had been hit very hard by mysterious viruses. An Avian Flu virus severely damaged its poultry industry in 2018 and the
following year a Swine Flu virus destroyed over 40% of its pig herds, China's primary meat source. The third year, Covid-19 appeared.
Certainly a suspicious pattern if the last were just a random lab-leak.
(2) The Covid-19 outbreak appeared at absolutely the worst time and place for China, the major transit hub of Wuhan, timed almost
perfectly to reach high local levels of infection just as the travelers for the Lunar New Year holiday spread the disease to all
other parts of the country, thereby producing an unstoppable epidemic. The timing of an accidental lab-leak would obviously be random.
(3) 300 American military servicemen had just visited Wuhan as part of the World Military Games, providing a perfect opportunity
for releasing a viral bioweapon. Consider what Americans would think if 300 Chinese military officers had visited Chicago, and immediately
afterwards a mysterious, deadly viral disease suddenly broke out in that city. It would be a strange coincidence if that the American
military visit and an entirely unrelated accidental lab-leak had occurred at exactly the same time.
(4) The characteristics of Covid-19, including high communicability and low lethality, are absolutely ideal in an anti-economy
bioweapon. It seems odd that a random lab-leak would release a virus so perfectly designed to severely damage the Chinese economy.
(5) From almost the very moment that the outbreak began, anti-China bloggers in America and the US-funded Radio Free Asia network
had launched a powerful international propaganda offensive against China, claiming that the outbreak in Wuhan was due to the leak
of an illegal bioweapon from the Wuhan lab. This may have merely been an exceptionally prompt but opportunistic response of our propaganda
organs, but they seemed remarkably quick to take full advantage of an entirely unexpected and mysterious development, which they
immediately identified as being due to a lab-leak.
(6) By "the second week of November" our Defense Intelligence Agency had already begun preparing a secret report warning of a
"cataclysmic" disease outbreak in Wuhan although according to the standard timeline at that point probably only a couple of dozen
people had started experiencing any symptoms of illness in a city of 11 million. How did they discover what was happening in Wuhan
so much sooner than the Chinese government or anyone else?
(7) Almost immediately afterwards, the ruling political elites in Iran became severely infected, with many of them dying. Why
did the accidental Wuhan lab-leak jump to the Iran's political elites so quickly, before it had reached almost anywhere else in the
world.
Given the conclusions suggested above, I also think it would be useful for me to provide my own summary of a plausible scenario
for the Covid-19 outbreak. Although I had already presented this outline
in a September 2020 article , I see no need for any revisions. Obviously, this reconstruction is quite speculative, but I think
it best fits all the available evidence, while individual elements may be modified, dropped, or replaced without necessarily compromising
the overall hypothesis.
(1) Rogue elements within our large national security apparatus probably affiliated with the Deep State Neocons decided to inflict
severe damage upon the huge Chinese economy using biowarfare. The plan was to infect the key transport hub of Wuhan with Covid-19
so that the disease would invisibly spread throughout the entire country during the annual Lunar New Year travels, and they used
the cover of the Wuhan International Military Games to slip a couple of operatives into the city to release the virus. My guess is
that only a relatively small number of individuals were involved in this plot.
(2) The biological agent they released was designed primarily as an anti-economy rather than an anti-personnel weapon. Although
Covid-19 has rather low fatality rates, it is extremely contagious, has a long pre-symptomatic infectious period, and can even spread
by asymptomatic carriers, making it ideally suited for that purpose. Thus, once it established itself throughout most of China, it
would be extremely difficult to eradicate and the resulting efforts to control it would inflict enormous damage upon China's economy
and society.
(3) As a secondary operation, they decided to target Iran's political elites, possibly deploying a somewhat more deadly variant
of the virus. Since political elites generally tend to be elderly, they would anyway suffer far greater fatalities.
(5) Only a small number of individuals were directly involved in this plot, and soon after the disease was successfully released
in Wuhan, they decided to further safeguard America's own interests by alerting the appropriate units with the Defense Intelligence
Agency, probably by fabricating some sort of supposed "intelligence leak." Basically, they arranged for the DIA to hear that Wuhan
was apparently suffering a "cataclysmic" disease outbreak, thereby leading the DIA to prepare and distribute a secret report warning
our own forces and allies to take appropriate precautions.
(6) Unfortunately for these plans, the Chinese government reacted with astonishing determination and effectiveness, and soon stamped
out the disease. Meanwhile, the lackadaisical and incompetent American government largely ignored the problem, only reacting after
the massive outbreak in Northern Italy had gotten media attention. Since the CDC had botched production of a testing kit, we had
no means of recognizing that the disease was already spreading in our country, and the result was massive damage to America's economy
and society. In effect, America suffered exactly the fate that had originally been intended for its Chinese rival.
Looks like even connection of viruses represent significant danger as with time their handing became sloppy. Safety violations is
such lbs are inevitable because humans can't be in super high alert for years. So the more labs you have with such collections, the
higher is the chance of lab escape. At some point biological Chernobyl happens. It is government efforts (both China and the USA) in
maintaining and proliferating those biolabs that are now represent the danger to humanity.
The fact the Ralph Baric signed the letter calling for Wuhan investigation is pretty ironic. He is probably the first researchers
in gain of function area who needs to be investigated and if necessary prosecuted for his reckless and dangerous for humanity experiments.
There some inconsistencies in argumentation in this article similar to the inconsistencies of "The USA waping epidemic as a close
precursor of COVID-19 epidemic: hypothesis. Why full scale epidemic did not started at the point when miners became ill? Why medical
personnel did not became ill?
The question "Why doesn't the Chinese government allow open access to WIV's records?" raises symmetrical question: why the USA government
did nto open Fort Detrick lab records, especially details of the leak that happened in 2019 and which led to closing of the lab by CDC.
Timing of the leak and timing of the USA waping epidemic are suspiciously close. Of course, after that does not mean because of that,
but still...
Notable quotes:
"... In April 2012, six miners here fell sick with a mysterious illness after entering the mine to clear bat guano. Three of them died. ..."
"... Should the notion of a lab leak be further investigated? Join the conversation below. ..."
"... Those experiments involved combining one bat coronavirus with the spike protein of another and then infecting mice genetically engineered to contain human ACE2, Dr. Shi told the WHO-led team in February, according to its report. ..."
"... Dr. Daszak described similar work, conducted by Dr. Baric of UNC, in a podcast shortly before the pandemic began, saying the aim was to create a vaccine for SARS. EcoHealth Alliance described such experiments as one of the aims of its NIAID bat coronavirus research grant awarded in 2019. But the nonprofit, in accordance with the NIH moratorium, "has not participated in nor funded gain-of-function research" and no "in vivo" research was conducted on this grant, an EcoHealth Alliance spokesman said. The NIH suspended the grant in 2020. ..."
"... One question now dividing the scientific community is whether such experiments could have created SARS-CoV-2, either accidentally or as part of a deliberate effort to see which viruses could evolve into ones dangerous to humans. ..."
"... Dr. Shi told the WHO-led team that there had been no leaks and none of her team had tested positive for Covid-19. ..."
DANAOSHAN, China -- On the outskirts of a village deep in the mountains of southwest China, a lone surveillance camera peers
down toward a disused copper mine smothered in dense bamboo. As night approaches, bats swoop overhead.
This is the subterranean home of the closest known virus on Earth to the one that causes Covid-19. It is also now a touchpoint
for
escalating calls for a more thorough probe into whether the pandemic could have stemmed from a Chinese laboratory.
In April 2012, six miners here fell sick with a mysterious illness after entering the mine to clear bat guano. Three of them
died.
Chinese scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were called in to investigate and, after taking samples from bats in
the mine, identified several new coronaviruses.
Now,
unanswered questions about the miners' illness, the viruses found at the site and the research done with them have elevated
into the mainstream an idea once dismissed as a conspiracy theory: that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, might have leaked
from a lab in Wuhan, the city where the first cases were found in December 2019.
The lab researchers thus far haven't provided full and prompt answers, and there have been discrepancies in some information
they have released. That has led to demands by leading scientists for a deeper investigation into the Wuhan institute and whether
the pandemic virus could have been in its labs and escaped.
... ... ...
Most of those calling for a fuller examination of the lab hypothesis say they aren't backing it over the main alternative --
that the virus
spread from animals to humans outside a lab, in the kind of natural spillover that has become more frequent in recent decades.
There isn't yet enough evidence for either idea, they say, nor are the two incompatible. The virus could have been one of natural
origin that was brought back to a laboratory in Wuhan -- intentionally or accidentally -- and escaped.
A growing number, however, including the director-general of the WHO and a prominent U.S. researcher who has worked with the
Wuhan Institute of Virology, agree that the WIV needs to provide more information about its work to categorically rule out a lab
spill.
... ... ...
On May 13, a group of 18 scientists from universities including Harvard, Stanford and Yale published an open letter in the academic
journal Science calling for serious consideration of the lab hypothesis and urging research laboratories to open their records.
Among the signatories to the Science letter was Ralph Baric, a microbiologist at the University of North Carolina who worked
with the WIV on a study, including on a study to create an artificial coronavirus that infected human cells in the lab.
In an email, he said SARS-CoV-2's genetic structure suggests it originated in wildlife and evolved naturally to infect humans,
and that he believes that is the most likely scenario, but "more investigation and transparency are necessary to define the origin
of the pandemic."
Ralph Baric, a microbiologist at the University of North Carolina, has worked with WIV researchers. PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER JANARO/BLOOMBERG
NEWS
"A rigorous investigation would have reviewed the biosafety level under which bat coronavirus research was conducted at WIV,"
he said. "It would have included detailed information on the training procedures with records, the safety procedures with records
and strategies that were in place to prevent inadvertent or accidental escape."
The shift among leading scientists is partly due to conflicting statements from Chinese researchers. Some scientists say another
factor has been a toning down of U.S. government rhetoric on the subject in recent months.
... ... ...
The most detailed account of the miners' illness comes in a master's thesis by Li Xu from the No. 1 School of Clinical Medicine
at Kunming Medical University in southwest China. He didn't respond to requests for comment.
His thesis, supervised by the hospital's emergency chief at the time, describes how a 42-year-old man surnamed Lü was admitted
there on April 25, 2012.
Mr. Lü had been clearing bat guano at the mine, in China's Mojiang region, since April 2 and had suffered from a fever and cough
for two weeks. For the previous three days, he had trouble breathing and had begun coughing up rust-color mucus spotted with blood.
A CT scan revealed severe pneumonia, with the same lung markings now seen in many Covid-19 patients. Still, blood and other tests
couldn't pinpoint the cause.
Over the next week, five others working at the Mojiang mine, ages 30 to 63, were admitted to the same hospital. All had similar
symptoms.
octors consulted experts in respiratory disease, including Zhong Nanshan, who had led the fight against China's 2002 and 2003
outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.
Dr. Zhong diagnosed pneumonia, most likely caused by a virus, and recommended testing for SARS antibodies and trying to identify
the type of bats in the mine. He didn't respond to a request for comment.
Another thesis, written by a Ph.D. candidate supervised by George Gao, the current head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control
and Prevention, or China CDC, said four of the miners tested positive for SARS antibodies.
The hospital contacted experts from several other institutions, including the WIV. None could identify what caused the miners'
illness.
By mid-August 2012, three of them were dead. The suspicion was that it was a bat-borne SARS-like coronavirus, according to Mr.
Li's thesis. Chinese scientists, who were still searching for the origins of SARS, knew that bat caves in the area were a potential
source, and they had been collecting samples from them.
Over the next year or so, WIV scientists entered the Mojiang mine and took fecal samples from 276 bats, identifying six different
species, according to a research paper they published later.
They extracted genetic material from the samples and sequenced fragments. Half of the samples tested positive for coronaviruses,
including an unidentified strain of a SARS-like one, according to the scientists. They called the virus RaBtCoV/4991.
Critically, all six bat species showed evidence of coronavirus co-infection, the researchers found. In other words, the virus
could easily exchange genetic material with similar ones to create a new coronavirus -- an environment ripe for the creation of
new viruses that could potentially infect humans.
That research was led by Shi Zhengli, the WIV's leading bat coronavirus expert. When the results were published in 2016 in the
journal Virologica Sinica, few scientists paid attention to RaBtCoV/4991. It didn't appear to be closely related to SARS. It came
from an abandoned mineshaft, said the paper, which made no mention of the miners who fell sick there.
Only after the Covid-19 pandemic began did it become more significant. In February 2020, Dr. Shi and her colleagues published
a paper in the scientific journal, Nature, revealing the existence of a virus called RaTG13. Sequencing had revealed it was 96.2%
similar to SARS-CoV-2 genetically, making it the closest known relative to the pandemic virus.
They said it was found in a bat in Yunnan, the Chinese province that includes the Mojiang region mine, but didn't say when or
where.
That revelation was considered a breakthrough in the search for Covid-19's source, strongly indicating that it originated in
bats.
Striking similarities
In the following weeks, however, some scientists outside China noticed striking similarities in the sampling dates and partial
genetic sequences of the virus called RaTG13 and the one called RaBtCoV/4991, which Dr. Shi's team had found in the Mojiang mine.
After repeated requests by scientists to clarify the issue, Dr. Shi said that the two viruses were one and the same. She updated
her paper in Nature in November to reflect that and include details about the sick miners.
The virus had been renamed to reflect the bat species, its location, and the sampling year, she said.
She also revealed that the WIV retested samples from the miners and established that they weren't infected with SARS-CoV-2. And
she disclosed that her team subsequently had found eight other SARS-type coronaviruses in the mine.
On Friday, after repeated requests from scientists to share the genetic sequences of the viruses, Dr. Shi and colleagues released
a scientific paper on a preprint server, meaning that it has yet to be peer-reviewed. The paper said the eight were almost identical
to each other and only 77.6% similar to SARS-CoV-2, although one part of their genetic code was a 97.2% match. "Albeit there is
a speculation claiming the possible leaking of RaTG13 from lab that caused SARS-CoV-2, the experiment evidence cannot support it,"
the paper said.
Many scientists question why the WIV didn't announce the existence of those viruses earlier, as well as their connection to the
mine, and why they waited so long to allow scientists to examine their sequences. Such information about the types of coronaviruses
that were circulating is critical in the search for the pandemic's origins, they say.
Some have noted that Dr. Shi has repeatedly asserted that the Mojiang miners had a suspected fungal infection, not a virus, contradicting
research papers at the time and Dr. Shi's update in Nature, which said the miners were thought to have a virus.
Dr. Shi didn't respond to requests for comment.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
Should the notion of a lab leak be further investigated? Join the conversation below.
Many scientists are eager to examine the WIV's once publicly available database of some 22,000 samples and virus sequences, including
15,000 from bats. The database was taken offline in September 2019. Dr. Shi told the WHO-led team in February that the database
was taken offline after being subjected to more than 3,000 cyberattacks.
The WHO-led team that visited didn't ask to view the data, according to Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New
York-based nonprofit, who was on the team. The database included information the WIV had gathered through work with EcoHealth Alliance,
which was funded by the NIAID and collaborated with the WIV to study coronaviruses in bats. Dr. Daszak said earlier this year that
because of his organization's work with the WIV, "we basically know" what viruses were in the database, and none was closer to SARS-CoV-2
than RaTG13.
Moreover, RaTG13 was genetically very distinct from SARS-CoV-2 and had never been successfully cultured in the lab, he and other
scientists on the WHO-led team said. "Of course we discussed it," said Dr. Ben Embarek, the WHO team leader. "From what we know,
only a sequence exists. No virus. They never succeeded to culture a virus out of the bat feces sample."
If the WIV had only the genetic sequence, it wouldn't have had an infectious RaTg13 virus that could have escaped from the lab.
Having only the genetic sequence also raises questions about the extent to which it could have been used as the basis for experiments
to create man-made viruses.
Other scientists, however, say that cannot be independently verified without viewing the WIV's lab logs, sample records and viral
database and that research papers show its employees were combining some bat coronaviruses they had cultured with genetic material
from others.
Some are uncomfortable with Dr. Daszak's role in the WHO-led team, given his close relationship with the WIV and his stated rejection
of the lab hypothesis since early last year. Dr. Daszak has said he provided a conflict of interest statement to the WHO when he
applied to be on the team. The WHO has said it determined his work didn't pose a conflict.
Lab experiments
One area of controversy is the experiments the WIV was doing to construct new viruses by combining elements of existing bat coronaviruses
to determine whether they could become more infectious to humans.
Such experiments -- sometimes described as "gain-of-function" research -- have long been controversial among scientists. Supporters
say they are the best way to identify potential sources of future pandemics and to develop vaccines. Critics say the risk of harmful,
genetically enhanced viruses leaking from a lab is too great. Scientists debate what types of experiments constitute gain-of-function
research.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health paused funding gain-of-function research in 2014, and in 2017 introduced a system requiring
an expert-panel review of any grant proposals involving gain-of-function experiments. China's restrictions were looser.
Some scientists say work described by Dr. Shi fits a broad definition of gain-of-function research. There are wide differences
of opinion about where the boundaries are drawn.
Dr. Shi has publicly described doing experiments, including in 2018 and 2019, to see if various bat coronaviruses could use a
certain spike protein on their surfaces to bind to an enzyme in human cells known as ACE2. That is how both the SARS virus and SARS-CoV-2
infect humans.
Those experiments involved combining one bat coronavirus with the spike protein of another and then infecting mice genetically
engineered to contain human ACE2, Dr. Shi told the WHO-led team in February, according to its report.
Dr. Daszak described similar work, conducted by Dr. Baric of UNC, in a podcast shortly before the pandemic began, saying
the aim was to create a vaccine for SARS.
EcoHealth Alliance described such experiments as one of the aims of its NIAID bat coronavirus research grant awarded in 2019.
But the nonprofit, in accordance with the NIH moratorium, "has not participated in nor funded gain-of-function research" and no
"in vivo" research was conducted on this grant, an EcoHealth Alliance spokesman said. The NIH suspended the grant in 2020.
"If the world wants to shut down work that was not gain-of-function because of a conspiracy theory, that's a huge mistake,"
Dr. Daszak said earlier this year. "This virus, it's extremely unlikely that it came from a lab. If we focus on the lab issue
and ignore what really happened, we do so at our ultimate peril."
One question now dividing the scientific community is whether such experiments could have created SARS-CoV-2, either accidentally
or as part of a deliberate effort to see which viruses could evolve into ones dangerous to humans.
Many prominent scientists say that would be impossible with RaTG13, and that SARS-CoV-2 could only have been created out of a
virus that was genetically closer to it. While the WIV has said RaTG13 is the closest relative it had to the pandemic virus, scientists
calling for a lab investigation want access to the lab's records to verify that.
Gain-of-function experiments would leave clear genetic signatures in sequences of the virus showing that part of it was inserted
in a laboratory, many molecular biologists say. Other scientists say more modern techniques can leave no trace.
Ian Lipkin, an infectious-disease specialist at Columbia University who has worked closely with Chinese research partners, was
among five scientists who last year co-wrote a paper dismissing the idea that the virus was manipulated in a lab. Now he says he
is concerned that the WIV was doing experiments on coronaviruses in laboratories at a lower biosafety level than required in the
U.S.
Dr. Shi told the WHO-led team that there had been no leaks and none of her team had tested positive for Covid-19.
Several of Dr. Shi's foreign research partners have said they found her laboratories and work practices to be safe. "Shi Zhengli
runs a tight ship," said Maureen Miller, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Columbia University. "They are sharp, smart people.
She was working to prevent exactly this kind of pandemic. She knows the seriousness of working with coronaviruses."
Over a year ago, many outside China noticed that RaTG13 (in Covid) and the one called RaBtCoV/4991 (2012 bat mine) appear to
be the same. Both were described and identified at the Wuhan lab. Why did the lab rename the sequence after identifying it in
2012-2013 ?
Looks like the USA neoliberal elite has serious credibility problems. Neoliberal MSM are no longer trusted by significant strata
of the US population. This looks like "Back int he USSR" situation to me.
Notable quotes:
"... There's a reason for that particular choice of words. A pattern of selective omissions in an otherwise entirely truthful presentation can easily mislead us as much as any outright lie. And under certain circumstances, such omissions may be made necessary by powerful outside forces, so that even the most well-intentioned writer is faced with the difficult choice of either excluding certain elements from his analysis or having his important work denied a proper audience. ..."
"... Exactly the same glaring omission is found in Wade's 11,000 word article. Taken together, Lemoine, Baker, and Wade have produced a large collection of high-quality articles on the origins of the global Covid-19 epidemic, but nowhere among their 54,000 words is there even a hint that the virus might possibly have had its origins in America's well-documented and lavishly funded biowarfare program. ..."
"... The same strain of the virus was found in GringoLandia as well as in Europe at earlier dates in 2019. CDC should come clean why they SHUT DOWN Fort Detrick lab in August 2019 and why they was called there in the first place. In 2019 people in the are had "mysterious vaping lung disease" which matches Covid-19. They had that exact virus there. ..."
"... WHO team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 virus is 'Not Allowed' in secret Pentagon biolabs around the world ..."
"... More likely - Developed at Fort Detrick, samples tested in Falklands and Spain in Feb, modified then sent to Wuhan using a patsy. Close Fort Detrick, blame the Chinese - Ultimate trade war weapon. ..."
"... They lied about bats, pangolins, Wuhan, masks, distancing, surface spread, asymptomatic spread, lock downs, and finally vaccines. Trust none of them. ..."
Looks like everything at Fort Detrick was up to standards.
.
'Army germ lab shut down by CDC in 2019 had several 'serious' protocol violations that year
Select agents are defined by the CDC as "biological agents and toxins that have been determined to have the potential to pose
a severe threat to public health and safety, to animal and plant health, or to animal or plant products.'
That was their own SAR's variant which caused the 'vaping crisis' absent the s1 cleavege spike protein. Still killed people,
nothing like as infectious.
As every fan of the old Perry Mason show remembers, courtroom witnesses swear "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth."
There's a reason for that particular choice of words. A pattern of selective omissions in an otherwise entirely truthful
presentation can easily mislead us as much as any outright lie. And under certain circumstances, such omissions may be made necessary
by powerful outside forces, so that even the most well-intentioned writer is faced with the difficult choice of either excluding
certain elements from his analysis or having his important work denied a proper audience.
Two months ago I [Ron Unz] published a lengthy article summarizing much of the information from the first year of the outbreak
and focusing upon the heated debate regarding the origins of the virus. This compendium of crucial research has now received a
major addition, a 11,000 word analysis of the likely origins of Covid-19 by Nicholas Wade, a distinguished former science reporter
and editor, who had spent more than four decades at the New York Times, Science, and Nature , and the author of several excellent
books dealing with anthropology and evolutionary biology.
In the case of Covid-19, Wade demonstrates that once the political barriers have been removed and we are allowed to consider
the evidence objectively, our conclusions are transformed. The scientific case for the natural origins of the virus becomes pitifully
weak, thereby automatically elevating the competing lab-leak hypothesis, which had previously been denounced and stigmatized as
a so-called "conspiracy theory."
Having now twice read Wade's long article, I can say that I find nearly all of his scientific arguments quite compelling, and
I have almost no points of significant disagreement. Yet my overall conclusions are entirely different from his.
... ... ...
Exactly the same glaring omission is found in Wade's 11,000 word article. Taken together, Lemoine, Baker, and Wade have
produced a large collection of high-quality articles on the origins of the global Covid-19 epidemic, but nowhere among their 54,000
words is there even a hint that the virus might possibly have had its origins in America's well-documented and lavishly funded
biowarfare program.
sarz 10 hours ago remove link
Ann Coulter says:
Wade claims to have no preference for one theory over another" he's just laying out the facts! But it's pretty clear that
he is coming down on the side of the lab theory.
He doesn't mention that 27 of the original 41 Chinese people who contracted COVID-19 had been to the Wuhan wet market, known
the world over for its delectable porcupine anus and snake innards. Several other carriers were family members of those infected
there. By contrast, no one from the Wuhan lab appears to have been infected.
She implies this is a weakness of Wade's laboratory hypothesis. But it's actually only so for the WUHAN laboratory hypothesis.
SoDamnMad 11 hours ago
Nothing more at Ft. Detrick than not have containment plans in place with a person assigned the responsibility. This goes on
all the time in the chemical industry where spill plans must be in place for every piece of equipment and an inspection by OSHA
or CDC catches these deficiencies. A higher level of concern at a facility like Ft. Detrick.
vova_3.2018 10 hours ago remove link
Looks like everything at Fort Detrick was up to standards.
The same strain of the virus was found in GringoLandia as well as in Europe at earlier dates in 2019. CDC should come clean
why they SHUT DOWN Fort Detrick lab in August 2019 and why they was called there in the first place. In 2019 people in the are
had "mysterious vaping lung disease" which matches Covid-19. They had that exact virus there.
More likely - Developed at Fort Detrick, samples tested in Falklands and Spain in Feb, modified then sent to Wuhan using
a patsy. Close Fort Detrick, blame the Chinese - Ultimate trade war weapon.
vril PRO 11 hours ago
Faucism
boyplunger7777 12 hours ago
They lied about bats, pangolins, Wuhan, masks, distancing, surface spread, asymptomatic spread, lock downs, and finally
vaccines. Trust none of them.
Suzy Q 12 hours ago
They lied about JFK
Uri Finberg 12 hours ago
No. They KILLED JFK. The Democrats rigged the election. The Globalists wanted JFK to beat Nixon. So they rigged the election
just like Trump vs. Biden.
JFK was going to be the rock star President like Obama. He was going to be the hip Hollywood President that would lead the
youth to destruction.
Then JFK wised up. When he found out they rigged the election and he didn't actually win he started thinking about it. He was
ready to take down the Deep State, Globalists, Secret Societies whatever you want to call it. He was ready to drain the swamp
so they killed him. They killed him, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. They didn't take out Trump because
they manipulated him to push the "vaccine" depopulation agenda instead. They used Trump until they could rig the next election.
Suzy Q 12 hours ago
Yes, they killed JFK, but they also lied about JFK
Not Your Father's ZH 12 hours ago
And they're still lying . . . and many are still buying.
Suzy Q 11 hours ago (Edited)
They lied about Russia, Russia, Russia, weapons of mass destruction, throwing babies from incubators onto the cold, hard floor
in Kuwait, Bengazi, Epstein killing himself.
They lied about vaccines not causing autism, about HIV/AIDS, about the rainbow belonging to the gays.They lie about lying.
They cannot help themselves, it is their nature to lie.
EcoJoker PREMIUM 12 hours ago
I would bet it had more to do with JFK about to take the reigns on money printing. A week before he was to sign that EO, he
was shot.
keeper20 10 hours ago (Edited)
DOOD, research this:
Nixon was hired after answering a classified ad in the LA Times for auditions for the part of a politician to run for political
office. the man who bought the ad, held the interviews, and hired him was prescott walker bush. nixon was a lackey of the nazi
vril paperclip bunch.
Nimby 12 hours ago
People keep wondering when the next civil war/revolution/world war/whatever is going to start. It already has. First rule of
war: Know when you're in one.
Not Your Father's ZH 12 hours ago
All warfare is based on deception. ~ Sun Tzu
The first casualty of war is truth. ~ Aeschylus
. . . the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in
any country. ~ Herman Goering
"... In 1977, a worldwide epidemic of influenza A began in Russia and China; it was eventually traced to a sample of an American strain of flu preserved in a laboratory freezer since 1950 ..."
"... I asked Jonathan A. King, a molecular biologist and biosafety advocate from MIT, whether he'd thought lab accident when he first heard about the epidemic. "Absolutely, absolutely," King answered. Other scientists he knew were concerned as well. But scientists, he said, in general were cautious about speaking out. There were "very intense, very subtle pressures" on them not to push on issues of laboratory biohazards. Collecting lots of bat viruses, and passaging those viruses repeatedly through cell cultures, and making bat-human viral hybrids, King believes, "generates new threats and desperately needs to be reined in." ..."
"... And late in the month, a professor at National Taiwan University, Fang Chi-tai, gave a lecture on the coronavirus in which he described the anomalous R-R-A-R furin cleavage site. The virus was "unlikely to have four amino acids added all at once," Fang said "natural mutations were smaller and more haphazard," he argued. "From an academic point of view, it is indeed possible that the amino acids were added to COVID-19 in the lab by humans." ..."
"... In January 2015, the brand-new BSL-4 lab in Wuhan, built by a French contractor, celebrated its opening, but full safety certification came slowly. According to State Department cables from 2018 leaked to the Washington Post , the new BSL-4 lab had some start-up problems, including "a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory." The staff had gotten some training at a BSL-4 lab in Galveston, Texas, but they were doing potentially dangerous work with SARS-like viruses, the memo said, and they needed more help from the U.S. ..."
"... In November or December of 2019, the novel coronavirus began to spread. Chinese scientists initially named it "Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus," but soon that idea went away. The market, closed and decontaminated by Chinese officials on January 1, 2020, was an amplifying hub, not the source of the outbreak, according to several studies by Chinese scientists. Forty-five percent of the earliest SARS-2 patients had no link with the market. ..."
"... A few years later, in a further round of "interspecies transfer" experimentation, Baric's scientists introduced their mouse coronavirus into flasks that held a suspension of African-green-monkey cells, human cells, and pig-testicle cells. Then, in 2002, they announced something even more impressive: They'd found a way to create a full-length infectious clone of the entire mouse-hepatitis genome. Their "infectious construct" replicated itself just like the real thing, they wrote . ..."
"... In 2006, Baric, Yount, and two other scientists were granted a patent for their invisible method of fabricating a full-length infectious clone using the seamless, no-see'm method. But this time, it wasn't a clone of the mouse-hepatitis virus "" it was a clone of the entire deadly human SARS virus, the one that had emerged from Chinese bats, via civets, in 2002. The Baric Lab came to be known by some scientists as "the Wild Wild West." In 2007, Baric said that we had entered "the golden age of coronavirus genetics." ..."
"... "I would be afraid to look in their freezers," one virologist told me. ..."
"... After SARS appeared in 2003, Ralph Baric's laboratory moved up the NIH funding ladder. SARS was a "dual use" organism "" a security threat and a zoonotic threat at the same time. In 2006, Baric wrote a long, fairly creepy paper on the threat of "weaponizable" viruses. Synthetic biology had made possible new kinds of viral "weapons of mass disruption," he wrote, involving, for example, "rapid production of numerous candidate bioweapons that can be simultaneously released," a scattershot terror tactic Baric called the ""‰"˜survival of the fittest' approach." ..."
"... In 2006, for instance, Baric and his colleagues, hoping to come up with a "vaccine strategy" for SARS, produced noninfectious virus replicon particles (or VRPs) using the Venezuelan-equine-encephalitis virus (another American germ-warfare agent), which they fitted with various SARS spike proteins. ..."
"... It could have happened in Wuhan, but "because anyone can now "print out" a fully infectious clone of any sequenced disease" it could also have happened at Fort Detrick, or in Texas, or in Italy, or in Rotterdam, or in Wisconsin, or in some other citadel of coronaviral inquiry. No conspiracy "" just scientific ambition, and the urge to take exciting risks and make new things, and the fear of terrorism, and the fear of getting sick. Plus a whole lot of government money. ..."
"... Project Bioshield began to fade by the end of the Bush administration, although the expensive high-containment laboratories, controversial preservers and incubators of past and future epidemics, remain. By 2010, some BioShield projects had dissolved into Obama's Predict program, which paid for laboratories and staff in 60 "risky areas for spillover" around the world. Jonna Mazet, a veterinary scientist from the University of California, Davis, was in charge of Predict, which was a component of USAID's "Emerging Pandemic Threats" program. Her far-flung teams collected samples from 164,000 animals and humans and claimed to have found "almost 1,200 potentially zoonotic viruses, among them 160 novel coronaviruses, including multiple SARS- and MERS-like coronaviruses." The fruits of Predict's exotic harvest were studied and circulated in laboratories worldwide, and their genetic sequences became part of GenBank , the NIH's genome database, where any curious RNA wrangler anywhere could quickly synthesize snippets of code and test out a new disease on human cells. ..."
"... Baric, Jonna Mazet, and Peter Daszak of EcoHealth worked together for years "" and Daszak also routed Predict money to Shi Zhengli's bat-surveillance team in Wuhan through his nonprofit, mingling it with NIH money and money from the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. In 2013, Mazet announced that Shi Zhengli's virus hunters, with Predict's support, had, for the first time, isolated and cultured a live SARS-like virus from bats and demonstrated that this virus could bind to the human ACE2, or "angiotensin-converting enzyme 2," receptor, which Baric's laboratory had determined to be the sine qua non of human infectivity. "This work shows that these viruses can directly infect humans and validates our assumption that we should be searching for viruses of pandemic potential before they spill over to people," Mazet said . ..."
"... In 2011, a tall , confident Dutch scientist, Ron Fouchier, using grant money from Fauci's group at NIH, created a mutant form of highly pathogenic avian influenza, H5N1, and passaged it ten times through ferrets in order to prove that he could "force" (his word) this potentially fatal disease to infect mammals, including humans, "via aerosols or respiratory droplets." Fouchier said his findings indicated that these avian influenza viruses, thus forced, "pose a risk of becoming pandemic in humans." ..."
"... This experiment was too much for some scientists: Why, out of a desire to prove that something extremely infectious could happen, would you make it happen? And why would the U.S. government feel compelled to pay for it to happen? Late in 2011, Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard School of Public Health got together with several other dismayed onlookers to ring the gong for caution. On January 8, 2012, the New York Times ..."
"... Anarchist's Cookbook ..."
"... Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ..."
"... Scientific American ..."
"... This is the period in the story that demands a very close investigation, when chimeric assemblages may have been created and serially passaged, using BtCoV/4991, a.k.a. RaTG13, and other bat viruses, perhaps along with forms of the human virus. It's when Shi and Baric both published papers that were about what happened when you hot-swapped mutant spike proteins between bat viruses and human viruses. ..."
"... The link, via the renamed sample BtCoV/4991, to the copper mine is of exceptional importance because of the one huge difference between the unnamed guano shovelers' virus and the SARS-2 virus that is now ravaging, for example, California: transmissibility. Airborne human-to-human transmissibility "the kind of thing that gain-of-functioneers like Ron Fouchier and Ralph Baric were aiming at, in order to demonstrate what Baric called 'lurking threats' " is COVID-19's crucial distinguishing feature. If six men had gotten extremely sick with COVID-19 back in 2012 in southern China, doctors and nurses in the hospital where they lay dying would likely have gotten sick as well. There might have been hundreds or thousands of cases. Instead, only the shovelers themselves, who had breathed a heavy concentration of guano dust for days, got it. ..."
"... The existence of bat virus RaTG13 is therefore not necessarily evidence of a natural bat origin. In fact, it seems to me to imply the opposite: New functional components may have been overlaid onto or inserted into the RaTG13 genome ..."
"... This is where the uniquely peculiar furin insert and/or the human-tuned ACE2-receptor-binding domain may come in "although it's also possible that either of these elements could have evolved as part of some multistep zoonotic process." But in the climate of gonzo laboratory experimentation, at a time when all sorts of tweaked variants and amped-up substitutions were being tested on cell cultures and in the lungs of humanized mice and other experimental animals, isn't it possible that somebody in Wuhan took the virus that had been isolated from human samples, or the RaTG13 bat virus sequence, or both (or other viruses from that same mine shaft that Shi Zhengli has recently mentioned in passing), and used them to create a challenge disease for vaccine research "" a chopped-and-channeled version of RaTG13 or the miners' virus that included elements that would make it thrive and even rampage in people? And then what if, during an experiment one afternoon, this new, virulent, human-infecting, furin-ready virus got out? ..."
"... For more than 15 years, coronavirologists strove to prove that the threat of SARS was ever present and must be defended against, and they proved it by showing how they could doctor the viruses they stored in order to force them to jump species and go directly from bats to humans. More and more bat viruses came in from the field teams, and they were sequenced and synthesized and "rewired," to use a term that Baric likes. In this international potluck supper of genetic cookery, hundreds of new variant diseases were invented and stored. And then one day, perhaps, somebody messed up. It's at least a reasonable, "parsimonious" explanation of what might have happened. ..."
"... This may be the great scientific meta-experiment of the 21st century. Could a world full of scientists do all kinds of reckless recombinant things with viral diseases for many years and successfully avoid a serious outbreak? ..."
A scientist named Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology published a paper saying that the
novel coronavirus was 96 percent identical to a bat virus, RaTG13, found in Yunnan province in
southern China. On March 13, I wrote in my journal that there seemed to be something oddly
artificial about the disease: "It's too airborne "" too catching "" it's something that has
been selected for infectivity. That's what I suspect. No way to know so no reason to waste time
thinking about it."
This was just a note to self "" at the time, I hadn't interviewed scientists about SARS-2 or
read their research papers. But I did know something about pathogens and laboratory accidents;
I published a book last year, Baseless
, that talks about some of them. The book is named after a Pentagon program, Project Baseless,
whose goal, as of 1951, was to achieve "an Air Force""wide combat capability in biological and
chemical warfare at the earliest possible date."
A vast treasure was spent by the U.S. on the amplification and aerial delivery of diseases
"" some well known, others obscure and stealthy. America's biological-weapons program in the
'50s had A1-priority status, as high as nuclear weapons. In preparation for a total war with a
numerically superior communist foe, scientists bred germs to be resistant to antibiotics and
other drug therapies, and they infected lab animals with them, using a technique called "serial
passaging," in order to make the germs more virulent and more catching.
And along the way, there were laboratory accidents. By 1960, hundreds of American scientists
and technicians had been hospitalized, victims of the diseases they were trying to weaponize.
Charles Armstrong, of the National Institutes of Health, one of the consulting founders of the
American germ-warfare program, investigated Q fever three times, and all three times,
scientists and staffers got sick. In the anthrax pilot plant at Camp Detrick, Maryland, in
1951, a microbiologist, attempting to perfect the "foaming process" of high-volume production,
developed a fever and died. In 1964, veterinary worker Albert Nickel fell ill after being
bitten by a lab animal.
His wife wasn't told that he had Machupo virus, or Bolivian hemorrhagic fever. "I watched him
die through a little window to his quarantine room at the Detrick infirmary," she said.
In 1977, a worldwide epidemic of influenza A began in Russia and China; it was
eventually traced to a sample of an American strain of flu preserved in a laboratory freezer
since 1950. In 1978, a hybrid strain of smallpox killed a medical photographer at a lab in
Birmingham, England; in 2007, live foot-and-mouth disease leaked from a
faulty drainpipe at the Institute for Animal Health in Surrey. In the U.S., "more than
1,100 laboratory incidents involving bacteria, viruses and toxins that pose significant or
bioterror risks to people and agriculture were reported to federal regulators during 2008
through 2012," reported USA Today in
an expose published in 2014.
In 2015, the Department of Defense discovered that workers at a germ-warfare testing center
in Utah had
mistakenly sent close to 200 shipments of live anthrax to laboratories throughout the
United States and also to Australia, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and several other countries
over the past 12 years. In 2019, laboratories at Fort Detrick "" where "defensive" research
involves the creation of potential pathogens to defend against "" were shut
down for several months by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for "breaches of
containment." They reopened in December 2019.
High-containment laboratories have a whispered history of near misses. Scientists are
people, and people have clumsy moments and poke themselves and get bitten by the enraged
animals they are trying to nasally inoculate. Machines can create invisible aerosols, and cell
solutions can become contaminated. Waste systems don't always work properly. Things can go
wrong in a hundred different ways.
Hold that human fallibility in your mind. And then consider the cautious words of Alina
Chan, a scientist who works at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. "There is a reasonable
chance that what we are dealing with is the result of a lab accident," Chan told me in July of
last year. There was also, she added, a reasonable chance that the disease had evolved
naturally "" both were scientific possibilities. "I don't know if we will ever find a smoking
gun, especially if it was a lab accident. The stakes are so high now. It would be terrifying to
be blamed for millions of cases of COVID-19 and possibly up to a million deaths by year end, if
the pandemic continues to grow out of control. The Chinese government has also restricted their
own scholars and scientists from looking into the origins of SARS-CoV-2. At this rate, the
origin of SARS-CoV-2 may just be buried by the passage of time."
I asked Jonathan A. King, a molecular biologist and biosafety advocate from MIT, whether
he'd thought lab accident when he first heard about the epidemic. "Absolutely, absolutely,"
King answered. Other scientists he knew were concerned as well. But scientists, he said, in
general were cautious about speaking out. There were "very intense, very subtle pressures" on
them not to push on issues of laboratory biohazards. Collecting lots of bat viruses, and
passaging those viruses repeatedly through cell cultures, and making bat-human viral hybrids,
King believes, "generates new threats and desperately needs to be reined in."
"All possibilities should be on the table, including a lab leak," a scientist from the NIH,
Philip Murphy "" chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology "" wrote me recently. Nikolai
Petrovsky, a professor of endocrinology at Flinders University College of Medicine in Adelaide,
Australia, said in an email, "There are indeed many unexplained features of this virus that are
hard if not impossible to explain based on a completely natural origin." Richard Ebright, a
molecular biologist at Rutgers University, wrote that he'd been concerned for some years about
the Wuhan laboratory and about the work being done there to create "chimeric" (i.e., hybrid)
SARS-related bat coronaviruses "with enhanced human infectivity." Ebright said, "In this
context, the news of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan ***screamed*** lab release."
III.
How Did It Get Out? 1. The Tongguan Mine Shaft in Mojiang, Yunnan, where, in 2013, fragments of
RaTG13, the closest known relative of SARSCoV-2, were recovered and transported to the Wuhan
Institute of Virology; 2. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, where Shi Zhengli's team brought the
RaTG13 sample, sequenced its genome, then took it out of the freezer several times in recent
years; 3. The Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which first reported signs of
the novel coronavirus in hospital patients; 4. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, an early
suspected origin of the pandemic, where the first major outbreak occurred. Illustration: Map by
Jason Lee ... ... ...\
Vincent Racaniello, a professor at Columbia and a co-host of a podcast called This Week in Virology , said on February 9
that the idea of an accident in Wuhan was "complete bunk." The coronavirus was 96 percent
similar to a bat virus found in 2013, Racaniello said. "It's not a man-made virus. It wasn't
released from a lab."
... ... ...
That same month, a group of French scientists from Aix-Marseille University posted a paper
describing their investigation of a small insertion in the genome of the new SARS-2 virus. The
virus's spike protein contained a sequence of amino acids that formed what Etienne Decroly and
colleagues called a "peculiar furin-like cleavage site" "" a chemically sensitive region on the
lobster claw of the spike protein that would react in the presence of an enzyme called furin,
which is a type of protein found everywhere within the human body, but especially in the lungs.
When the spike senses human furin, it shudders, chemically speaking, and the enzyme opens the
protein, commencing the tiny morbid ballet whereby the virus burns a hole in a host cell's
outer membrane and finds its way inside.
The code for this particular molecular feature "" not found in SARS or any SARS-like bat
viruses, but present in a slightly different form in the more lethal MERS virus "" is easy to
remember because it's a roar: "R-R-A-R." The letter code stands for amino acids: arginine,
arginine, alanine, and arginine. Its presence, so Decroly and his colleagues observed, may
heighten the "pathogenicity" "" that is, the god-awfulness "" of a disease.
Botao Xiao, a professor at the South China University of Technology, posted
a short paper on a preprint server titled "The Possible Origins of 2019-nCoV Coronavirus."
Two laboratories, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (WHCDC) and the Wuhan
Institute of Virology, were not far from the seafood market, which was where the disease was
said to have originated, Xiao wrote "" in fact, the WHCDC was only a few hundred yards away
from the market "" whereas the horseshoe bats that hosted the disease were hundreds of miles to
the south. (No bats were sold in the market, he pointed out.) It was unlikely, he wrote, that a
bat would have flown to a densely populated metropolitan area of 15 million people. "The killer
coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan," Xiao believed. He urged the
relocation of "biohazardous laboratories" away from densely populated places. His article
disappeared from the server.
And late in the month, a professor at National Taiwan University, Fang Chi-tai, gave a
lecture on the coronavirus in which he described the anomalous R-R-A-R furin cleavage site. The
virus was "unlikely to have four amino acids added all at once," Fang said "natural mutations
were smaller and more haphazard," he argued. "From an academic point of view, it is indeed
possible that the amino acids were added to COVID-19 in the lab by humans."
When the Taiwan News published an article about Fang's talk, Fang disavowed his own
comments, and the video copy of the talk disappeared from the website of the Taiwan Public
Health Association. "It has been taken down for a certain reason," the association explained.
"Thank you for your understanding."
"A Serious Shortage of Appropriately Trained Technicians"
In the spring , I did some reading on coronavirus history. Beginning in the 1970s, dogs,
cows, and pigs were diagnosed with coronavirus infections; dog shows were canceled in 1978
after 25 collies died in Louisville, Kentucky. New varieties of coronaviruses didn't start
killing humans, though, until 2003 "" that's when restaurant chefs, food handlers, and people
who lived near a live-animal market got sick in Guangzhou, in southern China, where the
shredded meat of a short-legged raccoonlike creature, the palm civet, was served in a regional
dish called "dragon-tiger-phoenix soup." The new disease, SARS, spread alarmingly in hospitals,
and it reached 30 countries and territories. More than 800 people died; the civet-borne virus
was eventually
traced to horseshoe bats .
Later, smaller outbreaks of SARS in Taiwan, Singapore, and China's National Institute of
Virology in Beijing were all caused by laboratory accidents. Of the Beijing Virology Institute,
the World Health Organization's safety investigators wrote , in May 2004, that they had "serious
concerns about biosafety procedures." By one account, a SARS storage room in the Beijing lab
was so crowded that the refrigerator holding live virus was moved out to the hallway.
"Scientists still do not fully understand exactly where or how SARS emerged 18 months ago,"
wrote Washington Post reporter David Brown in June 2004. "But it is clear now that
the most threatening source of the deadly virus today may be places they know intimately ""
their own laboratories."
I'm just asking, Is it a complete coincidence that this outbreak
happened in the one city in China with a BSL-4 lab?
MERS arose in 2012,
possibly spread by camels that had contracted the disease from bats or bat guano, then
passed it to human drinkers of raw camel milk and butchers of camel meat. It was an acute
sickness, with a high fatality rate, mostly confined to Saudi Arabia. Like SARS, MERS ebbed
quickly "it all but disappeared outside the Middle East, except for an outbreak in 2015 at the
Samsung Medical Center in South Korea, where a single case of MERS led to more than 180
infections, many involving hospital workers."
In January 2015, the brand-new BSL-4 lab in Wuhan, built by a French contractor,
celebrated its opening, but full safety certification came slowly. According to State
Department cables from 2018 leaked to the Washington Post , the new BSL-4 lab had some start-up
problems, including "a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators
needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory." The staff had gotten some training
at a BSL-4 lab in Galveston, Texas, but they were doing potentially dangerous work with
SARS-like viruses, the memo said, and they needed more help from the U.S.
In November or December of 2019, the novel coronavirus began to spread. Chinese
scientists initially named it "Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus," but soon that idea went
away. The market, closed and decontaminated by Chinese officials on January 1, 2020, was an
amplifying hub, not the source of the outbreak, according to several studies by Chinese
scientists. Forty-five percent of the earliest SARS-2 patients had no link with the
market.
... ... ...
Take, for instance, this paper from 1995:
"High Recombination and Mutation Rates in Mouse Hepatitis Viruses Suggest That Coronaviruses
May Be Potentially Important Emerging Viruses." It was written by Dr. Ralph Baric and his bench
scientist, Boyd Yount, at the University of North Carolina. Baric, a gravelly voiced former
swim champion, described in this early paper how his lab was able to train a coronavirus, MHV,
which causes hepatitis in mice, to jump species, so that it could reliably infect BHK
(baby-hamster kidney) cell cultures. They did it using serial passaging: repeatedly dosing a
mixed solution of mouse cells and hamster cells with mouse-hepatitis virus, while each time
decreasing the number of mouse cells and upping the concentration of hamster cells. At first,
predictably, the mouse-hepatitis virus couldn't do much with the hamster cells, which were left
almost free of infection, floating in their world of fetal-calf serum. But by the end of the
experiment, after dozens of passages through cell cultures, the virus had mutated: It had
mastered the trick of parasitizing an unfamiliar rodent. A scourge of mice was transformed into
a scourge of hamsters. And there was more: "It is clear that MHV can rapidly alter its species
specificity and infect rats and primates," Baric said. "The resulting virus variants are
associated with demyelinating diseases in these alternative species." (A demyelinating disease
is a disease that damages nerve sheaths.) With steady prodding from laboratory science, along
with some rhetorical exaggeration, a lowly mouse ailment was morphed into an emergent threat
that might potentially cause nerve damage in primates. That is, nerve damage in us.
A few years later, in a further round of "interspecies transfer" experimentation,
Baric's scientists introduced their mouse coronavirus into flasks that held a suspension of
African-green-monkey cells, human cells, and pig-testicle cells. Then, in 2002, they announced
something even more impressive: They'd found a way to create a full-length infectious clone of
the entire mouse-hepatitis genome. Their "infectious construct" replicated itself just like the
real thing, they wrote .
Not only that, but they'd figured out how to perform their assembly seamlessly, without any
signs of human handiwork. Nobody would know if the virus had been fabricated in a laboratory or
grown in nature. Baric called this the "no-see'm method," and he asserted that it had "broad
and largely unappreciated molecular biology applications." The method was named, he wrote,
after a "very small biting insect that is occasionally found on North Carolina beaches."
In 2006, Baric, Yount, and two other scientists were granted a patent for their
invisible method of fabricating a full-length infectious clone using the seamless, no-see'm
method. But this time, it wasn't a clone of the mouse-hepatitis virus "" it was a clone of the
entire deadly human SARS virus, the one that had emerged from Chinese bats, via civets, in
2002. The Baric Lab came to be known by some scientists as "the Wild Wild West." In 2007, Baric
said that we had entered "the golden age of coronavirus genetics."
"I would be afraid to look in their freezers," one virologist told me.
Baric and Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the two top experts on the genetic
interplay between bat and human coronaviruses, began collaborating in 2015.
... ... ...
After the 9/11 attacks, and the mysterious anthrax mailings that began a week later (which
said, "TAKE PENACILIN [ sic ] NOW"‰/"‰DEATH TO
AMERICA"‰/"‰DEATH TO ISRAEL"‰/"‰ALLAH IS GREAT"), the desire for
biopreparedness became all consuming. Now there were emerging biothreats from humans as well as
from the evolving natural world. Fauci's anti-terror budget went from $53 million in 2001 to
$1.7 billion in 2003. Setting aside his work toward an AIDS vaccine, which was taking longer
than he'd foreseen, Fauci said he would be going all out to defend against a suite of known
Cold War agents, all of which had been bred and perfected in American weapons programs many
years before "" brucellosis, anthrax, tularemia, and plague, for instance. "We are making this
the highest priority," Fauci said. "We are really marshaling all available resources."
I
would be afraid to look in their freezers.
Vaccine development had to progress much faster, Fauci believed; he wanted to set up
"vaccine systems" and "vaccine platforms," which could be quickly tailored to defend against a
particular emergent strain some terrorist with an advanced biochemistry degree might have
thrown together in a laboratory. "Our goal within the next 20 years is "˜bug to drug' in
24 hours," Fauci said. "This would specifically meet the challenge of genetically engineered
bioagents." The first Project BioShield contract Fauci awarded was to VaxGen, a California
pharmaceutical company, for $878 million worth of shots of anthrax vaccine.
By 2005, so much money was going toward biothreat reduction and preparedness that more than
750 scientists sent a protest letter to the NIH. Their claim was that grants to study
canonical biowar diseases "" anthrax, plague, brucellosis, and tularemia, all exceptionally
rare in the U.S. "" had increased by a factor of 15 since 2001, whereas funds for the study of
widespread "normal" diseases, of high public-health importance, had decreased.
Fauci was firm in his reply: "The United States through its leaders made the decision that
this money was going to be spent on biodefense," he said. "We disagree with the notion that
biodefense concerns are of "˜low public-health significance.'"‰"
In 2010, by one count, there were 249 BSL-3 laboratories and seven BSL-4 laboratories in the
U.S., and more than 11,000 scientists and staffers were authorized to handle the ultralethal
germs on the government's select pathogen list. And yet the sole bioterrorist in living memory
who actually killed American citizens, according to the FBI "" the man who sent the anthrax
letters "" turned out to be one of the government's own researchers. Bruce Ivins , an eccentric, suicidal
laboratory scientist from Ohio who worked in vaccine development at Fort Detrick, allegedly
wanted to boost the fear level so as to persuade the government to buy more of the patented,
genetically engineered anthrax VaxGen vaccine, of which he was a co-inventor. (See David
Willman's fascinating biography of Ivins, Mirage Man .) Fauci's staff at NIH funded
Ivins's vaccine laboratory and gave $100 million to VaxGen to accelerate vaccine production.
(The NIH's $878 million contract with VaxGen, however, was quietly canceled in 2006; Ivins, who
was never charged, killed himself in 2008.)
"The whole incident amounted to a snake eating its own tail," wrote Wendy Orent in
an August
2008 piece titled "Our Own Worst Bioenemy" in the Los Angeles Times . "No
ingenious biowarrior from Al Qaeda sent the lethal envelopes through the U.S. postal system. An
American scientist did." What confirmed Ivins's guilt, according to the FBI, was that there was
a genetic match between the anthrax used in the killings and the strain held at Fort
Detrick.
After SARS appeared in 2003, Ralph Baric's laboratory moved up the NIH funding ladder.
SARS was a "dual use" organism "" a security threat and a zoonotic threat at the same time. In
2006, Baric wrote
a long, fairly creepy paper on the threat of "weaponizable" viruses. Synthetic biology had
made possible new kinds of viral "weapons of mass disruption," he wrote, involving, for
example, "rapid production of numerous candidate bioweapons that can be simultaneously
released," a scattershot terror tactic Baric called the ""‰"˜survival of the
fittest' approach."
Baric hoped to find a SARS vaccine, but he couldn't; he kept looking for it, year after
year, supported by the NIH, long after the disease itself had been contained. It wasn't really
gone, Baric believed. Like other epidemics that pop up and then disappear, as he told a
university audience some years later, "they don't go extinct. They are waiting to return." What
do you do if you run a well-funded laboratory, an NIH "center of excellence," and your emergent
virus is no longer actually making people sick? You start squeezing it and twisting it into
different shapes. Making it stand on its hind legs and quack like a duck, or a bat. Or breathe
like a person.
Baric's safety record is good "although there was a minor mouse-bite incident in 2016,
uncovered by ProPublica" and his motives are beyond reproach: "Safe, universal, vaccine
platforms are needed that can be tailored to new pathogens as they emerge, quickly tested for
safety, and then strategically used to control new disease outbreaks in human populations," he
wrote in a paper on public health. But the pioneering work he did over the past 15 years
"generating tiny eager single-stranded flask monsters and pitting them against human cells, or
bat cells, or gene-spliced somewhat-human cells, or monkey cells, or humanized mice " was not
without risk, and it may have led others astray.
In 2006, for instance, Baric and his colleagues, hoping to come up with a "vaccine
strategy" for SARS, produced noninfectious virus replicon particles (or VRPs) using the
Venezuelan-equine-encephalitis virus (another American germ-warfare agent), which they fitted
with various SARS spike proteins. Then, wearing Tyvek suits and two pairs of gloves each,
and working in a biological safety cabinet in a BSL-3-certified laboratory, they cloned and
grew recombinant versions of the original SARS virus in an incubator in a medium that held
African-green-monkey cells. When they had grown enough virus, the scientists swapped out one
kind of spike protein for a carefully chosen mutant, and they challenged their prototype
vaccine with it in mice.
The scientists also tried their infectious SARS clones in something called an air-liquid
interface, using a relatively new type of cell culture developed by Raymond Pickles of the
University of North Carolina's Cystic Fibrosis Center. Pickles had perfected a method of
emulating the traits of human airway tissue by cultivating cells taken from lung-disease
patients "" nurturing the culture over four to six weeks in such a way that the cells
differentiated and developed a crop of tiny moving hairs, or cilia, on top and goblet cells
within that produced real human mucus. In fact, before infecting these HAE (human airway
epithelial) cells with a virus, the lab worker must sometimes rinse off some of the accumulated
mucus, as if helping the lab-grown tissue to clear its throat. So Baric was exposing and
adapting his engineered viruses to an extraordinarily true-to-life environment "" the juicy,
sticky, hairy inner surface of our breathing apparatus.
SARS-2 seems almost perfectly calibrated to grab and ransack our breathing cells and choke
the life out of them. "By the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already
pre-adapted to human transmission," Alina Chan and her co-authors have written, whereas SARS,
when it first appeared in 2003, underwent "numerous adaptive mutations" before settling down.
Perhaps viral nature hit a bull's-eye of airborne infectivity, with almost no mutational drift,
no period of accommodation and adjustment, or perhaps some lab worker somewhere, inspired by
Baric's work with human airway tissue, took a spike protein that was specially groomed to
colonize and thrive deep in the ciliated, mucosal tunnels of our inner core and cloned it onto
some existing viral bat backbone. It could have happened in Wuhan, but "because anyone can
now "print out" a fully infectious clone of any sequenced disease" it could also have happened
at Fort Detrick, or in Texas, or in Italy, or in Rotterdam, or in Wisconsin, or in some other
citadel of coronaviral inquiry. No conspiracy "" just scientific ambition, and the urge to take
exciting risks and make new things, and the fear of terrorism, and the fear of getting sick.
Plus a whole lot of government money.
X.
"Risky Areas for Spillover"
Project Bioshield began to fade by the end of the Bush administration, although the
expensive high-containment laboratories, controversial preservers and incubators of past and
future epidemics, remain. By 2010, some BioShield projects had dissolved into Obama's Predict
program, which paid for laboratories and staff in 60 "risky areas for spillover" around the
world. Jonna Mazet, a veterinary scientist from the University of California, Davis, was in
charge of Predict, which was a component of USAID's "Emerging Pandemic Threats" program. Her
far-flung teams collected samples from 164,000 animals and humans and claimed to have found
"almost 1,200 potentially zoonotic viruses, among them 160 novel coronaviruses, including
multiple SARS- and MERS-like coronaviruses." The fruits of Predict's exotic harvest were
studied and circulated in laboratories worldwide, and their genetic sequences became part of
GenBank , the NIH's genome
database, where any curious RNA wrangler anywhere could quickly synthesize snippets of code and
test out a new disease on human cells.
Baric, Jonna Mazet, and Peter Daszak of EcoHealth worked together for years "" and
Daszak also routed Predict money to Shi Zhengli's bat-surveillance team in Wuhan through his
nonprofit, mingling it with NIH money and money from the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
In 2013, Mazet announced that Shi Zhengli's virus hunters,
with Predict's support, had, for the first time, isolated and cultured a live SARS-like virus
from bats and demonstrated that this virus could bind to the human ACE2, or
"angiotensin-converting enzyme 2," receptor, which Baric's laboratory had determined to be the
sine qua non of human infectivity. "This work shows that these viruses can directly infect
humans and validates our assumption that we should be searching for viruses of pandemic
potential before they spill over to people," Mazet said
.
Daszak, for his part, seems to have viewed his bat quests as part of an epic,
quasi-religious death match. In a paper from 2008, Daszak and a co-author described Bruegel's
painting The Fall of the Rebel Angels and compared it to the contemporary human biological
condition. The fallen angels could be seen as pathogenic organisms that had descended "through
an evolutionary (not spiritual) pathway that takes them to a netherworld where they can feed
only on our genes, our cells, our flesh," Daszak wrote . "Will we succumb to the
multitudinous horde? Are we to be cast downward into chthonic chaos represented here by the
heaped up gibbering phantasmagory against which we rail and struggle?"
XI.
"Lab-Made?"
There are, in fact, some helpful points of agreement between zoonoticists "those who believe
in a natural origin of the SARS-2 virus" and those who believe that it probably came from a
laboratory. Both sides agree, when pressed, that a lab origin can't be conclusively ruled out
and a natural origin can't be ruled out either "because nature, after all, is capable of
improbable, teleological-seeming achievements."
Both sides also agree, for the most part, that the spillover event that began the human
outbreak probably happened only once, or a few times, quite recently, and not many times over a
longer period. They agree that bat virus RaTG13 (named for the Rinolophus affinus bat, from
Tongguan, in 2013) is the closest match to the human virus that has yet been found, and that
although the two viruses are very similar, the spike protein of the bat virus lacks the
features the human spike protein possesses that enable it to work efficiently with human
tissue.
Zoonoticists hold that SARS-2's crucial features "" the furin cleavage site and the ACE2
receptor "" are the result of a recombinant event involving a bat coronavirus (perhaps RaTG13
or a virus closely related to it) and another, unknown virus. Early on, researchers proposed
that it could be a snake sold at the seafood market "" a Chinese cobra or a banded krait ""but
no: Snakes don't typically carry coronaviruses. Then there was a thought that the disease came
from sick smuggled pangolins, because there existed a certain pangolin coronavirus that was,
inexplicably, almost identical in its spike protein to the human coronavirus "" but then, no:
There turned out to be questions about the reliability of the genetic information in that
diseased-pangolin data set, on top of which there were no pangolins for sale at the Wuhan
market. Then a group from China's government veterinary laboratory at Harbin tried infecting
beagles, pigs, chickens, ducks, ferrets, and cats with SARS-2 to see if they could be carriers.
(Cats and ferrets got sick; pigs, ducks, and most dogs did not.)
In September, some scientists at the University of Michigan, led by Yang Zhang, reported that they
had created a "computational pipeline" to screen nearly a hundred possible intermediate hosts,
including the Sumatran orangutan, the Western gorilla, the Olive baboon, the crab-eating
macaque, and the bonobo. All these primates were "permissive" to the SARS-2 coronavirus and
should undergo "further experimentational investigation," the scientists proposed.
Despite this wide-ranging effort, there is at the moment no animal host that zoonoticists
can point to as the missing link. There's also no single, agreed-upon hypothesis to explain how
the disease may have traveled from the bat reservoirs of Yunnan all the way to Wuhan, seven
hours by train, without leaving any sick people behind and without infecting anyone along the
way.
The zoonoticists say that we shouldn't find it troubling that virologists have been
inserting and deleting furin cleavage sites and ACE2-receptor-binding domains in experimental
viral spike proteins for years: The fact that virologists have been doing these things in
laboratories, in advance of the pandemic, is to be taken as a sign of their prescience, not of
their folly. But I keep returning to the basic, puzzling fact: This patchwork pathogen, which
allegedly has evolved without human meddling, first came to notice in the only city in the
world with a laboratory that was paid for years by the U.S. government to perform experiments
on certain obscure and heretofore unpublicized strains of bat viruses "" which bat viruses then
turned out to be, out of all the organisms on the planet, the ones that are most closely
related to the disease. What are the odds?
In July, I discovered a number of volunteer analysts who were doing a new kind of forensic,
samizdat science, hunched over the letter code of the SARS-2 genome like scholars deciphering
the cuneiform impressions in Linear B tablets. There were the anonymous authors of Project
Evidence, on GitHub, who "disavow all racism and violent attacks, including those which are
aimed at Asian or Chinese people," and there was Yuri Deigin, a biotech entrepreneur from
Canada, who wrote
a massive, lucid paper on Medium, "Lab-Made?," which illumined the mysteries of the spike
protein. Jonathan Latham of the Bioscience Resource Project, with his co-author Allison Wilson,
wrote two important papers: one a calm, unsparing overview of laboratory accidents and rash
research and the other a
close look at the small outbreak of an unexplained viral pneumonia in a bat-infested copper
mine in 2012. I corresponded with Alina Chan (now the subject of a nicely turned piece in
Boston
magazine by Rowan Jacobsen) and with the pseudonymous Billy Bostickson, a tireless researcher
whose Twitter photo is a cartoon of an injured experimental monkey, and Monali Rahalkar, of the
Agharkar Research Institute in Pune, India, who wrote a paper with her
husband, Rahul Bahulikar, that also sheds light on the story of the bat-guano-shoveling men
whose virus was remarkably like SARS-2, except that it was not nearly as catching. I talked to
Rossana Segreto, a molecular biologist at the University of Innsbruck, whose paper , "Is
Considering a Genetic-Manipulation Origin for SARS-CoV-2 a Conspiracy Theory That Must Be
Censored?," co-authored with Yuri Deigin, was finally published in November under a milder
title; it argued that SARS-2's most notable features, the furin site and the human ACE2-binding
domain, were unlikely to have arisen simultaneously and "might be the result of lab
manipulation techniques such as site directed mutagenesis." Segreto is also the person who
first established that a bat-virus fragment named BtCoV/4991, identified in 2013, was 100
percent identical to the closest known cousin to SARS-CoV-2, the bat virus RaTG13, thereby
proving that the virus closest to the SARS-2-pandemic virus was linked back not to a bat cave
but to a mine shaft, and that this same virus had been stored and worked on in the Wuhan
Institute for years. This made possible the first big investigative piece on SARS-2's origins,
in the Times
of London, in July: "Nobody can deny the bravery of scientists who risked their lives
harvesting the highly infectious virus," the Times authors write. "But did their
courageous detective work lead inadvertently to a global disaster?"
XII.
"A New, Non-Natural Risk"
In 2011, a tall , confident Dutch scientist, Ron Fouchier, using grant money from
Fauci's group at NIH, created a mutant form of highly pathogenic avian influenza, H5N1, and
passaged it ten times through ferrets in order to prove that he could "force" (his word) this
potentially fatal disease to infect mammals, including humans, "via aerosols or respiratory
droplets." Fouchier said his findings indicated that these avian influenza viruses, thus
forced, "pose a risk of becoming pandemic in humans."
This experiment was too much for some scientists: Why, out of a desire to prove that
something extremely infectious could happen, would you make it happen? And why would the U.S.
government feel compelled to pay for it to happen? Late in 2011, Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard
School of Public Health got together with several other dismayed onlookers to ring the gong for
caution. On January 8, 2012, the New York Times published a scorcher of an
editorial , "An Engineered Doomsday." "We cannot say there would be no benefits at all from
studying the virus," the Times said. "But the consequences, should the virus escape,
are too devastating to risk."
These gain-of-function experiments were an important part of the NIH's approach to vaccine
development, and Anthony Fauci was reluctant to stop funding them. He and Francis Collins,
director of the National Institutes of Health, along with Gary Nabel, NIAID director of vaccine
research, published an opinion piece in the Washington Post in which they contended
that the ferret flu experiments, and others like them, were "a risk worth taking." "Important
information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the
laboratory," they wrote; the work can "help delineate the principles of virus transmission
between species." The work was safe because the viruses were stored in a high-security lab,
they believed, and the work was necessary because nature was always coming up with new threats.
"Nature is the worst bioterrorist," Fauci told a reporter. "We know that through history."
Soon afterward, there followed some distressing screwups in secure federal laboratories
involving live anthrax, live smallpox, and live avian influenza. These got attention in the
science press. Then Lipsitch's activists (calling themselves the Cambridge Working Group) sent
around a strong statement on the perils of research with "Potential Pandemic Pathogens," signed
by more than a hundred scientists. The work might "trigger outbreaks that would be difficult or
impossible to control," the signers said. Fauci reconsidered, and the White House in 2014
announced that there would be a "pause" in the funding of new influenza, SARS, and MERS
gain-of-function research.
Baric, in North Carolina, was not happy. He had a number of gain-of-function experiments
with pathogenic viruses in progress. "It took me ten seconds to realize that most of them were
going to be affected," he told
NPR . Baric and a former colleague from Vanderbilt University wrote a
long letter to an NIH review board expressing their "profound concerns." "This decision
will significantly inhibit our capacity to respond quickly and effectively to future outbreaks
of SARS-like or MERS-like coronaviruses, which continue to circulate in bat populations and
camels," they wrote. The funding ban was itself dangerous, they argued. "Emerging coronaviruses
in nature do not observe a mandated pause."
Hoping to smooth over controversy by showing due diligence, the National Science Advisory
Board for Biosecurity, founded in the BioShield era under President Bush, paid a consulting
firm, Gryphon Scientific, to write a report on gain-of-function research, which by now was
simply referred to as GoF. In chapter six of this thousand-page dissertation, published in
April 2016, the consultants take up the question of coronaviruses. "Increasing the
transmissibility of the coronaviruses could significantly increase the chance of a global
pandemic due to a laboratory accident," they wrote.
The Cambridge Working Group continued to write letters of protest and plead for restraint
and sanity. Steven Salzberg, a professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins, said, "We
have enough problems simply keeping up with the current flu outbreaks "" and now with Ebola ""
without scientists creating incredibly deadly new viruses that might accidentally escape their
labs." David Relman of Stanford Medical School said, "It is unethical to place so many members
of the public at risk and then consult only scientists "" or, even worse, just a small subset
of scientists "" and exclude others from the decision-making and oversight process." Richard
Ebright wrote that creating and evaluating new threats very seldom increases security: "Doing
so in biology "" where the number of potential threats is nearly infinite, and where the
asymmetry between the ease of creating threats and the difficulty of addressing threats is
nearly absolute "" is especially counterproductive." Lynn Klotz wrote, "Awful as a pandemic
brought on by the escape of a variant H5N1 virus might be, it is SARS that now presents the
greatest risk. The worry is less about recurrence of a natural SARS outbreak than of yet
another escape from a laboratory researching it to help protect against a natural outbreak."
Marc Lipsitch argued that gain-of-function experiments can mislead, "resulting in worse not
better decisions," and that the entire gain-of-function debate as overseen by the NIH was
heavily weighted in favor of scientific insiders and "distinctly unwelcoming of public
participation."
Nariyoshi Shinomiya, a professor of physiology and nano-medicine at the National Defense
Medical College in Japan, offered this warning: "Similar to nuclear or chemical weapons there
is no going back once we get a thing in our hands."
But in the end, Baric was allowed to proceed with his experiments, and the research papers
that resulted, showered with money, became a sort of Anarchist's Cookbook for the rest
of the scientific world. In November 2015, Baric and colleagues published a collaboration paper with Shi Zhengli
titled "A SARS-like Cluster of Circulating Bat Coronaviruses Shows Potential for Human
Emergence." Into a human SARS virus that they had adapted so that it would work in mice, Baric
and Shi et al. inserted the spike protein of a bat virus, SHC014, discovered by Shi in southern
China. They dabbed the mice nasally with virus and waited, looking for signs of sickness:
"hunching, ruffled fur." They also infected human airway cells with the mouse-adapted
bat-spike-in-a-human-virus backbone. In both mice and human airway cells, the chimeric virus
caused a "robust infection."
This proved, Baric and Shi believed, that you did not need civets or other intermediate
hosts in order for bats to cause an epidemic in humans and that therefore all the SARS-like
viruses circulating in bat populations "may pose a future threat." Peter Daszak, who had used
Predict funds to pay Shi for her work on the paper, was impressed by this conclusion; the
findings, he said, "move this virus from a candidate emerging pathogen to a clear and present
danger."
Richard Ebright was trenchantly unenthusiastic. "The only impact of this work," he
said , "is the creation, in a lab, of a new, non-natural risk."
Early in 2016, Baric and Shi again collaborated. Shi sent Baric a fresh bat virus spike
protein, and Baric inserted it into the backbone of a human SARS virus and then used that
infectious clone to attack human airway cells. "The virus readily and efficiently replicated in
cultured human airway tissues, suggesting an ability to potentially jump directly to humans,"
reported the UNC's website. This time, they also used the bat-human hybrid virus to infect
transgenic humanized mice that grew human ACE2 protein. The mice, young and old, lost weight
and died, proving, again, that this particular bat virus was potentially "poised to emerge in
human populations." It was "an ongoing threat," Baric wrote. But was it? Civets and camels that
are exposed to a lot of bat-guano dust may be an ongoing threat and a manageable one. But the
bats themselves just want to hang in their caves and not be bothered by frowning sightseers in
spacesuits who want to poke Q-tips in their bottoms. This 2016 "poised for human emergence"
paper was supported by eight different NIH grants. In 2015, Baric's lab received $8.3 million
from the NIH; in 2016, it received $10.5 million.
Gain-of-function research came roaring back under Trump and Fauci. "The National Institutes
of Health will again fund research that makes viruses more dangerous," said an article in
Nature in December 2017. Carrie Wolinetz of the NIH's office of science policy
defended the decision. "These experiments will help us get ahead of viruses that are already
out there and pose a real and present danger to human health," she told The
Lancet . The NIH, Wolinetz said, was committed to a leadership role with
gain-of-function research internationally. "If we are pursuing this research in an active way,
we will be much better positioned to develop protection and countermeasures should something
bad happen in another country."
A reporter asked Marc Lipsitch what he thought of the resumption of NIH funding.
Gain-of-function experiments "have done almost nothing to improve our preparedness for
pandemics," he said, "yet they risked creating an accidental pandemic."
XIII.
"Proximity Is a Problem"
In April , four months into the coronavirus emergency, a deputy director at the NIH wrote an
email to EcoHealth Alliance. "You are instructed to cease providing any funds to Wuhan
Institute of Virology," it said. In response, Daszak and the chief scientific officer of New
England Biolabs (a company that sells seamless gene-splicing products to laboratories, among
other things) got 77 Nobel Prize winners to sign a statement saying that the cancellation
deprived the "nation and the world of highly regarded science that could help control one of
the greatest health crises in modern history and those that may arise in the future." Later, as
a condition of further funding, the NIH wrote to say it wanted Daszak to arrange an outside
inspection of the Wuhan lab and to procure from Wuhan's scientists a sample of whatever they'd
used to sequence the SARS-2 virus. Daszak was outraged ("I am not trained as a private
detective"), and again he fought back. He was reluctant to give up his own secrets, too.
"Conspiracy-theory outlets and politically motivated organizations have made Freedom of
Information Act requests on our grants and all of our letters and emails to the NIH," he told
Nature
. "We don't think it's fair that we should have to reveal everything we do."
But Daszak has survived "" even prospered. Recently, The Lancet made him the lead
investigator in its inquiry into the origins of the pandemic, and the World Health Organization
named him to its ten-person origins investigation. ("We're still close enough to the origin to
really find out more details about where it has come from," Daszak told Nature .)
The NIH has also set up an ambitious new international program, called CREID, which stands
for Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases, and it has put Daszak's EcoHealth in
charge of trapping animals and looking for obscure bat viruses in Singapore, Malaysia, and
Thailand. Baric is one of Daszak's partners in CREID. The virus hunting and collecting, which
Richard Ebright likens to "looking for a gas leak with a lighted match," will continue and
widen with U.S. funding. "We're going to work in remote parts of Malaysia and Thailand to get
to the front line of where the next pandemic is going to start," Daszak told NPR.
In May, an interviewer from the People's Pharmacy website asked Baric if he had any thoughts
on whether the coronavirus began with a natural bat-to-human transfer. "Or was there something
a little bit more, perhaps, insidious involved?"
"Well, of course the answers to those questions are in China," Baric replied. "Exactly how
they work in that facility is something that would be very difficult for a Westerner to know,"
he said. "The main problems that the Institute of Virology has is that the outbreak occurred in
close proximity to that Institute. That Institute has in essence the best collection of
virologists in the world that have gone out and sought out, and isolated, and sampled bat
species throughout Southeast Asia. So they have a very large collection of viruses in their
laboratory. And so it's "" you know "" proximity is a problem. It's a problem."
Over the course of the fall, and especially after the election muffled Donald Trump's
influence over the country's public-health apparatus, that proximity problem "" and the
uncomfortable questions of origins it raised "" began to grow somewhat more discussable. The
BBC, Le Monde , and Italy's RAI have all recently taken seriously the scientific
possibility of a lab leak. In late October, the World Health Organization convened the first
meeting of its second inquiry into the origins of the disease. The WHO's effort is perhaps the
world's best chance to satisfy its curiosity about goings-on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology
and at the Wuhan CDC's virus lab near the Wuhan seafood market. But, as the New York
Times has reported , the WHO's
information gathering has been hindered by Chinese secretiveness since February, when an
initial investigative team sent to Beijing was told its members' access to scientists would be
restricted and that it couldn't visit the seafood market, then considered a hub of the
pandemic.
When a BBC video team tried to inspect the Yunnan mine shaft, they found the road to the
mine blocked by a strategically parked truck that had "broken down" shortly before they
arrived. Reporter John Sudworth asked Daszak, one of the ten members of the second WHO
investigative team, whether he would push for access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
"That's not my job to do that," Daszak replied.
In November, David Relman, the Stanford microbiologist, one of the most thoughtful of the
voices warning against gain-of-function research, published a paper in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences on the urgent need to unravel the origins of COVID-19. "If SARS-CoV-2
escaped from a lab to cause the pandemic," he wrote, "it will become critical to understand the
chain of events and prevent this from happening again." Conflicts of interest by researchers
and administrators will need to be addressed, Relman wrote; to reach the truth, the
investigation must be transparent, international, and, as much as possible, unpolitical. "A
more complete understanding of the origins of COVID-19 clearly serves the interests of every
person in every country on this planet."
"The world is sitting on a precedent-setting decision right now," wrote Alina Chan on
December 8. "It is unclear if SARS2 is 100 percent natural or emerged due to lab/research
activities. If we walk away from this, demonstrating that we cannot effectively investigate its
origins, it will pave the way for future COVIDS."
Just before this issue of New York went to press, I reached Ralph Baric by phone
and asked him where he now believed SARS-2 came from. (Anthony Fauci, Shi Zhengli, and Peter
Daszak didn't respond to emails, and Kristian Andersen said he was busy with other things.)
Baric said he still thought the virus came from bats in southern China, perhaps directly, or
possibly via an intermediate host, although the smuggled pangolins, in his view, were a red
herring. The disease evolved in humans over time without being noticed, he suspected, becoming
gradually more infectious, and eventually a person carried it to Wuhan "and the pandemic took
off." Then he said, "Can you rule out a laboratory escape? The answer in this case is probably
not."
XIV.
Transmission
So how did we actually get this disease?
Here's what I think happened. In April 2012, in a copper mine in Mojiang, China, three men
were given an awful job "" they were told to shovel bat guano out of a mine shaft. They went to
work and shoveled guano for seven hours a day in the confined, insufficiently ventilated space
of the mine shaft, and by the end of the week, they were sick with a viral pneumonia of unknown
etiology. Three more, younger shovelers were hired to replace the ones who were out sick.
The viral load in their lungs was so huge, because of all the guano dust, that their lungs
became a kind of accelerated laboratory passaging experiment, as Jonathan Latham and Allison
Wilson have written, forcing the virus to switch its allegiance from bats to humans. SARS
experts were consulted, and the disease was judged to be SARS-like but not SARS. It was
something new. (Shi Zhengli told Scientific American that the guano shovelers had died
of a fungal disease, but, as Monali Rahalkar pointed out, they were treated with antivirals,
and their symptoms were consistent with viral pneumonia with attendant secondary fungal
infections.)
Although it was a severe disease, and in the end three of the shovelers died, there was no
resultant epidemic. It was actually a case of industrial overexposure to an infectious
substance "" what we might call a massive OSHA violation. The bat disease that the men
encountered wasn't necessarily all that dangerous except in an environment of immunosuppressive
overload.
Peter Daszak and Shi Zhengli were interested, of course, because this unidentified
coronavirus disease involved bats and people. Of the fragmentary bits of virus Shi retrieved
from the mine shaft, one was SARS-like, and Shi sequenced it and called it BtCoV/4991 and
published a paper about it. Several times "in 2016 and 2018 and 2019" this most interesting
sample, a portion of what we now know as RaTG13, was taken out of the freezers in Shi's lab and
worked on in undisclosed ways. (Peter Daszak claims that these samples have disintegrated and
can't be validated or studied.) Samples of the nameless human disease also traveled back to the
Wuhan Institute of Virology few specifics about these valuable specimens have been released by
Chinese sources, however.
This is the period in the story that demands a very close investigation, when chimeric
assemblages may have been created and serially passaged, using BtCoV/4991, a.k.a. RaTG13, and
other bat viruses, perhaps along with forms of the human virus. It's when Shi and Baric both
published papers that were about what happened when you hot-swapped mutant spike proteins
between bat viruses and human viruses.
The link, via the renamed sample BtCoV/4991, to the copper mine is of exceptional
importance because of the one huge difference between the unnamed guano shovelers' virus and
the SARS-2 virus that is now ravaging, for example, California: transmissibility. Airborne
human-to-human transmissibility "the kind of thing that gain-of-functioneers like Ron Fouchier
and Ralph Baric were aiming at, in order to demonstrate what Baric called 'lurking threats' "
is COVID-19's crucial distinguishing feature. If six men had gotten extremely sick with
COVID-19 back in 2012 in southern China, doctors and nurses in the hospital where they lay
dying would likely have gotten sick as well. There might have been hundreds or thousands of
cases. Instead, only the shovelers themselves, who had breathed a heavy concentration of guano
dust for days, got it.
The existence of bat virus RaTG13 is therefore not necessarily evidence of a natural bat
origin. In fact, it seems to me to imply the opposite: New functional components may have been
overlaid onto or inserted into the RaTG13 genome, new Tinkertoy intermolecular
manipulations, especially to its spike protein, which have the effect of making it
unprecedentedly infectious in human airways.
This is where the uniquely peculiar furin insert and/or the human-tuned
ACE2-receptor-binding domain may come in "although it's also possible that either of these
elements could have evolved as part of some multistep zoonotic process." But in the climate of
gonzo laboratory experimentation, at a time when all sorts of tweaked variants and amped-up
substitutions were being tested on cell cultures and in the lungs of humanized mice and other
experimental animals, isn't it possible that somebody in Wuhan took the virus that had been
isolated from human samples, or the RaTG13 bat virus sequence, or both (or other viruses from
that same mine shaft that Shi Zhengli has recently mentioned in passing), and used them to
create a challenge disease for vaccine research "" a chopped-and-channeled version of RaTG13 or
the miners' virus that included elements that would make it thrive and even rampage in people?
And then what if, during an experiment one afternoon, this new, virulent, human-infecting,
furin-ready virus got out?
For more than 15 years, coronavirologists strove to prove that the threat of SARS was
ever present and must be defended against, and they proved it by showing how they could doctor
the viruses they stored in order to force them to jump species and go directly from bats to
humans. More and more bat viruses came in from the field teams, and they were sequenced and
synthesized and "rewired," to use a term that Baric likes. In this international potluck supper
of genetic cookery, hundreds of new variant diseases were invented and stored. And then one
day, perhaps, somebody messed up. It's at least a reasonable, "parsimonious" explanation of
what might have happened.
This may be the great scientific meta-experiment of the 21st century. Could a world full
of scientists do all kinds of reckless recombinant things with viral diseases for many years
and successfully avoid a serious outbreak? The hypothesis was that, yes, it was doable.
The risk was worth taking. There would be no pandemic.
I hope the vaccine works.
*This article appears in the January 4, 2021, issue of New York Magazine.
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From early 2020, the world was brooding over the origins of COVID-19. People were reading research papers, talking about what
kinds of live animals were or were not sold at the Wuhan seafood market -- wondering where the new virus had come from.
Meanwhile, things got strange all over the world. The Chinese government shut down transportation and built hospitals at high
speed. There were video clips of people who'd suddenly dropped unconscious in the street. A doctor on YouTube told us how we were
supposed to scrub down our produce when we got back from the supermarket. A scientist named Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of
Virology published a paper saying that the novel
coronavirus was 96 percent identical to a bat virus, RaTG13, found in Yunnan province in southern China. On March 13, I wrote in
my journal that there seemed to be something oddly artificial about the disease: "It's too airborne -- too catching -- it's something
that has been selected for infectivity. That's what I suspect. No way to know so no reason to waste time thinking about it."
This was just a note to self -- at the time, I hadn't interviewed scientists about SARS-2 or read their research papers. But I
did know something about pathogens and laboratory accidents; I published a book last year,
Baseless , that
talks about some of them. The book is named after a Pentagon program, Project Baseless, whose goal, as of 1951, was to achieve "an
Air Force–wide combat capability in biological and chemical warfare at the earliest possible date."
A vast treasure was spent by the U.S. on the amplification and aerial delivery of diseases -- some well known, others obscure
and stealthy. America's biological-weapons program in the '50s had A1-priority status, as high as nuclear weapons. In preparation
for a total war with a numerically superior communist foe, scientists bred germs to be resistant to antibiotics and other drug therapies,
and they infected lab animals with them, using a technique called "serial passaging," in order to make the germs more virulent and
more catching.
And along the way, there were laboratory accidents . By 1960, hundreds of American scientists and technicians had been hospitalized,
victims of the diseases they were trying to weaponize. Charles Armstrong, of the National Institutes of Health, one of the consulting
founders of the American germ-warfare program, investigated Q fever three times, and all three times, scientists and staffers got
sick. In the anthrax pilot plant at Camp Detrick, Maryland, in 1951, a microbiologist, attempting to perfect the "foaming process"
of high-volume production, developed a fever and died. In 1964, veterinary worker Albert Nickel fell ill after being bitten by a
lab animal.
His wife wasn't told that he had Machupo virus, or Bolivian hemorrhagic fever. "I watched him die through a little window to his
quarantine room at the Detrick infirmary," she said.
In 1977, a worldwide epidemic of influenza A began in Russia and China; it was eventually traced to a sample of an American
strain of flu preserved in a laboratory freezer since 1950. In 1978, a hybrid strain of smallpox killed a medical photographer
at a lab in Birmingham, England; in 2007, live foot-and-mouth disease
leaked from a faulty drainpipe
at the Institute for Animal Health in Surrey. In the U.S., "more than 1,100 laboratory incidents involving bacteria, viruses and
toxins that pose significant or bioterror risks to people and agriculture were reported to federal regulators during 2008 through
2012," reported USA Today in
an exposé published in 2014.
In 2015, the Department of Defense discovered that workers at a germ-warfare testing center in Utah had
mistakenly
sent close to 200 shipments of live anthrax to laboratories throughout the United States and also to Australia, Germany, Japan,
South Korea, and several other countries over the past 12 years.
In 2019, laboratories at Fort Detrick -- where "defensive" research involves the creation of potential pathogens to defend
against -- were shut down
for several months by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for "breaches of containment." They reopened in December 2019.
High-containment laboratories have a whispered history of near misses. Scientists are people, and people have clumsy moments and
poke themselves and get bitten by the enraged animals they are trying to nasally inoculate. Machines can create invisible aerosols,
and cell solutions can become contaminated. Waste systems don't always work properly. Things can go wrong in a hundred different
ways.
Hold that human fallibility in your mind. And then consider the cautious words of Alina Chan, a scientist who works at the Broad
Institute of MIT and Harvard. "There is a reasonable chance that what we are dealing with is the result of a lab accident," Chan
told me in July of last year. There was also, she added, a reasonable chance that the disease had evolved naturally -- both were
scientific possibilities. "I don't know if we will ever find a smoking gun, especially if it was a lab accident. The stakes are so
high now. It would be terrifying to be blamed for millions of cases of COVID-19 and possibly up to a million deaths by year end,
if the pandemic continues to grow out of control. The Chinese government has also restricted their own scholars and scientists from
looking into the origins of SARS-CoV-2. At this rate, the origin of SARS-CoV-2 may just be buried by the passage of time."
I asked Jonathan A. King, a molecular biologist and biosafety advocate from MIT, whether he'd thought lab accident when
he first heard about the epidemic. "Absolutely, absolutely," King answered. Other scientists he knew were concerned as well. But
scientists, he said, in general were cautious about speaking out. There were "very intense, very subtle pressures" on them not to
push on issues of laboratory biohazards. Collecting lots of bat viruses, and passaging those viruses repeatedly through cell cultures,
and making bat-human viral hybrids, King believes, "generates new threats and desperately needs to be reined in."
"All possibilities should be on the table, including a lab leak," a scientist from the NIH, Philip Murphy -- chief of the Laboratory
of Molecular Immunology -- wrote me recently. Nikolai Petrovsky, a professor of endocrinology at Flinders University College of Medicine
in Adelaide, Australia, said in an email, "There are indeed many unexplained features of this virus that are hard if not impossible
to explain based on a completely natural origin." Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, wrote that he'd been
concerned for some years about the Wuhan laboratory and about the work being done there to create "chimeric" (i.e., hybrid) SARS-related
bat coronaviruses "with enhanced human infectivity." Ebright said, "In this context, the news of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan ***screamed***
lab release."
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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Dr. Fauci, the head of the NIAID since 1984, has been in the forefront in supporting highest risk pathogen experiments. Dr. Fauci bears grave responsibility for having ignored a continuous series of documented reports — all of which warned of impending catastrophic pandemics, directly caused by experimental. laboratory-created pathogens.
