Federal bureaucracy blunders in handling COVID-19 epidemic in the USA
Neoliberal MSM dance around human mortality and fearmongering to get more revenue provoked real panic. The USA
government did not have a plan for coronavirus outbreak and improvises as events unfold
The virus epidemic which started in the USA in full force in March will probably follow Chinese pattern. Which means the
time to the peak will be around two-three months (which means in summer the epidemics start subsiding.)
Might be shorter taking into account drastic measures taken by some state like NY, NJ, California and Washington. Currently
NewYork is the epicenter of the epidemics.
As of March 21 we still
see typical for initial stages of any flu epidemic exponential increase of cases, with the number of patient doubling in
approx. three days but very low number of critical cases.
Date
Total cases
Day increase
Serious
Deaths
Recovered
Notes
3/22
33,546
38.57%
64
396
178
3/21
24,208
24.88%
64
279
147
3/20
19,384
40.58%
64
160
3/19
13,789
48.93%
12
124
3/18
9,259
44.42%
12
94
10K mark
3/17
6,411
37.49%
12
93
3/16
4,663
26.71%
10
3/15
3,680
25.04%
10
3/14
2,943
30.97%
3/13
2,247
32.33%
3/12
1,698
24.49%
3/11
1,364
37.22%
3/10
994
41.19%
1K mark
3/9
704
30.13%
3/8
541
24.37%
3/7
435
36.36%
3/6
319
44.34%
3/5
221
39.87%
3/4
158
27.42%
3/3
124
24.00%
3/2
100
33.33%
100 mark
3/1
75
Starting from 100K cases the rate of increate will probably slow down. Number of infections among medical personnel are unavailable (worldometers.info)
It took the USA eight days to get from 100 cases to 1000 and another eight days to get from 1K to 10K. Some of the dynamics can be explained
the low availability of test kits -- this was the area where CDC royally screwed the US
population
Unfortunately, the current atmosphere increasingly exhibits the characteristics of a collective panic—and that is always a poor
basis for intelligent policy decisions.
The neoliberal society with its twisted guiding philosophy of radical individualism and competition combined with a supremacist
“that could never happen here” attitude quickly falls into panicked chaos when reality kicks in and reveals the society’s underlying
vulnerabilities. Countries with weak social safety nets and an ideological opposition to social responsibility are extremely
vulnerable to systemic breakdown when their societies are hit with unexpected stress. That is what we see in the USA. This virus is
revealing just how ineffective the neoliberal social Darwinism (“every man for himself”) ethic (aka "neoliberal rationality")
is and how deeply in denial and out of touch with reality these societies are. Including first of all neoliberal politicians.
The for-profit health system in the USA is certainly is very efficient in raking in cash for insurance companies and big pharma.
But health care outcomes are mediocre at best and other countries do a far better job for far less money. The most basic needs of
patients and health care workers are often unmet. Health care workers complain they haven’t received proper training putting them in
danger of infection and do not have supplies to protect themselves even as they treat COVID-19 patients. And that's in richest
country in the world.
...system can’t provide enough hand sanitizer the governor of New York came up with a solution. Andrew Cuomo announced that
the state will produce hand sanitizer made by
prison labor .
The original reaction in the United States government to the corona outbreak was surprisingly casual. And that despire multiple
intelligence againces who supposedly produce beefing for the President and other key figures of the administration (U.S.
intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic ). Early on it was clear the older
population will be hit hard, but administration did not close access to senior care centers. They did nothing to rump up local
production of masks and other clothing necessary for medical personnel to fight infection. Medics, who are in most danger among all
population groups, were not systematically trained by Koreans (the USA has two month to do so). Proper protocols
were not established. This was the major blunder of Trump administration and the case of bureaucratic incompetence what will be
studying in books.
In the absence of data, prepare-for-the-worst reasoning leads to extreme measures of social distancing and lockdowns.
Unfortunately,
we do not know if these
measures work. School closures, for example, may reduce transmission rates. But they may also backfire if children socialize
anyhow, if school closure leads children to spend more time with susceptible elderly family members, if children at home disrupt
their parents ability to work, and more. School closures may also diminish the chances of developing herd immunity in an age
group that is spared serious disease.
The USA government behaviour drastically changed in March 11 with Trump's surprise announcement of cancelling air travel from EU countries for 30 days.
Initially GB and
Ireland were excluded, which provide for strangled travelers a "window" of escape. Later they were added. Still all this was
badly planned and caused major panic with ticket prices for the last flights from EU to the USA skyrocketing.
CDC blunders is another parts of the story of bureaucratic incompetence. CDC did not launch the training of medical
personnel to use protective gear, despite that the fact that the virus severely affected medical personnel in Wuhan. There was
no efforts to launch additional production of masks and ventilators domestically, despite that fact that both are known bottlenecks. There
were only very limited attempt to establish the screening and mandatory quarantine of passengers in airports, arriving from
international flights. There were no attempt to supply hospitals in large cities with additional ventilators, masksa. and similar
protection gear. Looks like the USA government wasted the whole February and met flaring up of infections in March unprepared.
And what is most important CDC botched the production and distribution of virus tests leaving the country without them till late
March, when tesing can change nothing. Gin was out of the bottle.
It seems the CDC, NIH and the USA privatized health care system in general was caught flat-footed as if they didn't have any plan
to execute. Currently CDC does not even provide the information about how this particular virus spreads (Transmission
of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) CDC):
The virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person.
Between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet).
Through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs.
Spread from contact with infected surfaces or objects
It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then
touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.
Asked about WHO's coronavirus fatality rate findings during an interview Wednesday, Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity:
"Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number."
He added, "now, this is just my hunch ... based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of
people will have this, and it's very mild."
Trump later put the number at less than 1%.
Later events proved that he was right.
While some problems that the USA now experience with coronavirus are the direct or indirect result of blunders (like CDC blunder
with test kits; of overcrowding of returning passengers in airports on arrival from Europe after the fight ban), some are not.
Many things are rooted deeply in neoliberal globalization and perverted neoliberal rationality. Both make proper reaction to
dangerous epidemic almost impossible. So by-and-large the USA current problems were unavoidable.
Also in epidemics like in war mistakes are to be made. At the same time repeating Chinese mistakes was pain vanilla incompetence.
Classic bureaucratic incompetence, if you wish. While there are no perfect responses in the current environment (the availability of
a vaccine would change everything), the earlier government reacted, the slower the virus would spread. But under neoliberal
globalization any reaction entails severe economic disruption, and that means that the measures were postponed till it's to late for
them to be affective while providing the same level of economic disruption. Meanwhile large sectors of the economy, here and
abroad, are nearly collapsing because of fears about COVID-19 epidemics that are not entirely justified.
Watch the interviews below. Dr. Anthony Fauci who is
the head of the head of the
National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) This high level "medical diplomat" in his March interviews carefully avoid
mentioning that fact that CDC completely botched producing and distributing test kits and the government did nothing substantial to
combat the virus the whole February. Most airports did not perform even elementary screening of arriving passengers. And the
operation of returning the US citizens from Europe after travel with EU countries was banned was also completely botched. All
February the administration essentially was allowing the flow infected passengers from Italy and France without screening and
quarantine (two severely hit by COVID-19 countries with large tourists flows from the USA) to spread the disease in the USA:
But there is some progress. With national emergency declared on Feb 13, FEMA's USD 50 billion is unlocked to fight the COVID-19
pandemic. FEMA is one of the few federal institutions which still works and works well.
Arrival of warm weather on Eastern Coast may significantly change the dynamic of epidemics, slow down infections and help NYC,
which is the most severe affected on this coast and the most densely populated area.
Measures for self-isolation of seniors like California tries now is of vital importance and it should have been done much
earlier, because the USA has advantage of Chinese experience with this epidemic (which it by-and-large ignored). This was not done.
There should also be the prohibition of air trips and remove vacations (including cruise ships) for this category of people.
Violators they put their own life and lives of other people especially medical personnel in unnecessary danger. Seniors are the
major factor is overcrowding of intensive care beds in the hospitals. Trying to protect them from this virus is probably the
most important part of "flattening the curve" efforts.
The USA has a lower population density than other affected countries so outside of large cities like New York it is in much
better position to suppress the epidemics. Large parts of the country such as Texas already have warm weather which
typically helps to suppress such epidemics.
Globally COVID-19 is spreading more slowly then in the USA slowly: 69K cases on Feb 15 vs. 162K cases on March 15: in other words
the number of cases approx. doubled in one month period. Assuming that the next month will be same and then epidemic start to
subside replicating the shape of the curve before the peak, we will have globally around 162+324+162K=648K or something like
half-million cases total for this virus
The delay between the shutdown in Wuhan and a fall in new daily cases
was 12 days . That suggests that in two weeks from now we will probably see a drop in the number of new cases in the US.
But that is not guaranteed.
The priority is to slow down the spread of the disease to lessen overcrowding of hospital beds with
severe cases.
At the same time there are multiple cases of selfish, reckless behaviour of a part of the population. Some young people
from closed schools and universities engage in travel as tickets and hotels are dirt cheap now. Those who carry the virus are
spreading the infection with them. Some people who are at risk are not wearing mask and engage in reckless behaviour
disrespecting community interests such as shopping using public transport or other encounters with large number of people. Years of
neoliberalism brainwashing ("Greed is good", "shareholder value" mantra, glorification of unlimited predatory competition as
in Latin saying "homo homini lupus est")
converted a large part of the US population into greedy and selfish animals, and while such people concentrate in
FIRE sector, other segment of population are also severely affected. The situation is especially bad in NYC.
Years of neoliberalism brainwashing converted some part of the US population into greedy and selfish animals and this
epidemic and while such people concentrate in FIRE sector, other segment of population are also severely affected. Epidemic of
hoarding also had shown the ugly face of neoliberal
rationality in full grace. The situation is especially bad in NYC.
So far infections are clustered within families and friends of initially infected persons. For example, if wife is infected, the
husband and children typically became infected too. Common spreading centers are religious gatherings and conferences. The same
danger represents travelling with the infected person in public transport if he/she is not wearing a mask, or any other close
and prolonged contact. Most of initial US patients had recently visited Wuhan or attended meeting/conference were at least one
infected person was present. "Community spread" cases, where person was infected in transport or public places like
grocery shops like on this early state of epidemic are relatively rare.
Judging from China experience the next two months in the USA will be "interesting times." The lower you are in the "wealth
pyramid" the worse it is for you. Particularly for the elderly underclass.
Is the Chinese Government using the Corona outbreak as a cover for some other purpose?
Definitely. Iranian too. Related to trade war/sanctions I feel. The bottom line, everybody on top wins, in this game.
Say….up to 20 %. The rest are designated losers. Lower in the pyramid worse it is. The elderly underclass in particular.
Good gig…for some. So far works like charm.
Critique of the "flattening the curve" approach adopted by the USA
Yet if the health system does become overwhelmed, the majority of the extra deaths may not be due to coronavirus but to other
common diseases and conditions such as heart attacks, strokes, etc that are not adequately treated. If the level of the epidemic
does overwhelm the health system and extreme measures have only modest effectiveness, then flattening the curve may make things
worse: Instead of being overwhelmed during a short, acute phase, the health system will remain overwhelmed for a more protracted
period. That’s another reason we need data about the exact level of the epidemic activity.
One of the bottom lines is that we don’t know how long ockdowns can be maintained without major consequences to the economy and
society. Hyping the threat by MSM already produced harding epidemic in the USA. Unpredictable evolutions may
ensue, including financial crisis.
At a minimum, we need unbiased prevalence and incidence data for the evolving infectious load to guide decision-making.
In the most pessimistic scenario, which I do not espouse, if the new coronavirus infects 60% of the global population and 1% of
the infected people die, that will translate into more than 40 million deaths globally, matching the 1918 influenza pandemic.
The vast majority of this hecatomb would be people with limited life expectancies. That’s in contrast to 1918, when many young
people died.
We can discuss whether CODID-19 represents a pandemic or not, but hoarding epidemics in the USA is very real.
It also feels like a scam: there is no shortage of snake oil sellers who hope stoking such fears will make people buy more
supplies. The reality is that there is little point “preparing“ for the most catastrophic scenarios some of these people envision.
As a species, we live and die by our social world and infrastructure — and outside some minimal stocks (say two weeks supply
of food in areas affected by infection and which might be subject to quarantine (which are currently only two cities in the
US.) Moreover, it is difficult to predict what will be needed in the face of total catastrophe (Preparing
for Coronavirus to Strike the U.S. - Scientific American Blog Network ). You can't drink sanitizer and you need minimal amount
of it when you are outside of home. In all other cases regular soap is more effective against this virus, so hoarding
sanitizer is far from the best move you can make:
American Association for the Advancement of Science By Derek Lowe 4 March, 2020
Since this is going to be a post about the coronavirus, let's start off with this PSA: wash your hands. These viruses have
a lipid envelope that is crucial to their structure and function, and soaps and detergents are thus very effective at
inactivating them. It's fast, it's simple, and it's one of the more useful things that any individual can do under these
conditions.
The real crisis scenarios we’re likely to encounter require cooperation and, crucially, “flattening the curve” of the crisis
which includes sharing not hoarding, so the more vulnerable (older folks) can fare better and our social world and the
infrastructure will be less stressed. For those who can do it that way that means switching to work from home and avoiding
unnecessary travel and meetings. Most think those days can be done via phone of via teleconferencing.
We do not need to contribute to the panic, and to panic buying isopropyl alcohol and hand sanitizers as if there no
tomorrow. From state to state, shelves at grocery stores are being emptied. Community after community is stocking up on essential
goods as they anticipate a very remote (or non-existent in many areas of the country ) possibility our of fears of forced
China style self-quarantine. In reality only retired persons in areas with active cases of infection need to self-quarantine
as they are the most vulnerable and can overwhelm hospitals. They generally should stay home, avoid direct contact with
relatives and friends (which are rare those days, anyway, so no big deal) , and do only rare shopping which should exclude all
shopping for clothing, etc. They need a lot of exposure to sun, vitamins, flesh air to boost the immune system. Abandoning bad
habits like smoking would be nice too. No or minimal visits to restaurants, entertainment centers like casino, or God forbid
cruise ships or international travel. For the sake of everyone else, they should prepare to stay home for a few weeks, while
epidemic burns out in their neighborhood and try their best not to be infected. This way they will reduce their own
risks, but most importantly, they will reduce the burden on health care and delivery infrastructure and allow frontline workers to
reach and help the most vulnerable.
What does “flattening the curve” mean for the current COVID-19 threat facing us: the emerging pandemic of this human
coronavirus? Epidemiologists often talk about two important numbers: R0 or how infectious a disease might be,
expressed as the number of people that are infected by each person who’s been infected; and the case fatality ratio
(CFR): the number of people who die as a result of being infected. For example, an R0 of two means each infected
person infects two people on average, while a number less than one means the disease is likely dying out in the population. Some
diseases are deadlier than others: the average case fatality ratio for Ebola has been around 50 percent, for example, while the
common cold is rarely deadly for otherwise healthy individuals.
The infectiousness of a virus, for example, depends on how much we encounter one another; how well we quarantine
individuals who are ill; how often we wash our hands; whether those treating the ill have proper protective equipment; how
healthy we are to begin with—and such factors are all under our control. After active measures were implemented, the R0 for
the 2003 SARS epidemic, for example, went from around three, meaning each person infected three others, to 0.04. It was our
response to SARS in 2003 that made sure the disease died out from earth, with less than a thousand victims globally.
... ... ..
All of this means that the only path to flattening the curve for COVID-19 is community-wide isolation: the more people stay
home, the fewer people will catch the disease. The fewer people who catch the disease, the better hospitals can help those who
do. Crowding at hospitals doesn’t just threaten those with COVID-19; if emergency rooms are overwhelmed, more flu patients, too,
will die because of lack of treatment, for example.
But what we see in the USA is primitive and destructive hoarding epidemic. Toilet paper, sanitary wipes and sanitizers are in
short supply as stocks are being exhausted. As of March 3, 2020 a 250 ml (8 ounces) bottle of hand sanitizer on Amazon was $60 or so
(while its regular price is $2 or so ;-). This is not only ridiculous but it beats "socialist back market" prices.
Ana
I know someone who is the head of security in the SF Bay for a large big box membership store that all of us in the States
are familiar with. Their stores in the SF Bay area have been selling out of water, hand sanitizers, gloves, masks and
other similar cleaning supplies, along with boxed mac and cheese and similar long shelf life foods.
Their regional supply center that brings replacement supply in over night by semi trucks has not been able to refill it’s
own pallets from suppliers. He just texted me pics of local big box stores in the Bay with empty shelves and no back stock is
available. I can’t find info on sales of things like generators. I don’t care what soothing nonsense the TV and feds blather
at us. People are trying to get what they think they need to cope with serious disruption.
Ana in Sacramento.
P.S. By the way, I was one of the paper pushers who designed emergency response and business resumption plans for the State
of California. This event was never considered or planned for. I’m retired so it may have been added after I left.
The dynamic of the USA panic can be watched via Amazon prices for those items and as of March 7 the panic is still in full swing
(you can buy the same 250 ml(8 ounces) bottle for mere $35 ;-) . And they used to say that such hoarding behaviour is
typical only for socialism ;-).
And despite chaotic and botched containment of epidemic (CDC botched development and production of test kits so badly that the
officials responsible probably should be tried for criminal negligence ) the USA government managed already take several measures to
slow down the spread of the virus (please note that time is working against the virus -- warm weather in East cost will come in May
or even earlier).
For example, starting Sunday, Feb. 2, the US citizens, permanent residents and immediate family who have visited China's Hubei
province undergo a mandatory 14 days quarantine. On Mar 11, Trump administration prohibited all flights from Europe firs exampling
UK and Ireland and later adding them.
On Mar 13 Trump has declared the coronavirus a US national emergency and offered $50 billion for support of state and local
governments to fight the virus with FEMA.
At the same time the US Fed has increased its public support of the global private banking system in amounts looking to total in
the trillions of dollars and our Congress Critters are setting up to re-authorize the Patriot Act suppression of human rights.
On March 15 CDC recommended that all gatherings of more than 50 people within the United States be canceled for the next 8 weeks.
The same day California ordered all bars and nightclubs to shut their doors, restaurants to cut the number of tables in half and
for millions of seniors and people with chronic health conditions to immediately “self-isolate” at home
(mercurynews.com)
As the coronavirus continues its rapid spread, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday afternoon issued an urgent call for all California,
restaurants to cut the number of tables in half and for millions of seniors and people with chronic health conditions to
immediately “self-isolate” at home.
Newsom’s unprecedented call for action is designed to slow the infection rate, especially among the most vulnerable. The
governor stopped short of asking eating establishments to shut their doors, saying the need for food service during the pandemic
remained vital.
“We need to prioritize our focus,” Newsom said during an hour-long press conference in Sacramento. “We are looking at this
from a very holistic perspective.”
It was unclear how long the self-quarantine for seniors should continue.
NYC closed all schools staring Monday, March 16, 2020. NJ followed the suit. Both states resorted to pretty drastic
measures. All schools, entertainment outlets such as bars, nightclubs and non-essential shops are closed in NY and NJ.
Meetings over 50 people prohibited. Malls are also closes in some counties.
The CDC stunning failure to provide the coronavirus testing kits needed to control the spread of the outbreak is a national
outrage. Their incompetence threatens to increase the scope and prolong the duration of epidemics and contributes to troubles
that now the USA economy experience.
It is unlearn why the CDC failed to make mass production of test kits its top priority and who is responsible. But it is clear
that heads should roll (The Mercury News
editorial,
South Korea is testing 20,000 people every day, thanks to a biotech firm that anticipated the threat in January. South Korea
is providing free tests for anyone a doctor deems necessary at more than 100 facilities across the nation. The result is that
South Korea is now seeing more recoveries than new cases.
Contrast that with the state of California, which has only 10 million fewer people than South Korea. Gov. Gavin Newsom said
Thursday that the state has been provided with 8,227 testing kits from the CDC. But some of those kits did not contain all the
chemicals needed to administer them to Californians — a glaring failure given that it’s been nearly two months since the
coronavirus outbreak began in China.
Newsom compared it to “going to the store and purchasing a printer, but forgetting to purchase the ink. You need multiple
components.”
All told, as of Friday [Mar13, 2020], California had conducted a total of only 1,573 tests at its 18 state test labs.
The problem stems from the CDC’s botched first effort to mass produce test kits, followed by delays in sending promised
replacement kits for several weeks.
“The incompetence has really exceeded what anyone would expect with the CDC,” Dr. Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard
University, told the New York Times. “This is not a difficult problem to solve in the world of viruses.”
Testing is crucial to slowing the spread of the disease because it allows those who are infected to be quarantined. Health
officials can then trace who they may have been in contact with and test and possibly quarantine those people.
It’s essential that Congress investigate what went wrong and take steps to prevent it from happening during the next inevitable
infectious disease threat. But that’s for another day. The focus now must be on taking steps to minimize further spread of
coronavirus and its impact on people and the economy.
The state is turning to its major hospitals and private labs for additional help. It’s possible that their testing sites could be
up and running in the next week. President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on Friday could also eliminate red tape
and speed the testing process.
Once upon a time, the United States was the global leader in fighting infectious diseases and serving as the provider for testing
kits to the world. Those days are long gone. The CDC must act to make up for its incompetence and take whatever steps necessary
to protect Americans against current and future outbreaks.
The CDC must also give clear direction on how hospitals can treat patients during this national emergency. It is not done. China
recommended three drugs that can help some patients. CDC does not provided any recommendations at all.
Abrupt announcement caused panic and airports on arrival became so overcrowded that they became epicenter of spreading the
decease: they manage to replicate the situation that was far worse that exists on cruise ships with many thousand of people.
Air conditioners are also known to circulate air-borne diseases such as Legionairre’s Disease, a potentially fatal infectious
disease that produces high fever and pneumonia. For efficiency air-conditioned on cruise ships, bases and airplanes mix fresh air
with the already circulated air and this is a concern. For example, some experts think that
in Diamond Princess cruise ship epidemic AC might help to spread the virus to all cabin
Currently there is no strong evidence to support the claim that the virus can be transmitted through the air conditioner
recirculation. It is believed to be spread mainly through droplets on close contact with infected person (less then 2m). In this
case the mucus or saliva of an infected person who sneezes or coughs can be inhaled and infect the person. This virus is
likely to die when the droplets dry up (Can
the coronavirus be spread through the air, Singapore News & Top Stories - The Straits Times):
Experts say if the virus could really survive even after the droplets carrying it have dried up, it would have spread through
the air as dust particles and potentially infected 10 times more people, which is not the case.
Last week, a Shanghai official, Mr Zeng Qun, said the virus could spread through aerosol transmission, or the mixing of the
virus with airborne liquid droplets.
This would allow the virus to linger in the air and infect those who inhale it, he said. Diseases that are known to spread
this way include tuberculosis, chicken pox and measles.
But an infectious diseases expert at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Mr Feng Luzhao, refuted this on
Sunday, stating that the droplets carrying the virus travel only about 1m to 2m and
do not stay suspended in the air. This is why you are unlikely to catch the virus through transient (or short-term)
contact such as on public transport.
Ultraviolet rays and heat from the sun can kill the virus as virus does not last long on fresh air in a sunny day. This is
true for all viruses. The likelihood of viral persistence outdoors is lower, as most studies indicate that viruses do not survive in
hot and humid environments. This refers to a temperature of over 30C and a humidity level of over 80 per cent.
Using humidifier at home and maintaining 50% humidity might help to protect you and family members.
The virus which is probably 50nm to 140nm in size travel only within water drops (aeirosol).
The size of areosol particles are much bigger and masks provide good protection against them, if
they are clean or periodically disinfected and the person does not wear the same mask for more
then 2 hours.
For example, respiratory droplets are typically 5-10 micrometers (µm) in length;
therefore, it can be inferred that an individual who ingests, inhales, or is otherwise exposed
to SARS-CoV-2 positive respiratory droplets can be exposed to hundreds or thousands of virus
particles which increases the probability of infection.
Respiratory droplets can be transmitted through coughing, sneezing, contact with
contaminated surfaces, or even through inhaled aerosols; therefore, each individual must take
adequate steps to reduce their exposure to these particles by wearing masks and practicing safe
social distance measures.
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.
Kary Mullis, on Tony Fauci:
Guy's like Fauci, get up there and start talking, he doesn't know anything really about
anything, and I'd say that to his face. Nothing. The man thinks you can take a blood sample and
stick it in an electron microscope and if its got a virus in there, you'll know it. He doesn't
understand electron microscopy, he doesn't understand medicine, he should not be in a position
that he's in. " " Guys like Tony Fauci, does not mind going on the television, in front of the
people that pay his salary, and lie directly into the camera. " Kary Banks Mullis, 1993 Nobel
Prize Winner, for his PCR Testing Discovery. https://www.bitchute.com/video/8KsH34IGgqBw/
A clearly frazzled Dr. Fauci hurled insults at Sen. Rand Paul (a medical doctor) -
"you don't know what you're talking about" , he shouted. However, after the dust settled,
several reporters, including a reporter for the Washington Post, stepped up to point out that
Dr. Fauci was, in fact, wrong. As we reported
as far back as March , the NIH - which Dr. Fauci has been in charge of for decades - helped
finance 'gain-of-function' research involving bat coronaviruses (research overseen by Dr. Shi
'Batwoman' Zhengli) via a third-party: EcoHealth Alliance.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.472.0_en.html#goog_347687063 Ilhan Omar
Slammed For Sharing Tweet About Assault On Sen. Rand Paul NOW PLAYING Saudi Arabia and
Singapore preview their AFC WC 2022 qualifier Jon Stewart Calls Rand Paul a 'Ragamuffin,'
Disputes Why Senator Voted Against 9/11 Bill 'Gun for hire' used in Tanesha Melbourne-Blake
murder Senate panel approves Pompeo to be top U.S. diplomat Jon Stewart Calls Senator Rand Paul
a 'Ragamuffin', Disputes Why He Voted Against 9/11 Bill Rand Paul Reveals Part Of His Lung Was
Removed In Wake Of 2017 Assault Liz Cheney, Rand Paul Spar On Twitter
This organization took grant money from the NIH and funneled to the WIV. And the leader of
this organization?
Dr. Peter Daszak , the same man tasked with investigating the origins of the virus by the
WHO.
As Dr. Fauci's attempts to mask his potential culpability in encouraging research that may
or may not have contributed to the outbreak that led to the pandemic, Sen. Rand Paul took to
Fox News a couple of times last night. And during a prime-time interview with Sean Hannity, he
announced that he planned to write a letter to the DoJ and ask that Dr. Fauci be investigated
for lying to Congress.
"Is it your belief Senator that he lied to Congress and broke the law?" Hannity asks. "Yes,"
Sen. Paul responds. "And I will be sending a letter to the Department of Justice asking for a
criminal referral."
During the interview, Paul explains that he has found multiple doctors and scientists to
confirm that the research the NIH helped to finance at the WIV was, in fact, gain of function
research - which was made illegal for the NIH to finance by the Obama Administration. What's
clear is that Dr. Fauci, who led the agency and has been a vocal proponent of gain of function
research,
as the Australian first reported back in May.
"The NIH funded the lab...but once the public figures out that they were doing very, very
dangerous research there...once everybody puts this together, he realizes where the blame is
going to attach. He has at least tangential responsibility...if this came from the lab he was
funding, my God just imagine the moral culpability the man has."
Paul also cited Dr. Fauci's obvious conflict of interest when it comes to the origins of
COVID, and that "he doesn't really have the judgment to be in the position he's in."
Finally, the senator revealed that he has received "at least five death threats" related to
his campaign to expose Dr. Fauci's conflict of interest.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/i9h5c4OQMYU
During a different interview on Fox a few hours earlier, Sen. Paul explained how scientists
had repeatedly confirmed that the research being done by Dr. Zhengli in Wuhan absolutely
constituted gain of function research. "When you talk to other scientists, they're saying it's
the epitomy of 'gain-of-function' research. Despite Dr. Fauci's refusal to acknowledge this,
it's clear he has a significant "conflict of interest."
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zx-52WdgZ64
Given the impact that Sen. Paul's comments have made, and the fact that mainstream reporters
are starting to acknowledge that he has been, in fact, correct all along, we can't help but
wonder: is Dr. Fauci's tenure as America's unofficial COVID czar finally coming to an end? How
much longer until he becomes a political liability for the Democrats - at which point he will
almost certainly be fired, or forced to resign, as Biden & Co. claim that the "inherited"
the doctor from President Trump.
philipat 30 minutes ago (Edited)
Fauci is lying because he has no other choice, his story is collapsing and the
Globalists have thrown him under the bus. Don't you think it strange that Buzzfeed was able
to get his emails in 2 weeks under an FOIA request while we are still waiting for Hillary's
emails?
His Wuhan story is collapsing although I do still think the "leak" may have come from
elsewhere - especially given the sudden simultaneous "change of heart" by MSM. And when
only two possible explanations are allowed through the Overton window for discussion, they
are always BOTH wrong.
Don't forget Weiner's laptop. Remember that? But don't worry it's in the safe possession
of the FBI. Hunter's laptop may be a little different because they don't know for sure how
many copies were made of the hard drive!!
JimmyJones 44 minutes ago (Edited) remove link
I have no faith in the doj, I do however like Dr Rand Paul knocking that POS Fauci off
his high horse and putting him on the defense while exposing him.
Go Rand Go
gaoptimize 37 minutes ago
Rand Paul would be better off using an NGO (Judicial Watch?) to put a case in front of
the International Criminal Court in the Hague then trying to get justice from the partially
responsible Biden administration.
vril PRO 51 minutes ago
Rand about to be reminded it's baseball season.
Even if it's just optics, he's unfortunately constrained by the fallacy of our federal
government. It's worth commending him for sending this message at the very least.
snatchpounder PREMIUM 19 minutes ago
If you're outside the club and lie to congress you'll be prosecuted. If you're inside
the club like this quack Fauci and lie to the lawbreakers you will never be prosecuted.
Brushy 13 minutes ago
Still waiting for Clapper to be prosecuted.
snatchpounder PREMIUM 12 minutes ago
Clapper will be prosecuted when hell freezes over.
LikeyMikey 24 minutes ago
Brennen, Clapper, Comey, Clinton(s) and more all lied under oath to Congress and nothing
happened. What is going to be different this time? Congress is worthless and neutered
phillyla 8 minutes ago
Eric Holder & Lois Lerner are both still under "Contempt of Congress charges"
luckily that doesn't preclude you from collecting your fat government pension or
practicing law /s
I don't even think there is a bench warrant for it
gcjohns1971 15 minutes ago
There will be no investigation.
There will be no prosecution, trial, or conviction.
It won't matter what he has done, or who knows about it.
Federal Government Department heads do not investigate or prosecute one another. They
INTENTIONALLY write their regulations, which though passed by no legislature carry legal
force along with the moniker "Administrative Law", in such a way that ANYONE can be
prosecuted and found guilty. They do this because allowing them unified Legislative and
Executive Power within their domains makes them into little kings. And for one to prosecute
another's kingdom invites reciprocity.
Read the above paragraph again.
They are Executive Departments with varying degrees of Law Enforcement Authority -
FACT.
They all author "Administrative Law" - FACT. (Whether you think this is legal or not
given the Article 1 Section 1 specification that "A LL [emphasis mine] Legislative power
granted herein shall be vested in the Congress" is another matter.)
They ALL have authored "Administrative Law" so ambiguous and or demanding that
ABSOLUTELY ANYONE could be prosecuted and found guilty. - FACT.
The above facts give them the power of Kings to arbitrarily harass, detain, fine, and
expropriate ANYONE INCLUDING EACH OTHER.
For that reason Federal Departments will NEVER prosecute one another.
Of course...
...You might correctly note that this also means the Federal Government is structurally
unable to police itself, or to be policed externally short of dissolution and
replacement.
Gunston_Nutbush_Hall 14 minutes ago (Edited)
There will be no investigation.
There will be no prosecution, trial, or conviction.
It won't matter what he has done, or who knows about it.
Correct.
This is no rule of as founders constituted law National Government at war with the
People.
gcjohns1971 11 minutes ago
It was fatally unwise to "delegate" legislative functions outside the Congress, because
doing so creates Tyrants that the formal branches of government (Legislative, Executive,
Judicial) cannot control or hold accountable.
Dick Stephens 17 minutes ago
Darn it. The little weasel finally showed his true colors. So, the "oh shacks, I am just
a scientist not a politician" phony act has been exposed. Kudos to Sen. Paul for exposing
Fauci for the nasty little scheming prick that he is. Rip the mask off his weaselly face
(pun intended).
Pritchards Ghost 13 minutes ago
When a question is asked, the answer usually addresses the question.
Lying, hyperbole, obfuscation, diversion, emotional hysterics, changing the subject --
usually show the subject of the question is not being honestly responsive.
Sometimes, it is the fault of the person posing the question; i.e., an invalid question
-- (When did you stop kicking your dog?).
If you cut thru all the smoke during their exchange, Rand basically read him his miranda
rights, and asked the question, "Do you want to change your statement?
The underlying basis for the thunderstorm response was -- this paper you're referring to
was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function."
Qualified staff. ..who are they? What are their names and qualifications? Are they
interns or personnel paid to obtain results specifically desired in a research lab, and
what is the nature and funding of the lab association.
The chain ...what is that? What specific expertise, hierarchy, and order of precedence
does the chain represent that can demonstrably be shown to always be accurate?
Paul asked a very specific and carefully composed legal question. Fauch may have
expertise in many fields, but he's not a lawyer.
Ted Baker 35 minutes ago
...More than $120M of funding from many institutions in the US including intelligence
agencies.
From June 2014 to May 2019 Dr. Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance had a grant
from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National
Institutes of Health, to do gain-of-function research with coronaviruses at the Wuhan
Institute of Virology.
The responsibility of the NIAID and NIH is even more acute because for the first three
years of the grant to EcoHealth Alliance there was a moratorium on funding gain-of-function
research.
The moratorium, referred to officially as a "pause," specifically barred funding any
gain-of-function research that increased the pathogenicity of the flu, MERS or SARS viruses.
It defined gain-of-function
very simply and broadly as "research that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause
disease."
"An exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of the USG funding
agency determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or
national security."
"Unfortunately, the NIAID Director and the NIH Director exploited this loophole to issue
exemptions to projects subject to the Pause...
Dr. Fauci told a Senate hearing on May 11 that "the NIH and NIAID categorically has not
funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology."
This was a surprising statement in view of all the evidence about Dr. Shi's experiments
with enhancing coronaviruses and the language of the moratorium statute defining
gain-of-function as "any research that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause
disease."
The explanation may be one of definition. Dr. Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance, for one,
believes that the term gain-of-function applies only to enhancements of viruses that infect
humans , not to animal viruses. "So gain-of-function research refers specifically to the
manipulation of human viruses so as to be either more easily transmissible or to cause worse
infection or be easier to spread," an Alliance official told The Dispatch Fact Check.
If the NIH shares the EcoHealth Alliance view that the term gain of function applies only
to human viruses, that would explain why Dr. Fauci could assure the Senate it had never
funded such research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But the legal basis of such a
definition is unclear, and it differs from that of the moratorium language which was
presumably applicable.
but only this one though. everything else is free and clear of russian influence. thank
goodness you were here to save the day.
The 3rd Dimentia 17 minutes ago (Edited)
(((Seth Hettena))) is the author at newrepublic. thinks he's a journalist. always the
victim; untouchable
" What Zero Hedge became, in essence, was a forum for the hateful, conspiracy-driven
voices of the angry white men of the alt-right. Racists, anti-Semites, extreme
right-wingers, and conspiracy nuts were an underserved audience, and, as it turns out, a
profitable one."
no sympathy from this quarter.
Theremustbeanotherway 16 minutes ago (Edited)
The Russians did it...... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
liberty2day 1 hour ago (Edited)
out of control, unaccountable bureaucracy of unknown size, with anti American
sentiments, and potentially treasonous alliances, conducting secret projects not even your
so called reps, who themselves openly mouth anti American propaganda, pretend to know
about.
what could possibly go wrong?
Spontaneous Combustion 1 hour ago remove link
Thats why he lied. Fauci knows he can get away with it. Clapper, HRC, all got away with
it. Why don't these fckin worthless representatives in government shut the bullsh!t theater
down and do something?
George Bayou 27 minutes ago
"The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle
East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV underscores the threat of cross-species transmission
events leading to outbreaks in humans. Here we examine the disease potential of a SARS-like
virus, SHC014-CoV, which is currently circulating in Chinese horseshoe bat populations
1
. Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system 2 , we generated and
characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a
mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the
SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS
receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary
human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of
SARS-CoV."
This is weaponizing viruses, and was paid for by the NIH.
realitybiter 44 minutes ago
His blatant denial, utilizing deflection, akin to "I did not have sex with that woman",
wreaks of doth protest too much.
I sincerely hope that the sudden uptick in VAERS vaccine deaths, from 6000 a week ago,
to 12,000 now is not a trend. You have to pull your head out folks. Why on earth would
these LIARS insist on vaxing young people with this sketchy data? Unless they are
interested in death.
Captive 26 minutes ago remove link
From June 2014 to May 2019 Dr. Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance had a
grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of
the National Institutes of Health, to do gain-of-function research with coronaviruses at
the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The responsibility of the NIAID and NIH is even more acute because for the first three
years of the grant to EcoHealth Alliance there was a moratorium on funding gain-of-function
research.
The moratorium, referred to officially as a "pause," specifically barred funding any
gain-of-function research that increased the pathogenicity of the flu, MERS or SARS
viruses. It defined
gain-of-function very simply and broadly as "research that improves the ability of a
pathogen to cause disease."
"An exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of the USG funding
agency determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or
national security."
"Unfortunately, the NIAID Director and the NIH Director exploited this loophole to issue
exemptions to projects subject to the Pause...
Dr. Fauci told a Senate hearing on May 11 that "the NIH and NIAID categorically has not
funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology."
This was a surprising statement in view of all the evidence about Dr. Shi's experiments
with enhancing coronaviruses and the language of the moratorium statute defining
gain-of-function as "any research that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause
disease."
The explanation may be one of definition. Dr. Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance, for one,
believes that the term gain-of-function applies only to enhancements of viruses that infect
humans , not to animal viruses. "So gain-of-function research refers specifically to the
manipulation of human viruses so as to be either more easily transmissible or to cause
worse infection or be easier to spread," an Alliance official told The Dispatch Fact
Check.
If the NIH shares the EcoHealth Alliance view that the term gain of function applies
only to human viruses, that would explain why Dr. Fauci could assure the Senate it had
never funded such research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But the legal basis of such
a definition is unclear, and it differs from that of the moratorium language which was
presumably applicable.
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.
There are no fact-checkers for victory laps. Last week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo
summarized his experience with the Covid-19 crisis: "Speaking for myself, it was a
tremendous personal benefit ."
Cuomo made that declaration in a speech concluding his one-year chairmanship of the National
Governors Association.
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Environment Investors Have Given Up on a V-Shaped Recovery, BNY's Young Cautions
Because Cuomo's spiel sought to rewrite history to exonerate politicians who ravaged
Americans' rights and liberties , it requires a rebuttal.
Cuomo declared that "we maximized the moment as governors. Governors have a new credibility.
Governors have a new status." Cuomo epitomized the rush to
"absolute power " that occurred in governor's mansions across the nation. After he fueled
pandemic fears, the New York
Times proclaimed, "Andrew Cuomo Is the Control Freak We Need Right Now." A New Yorker
profile , titled "Andrew Cuomo, King of New York," explained that Cuomo and his aides saw
the battle over Covid policy as "between people who believe government can be a force for good
and those who think otherwise." Cuomo denounced anyone who disobeyed his edicts, including
condemning sheriffs as
"dictators" for refusing to enforce his mask mandate inside people's homes.
Cuomo had plenty of power-mad accomplices in the governors' association.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown
banned residents from leaving their homes except for essential work, buying food, and
other narrow exemptions and also banned all recreational travel.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti even banned people from
walking or bicycling outside.
The CDC eventually admitted that there was almost no risk of Covid contagion from outdoors
activity not amidst a throng of people.
But that did not stop politicians from claiming that "science and data" justified locking
people in their homes.
Some governors have acted as if their shutdown orders gave them unlimited sway to decree
when normal life could resume.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom decreed that Covid restrictions would be perpetuated in
California counties based on voter turnout, alcohol availability, and other non-health
factors.
California assemblyman Kevin Kiley groused,
"An entire county can be kept shut down because certain areas are judged to be
lacking in "˜equity ,' even if the whole county has relatively few cases of
Covid."
The end of Covid restrictions turned into hostage release negotiations with domineering
rulers clinging to all their new prerogatives.
Cuomo was proud that, when he visits a school, he is no longer asked ""˜What does a
governor do?" because "people know what governors do
and how important governors are." Governors can wreck kids' futures by shutting down
schools and placing children under indefinite home detention, costing millions of children
almost an entire year of learning. In some areas, private schools remained open and took
precautions that kept children safe in the classroom. As Washington Examiner editor Tim Carney
noted, students in Catholic schools in Montgomery County, Maryland continued attending school
and were kept safer than public school students: "Kids learning remotely got Covid at 3 times the
rate as kids learning in person." Unreliable "distance learning" produced a more than 500
percent increase in the
number of black and
Hispanic students
failing classes in Montgomery County government schools.
A Journal of the American
Medical Association analysis concluded that shutting down the schools would reduce the
current crop of students' collective years of life by more than five million, based on
"lower income, reduced educational attainment, and worse health outcomes." School shutdowns
blighted the lives of millions of children in part because the Centers for Disease Control
proclaimed that six feet of "social distancing" was necessary to avoid contagion "" an
arbitrary standard pulled out of thin air that was denounced by former Food and Drug
Administration commissioner
Scott Gottlieb .
The lockdowns that governors imposed also pointlessly ravaged many Americans' mental health.
T he Centers for Disease Control last month reported a 51% increase in
emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts by teenage girls in early 2021. A
Kaiser Family Foundation survey found
a 300% increase in the percentage of adults reporting symptoms of anxiety disorder and/or
depressive disorder (41% of adults in January 2021). The CDC also reported a record number of
drug overdose deaths last year, due in part to the lockdowns and other government-imposed
disruptions.
Cuomo boasted that the Covid-19 responses "were probably the most consequential decisions
that governors had made in generations. They were literally about life and death. You make the
wrong decision, people could die." Thousands of New Yorkers died because of Cuomo's mistakes
and cover-ups. New York state initially reported barely half of the total of more
than 12,000 New York nursing home patients who died of Covid "" one out of eight nursing
home residents in the state that occurred after Cuomo ordered nursing homes to admit Covid
patients. Early in the pandemic, Cuomo pushed to include a legislative provision written by the
Greater New York Hospital Association to give a waiver of liability to nursing homes and
hospitals whose patients died of Covid. A report earlier this year by the New York Attorney
General warned, "The immunity laws could be
wrongly used to protect any individual or entity from liability, even if those decisions
were not made in good faith or motivated by financial incentives." As the
Guardian noted , "Cuomo's political machine received more than $2 million from the
Greater New York Hospital Association, its executives and its lobbying firms."
Any politician who recited the magic words "science and data" became entitled to outlaw any
activity he chose. Cuomo and other governors acted as if they had discovered a "good
intentions" exemption to all limits on their power. Federal judge William Stickman IV condemned
Pennsylvania's Covid restrictions: "Broad population-wide lockdowns are such a dramatic
inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to
be nearly presumptively unconstitutional ." But Cuomo and other governors presumed that
proclaiming emergencies nullified the constitutional rights of any citizen under their sway.
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Cuomo's restrictions on limited religious gatherings because
they were "
far more restrictive than any Covid-related regulations that have previously come before
the Court"¦ and far more severe than has been shown to be required to prevent the spread
of the virus."
Cuomo's spiel to the governors included Washington's most revered banality: "We spoke truth
to power." But Cuomo's own appointees suppressed the
data on nursing home deaths while he was negotiating a $5 million advance for his book on
pandemic leadership lessons. Last August, the Justice Department announced an investigation
into state nursing home policies that boosted Covid death tolls in New York, New Jersey,
Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Cuomo is probably confident that Biden's Justice Department will
throttle any such investigation that could tarnish Democratic governors. But will other
investigations or Freedom of Information Act disclosures eventually obliterate the bragging
rights of the Covid lockdowners?
Governors' response to Covid was supposedly a glorious triumph because not every nursing
home patient died, not every small business was bankrupted, and not every teenager attempted
suicide from isolation and despair. Despite the severe repression of everyday life, more than
620,000 Americans reportedly died of Covid and more than 114 million were
infected. According to the CDC more than ten million jobs were lost thanks to lockdowns, a
major reason why life expectancy in
the United States last year had its sharpest plunge since World War Two. CNN reported last
month that " New York's economy
is America's worst ," with economic activity at only 83% of pre-pandemic levels.
In reality, Cuomo's speech relied on what Hegel called " the truth which lies in power ." As long as
politicians are exalted, the actual details of their decrees are irrelevant: they have been
coronated as saviors . Cuomo assured his fellow Covid-profiteering governors that "this will
happen again." This is why Americans must recognize the catastrophic failure of political iron
fists during the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Certainly, immunity decreases over time...the question is how much time," one doctor told
CNBC during an interview Monday morning.
Before Delta arrived in Israel, some believed the country had reached "herd immunity". But
as Dr. Scott Gottlieb and others have pointed out, COVID is now endemic in the human
population, and reaching "COVID zero", a standard that Israel is aiming at, simply might not be
possible . Israeli officials have already acknowledged that with the large percentage of
Israeli's vaccinated, deaths and hospitalizations associated with COVID will likely continue to
decline, even if the number of new cases does rise.
Serologic Testing of US Blood Donations to Identify Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)–Reactive Antibodies: December 2019–January 2020
Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 72, Issue 12, 15 June 2021, Pages
e1004–e1009, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa1785
Published: 30 November 2020
Abstract
Background
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes
coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December
2019, with subsequent worldwide spread. The first US cases were identified in January
2020.
Methods
To determine if SARS-CoV-2–reactive antibodies were present in sera prior to the
first identified case in the United States on 19 January 2020, residual archived samples
from 7389 routine blood donations collected by the American Red Cross from 13 December 2019
to 17 January 2020 from donors resident in 9 states (California, Connecticut, Iowa,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin) were tested at
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for anti–SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
Specimens reactive by pan-immunoglobulin (pan-Ig) enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
against the full spike protein were tested by IgG and IgM ELISAs, microneutralization test,
Ortho total Ig S1 ELISA, and receptor-binding domain/ACE2 blocking activity assay.
Results
Of the 7389 samples, 106 were reactive by pan-Ig. Of these 106 specimens, 90 were
available for further testing. Eighty-four of 90 had neutralizing activity, 1 had S1
binding activity, and 1 had receptor-binding domain/ACE2 blocking activity >50%,
suggesting the presence of anti–SARS-CoV-2–reactive antibodies. Donations with
reactivity occurred in all 9 states.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may have been introduced into the United States
prior to 19 January 2020.
My calculation is based on the statistical extrapolation of 106 out of 7389 samples over
331 million people in the USA. That gives 4.75 million cases of sars-cov-2 infection having
gone "silent" in the USA prior to the report of the outbreak in China.
The unwillingness and secrecy of the USA government in the initial phase of the official
arrival of corona in the USA, the strange and unexplained outbreak of the still mysterious
EVALI disease in the summer of 2019 (that in hindsight shared oddly many symptoms with
COVID), the bad flu season that suddenly disappeared when corona appeared in the USA: it all
points to Fort Detrick.
"My calculation is based on the statistical extrapolation of 106 out of 7389 samples over
331 million people in the USA."
You can't make that extrapolation, the sample size is too small, and the total population
too heterogenic. The cases might reflect an out break in just one state, or even one area.
And we don't know the characteristics of the virus strain found – for all we know what
happened in Wuhan could very well be that the virus mutated in a way that made it more
contagious. Among other things; after all it's just a hundred positives.
But the article clearly shows that there are still questions to be answered about where
the virus came from – if I'm not mistaken there has been pre jan 2020 cases found in
Italy as well.
Well yes I can and I did. I was completely open about it being a statistical extrapolation.
It is IMHO a relevant estimate, because even if the extrapolation is off by an order of
magnitude, it would still imply almost half a million cases - or almost 50 million ,
if the error was to the other side.
In both cases, it paints the origins of the pandemic in a dramatically different
light.
Hell, even if my estimate was off by two orders of magnitude - 50,000 cases - that would
still be a huge number of cases and make an entirely new investigation of the WHO on USA
territory an evident priority - if these organiztions were independent, objective and free
from political pressure.
the sample size is too small, and the total population too heterogenic. The cases might
reflect an out break in just one state, or even one area.
While 7389 samples is not a huge sample size, it is not ridiculously small either. The
samples were from 9 states, clearly not from a single cluster. Read the article, mkay? If the
statistical foundations were really that bad, it would not have been published in the journal
Clinical Infectious Diseases.
And we don't know the characteristics of the virus strain found – for all we know
what happened in Wuhan could very well be that the virus mutated in a way that made it more
contagious.
Oh come on, you're really pushing things here. None of the strains identified thus far differ
by an order of magnitude in infectiousness or transmissibility. The assumptions that you are
trying to introduce are far more shaky than any of my statistical broadstrokes.
" Of these 106 specimens, 90 were available for further testing. Eighty-four of 90 had
neutralizing activity, 1 had S1 binding activity, and 1 had receptor-binding domain/ACE2
blocking activity >50%, suggesting the presence of anti–SARS-CoV-2–reactive
antibodies."
As with all diseases, some people will have a natural immunity to SARA-Cov_2 virus. How
can natural or innate immunity be differentiated from acquired immunity?
In the Netherlands, the big early cluster was in an otherwise agricultural backwater area
that just happens to be the location of Volkel Air Base , the Dutch site where
the USA stores nuclear weapons (in the latter half of 2019, they had been very busy
modernizing said nukes, causing a lot of extra traffic to and from the USA).
Contributors to this site from Spain and possibly Italy (from memory - reports were made
early 2020) made similar observations about the geographical peculiarities of early corona
clusters in their localities.
What about the 2019 Wuhan Military World Games and the noteworthy competitive results (or
should I say absense thereof) of the USA athletes, who were too sick to perform and were
medevac'ed back to the USA? The Wuhan International Hotel that the USA team stayed in was
closer to the infamous wet market than any Biolabs. The Chinese authorities were quick to
point out the hotel as a much more prominent source of infections than the market, but
western media never picked up on those pesky details.
This article is a US hit piece on China but it also shows the military games may have been
the world superspreader event.
At the outbreak of covid, US military refused to have their athletes tested, but the article
looks at many other teams that become ill around the time they were returning from the games.
Absolutely nothing on the US team other than they only came in 35th place, deligation
included seven "senior leaders" and two dept of state people https://prospect.org/coronavirus/did-the-military-world-games-spread-covid-19/
Lurk, quite interesting post @45 On the allergies, symptoms range from mild to severe.
Hives are mild, choking to death severe.
anaphylaxis I refers to those that are severe as in face or throat swelling resulting in
death.
Long covid, and other virus that can take a long tome to recover from I believe trigger
inflammation of the myelin sheath that insulates the nerves.
So Fauci push toward "herd immunity" was meaningless from the very beginning. In Israel 50%
(which has 85% of adults fully vaccinated with Phizer vaccine) of infected with Delta were
vaccinated.
Both South African variant and the Delta variant (also known as B.1.617.2) changed the
picture of "herd immunity". Official figure is that Two doses of Pfizer's vaccine are still 88
percent effective at preventing symptomatic Delta infections. You can probably cut this figure by
half to get more realistic estimate based on Israel experience with Pfizer vaccine. Israel has
fully vaccinated about 85 percent of adults
Worryingly, a recent study documented several cases during India's spring surge in which
health-care workers who were fully vaccinated with AstraZeneca's vaccine were infected by Delta
and passed it on.
Now there is talk about that vaccinated people
might need booster shots . Which essentally mean re-vaccination with the newer version of
vaccine.
When breakthrough cases do arise, it's not always clear why. The trio of vaccines now
circulating in the United States were all designed around the original coronavirus variant, and
seem to be a bit less effective against some newer versions of the virus. These troublesome
variants have yet to render any of our current vaccines obsolete. But "the more variants there
are, the more concern you have for breakthrough cases," Saad Omer, a vaccine expert at Yale,
told me. The circumstances of exposure to any version of the coronavirus will also make
a difference. If vaccinated people are spending time with groups of unvaccinated people in
places where the virus is running rampant, that still raises their chance of getting sick.
Large doses of the virus can overwhelm the sturdiest of immune defenses, if given the
chance.
The human side of the equation matters, too. Immunity is not a monolith, and the degree of
defense roused by an infection or a vaccine will differ from person to person, even
between identical twins . Some people might have underlying conditions that hamstring their
immune system's response to vaccination; others might simply, by chance, churn out fewer or
less potent antibodies and T cells that can nip a coronavirus infection in the bud.
The effects of vaccination are best considered along a spectrum, says Ali Ellebedy, an
immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis. An ideal response to vaccination might
create an arsenal of immune molecules and cells that can instantaneously squelch the virus,
leaving no time for symptoms to appear. But sometimes that front line of fighters is relatively
sparse. Should the virus make it through, "it becomes a race [against] time," Ellebedy told me.
The pathogen rushes to copy itself, and the immune system recruits more defenders. The longer
the tussle drags on, the more likely the disease is to manifest.The range of vaccine
responses "isn't a variation of two- to threefold; it's thousands," Ellebedy told me.
"Being vaccinated doesn't mean you are immune. It means you have a better chance of
protection."
For these reasons and more, Viviana Simon, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at
Mount Sinai, in New York, dislikes the term breakthrough case , which evokes a barrier
walling humans off from disease. "It's very misleading," she told me. "It's like the virus
'punches' through our defenses."
Vaccination is actually more like a single variable in a dynamic playing field -- a
layer of protection, like an umbrella, that might guard better in some situations than
others. It could keep a lucky traveler relatively dry in a light drizzle, but in a windy
maelstrom that's whipping heavy droplets every which way, another person might be overwhelmed.
And under many circumstances, vaccines are still best paired with safeguards such as masks and
distancing -- just as rain boots and jackets would help buffer someone in a storm.
In some ways, the shots' staggering success in trials -- where
breakthrough cases were also observed, causing appropriately minimal stir -- may have
papered over the inevitability of post-vaccination infections in more natural settings. "The
vaccines exceeded expectations," Luciana Borio, a former acting chief scientist at the FDA,
told me. Now, as we exit what Borio calls the "honeymoon phase" of our relationship with the
jabs, we need to temper our enthusiasm with the right amount of realism, especially as more
data on the shots' strength and longevity accumulate. Even excellent vaccines aren't foolproof,
and they shouldn't be criticized when they're not. "We can't expect it's going to be perfect,
on day one, always," Borio said.
A team at the CDC is tracking breakthroughs and will soon start reporting case counts, as
well as any patterns related to where, or in whom, these infections are occurring, Martha
Sharan, a CDC spokesperson, told me. Details like those matter. They can help experts figure
out why post-vaccination infections happen, and how they might be stopped. "The reassuring part
is, these cases will not go unnoticed," Omer told me.
Most of the time, vaccines are far more likely to offer some help than none. Serious
disease, hospitalization, and even death
will still occur , as will less well-studied outcomes, such as the long-term symptoms that
often arise from less severe disease. But should post-vaccination infections climb to
unexpectedly high rates, backup plans will quickly kick into gear. Some shot recipients might
get second or third shots to bolster their immune response; others might be administered a
tweaked vaccine recipe to account for a new viral variant.
There's something a touch counterintuitive about breakthrough cases: The more people we
vaccinate, the more such cases there will be, in absolute numbers. But the rate at which they
appear will also decline, as rising levels of population immunity cut the conduits that the
virus needs to travel. People with lackluster responses to vaccines -- as well as those who
can't get their jabs -- will receive protection from the many millions in whom the shots
did work. In a crowd of people holding umbrellas, even those who are empty-handed will
stay more dry.
Katherine J. Wuis a staff writer
atThe Atlantic,where she covers science.
"... De Garay explained that after receiving the second coronavirus vaccine dose, her daughter started developing severe abdominal and chest pains. Maddie described the severity of the pain to her mother as "it feels like my heart is being ripped out through my neck." ..."
"... The Ohio mother added her daughter experienced additional symptoms that included gastroparesis, nausea, vomiting, erratic blood pressure, heart rate, and memory loss. "She still cannot digest food. She has a tube to get her nutrition," De Garay said to Carlson. "She also couldn't walk at one point, then she could I don't understand why and [physicians] are not looking into why...now she's back in a wheelchair and she can't hold her neck up. Her neck pulls back." ..."
"... De Garay said she had joined a Facebook support group to help people cope with the unexpected events happening from the coronavirus vaccine trial, and she said it was shut down. "It's just not right," she said. ..."
"... Sen. Ron Johnson , R-Wis., has sent letters to the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna seeking answers about adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine following a June 28 press conference with affected individuals. The conference in Milwaukee included stories from five people, including De Garay ..."
"... The Wisconsin senator noted that some adverse reactions were detailed in Pfizer's and Moderna's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorization (EUA) memorandums following early clinical trials ..."
"... Those reactions included nervous system disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders for the Pfizer EUA memo. The Moderna EUA memo included reactions such as nervous system disorders, vascular disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders, according to Johnson's letter. ..."
"... You missed the whole point! The issue is that the government is not acknowledging and and not reporting these side effects of the vaccine. Instead they are lying about the safety. If you are young, you are much more likely to get sick and injured by the vaccine than COVID. ..."
"... anyone under 25 should not get the vaccine because the percentages are about the same or worse having a negative impact from the vaccine versus the actual virus. ..."
"... With the Covid19 mortality rate among the children why even vaccinate? As a Chemist / Biochemist I learned that there is always unintended consequences. ..."
"... Vaccines may have long term effects that are not known today. ..."
"... The CDC's generic guidelines for getting a vaccine for any reason are very restrictive, first being, the disease you're getting vaccinated against has to pose a real, immediate danger. CV-19 poses virtually no danger whatsoever to kids under 14. Of all the deaths of children 14 and under in the last 18 months only .8% of them had a case of CV-19. That's 367 deaths out of over 46,000. (Data from CDC website) Forcing them to take an experimental vaccine that they absolutely don't need is criminal. As a parent, allowing your child to take the vaccine without spending a few hours doing some research is criminally negligent. This is like some terribly warped Kafka novel but it's real. ..."
Mother Stephanie De Garay joins 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' to discuss how her 12-year-old
daughter volunteered for the Pfizer vaccine trial and is now in a wheelchair.
An Ohio mother is speaking out
about her 12-year-old daughter suffering extreme reactions and nearly dying after volunteering
for the Pfizer coronavirus
vaccine trial.
Stephanie De Garay told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Thursday
that after reaching out to multiple physicians they claimed her daughter, Maddie De Garay,
couldn't have become gravely ill from the vaccine.
"The only diagnosis we've gotten for her is that it's conversion disorder or functional
neurologic symptom disorder, and they are blaming it on anxiety," De Garay told Tucker Carlson.
"Ironically, she did not have anxiety before the vaccine."
De Garay explained that after receiving the second coronavirus vaccine dose, her daughter
started developing severe abdominal and chest pains. Maddie described the severity of the pain
to her mother as "it feels like my heart is being ripped out through my neck."
The Ohio mother added her daughter experienced additional symptoms that included
gastroparesis, nausea, vomiting, erratic blood pressure, heart rate, and memory loss. "She still cannot digest food. She has a tube to get her nutrition," De Garay said to
Carlson. "She also couldn't walk at one point, then she could I don't understand why and
[physicians] are not looking into why...now she's back in a wheelchair and she can't hold her
neck up. Her neck pulls back."
Carlson asked whether any officials from the Biden administration or representatives from
Pfizer company have reached out to the family. "No, they have not," she answered.
"The response with the person that's leading the vaccine trial has been atrocious," she
said. "We wanted to know what symptoms were reported and we couldn't even get an answer on
that. It was just that 'we report to Pfizer and they report to the FDA.' That's all we
got."
After her heartbreaking experience, the Ohio mother said she's still "pro-vaccine, but also
pro-informed consent." De Garay mentioned she's speaking out because she feels like everyone
should be fully aware of this tragic incident and added the situation is being "pushed down and
hidden."
De Garay said she had joined a Facebook support group to help people cope with the
unexpected events happening from the coronavirus vaccine trial, and she said it was shut
down. "It's just not right," she said.
"They need to do research and figure out why this happened, especially to people in the
trial. I thought that was the point of it," De Garay concluded. "They need to come up with
something that's going to treat these people early because all they're going to do is keep
getting worse."
Sen. Ron
Johnson , R-Wis., has sent letters to the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna seeking answers
about adverse reactions to the COVID-19vaccine
following a June 28 press conference with affected individuals. The conference in Milwaukee
included stories from five people, including De Garay.
The Wisconsin senator noted that some adverse reactions were detailed in Pfizer's and
Moderna's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorization (EUA) memorandums
following early clinical trials.
Those reactions included nervous system disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue
disorders for the Pfizer EUA memo. The Moderna EUA memo included reactions such as nervous
system disorders, vascular disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders,
according to Johnson's letter.
Pfizer and Moderna did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News about Johnson's
letters.
J jeff5150357 6 hours ago
My daughter had the same thing happen to
her after getting a flu vaccine 9 years ago. Within days of getting it, she went from being as
healthy as an ox to years of awful, unexplained illness. The short version is they concluded
that she had a severe adverse reaction to the vaccine, but from the delivery chemicals, not the
flu content itself. Formaldehyde was the likely major cause. Now she is getting ready to begin
college and is being required to get the Covid vaccine by her university and the NCAA for
athletics. It is causing her, my wife and I horrible anxiety and we feel like we are being
railroaded into something that could be very dangerous for her. Any discussion or concern
expressed on social media is immediately blocked. I know from years of working in the research
grants office at Yale University that the big pharma industry is powerful and will go to great
lengths to control the narrative. What I don't understand is why mainstream media and social
media are so willing to help them these days!
jeff5150357 4 hours ago
While the college experience is great for a young adult. I would look at getting a degree
online. Her future earnings will be based on her merit, not where she went to school. If
someone was telling me what to do with my personal health, and I was uncomfortable with their
prescription, I would follow my instincts.
LoraJane92649 jeff5150357 5
hours ago
If her flu vax is well documented she should be able to get a waiver. Hopefully you
have an able bodied family physician or medical team to advocate on your behalf.
G gunvald 7 hours ago
You know when you take it that there can be adverse
reactions. So, in that sense, you are informed. Any one of us could be the odd person. That
said, I have a problem with any child getting these vaccines, especially when most people
recover from the disease. It's one thing for me as an elderly person to make the decision to
take it as covid affects the elderly person more and I wanted to avoid that ventilator. Most of
my life has been lived and that's how I evaluated it. This will always come down to putting it
in God's hands.
TheTruthAsItIs gunvald 6 hours ago
You missed the whole point! The
issue is that the government is not acknowledging and and not reporting these side effects of the
vaccine. Instead they are lying about the safety. If you are young, you are much more likely to
get sick and injured by the vaccine than COVID.
D DontDestoryUSA
gunvald 4 hours ago
It's not being informed when you are forced to take a vaccination that they
clearly had trouble with past vaccination sounds like a lawsuit for the university is on the
horizon. With a big pay day
Tony5SFG 7 hours ago
"Ohio
mother said she's still "pro-vaccine, but also pro-informed consent." " And as a pediatrician
for over 40 yrs (retired now) and a 10 year member of my medical school's Institutional Review
Board (which had to approve all human research), THAT is a problem I have been bringing up As
far as requiring all young people, such as entering or in college, to get the vaccine Children
are a protected class and the informed consent for research on them is much more strenuous than
for adults And, requiring young people to take these new vaccines is the equivalent of doing
research on them. The issue of myocarditis is quite troubling. And while it has been seen in
natural infections, I have not yet seen an adequate risk - benefit evaluation regarding risking
natural infection versus vaccination And people say that the myocarditis is not severe, no one
can be sure of the long term effects of a young person getting it. The vaccines that we give
children have been used for decades and the risks/benefits have been well established
D DallasAmEmail Tony5SFG 6 hours ago
A friends daughter who just went through internship as
Physicians assistant based on the percentages in age groups believes anyone under 25 should not
get the vaccine because the percentages are about the same or worse having a negative impact
from the vaccine versus the actual virus. Yes, older age groups the percent having negative
impact from the virus is much greater than the vaccine, so yes older age groups should get the
vaccine. What really is bothersome is when Youtube removes Dr. Robert Malone video who helped
create the mrna vaccine express concern that normal testing has not happened and be cautious
about taking it, especially for the young.
marinesfather601 Tony5SFG 5
hours ago
With the Covid19 mortality rate among the children why even vaccinate? As a Chemist /
Biochemist I learned that there is always unintended consequences.
Hilltopper9 7 hours ago
Vaccines may have long term effects that are not known
today. The same could be said of all the chemicals we apply to our body daily through shampoos,
hair dyes, body lotions, and suntan lotions. Life's a gamble. It's up to each individual to
make the best decisions possible given the facts available.
A akbushrat
Hilltopper9 6 hours ago
The CDC's generic guidelines for getting a vaccine for any reason are
very restrictive, first being, the disease you're getting vaccinated against has to pose a
real, immediate danger. CV-19 poses virtually no danger whatsoever to kids under 14. Of all the
deaths of children 14 and under in the last 18 months only .8% of them had a case of CV-19.
That's 367 deaths out of over 46,000. (Data from CDC website) Forcing them to take an
experimental vaccine that they absolutely don't need is criminal. As a parent, allowing your
child to take the vaccine without spending a few hours doing some research is criminally
negligent. This is like some terribly warped Kafka novel but it's real.
F
Fauxguy930 Hilltopper9 5 hours ago
☢️ N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl)nitrosamine is a
nitrosamine that has butyl and 4-hydroxybutyl substituents. In mice, it causes high-grade,
invasive cancers in the urinary bladder, but not in any other tissues. It has a role as a
carcinogenic agent. Ingredient in all shots. How did a carcinogen get FDA approved, oh it was
an emergency.
R RussellRika 6 hours ago
I have a
twelve year old, and not a chance I'd allow her to volunteer for any vaccine trial, and
especially not this one. She very much wanted to get a vaccine, until she started reading about
some of the adverse reactions. Sorry, but I'm a child, the benefit does not outweigh the risk.
MrEd50 6 hours ago
I took the vaccine because I'm 60 years old and work with special ed kids. My 18 year old child
refuses to take it and I support him on this. COVID shouldn't be an issue for most of us.
Wonder what Mullis would have to say to Fauci on CNN these days?
"Guy's like Fauci, get up there and start talking, he doesn't know anything really about
anything, and I'd say that to his face. Nothing. The man thinks you can take a blood sample
and stick it in an electron microscope and if its got a virus in there, you'll know it. He
doesn't understand electron microscopy, he doesn't understand medicine, he should not be in a
position that he's in. " "Guys like Tony Fauci, do not mind going on the television, in front
of the people that pay his salary, and lie directly into the camera." Kary Banks Mullis, 1993
Nobel Prize Winner, PCR Testing
This one big fraud. And Fauci is implicated. the fact that in the USA the results of the test
do not come with the number of amplifications used speaks volumes about the current medical
establishement.
Notable quotes:
"... With a cutoff of 35, about half of those tests would no longer qualify as positive. About 70 percent would no longer be judged positive if the cycles were limited to 30. ..."
"... It's just kind of mind-blowing to me that people are not recording the C.T. values from all these tests -- that they're just returning a positive or a negative,' Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York, said. ..."
Up to 90 percent of people tested for COVID-19 in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada in July
carried barely any traces of the virus and it could be because today's tests are 'too
sensitive', experts say.
... PCR tests analyze genetic matter from the virus in cycles and today's tests typically
take 37 or 40 cycles, but experts say this is too high because it detects very small amounts of
the virus that don't pose a risk.
... ... ...
Experts say a reasonable cutoff for the virus would be 30 or 35 cycles, according to Juliet
Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside.
Mina said he would set the cutoff at 30.
New York's state lab Wadsworth analyzed cycle thresholds values in already processed
COVID-19 PCR tests and found in July that 794 positive tests were based on a threshold of 40
cycles.
With a cutoff of 35, about half of those tests would no longer qualify as positive.
About 70 percent would no longer be judged positive if the cycles were limited to 30.
In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle
threshold of 40 would have been considered negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Mina
said.
'I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,' he said.
The Food and Drug Administration said that it does not specify the cycle threshold ranges
used to determine who is positive and 'commercial manufacturers and laboratories set their
own.'
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it is examining the use of cycle
threshold measures for 'policy decision'.
The CDC said its own calculations suggest its extremely hard to detect a live virus in a
sample above a threshold of 33 cycles.
It's just kind of mind-blowing to me that people are not recording the C.T. values from
all these tests -- that they're just returning a positive or a negative,' Angela Rasmussen, a
virologist at Columbia University in New York, said.
I had covid last summer, for me was like a bad flu, 3-4 days of severe symptoms then I
recovered, never went to hospital. There is zero evidence that those that previously had
covid get reinfected, none at all, we have developed natural immunity. Inspite of this
everyone is pushing me to get DNA altering vaccines, everyone, even my Dr., who should know
better.
What I find ammusing in all of this is that the same people pushing this vaccine on me
and others are the same people who won't even eat a GMO banana, paying 5 times more for
"organic" bananas...
Sono 2 hours ago
Yesterday a friend of mine who works in major hospital said she had a patient whom is 34
male, no prior health complications was put through surgery to remove a major blood clot.
It's unclear what damage was done at least as of yesterday. Chart says he received the
Pfizer vaccine April 19th and may 6th. Did the vaccine cause this? Anybody guess. But
hospital staff noted how unusual his case is.
rejectnumbskull 3 hours ago (Edited)
It is beyond sad when the so-called medical industry feels it has the authority to label
Americans into these 2 categories. Kick Fauci out now! The sick-care mafia has no business
dictating any type of domestic policy.
SaulAzzHoleSky 3 hours ago
Study out of England shows HIGHER emergency room and death rates (2x-8x) among
vaccinated people older than 50 compared to those unvaccinated older than 50. See pages
13-14.
Those below 50 had lower rates but shouldn't they be completely immune??
The 'vaccines' were accepted for emergency use on the basis that they slightly reduced
the severity of symptoms in slight cases of disease. Joe and Jane Public think the
'vaccine' gives them immunity. MSM has not been correcting the misunderstanding
Twox2 3 hours ago (Edited)
"If you are vaccinated, you diminish dramatically your risk of getting infected and even
more dramatically your risk of getting seriously ill. If you are not vaccinated, you are at
considerable risk," Fauci once again repeated.
"Mr. Science" seems to have another agenda entirely, since he clearly makes it up as he
goes along. I used the Covid risk calculator (from Oxford University...which many consider
the number one rated university in the world) and it showed my risk of death at 4 in 10,000
and risk of hospitalization at 1 in 732...during the three-month peak of the pandemic.
As one in his 7th decade, with 3 stents, this is my purported "considerable risk".
How does this guy retain any credibility at all?
White Domestic Tourist 3 hours ago
Vaxxes would be deadly to people with vascular conditions i think.
11b40 3 hours ago
Yep....73 yr old cancer survivor (Agent Orange Lymphoma). Never took flu shots, never
got the flu. No plans to get one of these jabs, either, as like you, I did my own research.
I'm fit and lead a healthy lifestyle. Also believe in Ivermectin & HCQ regimens if I
happen to get infected with something serious. Took HCQ malaria pills, like so many other
soldiers, with no side effects. Everybody took them when told the other option was malaria.
Since the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, I have been watching my government lie to me, and
this has felt like one big con job since the beginning. There is no doubt in my mind now
that long term, the results of these shots will not be good for us.
Authorities doe not telling truth: people who already have COVID do not need to be
vaccinated. Also if Delta varient can infect vaccineted in conserable quantities how any resobale
person can maintain this goal of "herg immunity". How it can be achieved if a vaccinated person
can be infected and thus spread the disease both amoung vaccinated cohort and among the
unvaccinated cohort. The fact the vaccinated people are infected with Delta changes the game and
here Senator Paul is wrong.
Pushing vaccination on chidren in such curcumstances changes nothing is became a very
questionable move both from scientific an from ethical perspective.
America's favourite Chinese lab funding coronavirus doomonger doctor Anthony Fauci announced
Tuesday that there are now two Americas, a vaccinated America and an unvaccinated America.
As Senator Rand Paul noted
earlier this week , there is a boat load of misinformation on the matter coming from a
government that is indiscriminately pushing vaccinations:
There are now two Americas. One that's retarded. And one that wants Fauci on a
lamppost.
liberty2 1 hour ago (Edited)
Note that the officials said there's no such thing as "herd immunity" last year. Now
this year they keep saying that we can reach "herd immunity" if we are 70% vaxxed! Terms
are used if it fits their narrative.
Ride_the_kali_yuga 3 hours ago (Edited)
In the Covidian Cult, there is true believers in one side and heretics on the other
side. Vaxxed and unvaxxed.
Divide and rule strategy, as always. Do not undurestimate the ratio of retarded people
among the population, it has been growing like a cancer for decades. It amazes me how
perfectly coordinated those MSM Covidian propaganda events appears worldwide.
In here France, 2 days ago, most MSM have all simultaneously gone full berserk (without
any reason) blaming the reluctant ones. One of them on TV said something like : "if it was
me, i will use police to drag those who refuse these "vaccines" from their home and force
it on them"
This was priceless, this little man has morbid obesity. We now officialy all live on the
twilight zone on steroids. Land whales dictate how people should consider their own health.
This ride seems to never end.
We now have officialy entered the dehumanization phase of the unvaxxed. The sanitary
gulag is not far from here.
NIRP-BTFD 1 hour ago
There are 2 Americas. The 0.01% (the rulers that own everything) and the serfs.
DemandSider 1 hour ago
Exactly, parasite and host. Fauci would be the former, obviously.
The key unanswered question is: what benefits for 12 years old vaccine provides. I do not see
any, while risks are real and unknown. At this point we already know that vaccine cause serious
heart problems in some vaccinated young people (say below 30 yours old)
Twelve year-old Maddie was enrolled in the Pfizer vaccine clinical trial. She's now in a
wheelchair, has an NG tube, and is suffering from severe memory loss, along with many other
issues.
I am SO sorry for this girl. She relied on her parents, their job, to protect their minor
children. They failed.
I am very sorry for what's happened, but lady that is exactly what you get by disregarding your
fellow citizens &
relying on the government for your truth. Its been obvious to all those with open minds, that
this entire pandemic is
a huge scam, the worst scam in human history. The old saying comes to mind, "and if the
government told you to go jump
off the roof, would you?" Sadly leftists answer, "how many times?" Karen
The only way I would I "consider" allowing my child to sign up to be a guinea pig in any
clinical trial is if they had a life threating incurable disease and the trial was specific to
their disease & participation was a "chance" to save their life. I worked in a clinical
trial office, you agree to being the guinea pig when you agree that you will never know if
you're injected with
1. a placebo OR
2. the "drug" its self.
You're also informed in advance of how many visits (minimal # of visits) the trial will require
of you to fully participate as it usually requires regularly scheduled bi weekly or monthly
visits. It's in a office setting & your mandated to keep the doctor informed of everything,
even an emergency, because theres a written script "behind the scenes" of what to do along the
way if "this" or "that" happens. That way you collect better data of adverse reactions. Plus
there are the very important (to the medical side anyway) non disclosure agreements.
I noticed here it seems the family reached out to "emercency" facilities when things started
going wrong.
Are these "trials" being conducted standard procedure or not. MAJOR DANGER
What sort of parent would give their kid an untested, un-needed vaccine? There is NO excuse.
None. Zero. Mother should be in tears. 100% well deserved.
Deplored
" in healthcare" means nothing anymore. I've been in healthcare for 25 years and it blows my
mind how many 500,000$ plus educations lined up for the "vax" AND do not know the simple
definition of a vaccine. I watched 1st hand as practically overnight medicine went from being
science based to political weapon. We used to have to have an evidence based system where
doctors would look at the published studies and make decisions based on the best info
available. That's all gone now. You can't even trust the medical journals anymore that at one
time were the pinnacles of scientific medical discovery. The hospital I've worked in for 25
years is going to mandate the vax as soon as the FDA approves it,which means I'm out. 15% of us
are unvaxed and they have plans to get rid of us. The medical tyranny STARTED w the mandating
of the flu shot years ago for HC workers and now it's covid. It's not going to end ,just wait
til the next shit show released on us. Next time they will have the ballz to say ur locked in
ur home until u comply. Then when u can't pay ur property taxes because u cant leave the house
to work u find out who actually owns ur home. Peetoonya
The US "Healthcare" INDUSTRY ranks 37th in the world. John Hopkins put out a report that the
3rd leading cause of death is going to your doctor and doing what he/she says! I remember in
the 90's they ran off or bought out most of the private practices especially in the rural areas
with malpractice claims if they didn't sell out. But these days you can make up to $50,000 a
year just sending people the bill for your inflicted genocide. Medical Billing Specialist
Salary in the United States https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/medical-billing-specialist-salary
All the cowardly doctors will do as they are told for fear of losing their license. PS The
profession that has the highest rate of suicide is Doctors! I haven't been to a doctor in 21
years. Riseliberty
This is not a vaccine. Do you understand? It is experimental gene therapy. You cannot
compare this with any FDA approved vaccine you've had in the past. Hehe62
Before watching one clip I suggest you watch the entire press conference. ALL of the
participants explained they are pro science and pro vaccine up front.
They have been harmed-most likely permanently by this *vaccine* and as you can see by the
twitter disclaimer they have been silenced, told they are suffering from anxiety versus a
vaccine side effect and our medical community has done NOTHING to follow up on what is going
on.
As an NP who has been thrust into covid from the get go I now daily see covid 19 vaccine
injuries albeit less than those suffered from these victims; depending on how you see it.
Type 1 diabetes in a perfectly healthy 16 year old athletic boy with healthy family members
now requiring insulin for the rest of his life-happened right after 2nd pfizer. Tons of
shingles and herpes viruses, and regular colds that have taken out staff members for 3-4 weeks
versus 2-3 days in the past.
As an NP that started in the military and has all vaccines and vaccinated all my children
and seeing and living in the medical community throughout this I personally will NEVER get
another vaccine the government suggests or requires ever again. I will NEVER go see a
mainstream medical provider ever again unless I'm taken against my will or knowledge.
Sure, tons of people have gotten the vax without issue, but YOU are the phase III clinical
trial for this thing, it has only been about 6 months. Long term effects who knows. I have a
feeling it isn't going to get better. And the fact that these people have been completely
silenced, questioned, and "debunked" by mainstream media and the public as a whole that
suddenly seems to have 100% confidence in their government???? is EXTREMELY concerning. Ron
God bless Maddie and her family. For context, I'd like to know how many children have had
the Pfizer vaccine without serious side effects. We shouldn't fall into the left wing tactics
of using anecdotal emotional cases to distort reality to make a larger point. The fact is that
vaccines have saved millions of lives and prevented millions of crippling side effects from
polio, smallpox, yellow fever, mumps, measles, hepatitis, HPV . Regretfully, some of the
vaccinated have suffered side effects, but the benefit greatly outweighs the risk.
JedWSmith
For perspective, this "vaccine" has caused more deaths than all the other vaccines given
over the last century. Maybe caution is warranted. This little child had an almost ZERO chance
of any complications from the China virus. There's ZERO reason for someone who's had the China
virus and recovered, having natural antibodies, to get the vaccine. The therapeutics work. They
were demonized only because a sitting president, hated by the fake media, big pharma, and the
DC deep state, promoted them. Dillard
Offering up your child for experiments, was it for $$$$$$$?
Remember the Canadian govt with pop up vaccination sites offering children ice cream if they
got the jab, and they did it WITHOUT PARENTS CONSENT? Think about that one. The govt rolls up
and opens a vaccine tent near your home, your child sees FREE ICE CREAM and goes to get free
ice cream and gets injected without your knowledge. That is some real evil there. William
Walker
I'm terribly sorry for the young girl, but I'm inflamed with anger that the stupid parents
put not one, but THREE children through clinical trials giving them the vaccine–all the
while touting the science (oh, the science!) which completely contradicts the claims that young
people are in any way threatened by Covid as a demographic. This is tragic, this is moronic
liberalism, and this is a direct result of the parents swilling all the false idiocy from CNN
and MSNBC without questioning the actual empirical data and science. PALydia
"Trials" are done to determine outcome. The word "trial" is synonymous with the word
"experiment." I.e. you are playing Russian Roulette when you enroll your child in ANY trial.
That IS science. You should NEVER assume something is safe and harmless when it is still in
"trial" phase .never mind these vaccines bypassed animal trials and all previous mRNA vaccines
failed animal trials. My heart breaks for this child but it's criminal for any parent to
subject their child to this. LiberalsRPinworms
Was waiting for the "but we still think you should vaccinate your kids too "
I find it interesting that all these cult members keep saying they're pro science. However,
scientific experiments are based on hypotheses, not already known facts. Why is she upset? Her
kid wanted to provide data to this experiment and did just that. Too bad she wasn't an outlier
considering, if she were, she could probably still eat food on her own. Thanks for your
contribution to the science folks! navi282
I am very sorry about what has happened to Maddie, but the responsibility lies with the
parents who believe in the false religion of "scientism" and have opted into the con-game that
vaccinations are genuine healing methodologies. As an engineer Maddie's mother should have
studied logic and the philosophy of science and then discerned that the politicization of the
medical field in recent years created confirmation bias, poor SPC (statistical process
control), and question-begging fallacies from those who should have known better. Complicity or
Ignorance -- take your pick. Matt Walters
Being pro-science means you base decisions on data. There is not yet a data set for the
short and long-term risks, benefits, and side effects of this vaccine that would allow a
science-based decision to take it or not. Those who are pro science wait for reliable data
before considering taking an experimental vaccine that is not approved by the FDA. constitution
rules
For USA children ages 5 to 18:
Population: ~57,000,000
Covid deaths: 263
Chance: < 1 in 200,000 Para Bellum
I notice a common trend among these child abuser parents .they go online to complain how
their kids were maimed by the experimental mRNA, but then they always have to preface it by
saying "oh but we're pro vaccine and pro science"
Well, I am anti-vaccine and I'm anti-mRNA. Have some conviction you retard. No wonder you
find yourselves in the position you're in.
I sincerely feel bad for your kids. You stole their lives from them and they will never be
the same and while the fallen man part of me wants to say "just deserts", the Catholic part of
me prays the rosary for you and your kids every single night. solome
' .we are pro-vaccine and pro-science'
.these parents make a great case that academia does not necessarily convey common sense it
can convey a buttload of chutzpah ..we know that because Washington DC is full of it excessive
hubris, too and, in turn, they can make decisions that prove disastrous for the future of We
the People Christina
This is a terrible tragedy for this family. I hope this beautiful young girl will eventualy
recover fully. I hope her parents will recover as well.
As for her parents, however, who are obviously very intelligent, did they miss the reams and
reams of scientific studies, white papers, and patent applications available to the public
before they permitted their child to get this not yet approved, experimental gene therapy
injection?
Did they not watch the hours and hours of video interviews and presentations by doctors,
virologists, epidemiologists, etc., who warned, warned, warned us to NOT TAKE IT?
Even after big tech started censoring and scrubbing most of this information off the net and
everywhere else, even before the massive pro-vax propaganda machine cranked up, millions of
people informed themselves about what it really is and thus decided to not be part of the human
trials.
Most of us had our flu shots and regular real vaccines as well, real vaccines are not the
issue, here.
I'm really sorry to tell you this, Mom, but you either ignored the real science or you, too,
were caught up in the propaganda that caused so many people to automatically reject any thing
people on the other side of the debate had to say.
One more red flag when it comes to politics and propaganda: DID YOU NOT QUESTION WHY SO MANY
MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS WHO TRIED TO WARN US HAD THEIR INFORMATION SCRUBBED, CENSORED, LOST THEIR
JOBS, AND RECEIVED DEATH THREATS SIMPLY FOR DOING DUE DILIGENCE AND ENGAGING IN THE ALWAYS
REQUIRED DEBATES AMONG MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS BEFORE APPROVING VACCINES? AND THEN WARNING THE
PUBLIC BEFORE THE POLITIAL CAMPAIGN BEGAN.
This is a very, very sad day in America. It's a very, very sad day for this family.
But maybe other parents will think twice, now, before they sign their children up for
potentailly horrific experiences related to the gene therapy injections. Maria
"Twelve year-old Maddie was enrolled in the Pfizer vaccine clinical trial."
The complete blame belongs on the parents. The tearful mother, an electrical engineer, said
she and her husband were pro-vaccine. If they were so smart, why in the hell would they enroll
their CHILD in a clinical trial for a fast-tracked vaccine, especially when children are not in
a high-risk group, and Covid-19 survival is 99.8 percent? I am furious with these highly
educated people. THEY WERE DUMBER THAN DOORKNOBS TO SACRIFICE THAT GIRL TO THE
GOVERNMENT/PHARMA COMPLEX. Libby ChickenLittle
When I was a 12 year old girl, I didn't even know what a clinical trial was. But then again,
I grew up at time when kids were allowed to be just kids and not political pawns by their
brainwashed parents. Sorry mom – I know comments are going to be harsh – but you
deserve EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. smith. jane smith.
Q. How does a government make a pro-vaccine person turn into an anti-vaccine person?
A. Give them a vaccine that makes them sicker than they were before they got the vaccine,
sicker with the very thing the vaccine was supposed to prevent.
I was told to go get a flu shot by my commander. Being a good USAF airman, I did so. I was
just a kid following orders. Two days later I was in the hospital, so sick with the flu until I
could not take 4 steps without getting so dizzy that I had to stop moving to keep from throwing
up. And it took 5 days before I was able to walk down a hallway without getting dizzy!
That was the last time I ever had a flu shot. Or the flu.
And that was over 35 years ago.
If the vaccine is such a good idea, then why does everybody have to get it in order for it
to work?
How about those who get the vaccine just leave those alone who choose not to get it?
And after what has happened to this lady's kid(s) .
Why the heck is she still PRO‐vaccine ???? 58
I blame the Fauci, Government, and the MSM for brainwashing fear amongst the masses. If you
are repeatedly gaslighted about almost every issue, you begin to believe the lies. You can add
schools also as they indoctrinate instead of teaching critical thinking.
Fauci should be rotten in prison now for the very simple reason that it refused to fund
large clinical trials for antivirals in March 2020. We only have a dozen antivirals that we
can try and yet, even today, after 15 months and 600k deaths the CDC still doesn't know if
Ivermectin works. Even if it worked to prevent 10% of deaths... out of 600k that's 60k. A
stadium full of people that shouldn't have died.
When the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since
November 1984 and the leading architect of "agency capture" -- the corporate seizure of
America's public health agencies by the pharmaceutical industry -- happen to be the same man,
conflicts of interest arise. Wearing both hats, Dr. Anthony Stephen Fauci, tasked with managing
the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, peddled and back-pedaled his prescriptions as Pharma profits
and bureaucratic powers grew and public health waned.
Working in tandem with his long-term partner, billionaire Bill Gates, to corral Americans
toward a single vaccine solution to COVID, Dr. Fauci committed zero dollars to studying or
promoting early treatment with various drug combinations that could dramatically reduce deaths
and hospitalizations. Meanwhile, in an assault on our First Amendment guarantee of free speech,
Dr. Fauci's Silicon Valley and media allies dutifully censored criticism of his policies on
mainstream social media and collaborated to muzzle any medical information about therapies and
treatments that might end the pandemic and compete with vaccines.
After effectively abolishing the First Amendment right to free speech, Dr. Fauci subverted
our Seventh Amendment rights to jury trials by arranging to shield reckless and negligent
pharmaceutical corporations from liability for injuries from any COVID countermeasures,
including vaccines. His lockdowns targeted First Amendment religious freedom by closing
churches -- while keeping liquor stores open as "essential businesses" -- and abolishing
century-old religious exemptions to vaccination. Dr. Fauci's enforced quarantine trampled the
Constitutional rights of assembly, of association, and to petition the government, and our
Fifth Amendment protection against uncompensated taking of private property. His arbitrary mask
and lockdown diktats, without public hearings or rulemaking, strangled our Fourth and
Fourteenth Amendment due process guarantees. His tracking and tracing initiatives bulldozed
Constitutional rights to privacy and travel, and our Fourth Amendment protections against
warrantless searches and seizures.
Finally, readers will see how Dr. Fauci and Bill Gates, asserting biosecurity rationales,
worked together to finance and promote the very gain-of-function experiments in Wuhan that may
have released the COVID-19 pathogen.
"Objective judgement is our jugement about the people we do not like ;-)"
In view of the fact that Delta (Indian) variant can infect vaccinated with the first
generation of vaccines people Fauci statement "when you get vaccinated, you not only protect your
own health, that of the family, but also you contribute to the community health by preventing the
spread of the virus throughout the community." i obviously wrong.
Delta Covid-19 Variant Can Infect Vaccinated People
Those who don't get their news from mainstream media have been aware of Anthony Fauci's
connection to "gain of function" research for months. Now, mainstream media is picking it up so
the White House is scrambling.
For months, there wasn't a day that went by when Dr. Anthony Fauci wasn't doing multiple
interviews spreading fear of Covid-19, demanding people take the various "vaccines," and
changing his talking points from moment to moment on a slew of healthcare-related issues. We
saw a clear change last week when the White House's chief doc seemed to fly under the radar for
the first time since Joe Biden took office.
It all comes down to "gain of function" research that is almost certainly the cause of the
Wuhan Flu. Developed in the Wuhan Virology Lab, Covid-19 either escaped or was intentionally
released. While many in academia still hold onto the notion that the pandemic was started by
bats, they do so simply because it hasn't -- and likely cannot -- be completely ruled out as
long as the Chinese Communist Party has a say in the matter. But many are now accepting the
likelihood that it came from the Wuhan Virology Lab as a result of "gain of function"
research.
We also now know that Fauci has been a
huge proponent of this research and he participated
in funding it at the Wuhan Virology Lab.
More evidence is emerging every day despite the bad doctor's protestations. And when I say
"we also now know," that's to say more mainstream media watchers know. Those who turn to
alternative media have known about Fauci's involvement with the Wuhan Virology Lab for a
while.
They've been trying to cover their tracks. A bombshell revelation from The
National Pulse yesterday showed they realized this was going to be a problem long before
Rand Paul
or Tucker Carlson started
calling Fauci out.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology scrubbed the U.S. National Institutes of Health as one
of its research partners from its website in early 2021. The revelation comes despite Dr.
Anthony Fauci insisting no relationship existed between the institutions.
Archived versions of the Wuhan lab's site also reveal a research update – "
Will SARS Come Back? " – appearing to describe gain-of-function research being
conducted at the institute by entities funded by Dr. Anthony Fauci's National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
On March 21st, 2021, the lab's website listed six U.S.-based research partners:
University of Alabama, University of North Texas, EcoHealth Alliance, Harvard University, The
National Institutes of Health (NIH), the United States, and the National Wildlife
Federation.
One day later, the page was revised to contain just two research
partners – EcoHealth Alliance and the University of Alabama. By March 23rd,
EcoHealth Alliance was the sole partner
remaining .
The Wuhan Institute of Virology's decision to wipe the NIH from its website came amidst
heightened
scrutiny that the lab was the source of COVID-19 – and that U.S. taxpayer dollars
from the NIH may have funded the research. The unearthing of the lab's attempted coverup also
follows a heated
exchange between Senator Rand Paul and Fauci, who attempted to distance his organization
from the Wuhan lab.
Beyond establishing a working relationship between the NIH and the Wuhan Institue of
Virology, now-deleted posts
from the site also detail studies bearing the hallmarks of gain-of-function research
conducted with the Wuhan-based lab. Fauci, however, asserted to Senator Paul that "the NIH
has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of
Virology."
There is still a tremendous gap between those who know the truth about Fauci and those who
still think he's just a smart little guy who tells Joe Biden what to do when it comes to Covid.
As we've documented multiple times in the past, there seems to be a cult of personality
surrounding Fauci, or as many have called it, Faucism. He is practically worshipped as a savior
by millions who believe everything he says even if he contradicts something he had said in the
past.
Today, he was interviewed on CBS News during "Face the Nation." It was a softball interview,
as always, and at no point was "gain of function" research discussed. Instead, John Dickerson
tried to sound smart and Fauci gave him kudos in an odd back-and-forth promoting vaccines.
JOHN DICKERSON : So, if- if a person is deciding whether or not to get vaccinated, they
have to keep in mind whether it's going to keep them healthy. But based on these new
findings, it would suggest they also have an opportunity, if vaccinated, to knock off or
block their ability to transmit it to other people. So, does it increase the public health
good of getting the vaccination or make that clearer based on these new findings?
DR. FAUCI : And you know, JOHN, you said it very well. I could have said it better.
It's absolutely the case. And that's the reason why we say when you get vaccinated, you not
only protect your own health, that of the family, but also you contribute to the community
health by preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community. And in other words,
you become a dead end to the virus. And when there are a lot of dead ends around, the virus
is not going to go anywhere. And that's when you get a point that you have a markedly
diminished rate of infection in the community. And that's exactly the reason, and you said it
very well, of why we encourage people and want people to get vaccinated. The more people you
get vaccinated, the safer the entire community is.
JOHN DICKERSON : And do you think now that this guidance has come out on relaxing the
mass mandates if you've been vaccinated, that people who might have been hesitant before will
start to get vaccinated in greater numbers?
DR. FAUCI : You know, I hope so, JOHN. The underlying reason for the CDC doing this was
just based on the evolution of the science that I mentioned a moment ago. But if, in fact,
this serves as an incentive for people to get vaccinated, all the better. I hope it does,
actually.
Don't let the presence of this interview fool you. It was almost certainly scheduled before
the "gain of function" research discussion hit the mainstream. But as Revolver News reported
today, we should start seeing less and less of Fauci going forward.
What happened to the almighty Dr. Fauci? Last week he was on TV telling all of us that life
wouldn't get back to normal for at least another year or so, and this week he's pretty much
gone. So what happened?
Well, a lot, actually. The biggest turn for Fauci involves 3 little words: Gain of Function.
It was this past week when the "gain of function" dots were publicly connected to the good
doctor. This is nothing new for those of us on the right. Here on Revolver, we've covered
Fauci's gain of function research extensively and the evidence against him is very damning.
A couple of months ago Fox News Host Steve Hilton blew the lid off of Fauci's macabre
obsession (and funding) of research involving the manipulation of highly contagious viruses.
Hilton laid the groundwork, but it was Senator Rand Paul who called out Fauci and his ghoulish
research face to face during a Senate hearing.
But even more notable, is that the CDC just updated their guidelines on mask-wearing and
essentially ended the pandemic -- a pandemic that Fauci has been the proud face of for over a
year now -- and when that announcement hit, he was nowhere to be found. And his absence didn't
go unnoticed.
Yes indeed, you'd think that Fauci would have been front and center to discuss the CDC's new
guidelines the moment the news hit. The "Golden Boy" taking yet another victory lap. After all,
Fauci never misses a moment in the spotlight. But he was not hitting the airwaves with the
typical fanfare.
It is still very possible that Fauci can make a resurgence. His fan-base is up there with
Meghan Markle and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, though even more devoted than the divas'. Unlike
other useful idiots, the White House will not be able to detach easily from Fauci, nor do they
want to. At this point, they're telling him to lay low and avoid any interviews in which they
do not have complete control over the "journalist" involved. John Dickerson has been a Democrat
Party pawn for decades.
Behind the scenes, they're already planning on ditching him. It will be done with all the
pomp one would expect for one of their heroes and will be used to mark the end of the
"emergency" in the United States. He'll still be promoting vaccines and will try to stay in his
precious limelight, but Democrats are ready to move on and open up the country. It has just
been too politically suicidal to persist with their lockdown mentality.
The key to seeing Fauci's narcissistic reign end is for patriots to continue to hammer him
on his involvement with developing Covid-19. His beloved "gain of function research" needs to
be explained to any who will listen. Then, maybe, Fauci will go away.
This is a fiasco for Fauci "herd immunity" campaign. It means that vaccinated people can
become infected and spread the virus much like unvaccinated people.
Cases of the Delta variant of coronavirus have almost doubled in a week
with 73 people now confirmed to have died after testing positive for the variant, 26 of whom
had had both vaccine doses.
Public Health England (PHE) said that as of Monday, the UK has seen 75,953 confirmed cases
of the Delta variant first identified in India, up 33,630 - or 79% - from the previous
week.
While just 26 people died more than two weeks after their second COVID-19 vaccine dose from
the Delta variant, more than 30.6 million in the UK have had both jabs, according to the
latest
government figures .
PHE said a total of 806 people in England have been admitted to hospital with the Delta
variant as of 14 June, a rise of 423 on the previous week.
So we have real problems with vaccines as Delta mutation puts the end of Fauci and company
fake dream about herd immunity -- it infects vaccinated people, but we can't discuss that the US medical establishment is corrupt,
in bed with Big Pharma and failed us.
This "medical bolshevism" should better be stopped.
Notable quotes:
"... Johnson said Sheryl Ruettgers will detail "severe neurological reactions that still inhibit her ability to live a normal life, including muscle pain, numbness, weakness and paresthesia" that she experienced after getting the COVID-19 vaccine earlier this month. ..."
Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson announced plans to hold a news conference to
discuss adverse reactions related to the COVID-19 vaccine, drawing backlash from health care
experts who view the move as "dangerous" and a way to promote misinformation.
In a statement Friday, Johnson said he plans to give a platform to six people from across
the country who claim to have had negative health reactions after receiving the coronavirus
jab. Johnson said the conference will take place Monday to allow the individuals to tell their
stories and discuss issues that have been "repeatedly ignored" by the medical community,
according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The Republican senator, who has been a vocal critic of vaccine mandates and has previously
advocated for alternative and unproven drug treatments to COVID-19, faced immediate backlash
from critics who feel the event will be a platform for spreading misinformation about the
safety of vaccines.
Dr. Jeff Huebner, a doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, said that Johnson was "promoting dangerous
and unfounded claims" about the vaccine that contradict medical research and analysis.
"As a member of the Wisconsin medical community I'm gravely concerned about the impact his
event and remarks will have on our ability to return to normal and protect Wisconsinites from
COVID-19.," Huebner said in a statement, the Journal Sentinel reported .
Joanna Bisgrove, a Wisconsin primary care doctor, told FOX6 that Johnson's statements and
event are "putting people at risk and already hurting people."
Tony Evers, the state's Democratic governor, added Friday that Johnson was being "reckless
and irresponsible" and said the event was "jeopardizing the health and safety" of the state's
vaccine rollout and economic recovery.
.@SenRonJohnson, you're being reckless and irresponsible. The #COVID19 vaccine is safe and
effective and based on years of science and research. Every time you suggest otherwise,
you're jeopardizing the health and safety of the people of our state and our economic
recovery.
-- Governor Tony Evers (@GovEvers) June 25, 2021
In defense, Johnson said Friday that he is "just asking questions" and isn't against the
vaccine.
"We're all supporters of vaccines. As I've repeatedly said, I'm glad that hundreds of
millions of Americans have been vaccinated, but I don't think authorities can ignore and censor
some of the issues," Johnson said in a tweet responding to Evers. "On Monday, we'll bring light
to stories that deserve to be seen, heard & believed."
Monday's event in Milwaukee will include statements from former Green Bay Packers player Ken
Ruettgers and his wife, Sheryl.
Johnson said Sheryl Ruettgers will detail "severe neurological reactions that still inhibit
her ability to live a normal life, including muscle pain, numbness, weakness and paresthesia"
that she experienced after getting the COVID-19 vaccine earlier this month.
Additional testimonies will be heard from individuals from Ohio, Missouri, Utah, Michigan
and Tennessee.
The medical community has long stressed that the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine far
outweigh the risks of possible side effects. Earlier this week, top U.S. health officials, medical agencies, laboratory and hospital
associations issued a statement reiterating the benefits by stating that getting vaccinated is
the "best way to protect yourself, your loved ones, your community, and to return to a more
normal lifestyle safely and quickly."
Newsweek contacted Johnson for additional comment, but did not hear back in time for
publication.
Newsweek, in partnership with NewsGuard, is dedicated to providing accurate and
verifiable vaccine and health information. With NewsGuard's HealthGuard browser extension,
users can verify if a website is a trustworthy source of health information. Visit the Newsweek
VaxFacts website to learn more and to download the HealthGuard browser extension.
We can go back to normal when we get the vaccine .
The vaccine is safe and effective, but you must remain locked down, social distance, and
wear three masks.
When does this end? Why must this go on? They cannot and will not answer because this is not
about a virus. Yet when we are told we must lockdown again, especially when
the triple
mutant variants arise
Covid-19 possible created using money from Fauci funded "gain of function" experiments has
not thrown its last surprise at us and there will be several more variants over the next
period
So he admits that the current vaccination is ineffective against this variant or what ? Fauci
claim that effectiveness of Pfizer vaccine in 88% but is it "against hospitalization" or "against
infection." is unclear. Also other study suggests that Pfizer vaccine is six times less effective
again this new strain.
White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday the highly contagious delta
variant is the "greatest threat" to the nation's attempt to eliminate Covid-19.
...Delta, first identified in India, now makes up about 20% of all new cases in the
United States, up from 10% about two weeks ago, Fauci said.
delta appears to be "following the same pattern" as alpha, the variant first found in the
U.K., with infections doubling in the U.S. about every two weeks.
"Similar to the situation in the U.K., the delta variant is currently the greatest threat in
the U.S. to our attempt to eliminate Covid-19," he said.
Studies suggest it is around 60% more transmissible than alpha, which was more contagious
than the original strain that emerged from Wuhan, China, in late 2019
... ... ...
The United Kingdom recently saw the delta variant become the dominant strain there,
surpassing alpha, which was first detected in the country last fall. The delta variant now
makes up more than 60% of new cases in the U.K.
Health officials say there are reports that the delta variant also causes more severe
symptoms, but that more research is needed to confirm those conclusions. Still,
there are signs that the delta strain could provoke different symptoms than other
variants.
... "The effectiveness of the vaccines, in this case, two weeks after the second dose of
Pfizer-BioNTech was 88% effective against the delta and 93% effective against alpha when
dealing with symptomatic disease," Fauci said, citing a study.
The World Health Organization said Friday that delta is becoming
the dominant variant of the disease worldwide.
Virus exists only in droplets. and masks are able to filter droplets, somewhat diminishing
the changes to get infection and, especially, to spread it with cough, where without mask
droplets travel several meters.
Nobody needs to be shocked that political messaging was going on during the Covid crisis, as
seen in the Anthony Fauci emails from early in the pandemic recently released under the Freedom
of Information Act. Politicians and officials wouldn't be doing their jobs if they didn't
measure the effect of their words, beyond merely their accuracy or consistency. And Dr. Fauci,
director of U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for the past 36 years,
has at least been more wink-wink in this regard than many officials.
But the latest furor does underline one thing: what a colossal disaster for public
understanding masks have been.
Until November, the official advice was the same that Dr. Fauci gave in a now infamous early
email to a colleague -- a store-bought mask may somewhat reduce your chance of spreading the
disease if you happen to be infected. It will do little to prevent you from catching it if
you're breathing around someone who is exhaling the Covid virus.
Only in the fall did the U.S. government start claiming masks might protect the uninfected
too. This appears to have been largely disinformation designed to get more unwitting carriers
to wear masks. Even today, the CDC on its website stresses only one claim: "Masks are a simple
barrier to help prevent your respiratory droplets from reaching others."
We should expect government advice to be manipulative. That's its job. We should also try to
be time-consistent in our reasoning.
When Dr. Fauci emailed his advice to a colleague, the virus was not prevalent enough for
precautions to be worthwhile. Do the math. Even at the height of the epidemic, if masks mainly
stop spreaders from spreading, 300 million-plus Americans were being asked to wear masks to
protect against perhaps 1% who might be infectious at any given moment. And this assumes all
infected people were out and about when the real risk would have been mostly from the 0.4% who
were infected but asymptomatic.
Universal mask compliance (and the U.S. came fairly close), by multiple models, might have
slowed transmission by a modest 30%. Add it all up and we were calling on Americans school-age
and up to wear masks to have a negligible impact on their own risk in most circumstances, for a
disease that's flu-like in 85% of cases.
People whose job it is to react to a crisis will do so, but that does not make their
reactions correct. They are forced to take some stand, and right or wrong, that's what they
will do. There are times when people should admit they don't have an answer, but there are
some like Fauci who will always give you some explanation, even without knowing. The harm
comes when he gives lousy advice, giving false hopes, or sending us looking in the wrong
direction. Fauci is full of himself, and when the nation looked to him for answers, he
"winged it," with any solution he thought might placate us, though he was guessing in the
dark. He had no clue he could share, but that did not stop him. He would still be advising if
we were still listening to him. He is finally under fire because now we know there was a
connection between him and the Wuhan Lab, and his credibility is shot. He needs removal and
possible prosecution.
E David Barkley
Fauci is latter day version of P.T. Barnum. There isn't a camera and microphone that he's not
shy about touting his magic masks and expounding upon the veracity of the much-maligned Wuhan
Labs.
Robert Burns
I've been told by husband & wife scientists that "Science is Science". It was meant to be
like "Math is Math"? 2 + 2 = 4. But our new science is actually "Political Science" used to
control neophytes and those who believe Government is "for the people" more and more. If 10
Scientists were asked about our Covid-19 issue, we could get 10 different "Scientific
Opinions". Fauci was/is useless except for his mastery of being an aid for an agenda.
Scientists/Doctors have lost a lot of credibility in my book.
John Smith
Fauci is the poster child for an unaccomplished, entrenched, bureaucrat. He has lived his
entire life in that cocoon.
No doubt he started his career with good intentions. However, at some point, he had to
recognize that government agencies had become personal property of selfish bureaucrats
interested only in feathering their own beds.
In contrast; Thomas Sowell recognized this early on at the Dept. of Labor. The rest is
history, including the fact that these bureaucrats have worked tirelessly to keep that
National Treasure a secret.
Virus exists only in droplets. and masks are able to filter droplets, somewhat diminishing
the changes to get infection and, especially, to spread it with cough, where without mask
droplets travel several meters.
Nobody needs to be shocked that political messaging was going on during the Covid crisis, as
seen in the Anthony Fauci emails from early in the pandemic recently released under the Freedom
of Information Act. Politicians and officials wouldn't be doing their jobs if they didn't
measure the effect of their words, beyond merely their accuracy or consistency. And Dr. Fauci,
director of U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for the past 36 years,
has at least been more wink-wink in this regard than many officials.
But the latest furor does underline one thing: what a colossal disaster for public
understanding masks have been.
Until November, the official advice was the same that Dr. Fauci gave in a now infamous early
email to a colleague -- a store-bought mask may somewhat reduce your chance of spreading the
disease if you happen to be infected. It will do little to prevent you from catching it if
you're breathing around someone who is exhaling the Covid virus.
Only in the fall did the U.S. government start claiming masks might protect the uninfected
too. This appears to have been largely disinformation designed to get more unwitting carriers
to wear masks. Even today, the CDC on its website stresses only one claim: "Masks are a simple
barrier to help prevent your respiratory droplets from reaching others."
We should expect government advice to be manipulative. That's its job. We should also try to
be time-consistent in our reasoning.
When Dr. Fauci emailed his advice to a colleague, the virus was not prevalent enough for
precautions to be worthwhile. Do the math. Even at the height of the epidemic, if masks mainly
stop spreaders from spreading, 300 million-plus Americans were being asked to wear masks to
protect against perhaps 1% who might be infectious at any given moment. And this assumes all
infected people were out and about when the real risk would have been mostly from the 0.4% who
were infected but asymptomatic.
Universal mask compliance (and the U.S. came fairly close), by multiple models, might have
slowed transmission by a modest 30%. Add it all up and we were calling on Americans school-age
and up to wear masks to have a negligible impact on their own risk in most circumstances, for a
disease that's flu-like in 85% of cases.
People whose job it is to react to a crisis will do so, but that does not make their
reactions correct. They are forced to take some stand, and right or wrong, that's what they
will do. There are times when people should admit they don't have an answer, but there are
some like Fauci who will always give you some explanation, even without knowing. The harm
comes when he gives lousy advice, giving false hopes, or sending us looking in the wrong
direction. Fauci is full of himself, and when the nation looked to him for answers, he
"winged it," with any solution he thought might placate us, though he was guessing in the
dark. He had no clue he could share, but that did not stop him. He would still be advising if
we were still listening to him. He is finally under fire because now we know there was a
connection between him and the Wuhan Lab, and his credibility is shot. He needs removal and
possible prosecution.
E David Barkley
Fauci is latter day version of P.T. Barnum. There isn't a camera and microphone that he's not
shy about touting his magic masks and expounding upon the veracity of the much-maligned Wuhan
Labs.
Robert Burns
I've been told by husband & wife scientists that "Science is Science". It was meant to be
like "Math is Math"? 2 + 2 = 4. But our new science is actually "Political Science" used to
control neophytes and those who believe Government is "for the people" more and more. If 10
Scientists were asked about our Covid-19 issue, we could get 10 different "Scientific
Opinions". Fauci was/is useless except for his mastery of being an aid for an agenda.
Scientists/Doctors have lost a lot of credibility in my book.
John Smith
Fauci is the poster child for an unaccomplished, entrenched, bureaucrat. He has lived his
entire life in that cocoon.
No doubt he started his career with good intentions. However, at some point, he had to
recognize that government agencies had become personal property of selfish bureaucrats
interested only in feathering their own beds.
In contrast; Thomas Sowell recognized this early on at the Dept. of Labor. The rest is
history, including the fact that these bureaucrats have worked tirelessly to keep that
National Treasure a secret.
Thank you Dr. Sowell.
Scott Jokerst
I have been as frustrated as Holman Jenkins apparently has been regarding the conflicts
between:
a.) the highly inaccurate and panic driving messaging from the media and politicians with
extraordinary instincts to "control whatever", and
b) the actual, factually known empirically and experimentally understood information about
the coronavirus, aerosolizable respiratory viruses in general, issues regarding actual
infection routes and mechanisms, and the utter futility of using the masks, social
distancing, and barriers the way ALL have been using them to "defeat" Covid-19 (or any other
respiratory virus).
What has been widely more contagious and destructive than any of the current SARS-CoV-2
variants has been the fear, panic, and the destructive acceptance and enabling of as much
social isolation, communication restriction, and relationship reduction that has been
embraced by many GLOBALLY.
The physical chemistry facts are very simple. Very few actually have cared about that.
if COVID-19 started to spread worldwide before Christmas this is another argument that vaping pneumonia and COVID-19 are related
and Fauci needs to be investigated.
If this was the same virus Fauci needs to be prosecuted for criminal negligence and his senior officials of the institutes fired.
The growing body of evidence suggests that COVID-19 started to spread in the USA close to the timeframe of fort Detrick incident
Notable quotes:
"... Scientists from UCLA have been analysing over 10 million hospital records from December 1, 2019 to February 29, 2020. Comparing that winter to previous ones, they noticed a 50-percent increase in 'coughing' as a symptom on admission forms. In addition, 18 more people than would ordinarily be expected were hospitalised with acute respiratory failure. ..."
"... This bombshell fits an emerging body of evidence on an earlier coronavirus timeline. Many people may remember the reports of a strange vaping-related illness that ravaged Americans towards the end of last year. There was a good deal of study on it. Scientists at first thought it was the oils in the e-cigs congealing in people's lungs, but soon debunked that hypothesis. In hindsight, it is difficult to look past Covid as the real culprit. Pneumonia-like symptoms, ordinarily fit people falling severely ill it was Covid all over. ..."
A new study from America indicates that people were falling ill with
coronavirus-like symptoms in December 2019, but doctors at the time dismissed it as ordinary flu.
A team of doctors from Los Angeles scouring the hospital records from last winter has discovered a series of smoking gun clues
which almost guarantee that Covid-19 was present in America well before Christmas.
Scientists from UCLA have been
analysing
over 10 million hospital records from December 1, 2019 to February 29, 2020. Comparing that winter to previous ones, they noticed
a 50-percent increase in 'coughing' as a symptom on admission forms. In addition, 18 more people than would ordinarily be expected
were hospitalised with acute respiratory failure.
In fact, the scientists estimate that there may have been 1,000 or more Covid sufferers in LA alone last winter – and presumably
those are just the symptomatic minority. At the time, of course, all of this was put down to a moderately bad flu season.
Officially
, Covid did not turn up in LA until January 22, when a traveller in LAX airport fell ill. He was from Wuhan, and was identified
as Covid-positive four days later.
This bombshell fits an emerging body of evidence on an earlier coronavirus timeline. Many people may remember the
reports of a strange vaping-related
illness that ravaged Americans towards the end of last year. There was a good deal of study on it. Scientists at first thought it
was the oils in the e-cigs congealing in people's lungs, but soon debunked that hypothesis. In hindsight, it is difficult to look
past Covid as the real culprit. Pneumonia-like symptoms, ordinarily fit people falling severely ill it was Covid all over.
Autopsy outrage
These revelations come hot on the heels of a very different story from England, which nonetheless points to the same conclusion.
Peter Attwood died at the age of 84 on January 30, having been sick for over a month. But in recent weeks, an autopsy has confirmed
that he died of Covid, which he probably was infected with in 2019. Underlining this, Attwood's daughter was sick with similar symptoms
two weeks earlier still.
All of this happened in Kent, England. But according to the government there, the first Covid death in the UK did not happen until
March. Now, Attwood's family
want answers from the
Chinese government on why they did not tell the WHO earlier about the coronavirus, which we know from
leaked memos was identified in mid-November at the latest.
If coronavirus burned a track through the US and the UK towards the end of last year, is there any reason to suspect it wasn't
doing the same everywhere else? In July, reports
came in of coronavirus DNA being found in Spain, Italy and South America as long ago as the spring of 2019. How far back does
this story go? We will probably never know.
Official statistics
Nor will we ever be able to track the precise journey of the novel coronavirus around the globe, despite being nearly certain
of its origin in Wuhan. But when the inquiry is done, surely findings like these have to be taken seriously, and built into the retrospective
model of the pandemic. And if the coronavirus was spreading freely in 2019, the questions are: What was the point in beginning lockdowns
in March this year? Is it really credible that they could have made a blind bit of difference, coming as late as they did?
This whole mess demonstrates the problem with relying on official data and records, as they are bound to be incomplete and tardy,
particularly at this stage. Despite such understandable failings in government information, people have an unfortunate habit of treating
it like the gospel truth. This is absurd, and yet thinking of this quality seems to inform so much coronavirus policy.
Peter Andrews is an Irish science journalist and writer based in London. He has a background in the life sciences, and graduated
from the University of Glasgow with a degree in genetics
azn_okay
The problem isn't that the information is tardy, it's that there was a concerted effort to place blame with the understanding
that the very first impressions were critical in shaping the story later. The media landscape would be saturated so that future
history would forget there were ever opposing voices.
Juan_More
IDK they were not looking for it so they did not find it. Now that they are looking for it they are finding it EVERYWHERE.
I do believe that it was in the wild before they say as they found it in old sewer water samples in Spain. Now if we can only
get the politicians and public health officials to see reason.
I had some guy loose it because I was going against the arrows down an aisle in the Dollar store this week.
Starcraft
"At the time, of course, all of this was put down to a moderately bad flu season. "
That's the thing. It was like a "moderately bad flu" until governments decided to deem it a crisis in order to get rid of the
rights of their own citizens.
SandythePole
Far from "being nearly certain of its origin in Wuhan ", there are lots of research findings concerning bat corona viruses. The
University of North Carolina synthesised chimeras of such a virus in 2015 and this work continued at Fort Detrick before the latter
was temporarily closed because of leakages. While the mainstream continue to assert the contrary, many believe this was a man-made
virus, synthesised as part of a biowarfare program, possibly at one of the many hundreds of such laboratories around the world
funded by the US military, such as the Lugar Centre, Tbilisi Georgia.
Bill Rice
This is a bigger story/truth than most people realize. This virus is extremely contagious. If a lot of people had it in December
and January, they were spreading it to a lot of other people. It's not unreasonable to conclude that tens of millions of Americans
had the virus by the time of the lock-downs. The virus horse was well out of the barn. Antibody tests didn't later pick-up some
of these early cases because antibodies fade in 2 or three months in most people. By the time people who were sick in December
and January got an antibody test in May or June, their antibodies were gone (in most cases, but not all cases). This also opens
up the very real possibility that many of the recent "positive cases" could, in fact, be 2nd cases or cases of re-infection.
Ronnie62
My family got the virus but two kids didn't and they all live in the same home So take all this BS with a pinch of salt
and enjoy life
Juan_More
Sure but stop looking at the numbers of positive tests and look at the mortality rate as a percentage of the population.
JoeyManoey
Fort Detrick and L4 labs Honolulu - Oct 2019.
Deejer
Who in the UK know people who displayed these symptoms in the last quarter of 2019 and yet it didn't quite seem to be the flu?
The idea that the government got ahead of the curve is almost absurd.
GodBiteMe
Fort Detrick!
Enquirer
There is video on the net called 'Debunking the Narrative' in which Dave Cullen interviews Proff Dolores Cahil who is a leading
experienced virologist who, for a period of time, was in charge of the Wuhan laboratory. Proff Cahil explains everything in great
detail.
She says that a person with a strong immunity is not only unlikely to suffer any serious effects from catching this virus -
but may not even notice that they have had it !
The only people who suffer serious effects are people with low immunity - but even they can often be treated so that real ...
See more
SteveK99
Did the lockdown make any difference? It certainly did. It killed far more people then would've died otherwise.
AwareAussie
Look up Global Research (Canada) and Fabricating a Pandemic - Who Could Organize It and Why.
"... Gainesville parents in Florida concerned about the harm caused to their children wearing face masks all day at school in 90 °F weather sent out six masks""five that were worn by children ages 6 to 11 for five to eight hours at school, and one worn by an adult""to be analyzed for contaminants at the University of Florida's Mass Spectrometry Research and Education Center. ..."
"... Five of the masks were found to be contaminated with parasites, fungi, and bacteria, according to Rational Ground . Only one mask was found to contain a virus that can cause a fatal systemic disease in cattle and deer. Other less harmful pathogens that can cause ulcers, acne, and strep throat were also detected. ..."
"... None of the controls were contaminated with pathogens, while "samples from the front top and bottom of the t-shirt found proteins that are commonly found in skin and hair, along with some commonly found in soil." ..."
"... The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that kids should continue to wear masks and social distance until they are able to get vaccinated, despite data showing that children are minimally affected by COVID-19 and are not super-spreaders of the virus. ..."
A laboratory at the University of Florida that recently analyzed a small sample of face masks, detected the presence of 11 dangerous
pathogens that included bacterias that cause diphtheria, pneumonia, and meningitis.
Gainesville parents in Florida concerned about the harm caused to their children wearing face masks all day at school in 90 °F
weather sent out six masks""five that were worn by children ages 6 to 11 for five to eight hours at school, and one worn by an adult""to
be analyzed for contaminants at the University of Florida's Mass Spectrometry Research and Education Center.
Of the six masks, three were surgical, two cotton, and a poly gaiter. Masks that have not been worn and a t-shirt worn at school
acted as the control samples.
Five of the masks were found to be contaminated with parasites, fungi, and bacteria, according to
Rational Ground . Only
one mask was found to contain a virus that can cause a fatal systemic disease in cattle and deer. Other less harmful pathogens that
can cause ulcers, acne, and strep throat were also detected.
None of the controls were contaminated with pathogens, while "samples from the front top and bottom of the t-shirt found proteins
that are commonly found in skin and hair, along with some commonly found in soil."
Amanda Donoho, a mother of three elementary school children, teamed up with other parents to send the masks to the lab because
her sons broke out in rashes from prolonged mask-wearing.
"Our kids have been in masks all day, seven hours a day in school ," Donoho told Fox & Friends on June 17. " The only break
that they get is to eat or drink. "
Donoho said that while students do not have to wear a mask outside at school since April 2021, masks were still required when
they were within six to eight feet of each other. Masks must also be worn on school buses.
Further research is needed to better understand what is being put on children's faces, says Donoho.
Superintendent Carlee Simon at the Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) in Gainesville, Fla. did not respond to a request for
comment.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that kids should
continue to wear masks and social distance until they are able to get vaccinated, despite data showing that children are minimally
affected by COVID-19 and are not super-spreaders of the virus.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed an executive
order on May 3, suspending all COVID-19 emergency restrictions, including mask-wearing. However, certain school districts like
ACPS kept their mask policy in place for the remainder of the school year, while masks were optional within the community.
ACPS says masks will be optional for the 2021""22 school year but would continue to be required on school buses until mid-September
unless the federal transportation regulation changes.
The CDC says masks are still required on planes, trains, buses, and at airports.
In an updated June 17 guidance
, masks are no longer required in "outdoor areas of a conveyance (like a ferry or the top deck of a bus)" and fully vaccinated
individuals may resume everyday activities that were done prior to the pandemic without mask-wearing or physically distancing unless
required by federal or state law.
People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their second shot of a messenger RNA vaccine or after a single-dose Johnson
& Johnson vaccine.
The CDC did not give guidance for people who've recovered from COVID-19 and have natural immunity.
The Epoch Times has contacted the CDC for comment. 25,737 134 NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY
TO YOUR INBOX
Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.
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.
U.S. public health advisers will meet to discuss a potential link between Covid-19 shots
that use messenger RNA technology and heart inflammation after hundreds of vaccinated people
experienced a condition called myocarditis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization
Practices will gather on June 18 to discuss an increase in reported cases of the condition,
particularly among adolescents and young adults. Covid vaccines made by Moderna Inc. and
partners Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE's use mRNA technology.
Since April, the CDC has seen a spike in reports of myocarditis along with pericarditis, an
inflammation of the membrane around the heart. The cases, while rare, have occurred mostly in
male teens and young adults.
The CDC has identified a total of 216 cases of heart inflammation after the first dose of an
mRNA shot, and another 573 cases after the second dose. The median age of people with
myocarditis or pericarditis following the first dose was 30, and 24 among the second-dose
cases. There were 475 cases identified among those under the age of 30.
Most patients have responded well to treatment and rest, according to the agency, and more
than 8 in 10 have had full relief from their symptoms. The agency is further examining the
cases by age.
About 130 million Americans have received the full two-dose regimen of one of the two
authorized mRNA vaccines. Many teenagers have now received their first dose of the
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which was cleared for adolescents 12 and older on May 10.
"We're still learning about the rates of myocarditis and pericarditis," Tom Shimabukuro, a
safety expert of CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, said
Thursday in a Food and Drug Administration panel meeting. "As we gather more information we'll
begin to get a better idea of the post-vaccination rates and hopefully be able to get more
detailed information by age group."
Shimabukuro said the U.S. data is consistent with findings from Israel's vaccinated
population.
"It's hard to deny that there's some event that seems to be occurring," said Cody Meissner,
head of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Division at Tufts Medical Center, at the FDA's
advisory committee meeting on Thursday.
Emergency meeting in eight more days.. ??? An emergency meeting would be something held
tonight; an emergency meeting that can wait days needs to call it differently --"out of schedule
meeting" or something like that.
What happens when you have inflammation and damage? You get scar tissue. Do you really think
that this doesn't have lasting effect? These guys will have problems ater in life with their
hearts and it won't because of McDonalds....
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it will convene an
"emergency meeting"
of its advisers on June 18th to discuss rare but higher-than-expected reports of heart
inflammation following doses of the mRNA-based Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.
The new details about myocarditis and pericarditis emerged first in presentations to a
panel of independent advisers for the Food and Drug Administration, who are meeting
Thursday to discuss how the regulator should approach emergency use authorization for using
COVID-19 vaccines in younger children.
As CBS reports, the CDC previously
disclosed that reports of heart inflammation were detected mostly in younger men and
teenage boys following their second dose, and that there
was a "higher number of observed than expected" cases in 16- to 24-year-olds. Last month,
the CDC urged providers to "ask about prior COVID-19 vaccination" in patients with symptoms of
heart inflammation.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.464.0_en.html#goog_595720652 Wall Street
Bounces, After Selloff Fed Boosts Liquidity NOW PLAYING SoftBank Said to Plan $14 Billion Sale
of Alibaba Shares China's Companies Have Worst Quarter on Record, Beige Book Says U.S.-Saudi
Oil Alliance Under Consideration, Brouillette Says ETF Volumes Surge in Current Market
Environment Investors Have Given Up on a V-Shaped Recovery, BNY's Young Cautions
We'll leave the judgment up to someone far more qualified...
Does anyone else not find it odd that after discovering 800 cases in the VAERS database the
"emergency" meeting is in 7 days ? ... and in the meantime, every public health authority
figure is encouraging parents to get their young children vaccinated ?
The reports of myocarditis or pericarditis were submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a passive
reporting system run jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the
Food and Drug Administration, through May 31.
The bulk of the reports described heart inflammation appearing after the second of two doses
of either the Pfizer of Moderna vaccines, both of which utilize messenger RNA technology.
Authorities stress that anybody can submit reports through the reporting system but
authorities have already verified that 226 of the reports meet the CDC's working case
definition, Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, a deputy director at the agency, said during a presentation of
the data. Followup and review are in progress for the rest.
Of the 285 case reports for which the disposition was known at the time of the review, 270
patients had been discharged and 15 were still hospitalized, officials said. Myocarditis
typically requires hospital care. No deaths were reported.
A slide on myocarditis reports post-COVID-19 vaccination is shown during the Food and Drug
Administration's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meeting on June
10, 2021. (FDA/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
The CDC
announced last month that it was investigating reports of heart inflammation in teenagers
and young adults who received a COVID-19 vaccine, though it took no definitive action besides
saying it would continue reviewing case data.
An advisory committee to the agency, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said
in a little-noticed update published dated May 24 and published on June
1 that data from VAERS showed that in the 30 days following the second dose of mRNA
vaccinations, "there was a higher number of observed than expected myocarditis/pericarditis
cases in 16""24-year-olds."
Data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, an active reporting system that relies on nine
healthcare organizations in seven states, did not show higher than expected cases, it
added.
"However, analyses suggest that these data need to be carefully followed as more persons
in younger age groups are vaccinated," the advisory committee's vaccine safety workgroup said
in its report.
Israel's Health Ministry
said that same day that it found 275 cases of heart inflammation among the more than 5
million people in the country who received a vaccine between December 2020 and May. An Israeli
study found "a probable link" between receiving the second dose of the Pfizer jab "and the
appearance of myocarditis among men aged 16 to 30," the ministry said.
Shimabukuro said the U.S. passive surveillance data "are consistent with the surveillance
data that emerged from Israel."
The figures are also consistent with other case reports and data from the Department of
Defense.
The vast majority of the U.S. reports deal with male patients. Approximately 300 preliminary
reports indicated the patients suffered chest pain, with nearly as many having elevated cardiac
enzymes.
Family members watch as a 12-year-old is inoculated with Pfizer's vaccine against COVID-19
at Dekalb Pediatric Center in Decatur, Ga., on May 11, 2021. (Chris Aluka Berry/Reuters)
A case report
examining myocarditis in seven adolescents following vaccination with Pfizer's jab,
published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, this month, said
all seven developed the inflammation within 4 days of receiving the second dose, did not have
evidence of COVID-19 infection, and did not meet the criteria for MIS-C, a rare disease.
The seven males, between the ages of 14 and 19, all required hospital care but each was
eventually discharged.
Authors, who did not respond to requests for comment, said no link has been established
between the vaccines and myocarditis and that the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the risks.
But they also urged healthcare workers "to consider myocarditis in the evaluation of
adolescents and young adults who develop chest pain after COVID-19 vaccination."
A
commentary on the study published in the same journal, said "there are some concerns
regarding this case series that might suggest a causal relationship and therefore warrant
further analysis through established surveillance systems."
"First, the consistent timing of symptoms in these seven cases after the second
vaccination suggests a uniform biological process. Second, the similarities in clinical
findings and laboratory characteristics in this series suggest a common etiology. Finally,
these cases occurred in the context of a dearth of circulation of common respiratory viruses
known to be associated with myocarditis, and thorough diagnostic evaluations did not identify
infectious etiologies," they added.
The expected number of myocarditis/pericarditis cases in those aged 16 or 17, based on
background incidence rates and the number of doses administered to that population through May
31, is between two and 19. But based on the VAERS reports, the number is 79.
Likewise, the expected number for cases among young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 is
eight to 83. The number based on the reports is 196.
"In the 16- to 17 year-olds and the 18- to 24-year-olds, the observed reports are exceeding
the expected based on the known background rates that are published in literature," Shimabukuro
told members of a Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee in the meeting on
Thursday, though he cautioned that not all the reports will "turn out to be true
myocarditis/pericarditis reports."
" Of note, of these 528 reports after second dose with symptom onset within 30 days, over
half of them were in these younger age groups, 12""24 years old , whereas roughly 9 percent of
total doses administered were in those age groups, so we "clearly have an imbalance there," he
added later.
A slide on myocarditis reports post-COVID-19 vaccination is shown during the Food and Drug
Administration's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meeting on June
10, 2021. (FDA/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, which comes from nine healthcare groups that have
collectively administered over 8.8 million doses""only some 284,000 of those have been given to
12- to 17-year-olds""did not indicate safety concerns, with just 60 myocarditis or pericarditis
events reported through May 29, the doctor continued.
A Food and Drug Administration surveillance system, the Biologics Effectiveness and Safety
Initiative, which utilizes claims data from CVS and two other partners, has detected 99 cases
of myocarditis/pericarditis in the 42 days following vaccination among some 3.1 million shots
given to people between the ages of 12 and 64, the panel was told earlier by an official from
the drug regulating agency.
Another 1,260 were reported in people 65 or older through claims data from Medicare claims
data.
Neither number raised safety signals, Steve Anderson, director of the FDA's Office of
Biostatistics and Epidemiology said.
Dr. Cody Meissner, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease at the Tufts
Children's Hospital, and a member of the panel that heard from Shimabukuro and others, said
after the presentations that he was "struck by the fact" that myocarditis "occurs more commonly
after the second dose."
"It's a pretty specific interval of time, it's primarily after the mRNA vaccines as far as
we know, we know that the consistent age, there's a lack of alternative explanations even
though these patients have been pretty well worked up, and it's a widespread occurrence
because, as you said, Israel has found a pretty similar situation," he said during the
meeting.
He asked Shimabukuro about the rates of blood clots seen in women between the ages of 30 and
49 after vaccination""most of the clots appeared in that population after getting a Johnson
& Johnson shot, though officials ultimately lifted a pause,
saying the benefits outweighed the risks ""and to restate the rate of incidence of
myocarditis in adolescents after a jab.
Shimabukuro said that in contrast with the clotting situation, when data showed "strong
evidence of a causal relationship fairly early on," further study is needed on heart
inflammation.
"At this point, I think we're still learning about the rates of myocarditis and
pericarditis. We continue to collect more information both in VAERS and continue to get more
information in VSD, and I think as gather more information we'll begin to get a better idea of
the post-vaccination rates and hopefully will be able to get more detailed information by age
group," he said.
"It's still early," he added, noting that authorization for a vaccine for 12- to
-15-year-olds didn't come
until mid-May while immunization of older adolescents largely came later than shots for
adults.
"I believe that we will ultimately have sufficient information to answer those questions,"
he said.
A general view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in
Atlanta, Ga., on Sept. 30, 2014. (Tami Chappell/Reuters)
Another panel member, Dr. Jay Portnoy, director of the Division of Allergy, Asthma, &
Immunology at Children's Mercy Hospitals & Clinics, asked for a comparison between the
adverse events in vaccinated versus unvaccinated persons, saying if the adverse event rate was
lower in those who are vaccinated, then it would still be worth getting a jab.
Shimabukuro said a risk-benefit assessment would be provided by the CDC's advisory panel,
known as ACIP, on vaccines during a meeting next week.
A CDC spokeswoman also referenced the upcoming meeting, which will take place on June 18,
after saying reports of myocarditis remain rare, given that over 300 million doses have been
administered in the United States.
"Given the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered, these reports are rare. More
than 18 million people between ages 12-24 have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine
in the United States," she told The Epoch Times via email.
"CDC continues to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for everyone 12 years and older. Getting
vaccinated is the best way to help protect yourself and your family from COVID-19."
A Pfizer spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that the company is aware of federal
data indicating "rare reports of myocarditis and pericarditis, predominantly in male
adolescents and young adults, after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination." It noted that federal officials
have not concluded that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines cause either condition, before expressing
support for an assessment of suspected adverse events.
"With a vast number of people vaccinated to date, the benefit risk profile of our vaccine
remains positive," the spokesperson added.
Moderna did not return an inquiry.
Dr. Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine and associate chief at the University of
California, San Francisco, told The Epoch Times in an email that in light of the increased risk
of myocarditis above expected rates among young people, especially after the second dose,
parents should keep a close eye out for when guidance is issued by federal authorities.
"Possibilities include only vaccinating children without prior infection as there is an
association between prior COVID and this adverse effect; giving 1 dose instead of 2 below the
age of 20; addressing the dosage of the vaccine (currently at 30 micrograms down to the age
of 12, which is the same dose as in adults); and extending the duration between doses 1 and 2
for younger people," she said.
"I look forward to ACIP guidance on this over the next few weeks."
BugMan 13 minutes ago
"The infamous spike protein of the coronavirus gets into the blood where it circulates
for several days post-vaccination and then accumulated in organs and tissues including the
spleen, bone marrow, the liver, adrenal glands, and in quite high concentrations in the
ovaries"; "a large number of studies has shown that the most severe effects of SARS-CoV-2,
the virus that causes COVID-19, such as blood clotting and bleeding, are due to the effects
of the spike protein of the virus itself."
I don't see how the CDC, Fauci, Wuhan (CCP), Fort Detrick, Ralph Baric, Peter Daszak and
the WHO are going to get out of this: the 'vaccine' mRNA spike protein is toxic, it is a
pathogenic protein that causes clotting, heart problems and may be associated with
infertility...
bringonthebigone 1 hour ago
The heart has almost no repair capability. Even mild damage at that age likely takes
years or decades off life expectancy. Seems likely the number of undiscovered cases far far
exceed the number reported.
I Write Code 1 hour ago
"Possibilities include only vaccinating children without prior infection as there is
an association between prior COVID and this adverse effect; giving 1 dose instead of 2
below the age of 20; addressing the dosage of the vaccine (currently at 30 micrograms
down to the age of 12, which is the same dose as in adults); and extending the duration
between doses 1 and 2 for younger people," she said
No kidding Doctor Obvious.
BUT extending the duration is probably the wrong move, or if you do, cut the second dose
by 90%.
Hear me now, believe me later.
MRob 5 minutes ago remove link
Watching latest Brett Weinstein interview, Dark Horse, guest claimed the numbers of
complications from the vaccine could be anything up to 100x the official figures. Unlikely,
but emphasises that the error bar is massive. Above reporting system is voluntary, and
people have been censored from knowing what to even look for, and propagandised from
considering their issues could be due to the vaccine. Vaccine complication groups of fb
were deleted, with 70k or 120k people in them. Such a screwed up situation. With the
suppression of ivermectin etc, this is nuremberg trials level for sure.
1. The vaccine is not tailored to the individual and therefore never 100% safe it is not
possible when working with statistics and probability as your guide.
2. The reporting system is next to non-existent even under vaers because that is the
measure of liability for those making people take gene therapies / vaccines.
Therein lies your two fundamental problems ... too fix it though you have too destroy
the whole system it should never have been put in place that way.
hoytmonger 36 minutes ago
In Idaho, the Idaho National Guard is "assisting" vaccination of students at their
middle school...
So the commenter on here, vasilievich mentioned he and his wife got the vax and his wife
went into cardiac arrest shortly after (4 days ago)...they are in their 80's...(God help
them)...several others have noted they knew people that went into cardiac arrest after the
vax...seems to be much, much more common than they are letting on...
Seabass120 36 minutes ago
My wife got her second Pfizer vacc and now cannot go into the sun without breaking out
into hives. Prior to the jab, she was outside daily.
JoKe Biden 27 minutes ago
Yep so predictable, some of the statements will read something like this.
The FDA and CDC have confidence that the vaccine is safe and effective in preventing
COVID-19.
The FDA has determined that the available data show that the vaccine's known and
potential benefits outweigh its known and potential risks in individuals 18 years of age
and older.
At this time, the available data suggest that the chance of heart inflammation
occurring is very low, but the FDA and CDC will remain vigilant in continuing to
investigate this risk.
_Rorschach 25 minutes ago
its not a vaccine
its gene therapy
ebworthen 38 minutes ago
An untested genetic experiment and not a "vaccine" in any sense of the word.
toady 19 minutes ago
"Just say no"
-Nancy Reagan
RawDrum 20 minutes ago
Imagine being a parent who got their teenage child injected with an experiment jab for
something they are at trivial risk of any impact from, that has no-one liable should it go
wrong, in an American for profit health insurance system, doing zero research and
outsourcing critical thinking to media, big tech and pharma corporations engaged in obvious
censorship and obfuscation, and that resulted in your child having an enlarged heart
impacting the rest of their shortened life.
YOLO!
LetThemEatRand 1 hour ago
"The chances of dying from COVID for the young are almost impossible to measure they are
so small" - doesn't matter. Any risk is too much. You must wear a mask and stay home and be
vaccinated when we're ready for that.
"The chances of dying from the COVID vaccine are unknown and documented cases of serious
side effects are growing." - it's a tiny risk, doesn't outweigh the benefit of the
vaccine.
RedSeaPedestrian 43 minutes ago
From Pfizer: "With a vast number of people vaccinated to date, the benefit risk profile
of our vaccine remains positive," the spokesperson added.
Tell that to the families that have had a loved one die from the "jab".
Farmer Dave 24 minutes ago
My dad has been fighting this for a month. He got the jab and ended up in the hospital
with blood clots and the heart inflammation. He is a tough old man and seems to be getting
better. I told him if he would have heeded my warnings about the jab he wouldn't be sick.
Anyone who gives this jab to a child is an idiot.
fackbankz 44 minutes ago (Edited)
If any other product killed 5000 people and injured 200,000, it would be pulled, not
pushed.
There is no such thing as "mild" myocarditis, especially in juveniles. If they live,
they will have a lifetime of heart problems and will likely never be able to enjoy fun
activities like sports or sex. I'm only saying this to inoculate you against the incoming
PR blitz of, "Oh, it's just a few mild cases of heart inflammation."
We must avenge this crime against humanity. My hope is that it is done through courts
and due process, but if ends up just being heads on pikes, so be it.
Dr. Gonzo 47 minutes ago
Biden is giving away 500,000 of these serums to our lucky Vassals. Eh hem. I mean
Allies. For a special thank you from the Empire.
nowhereman 19 minutes ago remove link
After asking yourself a couple more questions like that, and you begin to understand
that it's never been about a "virus" it's about the jab.
"Population decimated by rare blood clots", "Extremely rare side effects devastate
many", "Benefits far outweigh risks as die off causes labor shortages", "Scientists explain
how lab created viruses evolve naturally", "New variants cause only mild symptoms in
vaccinated travelers", "Annual vaccination necessary for return to new normal, CEO of
CALPERS says."
Headlines in a mentally ill society.
TieOneOn 47 minutes ago
Looks like 'Gain of Function' is full steam ahead......
Befits 10 minutes ago (Edited) remove link
They are not panicked. They will do a farce meeting and declare " the benefits of the
Covid 19 vax outweigh the risks". Even for the young men who " in very small number of
cases where there is no clear causal link between the Covid vax and myocarditis". Then when
the microphone is off and the transcription is ended they will laugh their asses off "
these fools will buy it
🤣🤣🤣🤣
". Cha Ching...
boyplunger7777 10 minutes ago
By late summer, should the general public begin to experience serious side effects, the
nation will go into full blown panic...
You_Cant_Quit_Me 9 minutes ago
They'll just say it's a variant of COVID-19 and blame that
Cabreado 38 minutes ago (Edited)
The CDC has been sufficiently exposed, and they're trying to save face with the
masses.
Good luck finding any non-corrupt oversight to resolve this situation... that of a rogue
CDC.
Otherwise it would've happened a long, long time ago.
Rubicon727 1 hour ago
What the CDC refuses to admit is the EU system, that keeps far more accurate deaths,
severe illnesses can be looked at any time of the day. Link to EUdraVigilance.com . They've shown many examples of severe
repercussions from the different kinds of Covid vaccines that have harmed, or killed people
for weeks now.
Now you tell us, how is it this is just NOW emerging from the CDC? Explain that.
Lt. Shicekopf 4 minutes ago
Why are kids getting jabbed? In the off chance they contract this virus there is a 99.8%
chance of recovery. I just do not get it.
AriusArmenian 3 minutes ago
Money.
allfactsmatter 21 minutes ago
The mrNA technology is a new technique for vaccine development.
Despite this, the Pfizer and Modern "vaccines" have been tested LESS than traditional
vaccines. Yet the FDA and CDC says the risks from these shots are acceptable.
Keep in mind that healthy young men have almost NO mortality risk from COVID, and
receive no benefit from these shots as a direct consequence.
Big Government and Big Pharma are gambling with people's lives with these Frankenvirus
vaccines.
liberty2 27 minutes ago
Not a vaccine, they label it as a vaccine to have immunity to lawsuits, no pun intended.
They also call it a vaccine to get emergency authorization. It's not APPROVED, only
authorized, there's a difference. There's NO law mandating the vax, NONE. Your employer can
be sued for discrimination or you can claim Workman's Comp if you should suffer side
effects.
Danoc 29 minutes ago
Can't wait for Fauci's next round of explanation.
opaopaopa 26 minutes ago
all rounds are the same:
"it's the Science"
fackbankz 10 minutes ago
"A few minor cases of heart inflammation, nothing to worry about. Benefits outweigh the
risks."
You know the drill.
Any other product that caused 800 cases of lifelong heart problems in young people would
have been pulled, not pushed, and it's probably a lot more than 800.
TonTon 58 minutes ago
Looks like they are hardly even checking for Myocarditis in the 50+ age bracket and
especially in the 65+ age bracket given it's less than the normal rate for this age group.
I'm sure they are just putting it down to some of the many coincidences happening after
people get the 'jab.' Given that the rate is less than normal though you could be forgiven
for thinking that they are ACTIVELY SUPPRESSING information on side effects. We are
experiencing and epidemic of coincidences these days.
Dr. Anthony Fauci's 15 Totally Wrong Predictions and Contradictions
By
Mark Simone
May
12, 2020
It's hard to believe but America's top Infectious Disease Doctor Anthony Fauci
has been wrong on the coronavirus pandemic --
Every step of the way!
Here is a list of several errors, contradictory statements and dangerous gaffes
by NIAID Director Dr. Tony Fauci:
1.) Dr. Fauci says he warned Trump in January that the US was in real trouble but
that is not what he said publicly.
In
January Dr. Anthony Fauci told Newsmax TV that the United States "
did
not have to worry"
about the coronavirus and that it was
"not a major
threat."
3.)
Dr. Fauci based all of his predictions on models the that were
OFF
BY MILLIONS
and then later told reporters,
"You
can't really rely on models."
4.)
On March 20th Dr. Fauci jumped in and during a press briefing on
hydroxychloroquine
treatment for coronavirus
"corrected"
the president
saying, "You got to be careful when you say
'fairly effective.' It was never done in a clinical trial It was given to individuals and felt that maybe it worked."
Exactly
two weeks later hydroxychloroquine was
deemed
the most highly rated treatment
for the novel coronavirus in an international poll of more than 6,000
doctors.
5.) Dr. Fauci pushed these garbage models every step of the way.
A month
ago Dr. Fauci claimed 1 million to 2 million Americans would die from coronavirus. Then he said 100,000 to 200,000
Americans will die from the virus. Three weeks ago he agreed 81,766 Americans would die from the coronavirus. Then by
that Wednesday Then by that Wednesday the
experts
cut the number of deaths
to 60,415 projected deaths. to 60,415 projected deaths.
6.)
On Easter
Dr. Fauci suggested
President Trump.
should
have shut down the economy
in February When the number of known
cases in the US was around 100. Fauci later walked back his attacks.
7.)
Dr. Fauci said
cruises
were OK
on
March 9th.
That was a huge error.
9.)
Dr. Fauci was wrong about the first coronavirus deaths in the
country. Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx and the CDC were off by nearly a month. California officials
revealed
in April
that a patient in Santa Clara died from coronavirus on February 6th
not
February 29th
.
10.)
Dr. Fauci and the CDC missed
themillions
and millions of US citizens
who had already contracted the coronavirus before the draconian lockdowns took
place. Knowing this could have prevented the economic calamity.
13.)
Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx used the Imperial College Model to persuade
President Trump to lock down the entire US economy. The Imperial model has since been confirmed as
A
COMPLETE FRAUD.
14.)
Dr. Fauci warned that Georgia would see a surge in coronavirus
cases and deaths by opening their economy too early.
McCarthy, speaking to
Breitbart News over the past weekend, said that the American public has lost trust in Fauci
after emails released last week raised questions about how Fauci handled the COVID-19 pandemic
and his messaging to media outlets. Fauci has defended his emails and said they are being taken
out of context.
"Well, the number one thing, it has to be for the American public," McCarthy said in a
response to a question about Fauci resigning or being fired.
"Does the American public trust Dr. Fauci now that you've seen the emails? Now that you're
seeing the flip-flop of positions? And just now that he's requesting from China to get the
information?"
"You've got to trust the individuals to look into this," the GOP leader continued.
"Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died. And if you've taken every certain position
in it, how are you able to come back with the trust of the nation to get to the bottom of it?
We have to know what went on, and who knew what and when. I mean, everything we're finding
there, how can the president - and I know the American people don't have trust in Dr.
Fauci."
McCarthy said that public health officials need to put "politics aside" and provide good
messaging because "we're talking about American lives here."
"We're talking about an administration that shifted course, when they first came in, the
Biden administration, and gave millions of dollars back to the World Health Organization,
that lied to the world, that is controlled by China. We watch that they changed the direction
when we were standing up to China to appease China now," he added.
"This is the wrong direction, and I don't believe anybody in America can trust [inaudible]
to get to the bottom of it."
As a result, McCarthy affirmed that Fauci should not hold his position now "because you do
not have the trust in him."
Late last week, Fauci responded to the bevy of criticism, claiming they are "really very
much an attack on science."
"What's happening now is very much an anti-science approach," Fauci told left-wing MSNBC
host Rachel Maddow on June 4.
"I mean, it is what it is, I'm a public figure, I'm going to take the arrows and the
swings, but they're just, they're fabricated. And that's just what it is it's all
nonsense."
If we take ZH commentariat opinions as a representative sample of the US conservatives
opinion, Fauci days are now numbered. And not only because he over 80.
Speaking to Laura Ingraham, Paul asserted that "The emails paint a disturbing picture, a
disturbing picture of Dr. Fauci, from the very beginning, worrying that he had been funding
gain-of-function research. He knows it to this day, but hasn't admitted it."
The Senator also urged that Fauci's involvement has not been adequately investigated because
in the eyes of Democrats "he could do no wrong".
Paul pointed out that Fauci was denying that there was even any funding for gain of function
research at the Wuhan lab just a few weeks back, a claim which is totally contradicted by his
own emails in which he discusses it.
"In his e-mail, within the topic line, he says "˜acquire of perform research.' He was
admitting it to his non-public underlings seven to eight months in the past," Paul
emphasised.
The Senator also pointed to
the email from Dr. Peter Daszak , President of the EcoHealth Alliance, a group that
directly funded the Wuhan lab gain of function research, thanking Fauci for not giving credence
to the lab leak theory.
Ingraham asked Paul if Fauci could face felony culpability, to which the Senator replied "At
the very least, there is ethical culpability," and Fauci should be fired from his government
roles.
Earlier Paul had reacted to Amazon pulling Fauci's upcoming book from pre-sale:
In softball interviews with MSNBC and CNN Thursday, Fauci dismissed the notion that his
emails show any conflicts of interest, and claimed that it is in China's "best interest" to be
honest about the pandemic origins, adding that the US should not act "accusatory" toward the
communist state.
Roger Stone was given 9 years for lying to Congress. Fauci should be on the same
hook.
truth or go home 2 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Looks like Fauci is going the way of Gates, but he won't be arrested, because he is
doing the bidding of the overlords.
What could he be arrested for? Let's see: Misappropriation of government funds, lying to
a senator under oath, covering up a criminal operation, operating a conspiracy to deceive
the people of the United States.
Seems like Rand is willing to nail Fauci to the wall, but he is not willing to go after
the big kahuna - the entire hoax - the fake vaxxes, the fake lockdowns, the fake "cases",
the fake death count, the elimination of flu...
Lucky Guesst 10 hours ago
Fauci is owned by big pharma. All the major news channels have at least one big pharma
rat on the board. MSM continues to push the vaccines. They are all in bed together and need
busted up if not taken out.
SummerSausage PREMIUM 15 hours ago
2012- Fauci says weaponized virus research may produce a pandemic but it would be worth
it.
Jan 9, 2017 NIAD memo recommends lifting ban on funding weaponized virus research. Fauci
controls the funds.
Jan 4, 2017 - CIA/FBI/DNC - under Obama's direction are told, essentially, to get
Trump.
Obama is behind release of this virus, creating pandemic panic and lockdown to
facilitate stealing the 2020 election.
OBAMA must be investigated.
play_arrow
CheapBastard 10 hours ago
"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak
it."
~ Anonymous
serotonindumptruck 17 hours ago remove link
Call me a pessimist, but I predict no accountability, no malfeasance, no criminal
charges will be filed against Fauci.
We've all witnessed similar criminal behavior being perpetrated by the wealthy elite
which result in no consequences.
Why should this be any different?
(((They))) now know that (((they))) can lie to us with impunity, and get away with
it.
alexcojones 16 hours ago
New Nuremberg Needed Now.
Fauci in the witness chair.
"So, Dr. Fauci, your decisions, your outright lies, led to thousands, perhaps millions
of unnecessary deaths."
Baric & Batwoman published their chimeric coronavirus with ACE2 receptor access in
2015. Funded by Fauci, of course.
Kevin 3 hours ago (Edited)
That document only shows that Gain Of Function research exists - not that the deaths,
falsely attributed to covid are due to the product of that research.
What self-respecting, lab-created, killer virus, supposedly so deadly that it warrants
the shutting down of the entire planet, is incapable of doing any more damage than the flu
does every year?
In the case of the UK, and according to its own official figures, it hasn't even been
able to do that compared to its history of seasonal flu.
So, 2020 was just a blip compared to the past and most of that blip in increased deaths
was due to the insane policies imposed rather than any lab-created Fluzilla. If you
subtract the deaths that occurred due to:
1. Kicking seniors out of hospital and dumping them into nursing homes where they died
because they no longer got the treatment they needed but where they could infect the other,
previously healthy residents.
2. The many tens of thousands of people who had life-saving surgeries and procedures
cancelled.
3. The huge increase in suicides.
..... I doubt there would even be that blip.
If those historically, insignificant 2020 death figures are due to a lab-created,
chimeric coronavirus then that's an epic fail of the scientists and an enormous waste of
money for their education and the G.o.F. research.
However, it has conned enough idiots into believing that there was a Fluzilla in 2020
and got them to beg for jabs that might be how a lab created, chimeric coronavirus with
ACE2 receptor access gets into their bodies and kills them.
The new con that it was a leaked GoF bio-weapon that caused the 2020 'pandemic' is just
a lie upon a lie.
But it will persuade many of the gullible and fence-sitters to get jabbed because they
will have accepted (subconsciously), that the Fluzilla must have existed last year and that
the only way to combat such a bio-weapon is to jab themselves with poison. Ironically, that
will create in their bodies what they fear most.
Befits 9 hours ago remove link
No, you are not thinking clearly. The Covid death numbers were clearly and horrifically
inflated
1) The CDC changed how death certificates were recorded. Co-morbidities ( cancer,
congestive heart failure, COPD for example) that co- morbidity was listed as cause of death
in part one of the death certificate for 2 decades until the CDC changed death
certificates. If that person had for example a flu At that time ( cough, stuffy nose etc)
it might be listed as a contributing factor ( part 2 of death certificate) person died of
co- morbidity but flu was a contributing factor. The CDC reversed these to make sure Covid
was the cause of death- but truth was people died with Covid not from Covid.
2) 95% of Covid listed deaths actually died of co- morbidities- with Covid not from
Covid. The CDC published that only 5% of " Covid " deaths had only Covid- the other 95% had
on average 4 co- morbidities. In other words their cause of death was co- morbidity not
Covid.
3) personal experience. I was a nurse. A close friend's brother had cancer for 7 years-
in and out of remission. He was " diagnosed with Covid via PCR, almost no symptoms but for
a slight cough and runny nose in March 2020. In April his cancer came back his liver shut
down and he was dead by May 2020. He died from liver cancer but his death was recorded as
Covid 19 simply because he had tested positive 60 days before on a Covid PCR test. This is
the fraud the CDC perpetrated.
4) Hospitals received greatly enhanced financial renumeration if a patient was "
diagnosed" with Covid. Compare hospital reimbursement ( Medicare) for a hospitalized Covid
patient v influenza patient - similar symptoms- on or off respirator. Bottom line the
medical system was financially rewarded for diagnosing " Covid" v influenza. Indeed the
hospital did not even have to confirm a " Covid diagnosis with the fraudulent PCR test to
diagnose Covid- just " symptom" based.
5) The PCR test can not diagnose any viral illness- simply by amplification cycles (30
plus) you can " find" Covid from a dead, partial RNA fragment. As Kary Mullis, Nobel prize
inventor of PCR testing said PCR testing is NOT a diagnostic tool. Hospitals and docs,
universities and public health departments, corporations, the CDC, FDA, used false PCR
testing to financially enrich themselves while destroying the lives and livelihoods of
millions inc careers of medical truth- tellers.
Fauci, the CDC, and the FDA knows all of this. Crimes v humanity trials must be
undertaken v every medical person- from Big Pharma, CDC, FDA, Doctor, nurse, hospital
administrator, public health official, corporate leader etc who used this Covid plandemic
for personal benefit or whom through their actions harmed another.
SoDamnMad 17 hours ago
Watch Tucker Carlson's expose on "Why they lied for so long" At 3:29 he goes into Peter
Danzak getting 27 "scientists" to write in the Lancet that the Covid virus didn't come from
the Wuhan Lab but rather from nature (with the HIV spliced into the genome). But he also
tells individuals at UNC NOT to sign the letter so that their gain-of-function research
isn't tied into this. His e-mail goes to Ralph Baric, Antoinette Baric, as well as Andre
Alison and Alexsei Chmura at EcoHealthAlliance who Fauci got the money to for funding GOF
Chinese research.
Fauci is 80. Why was he allowed to stay on so long?
He controls $32 billion in annual grants that all US scientists and researchers depend
on.
There's a whole lot more corruption to explore.
CatInTheHat 8 hours ago remove link
This whole thing feels CONTRIVED
Why does this even matter anymore?
China is NOT the problem here and focusing on CHINA DISTRACTS from a few things
here.
1 FORT DETRIK. A nefarious US BIOWEAPONS lab that Fraudci worked at for 20 years. FD
also works in conjunction with DARPA
2. Whenever it's WAPO or Buzzfeed (FFS!) who breaks a story related to the Rona, I am
convinced that the elite have called them up to DISTRACT the public from something more
important. Maybe that Fort Detrik was the source of the virus transferred to China via the
US MIC/CIA and the Wuhan military games in China in Nov of 2019. 2 weeks later the first
cases showed up at Wuhan.
3. This VACCINE has now killed over 5000 people and since the rollout for children
between 12-16, several hundred have now been hospitalized with MYOCARDITIS OR
PERICARDITIS.. In Israel a study conducted as the vax rolled out in YOUNG MEN, it was
revealed that one in 3,000 was suffering from MYOCARDITIS within 4 days of the jab.
MSM is now reporting on adolescents in several states hospitalized with INFLAMMATION.
... Which they blame on RONA. FUNNY how every one of those states have rolled out the jab
for CHILDREN
WE are being massively LIED too.
Also, Biden's press secretary PSAKI LIED when she said, today, that 63% of the
population has had the jab.
Wrong. Only 41% of the US population has had BOTH jabs. Anti gun Biden is now offering
guns in exchange for a vax in Virginia. And anti marijuana Biden offering MJ in AZ for
those who take the jab. Why the desperation?
For more perspective on the massive deaths piling up due to this jab, in 1976, when 50
people were killed after the Swine flu jab IT WAS PULLED FROM THE MARKET.
Many thousands who have not had the jab are reporting illness after being in close
contact with those who are vaxxed.
Lots and lots to DISTRACT from
WAKE UP PEOPLE!!
ableman28 10 hours ago
True story....one of my VC firms investments was approached by the defense department to
create a wearable lapel style detector for chemical and biological weapons that would work
in very low concentrations giving people time to put on their CBW gear. Our investee said
sure, we'll take a crack at it, but where are we going to get all the biological and
chemical agents to test it with. The DOD response was don't worry, we have everything
you'll need. And they did.
The US bio weapons program was supposedly terminated by Nixon in 1969. And our official
policy is that we don't research or stockpile such things. ********.
Armed Resistance 15 hours ago (Edited) remove link
This virus was engineered at Ft. Detrick. It's the same place that made the
military-grade Anthrax the deep state sent to Tom Daschle and others in government post
9/11 to gin up more fear.
This was a Fauci-coordinated deep state bio weapon they released in Wuhan to kick off
the scamdemic and the "great reset". Releasing it China gave some cover to the deep state
and the people there are under total control of the state. The rest is just filler. Always
about more control.....
BeePee 15 hours ago
The virus was not engineered at Ft. Detrick.
You are a CCP troll.
Sorry you have such a low pay grade job.
Armed Resistance 15 hours ago (Edited)
Anybody who Questions the deep state is a CCP troll? Look in the mirror. You're the one
running cover for these satanists! You rack up downvotes like Jordan did points! ZH'ers can
spot a troll a mile away son.
louie1 PREMIUM 14 hours ago (Edited)
The US way is to put the perpetrators in charge of the inuiry to control the outcome.
Dulles, Zellick, Fauci
Mighty Turban of Gooch 11 hours ago
Our government is corrupt. As long as the Democrats and the MSM have Fauci's back, he
has nothing to worry about no matter what he's done.
He's just a typical lying bureaucrat and lying to the public thru the media outlets, as
we have seen countless times now by countless government 'officials', is not a crime. Lying
under oath however is. But now days we see these guys get away with that too without
consequence.
So don't hold your breath. There is absolutely nothing that can take these guys out.
Even if they throw one of their own under the bus, the best you can ever hope for is a
resignation as criminal charges would never happen.
dustinthewind 16 hours ago (Edited)
"The CDC Foundation operates independently from CDC as a private , nonprofit 501(c)(3)
organization incorporated in the State of Georgia."
"Because CDC is a federal agency , all scientific findings resulting from CDC research
are available to the public and open to the broader scientific community for review."
"The Board of Directors of the CDC Foundation today named Judith A. Monroe, MD, FAAFP,
as the new president and CEO of the CDC Foundation . Monroe joins the CDC Foundation from
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ), where she leads the agency's Office
for State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support."
Gates is the largest private donor of the CDC and WHO. Gates is part of the World
Economic Forum who controls Fauci which using US taxpayers funds did gain of function
studies first in the US and caught moved to China where it was intentionally leaked to
blame the Chinese. John Kerry is also part of the WEF and is their man in Washington
calling the war mongering narrative against both China and Russia. Gates funded Imperial
College and Ferguson to write the code that was fake and used by many countries to justify
lockdowns. Gates is the largest ag landowner and wants to ban meat. Who just got hacked and
now it is blamed on Russia? Boris is destroying the UK and after a call from Gates gave 500
million pounds to vaccinate third world countries and lockdowns. Both fathers were tied to
Rockefeller Institute. Rand, connect the dots!
Fauci is under attack globally and has shown himself to be unreliable and should be
fired "" PERIOD! All the emails that have come out from an
FOIA request are interesting, and it shows he has information that was credible
concerning a leak from the lab in Wuhan. Let me make this PERFECTLY clear! This was NOT a
DELIBERATE leak by the Chinese government. If China wanted to really hurt the West, the
technology is there where a virus can be used as a delivery system, and as such, it can be
designed to attack specific genetic sequences meaning that it could target just Italian,
Greeks, English, Germans, or whoever.
COVID-19, based upon everything I see from our model and reliable sources, was created
in a lab and was DELIBERATELY unleashed to further this Great Reset. I BELIEVE someone from
this agenda bribed a lab technician to release it in the local community. China did NOT
benefit from this pandemic. The only ones who benefitted were the World Economic Forum
(WEF) consortium, which I know sold stocks and bonds ahead of the crash. They are also in
league with the World Health Organization (WHO), and the head of the WHO is a politician
and not even a doctor. That is like putting me in charge of surgery at a hospital. How can
Tedros Adhanom be in such a position with no background in the subject matter? Tedros appears at the World
Economic Forum and has participated in its agenda. The WHO should be compelled to turn over
ALL emails and communication ASAP. My bet is they pull a Hillary"¦Oh sorry. They
were hacked by Russians who destroyed everything.
The World Economic Forum is at the center of everything. When will someone investigate all
of these connections right down to creating the slogan, Build Back Better? Of course, they
will call this a conspiracy theory so they can avoid having to actually investigate
anything. My point is simple: produce the evidence and prove this is just a conspiracy
theory.
'John Kerry's Think Tank Calls for War With Russia Over Climate Change'
" America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent
national security threat it is."" John Kerry
Recently-appointed Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry has announced his
intention of dealing with the pressing issue of global warming as a national security
concern. "America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent
national security threat it is," the 76-year-old former Secretary of State wrote. "I am
proud to partner with the President-elect, our allies, and the young leaders of the climate
movement to take on this crisis." Kerry is a founding member of the Washington think tank,
the American Security Project (ASP) , whose board is a who's who of retired generals,
admirals and senators.
For the ASP, the primary objectives were:
A huge rebuilding of the United States' military bases,
Countering China in the Pacific,
Preparing for a war with Russia in the newly-melted Arctic.
The ASP recommends "prioritizing the measures that can protect readiness" of the
military to strike at any time, also warning that rising sea levels will hurt the combat
readiness of the Marine Expeditionary Force. Thus, a rebuilding of the U.S.' worldwide
network of military bases is in order.
Fort Detrik a US BIOWEAPONS lab working in tandem with the Wuhan lab. The US is the
leader in BIOWEAPONS research and has 100's of labs across the US and in other
countries.
FRAUDCI having worked at FD for 20 years.
MommickedDingbatter 12 hours ago
Without Nuremberg trials 2.0, this is all meaningless.
Nycmia37 16 hours ago remove link
Follow the science, lol. Just ask yourself who controls the science?? Big drug pharmas,
people is so stupid they believe in everything doctors tell them. The vast majority are on
the field to get rich and enjoy from the big bonuses and trips they get paid in order to
promote a drug. If they speak out they get called a conspiracy person. Nobody cant go
against this mafia because they have the total control, media, politicians, government. We
the people have to self educate about health and finance otherwise we will become zombies
like the majority of people.
SoDamnMad 7 hours ago remove link
Here are the 27 starting with Peter Daszak who signed THE LANCET letter saying ," 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
Fauci is protected at the very highest levels of the oligarchy. So regardless of these
revelations nothing serious will ever happen to him. At worst, he will step down and retire
to his villa in the south of France. Then the controlled MSM will refuse to mention him
again.
Clearing 17 hours ago
Gee, while you're at it, sue Fauci in his individual capacity. He doesn't get immunity
for lying. See below:
In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government
officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from civil suits unless
the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or
constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". It is a form of
sovereign immunity less strict than absolute immunity that is intended to protect officials
who "make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions" extending to "all
[officials] but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law " Qualified
immunity applies only to government officials in civil litigation, and does not protect the
government itself from suits arising from officials' actions.
DemandSider 3 hours ago (Edited)
"PCR is separate from that, it's just a process that's used to make a whole lot of
something out of something. That's what it is. It doesn't tell you that you're sick and it
doesn't tell you that the thing you ended up with really was going to hurt you or anything
like that," Mullis said.
-Nobel Prize winning inventor of PCR being used as a "test" to perpetuate the scamdemic.
Mr. "small government" Rand Paul is only making it worse.
Almachius 2 hours ago
Never mind Fauci. White Supremacists are the greatest threat to America.
Obiden said so.
And Obiden is an honourable man.
Fiscal Reality 14 hours ago
Fauci doesn't give a crap what happens. He got his book deal payoff. He's praying to get
fired so he can cash in on his taxpayer funded pension and get a $10 million contract with
CNN.
2types PREMIUM 13 hours ago
Amazon pulled his book from presale so says the article. Probably in his best interest
to keep his mouth shut right now. Anything he says can and will be used against him. On
second thought.... maybe that's why water carrier Bezos suspended sales?
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.
The voluntary moratorium on gain-of-function research related to the transmissibility of highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus
should continue, pending the resolution of critical policy questions concerning the rationale for performing such experiments and
how best to report their results. The potential benefits and risks of these experiments must be discussed and understood by multiple
stakeholders, including the general public, and all decisions regarding such research must be made in a transparent manner.
Go to:COMMENTARY
The influenza virus research community is to be commended for implementing a voluntary moratorium on "gain-of-function" experiments
related to the transmissibility of highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus (
1 ). As a key funder of influenza virus research,
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a component of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, strongly supports
the continuation of this moratorium pending the resolution of critical policy issues related to the rationale for performing and
reporting such experiments. We need to be certain that the fundamental purposes of this work, together with its risks and benefits,
are understood by multiple stakeholders, including the general public, and that decisions are made in a transparent manner.
It is clear that the scientists who conducted the experiments that triggered this debate (
2 ,
3 ), and who are among those who voluntarily
signed onto the moratorium, have conducted their research properly and under the safest and most secure conditions. However, the
issue that has been intensely debated is whether knowledge obtained from these experiments could inadvertently affect public health
in an adverse way, even in nations multiple time zones away. Putting aside the specter of bioterrorism for the moment, consider this
hypothetical scenario: an important gain-of-function experiment involving a virus with serious pandemic potential is performed in
a well-regulated, world-class laboratory by experienced investigators, but the information from the experiment is then used by another
scientist who does not have the same training and facilities and is not subject to the same regulations. 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?
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. 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. However, we must respect that there are genuine and legitimate
concerns about this type of research, both domestically and globally. We cannot expect those who have these concerns to simply take
us, the scientific community, at our word that the benefits of this work outweigh the risks, nor can we ignore their calls for greater
transparency, their concerns about conflicts of interest, and their efforts to engage in a dialog about whether these experiments
should have been performed in the first place. Those of us in the scientific community who believe in the merits of this work have
the responsibility to address these concerns thoughtfully and respectfully.
Granted, the time it takes to engage in such a dialog could potentially delay or even immobilize the conduct of certain important
experiments and the publication of valuable information that could move the field forward for the good of public health. 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. However, although influenza virus
scientists are the best-informed individuals about influenza virus science, and possibly even about the true level of risk to public
health, the influenza virus research community can no longer be the only player in the discussion of whether certain experiments
should be done. Public opinion (domestic and global) and the judgments of independent biosafety and biosecurity experts are also
critical. If we want to continue this important work, we collectively need to do a better job of articulating the scientific rationale
for such experiments well before they are performed and provide discussion about the potential risk to public health, however remote.
We must also not rule out the possibility that in the course of these discussions, a broad consensus might be reached that certain
experiments actually should not be conducted or reported.
In this regard, as part of an interagency process, the U.S. Government is planning to augment current policy guidance related
to life sciences dual-use research of concern (DURC) (
4 ) by developing a framework for strengthening
regular institutional review and oversight of certain life sciences research with high-consequence pathogens and toxins in order
to identify potential DURC and mitigate risks where appropriate. This policy implementation proposal will go well beyond H5N1 influenza
virus to include 15 pathogens and likely will be modified to include additional examples of DURC. It will delineate the procedures
for the oversight of DURC and the responsibilities of investigators, research institutions, and the U.S. Government. Ultimately,
there will also be a companion guide to help institutions identify, assess, manage, and responsibly communicate to the public about
DURC.
With regard to the specific question of whether certain gain-of-function experiments related to the transmissibility of highly
pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus should be conducted at all, which addresses directly the issue of the moratorium, the U.S. Government
is planning to host an international workshop before the end of 2012 with important input from the National Science Advisory Board
for Biosecurity and with global representation, including those with biosafety and biosecurity expertise, influenza virus and non-influenza
virus scientists, and representatives of the domestic and global public. The meeting participants will consider general principles
concerning the rationale for and risks and benefits of such experiments and what lines might be drawn in their conduct and/or reporting.
The game has changed for influenza virus scientists and the agencies that support them. As researchers, we must realize that we
are critical players in the process of policy and decision making related to DURC, but we are not the only players. Before embarking
on certain types of research, we must ask ourselves critical questions about whether there are alternative ways to answer the research
questions at hand. When no reasonable alternatives exist, we must take the scientific approach to making the argument for conducting
such experiments before they are performed. The voluntary moratorium on the controversial issue of gain-of-function research related
to the transmissibility of highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus is providing us the time and space we all need to work together
and get this right, and it should be continued until we do so (
5 ).
Go to:NOTES
The views expressed in this Commentary do not necessarily reflect the views of the journal or of ASM.
Go to:FOOTNOTES
Citation Fauci AS. 2012. Research on highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus: the way forward. mBio 3(5):e00359-12. doi:10.1128/mBio.00359-12.
Fauci hasn't been there that long without seriously thinking through everything he says
and does. His livelihood depends on it. At the same time I cannot help but think that he is d
i s h o n e s t.
"In our experience with grantees..." Bottom line: the U.S.A. is broke. The dollar is worth
less than a nickle compared with the pre-Federal Reserve dollar (1913). "Why are we giving
money to the labs in China..." We should not be giving money to anyone - especially anyone
who wants America dead.
"There's no way of guaranteeing that" Enough said. I work on the 777. You verify
EVERYTHING when doing ANYTHING. This is NOT an allowable excuse. Period.
I appreciate Sen Kennedy's effort to get answers but it seems to be like herding cats. It
isnt going to happen. I dont know why those being questioned, especially in confirmation
hearings, are not held in contempt of congress. They skirt answering questions when the
senators present evidence, often in their own writings, of their life's work progressing
radical agendas. Disheartening that many of the nominees appear to be anti-American.
Well, I find Dr. Fauci's excuse is contradictory in itself. The bottom line: GOF research
is the one that best serves the purpose of what Dr. Pauci said, and the lab had published the
results. So it's very ridiculous of him to repeat that stance. Wasn't he a strong opponent to
GOF research when it was about to be banned in the US?
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.
"... 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.
Subscribe Now!
Fauci is a reincarnations of Academisian Lysenko in much more sinister and dangerous form. He is a political hack masquerading as
bioscience researcher.
Appearing on Newsmax TV, Paul said "I'm just glad that Dr. Fauci has now chosen to accept vaccine science "" basic vaccine science
says you can't get it after you've been vaccinated; that's why we get vaccinated."
He was performing theater, wearing masks because he didn't want people to see him without a mask," Paul noted, adding "It wasn't
the masks worked or that he needed it. You heard the way he phrased it. He didn't want someone to see him without the mask. So,
really, it was theater."
"If we send them a signal that they're just making up this science and they're treating us like imbeciles, and they're doing
things for show, it actually discourages some of the people who are hesitant to get vaccinated," Paul further argued.
When it comes to vaccines, the Senator said that it should be up to Americans whether or not they get the shot, and there shouldn't
be any mandatory decree.
"I think high-risk people should, voluntarily; I wouldn't tell anybody they had to," Paul emphasised, adding "I wouldn't be
out there telling 12-year-olds we're not going to let you go to summer camp or we're not going to let you go to school or get
on a plane unless you're vaccinated."
"We need to really not treat this as a one-size fits all. This really should be individualized, and that's way healthcare should
be in a free society," The Senator further urged.
Fauxci is now making a strategic withdrawal on masks to divert attention away from his responsibility for the illegal NIH funding
of the gain of function research at WIV - where he is using the oldest bureaucrat trick in the book, "it wasn't me!!" (because
he obfuscated it by using a third party to attempt to create "plausible deniability").
Rand Paul should not let him get away with that because he should understand that Grants to third parties are subject to TOR,
progress reports and defined "Deliverables" - reported against in the final report. So Fauxci will have been fully informed throughout.
The virus source issue and illegal funding is the ONE thing that MIGHT get him busted; and he knows it. Don't let it drop Senator!!
asteroids 10 hours ago
That wasn't theatre, Fauci was LYING to you. That's what fraudsters do.
play_arrow
BigJJ 10 hours ago
And he killed many more than that with him steering funds to gain of function "research" under the Obama regime for his genocidal
white man wannabe master in the White House.
Lordflin 14 hours ago remove link
If I were Fauci I would be looking to go underground...
Dr Sen Paul needs to follow up with the fact that Fauci lied under oath in that senate hearing. If the weasel Keebler Elf word
salads his way around "intent" then he needs to be accused of incompetence. Fact is Fauci lied, is incompetent & most importantly,
is a criminal against humanity.
rockstone 12 hours ago (Edited)
You and I are on the same page but Fauci is far from "incompetent." He helped engineer and front one of the biggest and most
dangerous scams in history. It's just you can only keep up the front so long. I try, it's hard but I try, to never see these people
as dumb, or idiots, or stupid. They aren't Fredo. They're crazy like foxes and flat out evil and....... this time they succeeded.
You're correct that he is a vicious criminal. He should hang from a lamppost.
russellthetreeman PREMIUM 14 hours ago (Edited)
Apparently the cdc has recently admitted only 6% of covid deaths were actually caused by covid. All others had serious co-morbidities...it's
all been theatre. Or flat out lies. Depends how you look at it I guess, LOL!
I remember someone called it a hoax early last year. play_arrow
Al Jolson 14 hours ago
Fauci should be hanged for what he's done.
when is Summit News or ZH going to report on the tens of thousands of deaths and serious adverse events directly associated
with this injection?
I've asked that here almost every day for months!!
It doesn't make medical sense to "vaccinate" people who are already immune (variously estimated as up to 80% - think the Diamond
Princess) and it is unethical to "vaccinate" pregnant women and children. It also makes more medical sense to issue "Passports"
to those with natural immunity because they are truly long-term immune and cannot transmit. In contarst, neither applies to "vaccinated"
people who are shedding" spike proteins (being produced irreversibly in huge volumes) and causing problems in the unvaccinated
because it is the spike proteins that cause the AEs.
So, in view of all of the above it is clear that the obsession with "vaccinating" every man, woman and child has NOTHING to
do with "Public Health".
freedommusic 13 hours ago remove link
Dr. Anthony Fauci lacks knowledge of medicine and is willing to lie on television.
""Kary Mullis, PCR inventor, 1993 Nobel Prize
Died August 7, 2019
SacredCowPies 13 hours ago
... petition filed in India's Supreme Court by Dr Jacob Puliyel , a former member of the National Technical Advisory Group
on Immunisation , also prayed that the court may declare vaccination mandates as unconstitutional.
Paul said "I'm just glad that Dr. Fauci has now chosen to accept vaccine science "" basic vaccine science says you can't
get it after you've been vaccinated; that's why we get vaccinated."
There's your outright lie and propaganda. Just get "vaccinated" with the experimental gene therapy and other concoctions because
then you don't need a mask...
It has long been known that the vaccinated test positive.
Feb 26, 2021
In the days and weeks after Covid-19 vaccines became available, healthcare professionals observed that some vaccinated individuals
tested positive by both PCR and rapid antigen tests
I worked at a university for almost 7 years and it's ALL about funding, seriously that's ALL anyone talked about was getting
funding and getting people to apply for grant writing gigs to get funding. They absolutely do what's asked of them for funding.
GreatUncle 12 hours ago
Tells you that scientists are not those who should be trusted because a nice paycheck makes you disregard science.
Proven through this pandemic, also proven with much of the global warming BS too.
Scientists sold out ... if anybody says I am a scientist ask them if they sold out their specialist area too!
seryanhoj 11 hours ago (Edited)
Here's how;-
""Of course the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that
he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?
Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany.
That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter
to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
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
Sign Felled 14 hours ago remove link
It's NEVER been about the science. I wish respected scientists and researchers around the world would stand up and condemn
gov'ts for invoking "science" in the name of politics. Otherwise, I fear the scientific process will forever be lost and the
conclusions drawn from the process will never be trusted again. Sadly, I don't hold out much hope that will happen. Many of
these previously respected scientists have been complicit in politicizing their own discipline.
Senator Rand Paul, who has spearheaded the renewed push to investigate the origin of the
coronavirus pandemic, has called for Dr Fauci to be placed under oath and made to testify about
the murky
"˜gain of function' research he was involved with funding at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology.
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Paul also urged that Fauci "needs to be excluded from the
investigation " because he is too deeply involved in the whole thing.
Appearing on Fox News, Paul spoke about the funding that Fauci and the NIH supplied to
China.
"Well, sure it's a lot. And there are some reports that it added up to millions over time.
But the other thing he said was that there was no gain of function in the application. There
are scientists who looked at the application and who absolutely and categorically disagree
with him," Paul noted.
"The other evidence that we have is Dr. Shi from the Wuhan lab published a paper that is
clearly about gain of function and it that she thanks her group and Dr. Fauci for funding that
paper. So there are a lot of contradictions going on," Paul added.
"I think Dr. Fauci should be made to testify under oath about the money that was given to
the lab," Paul said, adding "The good news is yesterday I passed an amendment on the Senate
floor that says no more gain of function money can be sent to China."
"The bottom line, he cannot investigate himself. If he was responsible for giving this
money. He has every incentive to cover it up and not reveal the truth about it because if the
pandemic did come from the lab, he would have great culpability in this," Paul further
emphasised.
The Senator, who continues to
receive death threats after being so vocal against Fauci, added that "he can't be
investigating this, nor can any of his people that he picks be investigating this. He needs to
be excluded from the investigation."
"This is very important because this could happen again," Paul warned, adding "I mean,
they are experimenting with the SARS virus, which is 15 times more deadly than COVID-19.
COVID-19 kills 1%"¦ more than 3 million people. If SARS got out of the lab, that could
be 50 million people. This is a very important task ahead of us. We have 11 labs in our
country that do this kind of research."
Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/FIYWc4y2Zy0
In a separate appearance on the Christian Broadcasting Network on Tuesday, Paul
called for Fauci to be fired , asserting "The nicest way to say this, I think he's
obfuscating the truth."
After denying for months there was even any gain of function research going on at the Wuhan
lab or that it was being funded by the US, Fauci completely reversed his position, admitting
that there was "˜modest' funding of the research, leading Paul to accuse Fauci of
"˜perjury'.
In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need
you to sign up for our free newsletter here . Support our sponsor "" Turbo Force "" a supercharged boost of clean energy without the
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Lordflin 11 hours ago (Edited)
If Fauci goes down it will be because others higher up on the food chain decided to
throw him under the bus... and it will have nothing at all to do with some show of
justice...
play_arrow
HellFish 11 hours ago remove link
Oath? Why? The deep staters always lie to congress and congress does nothing.
ohm 10 hours ago
Fauci, Birx, Pelosi, AOC, Schiff, Schumer, Romney, Collins, Graham, Murkowski - too many
to list individually. All whores and fronts for the 0.1%
Flying Monkees 11 hours ago remove link
Why were these psychopaths doing "gain of function" research in the first place?
What could be the possible benefit other than the creation of bio-weapons?
All those involved are guilty of mass murder and should be executed.
JohnGaltsChild 11 hours ago remove link
Fauci is a loyal member of the protected class.
He walks.
charrington's deceit 10 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Gain of function research funding was supposed to be
halted in 2014 in the US. It doesn't mean that gain-of-function research itself was to
be halted and this is why the lab leak theory has been so discredited. However, it looks
like
the NIH funded the Wuhan lab where gain-of-function was allowed to continue in China.
If this eventually comes out, then this issue should be considered a crime against humanity
and those responsible should sit trial at the Hauge.
Here is where the obfuscation starts:
Though funding was halted, ongoing research in NORTH CAROLINA was allowed to continue
through 2015 where they did create a
new, non-natural risk .
This new lab-created coronavirus was NOT the origins of COVID, bit IT IS the origins of
providing cover to discredit the lab leak theory because all of the media kept using the
term "lab-created" when COVID-19 was actually a naturally occurring coronavirus that was
merely "lab-augmented."
Editors' note, March 2020: 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; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely
source of the coronavirus.
Of course the origins of COVID-19 is an animal, but saying it was lab-created was/is
just word gymnastics that was the cover-up for the lab leak theory. What was covered up,
and is probably still being covered up, is that COVID-19 was "lab-altered" with NIH money,
even though
Fauci denies it.
Now that the lab leak theory can no longer be ignored, what we are seeing again is the
continued attempt to cover-up the fact that COVID-19 is a genetically-altered coronavirus,
and more importantly, that COVID-19 was the result of NIH-funded research even though the
US halted funding for gain-of-function research.
With Pfizer alone anticipating $26 BILLION dollars in profit from combatting COVID-19
in 2021, it is doubtful that we will ever see any of the individuals responsible for
the gain-of-function coronavirus, but it is worth considering.
Always follow the money.
Give Me Some Truth 10 hours ago remove link
It's madness that we allowed these mad scientists to perform all of this "research" for
so long. It was simply a matter of time, before whatever viruses they "modified" escaped a
lab.
As far as we know, this could still happen.
And all of this "research" was justified as being proactive measures to "protect"
America from the threat of "terrorists." Well, who was posing the real damn risks? It
wasn't any terrorists. It was scientists and bureaucrats being funded by the U.S.
government.
keeper20 7 hours ago remove link
consider that fauci's wife parades as a bioethicist at the NIH.
beavertails 11 hours ago
Some upper Gatekeepers like Fauci and Gates being thrown under the bus means some higher
ups are vulnerable.
Give Me Some Truth 10 hours ago remove link
This is perjury - a lie - spoken to members of Congress in an official
proceeding/hearing:
Fauci: "Senator Paul you are entirely, entirely, & completely incorrect. The NIH has
not ever funded gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology."
How many other lies has this man - and officials with the CDC and NIH - told?
A lot ... if anyone was allowed or willing to investigate and prove these lies.
Yog Soggoth 9 hours ago
They set up operations in China because there are no rules to follow. It is a Socialist
State, which means the civilians are slaves to the party. Fauci is entirely complicit in
the destruction of the USA by our foreign enemies.
ClamJammer 9 hours ago
As if being under oath makes a difference! How many times has Comey, Brennen, Clinton,
Rice, Pompeo etc etc, lied under oath? Whats the point? Two-tier justice system, apparent
to anyone with half a brain.
honest injun 10 hours ago (Edited)
Allowing Fauci to be part of the investgation would be as effective as putting fired CIA
director Allen Dulles on Warren Commission to investigate if the CIA was involved with the
assassination of JFK.
RocketPride PREMIUM 9 hours ago
This whole fiasco is an embarrassment to all the good, sound-thinking scientists.
WTF?
Watt Supremacist 9 hours ago
Take a GMO vaccine for a GMO cold, then go enjoy a GMO Krispy Kreme and then swing on by
White Castle for your free GMO dessert on a stick!
Neoliberalism is worse than cancer.
wellwaddyaknow 10 hours ago
sounds like a case of outsourcing the gain of function research to china. The tip of a
very large iceberg. Probably conducting u.s. funded research on human-monkey embryos and
later term fetuses and a lot of other biomedical stuff.
Fauci has an appointment with the bus.
Sort of like shutting down Epstein's operation via exposure to protect the other half
dozen similar intel operations.
mahershalalhashbaz 10 hours ago remove link
Is Rand implying that gain of function research is fine as long as it's done in US
labs?
The smoking gun seems to be described in the Materials and Methods section of the paper
linked above
Construction of recombinant viruses
....Then the two prepared spike DNA fragments were separately inserted into BAC with
Es, Fs and other fragments. The correct infectious BAC clones were screened. The chimeric
viruses were rescued as described previously [
23 ].
We need a qualified microbiologist to review this article to confirm the full meaning of
very technical material which apparently states that the novel S (chimeric) spike proteins
were constructed in the Wuhan lab from bats and pieces bat and civet genomes. This in turn
enforces the OTHER SMOKING GUN, which is that the SC-2 shows NO mutations, meaning that
this virus spontaneously emerged on the scene FULLY ADAPTED to human ACE-2 receptors. This
viral form of an IMMACULATE CONCEPTION is a clear sign of the COVID virus having UNNATURAL
etiology.
Oboneterm 11 hours ago (Edited) remove link
I'm so glad the NYT has a writer to explain all this to it's dumb readers.
Kentucky Republican discusses why he questioned the top health official over funding of the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology
on 'Fox News Primetime.' #FoxNews #FoxNewsPrimetime
"... On one occasion, she said Sheldon Adelson , a Jewish American billionaire who supports Republicans and right-wing Israeli politicians, looked like "a naked mole rat." For this, the right branded Wilder an anti-Semite, even though she is Jewish. Now she's out of a job. ..."
"... But it would be a mistake to reduce either Wilder's firing or the persistence of Cuomo to a story about cancel culture. The phenomenon is obviously one-sided; the outrage, bogus. This is really a story about journalism and an industry that has abdicated its most basic responsibilities. ..."
"... The rules matter. They exist to protect the integrity of a news outlet and to protect the public from corruption. Instead, news outlets are failing consumers and journalists alike. They serve power rather than challenge it. The result is a weak press in a nation desperate for the truth. That's no way to serve the public. ..."
"... AP prohibits employees from openly expressing their opinions on political matters and other public issues. ..."
"... I think Don Lemon is just an actor that plays a journalist on TV. Also, where is the diversity they preach on this network? Where are the Latinx, the Asian hosts, the women? So much for following what you preach. ..."
Emily Wilder is a promising young journalist. After finishing a stint at the Arizona
Republic , the recent Stanford graduate began a job with the Associated Press on May 3
as a news associate. Wilder could have built a career at the storied wire service or, with the
experience she'd gained, leap to a major paper. Instead, the AP fired her two weeks in, days
after the Stanford College Republicans pointed a right-wing mob in Wilder's direction. Wilder,
it turns out, has political opinions: In college, she belonged to Students for Justice in
Palestine and to Jewish Voice for Peace, two groups that oppose the occupation of Palestinian
territory by Israeli forces. On one occasion, she said Sheldon
Adelson , a Jewish American billionaire who supports Republicans and right-wing Israeli
politicians, looked like "a naked mole rat." For this, the right branded Wilder an anti-Semite,
even though she is Jewish. Now she's out of a job.
Contrast Wilder's circumstances with those of
Chris Cuomo . The star CNN anchor will keep his job even though he has flouted basic
ethical standards that typically apply to other, less prominent journalists. Though CNN once
banned Cuomo from interviewing his governor brother, Andrew, it relaxed that when the pandemic
hit "and the Cuomo Brothers show soared to popularity," Margaret Sullivan
wrote at the Washington Post . That looked bad, CNN eventually conceded, and it
reinstated the ban. Behind the scenes, though, Cuomo's ethical violations continued. On
Thursday, the Post
reported that he had advised his brother on how to handle sexual harassment allegations
that threatened the elder Cuomo's popularity and career. Cuomo won't be punished, CNN said.
Nothing can stop the Cuomo Brothers show.
The Cuomos possess something Emily Wilder lacks: power. Outrage derailed Wilder's career
nearly as soon as it had begun. But real ethical violations can't kick Cuomo off the air. The
Wilder and Cuomo stories both impart something vital about cancel culture. "There's no question
I was just canceled," Wilder
told SFGate. Cuomo, meanwhile, reportedly used the phrase to discuss his brother's sexual
harassment problem. In practice, cancel culture cuts one way, against journalists like Wilder
or
Nikole Hannah-Jones , who was recently
denied tenure under pressure from conservatives
with links to the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, NC Policy Watch has
reported. Against a white, male network star or his brother the governor, cancel culture can
apparently do little.
But it would be a mistake to reduce either Wilder's firing or the persistence of Cuomo
to a story about cancel culture. The phenomenon is obviously one-sided; the outrage, bogus.
This is really a story about journalism and an industry that has abdicated its most basic
responsibilities. The Associated Press has claimed that Wilder violated its social-media
policies, though she says her bosses were unable to tell her how. In the absence of a
substantive reason to fire Wilder, another explanation presents itself: The AP capitulated to a
bad-faith political campaign. In doing so, it betrayed its very reason to exist. Wilder's
political opinions have no bearing on her ability to gather news. The AP showed it is not
impartial after all; it can be persuaded, if only from the right.
There is no evidence that Wilder is anything but what she appears to be, a talented and
committed young journalist. People don't always enter college knowing they want to be
journalists. Indeed, perhaps they shouldn't. Any definition of objectivity that requires a
journalist to pretend neutrality asks that person to lie. Journalists are not automatons. They
have opinions, and if they are not male or white or rich or straight, those opinions make them
vulnerable to the right-wing outrages that just cost Wilder her new job. The press has one
purpose, and that is to report news in the public's interest. It is not entertainment. It is
not propaganda. It is not public relations.
And that's why Chris Cuomo ought to be out of a job. CNN, too, has forgotten why it exists.
Cuomo's infractions impede his ability to cover the news. By keeping him employed, CNN says the
news does not matter and neither do the rules. CNN made a similar calculation in the past with
plagiarism, which typically ends careers "" unless a journalist happens to be Fareed Zakaria.
The current host of CNN's GPS , he is generally tasked with explaining various
foreign-policy matters to a popular audience and once lifted sections of a Jill Lepore column
for a column in Time . Though CNN briefly suspended
Zakaria in 2012 for the offense, the site Our Bad Media
uncovered further incidents in 2014. Yet Zakaria persists, with CNN's help. He still hosts
his show and will likely continue to do so unless another, bigger scandal somehow takes him
down. The network's motivations are not mysterious. It wants to keep its moneymakers and elite
influencers. To do this, it'll ignore the ethical standards that apply to everyone else. At the
same time, journalism's Emily Wilders will scrape for every bit of job security they can
find.
The rules matter. They exist to protect the integrity of a news outlet and to protect
the public from corruption. Instead, news outlets are failing consumers and journalists alike.
They serve power rather than challenge it. The result is a weak press in a nation desperate for
the truth. That's no way to serve the public.
JosephQua 11 HOURS AGO
"On one occasion, she said Sheldon Adelson, a Jewish American billionaire who supports
Republicans and right-wing Israeli politicians, looked like "a naked mole rat." For this, the
right branded Wilder an anti-Semite, even though she is Jewish. Now she's out of a job."
This is a lie.
Wilder wasn't fired for remarks she tweeted while a college student, she was fired for
tweets made in the 17 days she was employed by AP openly expressing her personal opinions on
the Israel-Palestinian conflict, in one of which she openly attacked the idea of objectivity
in journalism.
AP prohibits employees from openly expressing their opinions on political matters and
other public issues.
Wilder knows exactly what tweets git her in trouble and when she made them.
In my opinion, both Chris Cuomo and Wilder should be terminated.
hivequeen+ 17 HOURS AGO
The problem isn't that Chris Cuomo talked to his brother. The problem is that Chris Cuomo
talked to his brother AND his brother's advisors while they planned and developed a political
strategy to defend his brother against claims of sexual harassment. And you know that.
tanquerochicago 1 DAY AGO
CNN has lost all credibility as a "news organization". I can't watch any of it with a
straight face. They claim to believe in liberal views, preach the importance of diversity
(rightfully so), and claim to be a serious network but they've allowed the Cuomo clown hour
to continue.
I think Don Lemon is just an actor that plays a journalist on TV. Also, where is the
diversity they preach on this network? Where are the Latinx, the Asian hosts, the women? So
much for following what you preach.
And the Cuomos simply give Italians a bad name. They play into all of the awful
stereotypes that everyone should be fighting...the machismo, sexism, bravado....gross! Just
gross.
nibblybits 1 DAY AGO (Edited)
It's examples like Chris Cuomo not being even slapped on the wrist that gives oxygen to
accusations of the right that CNN is fake news and no better than Fox. They lose the moral
high ground against propaganda arms like Newsmax and OANN if Chris Cuomo is allowed to
perpetuate defenses of his own brother from his perch as anchor. (And let's not peddle in the
fiction that Chris is not reporting on his brother, when we know he has power in that
organization to direct coverage.)
His colleagues are furious. Jim Acosta has been wading out into pro-Trump mobs for years
trying to defend his job and his network, and Chris Cuomo just blew that up.
Embarrassing.
Worse are the partisan hypocrites on here defending Cuomo.
What CDC knows what we do know to issue such draconian guidelines? This looks like is a
concentration camp not summer camp...
Notable quotes:
"... Two-layer masks should be worn at all times "" indoors and out ""except for eating, drinking and swimming ..."
"... Don't allow close-contact games and sports ..."
"... Avoid sharing of objects such as toys, games and art supplies ..."
"... Separate children on buses by skipping rows ..."
"... Divide children into "cohorts" and then keep them away from other cohorts ..."
"... Children should stay three feet away from kids in their cohort and six feet away from those outside their cohort; campers and staff should stay six feet from each other, as should fellow staff members ..."
"... While eating and drinking, stay six feet away from everybody, even your own cohort ..."
In April, the CDC published guidance
for operating youth camps that was the latest eye-rolling example of CDC maximalism that
conflicts with what we've learned about Covid-19.
Before we examine the CDC guidance, let's review some of the key things that we now know
about Covid-19 that we didn't in March 2020:
Covid-19 presents little risk at all to children. According to CDC data, only
295 children age 0-17 have died with Covid-19. Compare that to the CDC's estimation
that 600
died of the flu during the 2017-18 season.
Outdoor transmission pretty much never happens. An Irish
study of more than 232,000 Covid-19 cases found only 0.1% of cases were transmitted
outside.
Surface transmission isn't a material source of spread. The CDC has
declared the risk of contracting the virus by touching surfaces or objects is low, and
that rather than cleaning with disinfectant, "soap and water is enough to reduce risk"
(unless there's a known or suspected Covid-19 case in a community setting).
Vaccines are abundantly available. According to the CDC's vaccination data , 60.5% of U.S.
adults have have received at least one vaccine dose, and 48.4% are fully vaccinated. Gone
are the days when finding the vaccine was a challenge; today, anyone who wants the vaccine
can readily find it.
Covid-19 cases and deaths are in a free fall. The 7-day averages for cases and deaths
have respectively fallen 89% and 83% from
their peaks. On Sunday, the entire state of Texas
reported not a single death from the virus. Today, San Francisco General Hospital has
no Covid-19 patients for the first time
since March 2020.
With that knowledge in mind, here are some key ingredients in the CDC's recipe
for dystopian summer fun:
Two-layer masks should be worn at all times "" indoors and out ""except for eating,
drinking and swimming
Don't allow close-contact games and sports
Avoid sharing of objects such as toys, games and art supplies
Separate children on buses by skipping rows
Divide children into "cohorts" and then keep them away from other cohorts
Children should stay three feet away from kids in their cohort and six feet away
from those outside their cohort; campers and staff should stay six feet from each other, as
should fellow staff members
While eating and drinking, stay six feet away from everybody, even your own
cohort
Who exactly are these draconian, fun-killing guidelines meant to protect? The children
aren't in any meaningful danger"" the number of children who typically drown in a given
year is more than double the number of child Covid deaths we've observed in 15 months .
Meanwhile, against a backdrop of rapidly-vanishing Covid-19 infections across the country,
camp staff will have had more than ample opportunity to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19
before the first kids arrive.
We're told to "follow the science," but what is the CDC following? The agency's guidelines
read like they were written during the early dark ages of the Covid outbreak, when the peril
was still filled with overwhelming mystery, and "erring on the side of caution" still had a
trace of credibility.
As Columbia University pediatric immunologist Mark Gorelik told
New York Magazine , " We know that the risk of outdoor infection is very low. We know risks
of children becoming seriously ill or even ill at all is vanishingly small. And most of the
vulnerable population is already vaccinated. I am supportive of effective measures to restrain
the spread of illness. However, the CDC's recommendations cross the line into excess and are,
frankly, senseless. Children cannot be running around outside in 90-degree weather wearing a
mask. Period. "
Who cares what the CDC says? They have ZERO credibility and should be charged with fraud and
"Crimes Against Humanity"
UpTo11 4 hours ago remove link
Just went to a high school graduation ceremony in Texas. 1 student had a mask. No one else
in the stadium of 400. Not sure who wears masks anymore at all.
ChargingHandle 3 hours ago remove link
Come to oregon and you will see all species of sheeple wearing masks even when completely
by themselves.
GunnerySgtHartman 2 hours ago
I still see people wearing masks while driving their cars ... with nobody else in the cars
... talk about sheeple.
Snakerockhiker 3 hours ago
The CDC guidance has nothing to do with Covid-19 and everything to do with maintaining and
increasing fear, breaking down societal relationships, and ensuring people are following
operant conditioning protocols like Pavlov's dogs. A gang of criminals are running America's
medical heirarchy. We need to eliminate them.
After Russiagate the credibility of CIA is below zero. So this looks like a part of
propaganda compaign against China.
"Yet somehow Tony Fauci didn't know this Can we really believe that? No, of course, we
can't," Carlson continued, adding "right around the time those Chinese researchers became the
world's first COVID patients, the government of Thailand contacted the CDC and Tony Fauci's
office to say its intelligence service had picked up 'biological anomalies' around the lab in
Wuhan. In other words, there had been a leak."
ay_arrow
AUS-AUD 8 hours ago (Edited)
If fauci funded the wuhan lab then the US funded the wuhan lab.
popeye 6 hours ago
There has been no new credible information released in the past two months pertaining to
the origin of SARS-Cov-2. US Intelligence is not a credible source (lying & deception
are the tradecraft of espionage). All I see is media narrative spin based on conjecture
that you can guarantee has political origins.
Yet Americans, who complain incessantly about the dishonesty of their media, credulously
swallow the narrative fed to them without analysis or critique. Stupid. You think you are
independent rebels, when you are in reality manipulated sheep, and oh so easily
manipulated.
Lets be clear - ZH is now a part of the narrative machine.
SurfingUSA 4 hours ago (Edited)
Can't make inferences????
The Wuhan lab is just the fall guy here.
The virus,
the lab (or Army games) release,
the election impact ...
ALL either Made in the (((USA))) or close to it.
Justin Timberbieber 8 hours ago
Yep, just the CCP. No western involvement whatsoever.
E5 8 hours ago
Until you trace the scientists back to UNC. Then you see that the actual virus they
accelerated came from the US.
Heimdall - Torwart von Assguard 6 hours ago
AND Canada
Ted K. 6 hours ago
The Winnipeg lab of the fully infiltrated Canada is indeed a piece of the puzzle.
Herdee 5 hours ago
And Ft. Detrick
RedNemesis 6 hours ago (Edited)
Okay. They accelerated and released a virus obtained from the US. So is the US
responsible for a country turning yellow cake uranium mined in Nevada into a nuclear
weapon?
truth or go home 5 hours ago
Yes, if the US gives them the recipe and then pays them to develop it.
And if the US did that to get around a law that makes it illegal to do makes it even
worse - which is exactly what happened.
SteveNYC 7 hours ago
I'm going with the "populism" route. Stopping populist governments in their tracks has
always proven reason enough for panic and overkill from TPTB:
- USA
- Brazil
- India
<< Primary targets.
Heimdall - Torwart von Assguard 6 hours ago
Poland
Hungary
Venezuela
Brazil
popeye 6 hours ago
Most Americans have never left their country, many have never left their state, and few
seem to have an education. You can't expect them to know much about anything outside the
US. Basically a flat earth mentality - "the world consists only of what I can see".
junction 8 hours ago
The only certainty is that all the major facts are lies.
Jolt 5 hours ago
You're on the right track, "junction", but be aware that the virus is just an ordinary
flu/corona virus that isn't deadly for the vast majority of humans. The real culprit, the
biggest tool for creating the worldwide "emergency" is the PCR test, which is 100%
fraudulent. This is by design, thanks to the pharmaceuticals.
williambanzai7 PREMIUM 8 hours ago remove link
No Tucker, if you just want to blame the whole thing on China you are missing the
punchline: Fauci
tion PREMIUM 8 hours ago (Edited) remove link
It's all an assortment of narratives and partial truths. Tucker points the finger at
China without mentioning how Fauci was funding Gain of Function work at the Wuhan lab. Here
is just one example of people from that lab using an HIV splice to increase
transmissibility of a pathogen to humans.
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) 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
And by the way let's not pretend that dear Donald aka President Kushner's FIL didn't
also know about Fauci's questionable involvement with unethical gain of function research
at this lab before appointing him and the PEPFAR mafia to head the Covid taskforce, putting
the foxes in charge of guarding the hen house so to speak.
TheAlmightyCorndawg 8 hours ago
Which is precisely why Tucker is Operation Mockingbird.
Billy the Poet 7 hours ago (Edited)
Then show me solid evidence that what you say is true. You do have film of Tucker
working with the CIA, right?
2+2 ≠ 5 8 hours ago remove link
Huh?
Tucker has NEVER "supported the election hoax".
In fact, Tucker is one of the very few on MSM to continually call for proper voting
audits of the 2020 election, and he repeatedly highlights the obvious fraud that took
place.
ay_arrow
GoodyGumdrops 8 hours ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Election fraud has been happening in the US
for decades.
The only thing new this time around is they decided to mock the American people openly,
so that they can never claim ignorance again about the corruption.
The plandemic is the real worldwide atrocity being played out right now before our
eyes.
asteroids 8 hours ago
The heads of the NIH and the CDC have been caught lying. Therefore both agencies have NO
credibility and have lost the trust of the people. ...
Flying Monkees 8 hours ago
Imagine being a total POS like Fauci who would destroy the freedom and liberties of his
fellow Americans just so he can line his own pockets...
Did Covid-19 originate in a Chinese laboratory funded in part by a grantee of Dr. Anthony
Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases? The world is waiting for an
answer, and on Thursday several Republican members of the House and Senate asked Dr. Fauci's
boss to help provide one. A related question is whether the deadly pandemic was the result of
"gain-of-function" research, in which scientists genetically engineer deadly viruses which do
not exist in nature in order to understand potential future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky lead the signers of the new
letter to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. The letter
contains various footnotes and relies on both government and media reports to assert the
following history:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained elusive.
Recently, in response to the World Health Organization's study of SARS-CoV-2's origins, a
group of eighteen scientists published a letter in Science Magazine stating that a leak of
the virus from a lab is a "viable" theory and should be thoroughly investigated. Yet,
obtaining information about the research on bat coronaviruses conducted at China's Wuhan
Institute of Virology has been very difficult. Such information, including if and when gain
of function experiments occurred at the lab, is crucial in determining the viability of the
laboratory introduction theory. In light of the many unanswered questions regarding the
origins of the SARS-CoV-2, we write to seek information regarding the National Institutes of
Health's (NIH) 2014 funding pause on gain of function research (also referred to as the
moratorium), exceptions NIH may have granted from that pause to allow gain of function
research to continue, and the lifting of that pause in 2017.
In October 2014, following several high profile biosafety incidents at labs, as well as
public scrutiny of gain of function research studies, the Department of Health and Human
Services and NIH instituted a pause on funding research of gain of function experiments
"involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses." The U.S. government (USG) noted, though, that
"[a]n exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of the USG funding agency
determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or national
security." This pause did not apply to currently-funded research at the time, but the
moratorium did urge "the USG and non-USG funded research community to join in adopting a
voluntary pause."
One of the notable NIH-funded studies that was already underway prior to the funding
moratorium was Dr. Ralph Baric's work on a "lab-made coronavirus related to SARS." In this
2015 study, researchers reportedly created a chimeric virus "related to SARS [that] can
infect human cells." Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, "China's leading expert on bat viruses" from the
Wuhan Institute of Virology, contributed to this research. An article noted that NIH allowed
this study "to proceed while it was under review by the agency." Baric reportedly added that
"NIH eventually concluded that the work was not so risky as to fall under the [gain of
function] moratorium." It is unclear why NIH apparently concluded that this study was not
"risky" enough to fall under the moratorium.
In addition to Baric's apparent gain of function research in 2015, NIH and the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) also reportedly funded similar
coronavirus research conducted by EcoHealth Alliance, which subcontracted with Shi. Because
of Shi's research and her connection to the Wuhan lab, Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular
biologist and infectious disease expert, stated, "[i]t 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." In fact, Dr. Peter Dasazk, the
president of EcoHealth Alliance, spoke about changing coronaviruses in a lab. In an interview
Dasazk stated, "Well I think . . . coronaviruses -- you can manipulate them in the lab pretty
easily."
In December 2017, NIH lifted the funding pause and established a multi-disciplinary review
process, known as the P3CO Framework, to ensure that federally funded gain of function
experiments are "conducted responsibly." It is unclear whether EcoHealth Alliance or any of
its subcontractors was granted an exception to the moratorium or whether NIH reviewed those
studies in connection with the P3CO Framework.
Did Covid-19 originate in a Chinese laboratory funded in part by a grantee of Dr. Anthony
Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases? The world is waiting for an
answer, and on Thursday several Republican members of the House and Senate asked Dr. Fauci's
boss to help provide one. A related question is whether the deadly pandemic was the result of
"gain-of-function" research, in which scientists genetically engineer deadly viruses which do
not exist in nature in order to understand potential future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky lead the signers of the new
letter to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. The letter
contains various footnotes and relies on both government and media reports to assert the
following history:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained elusive.
Recently, in response to the World Health Organization's study of SARS-CoV-2's origins, a
group of eighteen scientists published a letter in Science Magazine stating that a leak of
the virus from a lab is a "viable" theory and should be thoroughly investigated. Yet,
obtaining information about the research on bat coronaviruses conducted at China's Wuhan
Institute of Virology has been very difficult. Such information, including if and when gain
of function experiments occurred at the lab, is crucial in determining the viability of the
laboratory introduction theory. In light of the many unanswered questions regarding the
origins of the SARS-CoV-2, we write to seek information regarding the National Institutes of
Health's (NIH) 2014 funding pause on gain of function research (also referred to as the
moratorium), exceptions NIH may have granted from that pause to allow gain of function
research to continue, and the lifting of that pause in 2017.
In October 2014, following several high profile biosafety incidents at labs, as well as
public scrutiny of gain of function research studies, the Department of Health and Human
Services and NIH instituted a pause on funding research of gain of function experiments
"involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses." The U.S. government (USG) noted, though, that
"[a]n exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of the USG funding agency
determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or national
security." This pause did not apply to currently-funded research at the time, but the
moratorium did urge "the USG and non-USG funded research community to join in adopting a
voluntary pause."
One of the notable NIH-funded studies that was already underway prior to the funding
moratorium was Dr. Ralph Baric's work on a "lab-made coronavirus related to SARS." In this
2015 study, researchers reportedly created a chimeric virus "related to SARS [that] can
infect human cells." Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, "China's leading expert on bat viruses" from the
Wuhan Institute of Virology, contributed to this research. An article noted that NIH allowed
this study "to proceed while it was under review by the agency." Baric reportedly added that
"NIH eventually concluded that the work was not so risky as to fall under the [gain of
function] moratorium." It is unclear why NIH apparently concluded that this study was not
"risky" enough to fall under the moratorium.
In addition to Baric's apparent gain of function research in 2015, NIH and the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) also reportedly funded similar
coronavirus research conducted by EcoHealth Alliance, which subcontracted with Shi. Because
of Shi's research and her connection to the Wuhan lab, Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular
biologist and infectious disease expert, stated, "[i]t 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." In fact, Dr. Peter Dasazk, the
president of EcoHealth Alliance, spoke about changing coronaviruses in a lab. In an interview
Dasazk stated, "Well I think . . . coronaviruses -- you can manipulate them in the lab pretty
easily."
In December 2017, NIH lifted the funding pause and established a multi-disciplinary review
process, known as the P3CO Framework, to ensure that federally funded gain of function
experiments are "conducted responsibly." It is unclear whether EcoHealth Alliance or any of
its subcontractors was granted an exception to the moratorium or whether NIH reviewed those
studies in connection with the P3CO Framework.
Did Covid-19 originate in a Chinese laboratory funded in part by a grantee of Dr. Anthony
Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases? The world is waiting for an
answer, and on Thursday several Republican members of the House and Senate asked Dr. Fauci's
boss to help provide one. A related question is whether the deadly pandemic was the result of
"gain-of-function" research, in which scientists genetically engineer deadly viruses which do
not exist in nature in order to understand potential future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky lead the signers of the new
letter to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. The letter
contains various footnotes and relies on both government and media reports to assert the
following history:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained elusive.
Recently, in response to the World Health Organization's study of SARS-CoV-2's origins, a
group of eighteen scientists published a letter in Science Magazine stating that a leak of
the virus from a lab is a "viable" theory and should be thoroughly investigated. Yet,
obtaining information about the research on bat coronaviruses conducted at China's Wuhan
Institute of Virology has been very difficult. Such information, including if and when gain
of function experiments occurred at the lab, is crucial in determining the viability of the
laboratory introduction theory. In light of the many unanswered questions regarding the
origins of the SARS-CoV-2, we write to seek information regarding the National Institutes of
Health's (NIH) 2014 funding pause on gain of function research (also referred to as the
moratorium), exceptions NIH may have granted from that pause to allow gain of function
research to continue, and the lifting of that pause in 2017.
In October 2014, following several high profile biosafety incidents at labs, as well as
public scrutiny of gain of function research studies, the Department of Health and Human
Services and NIH instituted a pause on funding research of gain of function experiments
"involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses." The U.S. government (USG) noted, though, that
"[a]n exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of the USG funding agency
determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or national
security." This pause did not apply to currently-funded research at the time, but the
moratorium did urge "the USG and non-USG funded research community to join in adopting a
voluntary pause."
One of the notable NIH-funded studies that was already underway prior to the funding
moratorium was Dr. Ralph Baric's work on a "lab-made coronavirus related to SARS." In this
2015 study, researchers reportedly created a chimeric virus "related to SARS [that] can
infect human cells." Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, "China's leading expert on bat viruses" from the
Wuhan Institute of Virology, contributed to this research. An article noted that NIH allowed
this study "to proceed while it was under review by the agency." Baric reportedly added that
"NIH eventually concluded that the work was not so risky as to fall under the [gain of
function] moratorium." It is unclear why NIH apparently concluded that this study was not
"risky" enough to fall under the moratorium.
In addition to Baric's apparent gain of function research in 2015, NIH and the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) also reportedly funded similar
coronavirus research conducted by EcoHealth Alliance, which subcontracted with Shi. Because
of Shi's research and her connection to the Wuhan lab, Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular
biologist and infectious disease expert, stated, "[i]t 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." In fact, Dr. Peter Dasazk, the
president of EcoHealth Alliance, spoke about changing coronaviruses in a lab. In an interview
Dasazk stated, "Well I think . . . coronaviruses -- you can manipulate them in the lab pretty
easily."
In December 2017, NIH lifted the funding pause and established a multi-disciplinary review
process, known as the P3CO Framework, to ensure that federally funded gain of function
experiments are "conducted responsibly." It is unclear whether EcoHealth Alliance or any of
its subcontractors was granted an exception to the moratorium or whether NIH reviewed those
studies in connection with the P3CO Framework.
Did Covid-19 originate in a Chinese laboratory funded in part by a grantee of Dr. Anthony
Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases? The world is waiting for an
answer, and on Thursday several Republican members of the House and Senate asked Dr. Fauci's
boss to help provide one. A related question is whether the deadly pandemic was the result of
"gain-of-function" research, in which scientists genetically engineer deadly viruses which do
not exist in nature in order to understand potential future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky lead the signers of the new
letter to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. The letter
contains various footnotes and relies on both government and media reports to assert the
following history:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained elusive.
Recently, in response to the World Health Organization's study of SARS-CoV-2's origins, a
group of eighteen scientists published a letter in Science Magazine stating that a leak of
the virus from a lab is a "viable" theory and should be thoroughly investigated. Yet,
obtaining information about the research on bat coronaviruses conducted at China's Wuhan
Institute of Virology has been very difficult. Such information, including if and when gain
of function experiments occurred at the lab, is crucial in determining the viability of the
laboratory introduction theory. In light of the many unanswered questions regarding the
origins of the SARS-CoV-2, we write to seek information regarding the National Institutes
of Health's (NIH) 2014 funding pause on gain of function research (also referred to as the
moratorium), exceptions NIH may have granted from that pause to allow gain of function
research to continue, and the lifting of that pause in 2017.
In October 2014, following several high profile biosafety incidents at labs, as well as
public scrutiny of gain of function research studies, the Department of Health and Human
Services and NIH instituted a pause on funding research of gain of function experiments
"involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses." The U.S. government (USG) noted, though,
that "[a]n exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of the USG funding
agency determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or
national security." This pause did not apply to currently-funded research at the time, but
the moratorium did urge "the USG and non-USG funded research community to join in adopting
a voluntary pause."
One of the notable NIH-funded studies that was already underway prior to the funding
moratorium was Dr. Ralph Baric's work on a "lab-made coronavirus related to SARS." In this
2015 study, researchers reportedly created a chimeric virus "related to SARS [that] can
infect human cells." Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, "China's leading expert on bat viruses" from the
Wuhan Institute of Virology, contributed to this research. An article noted that NIH
allowed this study "to proceed while it was under review by the agency." Baric reportedly
added that "NIH eventually concluded that the work was not so risky as to fall under the
[gain of function] moratorium." It is unclear why NIH apparently concluded that this study
was not "risky" enough to fall under the moratorium.
In addition to Baric's apparent gain of function research in 2015, NIH and the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) also reportedly funded similar
coronavirus research conducted by EcoHealth Alliance, which subcontracted with Shi. Because
of Shi's research and her connection to the Wuhan lab, Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular
biologist and infectious disease expert, stated, "[i]t 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." In fact, Dr. Peter
Dasazk, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, spoke about changing coronaviruses in a lab.
In an interview Dasazk stated, "Well I think . . . coronaviruses -- you can manipulate them
in the lab pretty easily."
In December 2017, NIH lifted the funding pause and established a multi-disciplinary review
process, known as the P3CO Framework, to ensure that federally funded gain of function
experiments are "conducted responsibly." It is unclear whether EcoHealth Alliance or any of
its subcontractors was granted an exception to the moratorium or whether NIH reviewed those
studies in connection with the P3CO Framework.
Did Covid-19 originate in a Chinese laboratory funded in part by a grantee of Dr.
Anthony Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases? The world is
waiting for an answer, and on Thursday several Republican members of the House and Senate
asked Dr. Fauci's boss to help provide one. A related question is whether the deadly
pandemic was the result of "gain-of-function" research, in which scientists genetically
engineer deadly viruses which do not exist in nature in order to understand potential
future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky lead the signers of the
new letter to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. The
letter contains various footnotes and relies on both government and media reports to
assert the following history:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained
elusive. Recently, in response to the World Health Organization's study of SARS-CoV-2's
origins, a group of eighteen scientists published a letter in Science Magazine stating
that a leak of the virus from a lab is a "viable" theory and should be thoroughly
investigated. Yet, obtaining information about the research on bat coronaviruses
conducted at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology has been very difficult. Such
information, including if and when gain of function experiments occurred at the lab, is
crucial in determining the viability of the laboratory introduction theory. In light of
the many unanswered questions regarding the origins of the SARS-CoV-2, we write to seek
information regarding the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) 2014 funding pause on
gain of function research (also referred to as the moratorium), exceptions NIH may have
granted from that pause to allow gain of function research to continue, and the lifting
of that pause in 2017.
In October 2014, following several high profile biosafety incidents at labs, as well as
public scrutiny of gain of function research studies, the Department of Health and
Human Services and NIH instituted a pause on funding research of gain of function
experiments "involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses." The U.S. government (USG)
noted, though, that "[a]n exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head
of the USG funding agency determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect
the public health or national security." This pause did not apply to currently-funded
research at the time, but the moratorium did urge "the USG and non-USG funded research
community to join in adopting a voluntary pause."
One of the notable NIH-funded studies that was already underway prior to the funding
moratorium was Dr. Ralph Baric's work on a "lab-made coronavirus related to SARS." In
this 2015 study, researchers reportedly created a chimeric virus "related to SARS
[that] can infect human cells." Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, "China's leading expert on bat
viruses" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, contributed to this research. An article
noted that NIH allowed this study "to proceed while it was under review by the agency."
Baric reportedly added that "NIH eventually concluded that the work was not so risky as
to fall under the [gain of function] moratorium." It is unclear why NIH apparently
concluded that this study was not "risky" enough to fall under the moratorium.
In addition to Baric's apparent gain of function research in 2015, NIH and the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) also reportedly funded similar
coronavirus research conducted by EcoHealth Alliance, which subcontracted with Shi.
Because of Shi's research and her connection to the Wuhan lab, Dr. Richard Ebright, a
molecular biologist and infectious disease expert, stated, "[i]t 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." In fact, Dr. Peter Dasazk, the president of EcoHealth
Alliance, spoke about changing coronaviruses in a lab. In an interview Dasazk stated,
"Well I think . . . coronaviruses -- you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily."
In December 2017, NIH lifted the funding pause and established a multi-disciplinary
review process, known as the P3CO Framework, to ensure that federally funded gain of
function experiments are "conducted responsibly." It is unclear whether EcoHealth
Alliance or any of its subcontractors was granted an exception to the moratorium or
whether NIH reviewed those studies in connection with the P3CO Framework.
Did Covid-19 originate in a Chinese laboratory funded in part by a grantee of
Dr. Anthony Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases? The
world is waiting for an answer, and on Thursday several Republican members of the
House and Senate asked Dr. Fauci's boss to help provide one. A related question is
whether the deadly pandemic was the result of "gain-of-function" research, in which
scientists genetically engineer deadly viruses which do not exist in nature in
order to understand potential future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky lead the signers of
the new letter to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of
Health. The letter contains various footnotes and relies on both government and
media reports to assert the following history:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained
elusive. Recently, in response to the World Health Organization's study of
SARS-CoV-2's origins, a group of eighteen scientists published a letter in
Science Magazine stating that a leak of the virus from a lab is a "viable" theory
and should be thoroughly investigated. Yet, obtaining information about the
research on bat coronaviruses conducted at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology
has been very difficult. Such information, including if and when gain of function
experiments occurred at the lab, is crucial in determining the viability of the
laboratory introduction theory. In light of the many unanswered questions
regarding the origins of the SARS-CoV-2, we write to seek information regarding
the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) 2014 funding pause on gain of function
research (also referred to as the moratorium), exceptions NIH may have granted
from that pause to allow gain of function research to continue, and the lifting
of that pause in 2017.
In October 2014, following several high profile biosafety incidents at labs, as
well as public scrutiny of gain of function research studies, the Department of
Health and Human Services and NIH instituted a pause on funding research of gain
of function experiments "involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses." The U.S.
government (USG) noted, though, that "[a]n exception from the research pause may
be obtained if the head of the USG funding agency determines that the research is
urgently necessary to protect the public health or national security." This pause
did not apply to currently-funded research at the time, but the moratorium did
urge "the USG and non-USG funded research community to join in adopting a
voluntary pause."
One of the notable NIH-funded studies that was already underway prior to the
funding moratorium was Dr. Ralph Baric's work on a "lab-made coronavirus related
to SARS." In this 2015 study, researchers reportedly created a chimeric virus
"related to SARS [that] can infect human cells." Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, "China's
leading expert on bat viruses" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, contributed
to this research. An article noted that NIH allowed this study "to proceed while
it was under review by the agency." Baric reportedly added that "NIH eventually
concluded that the work was not so risky as to fall under the [gain of function]
moratorium." It is unclear why NIH apparently concluded that this study was not
"risky" enough to fall under the moratorium.
In addition to Baric's apparent gain of function research in 2015, NIH and the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) also reportedly
funded similar coronavirus research conducted by EcoHealth Alliance, which
subcontracted with Shi. Because of Shi's research and her connection to the Wuhan
lab, Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and infectious disease expert,
stated, "[i]t 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." In fact, Dr. Peter Dasazk,
the president of EcoHealth Alliance, spoke about changing coronaviruses in a lab.
In an interview Dasazk stated, "Well I think . . . coronaviruses -- you can
manipulate them in the lab pretty easily."
In December 2017, NIH lifted the funding pause and established a
multi-disciplinary review process, known as the P3CO Framework, to ensure that
federally funded gain of function experiments are "conducted responsibly." It is
unclear whether EcoHealth Alliance or any of its subcontractors was granted an
exception to the moratorium or whether NIH reviewed those studies in connection
with the P3CO Framework.
Did Covid-19 originate in a Chinese laboratory funded in part by a
grantee of Dr. Anthony Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases? The world is waiting for an answer, and on Thursday several
Republican members of the House and Senate asked Dr. Fauci's boss to help
provide one. A related question is whether the deadly pandemic was the
result of "gain-of-function" research, in which scientists genetically
engineer deadly viruses which do not exist in nature in order to understand
potential future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky lead the
signers of the new letter to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National
Institutes of Health. The letter contains various footnotes and relies on
both government and media reports to assert the following history:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 has
remained elusive. Recently, in response to the World Health
Organization's study of SARS-CoV-2's origins, a group of eighteen
scientists published a letter in Science Magazine stating that a leak of
the virus from a lab is a "viable" theory and should be thoroughly
investigated. Yet, obtaining information about the research on bat
coronaviruses conducted at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology has been
very difficult. Such information, including if and when gain of function
experiments occurred at the lab, is crucial in determining the viability
of the laboratory introduction theory. In light of the many unanswered
questions regarding the origins of the SARS-CoV-2, we write to seek
information regarding the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) 2014
funding pause on gain of function research (also referred to as the
moratorium), exceptions NIH may have granted from that pause to allow
gain of function research to continue, and the lifting of that pause in
2017.
In October 2014, following several high profile biosafety incidents at
labs, as well as public scrutiny of gain of function research studies,
the Department of Health and Human Services and NIH instituted a pause on
funding research of gain of function experiments "involving influenza,
SARS, and MERS viruses." The U.S. government (USG) noted, though, that
"[a]n exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of
the USG funding agency determines that the research is urgently necessary
to protect the public health or national security." This pause did not
apply to currently-funded research at the time, but the moratorium did
urge "the USG and non-USG funded research community to join in adopting a
voluntary pause."
One of the notable NIH-funded studies that was already underway prior to
the funding moratorium was Dr. Ralph Baric's work on a "lab-made
coronavirus related to SARS." In this 2015 study, researchers reportedly
created a chimeric virus "related to SARS [that] can infect human cells."
Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, "China's leading expert on bat viruses" from the
Wuhan Institute of Virology, contributed to this research. An article
noted that NIH allowed this study "to proceed while it was under review
by the agency." Baric reportedly added that "NIH eventually concluded
that the work was not so risky as to fall under the [gain of function]
moratorium." It is unclear why NIH apparently concluded that this study
was not "risky" enough to fall under the moratorium.
In addition to Baric's apparent gain of function research in 2015, NIH
and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
also reportedly funded similar coronavirus research conducted by
EcoHealth Alliance, which subcontracted with Shi. Because of Shi's
research and her connection to the Wuhan lab, Dr. Richard Ebright, a
molecular biologist and infectious disease expert, stated, "[i]t 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." In fact, Dr. Peter Dasazk,
the president of EcoHealth Alliance, spoke about changing coronaviruses
in a lab. In an interview Dasazk stated, "Well I think . . .
coronaviruses -- you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily."
In December 2017, NIH lifted the funding pause and established a
multi-disciplinary review process, known as the P3CO Framework, to ensure
that federally funded gain of function experiments are "conducted
responsibly." It is unclear whether EcoHealth Alliance or any of its
subcontractors was granted an exception to the moratorium or whether NIH
reviewed those studies in connection with the P3CO Framework.
Did Covid-19 originate in a Chinese laboratory funded in part
by a grantee of Dr. Anthony Fauci's National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases? The world is waiting for an answer, and
on Thursday several Republican members of the House and Senate
asked Dr. Fauci's boss to help provide one. A related question is
whether the deadly pandemic was the result of "gain-of-function"
research, in which scientists genetically engineer deadly viruses
which do not exist in nature in order to understand potential
future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky
lead the signers of the new letter to Dr. Francis Collins,
director of the National Institutes of Health. The letter
contains various footnotes and relies on both government and
media reports to assert the following history:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact origin of
SARS-CoV-2 has remained elusive. Recently, in response to the
World Health Organization's study of SARS-CoV-2's origins, a
group of eighteen scientists published a letter in Science
Magazine stating that a leak of the virus from a lab is a
"viable" theory and should be thoroughly investigated. Yet,
obtaining information about the research on bat coronaviruses
conducted at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology has been very
difficult. Such information, including if and when gain of
function experiments occurred at the lab, is crucial in
determining the viability of the laboratory introduction
theory. In light of the many unanswered questions regarding the
origins of the SARS-CoV-2, we write to seek information
regarding the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) 2014
funding pause on gain of function research (also referred to as
the moratorium), exceptions NIH may have granted from that
pause to allow gain of function research to continue, and the
lifting of that pause in 2017.
In October 2014, following several high profile biosafety
incidents at labs, as well as public scrutiny of gain of
function research studies, the Department of Health and Human
Services and NIH instituted a pause on funding research of gain
of function experiments "involving influenza, SARS, and MERS
viruses." The U.S. government (USG) noted, though, that "[a]n
exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head
of the USG funding agency determines that the research is
urgently necessary to protect the public health or national
security." This pause did not apply to currently-funded
research at the time, but the moratorium did urge "the USG and
non-USG funded research community to join in adopting a
voluntary pause."
One of the notable NIH-funded studies that was already underway
prior to the funding moratorium was Dr. Ralph Baric's work on a
"lab-made coronavirus related to SARS." In this 2015 study,
researchers reportedly created a chimeric virus "related to
SARS [that] can infect human cells." Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi,
"China's leading expert on bat viruses" from the Wuhan
Institute of Virology, contributed to this research. An article
noted that NIH allowed this study "to proceed while it was
under review by the agency." Baric reportedly added that "NIH
eventually concluded that the work was not so risky as to fall
under the [gain of function] moratorium." It is unclear why NIH
apparently concluded that this study was not "risky" enough to
fall under the moratorium.
In addition to Baric's apparent gain of function research in
2015, NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases (NIAID) also reportedly funded similar coronavirus
research conducted by EcoHealth Alliance, which subcontracted
with Shi. Because of Shi's research and her connection to the
Wuhan lab, Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and
infectious disease expert, stated, "[i]t 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." In fact,
Dr. Peter Dasazk, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, spoke
about changing coronaviruses in a lab. In an interview Dasazk
stated, "Well I think . . . coronaviruses -- you can manipulate
them in the lab pretty easily."
In December 2017, NIH lifted the funding pause and established
a multi-disciplinary review process, known as the P3CO
Framework, to ensure that federally funded gain of function
experiments are "conducted responsibly." It is unclear whether
EcoHealth Alliance or any of its subcontractors was granted an
exception to the moratorium or whether NIH reviewed those
studies in connection with the P3CO Framework.
Did Covid-19 originate in a Chinese laboratory
funded in part by a grantee of Dr. Anthony Fauci's
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases? The world is waiting for an answer, and on
Thursday several Republican members of the House and
Senate asked Dr. Fauci's boss to help provide one. A
related question is whether the deadly pandemic was
the result of "gain-of-function" research, in which
scientists genetically engineer deadly viruses which
do not exist in nature in order to understand
potential future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dr. Rand Paul
of Kentucky lead the signers of the new letter to Dr.
Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes
of Health. The letter contains various footnotes and
relies on both government and media reports to assert
the following history:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact
origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained elusive.
Recently, in response to the World Health
Organization's study of SARS-CoV-2's origins, a
group of eighteen scientists published a letter in
Science Magazine stating that a leak of the virus
from a lab is a "viable" theory and should be
thoroughly investigated. Yet, obtaining information
about the research on bat coronaviruses conducted
at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology has been
very difficult. Such information, including if and
when gain of function experiments occurred at the
lab, is crucial in determining the viability of the
laboratory introduction theory. In light of the
many unanswered questions regarding the origins of
the SARS-CoV-2, we write to seek information
regarding the National Institutes of Health's (NIH)
2014 funding pause on gain of function research
(also referred to as the moratorium), exceptions
NIH may have granted from that pause to allow gain
of function research to continue, and the lifting
of that pause in 2017.
In October 2014, following several high profile
biosafety incidents at labs, as well as public
scrutiny of gain of function research studies, the
Department of Health and Human Services and NIH
instituted a pause on funding research of gain of
function experiments "involving influenza, SARS,
and MERS viruses." The U.S. government (USG) noted,
though, that "[a]n exception from the research
pause may be obtained if the head of the USG
funding agency determines that the research is
urgently necessary to protect the public health or
national security." This pause did not apply to
currently-funded research at the time, but the
moratorium did urge "the USG and non-USG funded
research community to join in adopting a voluntary
pause."
One of the notable NIH-funded studies that was
already underway prior to the funding moratorium
was Dr. Ralph Baric's work on a "lab-made
coronavirus related to SARS." In this 2015 study,
researchers reportedly created a chimeric virus
"related to SARS [that] can infect human cells."
Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, "China's leading expert on bat
viruses" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,
contributed to this research. An article noted that
NIH allowed this study "to proceed while it was
under review by the agency." Baric reportedly added
that "NIH eventually concluded that the work was
not so risky as to fall under the [gain of
function] moratorium." It is unclear why NIH
apparently concluded that this study was not
"risky" enough to fall under the moratorium.
In addition to Baric's apparent gain of function
research in 2015, NIH and the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) also
reportedly funded similar coronavirus research
conducted by EcoHealth Alliance, which
subcontracted with Shi. Because of Shi's research
and her connection to the Wuhan lab, Dr. Richard
Ebright, a molecular biologist and infectious
disease expert, stated, "[i]t 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." In fact, Dr. Peter
Dasazk, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, spoke
about changing coronaviruses in a lab. In an
interview Dasazk stated, "Well I think . . .
coronaviruses -- you can manipulate them in the lab
pretty easily."
In December 2017, NIH lifted the funding pause and
established a multi-disciplinary review process,
known as the P3CO Framework, to ensure that
federally funded gain of function experiments are
"conducted responsibly." It is unclear whether
EcoHealth Alliance or any of its subcontractors was
granted an exception to the moratorium or whether
NIH reviewed those studies in connection with the
P3CO Framework.
Did Covid-19 originate in a Chinese
laboratory funded in part by a grantee
of Dr. Anthony Fauci's National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases? The world is waiting for an
answer, and on Thursday several
Republican members of the House and
Senate asked Dr. Fauci's boss to help
provide one. A related question is
whether the deadly pandemic was the
result of "gain-of-function" research,
in which scientists genetically
engineer deadly viruses which do not
exist in nature in order to understand
potential future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and
Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky lead the
signers of the new letter to Dr.
Francis Collins, director of the
National Institutes of Health. The
letter contains various footnotes and
relies on both government and media
reports to assert the following
history:
Since the beginning of the pandemic,
the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 has
remained elusive. Recently, in
response to the World Health
Organization's study of SARS-CoV-2's
origins, a group of eighteen
scientists published a letter in
Science Magazine stating that a leak
of the virus from a lab is a "viable"
theory and should be thoroughly
investigated. Yet, obtaining
information about the research on bat
coronaviruses conducted at China's
Wuhan Institute of Virology has been
very difficult. Such information,
including if and when gain of
function experiments occurred at the
lab, is crucial in determining the
viability of the laboratory
introduction theory. In light of the
many unanswered questions regarding
the origins of the SARS-CoV-2, we
write to seek information regarding
the National Institutes of Health's
(NIH) 2014 funding pause on gain of
function research (also referred to
as the moratorium), exceptions NIH
may have granted from that pause to
allow gain of function research to
continue, and the lifting of that
pause in 2017.
In October 2014, following several
high profile biosafety incidents at
labs, as well as public scrutiny of
gain of function research studies,
the Department of Health and Human
Services and NIH instituted a pause
on funding research of gain of
function experiments "involving
influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses."
The U.S. government (USG) noted,
though, that "[a]n exception from the
research pause may be obtained if the
head of the USG funding agency
determines that the research is
urgently necessary to protect the
public health or national security."
This pause did not apply to
currently-funded research at the
time, but the moratorium did urge
"the USG and non-USG funded research
community to join in adopting a
voluntary pause."
One of the notable NIH-funded studies
that was already underway prior to
the funding moratorium was Dr. Ralph
Baric's work on a "lab-made
coronavirus related to SARS." In this
2015 study, researchers reportedly
created a chimeric virus "related to
SARS [that] can infect human cells."
Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, "China's leading
expert on bat viruses" from the Wuhan
Institute of Virology, contributed to
this research. An article noted that
NIH allowed this study "to proceed
while it was under review by the
agency." Baric reportedly added that
"NIH eventually concluded that the
work was not so risky as to fall
under the [gain of function]
moratorium." It is unclear why NIH
apparently concluded that this study
was not "risky" enough to fall under
the moratorium.
In addition to Baric's apparent gain
of function research in 2015, NIH and
the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID) also
reportedly funded similar coronavirus
research conducted by EcoHealth
Alliance, which subcontracted with
Shi. Because of Shi's research and
her connection to the Wuhan lab, Dr.
Richard Ebright, a molecular
biologist and infectious disease
expert, stated, "[i]t 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." In fact, Dr. Peter Dasazk, the
president of EcoHealth Alliance,
spoke about changing coronaviruses in
a lab. In an interview Dasazk stated,
"Well I think . . . coronaviruses --
you can manipulate them in the lab
pretty easily."
In December 2017, NIH lifted the
funding pause and established a
multi-disciplinary review process,
known as the P3CO Framework, to
ensure that federally funded gain of
function experiments are "conducted
responsibly." It is unclear whether
EcoHealth Alliance or any of its
subcontractors was granted an
exception to the moratorium or
whether NIH reviewed those studies in
connection with the P3CO Framework.
Did Covid-19
originate in a Chinese
laboratory funded in
part by a grantee of
Dr. Anthony Fauci's
National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious
Diseases? The world is
waiting for an answer,
and on Thursday several
Republican members of
the House and Senate
asked Dr. Fauci's boss
to help provide one. A
related question is
whether the deadly
pandemic was the result
of "gain-of-function"
research, in which
scientists genetically
engineer deadly viruses
which do not exist in
nature in order to
understand potential
future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of
Wisconsin and Dr. Rand
Paul of Kentucky lead
the signers of the new
letter to Dr. Francis
Collins, director of
the National Institutes
of Health. The letter
contains various
footnotes and relies on
both government and
media reports to assert
the following
history:
Since the beginning
of the pandemic, the
exact origin of
SARS-CoV-2 has
remained elusive.
Recently, in response
to the World Health
Organization's study
of SARS-CoV-2's
origins, a group of
eighteen scientists
published a letter in
Science Magazine
stating that a leak
of the virus from a
lab is a "viable"
theory and should be
thoroughly
investigated. Yet,
obtaining information
about the research on
bat coronaviruses
conducted at China's
Wuhan Institute of
Virology has been
very difficult. Such
information,
including if and when
gain of function
experiments occurred
at the lab, is
crucial in
determining the
viability of the
laboratory
introduction theory.
In light of the many
unanswered questions
regarding the origins
of the SARS-CoV-2, we
write to seek
information regarding
the National
Institutes of
Health's (NIH) 2014
funding pause on gain
of function research
(also referred to as
the moratorium),
exceptions NIH may
have granted from
that pause to allow
gain of function
research to continue,
and the lifting of
that pause in 2017.
In October 2014,
following several
high profile
biosafety incidents
at labs, as well as
public scrutiny of
gain of function
research studies, the
Department of Health
and Human Services
and NIH instituted a
pause on funding
research of gain of
function experiments
"involving influenza,
SARS, and MERS
viruses." The U.S.
government (USG)
noted, though, that
"[a]n exception from
the research pause
may be obtained if
the head of the USG
funding agency
determines that the
research is urgently
necessary to protect
the public health or
national security."
This pause did not
apply to
currently-funded
research at the time,
but the moratorium
did urge "the USG and
non-USG funded
research community to
join in adopting a
voluntary pause."
One of the notable
NIH-funded studies
that was already
underway prior to the
funding moratorium
was Dr. Ralph Baric's
work on a "lab-made
coronavirus related
to SARS." In this
2015 study,
researchers
reportedly created a
chimeric virus
"related to SARS
[that] can infect
human cells." Dr.
Zhengli-Li Shi,
"China's leading
expert on bat
viruses" from the
Wuhan Institute of
Virology, contributed
to this research. An
article noted that
NIH allowed this
study "to proceed
while it was under
review by the
agency." Baric
reportedly added that
"NIH eventually
concluded that the
work was not so risky
as to fall under the
[gain of function]
moratorium." It is
unclear why NIH
apparently concluded
that this study was
not "risky" enough to
fall under the
moratorium.
In addition to
Baric's apparent gain
of function research
in 2015, NIH and the
National Institute of
Allergy and
Infectious Diseases
(NIAID) also
reportedly funded
similar coronavirus
research conducted by
EcoHealth Alliance,
which subcontracted
with Shi. Because of
Shi's research and
her connection to the
Wuhan lab, Dr.
Richard Ebright, a
molecular biologist
and infectious
disease expert,
stated, "[i]t 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." In fact, Dr.
Peter Dasazk, the
president of
EcoHealth Alliance,
spoke about changing
coronaviruses in a
lab. In an interview
Dasazk stated, "Well
I think . . .
coronaviruses -- you
can manipulate them
in the lab pretty
easily."
In December 2017, NIH
lifted the funding
pause and established
a multi-disciplinary
review process, known
as the P3CO
Framework, to ensure
that federally funded
gain of function
experiments are
"conducted
responsibly." It is
unclear whether
EcoHealth Alliance or
any of its
subcontractors was
granted an exception
to the moratorium or
whether NIH reviewed
those studies in
connection with the
P3CO Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a lab
is a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in a
lab.
In an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
. . .
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
Did
Covid-19
originate
in
a
Chinese
laboratory
funded
in
part
by
a
grantee
of
Dr.
Anthony
Fauci's
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases?
The
world
is
waiting
for
an
answer,
and
on
Thursday
several
Republican
members
of
the
House
and
Senate
asked
Dr.
Fauci's
boss
to
help
provide
one.
A
related
question
is
whether
the
deadly
pandemic
was
the
result
of
"gain-of-function"
research,
in
which
scientists
genetically
engineer
deadly
viruses
which
do
not
exist
in
nature
in
order
to
understand
potential
future
threats.
Sens.
Ron
Johnson
of
Wisconsin
and
Dr.
Rand
Paul
of
Kentucky
lead
the
signers
of
the
new
letter
to
Dr.
Francis
Collins,
director
of
the
National
Institutes
of
Health.
The
letter
contains
various
footnotes
and
relies
on
both
government
and
media
reports
to
assert
the
following
history:
Since
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic,
the
exact
origin
of
SARS-CoV-2
has
remained
elusive.
Recently,
in
response
to
the
World
Health
Organization's
study
of
SARS-CoV-2's
origins,
a
group
of
eighteen
scientists
published
a
letter
in
Science
Magazine
stating
that
a
leak
of
the
virus
from
a
lab
is
a
"viable"
theory
and
should
be
thoroughly
investigated.
Yet,
obtaining
information
about
the
research
on
bat
coronaviruses
conducted
at
China's
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology
has
been
very
difficult.
Such
information,
including
if
and
when
gain
of
function
experiments
occurred
at
the
lab,
is
crucial
in
determining
the
viability
of
the
laboratory
introduction
theory.
In
light
of
the
many
unanswered
questions
regarding
the
origins
of
the
SARS-CoV-2,
we
write
to
seek
information
regarding
the
National
Institutes
of
Health's
(NIH)
2014
funding
pause
on
gain
of
function
research
(also
referred
to
as
the
moratorium),
exceptions
NIH
may
have
granted
from
that
pause
to
allow
gain
of
function
research
to
continue,
and
the
lifting
of
that
pause
in
2017.
In
October
2014,
following
several
high
profile
biosafety
incidents
at
labs,
as
well
as
public
scrutiny
of
gain
of
function
research
studies,
the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
and
NIH
instituted
a
pause
on
funding
research
of
gain
of
function
experiments
"involving
influenza,
SARS,
and
MERS
viruses."
The
U.S.
government
(USG)
noted,
though,
that
"[a]n
exception
from
the
research
pause
may
be
obtained
if
the
head
of
the
USG
funding
agency
determines
that
the
research
is
urgently
necessary
to
protect
the
public
health
or
national
security."
This
pause
did
not
apply
to
currently-funded
research
at
the
time,
but
the
moratorium
did
urge
"the
USG
and
non-USG
funded
research
community
to
join
in
adopting
a
voluntary
pause."
One
of
the
notable
NIH-funded
studies
that
was
already
underway
prior
to
the
funding
moratorium
was
Dr.
Ralph
Baric's
work
on
a
"lab-made
coronavirus
related
to
SARS."
In
this
2015
study,
researchers
reportedly
created
a
chimeric
virus
"related
to
SARS
[that]
can
infect
human
cells."
Dr.
Zhengli-Li
Shi,
"China's
leading
expert
on
bat
viruses"
from
the
Wuhan
Institute
of
Virology,
contributed
to
this
research.
An
article
noted
that
NIH
allowed
this
study
"to
proceed
while
it
was
under
review
by
the
agency."
Baric
reportedly
added
that
"NIH
eventually
concluded
that
the
work
was
not
so
risky
as
to
fall
under
the
[gain
of
function]
moratorium."
It
is
unclear
why
NIH
apparently
concluded
that
this
study
was
not
"risky"
enough
to
fall
under
the
moratorium.
In
addition
to
Baric's
apparent
gain
of
function
research
in
2015,
NIH
and
the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases
(NIAID)
also
reportedly
funded
similar
coronavirus
research
conducted
by
EcoHealth
Alliance,
which
subcontracted
with
Shi.
Because
of
Shi's
research
and
her
connection
to
the
Wuhan
lab,
Dr.
Richard
Ebright,
a
molecular
biologist
and
infectious
disease
expert,
stated,
"[i]t
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."
In
fact,
Dr.
Peter
Dasazk,
the
president
of
EcoHealth
Alliance,
spoke
about
changing
coronaviruses
in
a
lab.
In
an
interview
Dasazk
stated,
"Well
I
think
.
.
.
coronaviruses
--
you
can
manipulate
them
in
the
lab
pretty
easily."
In
December
2017,
NIH
lifted
the
funding
pause
and
established
a
multi-disciplinary
review
process,
known
as
the
P3CO
Framework,
to
ensure
that
federally
funded
gain
of
function
experiments
are
"conducted
responsibly."
It
is
unclear
whether
EcoHealth
Alliance
or
any
of
its
subcontractors
was
granted
an
exception
to
the
moratorium
or
whether
NIH
reviewed
those
studies
in
connection
with
the
P3CO
Framework.
