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COMMENT: Research into the history of GOF (gain-of-function) work on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology indicates multiple areas of U.S. intelligence presence in that work.
It was publicly disclosed in a 2017 paper that the US and China collaborated on “gain-of-function” research on bat coronaviruses to infect humans and that the work received funding from the United States Agency for International Development–a frequent cut-out for the CIA.
In addition, the work was also funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, which have collaborated with both CIA and the Pentagon in BSL‑4 (Bio-Safety-Level 4) projects.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has also partnered with the USAMRIID since the mid-1980’s.
Important to note is the fact that it was public information that some of this work was done in a biosafety-level 2 laboratory, giving an observer intent on undertaking a biological warfare covert operation against China useful field intelligence about the vulnerability of WIV for such an “op.”
- The investigation of infectivity used undetectable methods, negating articles claiming the virus could not have been genetically engineered: ” Evidence has emerged that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, working in collaboration with scientists in the USA, have been genetically engineering bat viruses for the past several years to investigate infectivity – using undetectable methods. . . . The evidence rebuts claims by journalists and some scientists that the SARS-CoV‑2 virus responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic could not have been genetically engineered because it lacks the ‘signs’ or ‘signatures’ that supposedly would be left behind by genetic engineering techniques. . . .”
- Dr. Richard Ebright noted that the research was jointly funded by the U.S. and China, that Peter Daszak (about whom we have voiced reservations in the past) was one of the American collaborators. Furthermore, the research was funded in part by USAID, a common U.S. intelligence cut-out. ” . . . . Dr Richard Ebright, an infectious disease expert at Rutgers University (USA), has alerted the public to evidence that WIV and US-based researchers were genetically engineering bat viruses to investigate their ability to infect humans, using commonly used methods that leave no sign or signature of human manipulation. Ebright flagged up a scientific paper published in 2017 by WIV scientists, including Shi Zhengli, the virologist leading the research into bat coronaviruses, working in collaboration with Peter Daszak of the US-based EcoHealth Alliance. Funding was shared between Chinese and US institutions, the latter including the US National Institutes of Health and USAID. The researchers report having conducted virus infectivity experiments where genetic material is combined from different varieties of SARS-related coronaviruses to form novel ‘chimeric’ versions. This formed part of their research into what mutations were needed to allow certain bat coronaviruses to bind to the human ACE2 receptor – a key step in the human infectivity of SARS-CoV‑2. . . .”
- Furthermore, the researchers used a type of genetic engineering that leaves no signature of human manipulation: ” . . . . The WIV scientists did this, Ebright points out, ‘using ‘seamless ligation’ procedures that leave no signatures of human manipulation’. This is noteworthy because it is a type of genetic engineering that Andersen and his team excluded from their investigation into whether SARS-CoV‑2 could have been engineered – and it was in use at the very lab that is the prime suspect for a lab escape. . . .”
- In addition, Ebright highlights the 2015 work done by Ralph Baric in collaboration with WIV’s Shi Zhengli–a project we have discussed at length in the past: ” . . . . A group of scientists from the University of North Carolina in the USA, with the WIV’s Shi Zhengli as a collaborator, published a study in 2015 describing similar experiments involving chimeric coronaviruses, which were also created using standard undetectable genetic engineering techniques. . . .”
- Ebright also cites work done in a bio-safety level 2 laboratory. : ” . . . . Ebright points out that the paper states, ‘All work with the infectious virus was performed under biosafety level 2 conditions’. This level is suitable for work involving agents of only ‘moderate potential hazard to personnel and the environment’. . . . But they are not at fault in failing to use BSL‑4 for this work, as SARS coronaviruses are not aerosol-transmitted. The work does, however, fall under biosafety level 3, which is for work involving microbes that can cause serious and potentially lethal disease via inhalation. . . .”
- Dr. Jonathan Latham underscored the reservations expressed by many concerning “gain-of-function” experiments on these kinds of coronaviruses: ” . . . . The bioscientist Dr Jonathan Latham criticised the kind of research on bat coronaviruses that has been taking place in Wuhan and the USA as ‘providing an evolutionary opportunity’ for such viruses ‘to jump into humans’. Latham, who has a doctorate in virology, argues that this kind of work is simply ‘providing opportunities for contamination events and leakages from labs, which happen on a routine basis’. . . .”
Note, again, that the whole world was informed back in 2017 that dangerous research involving the creation of bat coronaviruses to infect humans was being carried out in China. Note again, that the research was funded in part by the US, including USAID–a frequent U.S. intelligence cut-out; the NIH–which has actively collaborated with both CIA and Pentagon. The WIV has also partnered with the USAMRIID.
Flash forward a couple of years and we have a nightmare virus that initially appeared to pop up nearby the WIV, with the Trump administration aggressively pushing the idea that it escaped from that lab.
In that context, we note the following:
- In 2017, China got approval for its first BSL‑4 lab in Wuhan, the first of several planned BSL‑4 labs. “A laboratory in Wuhan is on the cusp of being cleared to work with the world’s most dangerous pathogens. The move is part of a plan to build between five and seven biosafety level‑4 (BSL‑4) labs across the Chinese mainland by 2025, and has generated much excitement, as well as some concerns. . . . Some scientists outside China worry about pathogens escaping, and the addition of a biological dimension to geopolitical tensions between China and other nations. [Italics are mine‑D.E.] . . .”
- As will be seen below, the proliferation of BSL‑4 labs has sparked worries about “dual use” technology: ” . . . . The expansion of BSL-4-lab networks in the United States and Europe over the past 15 years — with more than a dozen now in operation or under construction in each region — also met with resistance, including questions about the need for so many facilities. . . .”
- The above-mentioned Richard Ebright notes that the proliferation of BSL‑4 labs will spur suspicion of “dual use” technology, in which ostensible medical research masks biological warfare research: ” . . . . But Ebright is not convinced of the need for more than one BSL‑4 lab in mainland China. He suspects that the expansion there is a reaction to the networks in the United States and Europe, which he says are also unwarranted. He adds that governments will assume that such excess capacity is for the potential development of bioweapons. ‘These facilities are inherently dual use,’ he says. . . .”
In the context of the above articles, note again, that the National Institutes of Health have also partnered with CIA and the Pentagon, as underscored by an article about a BSL‑4 lab at Boston University:
- As the article notes, as of 2007, the U.S. had “more than a dozen” BSL‑4 labs–China commissioned its first as of 2017: ” . . . . Before the anthrax mailings of 2001, the United States had just two BSL4 labs—both within the razor-wire confines of government-owned campuses. Now, thanks to a tenfold increase in funding—from $200 million in 2001 to $2 billion in 2006—more than a dozen such facilities can be found at universities and private companies across the country. . . .”
- The Boston University lab exemplifies the Pentagon and CIA presence in BSL‑4 facility “dual use”: ” . . . . But some scientists say that argument obscures the true purpose of the current biodefense boom: to study potential biological weapons. ‘The university portrays it as an emerging infectious disease lab,’ says David Ozonoff, a Boston University epidemiologist whose office is right across the street from the new BSL4 facility. ‘But they are talking about studying things like small pox and inhalation anthrax, which pose no public health threat other than as bioweapons.’ . . . While the university has repeatedly stated that the new facility will not house bioweapons research, that might not be a promise it can keep. The original NIH mandate for the lab indicated that many groups—including the CIA and Department of Defense—would be allowed to use the lab for their own research, the nature of which BU might have little control over. . . .”
In early August of 2019, shortly before the recorded start of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at that facility was closed down by the CDC due to multiple safety violations. “All research at a Fort Detrick laboratory that handles high-level disease-causing material, such as Ebola, is on hold indefinitely after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the organization failed to meet biosafety standards. . . . The CDC sent a cease and desist order in July. After USAMRIID received the order from the CDC, its registration with the Federal Select Agent Program, which oversees disease-causing material use and possession, was suspended. That suspension effectively halted all biological select agents and toxin research at USAMRIID . . . .”
USAMRIID has partnered with the Wuhan Institute of Virology since the mid-1980s.
Officials of the WIV allege that the genomes of the various strains of SARS CoV‑2 correspond to those of viruses studied at the institution: ” . . . . The director of the WIV, Wang Yanyi, told China Central Television last weekend that the new coronavirus is genetically different from any kind of live virus that has been studied at the institute. Prior to that, WIV virologist Shi Zhengli — who collects, samples, and studies coronaviruses in Chinese bats — told Scientific American that she cross-referenced the new coronavirus’ genome with the genetic information of other bat coronaviruses her team had collected. They didn’t find a match. . . .”
1. “Wuhan and US scientists used undetectable methods of genetic engineering on bat coronaviruses” by Jonathan Matthews and Claire Robinson; GMWatch; 05/20/2020
Evidence has emerged that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, working in collaboration with scientists in the USA, have been genetically engineering bat viruses for the past several years to investigate infectivity – using undetectable methods. The WIV is just a few miles from the Chinese city where the COVID-19 pandemic is thought to have originated and is the chief suspect in the possible scenario that the virus emerged from a lab.
The evidence rebuts claims by journalists and some scientists that the SARS-CoV‑2 virus responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic could not have been genetically engineered because it lacks the “signs” or “signatures” that supposedly would be left behind by genetic engineering techniques.
Those making these claims cite as evidence a letter published in Nature Medicine in March by American microbiologist Kristian Andersen and colleagues. The article stated that there was no evidence that the virus had been genetically manipulated and concluded that it emerged through natural mutation and selection in animal and human hosts.[1]
Typical of the media response to the Nature Medicine letter was an article published in The Scientist, which stated, “there are no signs of genetic manipulation in the SARS-CoV‑2 genome”. The BBC also reported that “the study of the coronavirus genome … found no signs it had been engineered”.
Other experts, however, have pointed out that there are well known ways of manipulating the genetic material of a virus without leaving any such signs.
Now Dr Richard Ebright, an infectious disease expert at Rutgers University (USA), has alerted the public to evidence that WIV and US-based researchers were genetically engineering bat viruses to investigate their ability to infect humans, using commonly used methods that leave no sign or signature of human manipulation.
Ebright flagged up a scientific paper published in 2017 by WIV scientists, including Shi Zhengli, the virologist leading the research into bat coronaviruses, working in collaboration with Peter Daszak of the US-based EcoHealth Alliance. Funding was shared between Chinese and US institutions, the latter including the US National Institutes of Health and USAID. The researchers report having conducted virus infectivity experiments where genetic material is combined from different varieties of SARS-related coronaviruses to form novel “chimeric” versions. This formed part of their research into what mutations were needed to allow certain bat coronaviruses to bind to the human ACE2 receptor – a key step in the human infectivity of SARS-CoV‑2.
The WIV scientists did this, Ebright points out, “using ‘seamless ligation’ procedures that leave no signatures of human manipulation”. This is noteworthy because it is a type of genetic engineering that Andersen and his team excluded from their investigation into whether SARS-CoV‑2 could have been engineered – and it was in use at the very lab that is the prime suspect for a lab escape.
A group of scientists from the University of North Carolina in the USA, with the WIV’s Shi Zhengli as a collaborator, published a study in 2015 describing similar experiments involving chimeric coronaviruses, which were also created using standard undetectable genetic engineering techniques.
Dr Michael Antoniou, a London-based molecular geneticist, told us that these methods of genetic engineering have been commonly used for decades and do not leave any kind of “signature”. Commenting on Andersen and his team’s omission of these methods from their article in Nature Medicine, Dr Antoniou told us, “This shows that these authors’ conclusions about whether genetic engineering could have been involved are not justified by the available evidence.”
Minimal biosafety
Richard Ebright also flagged up another paper by WIV scientists that raises concerns. In a just-published pre-print, they describe investigating the ability of spike proteins from bat SARS-related CoV (SARSr-CoV), among other coronaviruses, to bind to bat and human ACE2 receptors – in other words, how efficiently they infect humans. Ebright points out that the paper states, “All work with the infectious virus was performed under biosafety level 2 conditions”. This level is suitable for work involving agents of only “moderate potential hazard to personnel and the environment”.
The highest level of biosafety is level 4 (BSL‑4). This is for work with agents that could easily be aerosol-transmitted within the laboratory and cause severe to fatal disease in humans for which there are no available vaccines or treatments. Because the WIV has a BSL‑4 lab, many have assumed that work like this on infectious bat coronaviruses linked to SARS, a closely related coronavirus to SARS-CoV‑2, was being conducted at the highest BSL‑4 level of biosecurity. Clearly, as the WIV researchers state, this was not the case. But they are not at fault in failing to use BSL‑4 for this work, as SARS coronaviruses are not aerosol-transmitted.
The work does, however, fall under biosafety level 3, which is for work involving microbes that can cause serious and potentially lethal disease via inhalation. So it seems inexcusable that it was carried out only at the relatively low biosafety level 2, which, as Ebright says, “provides only minimal protections against infection of lab workers”.
Evolutionary opportunity for viruses to jump to humans
The bioscientist Dr Jonathan Latham criticised the kind of research on bat coronaviruses that has been taking place in Wuhan and the USA as “providing an evolutionary opportunity” for such viruses “to jump into humans”. Latham, who has a doctorate in virology, argues that this kind of work is simply “providing opportunities for contamination events and leakages from labs, which happen on a routine basis”.
Given that lab accidents are common, including in China where the SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities multiple times, the details emerging about the research activities of the WIV and US scientists again underline the need for a credible independent investigation of the most forensic kind into the origins of the current pandemic. And a broader investigation is also needed into the full range of biological threats arising from various areas of potentially hazardous but laxly regulated biotechnology research.
Notes
1. In the Nature Medicine letter, Andersen and colleagues didn’t actually look for – and fail to find – a “sign” or “signature” of genetic engineering, akin to a calling card left by a visitor. That’s no surprise, as they doubtless knew that such a search would have been futile. What they actually said was that if genetic engineering had been involved, the virus would be different from how it is: it would have been designed in a more “ideal” way for human infectivity, based on the predictions of their computer modelling system.
There are massive problems with this argument, as experts have pointed out. Computer modelling programs are only as good as the data that are put into them by humans, so it is not valid to assume that the program – or the humans that designed it – knows what an “ideal” virus would look like in real-world conditions.
The letter also stated that if someone were trying to engineer the virus as a pathogen, they would “probably” have constructed it from the backbone of a virus already known to be infective to humans (note that “probably” leaves plenty of wriggle room for alternative methods of constructing a virus). But it’s possible that if it was engineered from a backbone, it was one that is not known outside their research group. This is possible if secrecy were involved – for example, for bioweapons/biodefence research or commercial vaccine development. . . .
A laboratory in Wuhan is on the cusp of being cleared to work with the world’s most dangerous pathogens. The move is part of a plan to build between five and seven biosafety level‑4 (BSL‑4) labs across the Chinese mainland by 2025, and has generated much excitement, as well as some concerns.
Some scientists outside China worry about pathogens escaping, and the addition of a biological dimension to geopolitical tensions between China and other nations. But Chinese microbiologists are celebrating their entrance to the elite cadre empowered to wrestle with the world’s greatest biological threats.
“It will offer more opportunities for Chinese researchers, and our contribution on the BSL-4-level pathogens will benefit the world,” says George Gao, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology in Beijing. There are already two BSL‑4 labs in Taiwan, but the National Bio-safety Laboratory, Wuhan, would be the first on the Chinese mainland.
The lab was certified as meeting the standards and criteria of BSL‑4 by the China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS) in January. The CNAS examined the lab’s infrastructure, equipment and management, says a CNAS representative, paving the way for the Ministry of Health to give its approval. A representative from the ministry says it will move slowly and cautiously; if the assessment goes smoothly, it could approve the laboratory by the end of June.
BSL‑4 is the highest level of biocontainment: its criteria include filtering air and treating water and waste before they leave the laboratory, and stipulating that researchers change clothes and shower before and after using lab facilities. Such labs are often controversial. The first BSL‑4 lab in Japan was built in 1981, but operated with lower-risk pathogens until 2015, when safety concerns were finally overcome.
The expansion of BSL-4-lab networks in the United States and Europe over the past 15 years — with more than a dozen now in operation or under construction in each region — also met with resistance, including questions about the need for so many facilities.
The Wuhan lab cost 300 million yuan (US$44 million), and to allay safety concerns it was built far above the flood plain and with the capacity to withstand a magnitude‑7 earthquake, although the area has no history of strong earthquakes. It will focus on the control of emerging diseases, store purified viruses and act as a World Health Organization ‘reference laboratory’ linked to similar labs around the world. “It will be a key node in the global biosafety-lab network,” says lab director Yuan Zhiming.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences approved the construction of a BSL‑4 laboratory in 2003, and the epidemic of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) around the same time lent the project momentum. The lab was designed and constructed with French assistance as part of a 2004 cooperative agreement on the prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases. But the complexity of the project, China’s lack of experience, difficulty in maintaining funding and long government approval procedures meant that construction wasn’t finished until the end of 2014.
The lab’s first project will be to study the BSL‑3 pathogen that causes Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever: a deadly tick-borne virus that affects livestock across the world, includ-ing in northwest China, and that can jump to people.
Future plans include studying the pathogen that causes SARS, which also doesn’t require a BSL‑4 lab, before moving on to Ebola and the West African Lassa virus, which do. Some one million Chinese people work in Africa; the country needs to be ready for any eventuality, says Yuan. “Viruses don’t know borders.”
Gao travelled to Sierra Leone during the recent Ebola outbreak, allowing his team to report the speed with which the virus mutated into new strains (Y.-G. Tong et al. Nature 524,93–96; 2015). The Wuhan lab will give his group a chance to study how such viruses cause disease, and to develop treatments based on antibodies and small molecules, he says.
The opportunities for international collaboration, meanwhile, will aid the genetic analysis and epidemiology of emergent diseases. “The world is facing more new emerging viruses, and we need more contribution from China,” says Gao. In particular, the emergence of zoonotic viruses — those that jump to humans from animals, such as SARS or Ebola — is a concern, says Bruno Lina, director of the VirPath virology lab in Lyon, France.
Many staff from the Wuhan lab have been training at a BSL‑4 lab in Lyon, which some scientists find reassuring. And the facility has already carried out a test-run using a low-risk virus.
But worries surround the Chinese lab, too. The SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Tim Trevan, founder of CHROME Biosafety and Biosecurity Consulting in Damascus, Maryland, says that an open culture is important to keeping BSL‑4 labs safe, and he questions how easy this will be in China, where society emphasizes hierarchy. “Diversity of viewpoint, flat structures where everyone feels free to speak up and openness of information are important,” he says.
Yuan says that he has worked to address this issue with staff. “We tell them the most important thing is that they report what they have or haven’t done,” he says. And the lab’s international collaborations will increase openness. “Transparency is the basis of the lab,” he adds.
The plan to expand into a network heightens such concerns. One BSL‑4 lab in Harbin is already awaiting accreditation; the next two are expected to be in Beijing and Kunming, the latter focused on using monkey models to study disease.
Lina says that China’s size justifies this scale, and that the opportunity to combine BSL‑4 research with an abundance of research monkeys — Chinese researchers face less red tape than those in the West when it comes to research on primates — could be powerful. “If you want to test vaccines or antivirals, you need a non-human primate model,” says Lina.
But Ebright is not convinced of the need for more than one BSL‑4 lab in mainland China. He suspects that the expansion there is a reaction to the networks in the United States and Europe, which he says are also unwarranted. He adds that governments will assume that such excess capacity is for the potential development of bioweapons.
“These facilities are inherently dual use,” he says. The prospect of ramping up opportunities to inject monkeys with pathogens also worries, rather than excites, him: “They can run, they can scratch, they can bite.” . . . .
3. “High-Stakes Science” by Jeneen Interlandi; Newsweek; 12/05/2007.
. . . . Before the anthrax mailings of 2001, the United States had just two BSL4 labs—both within the razor-wire confines of government-owned campuses. Now, thanks to a tenfold increase in funding—from $200 million in 2001 to $2 billion in 2006—more than a dozen such facilities can be found at universities and private companies across the country. . . .
. . . . But some scientists say that argument obscures the true purpose of the current biodefense boom: to study potential biological weapons. “The university portrays it as an emerging infectious disease lab,” says David Ozonoff, a Boston University epidemiologist whose office is right across the street from the new BSL4 facility. “But they are talking about studying things like small pox and inhalation anthrax, which pose no public health threat other than as bioweapons.” And when it comes to terrorism, Ozonoff says, more labs will only increase the threat of an attack. “There has been one serious bioterror incident,” he says. “That was anthrax, and it came from a biodefense lab.” While the university has repeatedly stated that the new facility will not house bioweapons research, that might not be a promise it can keep. The original NIH mandate for the lab indicated that many groups—including the CIA and Department of Defense—would be allowed to use the lab for their own research, the nature of which BU might have little control over. . . .
4. Wuhan University School of Basic Medical Sciences: Institute of Medical Virology
. . . . Since the midst of 1980’s, cooperated with US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases . . .
. . . . .The director of the WIV, Wang Yanyi, told China Central Television last weekend that the new coronavirus is genetically different from any kind of live virus that has been studied at the institute. Prior to that, WIV virologist Shi Zhengli — who collects, samples, and studies coronaviruses in Chinese bats — told Scientific American that she cross-referenced the new coronavirus’ genome with the genetic information of other bat coronaviruses her team had collected. They didn’t find a match.
“That really took a load off my mind,” Shi said in March, adding, “I had not slept a wink for days.” . . .
At first and second glance, the reporting here is not syncing up.
Scientists trace 2002 Sars virus to colony of cave-dwelling bats in China
10 Dec 2017
Scientists have pinpointed a population of virus-infected bats, which they have linked to the mysterious outbreak of Sars disease 15 years ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/10/sars-virus-bats-china-severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome#maincontent
Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus
30 Nov 2017
However, these bat SARSr-CoVs show sequence differences from SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in different genes (S, ORF8, ORF3, etc) and are considered unlikely to represent the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV.
https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698
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Now, we need USDA livestock bills of sale to China corresponding with Trump’s so-called trade war.
Gotta do everything yourself these days.