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COMMENT: A pair of stories in The Wall Street Journal yield understanding of our media landscape and the degree of propagandizing of same.
Reportage about the WHO’s resumption of its inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic hasn’t received much coverage in the U.S.
What coverage there has been has–predictably–focused on the “lack of transparency/cooperation” by China in the probe.
(We reiterate that–at this point in time and sometime before–the Chinese response would have be governed by the disciplines warranted by a wartime investigation of an enemy attack. In this case, a U.S. biological warfare attack. Something of a “bio-Northwoods” operation.)
A remarkable aspect of the Journal’s coverage concerns a development that has been almost completely excised from the Western press: ” . . . . For months, China’s government has insisted both in public, and in private meetings with Dr. Tedros, that studies on the origins of the virus should now focus on other countries, such as Italy, or on a U.S. military bioresearch facility in Fort Detrick, Md. Dozens of governments aligned with China have sent Dr. Tedros letters in support of Beijing’s position, a person familiar with the letters said. . . .”
“Dozens of governments?” Which ones? This sounds like a major international dialogue/scandal.
WHY aren’t we hearing about it?
I think it affords us some perspective on just how carefully manicured the public perspective is in this country.
In another article in the same issue of the Journal, it was noted that Jeffrey Sachs is disbanding the scientific panel he oversaw on behalf of the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, due to the presence of EcoHealth Alliance chief Peter Daszak and several other members of the panel associated with the organization.
” . . . . Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs said he has disbanded a task force of scientists probing the origins of Covid-19 in favor of wider bio-safety research. Dr. Sachs, chairman of a Covid-19 commission affiliated with The Lancet scientific journals, said he closed the task force because he was concerned about its links to EcoHealth Alliance. . . . EcoHealth Alliance’s president, Peter Daszak, led the task force until recusing himself from that role in June. Some other members of the task force have collaborated with Dr. Daszak or EcoHealth Alliance on projects. . . . .”
EcoHealth Alliance has been heavily involved in coronavirus research–including gain-of-function work–at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We have noted that the DARPA has been heavily involved with that category of research.
As noted in past programs and discussion, the EcoHealth Alliance is funded primarily by the Department of Defense and USAID, a State Department subsidiary that has often served as a cover for CIA operations. One of the principal advisers of the organization is David Franz, the former commanding officer of Fort Detrick.
Worth noting is that Jeffrey Sachs–an American economics professor–was tabbed to select those personnel to serve on a panel of experts assembled under the auspices of The Lancet–a British medical journal.
In addition to his role advising both Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sachs headed the U.S. government-funded Harvard University consortium that advised Boris Yeltsin and, in the process, drove Russia back to the stone age.
In Russia, it is widely believed that Sachs work for the CIA–a theory that is bolstered by his pivotal role in managing the narrative concerning the origins of the pandemic.
We have done many programs underscoring our working hypothesis that Covid-19 is a biological warfare weapon, developed by the U.S. and deployed as part of the destabilization program against China we have covered since the fall of 2019.
(Some of those programs are: FTR#‘s 1157, 1158, 1159, 1170 and FTR#‘s 1183 through 1193, inclusive.)
The World Health Organization is reviving its stalled investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 virus as agency officials warn that time is running out to determine how the pandemic that has killed more than 4.7 million worldwide began. . . .
. . . . Biden administration officials, including Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, have pressed WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus publicly and privately to renew the inquiry, which is likely to include at least one American. . . .
. . . . In a press conference in August, WHO officials said they were aware of new studies being conducted in China, but weren’t informed about the specifics. It isn’t clear if those studies will be made available to the new team.
For months, China’s government has insisted both in public, and in private meetings with Dr. Tedros, that studies on the origins of the virus should now focus on other countries, such as Italy, or on a U.S. military bioresearch facility in Fort Detrick, Md. Dozens of governments aligned with China have sent Dr. Tedros letters in support of Beijing’s position, a person familiar with the letters said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institutes of Infectious Diseases didn’t respond to requests for comment. Few, if any, scientists outside China see the military base as a plausible ground zero for the pandemic. Dr. Tedros has resisted the idea of investigating Fort Detrick, a person with knowledge of those conversations said. . . .
NB: A much longer version of this story appears in the online edition of WSJ. The text below was in a small, “box” story alongside the story above.
Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs said he has disbanded a task force of scientists probing the origins of Covid-19 in favor of wider bio-safety research.
Dr. Sachs, chairman of a Covid-19 commission affiliated with The Lancet scientific journals, said he closed the task force because he was concerned about its links to EcoHealth Alliance. The New York-based non-profit has been under scrutiny from some scientists, members of Congress and other officials since 2020 for using U.S. funds for studies on bat coronaviruses with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research facility in the Chinese city where the first Covid-19 outbreak occurred.
EcoHealth Alliance’s president, Peter Daszak, led the task force until recusing himself from that role in June. Some other members of the task force have collaborated with Dr. Daszak or EcoHealth Alliance on projects.
“I just didn’t want a task force that was so clearly involved with one of the main issues of this whole search for the origins, which was EcoHealth Alliance,” Dr. Sachs said.
This next October 8, 2021 Dailymail article by Charlotte Mitchell reveals that a in 2018 grant application submitted by Peter Daszak EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the University of North Carolina and Duke NUS in Singapore, to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) revealed that an international team of scientists had planned to mix genetic data of similar strains to create a new virus.
Also, mentioned in this article, is that the University of North Carolina is where Professor Dr. Ralph S. Baric works for the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
As background, in 2014, the National Health Institute (NIH) approved a five-year, yearly grant of $666,000 a year for five years ($3.3million) for EcoHealth Alliance, a US research organization, into bat coronavirus.
Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, reviewed papers and concluded that scientists performed ‘the construction — in Wuhan — of novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses that combined a spike gene from one coronavirus with genetic information from another coronavirus and confirmed the resulting viruses could infect human cells’. He consequently tweeted that assertions ‘by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are untruthful,’
Remember that Peter Daszak, in March 7, 2020 orchestrated the publication of a letter that condemned conspiracy theories’ surrounding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. 26 of the 27 signatures had unreported links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and they including Mr. Daszak had conflict of interest through him being president of the US-based EcoHealth Alliance, which has funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology which would indicates a lack of impartiality from them. This letter discredited a prestigious publication, The Lancet.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9980015/26-Lancet-scientists-trashed-theory-Covid-leaked-Chinese-lab-links-Wuhan.html
An unanswered question is why the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology would submit this proposal to DARPA.
Here is the October 8, 2021 Dailymail article by Charlotte Mitchell:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9980015/26-Lancet-scientists-trashed-theory-Covid-leaked-Chinese-lab-links-Wuhan.html
Wuhan scientists and US researchers planned to create a new coronavirus in 2018: Consortium led by Brit Peter Daszak asked DARPA to fund research at lab in city where Covid pandemic began
¥ A 2018 grant proposal sought to combine data from similar strains for new virus
¥ It was submitted by scientists from US, China and Singapore, but was rejected
¥ A genetics expert from the WHO told The Telegraph that such work could explain why a close ancestor for Covid-19 has yet to be found in nature
¥ The Wuhan Institute of Virology has consistently denied creating Covid-19
By CHARLOTTE MITCHELL FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 18:08 EDT, 5 October 2021 | UPDATED: 21:59 EDT, 5 October 2021
US and Chinese scientists were planning to create a new coronavirus before the pandemic erupted, leaked proposals show.
Last month, a grant application submitted to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) revealed that an international team of scientists had planned to mix genetic data of similar strains to create a new virus.
The grant application was made in 2018 and leaked to Drastic, the pandemic origins analysis group.
‘We will compile sequence/RNAseq data from a panel of closely related strains and compare full length genomes, scanning for unique SNPs representing sequencing errors.
‘Consensus candidate genomes will be synthesised commercially using established techniques and genome-length RNA and electroporation to recover recombinant viruses,’ the application states.
Photo Caption: US and Chinese scientists were planning to create a new coronavirus before the pandemic erupted, leaked proposals show. Pictured: The Wuhan Institute of Virology, whose scientists were involved in a grant proposal for the research
US and Chinese scientists were planning to create a new coronavirus before the pandemic erupted, leaked proposals show. Pictured: The Wuhan Institute of Virology, whose scientists were involved in a grant proposal for the research
This would result in a virus which had no clear ancestor in nature, a World Health Organization (WHO) expert told The Telegraph.
The expert, who asked the paper not to publish their name, said that, if such a method had been carried out, it could explain why no close match has ever been found in nature for Sars-CoV‑2.
The closest naturally occurring virus is the Banal-52 strain, reported in Laos last month. It shares 96.8 per cent of Covid-19’s genome.
No direct ancestor, which would be expected share around 99.98 per cent, has been found so far.
The WHO expert told The Telegraph that the process detailed in the application would create ‘a new virus sequence, not a 100 per cent match to anything.’
‘They would then synthesise the viral genome from the computer sequence, thus creating a virus genome that did not exist in nature but looks natural as it is the average of natural viruses.
‘Then they put that RNA in a cell and recover the virus from it.
‘This creates a virus that has never existed in nature, with a new ‘backbone’ that didn’t exist in nature but is very, very similar as it’s the average of natural backbones,’ the expert said.
The proposal was rejected and the database of viral strains at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was taken offline some 18 months later, making it impossible to check what scientists there were working on.
The institute’s scientists have consistently denied creating the coronavirus in their lab.
The grant application proposal was submitted by British zoologist Peter Daszak on behalf of a group, which included Daszak EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the University of North Carolina and Duke NUS in Singapore, The Telegraph reported.
Photo Caption: The grant application proposal was submitted by British zoologist Peter Daszak on behalf of a group, which included Daszak EcoHealth Alliance
Experts told the paper that creating an ‘ideal’ average virus could have been part of work to create a vaccine that works across coronaviruses.
Last month, it emerged that the US had funded similar research to that outlined in the 2018 grant proposal.
Files obtained by The Intercept as part of an FOI request to drill down the possible root of COVID and whether the US had any role in it showed that in 2014, the National Health Institute (NIH) approved a five-year, yearly grant of $666,000 a year for five years ($3.3million) for EcoHealth Alliance, a US research organization, into bat coronavirus.
EcoHealth Alliance, in its proposal to the NIH, acknowledged the risks involved were ‘the highest risk of exposure to SARS or other CoVs’ among staff, who could then carry it out of the lab.
The NIH gave them the money anyway — something Dr Anthony Fauci was previously forced to admit when testifying before Congress in May this year. EcoHealth Alliance then gave $599,000 of the money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
At the time and repeatedly since, Fauci has denied that the research constituted what’s known as ‘gain-of-function’ research.
Gain-of-function research is the scientific term given to research that deliberately changes an organism to make give it new functions in order to test a theory.
When applies to studying human viruses, it can mean making the virus more transmissible and or even deadly in order to test what can and can’t survive it.
‘The documents make it clear that assertions by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are untruthful,’ Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, tweeted.
Ebright studied the papers and alleged that the scientists performed ‘the construction — in Wuhan — of novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses that combined a spike gene from one coronavirus with genetic information from another coronavirus and confirmed the resulting viruses could infect human cells’.
The BBC News on August 2, 2021, Reality Fact Check Team published an article clarifies that Ralph Baric was involved in Gain of Function (GOF) Research which was stopped in 2014 under the Obama Administration. Though Senator Rand Paul whose right wing ideology (as well as his fathers) can be questioned, indicates that he believes it was GOF research.
A US researcher and biologist Alina Chan at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard indicates that if the research was not reasonably anticipated to result in GOF research despite its end result it would not be defined as GOF research.
One could then ascertain that using that standard, Dr. Baric or Dr. Fauci could legally claim was not deemed to be GOF research but this analysis could potentially be subject to manipulation and interpretation with certain situations.
https://www.bbc.com/news/57932699
Coronavirus: Was US money used to fund risky research in China?
2 August
By Reality Check team
BBC News
As the debate continues over the origins of the coronavirus, a heated political battle is taking place over virus research carried out in China using US funds.
It’s linked to the unproven theory that the virus could have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where it was first detected.
A report released by Republican lawmakers cites “ample evidence” that the lab was working to modify coronaviruses to infect humans and calls for a bipartisan investigation into its origins.
Republican Senator Rand Paul also alleges that US money was used to fund research there that made some viruses more infectious and more deadly, a process known as “gain-of-function”.
But this has been firmly rejected by Dr Anthony Fauci, the US infectious diseases chief.
What is ‘gain-of-function’ research?
“Gain-of-function” is when an organism develops new abilities (or “functions”).
This can happen in nature, or it can be achieved in a lab, when scientists modify the genetic code or place organisms in different environments, to change them in some way.
For example, this might involve scientists trying to create drought-resistant plants or modify disease vectors in mosquitoes to make them less likely to pass on infections.
With viruses that could pose a risk to human health, it means developing viruses that are potentially more transmissible and dangerous.
Scientists justify the potential risks by saying the research can help prepare for future outbreaks and pandemics by understanding how viruses evolve, and therefore develop better treatments and vaccines.
Did the US fund virus research in China?
Yes, it did contribute some funds.
Dr Fauci, as well as being an adviser to President Biden, is the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the US government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH).
This body did give money to an organisation that collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
That organisation — the US-based EcoHealth Alliance — was awarded a grant in 2014 to look into possible coronaviruses from bats.
EcoHealth received $3.7m from the NIH, $600,000 of which was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In 2019, its project was renewed for another five years, but then pulled by the Trump administration in April 2020 following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
Was US money used for ‘gain-of-function’ studies?
In May, Dr Fauci stated that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology”.
Senator Rand Paul asked Dr Fauci if he wanted to retract that statement, saying: “As you are aware it is a crime to lie to Congress.”
Senator Paul believes the research did qualify as “gain-of-function” research, and referred to two academic papers by the Chinese institute, one from 2015 (written together with the University of North Carolina), and another from 2017.
One prominent scientist supporting this view — and quoted by Senator Paul — is Prof Richard Ebright of Rutgers University.
He told the BBC that the research in both papers showed that new viruses (that did not already exist naturally) were created, and these “risked creating new potential pathogens” that were more infectious.
“The research in both papers was gain-of-function research”, he said.
He added that it met the official definition of such research outlined in 2014 when the US government halted funding for such activities due to biosafety concerns.
The funding was paused to allow a new framework to be drawn up for such research.
Why does Dr Fauci reject this charge?
Dr Fauci told the Senate hearing the research in question “has been evaluated multiple times by qualified people to not fall under the gain-of-function definition”.
He also said it was “molecularly impossible” for these viruses to have resulted in the coronavirus, although he did not elaborate.
The NIH and EcoHealth Alliance have also rejected suggestions they supported or funded “gain-of-function” research in China.
They say they funded a project to examine “at the molecular level” newly-discovered bat viruses and their spike proteins (which help the virus bind to living cells) “without affecting the environment or development or physiological state of the organism”.
One of the US scientists who collaborated on the 2015 research on bat viruses with the Wuhan institute, Dr Ralph Baric from the University of North Carolina, gave a detailed statement to the Washington Post.
He said the work they did was reviewed by both the NIH and the university’s own biosafety committee “for potential of gain-of-function research and were deemed not to be gain-of-function”.
He also says that none of the viruses which were the subject of the 2015 study are related to Sars-Cov‑2, which caused the pandemic in 2020.
He does acknowledge that the work they carried out showed the viruses had “intrinsic properties” giving them the ability to infect humans.
But he adds: “We never introduced mutations into [the virus] spike to enhance growth in human cells.”
US researcher and biologist Alina Chan at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has highlighted issues with the wording of the government’s pause to funding in 2014.
It says that it would stop funding research that “may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route.”
This could imply that research on viruses may not intend to produce “gain-of-function”, although that could be the end result of it.
A more general point is that any evaluation of research and the risks involved can be subjective.
Rebecca Moritz of Colorado State University told the BBC: “There is not always consensus [on gain-of-function research] even amongst experts, and institutions interpret and apply policy differently.”