Spitfire List | COVID-19

Latest on Patreon Site: The 9/11 “Truthers,” Covid, China’s Economy

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ January 21, 2023 ⋅ Post a comment

On Mr. Emory’s Patreon site, the most recent one hour talks include: Debunking of the “controlled demolition” disinformation with regard to the 9/11 attacks; the O.J. Simpson case and the assassination of Martin Luther King, as well as Covid-19 and the Chinese economy post “Zero Covid.” Dr. Jeffrey Sachs “pretty convinced” Covid came from a U.S. Bio-Lab. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE. Mr. Emory emphatically recommends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash drive containing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fascist books on easy-to-download PDF files.

FTR#1277 and FTR#1278 Pandemics, Inc., Parts 9 and 10

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ December 28, 2022 ⋅ One comment

Focusing primarily on an extremely ominous development, these programs set forth a new “War on Cancer,” launched by the Biden administration. The primary rationale for the development of a new federal agency, this new organization appears to be a medical/scientific iteration of DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Ominously, it may well be the successor to Richard Nixon’s “War on Cancer,” which did not defeat cancer, but did serve as the apparent platform for the development of biological warfare weapons, AIDS in particular.

The Third Reich’s biological warfare program was masked as a cancer research facility.

Modeled after DARPA, headed by a DARPA alumna whose CV intersects with that Agency’s apparent involvement with the development of Covid-19 and with an acting director who is also a former employee of that benighted organization, this new “health agency–ARPA‑H”, this agency will employ new, synthetic biology technology.

Although that development is represented as humanitarian, the structure of the agency and the national security backgrounds of its leading personnel suggest strongly that this agency, too, will serve as a clandestine platform for the next generation of biological weaponry.
The second program begins with a signature point of information—a brief Twitter video of Professor Jeffrey Sachs opining that SARS Cov‑2 originated from a U.S. biological laboratory. His frankly obligatory qualification that it was a “blunder” is best understood as “business as usual” for a relatively high-profile public figure.

Were he to say otherwise, he would be subject to retribution, possibly deadly.

As it is now, he will simply be ignored.

Points of Discussion and Analysis Include: An update on Philip Zelikow’s overlapping roles in the 9/11 “investigation,” the realization of PNAC’s defense recommendations, as well as the “inquiry” into Covid-19; Review of Peter Thiel’s and Trump’s apparently successful attempt at kneecapping the FDA; The numerous CIA and reactionary links to the development of Moderna’s mRNA Omicron booster; A jellyfish whose genome may very well yield information for a synthetic biology/life extension eugenic manifestation of interest to “Team Thiel;” The career of Anthony Fauci and its “bookends”–AIDS and Covid-19.

FTR#1258 Pandemics, Inc., Part 8: Covid Update

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ September 6, 2022 ⋅ 6 comments

You can subscribe to RSS feed from Spitfirelist.com HERE. You can subscribe to the comments made on programs and posts–an excellent source of information in, and of, itself, HERE. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE. Mr. Emory’s entire life’s work is available on a 32GB flash drive, available for a contribution […]

FTR#1257 Pandemics, Inc., Part 7 (Too Much Monkeypox Business)

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ August 22, 2022 ⋅ One comment

This program continues discussion and analysis of the consortium of EcoHealth Analysis, Metabiota, In-Q-Tel and Munich Re–an association inextricably linked with biological warfare and generation of the Covid-19 pandemic.

First, we review the fact that Metabiota–which uses AI and social media scraping (among other tools) to gauge the “fear factor” involved with pandemic readiness (and the associated pandemic insurance policies)–was gauging the fear factor for monkey pox, which had manifested some human infections in the Congo as “low.”

This was in early 2020. Now, the disease is on the “front burner,” so to speak. People are afraid of the “new pandemic.”

Despite only 306 documented cases in the U.S. (as of 6/28/2022), hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses are being readied for human use.

The disease bears an epidemiological similarity to AIDS: an African monkey virus infecting gay males with multiple sex partners.

In addition, we review an excerpting of an op-ed column by Scott Gottlieb, the head of the FDA under Trump, a member of the conservative American Enterprise Institute and a member of the board of directors of Pfizer.

He notes that the new agency created by Biden to deal with monkeypox and other emerging infections was formerly: ” . . . . an office inside ‌the Department of Health and Human Services that is charged with coordinating the federal response to bioterrorism . . . .”

Media coverage of the outbreak characterizes monkeypox as a disease afflicting primarily gay males with multiple sex partners–similar to the epidemiology of the early AIDS outbreak.

Much of the broadcast consists of information indicating the possibility of airborne transmission of monkeypox. NB: Mr. Emory cannot comment definitely on this possibility–he presents this analysis to note the possibility.

We conclude that children have contracted the disease, without engaging in the behavior associated with the spread of monkeypox, although this is apparently quite rare.

FTR#1256 Pandemics Inc., Part 6

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ August 14, 2022 ⋅ Post a comment

By way of introduction, we present a link to a short Twitter video by Professor Jeffrey Sachs.

NB: The information in this program and accompanying description is largely a recap of material presented in the first five programs in this series. It is repeated and presented in a different order in the audio file.

This repetition is due to: A) the highly technical nature of much of the discussion of the viral composition of SARS CoV‑2 and related viruses and B) the tremendous significance of this information.

Continuing analysis of a frightening consortium of institutions apparently linked to the deliberate genesis of Covid-19, this program reiterates elements of analysis from FTR#‘s 1254 & 1255, presenting the information in a different sequence for increased understanding and retention.

Those institutions are: EcoHealth Alliance, Metabiota, In-Q-Tel and Munich Reinsurance.

Taken together, a number of points of information highlighted here go a long way to proving the legal concept of “consciousness of guilt,” the guilt being intent to create the pandemic and knowledge that such a thing was done.

(The information presented here should be taken in conjunction with information presented in–among other programs–FTR#‘s 1251, 1252 and 1253. In turn, those programs are developments of documentation presented in our many programs about Covid-19.)

Of paramount importance in evaluating the material here and in the other broadcasts about Covid-19 is the development of synthetic biology and the manner in which it enables biological warfare: “ . . . Advances in the area mean that scientists now have the capability to recreate dangerous viruses from scratch; make harmful bacteria more deadly; and modify common microbes so that they churn out lethal toxins once they enter the body. . . In the report, the scientists describe how synthetic biology, which gives researchers precision tools to manipulate living organisms, ‘enhances and expands’ opportunities to create bioweapons. . . . Today, the genetic code of almost any mammalian virus can be found online and synthesised. ‘The technology to do this is available now,’ said [Michael] Imperiale. “It requires some expertise, but it’s something that’s relatively easy to do, and that is why it tops the list. . . .”

Going a long way toward proving consciousness of guilt are:

1.–The behavior of Peter Daszak and colleagues in “gaming” the Lancet statement on the “natural” origin of the coronavirus (Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance–funded and advised by the national security establishment–is implicated in the creation of the SARS COV‑2.)
2.–The reaction of government officials to Trump administration officials into the origins of the virus, advising would be investigators that such inquiries would open a “can of worms,” or “a Pandora’s Box” because it would should light on U.S. funding of the projects.
3.–Metabiota–partnered with EcoHealth Alliance–was networked with In-Q-Tel (the intelligence community’s venture capital arm) and Munich Re to provide pandemic insurance. Their 2018 business model directly foreshadowed the pandemic. In 2018, as well, EcoHealth Alliance proposed a “novel coronavirus” for synthesis by DARPA. Although there is no evidence that DARPA synthesized the virus, the U.S. did synthesize closely related viruses. With the genome of that novel virus having been published, it may well have been synthesized either by DARPA or someone else, given the contemporary technology. Again, this, also was in 2018.
4.–Many aspects of the SARS COV‑2 virus, including its curious FCS site and institutionalized obfuscation of aspects of the pandemic it caused suggest deliberate cover-up. Why would the NIH redact 290 pages of a document requested by an FOIA suit!! Why were sequences of bat coronavirus genomes removed from public view?

It’s remarkable just how damning our beginning article is.

Co-author of the letter to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and former chairman of the Lancet’s commission on the origins of the pandemic, Sachs is someone in a position to bring real public attention to this topic, if he chooses to do so. The authors make a compelling case for an independent investigation, and who would be in a better position than Sachs to make this case publicly after he disbanded his Lancet Commission over these kinds of concerns? That’s all part of what is going to make this a story to watch.

This article has some remarkable points of information to be considered and it is altogether welcome and important that someone of Dr. Sachs’ high professional profile and prestige has come forward:

1.–“ . . . . The NIH could say more about the possible role of its grantees in the emergence of SARS-CoV‑2, yet the agency has failed to reveal to the public the possibility that SARS-CoV‑2 emerged from a research-associated event, even though several researchers raised that concern on February 1, 2020, in a phone conversation that was documented by email (5). Those emails were released to the public only through FOIA, and they suggest that the NIH leadership took an early and active role in promoting the ‘zoonotic hypothesis’ and the rejection of the laboratory-associated hypothesis. . . .”
2.–“ . . . . The NIH has resisted the release of important evidence, such as the grant proposals and project reports of EHA, and has continued to redact materials released under FOIA, including a remarkable 290-page redaction in a recent FOIA release. . . .”
3.–“ . . . . Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak testified before Congress that several such sequences in a US database were removed from public view. . . .”
4.–“ . . . . Special concerns surround the presence of an unusual furin cleavage site (FCS) in SARS-CoV‑2 (10) that augments the pathogenicity and transmissibility of the virus relative to related viruses like SARS-CoV‑1 (11, 12). SARS-CoV‑2 is, to date, the only identified member of the subgenus sarbecovirus that contains an FCS, although these are present in other coronaviruses (13, 14). A portion of the sequence of the spike protein of some of these viruses is illustrated in the alignment shown in Fig. 1, illustrating the unusual nature of the FCS and its apparent insertion in SARS-CoV‑2 (15).From the first weeks after the genome sequence of SARS-CoV‑2 became available, researchers have commented on the unexpected presence of the FCS within SARS-CoV‑2—the implication being that SARS-CoV‑2 might be a product of laboratory manipulation. In a review piece arguing against this possibility, it was asserted that the amino acid sequence of the FCS in SARS-CoV‑2 is an unusual, nonstandard sequence for an FCS and that nobody in a laboratory would design such a novel FCS (13). . . .”
5.–“ . . . . In fact, the assertion that the FCS in SARS-CoV‑2 has an unusual, nonstandard amino acid sequence is false. . . . (The one non-human non-great ape species with the same sequence is Pipistrellus kuhlii, a bat species found in Europe and Western Asia; other bat species, including Rhinolophus ferrumequinem, have a different FCS sequence in ENaC a [RKAR’SAAS]). . . .”
5.–“ . . . . We do know that the insertion of such FCS sequences into SARS-like viruses was a specific goal of work proposed by the EHA-WIV-UNC partnership within a 2018 grant proposal (“DEFUSE”) that was submitted to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (25).The 2018 proposal to DARPA was not funded, but we do not know whether some of the proposed work was subsequently carried out in 2018 or 2019, perhaps using another source of funding. . . .”
6.–“ . . . . We also know that that this research team would be familiar with several previous experiments involving the successful insertion of an FCS sequence into SARS-CoV‑1 (26) and other coronaviruses, and they had a lot of experience in construction of chimeric SARS-like viruses (27–29). In addition, the research team would also have some familiarity with the FCS sequence and the FCS-dependent activation mechanism of human ENaC (19), which was extensively characterized at UNC (17, 18).For a research team assessing the pandemic potential of SARS-related coronaviruses, the FCS of human ENaC—an FCS known to be efficiently cleaved by host furin present in the target location (epithelial cells) of an important target organ (lung), of the target organism (human)—might be a rational, if not obvious, choice of FCS to introduce into a virus to alter its infectivity, in line with other work performed previously. . . .”
7.–“ . . . . Of course, the molecular mimicry of ENaC within the SARS-CoV‑2 spike protein might be a mere coincidence, although one with a very low probability. The exact FCS sequence present in SARS-CoV‑2 has recently been introduced into the spike protein of SARS-CoV‑1 in the laboratory, in an elegant series of experiments (12, 30), with predictable consequences in terms of enhanced viral transmissibility and pathogenicity. Obviously, the creation of such SARS‑1/2 “chimeras” is an area of some concern for those responsible for present and future regulation of this area of biology. . . .”
8.–“ . . . . Information now held by the research team headed by EHA (7), as well as the communications of that research team with US research funding agencies, including NIH, USAID, DARPA, DTRA, and the Department of Homeland Security, could shed considerable light on the experiments undertaken by the US-funded research team and on the possible relationship, if any, between those experiments and the emergence of SARS-CoV‑2. . . .”

Recapping information from our “Oswald Institute of Virology” series, we note that Trump officials who were looking to tout the Chinese “lab-leak” hypothesis were told to avoid the topic, lest it create problems for the U.S.

Note, as well, that both Peter Daszak and Ralph Baric, associated with EcoHealth Alliance, were engaged in dubious maneuvering to eclipse attention on the possible U.S. sponsorship of the SARS COV‑2 gain-of-function manipulations.

1.–” . . . . It soon emerged, based on emails obtained by a Freedom of Information group called U.S. Right to Know, that Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific unanimity. . . .”
2.–” . . . . In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it. . . . because it would ‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.’. . .”
3.–” . . . . As the group probed the lab-leak scenario, among other possibilities, its members were repeatedly advised not to open a ‘Pandora’s box,’ said four former State Department officials interviewed by Vanity Fair. The admonitions ‘smelled like a cover-up,’ said Thomas DiNanno . . . .”

Next, the program reviews an excerpting of a “Wired” Magazine article about the Metabiota/Munich Reinsurance project.

Bear in mind that In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA and the intelligence community, is greasing the wheels of this project with financing.

We highlight two key points of information:

1.–The business success of the pandemic insurance would necessarily incorporate analysis of the “fear factor” of potential pandemic pathogens: ” . . . . As sophisticated as Metabiota’s system was, however, it would need to be even more refined to incorporate into an insurance policy. The model would need to capture something much more difficult to quantify than historical deaths and medical stockpiles: fear. The economic consequences of a scourge, the historical data showed, were as much a result of society’s response as they were to the virus itself. . . . The Sentiment Index was built to be, as Oppenheim put it, ‘a catalog of dread.’ For any given pathogen, it could spit out a score from 0 to 100 according to how frightening the public would find it. . . . Madhav and her team, along with Wolfe and Oppenheim, also researched the broader economic consequences of disease outbreaks, measured in the ‘cost per death prevented’ incurred by societal interventions. ‘Measures that decreased person-to-person contact, including social distancing, quarantine, and school closures, had the greatest cost per death prevented, most likely because of the amount of economic disruption caused by those measures,’ they wrote in a 2018 paper. . . .”
2.–More sinister, still, is the fact that Metabiota had analyzed the scenario of a novel coronavirus pandemic two years before it happened. This appears to be the 2018 paper referred to above. Do not fail to note that, at the time that Metabiota was running this scenario, they were partnered with EcoHealth Alliance, which was using Pentagon and USAID money to research and perform gain-of-function on these types of coronaviruses!! ” . . . . As the human and economic devastation multiplied in tandem across the globe, Metabiota’s employees suddenly found themselves living inside their own model’s projections. Just two years earlier, the company had run a large set of scenarios forecasting the consequences of a novel coronavirus spreading around the globe. . . .”

Pivoting to a another interesting, emerging disease that was a point of interest for Metabiota, we open a discussion of monkey pox, a disease that will be more completely discussed in the next program.

Metabiota was evaluating monkeypox in late 2019: ” . . . . it rated this risk for the monkeypox virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (where there have been reported cases of that virus) as ‘medium.’ . . .”

We conclude this program with an excerpting of an op-ed column by Scott Gottlieb, the head of the FDA under Trump, a member of the conservative American Enterprise Institute and a member of the board of directors of Pfizer.

He notes that the new agency created by Biden to deal with monkeypox and other emerging infections was formerly: ” . . . . an office inside ‌the Department of Health and Human Services that is charged with coordinating the federal response to bioterrorism . . . .”

FTR#‘s 1254 & 1255 Pandemics, Inc., Parts 4 and 5

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ July 27, 2022 ⋅ One comment

This program further develops the consortium of EcoHealth Alliance, Metabiota, In-Q-Tel and Munich Reinsurance.

By way of introduction, we present a link to a short Twitter video by Professor Jeffrey Sachs.

Taken together, a number of points of information highlighted here go a long way to proving the legal concept of “consciousness of guilt,” the guilt being intent to create the pandemic and knowledge that such a thing was done.

(The information presented here should be taken in conjunction with information presented in–among other programs–FTR#‘s 1251, 1252 and 1253. In turn, those programs are developments of documentation presented in our many programs about Covid-19.)

Of paramount importance in evaluating the material here and in the other broadcasts about Covid-19 is the development of synthetic biology and the manner in which it enables biological warfare: “ . . . Advances in the area mean that scientists now have the capability to recreate dangerous viruses from scratch; make harmful bacteria more deadly; and modify common microbes so that they churn out lethal toxins once they enter the body. . . In the report, the scientists describe how synthetic biology, which gives researchers precision tools to manipulate living organisms, ‘enhances and expands’ opportunities to create bioweapons. . . . Today, the genetic code of almost any mammalian virus can be found online and synthesised. ‘The technology to do this is available now,’ said [Michael] Imperiale. “It requires some expertise, but it’s something that’s relatively easy to do, and that is why it tops the list. . . .”

Going a long way toward proving consciousness of guilt are:

1.–The behavior of Peter Daszak and colleagues in “gaming” the Lancet statement on the “natural” origin of the coronavirus (Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance–funded and advised by the national security establishment–is implicated in the creation of the SARS COV‑2.)
2.–The reaction of government officials to Trump administration officials into the origins of the virus, advising would be investigators that such inquiries would open a “can of worms,” or “a Pandora’s Box” because it would should light on U.S. funding of the projects.
3.–Metabiota–partnered with EcoHealth Alliance–was networked with In-Q-Tel (the intelligence community’s venture capital arm) and Munich Re to provide pandemic insurance. Their 2018 business model directly foreshadowed the pandemic. In 2018, as well, EcoHealth Alliance proposed a “novel coronavirus” for synthesis by DARPA. Although there is no evidence that DARPA synthesized the virus, the U.S. did synthesize closely related viruses. With the genome of that novel virus having been published, it may well have been synthesized either by DARPA or someone else, given the contemporary technology. Again, this, also was in 2018.
4.–Many aspects of the SARS COV‑2 virus, including its curious FCS site and institutionalized obfuscation of aspects of the pandemic it caused suggest deliberate cover-up. Why would the NIH redact 290 pages of a document requested by an FOIA suit!! Why were sequences of bat coronavirus genomes removed from public view?

We begin by noting the OUN/B affiliation of Ulana Suprun, who was the Ukrainian Minister of Health from 2016 until2019, placing her very much “in the mix” with Andrew C. Weber and the Metabiota, EcoHealth Alliance and Munich Re consortium.

” . . . . Suprun is the husband of the Ukrainian American Ulana Suprun, a prominent Bandera enthusiast with ties to the Ukrainian far-right who served as the Healthcare Minister of Ukraine from July 2016 through August 2019. . . .”

We can confidently conclude that Metabiota founder NathanWolfe was in Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit.

We include a link to an excellent Covert Action Magazine article about Epstein and his myriad intelligence connections for the convenience of the listener and requisite background information.

Recapping information from our “Oswald Institute of Virology” series, we note that Trump officials who were looking to tout the Chinese “lab-leak” hypothesis were told to avoid the topic, lest it create problems for the U.S.

Note, as well, that both Peter Daszak and Ralph Baric, associated with EcoHealth Alliance, were engaged in dubious maneuvering to eclipse attention on the possible U.S. sponsorship of the SARS COV‑2 gain-of-function manipulations.

1.–” . . . . It soon emerged, based on emails obtained by a Freedom of Information group called U.S. Right to Know, that Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific unanimity. . . .”
2.–” . . . . In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it. . . . because it would ‘‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.’. . .”
3.–” . . . . As the group probed the lab-leak scenario, among other possibilities, its members were repeatedly advised not to open a ‘Pandora’s box,’ said four former State Department officials interviewed by Vanity Fair. The admonitions ‘smelled like a cover-up,’ said Thomas DiNanno . . . .”

In our exhaustive series on the Covid-19 pandemic, we have presented overwhelming evidence that the SARS CoV‑2 was synthesized in a U.S. lab.

Having chaired a Lancet commission to investigate the origins of SARS CoV‑2, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs is “pretty convinced” that the virus came from a U.S. laboratory.

He opines that it was a “blunder.”

Although we believe Covid-19 was a biological warfare attack, we are greatly encouraged that someone of Sachs’ stature has come forward in this regard.

In many past programs, we have highlighted institutions implicated in the apparent “bio-skullduggery” surrounding the U.S. biological warfare gambit involving what Mr. Emory has termed “The Oswald Institute of Virology.” This is discussed in: FTR#‘s 1157–1159, 1170, 1183 through 1193, and 1215.

The essence of the “Oswald Institute of Virology” gambit concerns the DTRA and Pentagon funding of bat-borne coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, much of it through Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance. Once the research was complete, it resulted in publication which included the genome of the bat viruses being researched. Using technology discussed above (in the Guardian article), the viruses were then synthesized from scratch and population groups were vectored with the same viral strains being researched by the WIV.

Dr. Sachs’ ruminations about a U.S. biological laboratory origin of SARS-CoV‑2 are fleshed out in an interview–featured on his website–with the Tehran Times.

Note that he continues to opine that the release was a “blunder” and that it did not result from biological warfare research. Again, this is modified limited hangout.

Next, the program reviews an excerpting of a Wired Magazine article about the Metabiota/Munich Reinsurance project.

Bear in mind that In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA and the intelligence community, is greasing the wheels of this project with financing.

We highlight two key points of information:

1.–The business success of the pandemic insurance would necessarily incorporate analysis of the “fear factor” of potential pandemic pathogens: ” . . . . As sophisticated as Metabiota’s system was, however, it would need to be even more refined to incorporate into an insurance policy. The model would need to capture something much more difficult to quantify than historical deaths and medical stockpiles: fear. The economic consequences of a scourge, the historical data showed, were as much a result of society’s response as they were to the virus itself. . . . The Sentiment Index was built to be, as Oppenheim put it, ‘a catalog of dread.’ For any given pathogen, it could spit out a score from 0 to 100 according to how frightening the public would find it. . . . Madhav and her team, along with Wolfe and Oppenheim, also researched the broader economic consequences of disease outbreaks, measured in the ‘cost per death prevented’ incurred by societal interventions. ‘Measures that decreased person-to-person contact, including social distancing, quarantine, and school closures, had the greatest cost per death prevented, most likely because of the amount of economic disruption caused by those measures,’ they wrote in a 2018 paper. . . .”
2.–More sinister, still, is the fact that Metabiota had analyzed the scenario of a novel coronavirus pandemic two years before it happened. This appears to be the 2018 paper referred to above. Do not fail to note that, at the time that Metabiota was running this scenario, they were partnered with EcoHealth Alliance, which was using Pentagon and USAID money to research and perform gain-of-function on these types of coronaviruses!! ” . . . . As the human and economic devastation multiplied in tandem across the globe, Metabiota’s employees suddenly found themselves living inside their own model’s projections. Just two years earlier, the company had run a large set of scenarios forecasting the consequences of a novel coronavirus spreading around the globe. . . .”

Despite our deep reservations about Jeffrey Sachs—expressed in numerous programs and posts–it’s remarkable just how damning our concluding article is.

Sachs is someone in a position to bring real public attention to this topic, if he chooses to do so. The authors make a compelling case for an independent investigation, and who would be in a better position than Sachs to make this case publicly after he disbanded his Lancet Commission over these kinds of concerns? That’s all part of what is going to make this a story to watch.

“ . . . . Information now held by the research team headed by EHA (7), as well as the communications of that research team with US research funding agencies, including NIH, USAID, DARPA, DTRA, and the Department of Homeland Security, could shed considerable light on the experiments undertaken by the US-funded research team and on the possible relationship, if any, between those experiments and the emergence of SARS-CoV‑2. . . .”

If our suspicions about Sachs are well-founded, he might be in position to control the results that do emerge.

Nonetheless, this article has some remarkable points of information to be considered and it is altogether welcome and important that someone of Dr. Sachs’ high professional profile and prestige has come forward:

1.–“ . . . . Much of the work on SARS-like CoVs performed in Wuhan was part of an active and highly collaborative US–China scientific research program funded by the US Government (NIH, Defense Threat Reduction Agency [DTRA—Pentagon, D.E.], and US Agency for International Development [USAID]—State Department, frequent cover for CIA, D.E.), coordinated by researchers at EcoHealth Alliance (EHA—Chief funders are Pentagon, USAID, science and policy advisor is David Franz, former commanding officer of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Disease—D.E.), but involving researchers at several other US institutions. For this reason, it is important that US institutions be transparent about any knowledge of the detailed activities that were underway in Wuhan and in the United States. The evidence may also suggest that research institutions in other countries were involved, and those too should be asked to submit relevant information (e.g., with respect to unpublished sequences). . . .”
2.–“ . . . . as outlined below, much could be learned by investigating US-supported and US-based work that was underway in collaboration with Wuhan-based institutions, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), China. It is still not clear whether the IC investigated these US-supported and US-based activities. If it did, it has yet to make any of its findings available to the US scientific community for independent and transparent analysis and assessment. If, on the other hand, the IC [Intelligence Community] did not investigate these US-supported and US-based activities, then it has fallen far short of conducting a comprehensive investigation. . . .”
3.–“ . . . . Participating US institutions include the EHA, the University of North Carolina (UNC), the University of California at Davis (UCD), the NIH, and the USAID.Under a series of NIH grants and USAID contracts, EHA coordinated the collection of SARS-like bat CoVs from the field in southwest China and southeast Asia, the sequencing of these viruses, the archiving of these sequences (involving UCD), and the analysis and manipulation of these viruses (notably at UNC). A broad spectrum of coronavirus research work was done not only in Wuhan (including groups at Wuhan University and the Wuhan CDC, as well as WIV) but also in the United States. The exact details of the fieldwork and laboratory work of the EHA-WIV-UNC partnership, and the engagement of other institutions in the United States and China, has not been disclosed for independent analysis. The precise nature of the experiments that were conducted, including the full array of viruses collected from the field and the subsequent sequencing and manipulation of those viruses, remains unknown. . . .”
4.–“ . . . . The NIH could say more about the possible role of its grantees in the emergence of SARS-CoV‑2, yet the agency has failed to reveal to the public the possibility that SARS-CoV‑2 emerged from a research-associated event, even though several researchers raised that concern on February 1, 2020, in a phone conversation that was documented by email (5). Those emails were released to the public only through FOIA, and they suggest that the NIH leadership took an early and active role in promoting the ‘zoonotic hypothesis’ and the rejection of the laboratory-associated hypothesis. . . .”
5.–“ . . . . The NIH has resisted the release of important evidence, such as the grant proposals and project reports of EHA, and has continued to redact materials released under FOIA, including a remarkable 290-page redaction in a recent FOIA release. . . .”
6.–“ . . . . Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak testified before Congress that several such sequences in a US database were removed from public view. . . .”
7.–“ . . . . Special concerns surround the presence of an unusual furin cleavage site (FCS) in SARS-CoV‑2 (10) that augments the pathogenicity and transmissibility of the virus relative to related viruses like SARS-CoV‑1 (11, 12). SARS-CoV‑2 is, to date, the only identified member of the subgenus sarbecovirus that contains an FCS, although these are present in other coronaviruses (13, 14). A portion of the sequence of the spike protein of some of these viruses is illustrated in the alignment shown in Fig. 1, illustrating the unusual nature of the FCS and its apparent insertion in SARS-CoV‑2 (15).From the first weeks after the genome sequence of SARS-CoV‑2 became available, researchers have commented on the unexpected presence of the FCS within SARS-CoV‑2—the implication being that SARS-CoV‑2 might be a product of laboratory manipulation. In a review piece arguing against this possibility, it was asserted that the amino acid sequence of the FCS in SARS-CoV‑2 is an unusual, nonstandard sequence for an FCS and that nobody in a laboratory would design such a novel FCS (13). . . .”
8.–“ . . . . In fact, the assertion that the FCS in SARS-CoV‑2 has an unusual, nonstandard amino acid sequence is false. The amino acid sequence of the FCS in SARS-CoV‑2 also exists in the human ENaC a subunit (16), where it is known to be functional and has been extensively studied (17, 18). The FCS of human ENaC a has the amino acid sequence RRAR’SVAS ( 2), an eight–amino-acid sequence that is perfectly identical with the FCS of SARS-CoV‑2 (16).ENaC is an epithelial sodium channel, expressed on the apical surface of epithelial cells in the kidney, colon, and airways (19, 20), that plays a critical role in controlling fluid exchange. The ENaC a subunit has a functional FCS (17, 18) that is essential for ion channel function (19) and has been characterized in a variety of species. The FCS sequence of human ENaC a (20) is identical in chimpanzee, bonobo, orangutan, and gorilla (SI Appendix , Fig. 1), but diverges in all other species, even primates, except one. (The one non-human non-great ape species with the same sequence is Pipistrellus kuhlii, a bat species found in Europe and Western Asia; other bat species, including Rhinolophus ferrumequinem, have a different FCS sequence in ENaC a [RKAR’SAAS]). . . .”
9.–“ . . . . One consequence of this “molecular mimicry” between the FCS of SARS CoV‑2 spike and the FCS of human ENaC is competition for host furin in the lumen of the Golgi apparatus, where the SARS-CoV‑2 spike is processed. This results in a decrease in human ENaC expression (21). A decrease in human ENaC expression compromises airway function and has been implicated as a contributing factor in the pathogenesis of COVID-19 (22). Another consequence of this astonishing molecular mimicry is evidenced by apparent cross-reactivity with human ENaC of antibodies from COVID-19 patients, with the highest levels of cross-reacting antibodies directed against this epitope being associated with most severe disease (23). [Auto-immune reaction, possibly overlapping mRNA vaccines—D.E.]. . . .”
10.–“ . . . . We do know that the insertion of such FCS sequences into SARS-like viruses was a specific goal of work proposed by the EHA-WIV-UNC partnership within a 2018 grant proposal (“DEFUSE”) that was submitted to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (25).The 2018 proposal to DARPA was not funded, but we do not know whether some of the proposed work was subsequently carried out in 2018 or 2019, perhaps using another source of funding. . . .”
11.–“ . . . . We also know that that this research team would be familiar with several previous experiments involving the successful insertion of an FCS sequence into SARS-CoV‑1 (26) and other coronaviruses, and they had a lot of experience in construction of chimeric SARS-like viruses (27–29). In addition, the research team would also have some familiarity with the FCS sequence and the FCS-dependent activation mechanism of human ENaC (19), which was extensively characterized at UNC (17, 18).For a research team assessing the pandemic potential of SARS-related coronaviruses, the FCS of human ENaC—an FCS known to be efficiently cleaved by host furin present in the target location (epithelial cells) of an important target organ (lung), of the target organism (human)—might be a rational, if not obvious, choice of FCS to introduce into a virus to alter its infectivity, in line with other work performed previously. . . .”
12.–“ . . . . Of course, the molecular mimicry of ENaC within the SARS-CoV‑2 spike protein might be a mere coincidence, although one with a very low probability. The exact FCS sequence present in SARS-CoV‑2 has recently been introduced into the spike protein of SARS-CoV‑1 in the laboratory, in an elegant series of experiments (12, 30), with predictable consequences in terms of enhanced viral transmissibility and pathogenicity. Obviously, the creation of such SARS‑1/2 “chimeras” is an area of some concern for those responsible for present and future regulation of this area of biology. . . .”
13.–“ . . . . Information now held by the research team headed by EHA (7), as well as the communications of that research team with US research funding agencies, including NIH, USAID, DARPA, DTRA, and the Department of Homeland Security, could shed considerable light on the experiments undertaken by the US-funded research team and on the possible relationship, if any, between those experiments and the emergence of SARS-CoV‑2. . . .”