March
19, 2024
The
U.S. government funded and supported a program of dangerous laboratory research
that may have resulted in the creation and accidental laboratory release of
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
Gravediggers
bury the body of a man suspected of having died of Covid-19 in the
cemetery of Vila Alpina, east side of São Paulo, Brazil, on April 3,
2020. That morning alone, five similar burials were held while about 150
graves were open in expectation of more victims of the new coronavirus.
(Gustavo Basso, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Following
the outbreak, the U.S. government lied in order to cover up its possible role.
It should correct the lies, find the facts, and make amends with the rest of
the world.
A
group of intrepid truth-seekers — journalists, scientists, whistleblowers —
have uncovered a vast amount of information pointing to the likely laboratory
origin of SARS-CoV-2.
Most
important has been the intrepid work of the The Intercept and U.S. Right to
Know (USRTK), especially investigative reporter Emily Kopp at USRTK.
Based
on this investigative work, the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and
Accountability is now carrying out an important investigation in a Select
Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
In
the Senate, the leading voice for transparency, honesty, and reason in
investigating the origin of SARS-Cov-2 has been Republican Sen. Rand Paul.
The
evidence of a possible laboratory creation revolves around a multi-year
U.S.-led research program that involved U.S. and Chinese scientists.
The
research was designed by U.S. scientists, funded mainly by the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense, and administered by a
U.S. organization, the EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), with much of the work taking
place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
Here
are facts that we know as of today.
First,
the NIH became the home for biodefense research starting in 2001. In other
words, the NIH became a research arm of the military and intelligence
communities. Biodefense funding from the Defense Department budget went to Dr.
Anthony Fauci’s division, the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious
Diseases (NIAID).
Second,
NIAID and the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, or DARPA, (in the Defense Department) supported extensive
research on potential pathogens for biowarfare and biodefense, and for the
design of vaccines to protect against biowarfare or accidental laboratory
releases of natural or manipulated pathogens.
Some
of the work was carried out at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories of the NIH,
which manipulated and tested viruses using its in-house bat colony.
Third,
NIAID became a large-scale financial supporter of Gain of Function (GoF)
research, meaning laboratory experiments designed to genetically alter
pathogens to make them even more pathogenic, such as viruses that are easier to
transmit and/or more likely to kill infected individuals.
This
kind of research is inherently dangerous, both because it aims to create more
dangerous pathogens and because those new pathogens can escape from the
laboratory, either accidentally or deliberately (e.g., as an act of biowarfare
or terrorism).
Fourth,
many leading U.S. scientists opposed GoF research. One of the leading opponents
inside the government was Dr. Robert Redfield, an Army virologist who would
later be the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
at the start of the pandemic.
Redfield
suspected from the start that the pandemic resulted from NIH-supported
research, but says that he was sidelined by Fauci.
Fifth,
because of the very high risks associated with GoF research, the U.S.
government added additional biosafety regulations in 2017.
GoF
research would have to be carried out in highly secure laboratories, meaning at
Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) or Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4). Work in a BSL-3 or 4
facility is more expensive and time-consuming than work in a BSL-2 facility
because of the added controls against an escape of the pathogen from the
facility.
Sixth,
one NIH-backed research group, EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), proposed to move some
of its GoF research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). In 2017, EHA
submitted a proposal to the U.S. Government’s Defense Advanced Research
Projects (DARPA) for GoF work at WIV.
The
proposal, named DEFUSE, was a veritable “cookbook” for making viruses like
SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory. The DEFUSE plan was to investigate more than 180
previously unreported strains of Betacoronavirus that had been collected by the
Wuhan institute and to use GoF techniques to make these viruses more dangerous.
Specifically,
the project proposed to add protease sites like the furin cleavage site (FCS)
to natural viruses in order to enhance the infectivity and transmissibility of
the virus.
Seventh,
in the draft proposal, the EHA director boasted that “the BSL2 nature of work
on SARSr-CoVs makes our system highly cost effective relative to other
bat-virus systems,” prompting the lead scientist on the EHA proposal to comment
that U.S. scientists would “freak out” if they learned of U.S. government
support for GoF research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in a BSL2 facility.
Eighth,
the Defense Department rejected the DEFUSE proposal in 2018, yet NIAID funding
for EHA covered the key scientists of the DEFUSE project. EHA therefore had
ongoing NIH funding to carry out the DEFUSE research program.
Ninth,
when the outbreak was first noted in Wuhan in late 2019 and January 2020, key
U.S. virologists associated with NIH believed that the SARS-CoV-2 had most
likely emerged from GoF research, and said so on a phone call with Fauci on
Feb. 1, 2020.
The
most striking clue for these scientists was the presence of the FCS in
SARS-CoV-2, with the FCS appearing at exactly the location in the virus (the
S1/S2 junction) that had been proposed in the DEFUSE program.
Tenth,
the top NIH officials, including Director Francis Collins and NIAID Director
Fauci, tried to hide the NIH-supported GoF research, and promoted the
publication of a scientific paper (“The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”) in
March 2020 declaring a natural origin of the virus. The paper completely
ignored the DEFUSE proposal.
Eleventh,
some U.S. officials began to point their fingers at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology as the source of the laboratory leak while hiding the NIH-funding and
EHA-led research program that may have led to the virus.
Twelfth,
the above facts have come to light only as a result of intrepid investigative
reporting, whistleblowers, and leaks from inside the U.S. Government, including
the leak of the DEFUSE proposal. The Inspector General of the Department of
Health and Human Services determined in 2023 that NIH did not adequately
oversee the EHA grants.
Thirteenth,
investigators have also realized in retrospect that researchers at Rocky
Mountain Labs, together with key scientists associated with EcoHealth Alliance,
were infecting the RML Egyptian fruit bats with SARS-like viruses in
experiments closely linked to those proposed in DEFUSE.
Fourteenth,
the F.B.I. and Department of Energy have reported their assessments that the
laboratory escape of SARS-CoV-2 is the most likely explanation of the virus.
Fifteenth,
a whistleblower from inside the C.I.A. has recently charged that the C.I.A.
team investigating the outbreak concluded that SARS-CoV-2 most likely emerged
from the laboratory, but that senior C.I.A. officials bribed the team to report
a natural origin of the virus.
The
sum of the evidence — and the absence of reliable evidence pointing to a
natural origin (see here and here) — adds up to the possibility that the U.S.
funded and implemented a dangerous GoF research program that led to the
creation of SARS-CoV-2 and then to a worldwide pandemic.
A
powerful recent assessment by mathematical biologist Alex Washburne reaches the
conclusion “beyond reasonable doubt that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from a lab…” He
also notes that the collaborators “proceeded to mount what can legitimately be
called a disinformation campaign” to hide the laboratory origin.
A
U.S.-funded laboratory origin of Covid-19 would certainly constitute the most
significant case of governmental gross negligence in world history. Moreover,
there is a high likelihood that the U.S. government continues to this day to
fund dangerous GoF work as part of its biodefense program.
The
U.S. owes the full truth, and perhaps ample financial compensation, to the rest
of the world, depending on what the facts ultimately reveal.
We
need three urgent actions. The first is an independent scientific investigation
in which all laboratories involved in the EHA research program in the U.S. and
China fully open their books and records to the independent investigators.
The
second is a worldwide halt on GoF research until an independent global
scientific body sets ground rules for biosafety.
The
third is for the U.N. General Assembly to establish rigorous legal and
financial accountability for governments that violate international safety
norms through dangerous research activities that threaten the health and
security of the rest of the world.
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