Chasing scientific renown, grant dollars, and approval from Dr. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak transformed the environmental nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance into a government-funded sponsor of risky, cutting-edge virus research in both the U.S. and Wuhan, China. Drawing on more than 100,000 leaked documents, a V.F. investigation shows how an organization dedicated to preventing the next pandemic found itself suspected of helping start one.

More here- https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-nonprofit-at-the-cente...

March 28, 2022

Lab accident is ‘most likely but least probed’ COVID origin, State Dept. memo says

State Department officials considered a lab accident to be the most likely cause of COVID-19 in the pandemic’s early months and worried that international virologists may help with a coverup, according to a 2020 memo obtained by U.S. Right to Know.

“Origin of the outbreak: The Wuhan labs remained the most likely but least probed,” reads the topline.

There is no direct, smoking gun evidence to prove that a leak from Wuhan labs caused the pandemic, but there is circumstantial evidence to suggest such is the case,” the memo reads.

Apparently drafted in spring 2020, the memo details circumstantial evidence for the “lab leak” theory — the idea that COVID-19 originated at one of the labs in Wuhan, China, the pandemic’s epicenter.

The memo raises concerns about the “massive amount” of research on novel coronaviruses apparently conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the nearby Wuhan Center for Disease Control lab.

“The central issue involves the WCDC and WIV’s obsession with collecting and testing a massive amount of virus-carrying bats,” the memo reads. 

The memo also flags biosafety lapses at both labs, calling the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s “management of deadly viruses and virus-carrying lab animals … appallingly poor and negligent.”

The memo provides an extraordinary window into behind-the-scenes concerns about a lab accident among U.S. foreign policy leaders, even as this line of inquiry was deemed a conspiracy theory by international virologists, some of whom had undisclosed conflicts of interest.

The memo also calls into question these virologists’ impartiality.

Shi Zhengli, a Wuhan Institute of Virology coronavirus researcher nicknamed the “Bat Woman,” has forged wide-reaching international collaborations, including with prestigious Western virologists, the memo notes.

“Suspicion lingers that Shi holds an important and powerful position in the field in China and has extensive cooperation with many [international] virologists who might be doing her a favor,” it reads.

Though perhaps unknown to State Department officials at the time, one of the most influential scientists “debunking” the lab leak theory in the media, EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak, had undisclosed ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

China’s clampdown

The memo laments that “the most logical place to investigate the virus origin has been completely sealed off from inquiry by the [Chinese Communist Party].”

“A gag order to both places was issued on [January 1, 2020], and a Major General from the [People’s Liberation Army] took over the WIV since early January,” it states.

China has strictly controlled information about the pandemic’s origins, including barring access to the mine shaft where one of the viruses most closely related to SARS-CoV-2 was discovered, and pressuring the investigators preparing a 2021 World Health Organization report.

The memo even suggests that other hypotheses may have served as a distraction from a probe of the city’s extensive research on novel coronaviruses

“All other theories are likely to be a decoy to prevent an inquiry [into] the WCDC and WIV,” it states.

While certain portions of the memo were previously reported in the Washington Times, many details, including the depth of concern about a coverup, were not previously known. The memo has never been published in full.

The circumstantial evidence

The circumstantial evidence presented in the memo seems to draw from public sources.

Some of that evidence has been shored up over the last two years.

For example, it makes note of so-called “gain-of-function” research Shi collaborated on that made coronaviruses more virulent and transmissible in the lab.

“[The Wuhan Institute of Virology]’s lead coronavirus scientist Shi Zhengli conducted genetic engineering of bat virus to make it easily transmissible to humans,” the memo states.

That has since been verified by media reports, in peer reviewed papers and U.S. federal grant reports.

The memo cites a 2015 paper coauthored by Shi titled “A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence” that described creating a “chimera,” or engineered virus, with the spike protein of a coronavirus from a Chinese horseshoe bat.

The memo also describes lapses in safety monitoring at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Wuhan’s Chinese CDC lab. U.S. Embassy cables describing poor safety monitoring at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have also been reported by the Washington Post.

A Nov. 2020 cable stated that the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 could be related to imported seafood products was meant to “deflect PRC responsibility.”

[highlight]The memo describes online posts by a Chinese national with the username Wu Xiaohua who accused Wuhan’s scientists of “playing God,” making coronaviruses more dangerous through animal vectors in the lab, and not properly cremating virus-cacarrying lab animals. Wu even claimed that laboratory animals were sold as pets, and that laboratory eggs were eaten by lab staff.

Published: 12 November 2015





An experiment that created a hybrid version of a bat coronavirus — one related to the virus that causes SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) — has triggered renewed debate over whether engineering lab variants of viruses with possible pandemic potential is worth the risks.

In an article published in Nature Medicine1 on 9 November, scientists investigated a virus called SHC014, which is found in horseshoe bats in China. The researchers created a chimaeric virus, made up of a surface protein of SHC014 and the backbone of a SARS virus that had been adapted to grow in mice and to mimic human disease. The chimaera infected human airway cells — proving that the surface protein of SHC014 has the necessary structure to bind to a key receptor on the cells and to infect them. It also caused disease in mice, but did not kill them.

Although almost all coronaviruses isolated from bats have not been able to bind to the key human receptor, SHC014 is not the first that can do so. In 2013, researchers reported this ability for the first time in a different coronavirus isolated from the same bat population2.

But other virologists question whether the information gleaned from the experiment justifies the potential risk.Although the extent of any risk is difficult to assess, Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, points out that the researchers have created a novel virus that “grows remarkably well” in human cells.

“If the virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,” he says.

The argument is essentially a rerun of the debate over whether to allow lab research that increases the virulence, ease of spread or host range of dangerous pathogens — what is known as ‘gain-of-function’ research. In October 2014, the US government imposed a moratorium on federal funding of such research on the viruses that cause SARS, influenza and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome, a deadly disease caused by a virus that sporadically jumps from camels to people).

The latest study was already under way before the US moratorium began, and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) allowed it to proceed while it was under review by the agency, says Ralph Baric, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a co-author of the study. The NIH eventually concluded that the work was not so risky as to fall under the moratorium, he says.

But Wain-Hobson disapproves of the study because, he says, it provides little benefit, and reveals little about the risk that the wild SHC014 virus in bats poses to humans.

Other experiments in the study show that the virus in wild bats would need to evolve to pose any threat to humans — a change that may never happen, although it cannot be ruled out. Baric and his team reconstructed the wild virus from its genome sequence and found that it grew poorly in human cell cultures and caused no significant disease in mice.

“The only impact of this work is the creation, in a lab, of a new, non-natural risk,” agrees Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and biodefence expert at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Both Ebright and Wain-Hobson are long-standing critics of gain-of-function research.

In their paper, the study authors also concede that funders may think twice about allowing such experiments in the future. "Scientific review panels may deem similar studies building chimeric viruses based on circulating strains too risky to pursue," they write, adding that discussion is needed as to "whether these types of chimeric virus studies warrant further investigation versus the inherent risks involved”.

But Baric and others say the research did have benefits. The study findings “move this virus from a candidate emerging pathogen to a clear and present danger”, says Peter Daszak, who co-authored the 2013 paper. Daszak is president of the EcoHealth Alliance, an international network of scientists, headquartered in New York City, that samples viruses from animals and people in emerging-diseases hotspots across the globe.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18787

August 24, 2022

The National Institute of Health (NIH) is partially terminating a grant to a nonprofit that worked extensively with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on bat coronavirus research. In letters posted by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee this month, an NIH official said EcoHealth Alliance had not been able to hand over lab notebooks and other records from its Wuhan partner that relate to controversial experiments involving modified bat viruses, despite multiple requests.

In an Aug. 19 letter to Kentucky Rep James Comer, the top Republican member of the US House Oversight Committee, Michael Lauer, the deputy director of extramural research at NIH, said the agency had informed EcoHealth that it was terminating the sub-award to the Wuhan Institute of Virology “for failure to meet award terms and conditions requiring provision of records to NIH upon request.”

The termination notice comes after the NIH chided EcoHealth last fall for not immediately notifying the agency after its experiments showed modified coronaviruses replicated at a faster rate in experimental mice than an unmodified virus. The agency then asked for lab notebooks and other files pertaining to the experiments, and EcoHealth reported that it would relay the request to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.According to the new NIH letters, the Wuhan institute never delivered.

“NIH has requested on two occasions that [EcoHealth] provide NIH the laboratory notebooks and original electronic files from the research conducted at [the Wuhan Institute of Virology]. To date, [the institute] has not provided these records,” Lauer told Comer. NIH verified to the Bulletin that the letters were authentic.

“NIH has determined that [Wuhan Institute of Virology’s] refusal to provide the requested records, and [EcoHealth’s] failure to include the required terms in [the] subaward agreement represent material failures to comply with the terms of award,”

Between June 2017 and May 2019, scientists working on EcoHealth’s grant tested genetically engineered coronaviruses with the backbone of one virus and the spike proteins—which bind to host cells—of another on mice that expressed human cell receptors. In one case, the NIH reported last fall,  one of the chimeric viruses caused mice to become “sicker.” EcoHealth reports show that in the infection experiments, conducted in years four and five of the grant, chimeric viruses replicated faster in mice lungs and killed a higher percentage of mice than the unmodified virus. Last fall, the NIH said that EcoHealth was supposed to report the increased viral growth to the agency “immediately” to assess whether further biosafety measures were necessary.

https://thebulletin.org/2022/08/nih-to-terminate-ecohealth-alliance-grant-after-...

Marty Makary MD, MPH
@MartyMakary

Dr. Redfield always thought it was a Wuhan lab leak origin. Dr. Fauci "cut him out of meetings when Redfield said the government needed to investigate whether the pandemic started from a lab accident in Wuhan, China."
https://twitter.com/MartyMakary/status/1570871988750786561?cxt=HHwWgoDR0Yfw7cwrA...

former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield stirs the controversy that it was inadvertently leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Speaking to CNN on Friday, Redfield, who served in the Trump administration, said it didn't make sense for human-to-human transmission to spread so quickly to become one of the "most infectious viruses in humanity" had the virus originated in a bat.

"I don't believe this somehow came from a bat to a human," he said. Usually, it takes awhile to become more efficient in human-to-human transmission.

"I just don't think this makes biological sense," said Redfield, a virologist

The most likely etiology is the virus escaped from a lab, he said. It's not unusual for respiratory pathogens to infect laboratory workers. Redfield said he was not implying any intentionality to the escape of the virus.

Over a year into the pandemic, there is no certainty on where the pandemic originated.

China has faced accusations of a cover-up and that it has actively suppressed information that could help investigators discover the origins of the virus.

"It is clear that the Chinese government has not provided all the data needed and, until they do, firmer conclusions will be difficult," said Matthew Kavanagh, director of Global Health Policy and Politics for the O'Neill Institute.
https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/coronavirus-likely-escaped-wuhan-lab-...

Former  @CDCgov Director Robert Redfield: "Tony... excluded me... I was told that Collins and Fauci were clear that they wanted one narrative. Everyone had to agree to the narrative."

On lab leak & lockdowns why did the @NIH
smash scientific discussion?

https://twitter.com/DrJBhattacharya/status/1570551119650390016?cxt=HHwWgIDUxYL72...