News Flash: Fauci Lied
Well, not exactly news, but it is the big story today.
What’s new is that The Intercept has obtained something like 900 pages pertaining to two grants from the US Government to Peter Daszak’s Eco-Health Alliance, for research performed in Wuhan. While the additional facts that emerge from these documents can’t conclusively prove how Covid-19 was released to the world, they do increase the plausibility—which is already extremely high—that one way or another Covid-19 is the result of work done in Wuhan. In other words, it doesn’t have a natural origin.
Again, that’s not news. High level scientists such as David Baltimore—a Nobel winning virologist—understood that Covid-19 was a lab creation basically right from the beginning. And Baltimore was far from the only one.
The real story here is the light that it shines on Fauci’s Senate testimony—which is revealed to be, at the very least, deceptive—if not outright lying. Rand Paul has understandably pointed this out:
Before I quote The Intercept, here is a brief excerpt from the account of the story at The Federalist, which highlights two important revelations:
The documents show that the National Institutes of Health issued millions of dollars to the EcoHealth Alliance designated for “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” The grant, which acknowledged that researchers in the field were at the “highest risk of exposure to SARS or other CoVs” was intended to give funding “to screen thousands of bat samples for novel coronaviruses” from 2014 to 2019 with the promise for renewal, but the Trump administration halted the grants in April 2020.
“The documents contain several critical details about the research in Wuhan, including the fact that key experimental work with humanized mice was conducted at a biosafety level 3 lab at Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment — and not at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as was previously assumed. The documents raise additional questions about the theory that the pandemic may have begun in a lab accident, an idea that Daszak has aggressively dismissed,” The Intercept wrote.
In other words, the grant application highlighted that the intended research was highly risky for the researchers themselves—who could be exposed to dangerous viruses. In addition—and this tells you something about the lax standards at research labs in China—this dangerous research was conducted at a level 3 lab, rather than at the level 4 Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The article at The Intercept also highlights an important fact that the documents confirm: the research involved the construction (engineering) of “chimeric coronaviruses”. That’s pretty much the definition of “gain of function”, and the introductory paragraphs at The Intercept leave no doubt that that’s what was going on—contrary to Fauci’s testimony:
Newly released documents provide details of U.S.-funded research on several types of coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. The Intercept has obtained more than nine hundred pages of documents detailing the work of the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based health organization that used federal money to fund bat coronavirus research at the Chinese laboratory. The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals that were funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases [IOW, Fauci], as well as project updates relating to the EcoHealth Alliance’s research, which has been scrutinized amid increased interest in the origins of the pandemic.
The documents were released in connection with ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation by The Intercept against the National Institutes of Health. The Intercept is making the full documents available to the public.
“This is a roadmap to the high-risk research that could have led to the current pandemic,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right To Know, a group that has been investigating the origins of Covid-19.
One of the grants, titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” outlines an ambitious effort led by EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak to screen thousands of bat samples for novel coronaviruses. The research also involved screening people who work with live animals. The documents contain several critical details about the research in Wuhan, including the fact that key experimental work with humanized mice was conducted at a biosafety level 3 lab at Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment — and not at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as was previously assumed. The documents raise additional questions about the theory that the pandemic may have begun in a lab accident, an idea that Daszak has aggressively dismissed.
For an assessment of the significance of these grant applications with regard to Fauci’s previous testimony, here’s a twitter thread by Rutgers biologist Richard Ebright. What Ebright stresses is the absolute confirmation that the results of this research included gain of function for the chimeric coronaviruses—increased pathogenicity specifically with regard to human receptors.
"NEWLY RELEASED documents provide details of US-funded research on..coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology..The Intercept has obtained more than 900 pages of documents detailing..work of..EcoHealth Alliance..at the Chinese lab.."
New Details Emerge About Coronavirus Research at Chinese Lab
More than 900 pages of materials related to US.-funded coronavirus research in China were released following a FOIA lawsuit by The Intercept.
"The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals that were funded by the NIAID, as well as project updates relating to the EcoHealth Alliance’s research, which has been scrutinized amid increased interest in the origins of the pandemic."
The materials show that the 2014 and 2019 NIH grants to EcoHealth with subcontracts to WIV funded gain-of-function research as defined in federal policies in effect in 2014-2017 and potential pandemic pathogen enhancement as defined in federal policies in effect in 2017-present.
(This had been evident previously from published research papers that credited the 2014 grant and from the publicly available summary of the 2019 grant. But this now can be stated definitively from progress reports of the 2014 grant and the full proposal of the 2017 grant.)
The materials confirm the grants supported 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 materials reveal that the resulting novel, laboratory-generated SARS-related coronaviruses also could infect mice engineered to display human receptors on cells ("humanized mice").
The materials further reveal for the first time that one of the resulting novel, laboratory-generated SARS-related coronaviruses--one not been previously disclosed publicly--was more pathogenic to humanized mice than the starting virus from which it was constructed...
...and thus not only was reasonably anticipated to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity, but, indeed, was *demonstrated* to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity.
The materials further reveal that the the grants also supported the construction--in Wuhan--of novel chimeric MERS-related coronaviruses that combined spike genes from one MERS-related coronavirus with genetic information from another MERS-related coronavirus.
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."
That’s the real bottom line for this story today. I used the word “deceptive,” but Ebright—Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers—doesn’t hesitate to say: “untruthful.” Now, people can make untruthful statements without the intent to deceive. However, if they realize that they have given untruthful statements under oath then they’re obligated to correct those untruthful statements. There’s no possible way, in my opinion, that this does not apply to Fauci.
If the day of reckoning for Fauci doesn’t come, like, maybe this week, something else will be confirmed. That is that Fauci is a figurehead protecting bigger people than himself. This is a clear firing offense—not end of year firing, but right now firing.
The hardest part of the two weeks to flatten the curve has been the first eighteen months.
Not to sound like a Office Space cliche but where Fauci is concerned... "It's good to be a gangsta."
The insututions protect their own, otherwise the insututions fail along with them!