New evidence supports Covid lab-leak theory, media remains silent
A leaked document coauthored by American and Chinese scientists provides fresh and disturbing evidence supporting the Covid origin lab-leak theory.
Emily Kopp, an investigative journalist at U.S. Right to Know, an online publication about “Pursuing truth and transparency for public health,” reported recently that her organization has obtained a 2018 grant proposal called Project DEFUSE, coauthored by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and their counterparts in the United States, including EcoHealth Alliance.
According to Kopp, Project DEFUSE “proposed engineering high-risk coronaviruses of the same species as SARS and SARS-CoV-2.” The content of this proposal is concerning for several reasons. First, the proposal “involved synthesizing spike proteins with furin cleavage sites — the same feature that supercharged SARS-CoV-2 into the most infectious pandemic pathogen in a century.”
Second, the proposal publicly stated that such risky research would be done at American scientist Ralph Baric’s high-containment BSL-3 lab at the University of North Carolina. But Peter Daszak, CEO of EcoHealth, revealed in his private comments that once the project is funded, he would let the WIV conduct some of the risky research, despite knowing the WIV is only a BSL-2 lab and has “fewer safety precautions than required in the U.S.” Baric responded that “U.S. researchers would ‘freak out’ if they knew the novel coronavirus engineering and testing work would be conducted in a BSL-2 lab.”
According to Kopp of U.S. Right to Know, “Biosafety levels range from one (BSL-1) to four (BSL-4), with BSL-4 being the most stringent. … Many scientists say viruses that may be transmitted through the air should at minimum be studied in BSL-3.”
Daszak and other Americans on the project team omitted to disclose the WIV’s involvement to Project DEFUSE’s intended funder, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), “in order to evade any national security concerns about doing high-level biosecurity work in China.” Daszak didn’t provide Chinese scientists’ resumes to DARPA “to downplay the non-US focus of this proposal so that DARPA doesn’t see this as a negative.”
What’s even scarier is that these documents “also show the researchers intended to use less regulated SARS-related coronavirus research as proof of concept in order to extend their high-risk methods to more deadly viruses like Ebola, Marburg, Hendra and Nipah,” according to Kopp. Some scientists’ ongoing interest in experimenting with those contagious and lethal viruses is one of the many reasons why we must understand the origin of Covid-19 because such knowledge may help prevent the next pandemic.
Matt Ridley, a British member of Parliament and coauthor of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, writes at Spiked:
It was shocking enough that he [Peter Daszak] failed to tell the world about this proposal, which was leaked instead. It was still more shocking to find that it contained a specific proposal for inserting ‘human-specific cleavage sites’ into sarbecoviruses for the first time, because exactly such a feature is found in the virus that causes Covid, and in none of the other 1,500 known sarbecoviruses. That cleavage site is the reason we had a pandemic because it makes the virus more infectious in human airways and it seems uniquely suited to the human system.
Although DARPA eventually declined to fund Project DEFUSE, Daszak, who has a reputation for not taking no for an answer, likely completed the proposed work with the WIV anyway with other funding sources. Daszak’s EcoHealth has received at least $8 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) between 2014 and 2021. In 2021, after congressional Republicans’ repeated requests, the NIH finally admitted that it had funded the WIV “to study the risk to humans of coronaviruses circulating in bats in China” through EcoHealth.
NIH’s admission came after the Intercept made public two grant proposals submitted by EcoHealth Alliance to the NIH on gain-of-function research on coronavirus and a progress report covering June 2018 to May 2019.
These documents revealed that EcoHealth’s experiments “involv[ed] infectious clones of MERS-CoV, the virus that caused a deadly outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2012.” EcoHealth’s data also demonstrates that “chimeric SARS-like viruses caused more severe disease in a humanized animal model than the original virus,” according to Alina Chan, a Boston-based molecular biologist and coauthor of the book Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19. All this information contradicts EcoHealth’s previous repeated denials that no such high-risk experiment ever took place.
Given what we know now, a coronavirus pandemic that emerged out of Wuhan more than three years ago seems less like a coincidence. Yet Daszak of EcoHealth has been the most vocal lab-leak theory denier. Among his efforts to shut down any public discussion of the lab-leak theory, the most infamous one was that he organized a group of scientists to co-sign a letter published by Lancet, denouncing the lab-leak theory without disclosing his conflict of interest (his intimate collaboration with the WIV).
Last week, The Wall Street Journal dropped another bombshell, that Daszak’s EcoHealth is under federal investigation (civil, not criminal) about whether it double-billed U.S. taxpayers for hundreds of thousands of dollars for the dangerous gain-of-function coronavirus research in China. Daszak denied any wrongdoing.
The leaked Project DEFUSE documents are a reminder, according to Chan, who commented on X, “This is a pattern of dishonesty. Clearly, we cannot take the word of conflicted parties. It is urgently important that the public and investigators gain full access to all EcoHealth documents relating to WIV research.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that at least 3 million people worldwide died of Covid in 2020. Not to mention that millions more people’s lives, mental health, and economic well-being have been negatively affected by government policies. Many of us still feel the effects of those policies today. The pandemic was a life-changing event for many. Therefore, we all deserve to know how the pandemic started and be better prepared for the next one.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has suppressed any discussion of the lab-leak theory for one apparent reason — to avoid accountability. Yet it is disappointing that the Biden administration, congressional Democrats, and their corporate media allies have shown little interest in uncovering Covid’s origin. They have suppressed the lab-leak theory as shamelessly as the CCP has done, despite that “the evidence that this virus probably came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is now voluminous, detailed and strong,” said Matt Ridley, and their collective silence “speaks volumes.”
Democrats and corporate media’s collective silence and the lack of curiosity about the virus’s origin are likely driven by two reasons. First, they cannot blame the origin of Covid on Trump because the NIH funding occurred under former President Obama. Any investigation of Covid’s origin will inevitably lead to the questionable conduct of Anthony Fauci, former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, and his allies at the NIH, from underwriting the WIV’s gain-of-function research to suppressing the lab-leak theory since the beginning of the pandemic.
Second, the Democrats and corporate media’ conduct during the pandemic has shown that they were only interested in taking advantage of a crisis to grab more power and expand their control over the country and the American people. Public health prevention is their last concern. Therefore, it is up to concerned citizens and independent media to keep searching for truth and demanding accountability.
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How did the leaked document reveal potential security concerns and omissions regarding the high-risk research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?
A Leaked Document Supports the Lab-Leak Theory of Covid Origin
A leaked document coauthored by American and Chinese scientists has emerged, providing fresh evidence to support the lab-leak theory of the origin of Covid-19. The document, called Project DEFUSE, was obtained by Emily Kopp, an investigative journalist at U.S. Right to Know.
Project DEFUSE is a 2018 grant proposal that involved the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and their counterparts in the United States, including EcoHealth Alliance. The content of the proposal is concerning for several reasons. It proposed engineering high-risk coronaviruses similar to SARS and SARS-CoV-2, including synthesizing spike proteins with furin cleavage sites, which were responsible for making SARS-CoV-2 highly infectious.
Furthermore, the proposal stated that the risky research would be conducted at the University of North Carolina’s BSL-3 lab. However, private comments made by Peter Daszak, CEO of EcoHealth, revealed that the WIV would conduct some of the risky research, despite being a less secure BSL-2 lab. This omission of information was done to avoid national security concerns about conducting biosecurity work in China.
The leaked documents also revealed that the researchers intended to use less-regulated SARS-related coronavirus research as a proof of concept to extend their high-risk methods to more deadly viruses like Ebola. This revelation highlights the ongoing interest of some scientists in experimenting with contagious and lethal viruses.
It is unsettling that these documents were not disclosed to the intended funder, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to avoid negative perceptions of doing high-level biosecurity work in China. Although DARPA eventually declined to fund Project DEFUSE, it is suspected that Daszak completed the proposed work with other funding sources.
The connections between EcoHealth and the WIV have raised concerns about the funding and oversight of research on coronaviruses. EcoHealth has received significant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the NIH eventually admitted to funding the WIV to study the risk of coronaviruses in bats. This admission followed the revelation of grant proposals and progress reports submitted by EcoHealth to the NIH.
The leaked documents also contradicted EcoHealth’s previous denials of conducting high-risk experiments. This information raises questions about the pandemic’s origins and the need to understand them to prevent future outbreaks. The lab-leak theory has been vehemently denied by Daszak, who organized a letter published by Lancet denouncing the theory without disclosing his collaboration with the WIV.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that EcoHealth is under federal investigation regarding potential double-billing of U.S. taxpayers for gain-of-function coronavirus research. These revelations emphasize the importance of gaining full access to all EcoHealth documents related to WIV research.
The Covid-19 pandemic has had devastating consequences worldwide, with the WHO estimating that at least 3 million people died from the virus in 2020. Additionally, millions of lives, mental health, and economic well-being have been negatively affected by government policies. The leaked document and the ongoing investigations highlight the urgency of understanding the true origins of Covid-19 to prevent future pandemics.
In conclusion, the leaked documents provide compelling evidence supporting the lab-leak theory of the Covid-19 origin. The involvement of EcoHealth and the WIV raises concerns about the funding, oversight, and transparency of research on dangerous pathogens. It is crucial for the public and investigators to have full access to all relevant documents to gain a comprehensive understanding of the origins of the pandemic and prevent future outbreaks.
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