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Update: WHO team visits P4 lab in Wuhan Institute of Virology - February 2021

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  • #16
    Is Daszak a US citizen? I thought he was British. I don't think you need US citizenship to lobby for US taxpayer funding.

    Peter Daszak, a British-born WHO scientist probing into the origins of Covid in Wuhan, launched an attack on the US today after it questioned whether China had been open with his investigation.

    ...
    His expertise, which includes a hand in more than 300 scientific papers, has won prominence in global scientific and public health circles. He has, however, been the target of abuse over his stance and had suspicious white powder sent to his home.

    Yet he is accused of bullying opponents by those that have clashed with him, who include Colin Butler, honorary professor of environmental health at the Australian National University. Butler edited a scientific journal with Daszak for three years.

    ‘He probably sincerely believes in his work but he has built an empire around the idea that zoonoses [animal to human infections] are the most important thing in the world,’ said Butler.

    ‘He has also worked with the Wuhan Institute in what is reportedly gain of function research.’

    Butler, a former WHO adviser who has worked in China, published a paper last month in the Journal Of Human Security highlighting inconsistencies in the lab’s response and ‘striking’ circumstantial evidence giving credence to the possibility that Covid-19 escaped from a lab – including the location of the outbreak in Wuhan...
    _____________________________________________

    Ask Congress to Investigate COVID Origins and Government Response to Pandemic.

    i love myself. the quietest. simplest. most powerful. revolution ever. ---- nayyirah waheed

    "...there’s an obvious contest that’s happening between different sectors of the colonial ruling class in this country. And they would, if they could, lump us into their beef, their struggle." ---- Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Socialist Party

    (My posts are not intended as advice or professional assessments of any kind.)
    Never forget Excalibur.

    Comment


    • Emily
      Emily commented
      Editing a comment
      Mary, the article does not address his citizenship. I did. Please don't refer to me as 'girl' in the future.

      PS: These were the points the article made. The discrediting is coming from Daszak.

      WHO attacks AMERICA after Wuhan whitewash: Investigator says US Covid outbreak intelligence is ‘wrong on many aspects’ and President Biden wants ‘to look tough on China’

      Peter Daszak, one of WHO's investigators in Wuhan, has launched an extraordinary attack on US intelligence
      He told people 'not to rely too much' on information coming from America and instead to 'trust' Chinese data
      It comes after WHO probe concluded virus did not leak from Wuhan lab as US officials have suggested and instead threw its weight behind theories emanating from Beijing that it was imported on frozen meats
      But Daszak has long-standing ties to lab at the centre of leak theories after funding its research for a decade
      He has also led efforts to downplay leak theories, starting as far back as February 2020 in letter to The Lancet
      Last edited by Emily; February 11, 2021, 10:54 PM.

    • JJackson
      JJackson commented
      Editing a comment
      When it comes to trying to discredit statements or positions taken by scientific data, individual scientists or nation states the data coming out of China from the outset has suffered from repeated attacks in the Western press with the US and US president leading the charge.

      Emily I do not know why you would prefer R Ebright on a team looking at the origin of SARS-CoV-2 as I have never heard of him or seen his name in anything I have read, I had to look him up. Wikipedia shows an impressive body of work but with little relevance to the question of viral emergence, neither virus or zoonosis appear anywhere. P Daszak on the other hand is an epidemiologist who has worked on bat corona virus zoonosis in China and is probably one of the 5 best suited people on the planet to have on this team. The fact that he has knows and has worked with WIV I would view as a distinct plus as they are the experts. I have to agree with Daszak that the US intelligence report which attempted to blame WIV and the Chinese was a work of fiction that wove suspicion into a hypothesis that failed to pass the laugh test. It was a sad attempt to allocated blame with no hard evidence underpinning it.

    • Emily
      Emily commented
      Editing a comment
      JJackson, I see the investigation of the pandemic origin as sad and lacking, but nothing laughable about it. The fact that Ebright is not well known is testimony to how suppressed the issue of laboratory safety is.

      Rutgers University scientist Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist, has emerged as a leading critic of safety and security practices at laboratories that conduct research on pathogens such as anthrax.

      Richard H. Ebright has been known for his research at Rutgers University in two key areas: bacterial RNA synthesis and antibacterial drug discovery.

      But readers of the New York Times, Washington Post, and other national news media may recognize Ebright’s name for another reason: This molecular biologist has emerged as a leading critic of safety and security practices at laboratories that conduct research on pathogens.

      In 2014, Ebright testified before Congress after a spate of accidents at federal labs, including one in which personnel at the Centers for Disease Control were exposed to anthrax. He has continued to speak out over the last two years about what he describes as a dangerous lack of oversight.

      Ebright, a Board of Governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology in the School of Arts and Sciences, and laboratory director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, recently was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

      In the interview below, he talks about the origins of the problems and what it will take to solve them...

  • #17

    Suspicions mount that the coronavirus was spreading in China and Europe as early as October, following a WHO investigation


    awoodward@insider.com (Aylin Woodward) 1 day ago
    A growing body of evidence suggests the coronavirus was spreading globally months before the first cases in a Wuhan market captured global attention last December.

    The World Health Organization sent an international team to China in January to investigate the virus' origins and when it started circulating.

    The team assessed medical records from more than 230 clinics across Hubei - the province where Wuhan is located - to look for clues. More than 90 patients in the province were hospitalized with pneumonia or coronavirus-like symptoms in October and November 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

    This finding lends credence to other research from China that shows people were getting sick in Wuhan in November and early December. One analysis, based on satellite images of Wuhan hospitals and online searches for COVID-19 symptoms in the area, suggested the virus may have started circulating there as early as late summer...
    _____________________________________________

    Ask Congress to Investigate COVID Origins and Government Response to Pandemic.

    i love myself. the quietest. simplest. most powerful. revolution ever. ---- nayyirah waheed

    "...there’s an obvious contest that’s happening between different sectors of the colonial ruling class in this country. And they would, if they could, lump us into their beef, their struggle." ---- Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Socialist Party

    (My posts are not intended as advice or professional assessments of any kind.)
    Never forget Excalibur.

    Comment


    • #18
      China Refuses to Give WHO Raw Data on Early Covid-19 Cases

      Officials withhold personalized information on patients that could help determine pandemic’s origins

      Lab Theory ‘Extremely Unlikely’: What WHO Team Learned in Wuhan

      Lab Theory ‘Extremely Unlikely’: What WHO Team Learned in WuhanThe World Health Organization’s mission to Wuhan said the coronavirus most likely spread naturally to humans through an animal. WSJ’s Jeremy Page reports on what scientists learned during their weekslong investigation. Photo: Thomas Peter/Reuters
      By
      Jeremy Page
      and
      Drew Hinshaw
      Feb. 12, 2021 12:23 pm ET
      BEIJING—Chinese authorities refused to provide World Health Organization investigators with raw, personalized data on early Covid-19 cases that could help them determine how and when the coronavirus first began to spread in China, according to WHO investigators who described heated exchanges over the lack of detail.

      The Chinese authorities turned down requests to provide such data on 174 cases of Covid-19 that they have identified from the early phase of the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. The investigators are part of a WHO team that this week completed a monthlong mission in China aimed at determining the origins of the pandemic.

      Chinese officials and scientists provided their own extensive summaries and analysis of data on the cases, said the WHO team members. They also supplied aggregated data and analysis on retrospective searches through medical records in the months before the Wuhan outbreak was identified, saying that they had found no evidence of the virus.

      But the WHO team wasn’t allowed to view the raw underlying data on those retrospective studies, which could allow them to conduct their own analysis on how early and how extensively the virus began to spread in China, the team members said. Member states typically provide such data as part of WHO investigations, said team members.

      “They showed us a couple of examples, but that’s not the same as doing all of them, which is standard epidemiological investigation,” said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist on the WHO team. “So then, you know, the interpretation of that data becomes more limited from our point of view, although the other side might see it as being quite good.”..https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-r...es-11613150580
      CSI:WORLD http://swineflumagazine.blogspot.com/

      treyfish2004@yahoo.com

      Comment


      • #19
        Former Indian envoy slams WHO for investigating origins of COVID-19 after 14-15 months, calls it 'tokenism'
        Read more At:
        CSI:WORLD http://swineflumagazine.blogspot.com/

        treyfish2004@yahoo.com

        Comment


        • #20
          ...The World Health Organization just gave China’s dictators a huge public relations victory in the COVID-19 pandemic, consistent with how it has bowed to them from the start.

          A WHO scientific team that was finally allowed into Wuhan and the live animal market where the first cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed more than a year ago, has emerged after a two-week visit to announce everything China’s dictators could have wanted.


          First, they said they still don’t know the origin of the pandemic, not surprising since that would have been hard to determine if they’d been allowed into China to do research back in January 2020 at the start of the outbreak, as opposed to more than a year later......That goes back to the start, when WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was praising China for its openness and transparency, while Chinese authorities were arresting doctors in Wuhan who were accurately telling their colleagues that COVID-19 was spreading by human transmission.

          Instead, the WHO used its Twitter account to publicize China’s official claim at the beginning of the pandemic that there was no clear evidence COVID-19 was capable of human transmission, which was wrong.....https://edmontonsun.com/opinion/edit...a-pandemic-win

          CSI:WORLD http://swineflumagazine.blogspot.com/

          treyfish2004@yahoo.com

          Comment


          • #21
            The World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced that, through its investigation in China into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, it determined it was “extremely unlikely” that COVID-19 originated from a lab environment.

            The WHO made the announcement after visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which has been at the center of the “lab-leak” theory which posits that COVID-19 may have originated from a lab after being genetically modified as a part of “gain-of-function research.” Later the same week, the WHO backtracked, saying that “all possibilities” were still on the table regarding the origin of the virus.

            ...The conflicts of interest casting a shadow over the investigation have been well documented. Investigative team member Peter Daszak was responsible for funneling National Institutes of Health grant money to the WIV. House Republicans concluded that the WHO enabled China’s coverup of the early stages of the pandemic. The WHO has routinely praised China for its “transparency” in dealing with the pandemic, a notion which is harshly contradicted by reality....https://dailycaller.com/2021/02/12/w...b-leak-theory/
            CSI:WORLD http://swineflumagazine.blogspot.com/

            treyfish2004@yahoo.com

            Comment


            • #22
              On WHO trip, China refused to hand over important data
              • 1 HOUR AGO
              BEIJING (NYTIMES) - Chinese scientists refused to share raw data that might bring the world closer to understanding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, independent investigators for the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Friday (Feb 12).

              The investigators, who recently returned from a fact-finding trip to the Chinese city of Wuhan,said disagreements over patient records and other issues were so tense that they sometimes erupted into shouts among the typically mild-mannered scientists on both sides.

              China's continued resistance to revealing information about the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, the scientists say, makes it difficult for them to uncover important clues that could help stop future outbreaks of such dangerous diseases.

              "If you are data focused, and if you are a professional," said Dr Thea Kolsen Fischer, a Danish epidemiologist on the team, then obtaining data is "like for a clinical doctor looking at the patient and seeing them by your own eyes."

              For 27 days in January and February, the team of 14 experts for the WHO led the mission to trace the origins of the pandemic. Several say their Chinese counterparts were frustrated by the team's persistent questioning and demands for data.

              Chinese officials urged the WHO team to embrace the government's narrative about the source of the virus, including the unproven notion that it might have spread to China from abroad, according to several members of the team. The WHO scientists responded that they would refrain from making judgments without data.....

              And they were criticised already for handing the Chinese side a public relations victory at a closing news conference by endorsing the contentious idea that the virus might have spread by frozen food products....
              LONG STORY..https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/ea...important-data
              CSI:WORLD http://swineflumagazine.blogspot.com/

              treyfish2004@yahoo.com

              Comment


              • #23

                U.S. Expresses ‘Deep Concerns’ Over China Withholding Data From Pandemic Investigators

                National security adviser says it is imperative World Health Organization report be free of China’s intervention

                By
                Alex Leary
                Feb. 13, 2021 11:53 am ET

                WASHINGTON—The Biden administration issued a formal statement criticizing China over refusing to provide World Health Organization pandemic investigators with data on early Covid-19 cases that could help explain how the virus spread.

                “We have deep concerns about the way in which the early findings of the Covid-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement issued on Saturday. “It is imperative that this report be independent, with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government.”

                “To better understand this pandemic and prepare for the next one, China must make available its data from the earliest days of the outbreak,” Mr. Sullivan said.

                more...

                https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-exp...rs-11613235225

                Comment


                • #24
                  I am just reading some of the comments in post #16.......

                  1) Citizenship can be a factor because a scientist is beholding to the laws of their country. For instance, a person who is a citizen of China can commit the crime of destabilizing the social order even if that citizen is not in China at the time. It is a serious law and violations can result in incarceration. It is fair to discuss citizenship in this regard.
                  2) ALWAYS follow the money. Most people are dependent on money for food, housing, etc. Generally they will respond to those that have paid their bills.
                  3) I never believe a sole scientific opinion. From experience I have learned that for every scientific opinion, there is an opposing one. I try to assemble a preponderance of opinions/evidence.
                  4) Use your common sense.

                  Comment


                  • #25
                    According to this report https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4119101 , Peter Daszak's organization, EcoHealth Alliance, was actively researching chimeric viruses at WHI. His role there makes it hard to see him as an objective observer.
                    Also, he is British, not American

                    Comment


                    • JJackson
                      JJackson commented
                      Editing a comment
                      I strongly recommend everyone watch the TWiV linked to in this partisan report out of Taiwan as it clearly outlines all of the reasons EcoHealth Alliance keep getting funds from a range of US funding agencies. The work they do has been funded for very good reasons to do with the prevention of zoonotic emergence and disease in commercially important species. The rubbish about 'chimeric species' seems to be referring to attempts made to find broadly acting vaccines and therapeutics. This article is typical of anti-China propaganda coming out of Taiwan, Hong Kong and the US and should be viewed in that light. Daszak is listed as American, British by Wikipedia so presumably holds dual Nationality. Ecohealth Alliance collects samples from a range of animals in China and WIV does the lab work to sequence what is found this is a perfectly normal international collaboration, they do much the same work in about 30 countries on dozens of pathogens with zoonotic potential.

                    • Emily
                      Emily commented
                      Editing a comment
                      JJackson, if the US was funding this research, do you know why the lab work was done in Wuhan instead of the US? If it had been, there would be more transparency now. From what I understand, Obama banned GOF in 2014, then Trump lifted the ban in late 2017. Had the research already progressed to animal experiments by then that wouldn't meet humane standards in the US?

                  • #26
                    Irrespective of the merits of EcoHealth and of Peter Daszak, he is clearly very close the WHI.
                    That makes him less than ideal as an independent investigator, because he is in effect investigating himself.
                    Obviously the Taiwanese would highlight this for partisan reasons, but their concerns do have a point.
                    Nor has China helped dispel these concerns, having sanitized the WHI files and the wet market in question well before allowing any out side scrutiny.

                    Comment


                    • #27

                      An upcoming report may soon shed light on the origins of the coronavirus that has wreaked havoc across the world, killing more than 2.6 million people, including around 530,000 in the United States.

                      A year later, what do we know about the origins of the coronavirus?
                      By Martin Finucane Globe Staff,Updated March 11, 2021, 2:37 p.m.
                      ...
                      Some critics have raised the possibility that the virus, rather than originating naturally, leaked from a research lab, and they?ve called for an independent investigation separate from the WHO-China report. Wuhan is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

                      Dr. David A. Relman, a professor of medicine and microbiology at Stanford University, told The New York Times last week that ?based on what we know so far ... the WHO investigation appears to be biased, skewed, and insufficient.?...
                      _____________________________________________

                      Ask Congress to Investigate COVID Origins and Government Response to Pandemic.

                      i love myself. the quietest. simplest. most powerful. revolution ever. ---- nayyirah waheed

                      "...there’s an obvious contest that’s happening between different sectors of the colonial ruling class in this country. And they would, if they could, lump us into their beef, their struggle." ---- Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Socialist Party

                      (My posts are not intended as advice or professional assessments of any kind.)
                      Never forget Excalibur.

                      Comment


                      • #28
                        Mr Daznak est un professeur de philosophie et un politique. Je peut l'?crire, l'ayant montr? en ce lieu. Vu les r?gles de ce lieu , il n'a donc pas sa place, en ce lieu, et dans le cadre de l'expertise si ce n'est en temps que t?moin, assist? ou pas...

                        Question ?tude de fonction, les vaccinations en oeuvre , ce n'est pas une forme de modification de fonction en grand sur les populations humaines ?

                        Les C.D.C sont fait pour travailler ensemble et en confiance. Je consid?re , qu'? cause d'une fiert? mal plac? , le pr?sident chinois a diff?r? les ?bats. Il a la fonction de maitre du temps pour ce sujet. Mais ces ?bats , les premiers ? le souhaiter de mon point de vue sont les chinois . De plus , ce qui importe , pour les suites , c'est de voir comment le grand peuple va aborder toutes les suites.

                        L'O.M.S , qui a ?t? ridicule du d?but de cette crise, ? ce jour, aurait du avoir le r?le de grand accoucheur . C'est ? dire que pour moi , son r?le devrait ?tre de permettre les ?bats, l'?mergence d'une expertise cr?dible et partag?e, permettant une sortie de crise par le haut , pour tous ...


                        Je suis v?t?rinaire, je lis, en ce lieu, des travaux de consoeurs chinoises d'un niveau ?blouissant. Leur silence, sur ce dossier , est afligant et totalement m?prisant, et pour la fonction et pour les femmes .

                        Elle est ou l'expertise v?t?rinaire chinoise , sign?e par qui ?



                        Comment


                        • #29
                          Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-chi...ns-11616004512

                          How the WHO?s Hunt for Covid?s Origins Stumbled in China
                          A team of scientists hoped a mission to Wuhan would provide some clarity about the coronavirus?s origins. New details about the team?s constraints reveal how little power it had to conduct a thorough probe.
                          WHO-led team members investigating the coronavirus?s origins visit the closed Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, China, in January. hector retamal/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

                          WUHAN, China?More than a dozen foreign scientists led by the World Health Organization gathered with Chinese counterparts last month to vote on the question: How did the Covid-19 pandemic start?

                          The show of hands came after a four-week joint study in the city where the first cases were identified, a mission many hoped would provide some clarity to a world craving answers.

                          For a while, it appeared to. The vote?s results captured headlines: The virus probably jumped to humans from an animal; further research was needed on whether it spread on frozen food; a lab leak was ?extremely unlikely.?

                          A month on, however, as the WHO-led team finalizes its full report on the Wuhan mission, a Wall Street Journal investigation has uncovered fresh details about the team?s formation and constraints that reveal how little power it had to conduct a thorough, impartial examination?and call into question the clarity its findings appeared to provide....

                          Comment


                          • #30
                            This whole conspiracy theory thread, and the other lab escape thread, are getting more and more bizarre. Daszak is not a philosopher or politician he is an epidemiologist his original degree was in zoology and his PhD in parasitic infectious disease. He is the most obvious choice for a place on the team as his NGO has been at the forefront of work on zoonotic disease emergence and has been sampling the bats which carry sarbecovs which are the hosts for the disease under investigation. The fact that they have been working closely with Chinese researchers trying to identify the most likely candidates for exactly this kind of zoonotic event further cements him as THE person to include in a search for the viruses origins. You do not ship potentially dangerous viruses around the world when the world experts on working on the viruses in question are in the country where you found them. Ecohealth's funding was to collect viral samples, which they are specialists in, not to do the lab work on them which was the specialty of the Chinese BSL3 & 4 labs.
                            I came to Flutrackers shortly after it opened as it was the one place on the internet where reasoned analysis based on the science could be found and it has continued to hold that position up until the start of this pandemic. Throughout the H1N1 pandemic, Ebola, H5N1, H7N9 etc. it has continued to operate on science and logic. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has sadly done serious damage to its reputation and the two threads I have highlighted are why, they are full of ridiculous MSN, and even less reputable sources, that have been posted by our members as if they have merit. It is with great sadness that I have felt its necessary right this post.

                            Comment


                            • Mary Wilson
                              Mary Wilson commented
                              Editing a comment
                              Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it is mainly an issue within the U.S., unfortunately.
                              When we consider the reason for this, let us not forget the climate the U.S. was in at the start of the Coronavirus.
                              Exclusive: U.S. slashed CDC staff inside China prior to coronavirus outbreak
                              MARCH 25, 20205:26 PM UPDATED A YEAR AGO
                              By Marisa Taylor

                              -above article posted on Peter Daszak twitter page: https://twitter.com/PeterDaszak

                            • Vibrant62
                              Vibrant62 commented
                              Editing a comment
                              I think Mary raises a valid point here. I also agree in large part with you JJackson - but there are confounding factors, in that during this pandemic, domestic and geo politics and science have become inextricably entwined in the media and within governments and health organisations the world over. This has been to the considerable detriment of the science. Unfortunately however, the reporting - even from mainstream media - reflects this, but I would suggest that it has been worth documenting here, just to at least get a 'big picture' view of what has been occurring. I am not entirely certain what is needed to sever the science and its reporting from the politics in the MSM, but I hope when the moratorium comes, important lessons are learned. Too many agenda's at play here on multiple levels, and a lack of transparency from some countries and leading health bodies keeps feeding and perpetuating this beast. Trust in the WHO, CDC etc etc is at an all time low right now as a consequence. There is also considerable fear at every levels within societies, no matter where they are, and often for different reasons.

                              I wish that the media, in particular, would focus on the immediate problem. I am not sure that this focus on origins serves the world well, and my question is - does it really matter now? I am fairly certain that the potential risks of lab escapes are clear for all to see (should that be an origin) and that greater attention to BSL security is now probably standard the world over, and the evolution of large numbers of novel viruses in bats has also been clearly identified, giving us ample cause for concern and understanding that this wont be an isolated problem as we move forward in time, such that there will be a far greater focus on what can be done to prepare the world better and make us more able to contain and respond to pandemic threats as they arise. I very much doubt there is going to be an 'answer' ever or a smoking gun found, so we (as in the world) need to move on from this focus, and instead be bent towards finding solutions to the problems that Covid and SARS Cov 2 causes - this thing is a long way from being over yet, and we simply don't know what lies ahead. The world needs to unite and focus on that.
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