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Press Release
Published: Feb 3, 2022
Comer, Scalise, Jordan Call on Scientists Who Privately Supported Lab Leak Theory to Provide Answers Under Oath
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On February 1, 2020, several scientists took part in a teleconference with Dr. Francis Collins and Dr. Anthony Fauci. Before, during, and after the call, some scientists expressed grave concerns that COVID-19 may have leaked out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and that COVID-19 may have been partially engineered. Yet 48 hours later, several of the scientists were involved in the drafting and subsequent publication of a correspondence in Nature Medicine entitled, “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” that dismissed the lab leak theory. Newly released communications suggest Dr. Collins hoped the correspondence would silence debate on the origins of the virus.
“Alarmingly, it appears that the decision to suppress the lab-leak hypothesis was rooted in political calculations rather than scientific principles. NIH documents show that scientists on the February 1, 2020, teleconference pushed the natural evolution theory because they believed the lab-leak hypothesis could cause China too much scrutiny,” continued the Republican lawmakers. “Transparency is a bedrock of scientific credibility. Continuing to shield the truth equates to hiding information that may inform future pandemic responses, advise the United States’ current national security posture, and restore confidence in our public health experts.”
In letters to seven scientists, the Republican lawmakers call for all documents and communications related to the February 1, 2020 conference call, the drafting and publication of “The Proximal Origins of SARS-CoV-2,” and the origins of COVID-19. They also call on the scientists to appear for a transcribed interview under oath.
The letters can be found here:https://republicans-oversight.house....rs-under-oath/ -
Source: https://inference-review.com/article...r-out-of-china
Medicine / Critical Essay
Vol. 6, NO. 4 / February 2022
Thunder Out of China
Yuri Deigin
On August 27, 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a summary of the US Intelligence Community’s assessment on the origins of COVID-19.1 Four of the agencies involved and the National Intelligence Council assessed “with low confidence that the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection was most likely caused by natural exposure to an animal infected with it or a close progenitor virus.”...Leave a comment:
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Allowing a Comprehensive International Investigation of
Pandemic Origins would be a True Expression of Olympic Values
February 4, 2022
The Olympic Charter states that “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service
of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful
society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”
Unfortunately, as athletes from across the globe gather together today for the start of
the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games, this noble aspiration is being undermined
through the ongoing efforts of the host government to prevent a comprehensive
international investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed
millions of people and harmed billions across the globe.
Understanding how this terrible crisis began is essential to preventing future pandemics
and building a safer future for all.
The ongoing efforts by China’s government to block any meaningful investigation into
pandemic origins – which has included destroying biological samples, hiding records,
imprisoning courageous Chinese citizen journalists, and enforcing a series of gag
orders preventing Chinese scientists from saying or writing anything about pandemic
origins without prior government approval – have been an affront to the international
scientific community and to people everywhere.
Due primarily to the Chinese government’s intransigence and the aggressive pressure it
has placed on foreign governments and international institutions, no comprehensive
international investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic has yet been
initiated.
Nearly a year ago, at a press conference on February 9, 2021, the leader of the
international mission to Wuhan organized by the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr
Peter Ben Embarek, announced that the international study team had concluded that a
pandemic “natural origin” was likely but that a lab incident origin was “extremely
unlikely” and should not be investigated. Dr. Embarek later admitted, however, that he
actually thought that at least one manifestation of a lab accident was “likely,” that he had
been under pressure from Chinese hosts not to raise the lab incident origin hypothesis,
and that he had bent his expressed views to accommodate the sensitivities of the
international group’s Chinese hosts.
Although the WHO has more recently established a new body - the Scientific Advisory
Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) - to advise the WHO Secretariat on
technical and scientific considerations regarding emerging and re-emerging pathogens
and to investigate the origins of novel pathogens including SARS-CoV-2, it appears this
body does not have unfettered access to relevant raw data and sampling sites in China
and has not been allowed to perform audits of Wuhan´s laboratories where various bat
coronaviruses were being collected, stored, and manipulated before the outbreak
began.
With no established plan in place for a comprehensive and unrestricted international
investigation into COVID-19 origins, everyone on earth and future generations remain at
heightened and unnecessary risk of future pandemics.
Calling for a comprehensive investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic at
this moment, when athletes from across the globe are coming together to promote
openness and mutual trust, is a true representation of the ideals underlying the Olympic
movement.
As a community of scientists and experts from around the world deeply committed to
uncovering the origins of this pandemic as a cornerstone of preventing future ones, we
therefore:
● Call on all nations of the world, and all people, to unite in demanding a
comprehensive and unrestricted investigation into COVID-19 origins in China
and, as appropriate, beyond;
● Call on the Chinese government to affirm its support for a comprehensive
international investigation into pandemic origins with full access to all relevant
records, samples, retrospective contact tracing data, and personnel in China;
● Call on the United States, the European Union, and other national and
international bodies to establish broad-based COVID-19 commissions to explore
pandemic origins and propose avenues to make sure such a pandemic never
happens again;
● Call on all nations to require scientists in their countries who have previously
collaborated with Chinese laboratories researching coronaviruses to share all the
relevant data and communications;
● Call on the Chinese government to allow access to information critical for
properly assessing all plausible origins, by:
○ sharing the missing virus sequence and sample databases managed by
the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which have been removed from the
internet since September 2019, despite forming the most exhaustive
research resource on recently identified bat coronaviruses;
○ sharing records of all coronavirus sampling trips involving staff or
researchers in Wuhan for the years 2018 and 2019;
○ sharing the full list, with sampling dates, of the medical samples taken
from the miners who developed Covid-19-like symptoms working in
Mojiang, Yunnan in 2012, as well as a list of the institutions that received
these samples;
○ allowing international researchers to visit and sample at the Mojiang mine,
Yunnan and at the Shitou caves, which were described in the 2018
DEFUSE grant application submitted to DARPA by the EcoHealth Alliance;
○ sharing laboratory books and research records from the relevant labs in
Wuhan, in particular, but not limited to, the WIV at its Xiaohongshan
(BSL-2/3) and its Zhengdian (BSL-2/3/4) sites, Wuhan University
(ABSL-3), Wuhan CDC BSL-2, and the Wuhan Institute of Biological
Products, as well as all of the biosafety records since 2016 submitted
annually by these institutions to the Chinese authorities.
● Call on the World Health Organization to establish and promote a secure
whistleblower provision making it easier and safer for scientists and experts in
China and across the globe to share information regarding pandemic origins;
● Call on the international community to recognize the exemplary Chinese medical
professionals and the many ordinary Chinese citizens who took great personal
risks in documenting the early outbreak in Wuhan and alerting the world and who
too often got severely punished for doing so.
Realizing these critically important next steps would help build a safer future for all and
be the ultimate expression of the true Olympic values.
Signatories:
- Colin D Butler, Honorary Professor, Australian National University, Canberra,
Australia (ORCID 0000-0002-2942-5294)
- Henri Cap, PhD, Zoologist, Toulouse, France
- Jean-Michel Claverie, Virologist, Emeritus Professor of Public Health, Aix-Marseille
University, France (ORCID 0000-0003-1424-0315)
- Virginie Courtier, Evolutionary geneticist, Research Director, Institut Jacques
Monod, CNRS, Paris, France (ORCID 0000-0002-9297-9230) (Co-Organizer)
- Gilles Demaneuf, Engineer and Data Scientist, Auckland, New Zealand (ORCID
0000-0001-7277-9533) (Co-Organizer)
- François Graner, biophysicist, Research Director, CNRS and Université de Paris,
France (ORCID 0000-0002-4766-3579)
- Mai (Mike) He, Pathologist, Associate Professor, Washington University in St. Louis
School of Medicine, MO, USA
- Makoto Itoh, Professor, Engineering Systems, University of Tsukuba, Japan
- Hideki Kakeya, Information Scientist, Associate Professor, University of Tsukuba,
Japan
- Richard Kock, Professor, Wildlife Health and Emerging Diseases, Royal Veterinary
College, London, UK.
- Jonathan Latham, PhD, Exec. Director, The Bioscience Resource Project, USA
- Milton Leitenberg, Senior Research Fellow, University of Maryland, USA
- Steven E Massey, Computational Biologist, Professor, University of Puerto Rico,
Rio Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
- Jamie Metzl, Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council, USA (Co-Organizer)
- Steven Quay, Formerly of Dept. Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine,
USA (ORCID 000-002-0363-7651)
- Monali Rahalkar, Scientist (Microbiologist), Agharkar Research Institute, Pune,
India (ORCID 0000-0003-0945-4378)
- Bahulikar Rahul, Scientist (Plant genetics and taxonomy expert), BAIF
Development Research Foundation, Pune, India (ORCID 0000-0002-0442-4607)
- Charles Rixey, MA, formerly CBRN Chief, United States Marine Corps; Analyst,
DRASTIC, Dallas TX, USA
- Günter Theißen, Geneticist, Professor, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena,
Germany
- Roland Wiesendanger, Nanoscientist, Professor, University of Hamburg, Germany
- Allison Wilson, PhD, Science Director, The Bioscience Resource Project, Ithaca,
NY, USA.
Chinese language version:
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Translation Google
Two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, where is the investigation into the origins of Sars-CoV-2?
Article written by
Louis San
France Televisions
Posted on 01/25/2022 06:59
Update on 01/25/2022 12:37
By the very admission of WHO investigators, the investigations are "at a standstill". Two hypotheses remain on the table: transmission from animals to humans or escape from a laboratory. But there is no clue to decide.
Pangolin? Bat ? Lab crash? Two years after the first cases of Covid-19 in France, announced by the authorities on January 24, 2020, the origin of the pandemic remains an enigma. Inspectors from the World Health Organization (WHO) traveled to the Chinese city of Wuhan, the cradle of the epidemic, in January 2021 to carry out investigations. But they could not formally establish how Sars-CoV-2 had emerged, as they set out in their report at the end of March . The investigation is "at a standstill" , finally recognized these experts, in August. A remark made as US intelligence services presented their own report on the origins of the virus. These investigations have also not made it possible to come to a conclusion with certainty on the conditions of appearance of the virus.
Since then, knowledge has changed little. "Overall, two main hypotheses remain on the table" , summarizes with franceinfo the virologist Etienne Decroly, research director at the CNRS in the Architecture and function of macromolecules laboratory. The first is that of a natural zoonosis, that is to say an infectious disease which pre-existed in animals and which was transmitted to humans, crossing the species barrier. The second hypothesis links the appearance of Sars-CoV-2 to experiments carried out in the laboratory. Considered by some to be a conspiracy thesis in 2020, the scenario consolidated the following year , until it became plausible and serious.
"Today, we have no element that allows us to lean in favor of one hypothesis or another. We are in the dark."
Etienne Decroly, virologist, specialist in emerging viruses to franceinfo
The bat, reservoir of the virus?
The first scenario, that of transmission from animals to humans, was considered "the most favorable hypothesis because the history of the interaction between humans and animals is made up of zoonoses" , underlines Etienne Decroly, who has been interested in the origins of the pandemic from its very beginnings. It is in this context that the trail of the pangolin was put forward by Chinese scientists, before being definitively dismissed . The reason: a correspondence which is only partial between the genetic code of Sars-CoV-2 and that of a coronavirus taken from this animal.
On the other hand, the hypothesis of transmission of the virus from bats to humans, whether or not via an intermediate animal, remains under consideration. "A virus 96% identical to Sars-CoV-2 has been identified in bats captured in China. The bat is therefore very likely the reservoir of the virus" , argued the Pasteur Institute, at the end of February 2020 . The hypothesis was then reinforced with the discovery, in Laos, of viruses “in bats, very close to the first strains of Sars-CoV-2 which could be isolated”, the closest discovered so far and capable of infecting human cells, explains to franceinfo Marc Eloit, head of the Pathogen Discovery laboratory at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. At the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021, he led a mission in northern Laos in limestone caves where millions of bats live. This type of relief and this fauna are common to neighboring areas, such as northern Burma, northern Vietnam and Yunnan, a province in southern China.
A 'significant difference' between Sars-CoV-2 and bat viruses discovered (so far)
However, three elements stand in the way of the complete validation of this thesis. First, the city of Wuhan is located some 2,500 km northeast of Yunnan, and bats do not live in this city of 11 million inhabitants or in its surroundings, underlines Etienne Decroly. Moreover, no host animal, which would have acted as an intermediary between bats and humans, has been identified. Nothing conclusive was discovered during the investigations carried out on the Wuhan animal market, still considered a potential starting point for the pandemic.
Finally, the viruses discovered by Marc Eloit and his team nevertheless present an "important difference" with Sars-Cov-2: their genome lacks an element called "furin cleavage site", which makes it possible to increase the entry efficiency of Sars-CoV-2 into human lung cells and its pathogenicity. This "site" is fundamental since it makes the virus dangerous for humans. “It could have been acquired by Sars-CoV-2 during multiple passages in human cells” , remarks Marc Eloit. But that means "either successive passages without symptoms in humans, until this furin site is acquired, or passages in cell cultures in the laboratory", he says. The initially silent circulation of the virus in humans, because initially without or with few symptoms, is "theoretically possible" , explains the virologist. Not to mention that the caves in which the bats live are frequented by humans: inhabitants of these regions go there to collect guano or sometimes consume these animals, and tourists visit these sites.
A laboratory accident not excluded
The zoonosis hypothesis is therefore considered "possible" by the WHO and remains favored by the scientific community. But "we have no scientific facts today that demonstrate the mechanisms of this zoonosis" , concludes Etienne Decroly. The idea of laboratory manipulations mentioned by the virologist Marc Eloit leads directly to the other major hypothesis: that of the accident. Wuhan indeed has sensitive laboratories: a P4 laboratory – for “class 4 pathogen” – of very high security, where viruses such as Ebola are studied, and two P3 laboratories, where coronaviruses are studied.
Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, deputy director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, is nicknamed "Batwoman" because of her great knowledge of bat coronaviruses. In 2005, she co-directed the research, published in particular in Nature (in English) , which made it possible to discover that the SARS virus originated from a bat coronavirus. In 2014, she also participated in work, published in Nature Medicine (in English), involving the manipulation of SARS and bat coronaviruses, in order to study their risk of transmissibility to humans. Wuhan scientists had "the intention to conduct animal experiments to see if these viruses were able to cross the species barrier , abounds Etienne Decroly. Several works have been published to present the chimeric viruses developed to study these processes."
"One of the laboratories in Wuhan has been handling coronaviruses for a very long time. It is the world reference in this field."
Marc Eloit, Head of the Pathogen Discovery Laboratory at the Institut Pasteur, Paris to franceinfo
A possible accident cannot therefore be ruled out. Some viruses described in recent years by Chinese scientists have been harvested in Yunnan, according to the virologist from the Institut Pasteur. However, "when we go to sample in caves, there is a risk of human contamination if drastic conditions of individual protection are not put in place" , he says. “When these samples are introduced into the laboratory to extract the material to sequence the virus, or to amplify it in cell culture, there are associated risks if the safety rules are not strictly respected”, explains the specialist. In 2004, the virus responsible for the SARS epidemic had also escaped from the Beijing Institute of Virology, classified P3, as franceinfo recalled in March 2021 .
Despite well-established protocols, "there can always be a leaky pipe, a poorly maintained filter" , illustrates to franceinfo engineer Rodolphe de Maistre, who participated in the DRASTIC project, a multidisciplinary group of experts conducting research independent on the origins of the Covid-19 epidemic. He points out that work was underway in Wuhan in 2019 near sensitive sites. According to him, “the risk of [laboratory] accident was high”, with a laboratory in operation handling pathogenic viruses, next to a site under construction and, very close, a factory manufacturing vaccines.
"Laboratory accidents happen, it's quite common. I've seen them and I've made mistakes myself" , noted, moreover, in July 2021 during a press conference, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of the WHO, referring to his career as an immunologist in a laboratory.
Lack of transparency from Beijing
But China has always refuted the hypothesis of the laboratory accident, denouncing a simple "rumor" . "She does not want to be held responsible for a pandemic" , remarks to franceinfo Antoine Bondaz, researcher at Sciences Po and the Foundation for Strategic Research, and specialist in China. This is why the country condemned the "arrogance" and the "lack of respect" of the WHO which had requested, during the summer of 2021, the continuation of the investigations on its soil. Beijing immediately rejected the claims of the UN agency, deeming the first investigation sufficient.
However, the WHO has pointed to a lack of transparency from the Chinese authorities regarding these investigations. Dane Peter Ben Embarek, who led the delegation of international experts to Wuhan, recounted the tensions felt during the visit. "Until 48 hours before the end of the mission, we still did not agree to mention the 'thesis of the laboratory' in the report" , he said in a documentary broadcast by Danish public television. TV2 ( in Danish) . “Following these exchanges, the WHO delegation finally obtained permission to visit two laboratories where research on bats is carried out ,” he explained.
"We were able to talk and ask the questions we wanted to ask, but we didn't have the opportunity to consult any documentation."
Peter Ben Embarek, head of the delegation of international experts in Wuhan in a Danish public television documentary
This gap in the investigation is regrettable, according to the WHO. "In order to be able to examine the laboratory hypothesis, it is important to have access to all the raw data ," said the UN health agency. China brandished medical secrecy for the first patients concerned, in order to dismiss the request. Nor did it conduct, despite requests, a large serological survey in Wuhan covering the pre-pandemic period. Marc Eloit explains that this "basic approach" with "simple and available tools", analysis of sera stored in biobanks, would have made it possible to date the start of circulation of Sars-CoV-2 in relation to the first clinical detections and to identify a possible circulation within the megalopolis before the first known signals.
The situation is "paradoxical" , judge Antoine Bondaz, between, on the one hand, China which constantly boasts of its great capacities and, on the other, "the total impasse" which it orchestrates on the origin of the virus and the initial routes of contamination.
"China could come out stronger, appear as the one that has shed all the light. But it has a political and not a scientific management of the investigation into the appearance of Sars-CoV-2."
Antoine Bondaz, researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research to franceinfo
Will we ever know the truth about the appearance of Sars-CoV-2? Marc Eloit notes that it is not excluded to find, during future samples from bats, viral strains having a "furin cleavage site" . This would endorse the hypothesis of a zoonosis of natural origin. While the new commission of experts formed by the WHO is currently unable to negotiate a new mandate for investigation, Etienne Decroly is rather optimistic. He hopes that the truth will come out one day, perhaps through new tools that are still unknown to us.
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Was Peter Daszak Working For The Central Intelligence Agency?
An EcoHealth Alliance whistleblower steps forward.....KanekoaTheGreat Jan 19
...According to investigative research done by independent-journalist Sam Husseini and The Intercept, much of the money awarded to EcoHealth Alliance did not focus on health or ecology, but rather on biowarfare, bioterrorism, and other dangerous uses of deadly pathogens.
EcoHealth Alliance received the majority of its funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a State Department subsidiary that serves as a frequent cover for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Their second largest source of funding was from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which is a branch of the Department of Defense (DOD) which states it is tasked to “counter and deter weapons of mass destruction and improvised threat networks.”
...
Dr. Andrew Huff received his Ph.D. in Environmental Health specializing in emerging diseases before becoming an Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, where he developed novel methods of bio-surveillance, data analytics, and visualization for disease detection.
On January 12, 2022, Dr. Andrew Huff issued a public statement (on Twitter) in which he claimed, Peter Daszak, the President of EcoHealth Alliance, told him that he was working for the CIA.
Dr. Andrew Huff’s full statement below:... (See article - E)
....
Every step of the way, Fauci, Collins, and Daszak have done everything in their power to obfuscate, mislead, and misinform the world about the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 originating at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
If Dr. Andrew Huff is telling the truth, Fauci, Collins, and Daszak are not covering up the lab origin only for themselves, but also for the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Government...Leave a comment:
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...
Appendix I
These emails were originally produced redacted via the Freedom of Information Act and
subsequently to Committee Republicans. At the request of Committee Republicans and pursuant
to the Seven Member Rule, the Department of Health and Human Services made unredacted
versions available for an in camera review but not available to the public. Committee staff, to the
best of their ability, hand transcribed the contents of the emails and excerpts of those
transcriptions are reproduced below. Unless otherwise noted, emphasis is added.
...
Notes from Participants on February 1, 2020 Conference Call
1. Email from Dr. Jeremy Farrar to Drs. Francis Collins, Anthony Fauci, and
Lawrence Tabak
...
From Mike Farzan (discoverer of SARS receptor):
1. The RBD didn’t look ‘engineered’ to him – as in, no human would
have selected the individual mutations and cloned them into the
RBD (I think we all agree)
2. Tissue culture passage can often lead to gain of basic sites –
including furin cleavage sites (this is stuff they have seen with
human coronaviruses)
3. He is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time explain that as
an event outside the lab (though, there are possible ways in nature,
but highly unlikely)
4. Instead of directed engineering, changes in the RBD and acquisition
of the furin site would be highly compatible with the idea of
continued passage of virus in tissue culture
5. Acquisition of the furin site would likely destabilize the virus but
would make it disseminate to new tissues.
So, given above, a likely explanation could be something as simple
as passage SARS-live CoVs in tissue culture on human cell lines
(under BSL-2) for an extended period of time, accidently creating a
virus that would be primed for rapid transmission between humans
via gain of furin site (from tissue culture) and adaption to human
ACE2 receptor via repeated passage.
…So, I think it becomes a question of how do you put all this
together, whether you believe in this series of coincidences, what
you know of the lab in Wuhan, how much could be in nature –
accidental release or natural event? I am 70:30 or 60:40.
From Bob [Garry]:
Before I left the office for the ball, I aligned nCoV with the 96% bat
CoV sequenced at WIV. Except for the RBD the S proteins are
essentially identical at the amino acid level – well all but the perfect
insertion of 12 nucleotides that adds the furin site. S2 is over its
whole length essentially identical. I really can’t think of a plausible
natural scenario where you get from the bat virus or one very similar
to it to nCoV where you insert exactly 4 amino acids 12 nucleotide
that all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function
– that and you don’t change any other amino acid in S2? I just can’t
figure out how this gets accomplished in nature. Do the alignment
of the spikes at the amino acid level – its stunning. Of course, in the
lab it would be easy to generate the perfect 12 base insert that you
wanted. Another scenario is that the progenitor of nCoV was a bat
virus with the perfect furin cleavage site generated over
evolutionary times. In this scenario RaTG13 the WIV virus was
generated by a perfect deletion of 12 nucleotides while essentially
not changing any other S2 amino acid. Even more implausible IMO.
That is the big if.
You were doing gain of function research you would NOT use an
existing close of SARS or MERSv. These viruses are already human
pathogens. What you would do is close a bat virus th[at] had not yet
emerged. Maybe then pass it in human cells for a while to lock in
the RBS, then you reclone and put in the mutations you are
interested – one of the first a polybasic cleavage site.
2. Email from Dr. Francis Collins to Drs. Jeremy Farrar, Anthony Fauci, and
Lawrence Tabak
… Though the arguments from Ron Fouchier and Christian Drosten
are presented with more forcefulness than necessary, I am coming
around to the view that a natural origin is more likely. But I share
your view that a swift convening of experts in a confidence inspiring
framework (WHO seems really the only option) is needed, or the
voices of conspiracy will quickly dominate, doing great potential
harm to science and international harmony
3. Email from Dr. Andrew Rambaut to Drs. Jeremy Farrar, Anthony Fauci, Patrick
Vallance, Christian Drosten, Marion Koopmans, Edward Holmes, Kristian
Andersen, Paul Schreier, Mike Ferguson, Francis Collins, and Josie Golding
Thanks for inviting me on the call yesterday. I am also agnostic on
this – I do not have any experience of laboratory virology and don’t
know what is likely or not in that context. From a (natural)
evolutionary point of view the only thing here that strikes me as
unusual is the furin cleavage site. It strongly suggests to me that we
are missing something important in the origin of the virus. My
inclination would be that it is a missing host species in which this
feature arose because it was selected for in that host. We can see this
insertion has resulted in an extremely fit virus in humans – we can
also deduce that it is not optimal for transmission in bat species.
… The biggest hinderance at the moment (for this and more
generally) is the lack of data and information. There have been no
genome sequences from Wuhan for cases more recent than the
beginning of January and reports, but no information, about virus
from non-human animals in Wuhan. If the evolutionary origins of
the epidemic were to be discussed, I think the only people with
sufficient information or access to samples to address it would be
the teams working in Wuhan.
4. Email from Dr. Ron Fouchier
… Given the evidence presented and the discussions around it, I
would conclude that a follow-up discussion on the possible origin of
2019-nCoV would be of much interest. However, I doubt if it needs
to be done on very short term, given the importance of other
activities of the scientific community, WHO and other stakeholders
at present. It is my opinion that a non-natural origin of 2019-nCoV
is highly unlikely at present. Any conspiracy theory can be
approached with factual information.
… An accusation that nCoV-2019 might have been engineered and
released into the environment by humans (accidental or intentional)
would need to be supported by strong data, beyond a reasonable
doubt. It is good that this possibility was discussed in detail with a
team of experts. However, further debate about such accusations
would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties
and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China
in particular.
.Reaction to First Draft of Nature Medicine “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”
1. Email from Dr. Anthony Fauci to Drs. Jeremy Farrar and Francis Collins
…Serial passage in ACE2-transgenic mice
2. Email from Dr. Jeremy Farrar to Drs. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins
…[Eddie Holmes] 60-40 lab. I am 50-50…
3. Email from Dr. Francis Collins to Drs. Jeremy Farrar and Anthony Fauci
…[Eddie Holmes] arguing against engineering but repeated passage
is still an option…
Government Official Attempts to Stifle the Lab Leak Hypothesis
1. Email from Dr. Francis Collins to Drs. Anthony Fauci, Lawrence Tabak, Cliff Lane,
and Mr. John Burklow
Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this
very destructive conspiracy, with what seems to be growing
momentum:
I hoped the Nature Medicine article on the genomic sequence of
SARS-CoV-2 would settle this. But probably didn’t get much
visibility.
Anything more we can do? Ask the National Academy to weigh in?
Francis
2. Email from Dr. Anthony Fauci to Dr. Francis Collins
I would not do anything about this right now. It is a shiny object that
will go away in times.
Full text:
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Source: https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/0...b-leak-theory/
Why did scientists suppress the lab-leak theory?
In private, they said it was plausible. In public, they called it a conspiracy theory.
Matt Ridley
12th January 2022
In August 2007 there was an outbreak of foot-and-mouth virus on a farm in Surrey. It was a few miles from the world’s leading reference laboratory for identifying outbreaks of foot and mouth. Nobody thought this was a coincidence and sure enough a leaking pipe at the laboratory was soon found to be the source: a drainage contractor had worked at the lab and then at the farm.
In December 2019 there was an outbreak in China of a novel bat-borne SARS-like coronavirus a few miles from the world’s leading laboratory for collecting, studying and manipulating novel bat-borne SARS-like coronaviruses. We were assured by leading scientists in China, the US and the UK that this really was a coincidence, even when the nine closest relatives of the new virus turned up in the freezer of the laboratory in question, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Now we know what those leading scientists really thought. Emails exchanged between them after a conference call on 1 February 2020, and only now forced into the public domain by Republicans in the US Congress, show that they not only thought the virus might have leaked from a lab, but they also went much further in private. They thought the genome sequence of the new virus showed a strong likelihood of having been deliberately manipulated or accidentally mutated in the lab. Yet later they drafted an article for a scientific journal arguing that the suggestion not just of a manipulated virus, but even of an accidental spill, could be confidently dismissed and was a crackpot conspiracy theory...Leave a comment:
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Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab - but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’
Sarah Knapton
Tue, January 11, 2022, 3:14 PM·4 min read
...
An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.
The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.
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In the emails, Sir Jeremy said that other scientists also believed the virus could not have evolved naturally. One such scientist was Professor Mike Farzan, of Scripps Research, the expert who discovered how the original Sars virus binds to human cells.
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Summarising Professor Farzan’s concerns in an email, Sir Jeremy said: “He is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time (to) explain that as an event outside the lab, though there are possible ways in nature but highly unlikely.
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The emails also show that Bob Garry, of the University of Texas, was unconvinced that Covid-19 emerged naturally.
“I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature,” he said.
Professor Andrew Rambaut, from the University of Edinburgh, also said that furin cleavage site “strikes me as unusual”.
He added: “I think the only people with sufficient information or access to samples to address it would be the teams working in Wuhan.”
The emails show that by February 2 2020, scientists were already trying to shut down the debateinto the laboratory leak theory.
An email from Dr Ron Fouchier to Sir Jeremy said: “Further debate about such accusations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.”
Dr Collins, former director of the NIH, replied to Sir Jeremy stating: “I share your view that a swift convening of experts in a confidence-inspiring framework is needed or the voices of conspiracy will quickly dominate, doing great potential harm to science and international harmony.”
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Alina Chan @Ayjchan
I believe that prominent people on both sides are deliberately polarizing #OriginOfCovid to block credible efforts to investigate & report on this issue. Because to them it's more important to win their side over than to find the origin of a pandemic that has killed millions.
1:37 PM · Jan 7, 2022·Twitter Web App
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I don't have a solution to this polarization, just this question: Will it matter that your side won the #OriginOfCovid reporting battle in 2020 when in X years another potentially lab-based pandemic erupts in who knows which country and all our lives are at risk again?
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I've gotten so many messages from scientists (including virologists) from reputable institutes around the world saying to keep digging, keep up the good work. There is a much larger network of smart people who know we need to investigate a lab #OriginOfCovid than most of us know.
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Yet it is also a reminder that it isn't "no longer true" that the lab leak hypothesis is being silenced. There are real consequences for reputable scientists to publicly go against their colleagues, reviewers & funders who claimed a lab #OriginOfCovid is a conspiracy theory.
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