Use of a risk assessment tool to determine the origin of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
Xin Chen, Fatema Kalyar, Abrar Ahmad Chughtai, Chandini Raina MacIntyre
First published: 15 March 2024 https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.14291
Abstract
The origin of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is contentious. Most studies have focused on a zoonotic origin, but definitive evidence such as an intermediary animal host is lacking. We used an established risk analysis tool for differentiating natural and unnatural epidemics, the modified Grunow–Finke assessment tool (mGFT) to study the origin of SARS-COV-2. The mGFT scores 11 criteria to provide a likelihood of natural or unnatural origin. Using published literature and publicly available sources of information, we applied the mGFT to the origin of SARS-CoV-2. The mGFT scored 41/60 points (68%), with high inter-rater reliability (100%), indicating a greater likelihood of an unnatural than natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. This risk assessment cannot prove the origin of SARS-CoV-2 but shows that the possibility of a laboratory origin cannot be easily dismissed.
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4 DISCUSSION
We used an established risk analysis framework based on the mGFT for differentiating natural and unnatural epidemics, to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several studies have dismissed a lab accident as unlikely (Alwine et al., 2023; Andersen et al., 2020; Worobey et al., 2022), but our analysis indicates that both theories of origin are equally plausible. A range of different lines of evidence are required, including phylogenetics, epidemiology, seroepidemiology, and intelligence. The gathering of intelligence may include open source, signals or satellite intelligence, political factors, as well as other “detective work” to piece together the complex question of the origin of SARS-COV-2. This would include full records of viruses housed at the relevant laboratories, of experiments conducted, and records of accidents and illness, among staff. The question of origin cannot be answered solely by phylogenetic analysis, as viruses resulting from gain-of-function research using serial passage in an animal model cannot easily be distinguished from naturally emerged ones. Even viruses created by reverse genetics may be difficult to identify.
Definitive proof of a laboratory leak or natural origin may never be obtained, but risk analysis tools such as the mGFT allow a systematic approach to estimating the likelihood of either origin. The debate about the origins of SARS-COV-2 has been focused largely on medical evidence but not on other intelligence, which is key to identifying unnatural epidemics. The large volume of private communications released under Freedom of Information requests also adds further insights (Kopp, 2023), such as the discrepancy between the public and private views of influential virologists.
The epidemiological evidence needs to be broader than simply the Huanan seafood market, and all data, including outlier data, should be examined. This may include detailed epidemiological analysis of scientists who reported becoming sick at WIV as well as athletes who attended the World Military Games in October 2019, and testing of stored sera collected between October and December 2019 in these athletes. It may also include further analysis of data from countries that had evidence of the virus being present earlier than December 2019, such as Italy, France, and Spain (Carrat et al., 2021; Chavarria-Miró et al., 2021).
Laboratory accidents are common (Gillum, Krishnan, & Byers, 2016), and if the pathogen in question is highly contagious, one infected lab worker can set off an epidemic in the community (Blacksell et al., 2023). The fact that the first cluster of cases was in the vicinity of a world-leading coronavirus laboratory known to be experimenting on SARS-like viruses, as well as a second lab that was also working on coronaviruses, cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. Well-known examples of consequential lab-origin epidemics include the accidental leakage of weaponized anthrax at a Soviet bioweapons facility in Sverdlovsk (The National Security Archive, 2001), the 1977 Russian influenza pandemic (Rozo & Gronvall, 2015), and more recently, a substantial leak of aerosolized Brucella from a pharmaceutical plant in China in 2019 (Lina, Kunasekaran, & Moa, 2021). A common theme in such accidents has been denial and cover-up. This occurred in the Sverdlovsk accident, which was declared a natural outbreak by the Soviets and also by the US experts—it was only a confession by Boris Yeltsin after the fall of the Soviet Union that revealed the truth about this deadly accident (The National Security Archive, 2001). The 1977 Russian influenza epidemic is now accepted as likely the result of incomplete attenuation of live virus influenza vaccines, but an unnatural origin was denied for almost 30 years (Rozo & Gronvall, 2015).
This study has several limitations that need to be considered. First, the mGFT tool was previously applied to smaller outbreak scenarios (Chen et al., 2019, 2020), and this is the first time it has been applied to a pandemic. Secondly, the tool was originally designed to detect biowarfare, not laboratory leaks or accidents. In this study, the criteria were interpreted to differentiate between natural origins and laboratory leaks. Therefore, this interpretation may require further testing and training of the tool. Additionally, when using this tool in a pandemic, higher scores are usually assigned to the criteria of “epidemic intensity” and “unusual rapid spread,” which can lead to an overall high score and a likely conclusion of unnatural origin. In addition, subjectivity may exist during the scoring process. To minimize the subjectivity, the initial risk assessment was completed by two researchers and reviewed by another two experts, with IRR measuring the agreement level (Glen, 2023). We achieved agreement with the criteria assessment and final scoring. Nonetheless, we were conservative in our scoring, and the tool provides a risk analysis framework that can be applied to differentiate between natural and unnatural epidemics. The strengths of this study include a more comprehensive analysis of factors ranging from traditional virology, epidemiology, and medical factors to situational and other intelligence.
The American Biological Safety Association catalogs laboratory accidents and shows them to be exceedingly common, usually as a result of human error (Gillum et al., 2016; Rozo & Gronvall, 2015). Unnatural epidemics arising from such accidents do occur (The National Security Archive, 2001), but to identify them, the question of origin must first be asked. It follows that if the question of unnatural origin is never asked, unnatural epidemics will never be identified. In an age of vastly enabled and accessible technology in genetic engineering and synthetic biology, it is increasingly important to investigate the origin of epidemics and to apply risk analysis tools to gathered intelligence (MacIntyre et al., 2017). We can have more control over the prevention of epidemics that arise from human error than those that arise in nature, because safety systems, training, processes, and risk analysis can be used to improve biosafety. In conclusion, an unnatural origin of SARS-COV-2 is plausible, and our application of the mGFT suggests it is equally or more probable than a natural origin, although both remain possible. The mGFT is highly sensitive in distinguishing between natural and unnatural origins (Chen et al., 2019) and should be included in the toolbox of outbreak investigations.
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Translation Google
A pangolin coronavirus decimates “humanized” mice: what do you need to know?
Published: January 29, 2024 10:44am EST
Author
Anne Goffard
Doctor, University Professor – Hospital Practitioner, University of Lille
Disclosure statement
Anne Goffard is a virologist at the University of Lille and a doctor at Lille University Hospital. She received funding from I-Site ULNE, ANR, CNRS and Lille University Hospital. She is deputy mayor of Lille in charge of Universities, Research, Students and Pandemic Risk Management.
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A publication put online at the beginning of January 2024 on the BioRχiv site (pronounced, in Anglo-Saxon, “bioarchive”) caused a lot of ink to flow. It must be said that the story she tells is particularly intriguing.
Titled “Lethal Infection of Human ACE2-Transgenic Mice Caused by SARS-CoV-2-related Pangolin coronavirus GX_P2V(short_3UTR)” , it involves mice, pangolins, as well as a virus that is the cousin of an old acquaintance, the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
In this scientific article not yet peer-reviewed (this is an important point to emphasize), researchers from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology report the results of their experiments. The latter consisted of infecting “humanized” mice with a virus derived from a coronavirus initially isolated in pangolins.
Result: a week later, 100% of the rodents were dead, the virus having invaded not only their lungs, but also their brains. How to interpret these results ? Should we be worried? Decryption.
Backtracking
To fully understand the context in which these experiments were carried out, we need to go back a few years. In 2020, precisely.
At that time, Chinese research teams were publishing pangolin coronavirus genome sequences. These came from viruses isolated from samples taken between 2017 and 2019, from animals seized during anti-smuggling operations. Before this discovery, no pangolin coronaviruses were known. However, the fact of having found coronaviruses in pangolins is not surprising, since these viruses infect mammals.
Two distinct strains were then isolated by the Chinese teams, after infection of cells in culture: the pCoV-GD01 strain (from a sample taken in 2019) and the GX-P2V strain (sample dated 2017).
Following the discovery of the two pangolin coronaviruses, other work was carried out to characterize them: complete sequencing of their genome, infection of different cell lines, infections of humanized animals. It was thus discovered that the genomes of these two viruses have significant homologies with that of SARS-CoV-2.
Remember that if the pangolin once appeared on the list of suspects that may have served as an intermediary between the natural reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 (still unknown, even if bats are suspected) and humans, it was later exonerated . Indeed, viruses with much closer sequences have been identified in certain bats (in particular the RaTG13 coronavirus, isolated from the horseshoe bat Rhinolophus affinis , which is found in particular in south-west China, more than 1,500 km from Wuhan, where the first SARS-CoV-2 infections probably occurred).
The conclusions of the studies carried out on the pCoV-GD01 and GX-P2V strains were published between 2020 and 2023, after peer review. In other words, scientists, experts in the field, but who did not participate in this work, analyzed these results and the way in which they were obtained, and judged them to be trustworthy.
It must be emphasized again that the new study has not yet undergone this evaluation process, which is the usual route for any “serious” scientific publication.
A new study that still needs to be verified
The work published in January 2024 is currently what we call, in scientific publishing jargon, a “preprint”: it has not yet been peer-reviewed. This is not abnormal, because BioRχiv, the site where it was deposited, is precisely intended to host such publications. They can, after having been uploaded, be the subject of comments.
This way of proceeding allows information to be circulated more quickly to specialists, who can comment on it, and sometimes also be used to establish the precedence of a discovery.
However, information contained in preprints (regardless of the site hosting it) should not be considered completely reliable until it has passed peer review and been published in a peer-reviewed journal. reading.
What information is contained in this new study?
Mutated pangolin viruses, sure, but not intentionally
During previous work, published in 2020 and 2023, the pangolin viruses that had been isolated were cultured on cells in the laboratory.
Over the course of these successive cultures, their genome underwent mutations, some of which were found to confer an advantage to the viruses that possessed them. These mutants therefore prospered, passing on their mutations to their descendants.
This natural phenomenon classically occurs when viruses are cultivated in vitro , whatever they may be: it has already been observed in the case of HIV or the hepatitis C virus, for example. Several selection mutants have been obtained in this way, but one of them is of particular interest to us.
Called GX-P2V (3'UTR), it has the particularity of having a genome amputated by 104 nucleotides, the “building blocks” of the RNA of which the genome of coronaviruses is made. This missing piece is normally located in the non-coding region located at one of its ends (3'UTR).
Another particularity of this mutant: the authors discovered that when they used it to infect mice, all of the sick animals died in 7 to 8 days. In dead animals, a significant amount of viral RNA was found in the lungs and brain. According to the authors, it was probably the brain damage that killed the rodents.
However, the infected mice were not just any mice, but so-called “humanized” mice. In other words, mice genetically modified to produce, on the surface of their cells, the human ACE2 receptor. The same one that allows the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus at the origin of the 2020 pandemic to recognize human cells and infect them…
When the researchers further analyzed the GX-P2V(3'UTR) genome, they found the presence of mutations in the ORF1ab, S, and N genes. ORF1ab is a part of the genome conserved in coronaviruses, which helps produce proteins essential to the life cycle of these viruses. The S gene codes for the Spike protein (the “key” which allows the coronavirus to enter the cells it infects, by interacting with a receptor located on their surface). Finally, the N gene is used to produce the nucleocapsid protein, which is associated with and protects the genetic material of the virus. This latter protein is usually very immunogenic (capable of inducing an immune response).
Let us remember again that this study is currently being reviewed by peers, and that the comments of the members of the reading committee are not yet known.
If we confine ourselves to the information contained in the preprint, the Chinese team seems to have characterized a pangolin coronavirus capable of infecting humanized cells in mice, with the consequences of severe lung and especially brain lesions. A capacity that is not common among coronaviruses.
However, it should be noted that this study has several limitations.
The first, and not the least, is that these results are in contradiction with the results of another study, previously published by a Chinese team (published in a peer-reviewed journal, therefore having passed the evaluation by pairs). This work demonstrated that the GX-P2V mutant was responsible for mild infections in humanized mice .
We can certainly assume that this contradiction could be linked to increased virulence of the GX-P2V(3'UTR) mutant, different from its "parent", GX-P2V. However, it is currently difficult to be certain, because the infected mice in the new study appear different from those used in other studies. Produced by a Chinese company (Beijing SpePharm Biotechnology Company), we do not know their particularities well. Perhaps they would also have reacted differently to GX-P2V infections... This is one of the comments that the reviewers could make to the authors: why not use the mice usually used in animal research?
It might also be interesting to know how these humanized mice would react to SARS-CoV-2 infection (as severely? More or less severely?). No comparison is presented in the study.
Furthermore, this work concerns a selection mutant, not a natural virus. Selection mutants arise when culturing viruses in vitro, in the absence of pressure from the host immune system. It is therefore unclear how this virus would behave if confronted with the natural pressure of the human immune system.
Additionally, the infections were carried out on humanized mice expressing the human ACE2 receptor, which is not a natural model either. Naturally, in fact, mice express an ACE2 receptor which is not recognized by SARS-CoV-2, they are therefore not infected by this virus. By humanizing mice, we force their organism to express the human ACE2 receptor (hACE2): the rodents therefore become susceptible to SARS-CoV-2. However, the distribution of hACE2 on their tissues or the quantity of receptors expressed are probably overestimated compared to what is observed in humans.
Finally, animal models have long been used to try to understand diseases, to test vaccines, drugs, etc. But even if the disease developed by the animal resembles that observed in humans, the model can never be directly transposed. During viral infections, for example, viral proteins interact with cellular structures, which are species specific. The results obtained in an animal model must therefore always be considered with caution.
The questions posed by this study
Beyond the purely "biological" questions which persist concerning the specificities and the potential dangerousness of this "shortened" GX-P2V virus, this work is an opportunity to return to a debate which continues to agitate the scientific community: that of “gain of function” experiments, which involve manipulating viruses to intentionally make them more virulent.
It should be noted that in the present case, this study aimed to characterize the properties of a mutant virus obtained incidentally in the laboratory: this was not produced following intentional manipulation.
Gain-of-function experiments consist of evolving the virus studied artificially in order to give it new properties. This may, for example, be the ability to infect a new host species that it did not previously infect. The idea is then to analyze the modifications which allowed it to acquire these new capabilities.
To achieve this, we can either introduce new genes into the genome of the virus, by modifying it using genetic editing tools (such as CRISPR technology), or by cultivating it under certain conditions (with antiviral drugs, to make emerge from resistant mutant viruses, for example), or by simply cultivating it on cells, for several generations, and selecting the viruses presenting the characteristic that we want to study (increased virulence, for example; we “accelerate” and we are, in a way, directing natural evolution).
In 2014, an American team had already sparked controversy by constructing a chimeric flu virus that was part avian flu, part Spanish flu . The scientific community then mobilized to ban these experiments.
Controversy still exists among scientists about this type of experimentation. Some consider that they are essential to advance knowledge, better understand the dangers posed by the evolution of certain viruses, and enable the development of vaccines or drugs. Others claim that this type of work should be banned, because it represents too great a risk for humanity: we are never safe from a handling error which could lead to the dissemination of a virus thus modified .
A scenario which, let us remember, cannot be completely ruled out in the case of the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, even if no solid evidence has so far been able to support the thesis of a laboratory accident. Since its emergence in 2019, the question of biosecurity of virology laboratories and infrastructures intended to study the most dangerous viruses, particularly in China, remains relevant. The World Health Organization is responsible for this, however its experts continue to encounter difficulties in gathering all the information necessary to elucidate the origins of SARS-CoV-2, information that we still do not have.
To conclude, let us emphasize that in France, as well as in Europe and the United States, gain-of-function experiments on the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus are prohibited. However, the work presented in the publication discussed here would likely not have fallen under this ban, as the mutated virus was not intentionally mutated.
Peer evaluation of these results, as well as possible replications of this work, will make it possible to determine whether there is really a need to monitor the GX-P2V(3'UTR) variant more closely.
One thing is certain: the question of the circulation of viruses between species and the risks of viral emergence remains more than ever raised, particularly in our time, when globalized exchanges are combined with profound environmental changes. Remember that more than two thirds of epidemic outbreaks originate from the passage of a pathogen from animals to humans ...
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Lethal Infection of Human ACE2-Transgenic Mice Caused by SARS-CoV-2-related Pangolin Coronavirus GX_P2V(short_3UTR)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...01.03.574008v1Leave a comment:
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E&C Investigation Uncovers Earliest Known SARS-CoV-2 Sequence Released Outside of China
Jan 17, 2024
Discovery that shows virus sequence existed two weeks earlier than previously known undercuts China’s timeline of events
Washington, D.C. — The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19, led by Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Health Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA), uncovered that a SARS-CoV-2 sequence was submitted to GenBank, the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) genetic sequence database operated by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), on December 28, 2019—two weeks before the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) first released the virus’s sequence.
The sequence was submitted by Dr. Lili Ren, an accomplished virologist at the Institute of Pathogen Biology of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, China, which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and People’s Liberation Army. She is also a current subgrantee of non-profit EcoHealth Alliance on the same National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) grant as the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which has been debarred from receiving NIH grants for ten years for failing to provide laboratory records requested by NIH and for conducting research that “did lead or could lead to health issues or other unacceptable outcomes.”
Dr. Ren’s submission was missing some of the technical (not scientific) information required for publication on GenBank. She was notified by NIH staff on December 31, 2019, that her submission would be deleted without the additional information. Dr. Ren’s sequence is not the first instance of Chinese researchers attempting to delete early SARS-CoV-2 sequences posted to GenBank, but it is the earliest known one.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has confirmed that Dr. Ren’s December 28, 2019, sequence was nearly identical to the sequence later made public by the China CDC on January 10, 2020, which at the time was the first known sequence. China has consistently stated that it published the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 as soon as it was available.
"This significant discovery further underscores why we cannot trust any of the so-called ‘facts’ or data provided by the CCP and calls into serious question the legitimacy of any scientific theories based on such information. The American people deserve to know the truth about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and our investigation has uncovered numerous causes for concern, including how taxpayers’ dollars are spent, how our government’s public health agencies operate, and the need for more oversight into research grants to foreign scientists. In addition to equipping us to better prepare for the next pandemic, this investigation’s findings will help us as policymakers as we work to strengthen America’s biosafety practices and bolster oversight of research grants,” said Chairs Rodgers, Guthrie, and Griffith.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:- The existence of a SARS-CoV-2 sequence days before the CCP acknowledged an outbreak, and more than two weeks before the China CDC release their sequence, calls into question how early the CCP knew about the virus and how long they withheld this information from the world, resulting in more deaths and wasting critical time to develop vaccines and treatments.
- The NIH’s system for monitoring GenBank submissions is insufficient as the United States had an early SARS-CoV-2 sequence in our possession and apparently had no idea.
- The Biden administration, the NIH, and HHS have obstructed and delayed Congressional investigations into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, refused to produce this sequence for over seven months, and only released it to the Committee after the Committee threatened to subpoena the sequence.
TIMELINE OF THE COMMITTEE’S INVESTIGATION:- May 3, 2023: E&C Republicans Seek Data and Documents from NIH on Early COVID Cases
- CLICK HERE to read the letter.
- August 9, 2023: E&C Presses Unresponsive NIH for Answers about COVID Origins and Risky Research Projects
- CLICK HERE to read the letter.
- September 28, 2023: E&C Republicans Signal Intent to Issue Subpoenas as Biden Admin Stonewalls Crucial Investigations into Government Health Agency Actions
- CLICK HERE to read the letter.
DOCUMENTS:https://energycommerce.house.gov/pos...tside-of-chinaLeave a comment:
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Source: https://www.wsj.com/politics/nationa...-show-9bca8865
Chinese Lab Mapped Deadly Coronavirus Two Weeks Before Beijing Told the World, Documents Show
The lead time could have proved critical in combating pandemic, specialists say
By Warren P. Strobel
Jan. 17, 2024 7:00 am ET
WASHINGTON—Chinese researchers isolated and mapped the virus that causes Covid-19 in late December 2019, at least two weeks before Beijing revealed details of the deadly virus to the world, congressional investigators said, raising questions anew about what China knew in the pandemic’s crucial early days.
Documents obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by a House committee and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show that a Chinese researcher in Beijing uploaded a nearly complete sequence of the virus’s structure to a U.S. government-run database on Dec. 28, 2019. Chinese officials at that time were still publicly describing the disease outbreak in Wuhan, China, as a viral pneumonia “of unknown cause” and had yet to close the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, site of one of the initial Covid-19 outbreaks.
China only shared the virus’s sequence with the World Health Organization on Jan. 11, 2020, according to U.S. government timelines of the pandemic.
The new information doesn’t shed light on the debate over whether Covid emerged from an infected animal or a lab leak, but it suggests that the world still doesn’t have a full accounting of the pandemic’s origin....
...The Chinese researcher who submitted the virus sequence, Dr. Lili Ren of the Beijing-based Institute of Pathogen Biology, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. The institute is part of the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences...
...Melanie Egorin, HHS Assistant Secretary for Legislation, wrote last month to the committee’s chair, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R., Wash.), that Ren submitted the virus sequence on Dec. 28, 2019, to a genetic database, GenBank, run by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
The first known publication of the sequence of the Covid virus, called SARS-CoV-2, came on Jan. 11, 2020, after Chinese authorities shared the information with the World Health Organization. In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta says the virus sequence was shared with China’s equivalent of the CDC on Jan. 5 but not made known globally to scientists.
The sequence that Ren provided in December 2019 was never published and was deleted from the database on Jan. 16, 2020, after NIH asked her for more technical details and she didn’t respond, Egorin wrote. Then, on Jan. 12, NIH received and published a SARS-CoV-2 sequence from another source.
“The sequence published on January 12, 2020, was nearly identical to the sequence that was submitted by Lili Ren,” Egorin told the committee...
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Opinion: Why Are So Few People Investigating Covid’s Origins?
China may be blocking access to ground zero, but there is evidence to uncover elsewhere — if only more people would try.
BY ALINA CHAN 12.22.2023
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The U.S. alone has suffered more than a million Covid-19 deaths and hundreds of millions of infections, leaving many struggling with long Covid and pandemic-related mental health problems. Experts have estimated that Covid-19 will cost the U.S. $16 trillion — nearly half of its national debt for context. In light of all this, one would expect an army of investigative journalists to be digging for the truth, and a bipartisan commission with subpoena powers to be in full force to find the origin of Covid-19.
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China’s refusal to allow access to the Wuhan laboratory and other key pieces of information has made a full investigation nearly impossible. However, the coronavirus research in Wuhan was part of a U.S.-China collaboration, suggesting that there are tranches of evidence to be explored here at home. And yet, as journalist Katherine Eban recently wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, most news outlets have avoided truly digging into this evidence.
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Most notably, in 2021, a group of amateur online sleuths known at the time as Drastic obtained a research proposal written by U.S. and Wuhan scientists and submitted to a Department of Defense agency in 2018. The proposal detailed plans to grow or synthesize novel SARS-like coronaviruses from bats, and to test these on human airway cells and humanized mice — models for human SARS infection. The proposal shows that the scientists specifically wanted to bring novel SARS-like coronaviruses collected in nature back to the lab and insert a feature called a furin cleavage site, which could alter — and even enhance — a virus’ ability to transmit across species and cause disease.
The Defense Department ultimately rejected that proposal, but the SARS-CoV-2 virus that emerged in Wuhan in late 2019 possessed just such a furin cleavage site — a feature so far not observed in other SARS-like viruses found in nature. To a skeptical observer, it was as if these scientists proposed to put horns on horses and not two years later a unicorn showed up in their city.
A natural question is whether the Wuhan scientists undertook any of this work on their own despite the funding rejection from the U.S. Defense Department, and if so, whether their U.S. counterparts worried, or even knew, that this was the case. Despite all this, the leak of the 2018 proposal — a significant development — was largely ignored by most major news outlets. And we have yet to see any formal government investigation compel these U.S. scientists to hand over all communications and documents exchanged with Wuhan scientists.
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While we were getting blasted for this thread.....thank you to everyone who stuck with us....
hat tip Shiloh
Secret Warnings About Wuhan Research Predated the Pandemic
A series of previously unreported alarms and clashes over US-funded research in China reveal long-standing friction between two groups of government scientists: those who prioritize international collaboration, and those who are kept up at night by the idea that cutting-edge technologies could end up in the wrong hands.
BY KATHERINE EBAN
ILLUSTRATION BY ISABEL SELIGER
NOVEMBER 21, 2023
snip
In October 2020, VF has learned, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told Fauci that DOE scientists had found evidence suggesting that the pandemic had originated at the WIV.
more...
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Kim Iverson interviews Jeffrey Sachs on Sar2's origin, including the possible US role.
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WHO chief pushes China for ‘full access’ to determine COVID’s origins, Financial Times reports
Reuters
September 17, 20233:21 AM CSTUpdated a day ago
WHO's Tedros visits mRNA vaccine technology transfer site in Cape Town
Sept 17 (Reuters) - The chief of the World Health Organization urged Beijing to offer more information on the origins of COVID-19 and is ready to send a second team to probe the matter, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
"We're pressing China to give full access, and we are asking countries to raise it during their bilateral meetings — to urge Beijing to co-operate," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the newspaper.
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WHO chief pushes China for ‘full access’ to solve Covid’s origins
Donato Paolo Mancini in Geneva SEPTEMBER 16 2023
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“Unless we get evidence beyond reasonable doubt, we cannot just say this or that,” he said. But he believes “we will get the answer. It’s a matter of time.”
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“If we know [the origin], then we can prevent the next one. So it’s science,” he said. “It will not be morally correct if we don’t know what happened.”
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US government suspends funding so that Wuhan lab ‘does not receive another dollar’ over stonewalling COVID probe
By David Propper
July 18, 2023 10:21pm Updated
The US government has scraped funding for the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has long been scrutinized as the possible origin of COVID-19, after the facility didn’t fork over documents about safety and security, according to a report.
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The Department of Health and Human Services informed the Wuhan lab of its determination and is looking to completely stop any future funds from going to the lab, the memo indicates.
After a review that started in September, the agency found the lab is not compliant with federal regulations.
“This action will ensure that [Wuhan Institute of Virology] does not receive another dollar of federal funding,” an HHS spokesperson told the outlet.
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES Office of the Secretary Washington, D.C. 20201
Action Referral Memorandum for Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)
On behalf of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), I hereby suspend and propose the debarment of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Capital Construction ( WIV from participating in United States Federal Government procurement and nonprocurement programs. This action is initiated pursuant to 2 C.F.R. Part 180. HHS adopted and gave regulatory effect to 2 C.F.R. Part 180 at 2 C.F.R. Subpart 376.10.
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First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources
The three scientists were engaged in “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses when they fell ill
MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER, MATT TAIBBI, AND ALEX GUTENTAG
JUN 13, 2023
After years of official pronouncements to the contrary, significant new evidence has emerged that strengthens the case that the SARS-CoV-2 virus accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
According to multiple U.S. government officials interviewed as part of a lengthy investigation by Public and Racket, the first people infected by the virus, “patients zero,” included Ben Hu, a researcher who led the WIV’s “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses, which increases the infectiousness of viruses.
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Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus.
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When a source was asked how certain they were that these were the identities of the three WIV scientists who developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in the fall of 2019, we were told, “100%”
“Ben Hu is essentially the next Shi Zhengli,” said Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and coauthor with Matt Ridley of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid19. Shi is known as “the bat woman of China,” and led the gain-of-function research at the WIV. “He was her star pupil. He had been making chimeric SARS-like viruses and testing these in humanized mice. If I had to guess who would be doing this risky virus research and most at risk of getting accidentally infected, it would be him.”
Hu and Yu researched the novel lineage of SARS-like viruses from which SARS-CoV-2 hails, and in 2019 coauthored a paper with Shi Zhengli that described SARS-like lineages they had studied over the years.
Jamie Metzl, a former member of the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on human genome editing who raised questions starting in early 2020 about a possible research-related pandemic origin, said, “It’s a game changer if it can be proven that Hu got sick with COVID-19 before anyone else. That would be the ‘smoking gun.’ Hu was the lead hands-on researcher in Shi’s lab.”
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HAZARD ZONE Scientists at Wuhan lab were mixing world’s most deadly coronaviruses to create a new mutant strain, investigators say
Ed SouthgateJames Liveris
Published: 15:31, 11 Jun 2023 Updated: 15:38, 11 Jun 2023
SCIENTISTS were working with the Chinese military to create a mutant virus and pursue bioweapons just as the pandemic started, investigators believe.
They were running secret dangerous experiments combining the most deadly coronaviruses, which reportedly caused a leak from a Wuhan lab.
And it is believed vaccine research was going on there in the autumn before the outbreak, pertinent to the Covid-19 vaccination.
The findings follow a team of US investigators who combed through top-secret intercepted communications and research.
They say there is no published information on the work because it was done with researchers from the Chinese military, which was funding the projects.
Evidence suggested researchers working on the experiments were taken to hospital with Covid-like symptoms in November 2019, just a month before the West became aware of the pandemic.
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An investigator said: "We were rock-solid confident that this was likely Covid-19."
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Dr Huff, who worked at EcoHealth Alliance from 2014 to 2016 and served as vice president from 2015, worked on the classified side of the research programme as a US government scientist.
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He claimed: "China knew from day one that this was a genetically engineered agent.
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Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65708746
Covid: Top Chinese scientist says don’t rule out lab leak
Published 1 day ago
By John Sudworth & Simon Maybin
BBC News
The possibility the Covid virus leaked from a laboratory should not be ruled out, a former top Chinese government scientist has told BBC News.
As head of China's Centre for Disease Control (CDC), Prof George Gao played a key role in the pandemic response and efforts to trace its origins.
China's government dismisses any suggestion the disease may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory.
But Prof Gao is less forthright....Leave a comment:
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Association between SARS-CoV-2 and metagenomic content of samples from the Huanan Seafood Market
View ORCID Profile
Jesse D. Bloom
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.04.25.538336
This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review
80001901146ABSTRACT
The role of the Huanan Seafood Market in the early SARS-CoV-2 outbreak remains unclear. Recently the Chinese CDC released data from deep sequencing of environmental samples collected from the market after it was closed on January-1-2020 (Liu et al. 2023a). Prior to this release, Crits-Christoph et al. (2023) analyzed data from a subset of the samples. Both studies concurred that the samples contained genetic material from a variety of species, including some like raccoon dogs that are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2. However, neither study systematically analyzed the relationship between the amount of genetic material from SARS-CoV-2 and different animal species. Here I implement a fully reproducible computational pipeline that jointly analyzes the number of reads mapping to SARS-CoV-2 and the mitochondrial genomes of chordate species across the full set of samples. I validate the presence of genetic material from numerous species, and calculate mammalian mitochondrial compositions similar to those reported by Crits-Christoph et al. (2023). However, the number of SARS-CoV-2 reads is not consistently correlated with reads mapping to non-human susceptible species. For instance, 14 samples have >20% of their chordate mitochondrial material from raccoon dogs, but only one of these samples contains any SARS-CoV-2 reads, and that sample only has 1 of ∼200,000,000 reads mapping to SARS-CoV-2. Instead, SARS-CoV-2 reads are most correlated with reads mapping to various fish, such as catfish and largemouth bass. These results suggest that while metagenomic analysis of the environmental samples is useful for identifying animals or animal products sold at the market, co-mingling of animal and viral genetic material is unlikely to reliably indicate whether any animals were infected by SARS-CoV-2.
source: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...04.25.538336v2Leave a comment:
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I hope he wasn't dismissed because he was in the way of using the lab leak theory as war propaganda against China.
WHO scientist who doubted Covid lab leak theory sacked for sexual harassment
Peter Ben Embarek, who contests the accusation of misconduct, led WHO's mission to China to investigate Covid's origins
By Nick Allen Washington 3 May 2023 • 11:04pm
A senior World Health Organisation scientist, who concluded it was "extremely unlikely" Covid-19 leaked from a Chinese laboratory, has been dismissed for sexual misconduct.
The UN agency said Peter Ben Embarek, a Danish scientist, was removed from his post last year.
Dr Embarek said he contested the accusation of harassment and was challenging his dismissal.
He previously led WHO's "One Health" initiative on diseases jumping from animals to humans.
Dr Embarek was the most senior WHO representative on a mission to China in 2021 to investigate where Covid-19 came from.
It determined that a leak from the laboratory in Wuhan was "highly unlikely" despite calls from other scientists to investigate that possibility...
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True origins of Covid may never be revealed, says Chinese doctor there 'at the very beginning'
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By
Paul Nuki,
GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY EDITOR, LONDON
14 April 2023 • 8:09pm
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Dr George Fu Gao, who is thought to know more about the origins of the disease than any other scientist, has told the Telegraph he is “not optimistic” the origin of the virus will ever be known, citing both political and scientific obstacles.
“It’s too sensitive; too politicised,” he said.
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On the science, Dr Gao added that the theory that there was an intermediate animal species between bats and humans that provided a “reservoir” of the virus might be wrong.
“I too thought there must be an intermediate host - a reservoir - but now I’m not so sure. It’s possible there is no animal reservoir,” he said.
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Dr Gao, who appeared good humoured and gregarious, has a political tightrope to walk at home and is almost certain to know more about Covid’s origins than he lets on.
No doubt aware that China had officially apologised for its slowness in dealing with the 2002/3 SARS epidemic, he was careful to claim the country had acted promptly on SARS-Cov-2.
China’s CDC had been the first to detect, isolate and share the genetic sequence of the virus, he told the London conference.
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