House votes to declassify info about origins of COVID-19
By LISA MASCARO
an hour ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted unanimously Friday to declassify U.S. intelligence information about the origins of COVID-19, a sweeping show of bipartisan support near the third anniversary of the start of the deadly pandemic.
The 419-0 vote was final congressional approval of the bill, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk. It’s unclear whether the president will sign the measure into law, and the White House said the matter was under review.
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If signed into law, the measure would require within 90 days the declassification of “any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the Coronavirus Disease.”
That includes information about research and other activities at the lab and whether any researchers grew ill.
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Press ReleasePublished: Mar 8, 2023COVID Origins Hearing Wrap Up: Facts, Science, Evidence Point to a Wuhan Lab Leak
WASHINGTON—The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic held a hearing on “Investigating the Origins of COVID-19” to gather facts about the origination of the virus that has claimed nearly seven million lives globally. At the hearing, several of the witnesses pointed to how the science, facts, and evidence point to a lab leak in Wuhan.
Key Hearing Takeaways
Knowing the origin of COVID-19 is fundamental to helping predict and prevent future pandemics.
Select Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup opened the hearing by emphasizing how knowing the origin of the virus is essential to helping predict and prevent future pandemics, protecting health and national security, and preparing the United States for the future. He pledged that the Select Subcommittee will thoroughly, responsibly, and honestly investigate the origin of COVID-19.
Dr. Jamie Metzl, Ph.D., senior fellow at the Atlantic Council said in an opening statement, “If we do not get to the bottom of what went wrong with the COVID-19 pandemic, if we fail in our efforts to fearlessly understand all shortcomings and shore up the vulnerabilities this crisis has so clearly exposed, the victims of the next pandemic, our children and grandchildren, will ask us why we failed to protect when we knew what was at stake and had the chance.”
Mounting evidence continues to show that COVID-19 may have originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.
Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), testified how science indicates COVID-19 infections were likely the result of an accidental lab leak in Wuhan. His conclusion is based on the biology of the virus itself and unusual actions in and around Wuhan in 2019, including gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
Nicholas Wade—the former science and health editor at the New York Times, and former editor of Science and Nature—testified how Drs. Fauci and Collins used unverified data to dismiss the lab leak theory in favor of natural transmission.
Jamie Metzl testified how China’s government destroyed samples, hid records, imprisoned Chinese journalists, prevented Chinese scientists from saying or writing anything on pandemic origins without prior government approval, actively spread misinformation, and prevented an evidence-based investigation.
The mainstream media downplayed—and even denied—the scientific theory that COVID-19 emerged from the WIV.
Nicholas Wade testified about the campaign to discredit the lab leak theory. He pointed out that scientists kept in line with the natural origin camp led by Drs. Fauci and Collins because of their dependence on government grants and that the media failed to challenge the forced narrative.
All witnesses agreed that the possibility of COVID-19 originating from a lab is not a conspiracy theory.
Member Highlights
Subcommittee Chairman Dr. Wenstrup (R-Ohio.) asked witnesses whether it is critical to investigate the origin of COVID-19. All witnesses answered yes. Chairman Wenstrup also raised concern about gain-of-function research, which Dr. Redfield defined during the hearing as altering a pathogen to increase either transmissibility or pathogenicity.
Subcommittee Chairman Wenstrup: “In your expert opinion was the Wuhan Institute conducting gain-of-function research on a batch of coronaviruses?”
Dr. Redfield: “Absolutely.”
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) noted that after raising concerns to experts and the World Health Organization that COVID-19 may have originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, and urging Dr. Fauci to investigate the origins of the pandemic, Dr. Redfield was excluded from calls related to the origins of the pandemic.
Rep. Malliotakis: “Why do you think you were excluded from those calls?”
Dr. Redfield: “It was told to me that they wanted a single narrative and that I obviously had a different point of view.”
Dr. Redfield added: “If you really want to be truthful, it’s antithetical to science. Science has debate, and they squashed any debate.”
Scientists, including Dr. Fauci, then drafted a paper arguing COVID-19’s proximal origins to animals at a wet market.
Rep. Malliotakis: “Do you think that this paper does hide the truth?”
Dr. Redfield: “I think it’s an inaccurate paper that basically was part of a narrative that they were creating.”
Rep. Malliotakis also warned that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) may have been funding gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the WIV.
Rep. Malliotakis: “Is it likely that American tax dollars funded the gain-of-function research that created this virus?”
Dr. Redfield: I think it did, not only from NIH, but from the State Department, USAID and DOD.”
Rep. Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), who has expertise publishing in peer-reviewed scientific journals, asked why the scientific community dangerously suppressed evidence that COVID-19 may have originated from a lab.
“There is, as you said Dr. Metzl, extraordinary circumstantial evidence that this came from a lab.
“I don’t know why the authors didn’t want to state this, they did not want to have the scientific conversation and dialogue, why they wanted to obfuscate and suppress the truth, or even have a debate about the origins of COVID-19.
“Was it for personal financial gain? Was it to hide U.S. financial interest into the Wuhan Institute of Virology indirectly? Was it to suppress the revelation that there was perhaps gain-of-function research that had been prohibited in the United States? Or were they concerned that a conspiracy would develop that it was bioterrorism?
“I would state that their suppression and obfuscation has led to the exact mistrust and conspiracy theories that they may have tried to avoid.”
Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Colo.) and Dr. Redfield discussed unusual actions at the WIV in September 2019.
Rep. Lesko: “Do you believe we can have certainty that the virus did not come from the Wuhan lab and that U.S. funding was not used for coronavirus research?”
Dr. Redfield: “Absolutely we cannot do that. It’s now declassified now, but in September 2019, three things happened in that lab. One, they deleted the sequences. That is highly irregular—researchers don’t usually like to do that. Second, they commanded the command and control of the lab from civilian control to military control. Highly unusual. And the third thing they did, which I think is really telling, is they let a contractor re-do the ventilation system in that laboratory. There is strong evidence there was a significant event in that laboratory in September 2019.”
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) warned that the media downplayed, discredited, and silenced voices of experts sounding the alarm that COVID-19 may have originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.
Chairman Comer: “Would you agree that the scientific establishment used the media to downplay the lab leak theory?”
Mr. Wade: “I think the media was used in this particular campaign to establish the natural origin theory.
“The scientific community is very afraid to speak up on political issues. I think the reason is that government grants are handed out through the system of peer-reviewed committees. You don’t want any single scientist on your peer-review committee to vote against, because you won’t get your grant – it’s so competitive. Therefore, scientists are very reluctant to say anything that’s politically divisive or turn other scientists off against them. This means that they cannot be relied upon in the way that we would like them to be independent and forthright and call it as they see it.”
Comer: “Was there science available to make such an unequivocal statement against the possibility of a lab leak that early on in February of 2020?”
Witnesses Dr. Metzl, Mr. Wade, and Dr. Redfield all answered, “No.”
Comer: “Is the possibility COVID-19 leaked from a lab a conspiracy theory?”
Witnesses answered, “No.”
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Ex-CDC chief: Fauci ‘sidelined’ me from COVID debate for backing lab leak theory
By Josh Christenson
March 8, 2023 11:01am
Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield told lawmakers Wednesday that Dr. Anthony Fauci “sidelined” him from internal debates about the origin of COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic, saying the former White House chief medical adviser did not appreciate Redfield’s support for the so-called “lab leak theory.”
“This was an a priori decision that there’s one point of view that we’re going to put out there, and anyone who doesn’t agree with it is going to be sidelined,” Redfield said at a hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. “And as I say, I was only the CDC director, and I was sidelined.”
Redfield, 71, told Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) that his support for the theory that the coronavirus accidentally emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China — rather than jumping from animals to humans — likely prompted his exclusion from high-level discussions of the outbreak.
“I think I made it very clear in January [2020] to all of them why we had to aggressively pursue this,” he said. “And I let them know as a virologist that I didn’t see that this was anything like SARS or MERS. … And they knew that was how I was thinking.”
Redfield added that he was not aware that Fauci and then-National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins had convened a conference call on Feb. 1, 2020 to discuss the worldwide outbreak until internal emails were published by the Washington Post and Buzzfeed News in June 2021.
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Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning’s Regular Press Conference on March 6, 2023
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CCTV: WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the “WHO continues to call for China to be transparent in sharing data”, adding that continued politicization of the origins research will make the task harder. What is your comment?
Mao Ning: China has actively supported and participated in global science-based COVID origins-tracing since day one. In the meantime, we have been firmly opposed to all forms of political manipulation on this issue. Since COVID-19 hit, China has twice received WHO experts to work together on origins-tracing, which led to a science-based, authoritative joint report and laid a solid foundation for global origins-tracing. After the WHO established the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins on Novel Pathogens (SAGO), China recommended experts to join the group and organized events for Chinese experts to share research findings with the WHO Secretariat and SAGO. China has shared more data and research findings than any other country and contributed the most on origins-tracing.
Tracing the origins of the virus is a matter of science. This study should be and can only be conducted jointly by scientists around the world. For some time, the US has been politicizing, weaponizing and instrumentalizing the issue. The US has been spreading myths such as the “bio weapon” theory and “lab leak” theory without any supporting evidence, which has seriously poisoned the atmosphere for science-based global origins-tracing.
Identifying the origins of COVID is the common responsibility of all countries in the world. Experts of the WHO-China joint mission, after field trips to the lab in Wuhan and in-depth communication with researchers, reached the conclusion that “a laboratory origin of the pandemic was considered to be extremely unlikely”, and recommended that “related traceability research” should be conducted in “countries and regions” worldwide. The US, however, ignored these science-based conclusions and recommendations and kept pressurizing WHO into repeatedly demanding origins-tracing in China. It is quite clear what the US is trying to achieve. While claiming to take origins-tracing seriously, the US has never invited WHO expert groups to the US for joint study, or shared any early data. Instead, it has turned a blind eye to the world’s concerns about US bio-military bases at Fort Detrick and around the world.
Politicizing origins-tracing would only hamper science-based cooperation on the issue, disrupt united effort to combat the pandemic, and undermine global health governance mechanisms. We hope the WHO Secretariat will take a science-based, objective and just position, not let politicization get in the way, and carry out the origins-tracing study in the US, among other countries, and play a positive role in science-based global origins-tracing. We once again urge the US side to immediately stop political manipulation on this issue, respond to the world’s legitimate concerns soon, voluntarily share the data of suspected early cases in the US with the WHO, disclose information about its bio-labs at Fort Detrick and around the world, and give people of the world the truth they deserve.
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OPINION
New emails show Dr. Anthony Fauci commissioned scientific paper in Feb. 2020 to disprove Wuhan lab leak theory
By Miranda Devine
March 5, 2023 7:07pm Updated
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New emails uncovered by House Republicansthe COVID-19 pandemic reveal the deceptive nature of Dr. Anthony Fauci.
They show he “prompted” or commissioned — and had final approval on — a scientific paper written specifically in February 2020 to disprove the theory that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.
Eight weeks later, Fauci stood at a White House press conference alongside President Donald Trump and cited that paper as evidence that the lab leak theory was implausible while pretending it had nothing to do with him and he did not know the authors.
“There was a study recently,” he told reporters on April 17, 2020, when asked if the virus could have come from a Chinese lab, “where a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences … in bats as they evolve and the mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.
“So, the paper will be available. I don’t have the authors right now, but we can make it available to you.”
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The question of why Fauci went to such an effort to obscure the origins of COVID-19 is a major focus of the GOP-led committee.
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I do not think I have ever seen something like this. Interesting. -
Originally posted by Pathfinder View Post
NEWS 14 February 2023 Update 03 March 2023
WHO abandons plans for crucial second phase of COVID-origins investigation
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EDITOR’S NOTE 3 March 2023
Nature stands by the accuracy of this article, which representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) have publicly disputed. Nature has carefully reviewed e-mail exchanges and recordings of on-the-record interviews with WHO spokespeople between November 2022 and February 2023. We can find no inaccuracy and have engaged in good faith with representatives of the WHO over their concerns.
We would like to highlight the following information for clarity: as stated in the article, phase two of the SARS-CoV-2 origins investigation is no longer being pursued by the WHO; the WHO continues to investigate the origins of the virus through the establishment of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) and other diplomatic efforts.
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UPDATES & CORRECTIONS
Update 03 March 2023: An editor’s note was added to this article after initial publication to affirm the article’s accuracy in response to a dispute.
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WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing – 3 March 2023
3 March 2023
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Over the past few days there has been renewed attention on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As we have said before, if any country has information about the origins of the pandemic, it is essential for that information to be shared with WHO and the international scientific community – not so as to apportion blame, but to advance our understanding of how this pandemic started, so we can prevent, prepare for and respond to future epidemics and pandemics.
I wish to be very clear that WHO has not abandoned any plans to identify the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, contrary to recent media reports and comments by politicians.
In 2021, WHO established the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens, or SAGO.
In its report last year, SAGO identified key studies that must be done in China and elsewhere to verify or eliminate the various hypotheses for the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
WHO continues to call for China to be transparent in sharing data, and to conduct the necessary investigations and share the results. To that effect, I have written to, and spoken with, high-level Chinese leaders on multiple occasions, as recently as just a few weeks ago.
Until then, all hypotheses on the origins of the virus remain on the table.
At the same time, the continued politicisation of the origins research has turned what should be a purely scientific process into a geopolitical football, which only makes the task of identifying the origins more difficult.
And that makes the world less safe.
Understanding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic remains a scientific imperative, to inform measures to prevent future epidemics and pandemics, and a moral imperative, for the sake of the millions of people and their families who have lost their lives to COVID-19, and those who continue to live with post-COVID-19 condition.
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video at link
Allegations that China is warning Musk to stop promoting Wuhan lab leak theories.
Squawk Box
@SquawkCNBC
Ahead of the Select Committee on China's first congressional hearing tonight,
@onlyyoontv
reports on the China Communist Party's warning to
@elonmusk
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8:44 AM · Feb 28, 2023
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22.8K
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I would add this thread including post #80 dated April 28, 2020, 07:21 PMOriginally posted by Mary Wilson View Post
https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/...271#post855271
I was warned several times in 2020 that this thread was going to ruin FT's reputation. I replied that we were not going to stop posting and not publishing this thread would ruin FT's reputation.Leave a comment:
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U.S. RIGHT TO KNOW
Pursuing truth and transparency for public health
Key articles on origins of Covid-19, gain-of-function research and biolabs
Posted: February 3, 2023
by Gary Ruskin
Here is a reading list about what is known and not known about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, accidents and leaks at biosafety and biowarfare laboratories, and the health risks of gain-of-function (GOF) research, which aims to increase the host range, transmissibility, infectivity or pathogenicity of potential pandemic pathogens.
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China's response:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning’s Regular Press Conference on February 27, 2023
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AFP: The US Energy Department said on Sunday that they have new evidence indicating that COVID most likely arose from a laboratory leak from China. What’s your response?
Mao Ning: The origins-tracing of SARS-CoV-2 is about science and should not be politicized. China has always supported and participated in global science-based origins-tracing. “A laboratory origin of the pandemic was considered to be extremely unlikely” is a science-based, authoritative conclusion reached by the experts of the WHO-China joint mission after field trips to the lab in Wuhan and in-depth communication with researchers. It was accurately recorded in the mission’s report and has received extensive recognition from the international community.
Certain parties should stop rehashing the “lab leak” narrative, stop smearing China and stop politicizing origins-tracing.
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Basically the story is that the project that led to the sars-cov-2 lab escape was an ill-conceived intelligence operation to learn more about what was going on at the Wuhan lab. The Baric expertise in engineering coronaviruses was given to researchers in China to gain access to the lab.
https://thehighwire.com/videos/ex-ec...whistleblower/
Former Senior Executive at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Andrew Huff, joins Del in studio to discuss his new book, The Truth About Wuhan, his firsthand account of the overwhelming corruption that led to the emergence of COVID-19, and the alleged cover-up orchestrated by the highest levels of US health regulators.
#TheTruthAboutWuhan #AndrewHuff #EcoHealthAlliance
POSTED: February 6, 2023
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Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says
U.S. agency’s revised assessment is based on new intelligence
By Michael R. GordonFollow
and Warren P. StrobelFollow
Updated Feb. 26, 2023 10:44 am ET
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.
The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office.
The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.
The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.
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U.S. officials declined to give details on the fresh intelligence and analysis that led the Energy Department to change its position. They added that while the Energy Department and the FBI each say an unintended lab leak is most likely, they arrived at those conclusions for different reasons.
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