Michael Moore 27 December 2020
What IS the Wuhan connection? How did a simple virus originate from Wuhan in China and make its way around the world? Is China REALLY responsible?
Here are some facts that might enlighten the situation.
Dr Anthony Fauci, whom we all know, is an advisor to the President of the United States and has been so since the Regan years. He has been cultivated as a hero of the country if not the world. He also leads the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD). He also backed the Wuhan Laboratory with US dollars to do research into Coronavirus. This is documented and the details are herein.
The Institute funds research around the globe in various laboratories concerning infectious diseases, allergies and so forth, This included 3.7 million dollars funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for work involved in gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in 2019. This was after a previous 3.7 million dollars to the institute for research some years before.
In 2019, the National Institutes of Health, backed by NIAD, committed $3.7 million over six years for research that included some gain-of-function work ("Gain-of-function" is the euphemism for biological research aimed at increasing the virulence and lethality of pathogens and viruses. GoF research is government funded; its focus is on enhancing the pathogens' ability to infect different species and to increase their deadly impact as airborne pathogens and viruses). ‘The program followed another $3.7 million, 5-year project for collecting and studying bat coronaviruses, which ended in 2019, bringing the total to $7.4 million.
A considerable number of scientists have been critical of this type of research, involving the manipulation of viruses in the laboratory to explore their potential for infecting humans, due to the inherent risk of starting a pandemic from accidental release.
A case in point is the SARS-CoV-2. This virus is now causing a global pandemic the results of which are affecting millions around the world. U.S. intelligence, after originally asserting that the coronavirus had occurred naturally, now concede that the pandemic could well have originated in a leak from the Wuhan lab. (It is not considered that this was deliberate or engineered or manipulated per sec but that poor security procedures resulted in a leak of the virus from the laboratory)
When asked by Newsweek for a comment on this, Dr. Fauci did not respond but the NIH responded with a statement that said in part: "Most emerging human viruses come from wildlife, and these represent a significant threat to public health and biosecurity in the US and globally, as demonstrated by the SARS epidemic of 2002-03, and the current COVID-19 pandemic.... scientific research indicates that there is no evidence that suggests the virus was created in a laboratory."
The Controversial Experiments and Wuhan Lab Suspected of Starting Pandemic
The experiments and research was done in two parts. (The links to the papers citing those are listed in the references below) The first was in 2014 and had the 3.7 million dollar budget. The Virologist in charge of the research was one Shi Zheng-Li. This research included investigating and cataloguing corona viruses in bats in the wild. That project was completed in 2019 whereupon a second project was instituted including surveillance work and further gain-of-function research in order to understand how bat coronavirus could infect human beings. This project was run and administered by EcoHealth Alliance, a research group. The president is one Peter Daszak an apparent expert on disease ecology. However the NIH suddenly cancelled the project on April the 24th 2020 according to Politico.
The project proposal originally stated: "We will use S protein sequence data, infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential." In layman's terms, "spillover potential" refers to the ability of a virus to jump from animals to humans, which requires that the virus be able to attach to receptors in the cells of humans. SARS-CoV-2, for instance, is adept at binding to the ACE2 receptor in human lungs and other organs. (Newsweek)
‘According to Richard Ebright, an infectious disease expert at Rutgers University, the project description refers to experiments that would enhance the ability of bat coronavirus to infect human cells and laboratory animals using techniques of genetic engineering.’ (Newsweek)
My question is, WHY would one want to do that?
Ebright, is not the only scientists who feels disturbed by this type of research. Others have also voiced their concern due to the high risk involved with that type of research.
Dr. Fauci has argued that the research was worth the risk it entailed because it enables scientists to make preparations, such as investigating possible anti-viral medications, that could be useful if and when a pandemic occurred.
The work in question is a type of gain-of-function research that involved taking wild viruses and passing them through live animals until they mutate into a form that could pose a pandemic threat. Scientists used it to take a virus that was poorly transmitted among humans and make it into one that was highly transmissible—a hallmark of a pandemic virus. This work was done by infecting a series of ferrets, allowing the virus to mutate until a ferret that hadn't been deliberately infected contracted the disease. Creating a virus in other words.
More than 200 scientists have called for the work to be halted. The problem, they said, is that it increased the likelihood that a pandemic would occur through a laboratory accident as it appears occurred with SARS-COV-2.
Dr. Fauci is still defended the work. "… determining the molecular Achilles' heel of these viruses can allow scientists to identify novel antiviral drug targets that could be used to prevent infection in those at risk or to better treat those who become infected," he wrote in the Washington Post on December 30, 2011. "Decades of experience tells us that disseminating information gained through biomedical research to legitimate scientists and health officials provides a critical foundation for generating appropriate countermeasures and, ultimately, protecting the public health."
In 2014, under pressure from the Obama administration, the National of Institutes of Health instituted a moratorium on the work, suspending 21 studies of this type. However, in Dec 2017 the MIH ended the moratorium and the gain-of-function was resumed, but in secret. for which the NIH has drawn criticism. Then, in early 2019, after a reporter for Science magazine discovered the NIH had approved two influenza research projects that used gain of function methods, scientists who oppose this kind of research were harshly critical of the NIH in an editorial in the Washington Post.
"We have serious doubts about whether these experiments should be conducted at all," wrote Tom Inglesby of Johns Hopkins University and Marc Lipsitch of Harvard. "[W]ith deliberations kept behind closed doors, none of us will have the opportunity to understand how the government arrived at these decisions or to judge the rigor and integrity of that process."
So, my questions are:
Considering the dangers involved what purpose does it serve to create a virulent virus that can sweep the planet in a pandemic?
Why is gain-of-function still used?
Did the SARS-COV-2 virus ‘escape from the Wuhan laboratory after gain-of-function experiments with bats and humans?
Why is Dr Fauci so adamant that gain-of-function should be used?
Why does he justify this type of research considering the dangers involved, dangers recognised by several hundred of his peers?
And lastly, being in the position he is in with access to all this and more information, why does he not admit to the likelihood of the virus escaping from a viral laboratory that his institute funded or approved the funding thereof?