As we grapple with the relentless pandemic, questions are being asked over the role of the global superpower in jeopardizing the lives of millions.
- For much of 2020, the former US President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans publicly denounced COVID-19 virus expert Dr Anthony Fauci’s suggestions for mitigating the pandemic. Dr Fauci, who is the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is now President Joe Biden’s Pandemic Advisor.
Some Republicans now suggest that Dr Fauci could be personally involved in the origin of the COVID-19 virus itself. A Republican Senator says that Dr Fauci authorised and funded risky research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). There is nothing new about this theory that has surfaced several times in the past. But the Republicans say that it was not examined and investigated properly due to lack of curiosity from health officials and pro-China bias of the American media, as per media reports.
On May 10, 2021, the US conducted a congressional hearing on the COVID-19 virus (Wuhan virus). All top health officials testified before a Senate Committee. The hearing covered a host of things like the ongoing vaccination drive, President Biden’s pandemic response, the future of mask mandate and the origin of the Wuhan virus.
Gain-of-Function Research
Regarding the origin of the Wuhan virus, a war of words broke out between Rand Paul, the Republican Senator from Kentucky, and Dr Fauci. Senator Paul accused America’s Federal Agencies of funding “Gain-of-Function research” at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China.
Now, what is Gain-of-Function research? It is a sort of experiment which involves genetic modification of viruses to create variants that are more infectious, to better understand them. Dr Fauci happens to be a leading advocate of the Gain-of-Function research. He was instrumental in re-authorising this research domestically in America after it was suspended due to safety concerns. He allowed American scientists to create more infectious versions of viruses to study them. The Republican Senator alleged that Dr Fauci knew China was conducting such experiments. He pressed Dr Fauci to call out what he called a conspiracy. Senator Paul asked Dr Fauci: “Think for a moment that SARS virus had 15% mortality. We are fighting the pandemic that has about 1% mortality. Can you imagine that if SARS virus — that has been juiced up and had a viral protein added to its spike protein — was released accidentally? Dr Fauci, do you still support funding of that, is NIH (National Institutes of Health) funding the laboratory in Wuhan?” Dr Fauci replied that Senator Paul was entirely incorrect. He said that NIH had not ever and did not now fund Gain-of-Function-Research at the Wuhan institute. The senator further told Dr Fauci that he had allowed 11 labs in America to conduct such experiments, and that they were fooling with nature. He accused Dr Fauci of allowing China to do the same.
Science writer Nicholas Wade has detailed at length as to why he believed that a lab-created virus in this case is a much more likely cause than a natural one.
Senator Paul mentioned that “For years, Dr Ralph Baric, a virologist in the US, has been collaborating with Dr Shi Zheng-li from the WIV, sharing his discoveries about how to create super viruses. This Gain-of-Function research has been funded by the NIH.” Again, with carefully selected words, Dr Fauci replied that the NIH had not ever and did not now fund Gain-of-Function research in the WIV.
Harvesting Bat Coronaviruses in China
Shi Zheng-li or ‘Bat Woman’ is a top Chinese virologist and the director of Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the WIV. She has carried out frequent expeditions to the bat-infested caves of Yunnan in southern China and collected around a hundred different bat coronaviruses. As per reports, it seems that Zheng-li did generate SARS-2 in her lab though her records have now been sealed — she was certainly on the right track to have done so. “It is clear that the WIV was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice,” said Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and a leading expert on biosafety. Zheng-li has since been recommended by China for Nobel Prize.
Nicholas Wade, who is a science writer, editor, and author, and has worked on the staff of magazines such as Nature, Science, etc., argues that the Chinese lab is the most likely source of the ongoing world-wide agony. Wade has detailed at length as to why he believed a lab-created virus in this case is a much more likely cause than a natural one. It is documented that researchers at the WIV were doing Gain-of-Function experiments designed to make coronaviruses infect human cells. This is exactly the kind of experiment from which a SARS2-like virus could have emerged.
US Funding to Wuhan Labs
In 2014, the NIH awarded a 3.4 million dollar-grant to New York-based non-profit organisation called the Eco Health Alliance headed by Peter Daszak. This group conducted research on bat viruses at the WIV in China. Eco Health’s work in China started in the aftermath of the 2002–2004 SARS epidemic, which also likely originated from bats. As per media reports, Eco Health Alliance paid the Wuhan laboratory more than 500,000 dollars over a period of five years. This was with the approval of the US State Department. It is true that America did fund research at the Wuhan laboratory.
There is a demand around the world for fast-track investigation into the truth behind COVID-19’s origin. This includes the United Kingdom where media reports have put a spotlight on Dr Peter Daszak, who is a US national. The reports mention that the Pentagon gave $39 million to Dr Daszak’s Eco Health Alliance, which also received $64.7 million from the US Agency for International Development, popularly known as USAID. The reports also mention that it was not known as to how much of the money as alleged, went to WIV, for Gain-of-Function research.
When the virus first broke out in the US, and there was demand for inquiry about how the virus was engineered in a laboratory in Wuhan, then 27 scientists including Dr Peter Daszak had signed a statement which expressed solidarity with all scientists and health professionals in China. Whenever there has been talk about Wuhan lab leak, Dr Daszak has very vehemently opposed it and even called it a conspiracy theory. He was also part of the WHO team that had gone to Wuhan to investigate into the origin of the virus in January-February this year. This team had mentioned in its report that there was no conclusive evidence on the lab leaks.
So much of funds being received by Eco Health Alliance clearly indicate that the US has directly or indirectly funded Chinese research which has led to death of over 600,000 Americans and more than 3.5 million people worldwide. China poses a great threat not only to the US but to the entire world. It is surprising that the US had been funding the Wuhan laboratory, which was being headed by a PLA officer of the Senior General rank. It only means that the COVID-19 virus was being converted into a sort of a weapon. This progress should have been seen by the Americans before funding for such research work.
As per media reports, EcoHealth Alliance paid the Wuhan laboratory more than $500,000 over a period of five years. This was with the approval of the US State Department.
As per Sharri Markson, author of the famous book, What Really Happened in Wuhan, the US-funded, highly dangerous research on coronavirus at the WIV, that was once banned, involved creating new deadly viruses that never existed before.
The person who knows everything is Dr Fauci. In 2012, when the US was considering banning of Gain-of-Function research, Dr Fauci argued that it was important, and he even said that it was worth the risk of sparking a pandemic. In October 2012, he wrote: “In an unlikely but conceivably turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers pandemic. Given the possibility of such a scenario — however remote — should the experiments have been performed and/or published in the first place, and what were the processes involved in this decision. Scientists working in this field might say — as indeed I have said — that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks”.
When the pandemic exploded, the entire world wondered about its origin. Dr Fauci did not once mention the Gain-of-Function research or other research activities at the Wuhan laboratory. It was left to others to slowly uncover the truth. Markson further mentions that even when this worrying research was banned in the US back in 2014, US money continued to flow to China to fund the same research. And Dr Fauci is the man responsible for this. He was the head of NIH when the ban on the risky research was lifted in 2017. He sought that permission in a junior meeting with the Office of Science and Technology Policy, failing to mention it to any senior figures in the White House. Even Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State from 2018-21 or anyone else did not know that ban on Gain-of-Function research had been lifted. Behind the scenes, it seems, Dr Fauci was quite worried about the possibility that US money had helped create the virus or gone to the lab that had potentially sparked the coronavirus pandemic.
Markson mentions that on February 1, 2020, Deputy Director of the NIH confirmed that the research paper that was sent to him by Dr Fauci was the controversial research that had been done by ‘Bat Woman’ Shi Zheng-li and Dr Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina in 2015 when they had created a highly infectious virus, and it was done with NIH funding. Deputy Director further informed Dr Fauci: “The paper you sent me says the experiments were performed before the Gain-of-Function research pause but have since been reviewed and approved by NIH”.
Further, Markson reveals that NIH was also funding research to genetically manipulate coronaviruses This project also involved the Wuhan Institute of Virology and two American institutions. Decorated military scientist Zhou Yusen was involved in this research in late 2019 not long before the pandemic hit the world. According to documents obtained by The Weekend Australian, Zhou Yusen, a respected military scientist for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who collaborated with the controversial WIV and American experts, submitted a patent for a COVID-19 vaccine on February 24 last year. He was the first to invent a vaccine for COVID-19 virus. and was listed under a PLA Medical Institution. That means that Chinese were working on a vaccine before China admitted there was an outbreak. As per media reports, this scientist was found dead in May 2020.
Dr Fauci’s excuse as to why did he send money to do this research in China, is revealed by what he said in a recent interview: “This is a sub-award from a larger grant that received one of the highest scores from American peer reviewers. The research needed to be done. It was done in China through a very well-known, highly qualified laboratory.” One may recall that in 2015, Dany Shoham, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and bioweapons expert, did an in-depth analysis of Chinese research in the field of biological weapons. He specifically named the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It was not only the French experts and Israelis who were concerned, the US government was itself aware about the extreme risks of this laboratory. The American experts who visited the Wuhan laboratory in 2017 and 2018, were very much concerned and warned of serious lack of trained technicians and biosafety. They also highlighted the type of dangerous research that was going on. This proves that Dr Fauci is telling lies after lies to cover up one lie. He is only trying to save himself.
There are many more hidden facts in this pandemic which are gradually coming to light. With whatever that has been revealed so far, one can say that not just China, but Dr Antony Fauci should also be held accountable for this pandemic. By keeping quiet for over 18 months, he suppressed the truth that could have saved the lives of millions of people around the world.
