New Details Emerge About Coronavirus Research At Chinese Lab

The Intercept ^ | 09/06/21 | Sharon Lerner, Mara Hvistendahl

[Enlightened1]

More than 900 pages of materials related to US.-funded coronavirus research in China were released following a FOIA lawsuit by The Intercept.

NEWLY RELEASED documents provide details of U.S.-funded research on several types of coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. The Intercept has obtained more than nine hundred pages of documents detailing the work of the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based health organization that used federal money to fund bat coronavirus research at the Chinese laboratory. The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals that were funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as project updates relating to the EcoHealth Alliance’s research, which has been scrutinized amid increased interest in the origins of the pandemic.

The documents were released in connection with ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation by The Intercept against the National Institutes of Health. The Intercept is making the full documents available to the public.

“This is a roadmap to the high-risk research that could have led to the current pandemic,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right To Know, a group that has been investigating the origins of Covid-19.

One of the grants, titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” outlines an ambitious effort led by EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak to screen thousands of bat samples for novel coronaviruses. The research also involved screening people who work with live animals. The documents contain several critical details about the research in Wuhan, including the fact that key experimental work with humanized mice was conducted at a biosafety level 3 lab at Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment — and not at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as was previously assumed. The documents raise additional questions about the theory that the pandemic may have begun in a lab accident, an idea that Daszak has aggressively dismissed.

The bat coronavirus grant provided the EcoHealth Alliance with a total of $3.1 million, including $599,000 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology used in part to identify and alter bat coronaviruses likely to infect humans. Even before the pandemic, many scientists were concerned about the potential dangers associated with such experiments. The grant proposal acknowledges some of those dangers: “Fieldwork involves the highest risk of exposure to SARS or other CoVs, while working in caves with high bat density overhead and the potential for fecal dust to be inhaled.”

Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute, said the documents show that the EcoHealth Alliance has reason to take the lab leak theory seriously. “In this proposal, they actually point out that they know how risky this work is. They keep talking about people potentially getting bitten — and they kept records of everyone who got bitten,” Chan said. “Does EcoHealth have those records? And if not, how can they possibly rule out a research-related accident?”

According to Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, the documents contain critical information about the research done in Wuhan, including about the creation of novel viruses. “The viruses they constructed were tested for their ability to infect mice that were engineered to display human type receptors on their cell,” Ebright wrote to The Intercept after reviewing the documents. Ebright also said that the documents make it clear that two different types of novel coronaviruses were able to infect humanized mice. “While they were working on SARS-related coronavirus, they were carrying out a parallel project at the same time on MERS-related coronavirus,” Ebright said, referring to the virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

Asked about the grant materials, Robert Kessler, communications manager at EcoHealth Alliance, said, “We applied for grants to conduct research. The relevant agencies deemed that to be important research, and thus funded it. So I don’t know that there’s a whole lot to say.”

The grant was initially awarded for a five-year period — from 2014 to 2019. Funding was renewed in 2019 but suspended by the Trump administration in April 2020.

The closest relative of SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, is a virus found in bats, making the animals a focal point for efforts to understand the origins of the pandemic. Exactly how the virus jumped to humans is the subject of heated debate. Many scientists believe it was a natural spillover, meaning that the virus passed to humans in a setting such as a wet market or rural area where humans and animals are in close contact. Biosafety experts and internet sleuths who suspect a lab origin, meanwhile, have spent more than a year poring over publicly available information and obscure scientific publications looking for answers. In the past few months, leading scientists have also called for a deeper investigation of the pandemic’s origins, as has President Joe Biden, who in May ordered the intelligence community to study the issue. On August 27, Biden announced that the intelligence inquiry was inconclusive.

Biden blamed China for failing to release critical data, but the U.S. government has also been slow to release information. The Intercept initially requested the proposals in September 2020.

“I wish that this document had been released in early 2020,” said Alina Chan, who has called for an investigation of the lab-leak origin theory. “It would have changed things massively, just to have all of the information in one place, immediately transparent, in a credible document that was submitted by EcoHealth Alliance.”

The second grant, Understanding Risk of Zoonotic Virus Emergence in Emerging Infectious Disease Hotspots of Southeast Asia, was awarded in August 2020 and extends through 2025. The proposal, written in 2019, often seems prescient, focusing on scaling-up and deploying resources in Asia in case of an outbreak of an “emergent infectious disease,” or EID, and referring to Asia as “this hottest of the EID hotspots.”

[rlmorel]

It could be me, but did I recall hearing at one point specific and heated denials that there was bat research going on in the Wuhan Lab?

Could just be me...

[SMARTY]

Not ‘just you’

[DarthVader]

Bookmark

[rlmorel]

From the article:

"...The grant proposal acknowledges some of those dangers: “Fieldwork involves the highest risk of exposure to SARS or other CoVs, while working in caves with high bat density overhead and the potential for fecal dust to be inhaled.”

Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute, said the documents show that the EcoHealth Alliance has reason to take the lab leak theory seriously. “In this proposal, they actually point out that they know how risky this work is. They keep talking about people potentially getting bitten — and they kept records of everyone who got bitten,” Chan said. “Does EcoHealth have those records? And if not, how can they possibly rule out a research-related accident?”

So they have records of everyone who was bitten. Good. How about everyone who inhaled bat feces? No? I thought not.

Point is, I (and many others) are far beyond the point of thinking this was a simple lab exposure. It could be, but I keep wide open the consideration that the release of this virus had a malignant basis.

[sauropod]

.

[rlmorel]

I remember as a young kid, watching the movie "True Grit" where the two main characters (played by Campbell and Wayne) are arguing about the compensation for the fugitive (Cheney) and who would get the money, with the Texas Ranger saying "I'll muddy the water..." As a kid, I had never heard that expression before in that context, but grasped immediately what it meant.

It is a major tactic by the left, in close coordination with their media allies, to "muddy the water" so that consumers of their product (I am not one of them) will get confused by so many differing accounts that they will find it difficult to reach any conclusion. They do this on so many subjects and issues, because there is zero penalty for putting out incorrect information, as the recent "horse medicine poisoning", deathbed conversions from anti-vaccine to vaccine-zealot, and the "ICU beds are overflowing with unvaccinated" narrative.

When Rush Limbaugh called them "The Drive By Media", he captured this muddying of the water behavior accurately.

[Metrobank]

What other “gain of function” research is being conducted on other viruses we don’t know about yet? Daszac and Fauci lied their a$$es off. According to these papers, NIH funded EcoHealth which funded the Wuhan Lab where this bioweapon got started.

[knarf]

Just one more reason they HAD to get rid of President Trump.

He knew he had to be careful leading up to the election because his second term was going to be a firestorm against the enemy(s) of America, not the least of which ARE democrats.

PLEASE Father ... help us to re-claim our Christian nation.

[Bobalu]

It is more dangerous to fiddle around with pathogens and attempt to weaponize them than it would be to assemble simple gun type atomic weapons in your garage...

A pathogen can spread like fire in a dry forest...at least low-yield atomic weapons don’t multiply on their own...

Fooling around with gain-of-function research should be a capital crime that is tried by military tribunal..

[freespirit2012]

There needs to be a lawsuit against Daszak, to get his deposition.

[SMARTY]

You’re right. It has been made much easier by the NEA. For decades, schools have dummied-own students. We are at the point now that people, young and old, cannot challenge what they see and hear... even IF they KNOW they’re being told lies.

I guess rendering people incapable of doubting the narrative was the easiest part of the Liberal/NEA plan.

But, rendering people UNWILLING to challenge what they see and hear... THAT’S a major coup!! I’d say that, intellectually, every Liberal voter has been reduced to the level of a tree slug.

If your intellect is so compromised, then you are not going to look for your own truths or trust your own thinking. It goes without saying that you certainly won’t arrive at your own decisions...about anything!

It’s why the DNC has a steady and solid base of constituents. People with a mindless sameness in their approach to decision-making and politics will never deviate from what they are told.

I’ll say one thing for Conservatives…they are all individuals who LOVE to think for themselves.... Unfortunately, it’s probably why they possess a real addiction for internal debate, which can sometimes create obstacles to unity.

Anyway-for Liberal voters, the damage is already done. Nothing, short of a rehaul of the US educational ‘system’, is going to help them!

BTW-I’m old enough to remember when Americans had the reputation of being the least easily or readily tricked or defrauded people on earth. Back then, getting BS past a Yankee was a real accomplishment! Not anymore.

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[rlmorel]

On your comment: "...I’ll say one thing for Conservatives…they are all individuals who LOVE to think for themselves..."

That really hit home with me. I have been to plenty of demonstrations on the other side of the street that the Leftists occupy, and one thing really stood out to me: They cannot think for themselves, overall.

Sure. There are a few here and there who can, but overall, they suffer from the constraints of groupthink.

When you see them with their signs, so few of their signs are original. I mean, not just what is written on the signs...the signs themselves are identical in many cases.

We had much discussion about this, and assumed they were handed the signs along with a box lunch when they got off the busses chartered by Leftists to bring them all to their protests. Dozens, if not hundreds of busses.

I did this analysis from a few demonstrations which illustrate this point so it isn't just me saying it:

This image below shows the Tea Party March on Washington in 2009, and this was just one photo of mine that I analyzed. You can see the difference in creativity, original thought, and expression...particularly patriotic expression:

[packagingguy]

Saint Fauci of Bethesda always speaks the truth. Fauci is science and science is Fauci.

[SMARTY]

Very true!

The other explanation could be that the DNC is so sure of their constituents' stupidity, that they can't be trusted to make their own signs

Maybe you have seen some of these Liberals' signs which have hilarious misspellings! 🤣 That's sort of like carrying a sign that says, 'Look at ME... I'm a moron!!' They can't spell, but they want to tell ME how to vote!

[rlmorel]

"...The other explanation could be that the DNC is so sure of their constituents' stupidity, that they can't be trusted to make their own signs..."

That would certainly fit their estimation of people's intelligence, including their own Useful Idiots. Funny that the Useful Idiots haven't picked up on that.

[mewzilla]

Bat writ.

[Pajamajan]

Not-a-conspiracy-theory-if-it’s-true BUMP

[mewzilla]

They’re not conspiracy theories anymore.

They’re spoilers.