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Covid-19 Panel of Scientists Investigating Origins of Virus Is Disbanded: Task force’s ties to nonprofit that worked with Wuhan Institute of Virology risked perception of bias
Wall Street Journal ^ | 09/27/2021 | Betsy McKay

Posted on 09/27/2021 8:37:27 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs said he has disbanded a task force of scientists probing the origins of Covid-19 in favor of wider biosafety research.

Dr. Sachs, chairman of a Covid-19 commission affiliated with the Lancet scientific journals, said he closed the task force because he was concerned about its links to EcoHealth Alliance. The New York-based nonprofit has been under scrutiny from some scientists, members of Congress and other officials since 2020 for using U.S. funds for studies on bat coronaviruses with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research facility in the Chinese city where the first Covid-19 outbreak occurred.

EcoHealth Alliance’s president, Peter Daszak, led the task force until recusing himself from that role in June. Some other members of the task force have collaborated with Dr. Daszak or EcoHealth Alliance on projects.

“I just didn’t want a task force that was so clearly involved with one of the main issues of this whole search for the origins, which was EcoHealth Alliance,” said Dr. Sachs, who is also director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

One task-force member said the disbanded group doesn’t have conflicts of interest that interfere with its ability to gather and assess data on how the virus got into human populations.

Disbanding the task force is the latest development in the global scientific quest to find the origin of the virus. The search has fueled geopolitical tensions and debates over whether the virus began spreading after spilling into the human population naturally, from an animal, or from a laboratory or other scientific research-related accident. Calls from scientists and health leaders for an investigation into the possibility of a lab accident have gained traction in recent months.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bias; bioweapon; covid19; gainoffunction; origins; taskforce

1 posted on 09/27/2021 8:37:27 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

I agree. Wrong people to be part of the investigation. It’s a conflict of interest. They were the culprits.


2 posted on 09/27/2021 8:55:15 PM PDT by HollyB
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To: SeekAndFind

3 posted on 09/27/2021 8:58:11 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Jeffrey - one of the biggest manmade gloBULL warming alarmists - is now busy with COP26 in Glasgow:

20 April 2021: National Catholic Register: Jeffrey Sachs and the Vatican: Silent on China’s Rights Abuses
It remains unclear whether Sachs’ approach to China has had a direct influence on the Holy See’s own dealings with Beijing.
by Edward Pentin
PIC: Jeffrey Sachs, Professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, attends the second day of an international summit of Mayors on “Modern Slavery and Climate Change” on July 21, 2015 at the Vatican...

The Columbia University economics professor, who advises both the U.N. and the Holy See on the environment, warned last August against escalating tensions with the People’s Republic and in 2019 took himself off Twitter after comments he made defending the Chinese tech giant Huawei caused a media storm (Sachs continues to be a supporter of the company, which critics say is a tool for Chinese espionage).

Meanwhile, he has dismissed the human rights atrocities against the Uyghurs as “propaganda” against the Chinese government but backtracked in 2018, tweeting he was “trying to understand” the situation...

The author of several books and recipient of many awards, Sachs is regarded as the chief architect of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — 17 points for a sustainable future specifying 169 targets to be reached by 2030 including objectives involving more accessible contraception and abortion under the term “reproductive health.”

He has worked with George Soros and Bill and Melinda Gates, the strongly pro-abortion and pro-contraception billionaire philanthropists, and has been a supporter of the former presidential candidate and socialist Bernie Sanders. At the same time he has been a bitter and vociferous opponent of former President Donald Trump, and throughout last year’s presidential campaign he appeared on Chinese state media to blast U.S. foreign policy as a “crusade against China.”...

Sachs continues to be heavily involved in Vatican affairs.
Last November, the Keynesian economist, who believes in high government spending serviced by large fiscal debt, was a keynote speaker at the Economy of Francesco conference that aimed to make economies more inclusive...
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/jeffrey-sachs-and-the-vatican-silent-on-china-s-rights-abuses


4 posted on 09/27/2021 9:18:59 PM PDT by MAGAthon
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To: SeekAndFind

5 posted on 09/27/2021 9:53:02 PM PDT by Dick Bachert
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To: Dick Bachert

I question whether that definition fits Fauci. Is Fauci usually male? I would argue otherwise.


6 posted on 09/27/2021 10:01:43 PM PDT by gitmo (If your theology doesn't become your biography, what good is it?)
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To: SeekAndFind
So..."Risked perception of bias" is what they're calling outright bias these days?

These people were selected because they were going to cover up not only their own connections to Wuhan but the connections of all the other conspirators involved in banned gain-of-function experiments.

7 posted on 09/28/2021 4:10:44 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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