Newly Released Documents Show EcoHealth (And Fauci) Funding Gain-of-Function Research into Bat Viruses in Wuhan -- And In a Second Lab, Too

Not only did we fund "chimerical" virus engineering at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but at another Wuhan lab we haven't heard about until now -- the Wuhan Center for Animal Experiment.

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 The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals that were funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as project updates relating to the EcoHealth Alliance's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.

...

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 called "heinous."

Have we been looking at the wrong lab? The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) did lots of experiments on bat viruses and employed "the Bat Lady," but maybe the key step of making a viral chimera was done at this other lab, and then only analyzed/experimented on at the WIV.

Maybe that's why we haven't yet proven the lab creation.

Why didn't Fauci or his buddy Daszak tell us there was another lab in the mix? Why did they keep that quiet?

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.

The Intercept -- which Glenn Greenwald notes is a shill organization for the Democrats who fund it -- probably intended to write a "documents prove Fauci right" story, and were sad to discover the documents prove he lied.

But it seems the Intercept article actually underplays the story. The Rutgers molecular biologist they quote, Richard H. Ebright, is much more emphatic about the proof of Fauci's lying in his twitter feed:

Richard H. Ebright
@R_H_Ebright

The materials reveal that the resulting novel, laboratory-generated SARS-related coronaviruses also could infect mice engineered to display human receptors on cells ("humanized mice").

The materials further reveal for the first time that one of the resulting novel, laboratory-generated SARS-related coronaviruses--one not been previously disclosed publicly--was more pathogenic to humanized mice than the starting virus from which it was constructed...

...and thus not only was reasonably anticipated to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity, but, indeed, was *demonstrated* to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity.

The materials further reveal that the the grants also supported the construction--in Wuhan--of novel chimeric MERS-related coronaviruses that combined spike genes from one MERS-related coronavirus with genetic information from another MERS-related coronavirus.

The documents make it clear that assertions by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are untruthful.

Not sure why the Intercept ignored those quotations.

Someone on Twitter disputed Ebright's claim that the documents specifically prove Gain of Function research. "Pseudotyping," this person said, was not Gain of Function.

Pseudotyping a virus, I believe, means injecting the genetic payload of one virus into the protein coat of another type of virus.

Ebright agrees that pseudotyping is not Gain of Function -- but says the documents prove that the research was for the purpose of creating "chimerical" viruses, viruses made up, like a chimera, of the most dangerous parts of other viruses.

Richard H. Ebright
@R_H_Ebright

Correct [that pseudotyping is not Gain of Function].

But constructing novel chimeric viruses able to infect human cells and humanized mice by combining the spike gene of one SARS- or MERS-related coronavirus with the rest of the genetic information of another SARS- or MERS-related coronavirus is.

Twitter could not stop "Anthony Fauci" from trending due to this news.

So they did the next best thing: They lied about why the name was trending.

In their own carefully-curated sidebar write-up for the reason why Anthony Fauci is trending, they claim, incredilby, that it's merely because covid caseloads are increasing.

As they've been increasing for a couple of months. (In fact, they've been decreasing the past week in some states.)

But this, Twitter says, is the reason the name Fauci is trending right now.

So don't bother searching further! Nothing to see here, folks!

Rand Paul says this proves that Fauci lied to Congress.

He bases this claim on the fact that Fauci lied to Congress.

Fauci claims that he really, really cares about getting people vaccinated, and yet he insists on keeping his job, knowing full well that his credibility is near zero, and less than zero among the vaccine-resistant.

And he knows he's at least a Material Witness -- and maybe a coconspirator -- in the creation of the virus he claims to fight.

He should not be in charge of the NIAID. He should either resign, or at the very least recuse himself from anything to do with the Chinese virus.

But he won't.

Because he doesn't care about protecting the public health.

He only cares about being in a position to run interference in any investigation into his own role in creating covid.

Newly Released Documents Show EcoHealth (And Fauci) Funding Gain-of-Function Research into Bat Viruses in Wuhan -- And In a Second Lab, Too&bodytext= Not only did we fund "chimerical" virus engineering at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but at another Wuhan lab we haven't heard about until now -- the Wuhan Center for Animal Experiment. NEWLY RELEASED documents provide details of U.S.-funded...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 11:57 AM

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