Bombshell: Fauci Said Risk of Manipulating Bat Viruses Was Worth a Potential Pandemic

[MMC]

Things keep getting worse for NIH Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, who continues to say during testimony on Capitol Hill that he didn't fund Frankenstein gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

According to The Weekend Australian, Fauci wrote in 2012 that continuing dangerous gain-of-function research was worth the risk of a pandemic.



In previously unreported remarks, Dr Fauci supported the contentious gain-of-*function experiments that some now fear might have led to an escape from a Wuhan laboratory causing the Covid-19 pandemic, calling them “important work”.
An investigation by The Weekend Australian has also confirmed Dr Fauci, the director of the Nat*ional Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, did not alert senior White House officials before lifting the ban on gain-of-function research in 2017.
Writing in the American Society for Microbiology in October 2012, Dr Fauci acknowledged the controversial scientific research could spark a pandemic.
“In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?” he wrote. “Many ask reasonable questions: given the possibility of such a scenario – however remote – should the initial 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.


After telling Republican Senator Rand Paul two weeks ago that he "never" approved grant funding through the NIH for gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Fauci changed his tune this week and said he simply told Chinese Communist Party controlled scientists not to conduct the research.






Bombshell: Fauci Said Risk of Manipulating Bat Viruses Was Worth a Potential Pandemic by Katie Pavlich (townhall.com)


Busted and disgusted. Not only has Fauci lied about the gain of function research. Yesterday he admitted under oath that there was a grant given to the Wuhan lab. After telling all in the media that no money was given to the Wuhan lab.


Its time to send this bureaucrat to a 9by7 cell. Hopefully the Repubs will hook him up. # Fire Fauci!

[MMC]

Calls for Fauci to resign or be fired intensify after doctor admits to $600,000 NIH funding for Wuhan lab


Soon JoeyB will need to stop the damage from continuing.

[MMC]

Fauci is having a very bad week. Even the left knows it, and is wondering how Joe can keep the mope on Team Biden.

[Dr. Who]

"The EcoHealth Alliance is a nongovernmental research group that focuses on emerging diseases caused by human and animal interactions. The National Institutes of Health has consistently funded the organization for projects since at least 2002.

In 2014, the NIH approved a grant to EcoHealth Alliance designated for research into “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” The project involved collaborating with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study coronaviruses in bats and the risk of potential transfer to humans.

The original five-year grant was reapproved by the Trump administration in July 2019. In total, $3,378,896 in NIH funding was directed from the government to the project.

The project, which was established “to understand what factors allow coronaviruses, including close relatives to SARS, to evolve and jump into the human population,” yielded 20 scientific reports on how zoonotic diseases may transfer from bats to humans.

Over the course of the two grants approved by the NIH for EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute received about $600,000 from the NIH, according to Robert Kessler, a spokesperson for EcoHealth Alliance. The funding was a fee for the collection and analysis of viral samples.

In the grant approved in 2014, about $133,000 was sent to the institute in the first four years and about $66,000 in the past year. In the second grant approved in 2019, about $76,000 was budgeted for the Wuhan Institute, though no money was sent before the grant's termination."

[...]

"The projects funded by the Obama and Trump administrations produced research that highlighted the risk of an outbreak like SARS-CoV-2 in southern China. The abstract proposal for the project cited concerns that a disease like SARS-CoV, or the earlier SARS outbreak, would arise from the region. "Fact check: Obama administration did not send $3.7M to Wuhan lab (usatoday.com)



During the Senate committee hearing under questioning by Paul Ryan, Fauci denied that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) funded so-called "gain of function" research by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

What is Gain of Function Research?:

“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. Ostensibly, GoF research is conducted for biodefense purposes. These experiments, however, are extremely dangerous. Those deadly science-enhanced pathogens can, and do escape into the community where they infect and kill people. What’s more, this line of research can be used for biological warfare.
What is Gain-of-Function Research & Who is at High Risk? - Alliance for Human Research Protection (ahrp.org)


The project being funded by the EcoHealth Alliance by way of the NIH was not "gain of function" research. Thus Fauci did not lie to Senator Ryan. If you read the abstract proposal for the project, there is nothing in there that involves modifying or enhancing the virus samples collected. It is possible, though not probable, that one of the viral samples collected, infected a lab worker, perhaps through a cut. It is also possible, if they were housing infected bats, that a lab worker may have been bitten - I don't know if they housed infected bats. It is also highly possible that COVID-19 was already active in the population of Wuhan Province, since China tends to be the source of these diseases. Is it possible that the Wuhan lab was also doing "gain of function" research, separately from the project being funded? It's possible. Who knows what research the Chinese government is funding? The Wuhan Institute of Virology is only level 4 biosafety lab in China, so if such research is being done anywhere in China, it would be at that lab.


At any rate, trying to hang Fauci and effectively blame him for the outbreak is essentially convicting him on the most flimsy of circumstantial evidence. There was nothing Frankenstein-like in researching how these coronaviruses may transfer to human populations from bats. This zoonotic transfer of coronavirus has happened before, with the SARS outbreak in 2002-2004 and MERS in 2012. The research is carried out in China, because that's where the bats live and where these viruses tend to originate.

[MMC]

"The EcoHealth Alliance is a nongovernmental research group that focuses on emerging diseases caused by human and animal interactions. The National Institutes of Health has consistently funded the organization for projects since at least 2002.

In 2014, the NIH approved a grant to EcoHealth Alliance designated for research into “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” The project involved collaborating with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study coronaviruses in bats and the risk of potential transfer to humans.

The original five-year grant was reapproved by the Trump administration in July 2019. In total, $3,378,896 in NIH funding was directed from the government to the project.

The project, which was established “to understand what factors allow coronaviruses, including close relatives to SARS, to evolve and jump into the human population,” yielded 20 scientific reports on how zoonotic diseases may transfer from bats to humans.

Over the course of the two grants approved by the NIH for EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute received about $600,000 from the NIH, according to Robert Kessler, a spokesperson for EcoHealth Alliance. The funding was a fee for the collection and analysis of viral samples.

In the grant approved in 2014, about $133,000 was sent to the institute in the first four years and about $66,000 in the past year. In the second grant approved in 2019, about $76,000 was budgeted for the Wuhan Institute, though no money was sent before the grant's termination."

[...]

"The projects funded by the Obama and Trump administrations produced research that highlighted the risk of an outbreak like SARS-CoV-2 in southern China. The abstract proposal for the project cited concerns that a disease like SARS-CoV, or the earlier SARS outbreak, would arise from the region. "Fact check: Obama administration did not send $3.7M to Wuhan lab (usatoday.com)



During the Senate committee hearing under questioning by Paul Ryan, Fauci denied that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) funded so-called "gain of function" research by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

What is Gain of Function Research?:

“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. Ostensibly, GoF research is conducted for biodefense purposes. These experiments, however, are extremely dangerous. Those deadly science-enhanced pathogens can, and do escape into the community where they infect and kill people. What’s more, this line of research can be used for biological warfare.
What is Gain-of-Function Research & Who is at High Risk? - Alliance for Human Research Protection (ahrp.org)


The project being funded by the EcoHealth Alliance by way of the NIH was not "gain of function" research. Thus Fauci did not lie to Senator Ryan. If you read the abstract proposal for the project, there is nothing in there that involves modifying or enhancing the virus samples collected. It is possible, though not probable, that one of the viral samples collected, infected a lab worker, perhaps through a cut. It is also possible, if they were housing infected bats, that a lab worker may have been bitten - I don't know if they housed infected bats. It is also highly possible that COVID-19 was already active in the population of Wuhan Province, since China tends to be the source of these diseases. Is it possible that the Wuhan lab was also doing "gain of function" research, separately from the project being funded? It's possible. Who knows what research the Chinese government is funding? The Wuhan Institute of Virology is only level 4 biosafety lab in China, so if such research is being done anywhere in China, it would be at that lab.


At any rate, trying to hang Fauci and effectively blame him for the outbreak is essentially convicting him on the most flimsy of circumstantial evidence. There was nothing Frankenstein-like in researching how these coronaviruses may transfer to human populations from bats. This zoonotic transfer of coronavirus has happened before, with the SARS outbreak in 2002-2004 and MERS in 2012. The research is carried out in China, because that's where the bats live and where these viruses tend to originate.

In the second grant approved in 2019, about $76,000 was budgeted for the Wuhan Institute, though no money was sent before the grant's termination.".....



Awww unable to equate to the Trump administration. Imagine that.




Biostatisticians Gave Former Pandemic Investigator the Odds of Coronavirus Evolving Naturally.....

David Asher, who led the Trump administration’s investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, told Fox News on Thursday that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was up to “some very hairy stuff with synthetic biology” and that biostatisticians from the U.S. government calculated that the odds of the coronavirus evolving naturally was one-in-13 billion.


Asher said that the U.S. government’s probe was finding “that there was almost no evidence that supported a natural, zoonotic … evolution, or source of COVID-19 … the data disproportionately stacked up as we investigated that it was coming out of a lab or some supernatural source.”


Asher said that the Chinese military was involved in research in the lab and that “they were up to some very hairy stuff with synthetic biology and so called gain of function techniques.”


Asher said that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was doing gain of function research to enhance “the pathogenicity or the virulence of coronavirus vectors that were radically unnatural.”.....snip~


Biostatisticians Calculated Odds Of Coronavirus Evolving Naturally To Be 1 In 13 Billion, Top Ex-Pandemic Investigator Says | The Daily Wire

Do you need the rest of Fauci's testimony?



How did the Wuhan Institute get its funding?



Over the course of the two grants approved by the NIH for EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute received about $600,000 from the NIH, according to Robert Kessler, a spokesperson for EcoHealth Alliance. The funding was a fee for the collection and analysis of viral samples.


Fact check: Obama administration did not send $3.7M to ...

www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/05/04/fa…

Fauci Must Explain Why Oversight Bypassed for Funding to Wuhan Lab, Congressman Says




Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., said it is “very concerning” that the federal infectious disease research organization led by Dr. Anthony Fauci bypassed federal oversight of a grant that funded a lab in Wuhan, China, to genetically modify bat-based coronaviruses.
Infectious disease experts say the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases’ grant to the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance, which involved the transfer of $600,000 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, described scientists conducting “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like viruses to make them even more contagious.

But a federal oversight board created in 2017 to scrutinize such research was not notified of the grant because the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases opted against forwarding it for review, The Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.


Had the EcoHealth grant been subjected to so-called P3CO review, an HHS panel would have evaluated the grant independently and, if necessary, recommended additional biocontainment measures to prevent potential lab leaks—or even recommended that the grant be denied entirely.


A Rutgers University professor of chemical biology, Richard H. Ebright, previously told The Daily Caller News Foundation that the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases’ ability to sidestep the P3CO framework is a “systemic problem.”


Ebright said that Fauci’s office as well as the larger National Institutes of Health “systematically thwarted—indeed systematically nullified—the HHS P3CO framework by declining to flag and forward proposals for review.”

EcoHealth President Peter Daszak, the only American member of the World Health Organization delegation investigating COVID-19’s origins, spoke about how easy it was to manipulate bat-based coronaviruses during a podcast interview filmed just weeks before the first cases were reported in Wuhan......snip~


Fauci Must Explain Why Oversight Bypassed for Funding to Wuhan Lab, Congressman Says (dailysignal.com)



Sen. Tom Cotton: ‘Dr. Fauci Is Playing Word Games’ on Gain ...

https://cnsnews.com/article/washington/melanie...
May 24, 2021 · "With all due respect, you are entirely, completely incorrect,” Fauci said, adding the NIH “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research




VIDEO: Rand Paul Says Fauci 'Absolutely' Committed Perjury ...

https://nationalfile.com/video-rand-paul-says..
1 day ago · “There was gain of function research going on with this Dr. Shi Zhengli at the Wuhan institute. In her paper, she actually thanks Dr. Fauci and the NIAID, which is a part of NIH that

[Peter1469]

Yes it was gain of function research. Several Chinese scientists have testified so and some of them have mysteriously died.

"The EcoHealth Alliance is a nongovernmental research group that focuses on emerging diseases caused by human and animal interactions. The National Institutes of Health has consistently funded the organization for projects since at least 2002.

In 2014, the NIH approved a grant to EcoHealth Alliance designated for research into “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” The project involved collaborating with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study coronaviruses in bats and the risk of potential transfer to humans.

The original five-year grant was reapproved by the Trump administration in July 2019. In total, $3,378,896 in NIH funding was directed from the government to the project.

The project, which was established “to understand what factors allow coronaviruses, including close relatives to SARS, to evolve and jump into the human population,” yielded 20 scientific reports on how zoonotic diseases may transfer from bats to humans.

Over the course of the two grants approved by the NIH for EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute received about $600,000 from the NIH, according to Robert Kessler, a spokesperson for EcoHealth Alliance. The funding was a fee for the collection and analysis of viral samples.

In the grant approved in 2014, about $133,000 was sent to the institute in the first four years and about $66,000 in the past year. In the second grant approved in 2019, about $76,000 was budgeted for the Wuhan Institute, though no money was sent before the grant's termination."

[...]

"The projects funded by the Obama and Trump administrations produced research that highlighted the risk of an outbreak like SARS-CoV-2 in southern China. The abstract proposal for the project cited concerns that a disease like SARS-CoV, or the earlier SARS outbreak, would arise from the region. "Fact check: Obama administration did not send $3.7M to Wuhan lab (usatoday.com)



During the Senate committee hearing under questioning by Paul Ryan, Fauci denied that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) funded so-called "gain of function" research by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

What is Gain of Function Research?:

“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. Ostensibly, GoF research is conducted for biodefense purposes. These experiments, however, are extremely dangerous. Those deadly science-enhanced pathogens can, and do escape into the community where they infect and kill people. What’s more, this line of research can be used for biological warfare.
What is Gain-of-Function Research & Who is at High Risk? - Alliance for Human Research Protection (ahrp.org)


The project being funded by the EcoHealth Alliance by way of the NIH was not "gain of function" research. Thus Fauci did not lie to Senator Ryan. If you read the abstract proposal for the project, there is nothing in there that involves modifying or enhancing the virus samples collected. It is possible, though not probable, that one of the viral samples collected, infected a lab worker, perhaps through a cut. It is also possible, if they were housing infected bats, that a lab worker may have been bitten - I don't know if they housed infected bats. It is also highly possible that COVID-19 was already active in the population of Wuhan Province, since China tends to be the source of these diseases. Is it possible that the Wuhan lab was also doing "gain of function" research, separately from the project being funded? It's possible. Who knows what research the Chinese government is funding? The Wuhan Institute of Virology is only level 4 biosafety lab in China, so if such research is being done anywhere in China, it would be at that lab.


At any rate, trying to hang Fauci and effectively blame him for the outbreak is essentially convicting him on the most flimsy of circumstantial evidence. There was nothing Frankenstein-like in researching how these coronaviruses may transfer to human populations from bats. This zoonotic transfer of coronavirus has happened before, with the SARS outbreak in 2002-2004 and MERS in 2012. The research is carried out in China, because that's where the bats live and where these viruses tend to originate.

[RMNIXON]

Calls for Fauci to resign or be fired intensify after doctor admits to $600,000 NIH funding for Wuhan lab


Soon JoeyB will need to stop the damage from continuing.

This can't happen fast enough, wake Joe from his Nap!

[Dr. Who]

Yes it was gain of function research. Several Chinese scientists have testified so and some of them have mysteriously died.

In the second grant approved in 2019, about $76,000 was budgeted for the Wuhan Institute, though no money was sent before the grant's termination.".....



Awww unable to equate to the Trump administration. Imagine that.




Biostatisticians Gave Former Pandemic Investigator the Odds of Coronavirus Evolving Naturally.....

David Asher, who led the Trump administration’s investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, told Fox News on Thursday that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was up to “some very hairy stuff with synthetic biology” and that biostatisticians from the U.S. government calculated that the odds of the coronavirus evolving naturally was one-in-13 billion.


Asher said that the U.S. government’s probe was finding “that there was almost no evidence that supported a natural, zoonotic … evolution, or source of COVID-19 … the data disproportionately stacked up as we investigated that it was coming out of a lab or some supernatural source.”


Asher said that the Chinese military was involved in research in the lab and that “they were up to some very hairy stuff with synthetic biology and so called gain of function techniques.”


Asher said that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was doing gain of function research to enhance “the pathogenicity or the virulence of coronavirus vectors that were radically unnatural.”.....snip~


Biostatisticians Calculated Odds Of Coronavirus Evolving Naturally To Be 1 In 13 Billion, Top Ex-Pandemic Investigator Says | The Daily Wire

Do you need the rest of Fauci's testimony?



How did the Wuhan Institute get its funding?



Over the course of the two grants approved by the NIH for EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute received about $600,000 from the NIH, according to Robert Kessler, a spokesperson for EcoHealth Alliance. The funding was a fee for the collection and analysis of viral samples.


Fact check: Obama administration did not send $3.7M to ...

www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/05/04/fa…

Fauci Must Explain Why Oversight Bypassed for Funding to Wuhan Lab, Congressman Says




Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., said it is “very concerning” that the federal infectious disease research organization led by Dr. Anthony Fauci bypassed federal oversight of a grant that funded a lab in Wuhan, China, to genetically modify bat-based coronaviruses.
Infectious disease experts say the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases’ grant to the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance, which involved the transfer of $600,000 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, described scientists conducting “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like viruses to make them even more contagious.

But a federal oversight board created in 2017 to scrutinize such research was not notified of the grant because the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases opted against forwarding it for review, The Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.


Had the EcoHealth grant been subjected to so-called P3CO review, an HHS panel would have evaluated the grant independently and, if necessary, recommended additional biocontainment measures to prevent potential lab leaks—or even recommended that the grant be denied entirely.


A Rutgers University professor of chemical biology, Richard H. Ebright, previously told The Daily Caller News Foundation that the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases’ ability to sidestep the P3CO framework is a “systemic problem.”


Ebright said that Fauci’s office as well as the larger National Institutes of Health “systematically thwarted—indeed systematically nullified—the HHS P3CO framework by declining to flag and forward proposals for review.”

EcoHealth President Peter Daszak, the only American member of the World Health Organization delegation investigating COVID-19’s origins, spoke about how easy it was to manipulate bat-based coronaviruses during a podcast interview filmed just weeks before the first cases were reported in Wuhan......snip~


Fauci Must Explain Why Oversight Bypassed for Funding to Wuhan Lab, Congressman Says (dailysignal.com)



Sen. Tom Cotton: ‘Dr. Fauci Is Playing Word Games’ on Gain ...

https://cnsnews.com/article/washington/melanie...
May 24, 2021 · "With all due respect, you are entirely, completely incorrect,” Fauci said, adding the NIH “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research




VIDEO: Rand Paul Says Fauci 'Absolutely' Committed Perjury ...

https://nationalfile.com/video-rand-paul-says..
1 day ago · “There was gain of function research going on with this Dr. Shi Zhengli at the Wuhan institute. In her paper, she actually thanks Dr. Fauci and the NIAID, which is a part of NIH that

"The HHS P3CO Framework describes a multi-disciplinary review process, involving the funding agency and a Department-level review group, that considers the scientific merits and potential benefits of the research, as well as the potential to create, transfer, or use an enhanced potential pandemic pathogen." NIH Lifts Funding Pause on Gain-of-Function Research | National Institutes of Health (NIH)

The NIAID did not submit this project for review because the mandate, as indicated in the abstract proposal, did not involve the potential to create, transfer, or use an enhanced potential pandemic pathogen. If the scientists at the Wuhan lab were involved in gain of function research, it was not at the direction of, or with the expressed permission of the NIAID. Dr Shi Zhengli, who heads up the Wuhan lab, may well have misdirected the funding received from the NIAID to gain of function experiments, but I have yet to see any proof, other than her thanking Dr. Fauci in her paper, that Fauci had any knowledge of this "mission creep".

[Peter1469]

"The HHS P3CO Framework describes a multi-disciplinary review process, involving the funding agency and a Department-level review group, that considers the scientific merits and potential benefits of the research, as well as the potential to create, transfer, or use an enhanced potential pandemic pathogen." NIH Lifts Funding Pause on Gain-of-Function Research | National Institutes of Health (NIH)

The NIAID did not submit this project for review because the mandate, as indicated in the abstract proposal, did not involve the potential to create, transfer, or use an enhanced potential pandemic pathogen. If the scientists at the Wuhan lab were involved in gain of function research, it was not at the direction of, or with the expressed permission of the NIAID. Dr Shi Zhengli, who heads up the Wuhan lab, may well have misdirected the funding received from the NIAID to gain of function experiments, but I have yet to see any proof, other than her thanking Dr. Fauci in her paper, that Fauci had any knowledge of this "mission creep".

I don't necessarily believe Fauci knew about the gain of function research.

[MMC]

"The HHS P3CO Framework describes a multi-disciplinary review process, involving the funding agency and a Department-level review group, that considers the scientific merits and potential benefits of the research, as well as the potential to create, transfer, or use an enhanced potential pandemic pathogen." NIH Lifts Funding Pause on Gain-of-Function Research | National Institutes of Health (NIH)

The NIAID did not submit this project for review because the mandate, as indicated in the abstract proposal, did not involve the potential to create, transfer, or use an enhanced potential pandemic pathogen. If the scientists at the Wuhan lab were involved in gain of function research, it was not at the direction of, or with the expressed permission of the NIAID. Dr Shi Zhengli, who heads up the Wuhan lab, may well have misdirected the funding received from the NIAID to gain of function experiments, but I have yet to see any proof, other than her thanking Dr. Fauci in her paper, that Fauci had any knowledge of this "mission creep".

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., said it is “very concerning” that the federal infectious disease research organization led by Dr. Anthony Fauci bypassed federal oversight of a grant that funded a lab in Wuhan.


But a federal oversight board created in 2017 to scrutinize such research was not notified of the grant because the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases opted against forwarding it for review, The Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported......snip~



US Grant to Wuhan Lab on Bat-Based Coronaviruses Didn’t Get Review, NIH Says.....


Federal funding for gain-of-function research was resumed in late 2017 after the Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight Framework was formed within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.


The review board is tasked with critically evaluating whether grants that involve enhancing dangerous pathogens, such as coronaviruses, are worth the risks and that proper safeguards are in place.


But the NIH subagency that awarded the grant to the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance to study Chinese bat coronaviruses opted against forwarding it to a Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight review committee, an NIH spokesperson told The Daily Caller News Foundation, meaning the research received federal funding without an independent review by the HHS board.


“This is a systemic problem,” Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard H. Ebright told The Daily Caller News Foundation, referring to the loophole in the review framework.


Ebright said the offices of the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—the subagency that funded EcoHealth—and the NIH have “systematically thwarted—indeed systematically nullified—the Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight Framework by declining to flag and forward proposals for review.”


“We would not submit research proposals that did not meet the definition, because otherwise we would need to submit everything,” the spokesperson said.


The Wuhan Institute of Virology is a biosafety level 4 laboratory, the highest level biocontainment certification, but U.S. Embassy officials issued two diplomatic cables warning about inadequate safety at the lab after a visit in 2018. One of the cables warned that the lab’s work on bat-based coronaviruses represented the risk of a new SARS-like pandemic, according to The Washington Post.


An annex to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 origin report released last Tuesday describes the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s work using “recombinant viruses” in tests involving bat coronaviruses, which Rutgers’ Ebright said are descriptions of gain-of-function research.


Federally funded gain-of-function research resumed in 2017 after new oversight procedures were implemented. The review framework split oversight responsibilities between two groups—the funding agency (the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the case of the EcoHealth grant) and the Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight review committee, an interdisciplinary group convened by HHS.


Ecohealth has a history of manipulating bat-based coronaviruses. The group’s president, Peter Daszak, said as much during a podcast interview filmed in Singapore just weeks before the first reported cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan in December 2019.



Rutgers’ Ebright told The Daily Caller News Foundation that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was wrong to determine that the EcoHealth grant did not involve enhancing the transmissibility of Chinese bat-based coronaviruses.


He said the project’s abstract for the 2019 fiscal year, which referenced “in vitro and in vivo infection experiments” on coronaviruses, “unequivocally required risk-benefit review under the HHS P3CO Framework.”


“It is hard to overemphasize that the central logic of this grant was to test the pandemic potential of SARS-related bat coronaviruses by making ones with pandemic potential, either through genetic engineering or passaging, or both,” Drs. Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson wrote in June.

When gain-of-function funding was paused in 2014, 21 research projects were halted. But the NIH created exceptions for 10 of those, according to The New York Times.


It’s unclear how many research grants have been reviewed under the framework. An NIH spokesperson said the agency doesn’t comment or discuss unfunded grant applications.


An HHS spokesperson said Hassell was unavailable for comment......snip~


US Grant to Lab on Bat-Based Coronaviruses Didn’t Get Review, NIH Says (dailysignal.com)