A Wuhan-affiliated virologist infamous for attempting to intimidate COVID lab leak accusations has endorsed an awakened scientist who complained that demonizing China is to blame for the World Health Organization’s cancelled investigation into the origins of the virus.
Dr. Peter Daszak, a U.S.-based, British zoologist who sponsored the Wuhan lab in issue, retweeted the post from colleague virologist Dr. Angela Rasmussen on Tuesday, hours after The World Health Organization (WHO) secretly terminated its investigation into the origin of the pandemic.
Rasmussen, who works for the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Canada, sent a news piece with a headline that seemed to imply that America’s stance toward the communist rule was to fault for the investigation’s cancellation.
She stated, “By denigrating and isolating colleagues in China instead of fostering collaborative trust, the ceaselessly poisonous lab leak conspiracy machine has produced the following: The complete and total annihilation of any further inquiry into the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
Daszak, a friend of Dr. Anthony Fauci who has gotten money from Fauci’s National Institutes of Health, reposted the message after months of conspiracy theories claiming that COVID-19 was stolen from a lab financed by his foundation.
Despite his intimate contacts to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he attempted to persuade prominent scientists to support assertions that the virus likely originated in a ‘wet market.’ Since the beginning of the epidemic, the lab leak idea has garnered more confidence, but there is still no smoking gun to establish how the virus reached humans for the first time.
House Republicans have demanded for years that the virologist and Fauci show documentation and evidence proving the lab had no role in the virus’s beginnings. The WHO investigation was cancelled because to restricted access to the Eastern nation, according to WHO authorities.
While other academics expressed disappointment over the news of the investigation’s abandonment, Daszak, who is originally from England and now resides in upstate New York, re-shared the announcement with apparent approval.
The scientist called the government agency’s decision to halt the study “disappointing” and blamed Beijing and WHO authorities for failing to cooperate and allowing the investigation to fail.
Shortly before the revelation was first announced by the scientific journal Nature, Daszak tweeted, “Disappointing news from @WHO.”
The worldwide community mishandled the probe into the origins. China handled the issue terribly. The WHO handled the situation terribly.
Then, repeating Rasmussen’s remarks, the self-proclaimed illness specialist said, “The WHO should have been rigorous in establishing a positive working relationship with Chinese authorities.”
The response of the scientists to the WHO’s decision, notably Daszak’s, is not surprising, considering the experts’ prior social media statements and strong ties to the putative origin site.
Gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was funded by the scientist’s charitable organization, EcoHealth Alliance, according to a Vanity Fair exposé.
Scientists at the facility allegedly developed and irresponsibly disseminated SARS-CoV-2 samples, leading to a devastating pandemic.
Known as ‘gain-of-function’ research, the contentious experiments done at Daszak’s lab entailed modifying viruses to make them more severe or transmissible – with the intention of preventing future mutations and epidemics.
There are only four laboratories in the world that conduct investigations on bat coronaviruses, the most likely source of COVID-19, according to proponents of the lab leak theory. As opposed to being intentionally unleashed as a bioweapon, the majority of this theory’s proponents believe COVID leaked accidently due to inadequate safety procedures.
Daszak fiercely rejects a laboratory COVID leak. Fauci has attempted to debunk this notion, but he acknowledges that there is insufficient evidence to do so.
In May 2021, little than a year earlier, it was revealed that, under Fauci’s direction, the government contributed $600,000 in taxpayer funds to this lab and funded bat coronavirus research years before the pandemic occurred.
The National Institutes of Health, then led by Fauci, awarded Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance a $653,392 funding to study Covid-like viruses in bats across Asia and Africa in September of this year.
In the wake of a pandemic that killed more than a million Americans, Daszak happily uploaded photographs of himself in bat-infested caverns, infuriating politicians who regarded his behavior repugnant.
Despite its close ties to Wuhan Institute of Virology, the charity received these donations.
Fauci, who led the NIH for 54 years before stepping down in December, has been the target of widespread criticism for his handling of the pandemic, led by House Republicans and celebrities such as Elon Musk.
Initially a beloved figure during his early lockdowns and mask mandates, Fauci has come under special fire for his backing of contentious research while claiming his team surreptitiously sponsored it throughout the pandemic.
Since then, many, including Musk, have expressed their conviction that Fauci lied to Congress and surreptitiously sponsored ‘gain-of-function’ research, which had the potential to kill’millions of people.’
The South African billionaire posted a joke on December 11 that portrayed a scene from The Lord of the Rings modified to show Fauci asking Biden, “just one more lockdown, my king.” Over half a million people liked the tweet.
In an interview with Nature, Fauci stated that Musk’s remarks’stir up a lot of hatred in people’ and that he carries armed federal officers with him at all times because of this.
Musk initially targeted Fauci in a tweet he posted on December 11, stating, “My pronouns are Prosecutor/Fauci.”
He appeared to be making fun of the left’s acceptance of gender identification while alluding to Fauci’s role in disputed Chinese research at the center of disputes around the origin of Covid.
In one of his final interviews before his retirement, Fauci attempted to dispel rumors about Covid’s origin and virus-tinkering operations at the Wuhan lab, amid charges that he lied to Congress and surreptitiously sponsored gain-of-function research.
“The NIH has never financed and does not now fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute,” he stated, despite admitting that it indirectly supported the Wuhan virus lab.
During the height of the pandemic in May 2021, Fauci spoke before a Congressional budget committee to defend the NIH’s allocation of $600,000 to EcoHealth Alliance, which then paid the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study the danger that bat coronaviruses could infect people.
It would have been virtually a dereliction of duty if we hadn’t studied this, and the only way to do so is to travel to the scene of the crime.
You shouldn’t study bats in Fairfax County, Virginia, in order to determine the animal-human interface that could lead to interspecies migration.
Thus, we had a modest collaboration with extremely reputable Chinese scientists who were global experts in coronavirus, and we did so through a sub-grant from a larger fund awarded to EcoHealth.
The larger amount was approximately $600,000 over a five-year period, he continued. Therefore, the sum was minimal. It aimed to examine the animal-human interaction, conduct surveillance, and assess whether or not these bat viruses were capable of infecting humans.
The precise definition of gain-of-function has been the subject of controversy, posing a potential area of argument when refuting Fauci and Daszak’s claims.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and Rep. James Comer, chairman of the Oversight Committee, hounded both Biden officials and Daszak on Monday, a day prior to the WHO’s announcement that it is canceling the second phase of its investigation into the Wuhan lab leak allegations.
Wenstrup stated in a statement, “This inquiry must begin by determining where and how this virus arose so that we can strive to forecast, prepare for, or prevent its recurrence.”
Wenstrup continued, “Government scientists and government-funded researchers have been less than forthright in their knowledge and activities, particularly their collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and possible pandemic diseases.”
The committee is requesting testimony from Fauci and forty other officials, as well as phone records, calendars, and other interactions between the National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases about the Wuhan lab or EcoHealth Alliance.
Fauci oversaw the NIAID for close to four decades before stepping down last year. Previously, he has signaled willingness to testify before a Republican-led committee. The testimony would be a transcribed interview as opposed to being broadcast live.
With the conclusion of the WHO investigation, however, it seems unlikely that Fauci, much alone Daszak, will be required to confront the claims further.
Since 2002, EcoHealth Alliance has received federal financing, including a grant from Anthony Fauci through the NIH for gain-of-function viral research conducted in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Dr. Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth Alliance, has stated that he believes this research led to the virus strain that triggered the pandemic.
Daszak proudly recorded himself inside a bat-infested cave in Thailand, handling the animals for his research, and referred to the cave as the “reactor core” of viral activity late last year, as he fought back against allegations that his lab had a hand in the outbreak.
He also published a video showing one being hand-fed one of the avian animals, which were believed to be infected with the infection that caused the pandemic.
Scientists have studied bat-related coronaviruses for decades, and Daszak was there as part of a genuine research expedition.
Neither Daszak nor the Wuhan Institute of Virology have been formally charged with any claims related to the coronavirus’ dissemination. It is unclear if the WHO’s probe will be resumed if and when relations between the United States and China improve.
Who IS Peter Daszak? The zoologist specializing in frogs and friend of Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Since the virus first began wreaking havoc in early 2020, there has been an ongoing discussion regarding its origins.
Some of the world’s foremost virologists believe the coronavirus spread to people via an infected animal, possibly at a Wuhan, China, wet market.
Others believe a secret laboratory in the same city leaked the information. A more disputed aspect of the ‘lab leak’ argument is whether or not it was intentional or inadvertent.
Dr. Peter Daszak, a British zoologist regarded as a “funny northerner” among his pals, is one of the most vehement opponents of the man-made idea. However, proponents of the lab-leak theory view him as a potential pandemic orchestrator.
As head of the non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, he became well-known for his work in promoting ‘risky’ coronavirus research in China.
The New York-based nonprofit has received $60 million in US Government funding for scientific study during the past decade.
It has come to light that a portion of this cash has since found its way into the pockets of researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the lab at the core of allegations of a lab leak. A portion of this study involved the manipulation of Covid-like viruses.
Now, it has been discovered that EcoHealth Alliance has received an additional $650,000 (£580,000) from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to scour Southeast Asian caverns for bats carrying coronaviruses, despite suspicions that similar efforts started the pandemic.
The new contract allows project leader Dr. Daszak and his colleagues the go-ahead to investigate the behavioural and environmental risk factors for coronaviruses to spread from animals to people.
It warns that this region of the globe has a “high diversity of wildlife coronaviruses” and that a big fraction of the population is often exposed to wildlife that could be affected.
According to the US National Institutes of Health’s published project information, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam pose an especially significant risk.
Over the course of five years, the team will identify individuals infected with coronaviruses, estimate the risk and drivers of community transmission and spread, and evaluate public health actions to contain an outbreak.
Scientists think that such study is necessary to combat diseases such as Covid. Others, however, have expressed concern regarding its possible role in outbreaks.
Dr. Daszak, a native of the mining town of Dukinfield on the outskirts of Manchester, is once again in the spotlight due to his most recent contract.
The researcher, who grew up with a younger brother, Ukrainian father, and Welsh mother, attended the University of Bangor in Wales and the University of East London to study biology.
The expert on zoonosis — the transmission of viruses from animals to humans — has authored more than 300 scientific papers over the course of his career, which has spanned more than three decades, and has developed a rapport with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the President of the United States.
In 2001, Dr. Daszak, who resides in New York with his wife Janet, joined EcoHealth, formerly known as The Wildlife Trust.
Early in his career, he specialized in frog-borne diseases.
However, he has also collaborated with Chinese experts for 15 years, such as Dr. Shi Zhengli, a virologist at the World Institute of Virology known as “Bat Woman.”
EcoHealth, whose initial goal was conservation, is now active on a global scale to identify the origins of viruses, monitor their transmission, and predict where the next outbreak may occur.
Dr. Daszak was paid $354,000 (£314,000) in 2019 for securing millions of dollars in grants from US Government entities on behalf of the EcoHealth alliance, according to records.
This funding was frequently allocated to other laboratories, notably the WIV, to perform research in mines to explore bat coronaviruses.
Researchers sampled tens of thousands of bats and determined that the sars virus originated in horseshoe bats, which are prevalent in southern and central China and traded in damp markets.
And two years before to the emergence of Covid, Dr. Daszak recommended collaborating with WIV scientists to modify coronaviruses and release them into bat populations as part of a plan to immunize them against the virus.
»US Virologist claims that china is responsible for failed WHO covid probe«