Last week’s shocking disclosure by the National Institutes of Health was that they had funded gain-of-function research at Wuhan Institute of Virology via the non-profit EcoHealth Alliance. EcoHealth Alliance also violated terms of the grant. They were asked by the letter to return information on an EcoHealth Alliance lab result that led to a bat coronavirus that was more deadly (and transmissible) than expected.
It was found that infected laboratory animals with hybrid viruses or chimeric viruses, became more sick than mice with base viruses. EcoHealth Alliance was required by the NIH to report the result. It could have put future funding at risk, until new biosafety standards were established. EcoHealth Alliance did not. EcoHealth Alliance was given five days by the NIH to revise their reports. I have voiced my skepticism that EcoHealth Alliance would ever openly admit to the potential they created a global pandemic.
While it has been reported numerous times here at RedState that an unannounced or reported deviation could have been the same sort of accident that led to not only the creation of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 outbreak, EcoHealth Alliance’s President, Dr. Peter Daszak, has been leading the charge against the lab leak theory, denying its potential as early as January 2020. Daszak, along with his loyalists, wrote a letter that was published in The Lancet scientific journals. It denied the laboratory leak theory and called the study of it racist.
This latest NIH letter is complicated by their blatant admission of the use chimeric virus, and then only using the base viruses to assess the genetic similarities with SARS-CoV-2. They are aware that research into gain-of function was underway, and that lab manipulation is required to make chimeric viruses. However, SARS CoV-2 is not compared to other viruses. To eliminate any other possibleities, they use the truth.
A virus that mutates in nature is not likely to be able to generate a new virus. However, it can jump thousands of nucleotides in the lab to make a new one. However, genetically altering a virus in a laboratory through gain-of-function research can allow it to be altered beyond the evolutionary limit. The COVID-19 pandemic was not caused by any unmanipulated virus or base, and this is an argument that the NIH has unintentionally attempted to support with its latest letter. Although it appears that they made an honest admission to satisfy most, this is yet another unsuccessful attempt to confuse with falsehoods and intentionally misinforming. They attempt to separate the gain-of function research that is currently being conducted at Wuhan Institute of Virology from the viruses they might have been researching in order to determine the virus source for SARS CoV-2.
RaTG13 is the viral base virus of SARS-CoV-2. It shares 96.2% with SARS-CoV-2. However, RaTG13 would not be able to leap over 1000 nucleotides and become a new virus in a very short time span or within a limited geographic region. It is even more unlikely that RaTG13 (which was discovered in Yunnan Province, China in 2013), would infect an animal or person, spread 900 miles, become SARS CoV-2, and then mutate within that period to create the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan. RaTG13 is not likely to have jumped naturally. Alternatively, the NIH may be considering the possibility that RaTG13 could infect another person or animal.
The NIH again admitted funding gain-of function research at Wuhan Institute of Virology. This type of research was conducted on bat coronaviruses, including SARS. This research produced viruses that were more severe and deadly than the base viruses. It also differed from more than 5% in genetic code. RaTG13 is the only area where they fail to or explicitly exclude that any gain-of function research was ever conducted on this virus. The resulting virus could also have been SARS CoV-2. This is not only unscientific but also a misinformation tactic to deceive congressional investigators. Over the past few months I discovered that the most overlooked potential is often the most popular theory.
The only thing I can hope for is that there is a thorough investigation, which removes potentially guilty parties, so that we may finally find the root of the problem.
About Post Author
