"Scientists working under..NIH grant to..study bat coronaviruses combined..genetic material from a 'parent'..virus..with other viruses. They twice submitted summaries..that showed..three altered..viruses..reproduced far more quickly than..original virus"
"The Intercept consulted 11 scientists who are virologists or work in adjacent fields and hold a range of views on both the ethics of gain-of-function research and the Covid-19 origins search."
"All but two of the scientists consulted agreed that, whatever title it is given, the newly public experiment raised serious concerns about the safety and oversight of federally funded research"
"Jesse Bloom: "As a virologist, I personally think creating chimeras of SARS-related bat coronaviruses that are thought to pose high risk to humans entails unacceptable risks""
Jacques van Helden: "The real question is whether or not research has the potential to create or facilitate the selection of viruses that might infect humans. The experiments described in the proposal clearly do have that potential"
Vincent Racaniello: "There’s no question..From the weight loss, it’s gain of function. Tony Fauci is wrong saying it’s not."
"Inside the lungs of the humanized mice, however, the novel viruses..reproduced far more quickly than the original virus that was used to create them..The viral load in the lung tissue of the mice was, at certain points, up to 10,000 times higher..with the altered viruses"
"Another figure in the documents suggests that at least one of the altered viruses not only enhanced viral reproduction, but also caused the humanized mice to lose more weight than those exposed to the original virus — a measure of the severity of illness."
"[T]he Notice of Award the agency issued..said..[i]f any..chimeras show..enhanced virus growth greater than 1 log..the researchers were..to stop all experiments..The enhanced growth of the chimeric..viruses..was..4 log greater..But there are no indications..research was stopped."
"In fact, the bat coronavirus grant was renewed for a five-year period in 2019"
"[T]he documents do not prove Paul’s claim that Fauci was lying, as they do not make clear whether Fauci read them"
"What is clear is that program officers at NIAID, the agency that Fauci oversees, did know about the research."
"A paragraph describing the research, as well as two figures illustrating its results, were included in both a 2018 progress report on the bat coronavirus grant and an application for its 2019 renewal. And NIH confirmed that it reviewed them."
If NIH Director Francis Collins has an interest in self-preservation, he will announce: (1) after re-reviewing documents, he has concluded the grant supported gain of function, (2) his staff failed to note this previously, and (3) measures will be taken to prevent future failures
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"While we may not be aware of all the instances in which Fauci funded gain-of-function experiments despite the ban, we do know of at least one hugely significant case, as it ultimately led to the creation of Covid."
"In 2016, Eric Stemmy, a program officer in Fauci’s NIAID found out that the experiments funded by Fauci at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, through a shady organization called EcoHealth Alliance, were creating viruses that were significantly more dangerous than…natural viruses"
"Upon identifying this violation of federal regulations, specifically the gain-of-function ban, Stemmy halted the funding to EcoHealth."
"[H]umanity will…need new governance mechanisms…to prevent the deliberate use of biological pathogens and minimize their unintentional release…They will also need to create more robust mechanisms to reduce the risks of catastrophic accidents."
"Two immediate priorities stand out. The first is strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention...The second priority is managing the biosafety and biosecurity risks of the democratization of biotechnology."
"Spectacular advances in gene editing and synthetic biology…risk opening the door for state governments and malicious nonstate actors to create or modify deadly, naturally occurring viruses"
"Antimicrobial resistance remains one of the top 10 global health threats, linked to 4.95 million deaths in 2019—surpassing those from HIV or malaria. Recent global estimates suggest that resistant bacterial infections will cause 39 million deaths by 2050."
"It also threatens the global economy…Without strengthened action, treating resistant bacterial infections alone would exert a global economic burden of USD 412B in healthcare costs and USD 443 B in lost productivity each year up to 2035"
"The WHO has acknowledged 'there is no viable market for novel antibiotics,' adding that 'the return on investment for new 'reserve' antibiotics does not cover the costs of development, manufacturing, and distribution.'"
"Developing a new antibiotic typically takes 10 to 15 years...Even if a product makes it to market, it is rarely profitable as these drugs are meant to be reserved as a last resort."
"The market for new antimicrobials is small and far from profitable. For most drugmakers, the risk of losses is offset by the prospect of much larger profit, but antibiotics are a notable exception in this respect."
"Boris Johnson: "The awful thing about the whole Covid catastrophe is that it appears to have been entirely man-made in all its aspects…It now looks overwhelmingly likely that the mutation was the result of [a] botched experiment in a Chinese lab."
"The…case…has grown steadily stronger with each crumb of evidence. There was always valid suspicion over a pandemic erupting in…city that is home to the world’s foremost research lab for Sars…viruses, especially when it was found to have known concerns over safety practices."
"This lab collected thousands of bat viruses from southern China…, but hid its database. It carried out high-risk 'gain-of-function' research to boost infectivity of coronaviruses in low-level security environments, derided as 'wild west' even by its funders in Washington."
"The Wuhan Institute of Virology’s chief American collaborator leveraged connections in Anthony Fauci’s inner circle to survive federal scrutiny and keep millions in public funding flowing without turning over key data, new records show."
"Hundreds of documents—emails obtained under FOIA lawsuits or congressional subpoena, as well as congressional interview transcripts—show Fauci’s institute protected EcoHealth Alliance, which collaborated on novel coronavirus discovery and engineering projects with the Wuhan lab"
"[O]fficials at the NIH’s central headquarters or “Building One”…had suspended EcoHealth’s…grant and sought lab notebooks and unpublished genomic data as a condition of getting its funding back. This information could have shed light on the coronavirus research in Wuhan"