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Richard H. Ebright Profile picture
@R_H_Ebright
Sep 21, 2021 • 7 tweets • 1 min read • Read on X
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"Wuhan scientists were planning to release enhanced airborne coronaviruses into Chinese bat populations to inoculate them against diseases that could jump to humans, leaked grant proposals dating from 2018 show."

telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/2…
"They also planned to create chimeric viruses, genetically enhanced to infect humans more easily, and requested $14million from the [US] Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to fund the work."
"The bid was submitted by British zoologist Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, the US-based organisation, which has worked closely with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researching bat coronaviruses. Team members included..Shi Zhengli, the WIV researcher dubbed 'bat woman'"
"Darpa refused to fund the work, saying: 'It is clear that the proposed project led by Peter Daszak could have put local communities at risk', and warned..the team had not properly considered..dangers of enhancing..virus (gain of function research) or releasing a vaccine by air."
"Viscount Ridley..called for..investigation..in..House of Lords..'For more than a year I tried..to ask questions of..Daszak with no response. Now it turns out he..authored this vital piece of information about..work in Wuhan but refused to share it with the world. I am furious.'"
"So should the world be."
* The proposal calls for aerosol delivery of recombinant SARSr CoV spike proteins in nanoparticles or in orthopoxviral vectors. Not aerosol delivery of SARSr CoVs.

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More from @R_H_Ebright

Richard H. Ebright Profile picture
Jan 13
Catalonia lab was experimenting with African swine fever virus when the first infected boar was found nearby
english.elpais.com/international/…
"The laboratory under scrutiny over an alleged leak of the African swine fever virus in the province of Barcelona...had planned at least two experiments with the pathogen on the same days that the first infected wild boar was found just a few hundred meters from the facility"
"The first carcass of an infected wild boar was found on November 28, just a few hundred meters from the CReSA facility, which has been criticized for lacking double fencing and which was undergoing construction work since September 15"
Read 9 tweets
Richard H. Ebright Profile picture
Dec 20, 2025
"The Wuhan lab…that conducted risky experiments on bat viruses…and almost certainly caused the pandemic has now revealed…it has done the same…risky experiments on another lot of horseshoe-bat viruses"

spectator.com/article/playin…
"If a military team made a mistake during a nuclear…exercise and accidentally obliterated millions…, you would not expect to find…the very same people merrily admitting a couple of years later…they…carried out the very same…exercise...with...fewer safeguards."

"Would you?"
"The Wuhan laboratory that conducted risky experiments on bat viruses at inadequate biosafety levels and almost certainly caused the pandemic has now revealed that it has done the same kind of risky experiments on another lot of horseshoe-bat viruses at low biosafety levels."
Read 12 tweets
Richard H. Ebright Profile picture
Dec 14, 2025
"The construction of the chimera may violate the
Biological Weapons Convention, as a protective purpose is elusive."

[There was no valid protective purpose.] Image
"[T]he creation of the HKUJ4r-HZAU-2020-MERS(S) chimera may violate Article I of the Biological Weapons
Convention. This is because it is hard to see protective or peaceful purposes arising from its development, a stipulate of Article I."
"NIAID grant R01AI110964, awarded to Dr Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, funded the creation of pBAC-CMV and, with USAID PREDICT, sampling of isolate 152762 and generation of its RdRp sequence, thereby contributing directly to dangerous Gain of Function work."
Read 4 tweets
Richard H. Ebright Profile picture
Dec 13, 2025
"The handling of highly dangerous viruses is once again at the forefront of the biosecurity debate. In Spain, an investigation is currently underway to determine whether the outbreak of African swine fever could have originated in a laboratory. Separately, researchers in China recently reported the reappearance of a bird virus long thought to be extinct – a finding that is sparking discussion among virologists."

berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesell…
"Last week, the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture...launched an investigation to determine whether the virus might have escaped from a laboratory. The CReSA laboratory is a particular focus of the investigation. Genetic analyses...show that the virus does not resemble the variants currently circulating in other European countries, but rather a strain discovered in Georgia in 2007 and used in laboratories"
"Virologist Simon Wain-Hobson...points out that just a few weeks before the incident in November, nine scientists from the nearby IRTA-CReSA facility had published an experiment in which 20 pigs were inoculated with high doses of the very Georgia 2007 virus that is genetically similar to the pathogen found in wild boar."
Read 6 tweets
Richard H. Ebright Profile picture
Dec 11, 2025
"The laboratory suspected of being the source of the African swine fever outbreak was under construction."

"Construction work can facilitate escapes, as happened with the foot-and-mouth disease virus in the UK"

elpais.com/ciencia/2025-1…
"CReSA...has a 4,500-square-meter biocontainment unit with 6 laboratories at biosafety level 3...The CReSA expansion project, awarded to the construction company Rogasa, involves adding 3,000 square meters to the high-security laboratory area."
"Virologist Xavier Abad [head of the biocontainment unit at CReSA] issued a warning on social media on November 14: 'Accidents in laboratories that handle pathogens do happen'."
Read 7 tweets
Richard H. Ebright Profile picture
Dec 10, 2025
Virologist Simone Wain-Hobson:

"Yan and colleagues...report the reemergence of historically extinct virulent genotype IV Newcastle disease virus."

"The most parsimonious hypothesis is a lab leak."

biosafetynow.substack.com/p/a-viral-reaw…Image
"In the case of viruses that have become extinct, it is far better to let sleeping viruses lie"

"Don’t resurrect them, don't play with them. Destroy any remaining stocks of virus or infected tissues in the freezer"
Read 5 tweets

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