Pandemic origins: NIH held meetings with Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers about COVID experiments in 2017
02/11/2024 / By Zoey Sky
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act have intensified the ongoing debate about the origins of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) and the role of the United States government in the pandemic.
The documents suggest that Shi Zhengli, a senior scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) also called “Batwoman,” held a clandestine meeting with officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to gather support for her research on emerging bat viruses.
The meeting took place in June 2017, shortly before the NIH lifted its moratorium on gain-of-function research in December 2017.
According to the document obtained by U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit public health research group, the meeting was arranged by Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, an American-based nonprofit partnered with the WIV and subcontracting funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to the lab.
The report revealed that Daszak arranged the meetings at NIH with the program officer overseeing his research there, Erik Stemmy. The latter also managed COVID-19 research at NIAID’s Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
At that meeting, Zhengli and Daszak performed “a double act” for a presentation called “SARS, MERS and the risk of novel viral emergence from bats.” (Related: Over 200 service members demand accountability for how COVID-19 vaccine mandates violated their rights.)
After the presentation, Daszak thanked Stemmy via email, writing that it was great to finally have a chance to introduce their collaborators to the latter personally.
The co-presenters seemed to have made a compelling case. According to a report, the viral research at the WIV on bat coronaviruses “was supported, and often funded, by America.”
The report also revealed that scientists at EcoHealth seeking funding for work to engineer “spike proteins,” which make it easier for the bat viruses to infect human cells, have deliberately misinformed the authorities “about the risks of the experiments in order to maximize the chance of receiving grants.”
Further adding to the controversy, the documents also showed that there was a critical order from Chinese intelligence on January 3, 2020. The order instructed WIV staff to share or destroy all their samples “on the spot.”
U.S. and Chinese military and intelligence circles likely knew about the research
The documents also implied that it is very likely that both the U.S. and Chinese military and intelligence circles contributed to the viral research in Wuhan.
According to U.S. Right to Know, the highly redacted State Department cables that they obtained last year revealed that America possesses “cyber evidence” of military “shadow labs” at the WIV.
A 2021 State Department fact sheet has also shown that even though the WIV is presenting itself as a civilian institution, the research institute has conducted classified research on behalf of the Chinese military as early as 2017.
According to a declassified assessment released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2023, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) scientists have conducted virological research at the Wuhan lab, and the lab’s civilian scientists have collaborated with scientists associated with the PLA.
Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the now-retired director of the NIAID, has taken part in a two-day written testimony to Congress on his knowledge of the COVID-19 pandemic origins, his involvement in the alleged cover-up of the lab leak theory and the government pandemic response.
In the past, Fauci has repeatedly downplayed the importance of NIH funding to WIV, including in a 2022 deposition and Senate testimony in 2021. He has also staunchly defended outsourcing the “necessary” but potentially dangerous research to China.
Earlier reports suggest that before securing the NIH funding, the EcoHealth Alliance approached the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the technological branch of the Department of Defense (DOE), to finance Zhengli’s research on bat virus experiments and vaccine development.
The research also involved the synthesis of spike proteins with furin cleavage sites that were designed to boost the ability of the viruses to bind to human receptors. DARPA declined the proposal due to explicit concerns about its gain-of-function aspects and the potential for dual-use applications.
The U.S. intelligence community remains split on the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19. In February 2023, the DOE and the Federal Bureau of Investigation claimed that COVID-19 “likely” originated from a lab leak.
But by June 26, 2023, the Director of National Intelligence declassified a 10-page report on COVID-19 origins, which claimed that “almost all IC [intelligence community] agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered and was not developed as a biological weapon.”
The most prominent of them, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was accused of bribing its scientists to reject the lab leak theory.
As early as March 2023, the World Health Organization announced that it would abandon its investigation into the COVID-19 pandemic origin because of challenges over attempts to supervise vital studies in China.
Go to Pandemic.news for more stories about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Watch the video below to learn how Fauci is linked to COVID-19 experiments in the U.S. one year before the pandemic.
This video is from the GalacticStorm channel on Brighteon.com.
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