Farage Warns U.K. Censorship ‘Sledgehammer’ Could Come For Americans Next
'You can say what you like. I don't care, because that's what free speech is, isn’t it?' Nigel Farage responded to rude Rep. Jamie Raskin.'You can say what you like. I don't care, because that's what free speech is, isn’t it?' Nigel Farage responded to rude Rep. Jamie Raskin.Researchers tied to Fauci’s COVID cover-up still scoring big NIH grants
The Trump administration's National Institutes of Health is still funding some medical researchers who suppressed debate about the possibility of a lab leak as the origin of COVID-19.
Following the outbreak, then-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci and then-NIH Director Francis Collins strongly condemned allegations that the virus was the result of a lab leak, primarily citing a March 2020 peer-reviewed article from National Medicine titled "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2."
'How do you put all this together, whether you believe in this series of coincidences, what you know of the lab in Wuhan, how much could be in nature — accidental release or natural event?'
However, released emails revealed that the scientists involved in drafting the Proximal Origin initially had concerns that the virus had leaked from a lab.
Kristian G. Andersen, who would go on to be listed as the primary author of the article, wrote in an email to Fauci on January 31, "The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered."
Andersen further noted that he, Edward Holmes, Robert Garry, and Michael Farzan "all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory."
"But we have to look at this much more closely and there are still further analyses to be done, so those opinions could still change," he added.
Holmes and Garry also helped draft the Proximal Origin.
In an email to Fauci and Collins on February 2, 2020, Farzan was quoted as saying, "Nothing seems to specifically suggest whether this virus was most likely to be 'adapted,' 'evolved,' or maybe even 'engineered.' So I think it becomes a question of how do you put all this together, whether you believe in this series of coincidences, what you know of the lab in Wuhan, how much could be in nature — accidental release or natural event?"
"I am 70:30 or 60:40," he concluded. Farzan later backtracked, claiming those numbers were "inverted."
A House subcommittee found that the report was created after Fauci and Collins held a conference call in February with roughly a dozen scientists, four of whom drafted the paper days later. That draft was reportedly sent to Fauci and Collins "for editing and approval" before it was published.
During a 2023 congressional hearing, Andersen denied allegations that Fauci prompted researchers to write the Proximal Origin report and rejected claims that grants were used to persuade scientists to dismiss the lab-leak theory.
Despite early suspicions about the virus' origins, the final published version of the paper stated that the scientists' "analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus."
The report sparked allegations that the once-skeptical authors were now complicit in the cover-up of the virus' origins.
Yet grant records show that Andersen, Garry, and Ian Lipkin are still receiving taxpayer-funded grants, several of which are being used to conduct COVID-related research.
Andersen is receiving a few grants from the NIAID: one worth over $2.5 million, another for $319,000, and a third for $602,000.
The first grant provides funding to the Center for Viral Systems Biology. Andersen is the director and principal investigator of CViSB, while Garry is the co-director.
The project's summary states, "The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of the threat posed by infectious diseases, but other priority pathogens, such as Lassa and Ebola viruses, continue to pose significant challenges in endemic areas."
"Our central hypothesis remains that complex networks of viral and human factors, including distinct clinical, immunological, genetic, virological, and physiological attributes play key roles in determining the outcome and spread of Lassa, Ebola, and COVID-19," it continues. "Our overall goal is to identify these molecular networks and provide a deep system-level understanding of the virus, host, and environmental drivers of disease severity and spread to discover predictive markers of human disease."
RELATED: Despite Biden's pardon, Anthony Fauci still faces legal perils. Here they are.
The second grant provides funding for the CViSB's Administrative Core, led by Andersen, which includes support for all of the center's research projects to ensure its goals are successfully met.
The third grant funds "Project 2," which aims to "investigate the complex interplay of virus genetics and host immunity in determining epidemiology and outcome of infection with Lassa virus, Ebola virus, and SARS-CoV-2."
Garry was listed as the project leader on a separate grant for "Project 1," totaling nearly $515,000. The project's goal is "to generate an integrated, systems-level dataset that will enable development of models that predict disease severity or long-term sequelae in individuals infected with Lassa virus, Ebola virus or SARS-CoV-2, and protective responses to vaccines."
Another separate grant, totaling over $1.9 million, went to Columbia University's Center for Infection and Immunity for a project to study "gene-environment interactions between the immune system and infectious agents." The project lead and investigator was listed as Ian W. Lipkin, another co-author of the Proximal Origin.
Lipkin informed Blaze News that he is not pursuing SARS-CoV-2 research.
"Unless new data are uncovered that unequivocally demonstrate a point source, I don’t see how there will be resolution of this contentious and destructive debate," Lipkin said. "What is unequivocal is that wild animal markets and unregulated research with known or potential pandemic pathogens pose unacceptable risks to public health."
According to the NIH RePORTER, Holmes and Andrew Rambaut, also a Proximal Origin co-author, do not appear to have any active projects that are receiving grants at this time.
Dr. Richard H. Ebright of Rutgers University told Blaze News that there is "compelling evidence" that the authors of the Proximal Origin knew the paper's conclusions were "invalid at the time it was submitted for publication, at the time it was accepted for publication, and at the time it was published."
He accused the authors of committing "science fraud by publishing conclusions they knew to be invalid" and then "compound[ing] that science fraud by publishing patently unsound follow-up papers purporting to support the invalid conclusions."
Ebright called for the NIH Office of Research Integrity and the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate and "pursue retraction of their fraudulent paper and unsound follow-up papers, termination and clawback of their federal funding, and debarment from eligibility for future federal funding."
An NIH spokesperson told Blaze News, "NIH does not discuss grants compliance reviews on specific funded awards, recipient institutions, or supported investigators, whether or not such reviews occurred or are under way."
Andersen and Garry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
RELATED: Inside Trump’s White House during the early pandemic: ‘The Coverup’ Episode 3 available NOW
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COVID lab leak denial lingers on NIH’s website: 'Misleading and false'
Allegations that COVID-19 was the result of a lab leak were strongly and swiftly denied by the former Biden administration and some prominent health officials, despite dissenting opinions within the medical field, including from Jay Bhattacharya, who now serves as President Donald Trump's National Institutes of Health director.
'I'm convinced that research agenda led to this pandemic through a lab leak in China, in Wuhan.'
A page on the NIH's website, last reviewed by the agency on March 16, 2022, has not yet been updated by the new administration, still claiming that the leak theory is "misleading and false."
The NIH webpage reads:
Unfortunately, because the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 have not yet been identified, misleading and false allegations have been made about NIAID-supported research on naturally occurring bat coronaviruses. Specifically, these allegations have targeted research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, funded through a subaward from NIAID grantee EcoHealth Alliance. The naturally occurring bat coronaviruses studied through this subaward were significantly, genetically different from SARS-CoV-2 and, therefore, could not have caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bhattacharya was one of the voices amid the COVID-era insisting that there was a cover-up of the virus' origins.
In a May interview with Politico, Bhattacharya stated that he believes the U.S. should do more to reveal the origins of the virus, but noted that China has not been cooperating with those investigations.
"There's enough evidence that I've seen from the outside that suggests that there was at the very least a cover-up of dangerous experiments that were done in China with — by the way — the help of the U.S. and also Germany and the U.K.," Bhattacharya told the news outlet.
RELATED: NIH staffers storm out as Bhattacharya delivers reality bombshell about COVID origin
He referred to the experiments as "a very, very dangerous kind of utopian research agenda."
"I'm convinced that research agenda led to this pandemic through a lab leak in China, in Wuhan," Bhattacharya continued. "But that was a global effort."
RELATED: How a ‘lovers' spat’ nearly sparked a second pandemic in Biden-era high-security virus lab
He called it "absolutely striking" that then-Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci and other leaders would invest so much effort into suppressing the theory and "denigrating scientists who very legitimately raised this possibility."
Blaze News contacted the NIH to determine whether it is aware of the webpage dismissing lab leak claims and if it plans to update its website. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Rand Paul to refile criminal referral of Fauci to DOJ after Biden autopen revelations
Anthony Fauci was among the individuals with questionable track records who received controversial pardons just prior to former President Joe Biden leaving office.
Fauci, the fifth director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, specifically received a "full and unconditional" pass for possible federal crimes going back to Jan. 1, 2014 — around the time the Obama administration supposedly halted funding for dangerous gain-of-function research.
'Dr. Fauci, as you are aware, it is a crime to lie to Congress.'
Molecular biologist Dr. Richard H. Ebright of Rutgers University, a leading critic of Fauci's flirtations with gain-of-function research, previously provided Blaze News with insights into why Fauci might require an accountability shield, noting that he "violated federal policies on gain-of-function and enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research, committed conspiracy to defraud and perjury, used federal funds to commit crimes, and caused and covered up the cause of a pandemic that killed 20 million and cost $25 trillion."
The Oversight Project revealed earlier this year that like the other pardons hastily dispensed before Biden left office, Fauci's was signed with an automatic signature device. Unfortunately for Fauci, there is presently a great deal of uncertainty over the former president's involvement with the autopen pardons and their legitimacy.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (R) announced on Monday that he was refiling his criminal referral of Fauci to the Department of Justice. Paul's announcement follows the New York Times' publication of Biden's weak defense of his handlers' use of the autopen along with insights into who was actually behind Fauci's last-minute pardon.
"Perjury is a crime," Paul said on X. "And Fauci must be held accountable."
RELATED: Biden tried defending autopen use to the New York Times. He made it a whole lot worse.
During a Senate hearing in July 2021, Paul pressed Fauci about the National Institutes of Health funding research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of the coronavirus.
"Dr. Fauci, as you are aware, it is a crime to lie to Congress," Paul said.
"On your last trip to our committee on May 11 [2021], you stated that the NIH 'has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.' And yet, gain-of-function research was done entirely in the Wuhan Institute by Dr. Shi and was funded by the NIH," he continued.
'Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly.'
Paul's smoking gun was a 2017 WIV paper on SARS-related coronaviruses that discussed gain-of-function work on coronaviruses and acknowledged funding from NIAID as well as from the United States Agency for International Development's Predict program.
"Viruses that in nature only infect animals were manipulated in the Wuhan lab to gain the function of infecting humans," said Paul. "This research fits the definition of the research that the NIH said was subject to the pause in 2014 to 2017 — a pause in funding on gain-of-function."
When afforded an opportunity to retract his previous statement, Fauci instead dug in his heels, stating, "Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement," adding that the study referenced in the 2017 paper was not gain-of-function.
"Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly," added Fauci. "And I want to say that officially."
Paul subsequently referred Fauci to the DOJ, asking then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to open an investigation into the former NIAID director over his testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
The senator noted that contrary to Fauci's suggestion, research conducted "at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and funded under NIAID Award R01AI110964 fits the definition of gain-of-function research."
The recipient of this particular award was Peter Daszak's scandal-plagued organization EcoHealth Alliance, which congressional investigators indicated facilitated gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab and was formally debarred along with Daszak in January by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Paul asked the Biden DOJ again in 2023 to probe Fauci for allegedly lying to Congress after the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released an email apparently showing the former NIAID director acknowledge that gain-of-function was indeed taking place at a Chinese institution which the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirmed had received NIH funding along with the WIV.
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Blaze News has reached out to Paul's office and the DOJ for comment.
Paul's referral comes on the heels of autopen bombshells printed in the New York Times.
Biden told the Times in a phone interview on Thursday that he orally communicated his clemency directions to aides, that the autopen was used liberally because they were dealing with "a whole lot of people" — a record number, actually — and that he did not personally approve every individual categorical clemency.
The White House emails turned over to investigators by the National Archives and reviewed by the Times also cast doubt on the provenance of Fauci's pardon and others like it issued in Biden's final hours in office.
The emails reportedly indicated that the former president's clemency instructions were written up on the basis of hearsay by aides to Biden advisers, then executed by the master of the autopen, Biden White House staff secretary Stefanie Feldman. When it came to the high-profile autopen pardons issued on Biden's final day, the final approval reportedly came not from Biden but from his chief of staff, Jeffrey Zients.
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Comer refers disgraced former NY Gov. Cuomo to DOJ for criminal prosecution: 'Caught red-handed'
Andrew Cuomo resigned as New York governor in August 2021 after a report by the state attorney general corroborated 11 women's sexual harassment claims against him. Investigators said that by groping employees and "making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature," the Democratic leader created a workplace "filled with fear and intimidation."
Cuomo, likely counting on New Yorkers to forgive or forget, now has his sights set on Gracie Mansion, the home of the mayor of New York City.
While currently fighting socialist Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani for dominance in the lead-up to the Democratic primary election in New York City's mayoral race, Cuomo may soon also have to fight federal criminal charges.
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) referred Cuomo to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution on Tuesday, evidently hoping Attorney General Pam Bondi will take the matter more seriously than her predecessor, who ignored the October referral of former Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio).
'It was a calculated cover-up.'
In his October criminal referral to former Attorney General Merrick Garland, Wenstrup, chair of the now-disbanded Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, noted, "Mr. Cuomo provided false statements to the Select Subcommittee in what appears to be a conscious, calculated effort to insulate himself from accountability. The Department of Justice should consider Mr. Cuomo's prior allegedly wrongful conduct when evaluating whether to charge him for the false statements."
Comer again seeks to hold the former governor accountable for allegedly making criminally false statements regarding his manipulation of a supposedly independent report concerning New York's COVID-19 nursing home tragedy.
"Andrew Cuomo is a man with a history of corruption and deceit, now caught red-handed lying to Congress during the Select Subcommittee's investigation into the COVID-19 nursing home tragedy in New York," Comer said in a statement.
"This wasn't a slip-up," continued Comer. "It was a calculated cover-up by a man seeking to shield himself from responsibility for the devastating loss of life in New York’s nursing homes. Let's be clear: Lying to Congress is a federal crime."
In March 2020, the Cuomo administration issued a directive stating, "No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to [a nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. [Nursing homes] are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission."
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic noted in a September report that as a result of this directive, over 9,000 COVID-19 patients were readmitted or admitted to nursing homes between March 25, 2020, and May 8, 2020, "causing predictable but disastrous consequences."
A February 2021 study undertaken by the Empire Center for Public Policy concluded that Cuomo's March 25 guidance "was associated with a statistically significant increase in resident deaths" — deaths Cuomo and his administration were later found to have undercounted.
"Statewide, the findings imply that COVID-positive new admissions between late March and early May, which numbered 6,327, were associated with several hundred and possibly more than 1,000 additional resident deaths," said the study.
'What difference does it make in any dimension to anyone about anything?'
Adding insult to injury, congressional investigators determined that Cuomo "personally drafted and edited portions" of a Feb. 11, 2021, New York State Department of Health report that blamed the spike in nursing home deaths on nursing home staff rather than on his directive.
"An analysis of the timing of admissions versus fatalities shows that it could not be the driver of nursing home infections or fatalities," said the report.
Last year, Cuomo testified before Congress in a seven-hour closed-door interview. The Democrat claimed he was unaware of his devastating March 25, 2020, nursing home directive and suggested that nursing homes were not actually forced to admit COVID-positive patients.
When asked about the real death count, Cuomo channeled another controversial Democrat's callousness, telling congressional investigators, "Let's say there's a 3,000 differential, 2,500. Who cares? What difference does it make in any dimension to anyone about anything? Do you know what I'm saying?"
While evidently prickled by this and other comments, House Republicans took issue with the former governor's claims that "(1) he was not involved in the review or drafting of this Report, (2) he did not have any discussions about a peer-review of the Report, and (3) he did not have any knowledge of individuals outside the NYSDOH reviewing the Report."
All three claims are, according to the Comer, "demonstrably false."
"Mr. Cuomo must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," Comer said in his Monday statement.
Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said in a statement obtained by NBC News, "This is nothing more than a meritless press release that was nonsense last year and is even more so now. As the DOJ constantly reminds people, this kind of transparent attempt at election interference and law-fare violates their own policies."
"Referrals like these — which have been also made against Planned Parenthood, Hillary Clinton, and Anthony Fauci — don't have to be resubmitted with a new administration, so the only point to doing this is politics," added Azzopardi.
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Fauci Refuses To Take Media Questions At Protested Florida Speaking Event
While Anthony Fauci retired in 2022, his wife was recently laid off by cuts to Fauci’s former agency, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.Covid Taught Americans To Stop Trusting A Government That Puts Them Last
The reaction to Covid showed Americans the system wasn't going to save them. They were going to have to do it themselves.Fauci cabalist, top gain-of-function scientist raise alarm about dangerous new experiments
One the world's most prominent gain-of-function researchers — whose methods were adapted by researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology for work on chimeric viruses — and one of the scientists who helped furnish Anthony Fauci with what he needed to downplay the lab-leak theory are now sounding the alarm about dangerous new coronavirus experiments conducted by the Chinese.
Criticism may have been easier this time around, given that the critics and their friends do not appear to be directly linked to the dangerous research in question.
Ralph Baric and W. Ian Lipkin expressed concern in a March 3 New York Times op-ed that Chinese scientists "are experimenting with viruses in ways that could put all of us in harm's way."
Baric, a professor in the departments of epidemiology and microbiology at the University of North Carolina, is a leading proponent of gain-of-function research who successfully fought for an exemption from the Obama administration's moratorium on the dangerous practice in order to keep manufacturing artificial SARS-like viruses. He became an especially controversial figure during the pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over 7 million people worldwide.
Lipkin, the John Snow professor of epidemiology at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, was one of the co-authors of the controversial March 2020 paper "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2," which Fauci used on multiple occasions to suggest to the American public that COVID-19 was not a lab leak but rather an animal virus that jumped to a human. Lipkin, who later thanked Fauci for his "efforts in steering and messaging" regarding the virus' origins, has reportedly long had a cozy relationship with Chinese communist authorities.
Baric and Lipkin indicated that they are particularly concerned about experiments conducted by WIV researchers and other Chinese scientists on a deadly coronavirus called HKU5-CoV-2. These experiments are detailed in a recent paper published in the scientific journal Cell.
The duo noted that the virus at the heart of the study "belongs to a subgroup of viruses that are classified alongside the one that causes MERS and that can have fatality rates far higher than that of the virus that caused the Covid pandemic."
While HKU5 can infect humans and has the potential to be far more lethal than SARS-CoV-2, Chinese scientists have apparently been meddling with the fully infectious virus in a lab with "insufficient" containment controls.
There are multiple biosafety level ratings for laboratories ranging from BSL-1 to BSL-4. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "each biosafety level builds on the controls of the level before it."
'Potentially dangerous research should not be done without proper precautions.'
A BSL-4 lab, for instance, is designed to handle microbes that are "dangerous and exotic, posing a high risk of aerosol-transmitted infections" that could prove fatal. Researchers in such a lab must manipulate the infectious agents using a gas-tight sealed container with a double HEPA filtered exhaust while wearing protective gear. Alternatively, they must wear a full-body, air-supplied positive pressure suit. Researchers must also undergo routine medical surveillance for signs of infection.
Such a high-security lab must also be located in a separate building or in a restricted zone of an existing building with double locking doors and provided with a dedicated supply of air along with decontamination systems.
Despite the dangers posed to the researchers and the rest of mankind, the Chinese researchers have instead been experimenting in a lab described as BSL-2 plus. BSL-2 labs are meant to handle only microbes that pose, at worst, moderate hazards to researchers and the environment.
"Decisions about what level of precaution is appropriate for research are typically made by a study's lead scientist and an institutional biosafety committee," wrote Baric and Lipkin.
The lead scientist on this dangerous study was Shi Zhengli, whose track record for safety is less than stellar and with whom Baric has previously collaborated.
According to a 2021 article in the MIT technology review, Baric asked Shi, who is the director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the WIV, for the genome of a new coronavirus Shi found in bat excrement. He apparently wanted to take the "spike" gene from the novel virus and stick it into a copy of a SARS virus he had on hand. Ultimately, Baric's team tested the resultant chimeric virus on humanized mice and in a petri dish of human airway cells and discovered that it could indeed infect humans.
Baric and Lipkin noted in their op-ed that while the relevant authorities in China apparently approved the dangerous new experiments on HKU5, "it is not sufficient for work with a new virus that could have significant risks for people worldwide."
"Work with viruses that have the potential to become threats to public health should be restricted to facilities and scientists committed to the highest level of safety," added the duo.
According to Baric and Lipkin, governmental and nongovernmental agencies that fund research on viruses should require "proof that investigators meet global standards." Additionally, scientific journals should insist on similar standards for the studies they accept.
The duo concluded, "Potentially dangerous research should not be done without proper precautions to prevent deliberate or accidental spread."
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Chinese scientist with reported ties to USAID finds new bat coronavirus that could infect humans like COVID
Chinese scientists have said that they discovered a new bat coronavirus that could infect humans in the same manner as the virus that causes COVID-19. The lead scientist in the new study has reported links to USAID.
According to a report from the South China Morning Post, the researchers are from the Guangzhou Laboratory, the Guangzhou Academy of Sciences, Wuhan University, and the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The lead scientist in the new bat coronavirus study reportedly had prior financial ties to the embattled United States Agency for International Development.
The new infectious disease is called HKU5-CoV-2. The new coronavirus was first identified in the Japanese pipistrelle bat in Hong Kong.
HKU5-CoV-2 is a coronavirus that is part of the merbecovirus subgenus, which also includes the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome.
Researchers claim that HKU5-CoV-2 uses the ACE2 receptor to infect organisms. The ACE2 receptor is the same receptor used by SARS-CoV-2 to infect human cells.
"We report the discovery and isolation of a distinct lineage (lineage 2) of HKU5-CoV, which can utilize not only bat ACE2 but also human ACE2 and various mammalian ACE2 orthologs," the study said.
The researchers wrote, "Authentic HKU5-CoV-2 infected human ACE2-expressing cell lines and human respiratory and enteric organoids. This study reveals a distinct lineage of HKU5-CoVs in bats that efficiently use human ACE2 and underscores their potential zoonotic risk."
"Bat merbecoviruses, which are phylogenetically related to MERS-CoV, pose a high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts," the scientists stated.
The researchers from China added, "The potential human spillover risk of animal merbecoviruses remains to be investigated."
The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell on Tuesday.
The study was led by Shi Zhengli — a leading virologist who had been the director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Zhengli is often dubbed the "bat woman" by her colleagues because of her extensive research on bat coronaviruses since 2004, including virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves.
The World Society for Virology said of Zhengli, "Her group has discovered diverse novel viruses/virus antibodies in bats, including SARS-like coronaviruses, adenoviruses, adeno-associated viruses, circoviruses, paramyxoviruses and filoviruses in China."
The lead scientist in the new bat coronavirus study reportedly had prior financial ties to the embattled United States Agency for International Development.
A 2021 article in Vanity Fair noted: "Shi Zhengli herself listed U.S. government grant support of more than $1.2 million on her curriculum vitae: $665,000 from the NIH between 2014 and 2019; and $559,500 over the same period from USAID. At least some of those funds were routed through EcoHealth Alliance."
According to 990 tax exemption forms it filed in 2018 with the New York state attorney general’s Charities Bureau, EcoHealth Alliance received as much as $15 million a year in grant money from federal agencies, including the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and USAID.
The article spotlighted emails obtained by a Freedom of Information request, including one sent by Peter Daszak, a zoologist and former president of EcoHealth Alliance. The email showed that Zhengli allegedly carried out potentially dangerous gain-of-function experiments.
Under the subject line, “No need for you to sign the 'Statement' Ralph!!,” he wrote to two scientists, including UNC’s Dr. Ralph Baric, who had collaborated with Shi Zhengli on the gain-of-function study that created a coronavirus capable of infecting human cells: “you, me and him should not sign this statement, so it has some distance from us and therefore doesn’t work in a counterproductive way.” Daszak added, “We’ll then put it out in a way that doesn’t link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice.”
During a House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing in March 2023, former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield said he believes American tax dollars funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) asked Redfield, "Is it likely that American tax dollars funded the gain-of-function research that created this virus?”
Redfield replied, "I think it did, not only from NIH, but from the State Department, USAID, and DOD."
Zhengli has gone on record to say that she does not believe in the lab-leak theory that COVID-19 came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology — a biosafety level-4 lab, which requires the highest level of safety protocols and equipment because of the study of high-consequence biological agents.
Blaze News reported in July 2021 that Zhengli purportedly had "collaborated with two military scientists on coronavirus work, one of whom is now deceased under unknown circumstances."
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