Esteemed molecular biologist warns of 'smoking gun' evidence COVID-19 was engineered by researchers at Chinese lab



An esteemed molecular biologist has come forward to warn of "smoking gun" evidence that COVID-19 not only originated from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, but it was engineered by researchers at the Chinese lab.

Richard H. Ebright, Ph.D., is a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and is on the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology. The Harvard Junior Fellow earned the Searle Scholar Award, was named a Johnson & Johnson Discovery Research Fellow, was awarded the Walter J. Johnson Prize, was named Infectious Diseases Society of America Fellow, and took home the National Institutes of Health MERIT Award.

Ebright has also served on the National Institutes of Health Molecular Biology Study Section and National Institutes of Health special emphasis panels.

He has more than 175 publications and more than 40 issued and pending patents.

Ebright is also an outspoken critic of the unchallenged narrative of the origins of the COVID-19 virus. Ebright notes that a document from 2018 points to "smoking gun" evidence that COVID-19 was engineered by researchers at a Chinese lab.

Ebright spotlights a March 2018 grant proposal for experiments called "Project DEFUSE."

American and Chinese virologists lobbied to receive a $14 million grant from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, for funding to engineer bat viruses related to SARS-CoV-1 to examine how they could jump to human transmission.

According to the Wall Street Journal, "The proposal for Project DEFUSE specified that the viruses’ infectivity would be enhanced by inserting into them a genetic element known as a furin cleavage site. Depending on the starting viruses, this protocol could have produced SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, which has a distinctive furin cleavage site."

The proposal involved Chinese bat researcher Zhengli Shi, EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak, and Ralph Baric – a University of North Carolina professor, who reportedly collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on "risky bat-virus research" in 2015.

Commentary noted, "The proposal outlines a joint project between Baric’s UNC lab and a team headed by WIV senior scientist Zhengli Shi, the famous 'Bat Lady' of the Wuhan lab. The proposal was drafted under the supervision of Peter Daszak — whose EcoHealth Alliance would funnel the hoped-for grant money to the researchers — and was addressed to the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)."

The proposal was ultimately denied by DARPA.

However, Project DEFUSE may have been funded by the Chinese government and executed by researchers at the Wuhan Lab of Virology.

The Washington Times reported, "Nonetheless, speculation persists about whether the research may have proceeded with support from the Chinese government. Project DEFUSE also suggested modifications to bat coronavirus spike proteins, introducing 'human-specific cleavage sites.' Notably, these techniques are similar to those some biologists surmise could have played a role in crafting the coronavirus responsible for the global health crisis."

Nicholas Wade – a former science editor of the New York Times – wrote in the WSJ, "Viruses made according to the DEFUSE protocol could have been available by the time COVID-19 broke out, sometime between August and November 2019. This would account for the otherwise unexplained timing of the pandemic along with its place of origin."

Dr. Filippa Lentzos – an associate professor of science and international security at King’s College London – has also urged the world to acknowledge that the COVID pandemic may have originated from research by scientists.

"We have to acknowledge the fact that the pandemic could have started from some research-related incident," Lentzos said in a United Nations speech.

"Are we going to find that out? In my view, I think it’s very unlikely that we will," she stated. "We need to do better in future. We are going to see more ambiguous events."

“There will be an outbreak, and we won’t know if it’s natural, deliberate, or accidental, and as an international community we need to find ways in which we can investigate that," Lentzos warned. "For our purposes what is important we need to acknowledge that it could have been, and so what should your responses be."

As Blaze News reported on Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced new guidelines regarding COVID-19 that are in stark contrast to previous recommendations by the health agency.

The CDC now says people who test positive for COVID-19 no longer need to quarantine from others for at least five days, advised treating coronavirus in the same manner as the flu, and to gather outside to prevent sickness.

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Bill Maher's Crowd Roars for Russell Brand's Relentless Truth Bombs | Direct Message | Rubin Report

Bill Maher's Crowd Roars for Russell Brand's Relentless Truth Bombs | Direct Message | Rubin Report

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the left’s false prophet



One of the things the American public can never do is forget the constant gaslighting that’s taken place in the news cycle over the past few years.

Dr. Anthony Fauci was consistently saying — in a tone as smug as possible — that the “lab-leak theory was a theory with zero evidence,” as he looked down at the American public from atop his television throne.

News anchors suddenly became experts in “the science,” somehow privy to a knowledge that us plebeians born of the same educational system could never be.

Joy Reid was one of the worst offenders, repeating lines like, “Just weeks ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci rejected the conspiracy that coronavirus was man-made in a lab in Wuhan, China, and yet this week Donald Trump is still pushing the debunked bunkum [whatever that means] that the virus is not not not man-made.”

These news anchors worshiped Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Because apparently, only one man can know what the truth is. No one was allowed to listen to the scientists actively rejecting Fauci’s line that “everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [COVID] evolved in nature and then jumped species.”

But now it’s been confirmed by the U.S. Department of Energy (why it’s now their job to confirm this is a mystery to all of us) that he’s likely wrong.

And it turns out that — as many of us lesser than earthly beings already knew — he was a false prophet all along.


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Glenn: Why Are They Admitting to the COVID Lab Leak NOW?

Glenn: Why Are They Admitting to the COVID Lab Leak NOW?

SNL Crowd Goes Silent as Woody Harrelson Goes Off-Script on COVID | Direct Message | Rubin Report

SNL Crowd Goes Silent as Woody Harrelson Goes Off-Script on COVID | Direct Message | Rubin Report

HHS inspector general issues damning report claiming NIH and EcoHealth failed to properly monitor dangerous virus research in China



The National Institutes of Health, directed by Francis Collins until December 2021, has long provided federal funds to the EcoHealth Alliance run by British zoologist Peter Daszak.

EcoHealth has, in turn, used grant money to fund dangerous gain-of-function research — executed in part by foreign entities — on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, possibly the epicenter of the pandemic that has claimed tens of millions of lives worldwide.

According to a damning new report from the HHS Office of Inspector General, the NIH knew about potential risks associated with the research being performed in China that had been executed using federal grant money funneled to and through EHA.

Despite this knowledge, it "did not effectively monitor or take timely action to address EcoHealth's compliance with some requirements."

The Daily Mail reported that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, helmed by Anthony Fauci until 2022, was the NIH branch responsible for monitoring this research.

The OIG report further suggested that while procedures were in place to monitor the dangerous work underway and to ensure adherence to requirements, they proved wanting, owing to deficiencies in compliance.

Both the NIH and EcoHealth are said to have flouted federal requirements, directly and/or by extension of their subawards.

For instance, the NIH asked EHA on Nov. 5, 2021, to provide scientific documentation pertaining to experiments performed in Wuhan. The OIG indicated that it did not encounter evidence that EHA ever obtained that information. EHA officials reportedly confirmed the Wuhan lab had proven unresponsive to its request for data.

The NIH also reportedly failed to refer the dangerous research to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for an outside review concerning enhanced potential pandemic pathogens because it determined the research did not involve and was unlikely to set off a pandemic.

Among the other deficiencies the OIG report noted were the NIH's improper termination of a grant and "EcoHealth's improper use of grant funds, resulting in $89,171 in unallowable costs."

These deficiencies "limited NIH and EcoHealth's ability to effectively monitor Federal grant awards and subawards to understand the nature of the research conducted, identify potential problem areas, and take corrective action."

"With improved oversight, NIH may have been able to take more timely corrective actions to mitigate the inherent risks associated with this type of research," the report concluded.

Dr. Richard Ebright, a biologist at Rutgers University, told the Daily Mail, "These conclusions demonstrate major failures in past NIH oversight of high-risk research on enhanced potential pandemic pathogens and underscore the need for both accountability for failures in past NIH oversight and strengthening of future NIH oversight."

The EHA issued a statement in response to the report, contending that the NIH, facing "significant political pressure ... retroactively alleged that our work was not in compliance," and that the nonprofit is "fully committed to responsible research with enhanced potential pandemic pathogens and follows all applicable U.S. policy frameworks and rules regarding such research."

Republicans lawmakers have repeatedly highlighted EHA's "lengthy history of reporting failures and collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)," noting that the WIV "is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) laboratory and the likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Daszak previously called NIH requests that U.S. federal officials inspect the WIV "heinous," and derided suggestions that the virus might have leaked from the WIV — to which his organization had directed a significant amount of taxpayer funds — as "conspiracy theories."

Despite questions about its compliance and its deficiencies, EcoHealth nevertheless secured funding to the tune of millions of dollars last month from the Department of Defense.

"Despite [EcoHealth] possibly having caused the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite definitely having repeatedly and gravely violated terms of a US-government grant, currently has 12 active US-government grants and contracts, totaling more than $34 million," Dr. Ebright said of EHA's continued funding at taxpayers' expense.

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Chairman of the Lancet's COVID-19 Commission 'pretty convinced' pandemic's origin from 'US lab biotechnology,' suggests governments aren't investigating because even more 'dangerous research underway right now'



The chairman of The Lancet's COVID-19 Commission has come forward to say that he is "pretty convinced" that the pandemic's origin is from "U.S. lab biotechnology." He also warns that even more dangerous research is happening right now – which could be why governments don't seem to be interested in investigating the origins of COVID-19.

Jeffrey Sachs is the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, the President of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, award-winner of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, a best-selling author, and a Chairman of The Lancet's COVID-19 Commission.

In November 2020, Sachs assembled a task force for the prestigious medical journal to determine the origins of COVID-19. He hand-selected Dr. Peter Daszak – the president of EcoHealth Alliance – to be the chairman of the task force. However, Daszak would recuse himself from the investigation in June 2021, following accusations of a conflict of interest.

Daszak had deep ties with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and funneled hundreds of thousands of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to the Chinese lab. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Daszak has vehemently argued that COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease that jumped from animals to humans. Furthermore, he vociferously argued that suggesting that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak is a baseless conspiracy theory.

By September 2021, the task force organized by The Lancet's COVID-19 Commission was disbanded because of EcoHealth's conflict-of-interest issues.

Sachs said at the time, "I just didn't want a task force that was so clearly involved with one of the main issues of this whole search for the origins, which was EcoHealth Alliance."

Last week, Sachs told Current Affairs that he appointed Daszak to the task force dedicated to discovering the origins of COVID-19 because he said to himself, "Well, here’s a guy who is so connected, he would know."

Sachs added, "And then I realized he was not telling me the truth. And it took me some months, but the more I saw it, the more I resented it."

Sachs revealed that he disbanded the task force because other members were "part of this thing."

He noted that the NIH had been hiding documents from the public – which were later revealed by a Freedom of Information Act request. Emails exposed by a FOIA request revealed that officials with the NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) were concerned that EcoHealth could be conducting gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan lab.

Sachs noted that Daszak should have informed him that EcoHealth Alliance was "manipulating the viruses."

Sachs said that he requested a research proposal from Daszak, but the EcoHealth head allegedly balked, "No, my lawyer says I can’t give it to you."

A video went viral last month featuring Sachs proclaiming that "after two years of intensive work," he is "pretty convinced" that COVID-19 originated from "U.S. lab biotechnology, not out of nature."

"So it’s a blunder in my view of biotech, not an accident of a natural spillover," he said. "We don’t know for sure, I should be absolutely clear."

Sachs noted, "But there’s enough evidence that it should be looked into. And it’s not being investigated, not in the United States, not anywhere. And I think for real reasons that they don’t want to look underneath the rug."

\u201cWow\ud83d\ude2fProf. Jeffrey Sachs: \n\n"I chaired the commission for the Lancet for 2 years on Covid. I'm pretty convinced it came out of a US lab of biotechnology [...] We don't know for sure but there is enough evidence. [However] it's not being investigated, not in the US, not anywhere."\u201d
— Arnaud Bertrand (@Arnaud Bertrand) 1656776644

In the interview with Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson, Sachs suggested that scientists were "creating a narrative" of COVID's origins early in the pandemic by collectively claiming that COVID-19 naturally originated from the Wuhan wet market without definitive evidence.

Sachs asked, "Did we find an animal? No. Do we have an explanation of where that furin cleavage site came in? No. We don’t have an explanation of the timing, which doesn’t quite look right."

He accused health officials and the media of pulling a "kind of misdirection" since February 2020.

Sachs believes the laboratory hypothesis is "very plausible."

"The alternative that is the right one to look at is part of a very extensive research program that was underway from 2015 onward, funded by the NIH, by Tony Fauci, in particular NIAID, and it was to examine the spillover potential of SARS-like viruses," Sachs told Robinson.

Sachs suggested COVID-19 may have come from gain-of-function research, "There was a lot of research underway in the United States and China on taking SARS-like viruses, manipulating them in the laboratory, and creating potentially far more dangerous viruses."

"We know that at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the scientists there had been trained by American scientists to use advanced bioengineering methodologies," Sachs explained. "And in particular, we have scientists in North Carolina, Texas, and so forth who do this kind of research, believe in it, argue for it, and say that they don’t want any regulations on it and so on. And they were in close contact with Wuhan Institute of Virology, and they were part of a joint research group that was stitched together by something called EcoHealth Alliance."

Sachs described EcoHealth Alliance as a "vehicle for funding from the U.S. government, especially from the National Institutes of Health, and especially from Tony Fauci’s unit, the NIAID."

Sachs said Dr. Anthony Fauci and the NIH "haven’t shown us anything" about possible research at the Wuhan lab.

"So you saw a narrative being created," he continued. "And the scientists are not acting like scientists. Because when you’re acting like a scientist, you’re pursuing alternative hypotheses."

Robinson asked Sachs why governments aren't vigorously investigating the origins of a disease that has killed more than 6.4 million people in less than three years.

Sachs responded, "There are at least two reasons why they might be doing what they’re doing. One is, as you say, the implications are huge. Imagine if this came out of a lab. And we have, by some estimates, about 18 million dead worldwide from this. That’s not the official count. But that’s the estimated excess mortality from COVID. Well, the implications of that—the ethical, the moral, the geopolitical—everything is enormous."

The chairman of The Lancet's COVID-19 Commission added, "But there’s a second matter that is really important, too. One thing that is rather clear to me is that there is so much dangerous research underway right now under the umbrella of biodefense or other things that we don’t know about, that is not being properly controlled."

He suggested that governments could be saying, "Don’t poke your nose into that."

On Saturday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said, "The fact that virtually no one in Washington DC wants to investigate the origins of COVID-19 should tell you all you need to know about the origins of COVID-19."