No, Anthony Fauci wasn’t directly funding dodgy virus research in Wuhan – but neither is he apparently completely untouched by the cloud of lies and cover-up surrounding the origins of the Chinese virus.
Whether it was a naturally-occurring mutation or engineered, accidentally escaped or deliberately released, the actual origin of the virus is and seems destined to remain shrouded in mystery and Chinese Communist Party cover-ups. The latest, explosive claims regarding none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci are likewise a mire of wild speculation, damning evidence and obvious attempts to obscure and cover up.
At the heart of the controversy is a controversial research method and the money-chain linking US government funding to the Wuhan lab.
Gain of Function (GoF) is a research method that aims to accumulate mutations in controlled laboratory conditions so that a virus gains functions—such as increased transmissibility or virulence.
This method has been controversial for a long time. The apparent benefit of the research is to predict the ways in which various viruses might naturally gain function if they are ever released and hence anticipate their spread and treatment needs.
That’s the potential benefit. The potential danger of the research, however, is that there could be a biosecurity incident in which the modified virus is released, and consequently the researchers unintentionally cause the very pandemic they were hoping to plan for.
Such risks and a petition signed by 300 scientists lead to the Obama administration banning GoF research in 2014; the ban was lifted in 2017 by the Trump administration.
UK journalist and conservative political advisor Steve Hilton has revealed that Dr. Fauci is not just a long-time supporter of GoF research, but a key link in the money-chain between Washington and Wuhan. In a 2011 Washington Post op-ed, Fauci called GoF research “a risk worth taking”.
According to Hilton, shortly before the 2014 ban came into effect, Fauci commissioned research into coronavirus. After the ban, he continued the research by subcontracting the non-government EcoHealth Alliance run by zoologist Peter Daszak, to the value of $3m over six years. In turn, EcoHealth Alliance contracted the GoF part of the research to… the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
So far, despite the best efforts of “fact-checkers” to claim otherwise, the story checks out. The US government did not directly fund the research, and no one serious claims that it did. But, via EcoHealth Alliance, US funding eventually found its way to Wuhan.
Now, though, it gets murkier.
The researchers at Wuhan collected coronaviruses from bat feces and combined them to create new ones, infected human cells in the laboratory, and demonstrating that their viruses were able to replicate in the human ACE2-expressing cells, which is how the virus that causes COVID-19 replicates and hence infects humans.
The basis for that specific claim is unclear, but it is beyond doubt that the Wuhan lab was conducting research into coronaviruses in bats. It is also known that the Chinese government has “disappeared” one of the researchers, widely believed to be COVID “patient zero”. Beijing has also destroyed evidence and forbidden access to the caves where it is believed that the original virus samples were collected.
So it is clear that, firstly: The Wuhan Institute of Virology was doing exactly the sort of research that created coronaviruses that were virulent and could infect humans. But secondly: at least some of this work was receiving funding from the USA government via Anthony Fauci’s National Institute and Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance.
This is not to say, as some apparently have, that “the US government engineered the virus”. But using fringe conspiracies to try and debunk any idea other than the Beijing-approved narrative (as “fact-checkers” are striving mightily to do) is grossly dishonest journalism.
At the very least, it is now clear that there is a web of connections – connections that stand to embarrass some very powerful people.
For instance, Fauci recently praised the WHO white-wash. Daszak spends a lot of Twitter time praising the Chinese government and parroting Democrat talking-points. Someone who wants to be seen as an impartial investigator would be better served not making their political biases so blatantly clear.
The WHO assembled a team of ten international experts to travel to Wuhan, including… Peter Daszak[…]
If, however, it turns out that the virus was released from the Wuhan laboratory, China will be embarrassed by failing to prevent its release. Yet Anthony Fauci and Peter Daszak’s own organisations would also be embarrassed, having funded its manufacture.
Caldron Pool
That’s a big “if” – but it cannot be dismissed out of hand as just a “conspiracy theory”.
Especially not when so many influential people clearly have a vested interest in maintaining the official narrative.
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