The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, still headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, awarded a $3.3 million grant to a research organization led by Fauci’s close friend.
The new study will examine bats and other coronaviruses in the wild and will run until August 2027.
The organization conducting the study, EcoHealth Alliance, is led by Peter Daszak, who is known to be close to Fauci.
In the summer of 2021, emails leaked between Fauci and Daszak. In one, Daszak Fauci appeared to express gratitude for downplaying the theory that Covid-19 was manufactured in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
Previously, Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance has used the Wuhan Institute of Virology for research purposes, particularly in “gain-of-function” research, which involves genetically modifying organisms.
There have been unconfirmed rumors that it was this type of research that created the Covid-19 virus.
dr Anthony Fauci will step down as Director of the NIH in December 2022.
The head of the EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, pictured here, stands by Dr. Anthong Fauci is known to be close
Previously, Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance has used the Wuhan Institute of Virology in research, particularly gain-of-function research that involves genetically modifying organisms
In a leaked 2020 email, Daszak Fauci appeared to express gratitude for downplaying the theory that Covid-19 was manufactured in a laboratory in Wuhan, China
According to the NIH’s website, the research will involve providing “viral sequences and isolates for use in vaccine development.”
The main objective of the research is described as conducting “community-based surveys and biological sampling of people who are frequently exposed to wildlife in Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam to find serological evidence of spillover”.
The other primary objective involves “sampling and PCR testing of bats and other wildlife at community surveillance sites.”
The new research could also “provide data on wildlife reservoirs and community transmission events relevant to the origin of COVID-19,” according to a section of the NIH report.
Another section states, “Eventually, we will rapidly deliver viral sequences and isolates for use in vaccine and therapeutic development.”
The long-term goal of projects like this is to support global preparedness in the event of another global pandemic, the NIH said.
The rationale for the grant states that previous research in this area “identified the border region of southern China, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam as a high risk for the future emergence of novel coronaviruses and the potential location where SARS-CoV-2 first emerged. have identified”. via ‘from bats to humans.’
The research will also include testing communities living in close proximity to wildlife in Southeast Asia for coronavirus.
In the new study, Daszak’s team will study bats and other coronaviruses in the wild. It runs until August 2027
Daszak leaves his hotel after the World Health Organization (WHO) team completed its investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province, on February 10, 2021
More details on British researcher Peter Daszak’s role in facilitating risky coronavirus research in China were revealed in a report back in April.
They outlined how his EcoHealth Alliance raised millions in federal grants.
Daszak’s group, which bizarrely morphed from a manatee rescue nonprofit into a top advocate for viral gain-of-function research as it solicited federal funding, has long been at the center of questions about the origins of COVID -19
The lengthy report, published in Vanity Fair, was based on dozens of interviews and more than 100,000 leaked internal documents, and details how EcoHealth operated in a world of “murky grant agreements, weak oversight and a quest for government funds for scientific advances . partly through pitching research to steeply escalating risks.’
The report did not provide conclusive evidence as to whether COVID leaked from experiments at a Wuhan lab that worked closely with EcoHealth, or transmitted from an animal to humans in a “natural spillover” event, as Daszak has long pointed out.
But it outlines how far Daszak – and Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose agency helped fund his research — sought to cast doubt on the laboratory origin theory and downplay the potential role of risky research supporting EcoHealth in Wuhan.
A researcher wipes a bat’s mouth to collect samples at Sai Yok National Park in Kanchanaburi province, west of Bangkok, Thailand
The Wuhan Institute of Virology kept live bats in cages, footage from inside the facility revealed
In 2014, the National Institutes of Health awarded EcoHealth a $3.7 million grant entitled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” the purpose of which was to create some sort of pandemic early warning system.
The research involved collecting bat coronaviruses in China and studying them at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and mixing components of SARS-like viruses from different species to create a novel chimera capable of directly infecting human cells.
Allowing such risky research to be pushed forward in the Wuhan lab was “just insane in my opinion,” Jack Nunberg, director of the Montana Biotechnology Center, told Vanity Fair.
“Reasons are lack of oversight, lack of regulation, the environment in China,” he said. “So that’s what really puts it in the realm of ‘No, that shouldn’t happen.’
Faced with a funding crunch when certain grants expired, EcoHealth submitted an even more ambitious research proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2018.
The plan, titled Project DEFUSE, involved a partnership with WIV to make bat coronaviruses deadlier by inserting genetic traits similar to those of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Daszak has also been accused of tirelessly trying to get NIH grant money from Fauci for EcoHealth’s research
In response, DARPA officials slammed the plan as risky for failing to address significant ethical, legal and social concerns and refused to award the $14.2 million grant.
Daszak has also been accused of tirelessly trying to get NIH grant money from Fauci for EcoHealth’s research.
He invited Fauci to EcoHealth events that invitations described as “educational,” though nonprofit officials have described them as “cultivation events” where they should network with “potential federal funders.”
The group would spend about $8,000 on each “cultivation” event.
“These types of events are common among many non-governmental organizations and non-profit organizations that depend on both public and private donors,” Daszak told the magazine, defending the parties.
Daszak also repeatedly praised Fauci, asking him to serve as a “panel speaker” at select EcoHealth events.
In April 2020, Daszak came under scrutiny when theories about the origin of COVID began to surface in April 2020.
A reporter asked then-President Donald Trump during a COVID press conference why the US government would support a $3.7 million grant for a Chinese laboratory.
“We’re going to end this grant very quickly,” Trump replied, prompting a follow-up question from another reporter to Fauci about whether a lab could be responsible for COVID.
Fauci, responded, claiming that a “group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists” found that the virus was “entirely consistent with a species’ leap from an animal to a human.”
The next day, Daszak reportedly emailed Fauci to thank him for “standing up publicly and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin of COVID-19 through bat-to-human transmission, not a laboratory clearance from the Wuhan Institute of Virology”. .
Fauci reportedly thanked the scientist back.