3 hours ago
One thing is for sure coincidence-wise. There were researchers like Baric studying or working on bat coronaviruses in the 2010s, long before the pandemic.
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Ralph S. Baric #career: In 2015, with Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he published an article titled "A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence," which describes their work in generating and characterizing a chimeric virus which added the spike of a bat coronavirus (SHC014) onto the backbone of a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV (rMA15). The research related to this article drew criticism from other scientists due to fears that the SHC014-rMA15 chimeric virus could have pandemic potential. This concern was renewed and echoed by members of the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts have noted that the virus was adapted to a mouse model and had decreased virulence in human tissues. The chimeric virus was also less virulent than the wild type rMA15 virus, as is expected in most chimeras.
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JIM HASLAM: Ralph Baric, the coronavirus expert, was asked in the notorious Red Dawn email chain whether SARS-CoV-2 was engineered. He said no, but two years earlier he had proposed engineering a genome just like it. Baric had spoken to the media before the document leaked, but he has since gone quiet. I have since started a UNC petition calling for the release of his pre-pandemic records.
[...] What struck me about Baric’s 2018 proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was its reference to a Texas mammal many Texans know well: the Mexican free-tailed bat. Because Baric did not have access to Chinese horseshoe bats in U.S. laboratories, he proposed using Mexican free-tailed bats as a “proxy” laboratory animal to develop his SARS-like animal vaccine.
As it turns out, Mexican free-tailed bats are one of the bat species that SARS-CoV-2 infects. Moreover, this species has been used by the USGS in bat-vaccine research and has shown reservoir-host tendencies for SARS-CoV-2. Scientists have had years to identify a susceptible animal at the Wuhan wet market, but they have found no definitive intermediate host.
[...] I have since started a blog, written a book, debated the World Health Organization, and had U.S. government investigators reference my findings. My theory holds that SARS-CoV-2 was developed as an animal vaccine in U.S. labs (UNC and RML), then shipped to Wuhan for testing, where it accidentally escaped.
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Public-interest project Carolina Flu petitions UNC to investigate origins of COVID-19 virus
https://dailytarheel.com/480122/universi...stigation/
EXCERPT: The petition comes just two months after the N.C. Supreme Court denied a public records case submitted by U.S. Right to Know, an advocacy group pursuing transparency on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The University had formerly released over 130,000 records regarding its coronavirus research to the U.S. Right to Know, but withheld 5,205. 4,537 of these records fell under the University research exemption provided in N.C general statute § 116-43.17.
“The University of North Carolina has not released a single 2018 or 2019 document or email pertaining to Ralph Baric, which is the timeline in question,” Haslam said. “They have released a ton of post-pandemic emails and documents, but they have not released a single pre-pandemic email or document.”
Haslam referred to withheld records from this time period as “the missing piece,” coupled with a transparent investigation.
“And I don’t think they’ve investigated anything if they haven’t produced a report. That’s not investigation. That’s calling around,” Haslam said. “So if they have investigated and they have produced a report, then let’s see it. That’s important to alumni, the public and another eight billion people.”
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Ralph S. Baric #career: In 2015, with Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he published an article titled "A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence," which describes their work in generating and characterizing a chimeric virus which added the spike of a bat coronavirus (SHC014) onto the backbone of a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV (rMA15). The research related to this article drew criticism from other scientists due to fears that the SHC014-rMA15 chimeric virus could have pandemic potential. This concern was renewed and echoed by members of the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts have noted that the virus was adapted to a mouse model and had decreased virulence in human tissues. The chimeric virus was also less virulent than the wild type rMA15 virus, as is expected in most chimeras.
- - - - - - - - - -
JIM HASLAM: Ralph Baric, the coronavirus expert, was asked in the notorious Red Dawn email chain whether SARS-CoV-2 was engineered. He said no, but two years earlier he had proposed engineering a genome just like it. Baric had spoken to the media before the document leaked, but he has since gone quiet. I have since started a UNC petition calling for the release of his pre-pandemic records.
[...] What struck me about Baric’s 2018 proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was its reference to a Texas mammal many Texans know well: the Mexican free-tailed bat. Because Baric did not have access to Chinese horseshoe bats in U.S. laboratories, he proposed using Mexican free-tailed bats as a “proxy” laboratory animal to develop his SARS-like animal vaccine.
As it turns out, Mexican free-tailed bats are one of the bat species that SARS-CoV-2 infects. Moreover, this species has been used by the USGS in bat-vaccine research and has shown reservoir-host tendencies for SARS-CoV-2. Scientists have had years to identify a susceptible animal at the Wuhan wet market, but they have found no definitive intermediate host.
[...] I have since started a blog, written a book, debated the World Health Organization, and had U.S. government investigators reference my findings. My theory holds that SARS-CoV-2 was developed as an animal vaccine in U.S. labs (UNC and RML), then shipped to Wuhan for testing, where it accidentally escaped.
- - - - - - - - - -
Public-interest project Carolina Flu petitions UNC to investigate origins of COVID-19 virus
https://dailytarheel.com/480122/universi...stigation/
EXCERPT: The petition comes just two months after the N.C. Supreme Court denied a public records case submitted by U.S. Right to Know, an advocacy group pursuing transparency on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The University had formerly released over 130,000 records regarding its coronavirus research to the U.S. Right to Know, but withheld 5,205. 4,537 of these records fell under the University research exemption provided in N.C general statute § 116-43.17.
“The University of North Carolina has not released a single 2018 or 2019 document or email pertaining to Ralph Baric, which is the timeline in question,” Haslam said. “They have released a ton of post-pandemic emails and documents, but they have not released a single pre-pandemic email or document.”
Haslam referred to withheld records from this time period as “the missing piece,” coupled with a transparent investigation.
“And I don’t think they’ve investigated anything if they haven’t produced a report. That’s not investigation. That’s calling around,” Haslam said. “So if they have investigated and they have produced a report, then let’s see it. That’s important to alumni, the public and another eight billion people.”