Coronavirus Research in Wuhan

[Yazata]

I've long suspected that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting what is termed "gain of function" research. The idea there is that most animal viruses don't jump to humans but some readily do. So there's an obvious public health motivation for understanding why that is and what virus characteristics facilitate animal viruses crossing into the human population.

In 'gain-of-function' research, changes in the protein coats of viruses are intentionally genetically engineered in the laboratory so as to determine whether those changes make it easier for the virus to leap to human cells.

Well, it turns out not only was the Wuhan Institute of Virology doing precisely that, but that the research was being funded at least in part by the United States, by Anthony Fauci's National Institutes of Health.

The grant application is below. (Obtained by The Intercept after a FOIA request.) It's 528 pages long (illustrating the overwhelming burden of federal paperwork) and much of it is accounting for expenditures and self-serving biographies of the grant recipients. But there are also many pages devoted to what they planned to do and what they had accomplished after each year that the grant was in effect.

For example, look at page 160 which discussed what they initially hoped to accomplish. (Highlighting by me.)

"Specific Aim 3:  Testing predictions of CoV inter-species transmission.  We will test our models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments in cell-culture and humanized mice.  With bat-CoVs that we've isolated or sequenced, and using live virus or pseudovirus infection in cells of different origin or expressing different receptor molecules, we will assess potential for each isolated virus and those with receptor binding site sequence to spill over. We will do this by sequencing the spike (or other receptor binding/fusion) protein genes from all our bat-CoVs, creating mutants to identify how significantly each would need to evolve to use ACE-2, CD26/DPP4 (MERS-CoV receptor) or other potential CoV receptors. We will then use receptor-mutant pseudovirus binding assays, in vitro studies in bat, primate, human and other species' cell ines, and with humanized mice where particularly interesting viruses are identified phylogenetically or isolated. These tests will provide public-health relevant data, and also iteratively improve out predictive model to better target bat species and CoVs during our field studies to obtain bat-CoV strains of the greatest interest for understanding the mechanisms of cross-species transmission." 

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/...ant-notice

("Humanized mice" are mice genetically engineered to have human receptor sites on their cell membranes, so that the mouse cells behave like human cells when it comes to succeptibility to virus infection.)

Then look at page 298 which descibes what they had actually done in the 4th year of the grant.

"Using the reverse genetic methods we previously developed, infectious clones with the WIV1 backbone and the spike protein of SHC014, WIV16 and Rs4231 respectively, were constructed and recombinant viruses were successfully rescued. In Year 4, we performed preliminary in vivo infection of SARSr-CoVs on transgenic mice that express hACE2. Mice were infected with 10^5 plu of full length recombinant virus of WIV1 (rWIV1) and the three chimeric viruses with different spikes. Pathogenesis of the 4 SARSr-CoVs was then determined in a 2-week course. Mice challenged with rWIV1-SHC014S have experienced about 20% body weight loss by the 6th day post infection... 2 and 4 days post infection, the viral load in lung tissues of mice challenged with rWIV1-SHC014S, rWIV1-WIV16S and rWIV1-Rs4231S reached more than 10^6 genome copies/g..."

These are just a fraction of the details contained in this amazing document.

I want to emphasize that this does not prove that covid originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) virology lab. It still might very well have originated naturally in the ways that these reseachers were hoping to better understand and prevent.

But given that the lab destroyed their sequence data soon after this started, making it impossible to determine whether the covid responsible for the global pandemic coincides with one of their engineered recombinant mutants, given that the laboratory had earlier been criticized for sloppy safety protocols and poorly trained technicians, and given that several Wuhan Institute of Virology workers fell ill with symptoms very much like covid before the disease emerged in the city at large, it makes me wonder whether covid was in fact an accidental laboratory release.

What does seem to be clear is that Anthony Fauci lied to Congress under oath when he was asked whether the NIH had ever funded any 'gain of function' research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and he answered very emphatically that they had not.

[Syne]

Fauci needs to face perjury charges.

[Leigha]

It’s funny, this all started as just another “crazy conspiracy theory” when it was suggested by Republicans, but it’s appearing to be true. Goes to show, not all conspiracy theories are false.

[Syne]

Leftists try to dismiss anything said by Republicans, even though more often then not they end up being true. Fake hate crimes, like Jussie Smollett, Wuhan lab origin, that democrat policies have directly increased crime, including releasing violent criminals, etc.. So much so that someone has coined the phrase Fox News Fallacy, which is where the left immediately denies anything claimed by Fox News, Trump, or any other such bete noire, simply due to the source.

[Yazata]

https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1...9931524096

[Yazata]

From the FBI's Twitter page today

[Image: FqGHRZrWYAA3XEt?format=jpg&name=small]

[Kornee]

Here we go again. No it wasn't 'careless, evil China' - Fauci's approved grant for 'gain of function' research at Wuhan lab bore all the hallmarks of carefully planned high level set-up.
The following article is not a short read but it does provide a wider perspective you won't get from the usual sources:
https://www.unz.com/runz/did-a-chinese-l...on-people/
But as I'm the only one here not following the MSM official line, it will be ignored as usual.

[C C]

From the FBI's Twitter page today

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FqGHRZrWYAA3...name=small

The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan... I will just make the observation that the Chinese government... has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we're doing the work that our US government and close foreign partners are doing. --FBI DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER WRAY

Earlier back in February: WHO abandons second phase of COVID-origins investigation due to ongoing challenges to conduct studies in China
https://www.bu.edu/neidl/2023/02/who-aba...stigation/
- - - - - - - - - -

(Feb 27) The coronavirus pandemic likely arose from a Chinese laboratory leak, the US Department of Energy now says
https://www.sciencealert.com/us-departme...hite-house
- - - - - - - - - -

FBI Director supports the lab leak hypothesis, but there is no new evidence, and scientists still favor the spillover hypothesis.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/covid-l...ses-again/

EXCERPT: . . . It is worth pointing out, however, that the lab leak theory has its origins in a lab-created bioweapon theory. Very early on, and continuing at least through 2022, some scientists and others were hypothesizing that the virus was bioengineered as a weapon, which may then have either been deliberately or accidentally released. This question can be primarily answered by examining the virus itself, looking for telltale signs of bioengineering. The book is basically closed on this question – the evidence strongly supports a natural (not bioengineered) origin for the virus.

Once the evidence was moving strongly in the direction of a natural origin for the virus, further promotion of the idea that it was bioengineered took on strong conspiratorial tones. Such conspiracy theories were widely criticized (correctly so). However, the bioweapon hypothesis soon became replaced by the lab leak hypothesis – in this narrative the Wuhan lab was just studying (but not modifying) the SARS-CoV-2 virus when it accidentally was leaked from the lab, likely through infected lab workers. The lab leak hypothesis was compatible with the growing evidence for a non-bioengineered origin of the virus.

It seems that some of the bioengineered conspiracy theorists migrated over to the lab leak hypothesis, contaminating the debate with conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, earnest proponents of the lab leak hypothesis bristle at any suggestion that they are conspiracy theorists. Fair enough – but they have to understand the history and recognize that the lab leak side is rife with conspiracy theories.

If we put all that aside and just take a look at the scientific question – what does the evidence say about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 – there are basically two ways to address the question. The first stems from virology, tracing the genetic sequence of the various strains of SARS-CoV-2 and trying to draw the lines back to its origin. We can also compare the genetic sequence to the most closely related viruses to try to piece together where the virus came from.

When we do this the evidence currently favors the interpretation that SARS-CoV-2 is a spillover virus, a coronavirus that infects animals that crossed over to humans either through mutations or combining genetic material from human-infecting viruses in order to be pathogenic against humans. The best animal candidates for hosts of the virus origin are minks, red foxes, and racoon dogs, all of which are sold in the Wuhan wet market. Epidemiological evidence also traces the first infections back to the wet market. For this reason this is the most popular hypothesis among scientists. However, we have still not found the smoking gun original virus, so there is still a little room for questions... (MORE - missing details)

[Yazata]

[Image: FqtzL4qXsAA_qgT?format=jpg&name=small]

[Yazata]

House Oversight Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Interim Majority Staff Report

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/u..._FINAL.pdf

It's 55 pages long. In summary, in late January 2020, leading virologists were saying among themselves that the Wuhan Coronavirus (later renamed Covid-19 so as not to offend the Chinese) really looked like a possible lab-release to them. The gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (see above) as already widely known among virologists. A British scientist who was one of the major players wrote: "That got my mind racing. This was a brand-new virus that seemingly sprang from nowhere. Except that this pathogen had surfaced in Wuhan, a city with a BSL-4 virology lab which is home to an almost unrivalled collection of bat viruses.... Could the novel coronavirus be anything to do with 'gain of function' studies?" The virologists quickly turned up a paper by Dr. Zhengli Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology explaining how to engineer furin cleavage sites into SARS viruses. The British scientist called it a "how-to manual for building the Wuhan coronavirus in a laboratory". Another scientist remarked "fuck, this is bad".

The virologists were still taking the lab-leak very seriously as of January 31, 2020.

But from the very beginning there was a political angle sneaking in as well. The same British virologist subsequently wrote, "US-China politics were in a bad place in January 2020...It was obvious that people would soon begin hunting for a scapegoat for what was rapidly turning into a global health disaster. Trump was seeking to blame the virus on China and was calling it the 'China virus' and 'kung flu'." So from the very beginning, some scientists felt motivated to protect China and others wanted reflexively to oppose whatever President Trump said. There was self-interest at play as well, since some of the loudest voices against the lab-leak theory were engaged in gain-of-function research themselves and even more virologists didn't want any restrictions placed on it. They certainly didn't want virologists like themselves blamed for the covid disaster.

Then there was the famous conference-call on February 1, 2020 to discuss a path forward, that included a collection of eleven leading virologists, along with Anthony Fauci and Frances Collins. This was the origin of the 'Proximal Origin' paper that was published a month later in nature medicine. That paper quickly became the definitive word of "The Science", with other views dismissed as 'conpiracy theories' and 'anti-science'. It's striking that after the Feb 1 conference call, the leading virologists seem to have done a sudden 180 degree turn. Whether that was due to the influence of Fauci and Collins (who control much of the funding for the biological sciences) or whether it's something the virologists themselves decided to do based on self-interest and preexisting political bias, remains unknown today.

One of the authors wrote (highlighting by the congressional committee) on February 8, "Our main work over the past couple of weeks has been focused on trying to disprove any type of lab theory, but we are at a crossroad where the scientific evidence isn't conclusive enough to say that we have high confidence in any of the three main theories considered." On February 20, after nature initially rejected the paper (see below) the same scientist wrote, "Unfortunately none of this helps refute a lab origin and the possibility must be considered as a serious scientific theory (which is what we do) and not dismissed out of hand as another 'conspiracy theory. We all really, really wish that we could do that (that's how this got started) but unfortunately its just not possible given the data."

On February 12, the 'Proximal Origin' paper was submitted to nature.That's less than two weeks after the conference call, so the paper clearly wasn't based on new research. That publication's editors distributed it to peer reviewers, who on February 20 rejected it. The reason given by an editor was, "one of our referees raised concerns (also emphasized to the editors) about whether such a piece would feed or quash the conspiracy theories." As one of the authors put it, "They thought that we came down too strongly on the side that the virus had been of possible lab origin. And some of the reviewers wanted us to take that out..." So clearly the determination to quash the lab-leak theory was already spreading in the virology community independent of the conference call.

The paper was quickly rewritten and on February 27, it was resubmitted to nature medicine. Discussing the changes, one of the authors wrote, "So that includes that we don't believe that any type of lab origin is plausible. It's something that was added in response to the reviewers, our own thinking of the topic, and then getting it published in nature medicine, as opposed to nature."

All of this is a very revealing glimpse into how real-life science is done, and represents a good argument why, contrary to the scientistic pieties of the "skeptics", why laypeople should take scientific assertions with some skepticism. Science is done by fallible and motivated human beings after all, not by pure intellects. The more politicized and ideological the science is, or the more scientific self-interest is involved in its results, the more justified that lay skepticism will be.