One does not need to be a doctor or a director of a vast bureaucratic agency to ask a straightforward question.
If you are engineering deadly pathogens that could quickly kill millions of people. And chances are good, based on past incidences, of a lab leak of these engineered viruses; why continue with gain of function research?
Unfortunately, the answer usually points to money.
At one time, we revered the people that dedicated their lives to the sciences by improving the human condition through altruism. But, unfortunately, this may no longer be the case.
In 1980 Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act, formerly known as the Patent and Trademark Act Amendments. It is a federal law that enables universities, nonprofit research institutions, and small businesses to own, patent, and commercialize inventions developed under federally funded research programs within their organizations.
While the act intended to facilitate the introduction of vaccines and drugs for the betterment of humanity, it may have also produced unintended consequences.
These consequences may include engineering the most dangerous viruses in vulnerable laboratories to generate a patentable vaccine for them. And these people may have achieved this with financing from the US taxpayer.
Dr. Anthony Fauci and The Supporting Cast
To better understand what may have transpired, we first need to explain the people involved and their function.
Dr. Ralph Baric of The University of North Carolina started work on bat and mouse coronaviruses by manipulating the DNA, which we now call “gain of function” experimentation. You will see the connection between this experimentation and the rising questions below.
Dr. Baric collaborates with a Chinese National, Zhengli-Li Shi, the Director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Many may know her as the “Wuhan Bat Lady” because of her extensive work with bat coronaviruses. But consider this, you do not become director of any institute in China if you are not a Chinese Communist Party member.
Dr. Francis Collins was the National Institutes of Health (NIH) director. Dr. Collins may figure prominently in the alleged development and spread of Covid-19. If this is the case, he could be personally responsible for much of the death.
On October 5, 2021, Dr. Francis Collins announced his retirement just a few months after the released FOIA-requested emails from Dr. Fauci.
Dr. Peter Daszak is President of Ecohealth Alliance, which is a nonprofit organization. In their own words:
"EcoHealth Alliance leads critical scientific research into critical connections between human, animal, and environmental health. We develop solutions that prevent pandemics and promote conservation."
Finally, you have Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The NIAID is part of the NIH, and Dr. Fauci reported directly to Dr. Collins of the NIH.
Dr. Fauci has been in this position since 1984 and is the highest-paid bureaucrat in the US.
Dr. Anthony Fauci is the medical advisor to the President’s Coronavirus Task Force. Fauci served under President Trump and currently operates under President Biden.
Why Is "Gain of Function" Research So Dangerous?
Many people speculate that the current Covid-19 pandemic was engineered and released from The Wuhan Institute of Virology. However, no one needs to look beyond a series of documented laboratory accidents in the US alone to see the dangers if these engineered viruses or any other pathogen escape.
Unfortunately, the communist dictatorship of China is not required to document, nor would it want to if a research laboratory did have a virus released, accidental or otherwise. So you will never see that information.
Why Did The US "Pause" Gain of Function Research in 2014?
In 2014, the University of Maryland experimented with a chicken-based influenza virus (H7N1). The scientists attempted to modify the virus to be airborne in ferrets. Unfortunately, it worked.
If this modified virus could transfer between ferrets, it could transfer between humans as well.
The problem is that that they did this research on a university campus. That campus is close to an airport, the capital, and the middle of a population zone. What if, by accident, they released the virus?
In 2014, the US Government, because of safety concerns, halted all funding on “gain of function” research to conduct a safety review.
"But US officials grew uneasy after the publication of new GOF papers and several accidents in US biocontainment labs. In October 2014, they announced an unprecedented "pause" on funding for 21 GOF studies of influenza, MERS, and severe acute respiratory syndrome viruses."
The problem? Three accidents made everyone question how safe our laboratories are. If accidents like this occur in the US, one can imagine that they could also happen in the Chinese laboratories.
"The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has closed two labs and halted some biological shipments in the wake of several recent incidents in which highly pathogenic microbes were mishandled by federal laboratories. The cases include an accidental shipment of live anthrax; the discovery of forgotten, live smallpox samples; and a newly revealed incident in which a dangerous influenza strain was accidentally shipped from CDC to another lab. The two cases involving CDC mistakes reveal "totally unacceptable behavior" by staff, said CDC chief Thomas Frieden at a press conference today at CDC headquarters in Atlanta. He announced several actions that CDC is taking to step up safety and security, including a moratorium on shipping highly risky pathogens. "I'm disappointed by what happened, and frankly, I'm angry about it," he added."
Unfortunately, the 2014 “pause” on gain of function research and a safety review of these laboratories could not prevent what happened recently.
November 17, 2021
HEADLINE: Vials of deadly virus accidentally discovered at Pennsylvania research facility while cleaning freezer: CDC
"Several frozen vials labeled "smallpox" were discovered by a laboratory worker while cleaning out a freezer in a facility that conducts vaccine research in Pennsylvania, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed to Fox News."
An Unauthorized "Restart" in Gain of Function Research?
Thirteen months after the “pause” of funding in “gain of function” research because of the unprecedented accidents at multiple laboratories, the following was posted on Nature.com on November 9, 2015. Among the authors, you will find the names of both Dr. Ralph Baric and Zhengli-Li Shi, referenced above.
HEADLINE - A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence
We cannot find any claim that the manuscript used any information compiled before the 2014 “pause.”
If this is the case, why does the article acknowledge funding and grants for this research by Dr. Anthony Fauci of the NIAID, Dr. Francis Collins of the NIH, and Dr. Peter Daszak Ecohealth Alliance?
According to the Obama administration, all funding and grants were on “pause” during this period.
Dated November 9, 2015:
"Research in this manuscript was supported by grants from the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Disease and the National Institute of Aging of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) under awards U19AI109761 (RSB), U19AI107810 (RSB), AI085524 (WAM), F32AI102561 (VDM) and K99AG049092 (VDM), and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China awards 81290341 (Z.-L.S.) and 31470260 (X.-Y.G.), and by USAID-EPT-PREDICT funding from EcoHealth Alliance (Z.-L.S.)."
On December 19, 2017, over two years after the release of the “gain of function” research and paper cited above, Dr. Francis Collins, Director of NIH, released the following:
HEADLINE – NIH Lifts Funding Pause on Gain-of-Function Research
"Today, the National Institutes of Health announced that it is lifting a funding pause dating back to October 2014 on gain-of-function (GOF) experiments involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses. GOF research is important in helping us identify, understand, and develop strategies and effective countermeasures against rapidly evolving pathogens that pose a threat to public health. The funding pause was lifted in response to today's release of the Department of Health and Human Services Framework for Guiding Funding Decisions about Proposed Research Involving Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens."
If there was a “pause” on gain of function research in 2014 and not lifted until 2017, how could the NIAID, NIH, and Ecohealth Alliance be cited in 2015 as providing grants for the research above?
Additionally, in Dr. Collins’ 2017 statement, we could not find the new directives or references for safety protocols in gain of function experimentation. The Obama administration suspended all funding three years prior because of “accidents” occurring at multiple lab locations.
To summarize, the government suspended funding of “gain of function” research in 2014 because of careless safety protocols. Lead scientists then posted a journal in 2015 showing the resumption of “gain of function” experimentation. The journal, and research for the journal, are funded by the same entities the Obama Administration directed to “pause” funding. The NIH then lifted (unilaterally) the “pause of funding” in 2017 without new safety protocols.
Was all this done because of unchecked bureaucracies? Was this done in support of an adversary aspiring to develop a bioweapons program? Or, as most suspected, was this done to engineer a virus for which there would be a very profitable cure?
We do not know at this point, but this situation would, if anything, require a congressional inquiry and a possible congressional commission.
We demand answers.
