FOIA Docs: Bio Researchers Lied to Pentagon in Scheme to Direct Money to Wuhan Lab

A 2018 research proposal called DEFUSE called for synthesizing
spike proteins with furin cleavage sites — the same feature that
supercharged SARS-CoV-2 into the most infectious pandemic
pathogen in a century. (Photo credit: Unsplash)

A new report chronicles a scheme by U.S. bio-researchers to mislead the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) office in a 2018 grant proposal, Project DEFUSE, to direct American monies to a secret Chinese lab conducting unsafe coronavirus research in Wuhan.

The report which is being blacked-out by American corporate media, is authored by Emily Kopp, a reporter at U.S. Right to Know.

Ms. Kopp analyzed documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know, via a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Geological Survey. Read all of the documents here.

Writes Kopp:

American researchers concealed their intention to conduct high-risk coronavirus research in Wuhan under lax safety standards from the Pentagon the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know. 

A 2018 grant proposal called Project DEFUSE, coauthored by the Wuhan Institute of Virology and American scientists, has stoked concern that the pandemic resulted from a lab accident. 

It proposed engineering high-risk coronaviruses of the same species as SARS and SARS-CoV-2. Most worrying to some scientists: The proposal involved synthesizing spike proteins with furin cleavage sites — the same feature that supercharged SARS-CoV-2 into the most infectious pandemic pathogen in a century. Indeed, some scientists have likened DEFUSE to a blueprint for generating SARS-CoV-2 in the lab.

The report can be read as politically shielding the Pentagon from much blame in supporting bio-research gone bad, as DARPA turned down the 2018 grant proposal, Project DEFUSE; and the two American bio researchers appear to conspire to mislead DARPA, the documents show.

EcoHealth Alliance currently is receiving $25 million in Department of Defense grants and contracts, despite having conspired to defraud the Department of Defense and likely having caused a pandemic that killed 20 million and cost $25 trillion.pic.twitter.com/IcFctdd3ZG

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) December 19, 2023

Wisconsin Bill Would Ban Pandemic-level Pathogen Enhancements — Narrow Scope Tailored to Augment UW BioMed Work

It is conceivable that Wisconsin's politically eclectic population
may drive the two major political parties together to enact
policy that defines University research as irretrievably connected
to popular sentiment, in the best tradition of the Wisconsin Idea.
Wisconsin Senate Bill 401 bans Gain of function research, research
that "may reasonably be anticipated to enhance the transmissibility
or virulence (harmfulness) of a potentially pandemic pathogen."

Madison, Wisconsin — A state bill that would ban a narrow band of research on dangerous pathogens is proceeding through the Wisconsin Legislature.

Wisconsin Senate Bill 401's (SB401) introduction comes as the SARS-CoV-2 virus enters its fourth year among the human population.

SARS-CoV-2 virus is widely suspected by independent experts to have been bio-engineered in a research laboratory, with ties to the United States, and inadvertently released in Wuhan, China in Fall 2019.

Yet, this recognition remains politically toxic, inhibiting academic and federal policymakers from banning this type of research, Gain of Function, that independent experts think caused the Covid 19 Pandemic.

The Biden administration has still failed to institute a 911-type commission on SARS-COV2 origins, though the World Health Organization has convened a team of sorts for the Global Study of the Origins of SARS-COV2, that produced work that has drawn criticism.

Independent experts see the states, exemplified by Wisconsin Senate Bill 401, as friendly terrain on which to codify research-safety measures, transparency, reporting requirements and community right-to-know mandates.

Wisconsin Senate Bill 401 bans Gain of Function research, research that "may reasonably be anticipated to enhance the transmissibility or virulence (harmfulness) of a potentially pandemic pathogen."

Wisconsin Senate Bill 401 indicates potentially pandemic pathogen as defined below.

"Potentially pandemic pathogen means a virus, bacteria, fungus, or
2eukaryotic parasite, or any strain or variant of a virus, bacteria, fungus, or
3eukaryotic parasite, that is any of the following:

4 1. Likely, moderately, or highly transmissible and likely capable of wide and
5uncontrollable spread in human populations.

6 2. Likely, moderately, or highly virulent and likely to cause significant
7mortality and morbidity in human beings.

8 3. Likely to pose a severe threat to public health and safety, the capacity of
9 public health systems, or the security of this state if allowed to spread within the
10 general population.

The United States has seen government censorship and propaganda of media, medical fields and the universities rise to a level resembling wartime government control the last four years, as acknowledged experts have seen chilling impacts.
 
"A vocal minority within [Virology] field has been knowingly, willfully, and brazenly lying on the subjects of COVID-19 origins, biosafety, biosecurity, and biorisk management. Dismayingly, the vast majority of the field has chosen to remain silent," said Richard Ebright, Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University, and co-founder of BiosafetyNow.

Post-WW II,  UW-Madison has grown into a major public research institution, that in Wisconsin's popular mind remains a source of pride for multi-generational commitments to benefit society and advance science.

Asked if Wisconsin, should be concerned that Wisconsin Senate Bill 401 can harm this commitment, and betray a legacy, Dr. Ebright responded in an email explicitly: "The bill covers only gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens. The covered research has no--zero--civilian applications and represents less than one tenth of one percent of biomedical research at the University of Wisconsin (basically just a part of the research of one faculty member)."

Conduct by the University of Wisconsin-Madison high-security Influenza Research Institute operating in Research Park has come under criticism in a new book, excerpts of which were published in USA Today last Spring.

The book is Alison Young’s Pandora’s Gamble Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk, (April 2023, WHSmith). 

Much of the focus of Young's book is on Gain of Function (GOF) research.

Pandora’s Gamble Lab Leaks, Pandemics,
and a World at Risk, (2023, WHSmith)

The United States House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has singled out and criticized UW-Madison's bio research recently.

As Wisconsin progressives and community activists eye suspected military-intelligence duel use of Gain of Function (GOF) research, late Summer reaction of Wisconsin to the proposed Gain of Function ban has been muted and unpredictable.
---
One thing is certain: Conducting high-risk, Gain of Function research has exasperated many independent scientists such as Bryce Nickels, Professor of Genetics at Rutgers University; co-founder of BiosafetyNow.

Arrogance, careerism and even sociopathy appear to drive some research such as Gain of Function.

Writes Nickels on Twitter in mid-August: "They knew the risks, and yet they decided to play god anyway. Only thing you could have done would have been to pay them to stop doing the work. They could not be trusted then and can not be trusted now.
We need to ban GOFROC yesterday."

They knew the risks, and yet they decided to play god anyway. Only thing you could have done would have been to pay them to stop doing the work. They could not be trusted then and can not be trusted now.
We need to ban GOFROC yesterday. https://t.co/bdvDdP4svW

— Bryce Nickels (@Bryce_Nickels) August 13, 2023

It is conceivable, even likely, that Wisconsin's politically eclectic population may drive the two major U.S. political parties together to enact policy banning Gain of Function research as an acknowledgement that the University of Wisconsin System is irretrievably connected to popular sentiment and safety, in the best exercise of the Wisconsin Idea and UW-Madison's premier public research tradition.

Update:

It was recently reported that the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency had collected evidence of a lab origin of COVID-19, but that intel had been left out of public reports.

Just now, U.S. Right to Know obtained a heavily redacted report from the Defense Intelligence Agency… pic.twitter.com/5zniwxT6Q2

— Emily Kopp (@emilyakopp) September 5, 2023

Scientists Want Retraction, Bio-Reserch Fraud Revealed amid Democrat Thought Control Failure

Democrats' Big Lie Draws Wide Ridicule Now

Democrat Party-U.S. government work to promote discredited Wuhan animal-market explanations of Covid 19 origins demonstrates anew America is an indoctrinated society, to a degree that might astonish Orwell and Chomsky.

The Democrat Party-led censorship regime rises as this political party (with no dissent) works with public health, bio-research and an array of military-intel agencies to brand media airing of lab-engineered SARS-CoV-2 hypotheses as conspiracy theory, malinformation, misinformation, and disinformation. 

Lab leak became forbidden thought in 2020, and the Biden Administration formally launched its Disinformation Governance Board using current assets in 2022, then quickly backed down after widespread mockery deriding a governmental Ministry of Truth made the administration look ridiculous.

Biden and the Democrats became so isolated and removed from everyday America, they were convinced they could get away with this disinformation charade, though thought control persists.

As corporate media remains well under control; social media banning, censorship, and character assassination exploded as prominent mention of Chinese lab-engineered SARS-like virus explanations — adopted by the FBI and U.S. Dept of Energy, leaked documents show — drew government-corporate censure on a par with thought crimes.

The Covid 19 thought control project has failed.

Most Americans believe, at least provisionally, that an engineered virus that inadvertently leaked from a Wuhan lab caused the emergence of SARS-CoV-2.

But it required much work, much fraud, to launch and sustain the huge lie that is gas-lighting Americans.

Accountability is being pursued now.

Comes an open letter this week from BioSafety, a non-profit dedicated to "a future free of lab-generated pandemics, a future where reckless research on pathogens is ended, and a future where public trust in science is restored."

"Our Mission is to demand national- and international-level restrictions, regulations, and oversight to reduce the risks to the public posed by enhanced potential pandemic pathogens research."

Recent reporting and leaks show the prominent Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 paper published in Nature Medicine in early 2020, was intended to black out origins questions, and launch the branding of any question as conspiracy theory fare.

There you have it, folks.

Virologists most likely created SARS-CoV-2, and this was evident in January 2020.

The Three Stooges of modern science were stooges (ht @R_H_Ebright). They lied to reporters and misled the world.

20 million died. https://t.co/kfeiP7S804

— Alex Washburne (@WashburneAlex) July 21, 2023

Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 published in Nature Medicine is a carefully crafted, if hastily written, fraud; Andersen, K.G., Rambaut, A., Lipkin, W.I. et al. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nat Med 26, 450–452 (2020).

Honest scientists are calling for retraction and withdrawal proceedings.

Biosafety Now's Open Letter To Nature Medicine is one such statement.

Biosafety Now's Open Letter To Nature Medicine is reproduced below:

July 26, 2023

Dear Editors:

On March 17, 2020, Nature Medicine published a Correspondence entitled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” (1). The paper assessed the genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 and concluded, “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus” and “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

The paper played an influential role—indeed, the central role—in communicating the false narrative that science established that SARS-CoV-2 entered humans through natural spillover, and not through research-related spillover (2-7). The paper was promoted by Joao Monteiro the chief editor of Nature Medicine, as an exceptionally important and definitive research study (“great work”; “will put conspiracy theories about the origin of #SARSCoV2 to rest “; 8). The paper has been cited more than 5,800 times, making it the 68th most cited publication in all fields in 2020, the 16th most cited publication in biology in 2020, and the 8th most cited publication on the subject of COVID-19 in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Email messages and Slack direct messages among authors of the paper obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process or by the U.S. Congress and publicly released in full in or before July 2023 (2-7), show that the authors did not believe the core conclusions of the paper at the time it was written, at the time it was submitted for publication, and at the time it was published. The authors’ statements show that the paper was, and is, a product of scientific misconduct.

It is imperative that this misleading and damaging product of scientific misconduct be removed from the scientific literature.

We, as STEM and STEM-policy professionals, call upon Nature Medicine to publish an expression of editorial concern for the paper and to begin a process of withdrawal or retraction of the paper.

Signers (in alphabetical order)

Amir Attaran, University of Ottawa
Paul Babitzke, Pennsylvania State University
Alina Chan, Broad Institute
Richard H. Ebright, Rutgers University
Mohamed E. El Zowalaty, Higher Colleges of Technology
David Fisman, University of Toronto
Andrew Goffinet, University of Louvain
Richard N. Goldstein, Harvard University
Elisa D. Harris, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland
Neil L. Harrison, Columbia University
Laura Kahn, One Health Initiative
Hideki Kakeya, University of Tsukuba
Justin B. Kinney, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Tatsu Kobayakawa, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
Yanna Lambrinidou,Virginia Tech
Milton Leitenberg, University of Maryland
Allen A. Lenoir, Bioterrorism/Pediatrics Infectious Disease Center
Jamie Metzl, Atlantic Council
David L. Nelson, Baylor College of Medicine
Bryce E. Nickels, Rutgers University
Takeshi Nitta, University of Tokyo
Andrew Noymer, University of California, Irvine
Roger Pielke Jr., University of Colorado, Boulder
Harish Seshadri, Indian Institute of Science
Rick Sheridan, Emske Phytochem
Eric S. Starbuck, Save the Children
Tyler Stepke, Johns Hopkins University
Atsushi Tanaka, Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University
Hiroshi Tauchi, Ibaraki University
Anton van Der Merwe, University of Oxford
Alex Washburne, Selva Analytics
Andre Watson, Ligandal
Roland Wiesendanger, University of Hamburg
Susan Wright, University of Michigan

References

(1) Kristian G. Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes & Robert F. Garry, The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2, Nature Medicine, volume 26, pages 450–452 (2020)

(2) Interim Majority Staff Report – The Proximal Origin of a Cover-Up: Did the “Bethesda Boys” Downplay a Lab Leak?, July 12, 2023

(3) Amid Partisan Politicking, Revelations on a Covid Origins Article, The Nation, July 12, 2023

(4) House Republicans Accidentally Released a Trove of Damning Covid Documents, The Intercept, July 12, 2023

(5) Top Scientists Misled Congress About Covid Origins, Newly Released Emails And Messages Show, Public, July 18, 2023

(6) “So Friggin’ Likely”: New Covid Documents Reveal Unparalleled Media Deception, Racket News, July 18, 2023

(7) Covid Origins Scientist Denounces Reporting On His Messages As A “Conspiracy Theory, Public, July 20, 2023

(8) https://twitter.com/JMinImmunoland/status/1239966983279366145

War Against Lab Leak Grinds On, Beyond Laughable Now

Fifty-one percent of Americans favori lab leak origins of
SARS-CoV-2 virus, causing Coronavirus disease COVID-19,
Morning Consult

The explanation SARS-CoV-2 virus, (causing Coronavirus disease COVID-19), originated through accidental release from a research laboratory became the majority view of Americans in February 2023, according to polls in Morning Consult.

Democrats lead the nation in believing Covid 19 naturally occurred, instead of spilling over from a virology research laboratory — with only some 42 percent of Democrats favoring lab leak origins, 51 percent of all Americans favoring lab leak origins, and 72 percent of Republicans favoring lab leak origins. Morning Consult

Democrats have been obstinate in their refusal to publicly acknowledge the proposition an engineered lab leak that caused Coronavirus disease COVID-19 as an origins explanation is not only plausible, but now is clear and convincing and climbing.

However, as government leaks continue, it is becoming less politically palatable for Joe Biden and the Democrats to continue the Big Lie that Covid 19 must have not have come from a lab. [For a continuing dose of evidence, reason and facts on SARS-CoV-2 origins, see Alex Washburne @Ayjchan @JamieMetzl, Nicholas Wade, DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19), and especially all the folks at BiosafetyNow who are embarrassing the deluded and dishonest.

Virologists, clumsy at politics, to this day often sound like dead-enders in the origins debate. And not just virologists.

Writes Justin B. Kinney, Quantitative Biologist. Associate Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Co-founder, Biosafety Now, http://biosafetynow.org, "Not just virologists—public health experts and biosecurity experts too. Really seems like many in this extended science/policy community reflexively circle the wagons at any mention of a 'lab leak.'"

A recent exchange on social media exemplifies some public pronouncements and an unsettling ideology of many virologists, (noone is sure how many).

Marburg virus of 1967

The exchange concerns the infamous Marburg virus of 1967, one of the most famous lab leak tragedies, in which a deadly virus causing hemorrhagic fever leaked from lab workers to families and caregivers, resulting in 31 deaths.

One Krutika Kuppalli, a reputable bio-health expert, using perverse reasoning, voices her personal view that because a virus can infect human beings from animals, zoonoses, this virus capability disconfirms  possibility that researchers in a lab were studying that virus and that the virus subsequently could have leaked from the laboratory through lab workers, such as what happened in Marburg, Germany.

Writes Kuppalli on March 24, "If we can believe that #Marburg and many other infectious diseases (e.g. Ebola, Plague, Mpox etc) is the result of zoonotic transmission why is it so hard for us to believe that it was the same with COVID-19."

In reply to Kuppalli, Justin B. Kinney, Quantitative Biologist. Associate Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Co-founder, Biosafety Now (http://biosafetynow.org, @BiosafetyNow) in muted, apparent disgust, writes, "Fun fact: Marburg virus is named after Marburg, Germany—where the virus does not naturally occur—because the first documented outbreak was caused by a lab leak at the Behringwerke industrial plant there. @BiosafetyNow."

In reply to Kinney's simple and, what one would guess, is an uncontroversial narrative of a historical fact of a lab leak comes the following exchange:

This is absolutely false and why on earth would you make that up?

— Gigi Gronvall (@ggronvall) March 26, 2023

The following exchanges take place that ought merit Kinney be given a Nobel Peace Price for his patience in dealing with utter stupidity.

What I wrote is true. I thought you’d know this history.

— Justin B. Kinney (@jbkinney) March 26, 2023

I’m astounded by the disdainful reaction of public health and biosecurity experts to my *accurately* calling the 1967 outbreak of Marburg virus a “lab leak”. Their reaction makes me even less inclined to believe what they say about the origins of SARS-CoV-2. https://t.co/cfC1HdJCgu

— Justin B. Kinney (@jbkinney) March 26, 2023

Lesson going forward is: If an anti-lab leak stooge speaks, he or she is lying.

These state-sponsored propagandists are so transparent & vile.

— Dana Parish (@danaparish) March 26, 2023

Marburg was not a lab leak? It was lab workers infected by monkeys. That's a lab leak. In 2019, a US biolab was shut down because necropsies were performed on monkeys and the door to the room wasn't closed, exposing lab techs outside who weren't wearing respiratory protection.

— Laurence (Larry) Boorstein (@LarryBoorstein) March 26, 2023

It’s more than semantics/insults, the scientific community (of which I am a member) is by and large treating the public like they are stupid children that need to be punished for questioning their authority. I feel it’s the scientific community that needs to be held accountable

— Bryce Nickels (@Bryce_Nickels) March 26, 2023

>

It's troubling how many virologists seem more concerned about the potential for new rules and regulations on their own research than the possibility that the research of their respected colleagues might have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic. https://t.co/KhuBSYFAiq

— Justin B. Kinney (@jbkinney) March 25, 2023

Yes, it is troubling that virologists seem more concerned about the potential for new rules and regulations on their own research than the possibility that the research of their respected colleagues might have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even more troubling are the facts that the Democrat Party is not concerned that bio-research might have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic, and that Biden and the Democrats continue to block open investigations into the COVID-19 pandemic origins.

The attacks and lies will go on for a very long time.

It may seem subtle for people outside the field, but for anyone who's been paying attention throughout COVID, Dr. Gonsalves has been one of Dr. Fauci's attack dogs.

His attack on Dr. Redfield's far superior virological credentials is a transparently bad-faith defense of Fauci. https://t.co/WzdpWidaWk

— Alex Washburne (@WashburneAlex) March 26, 2023

Where, dolt, did Kinney suggest gain-of-function research was involved in the laboratory accidents with Marburg virus?

Why, dolt, do you limit the definition of "laboratory accident" to include only gain-of-function research?

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) March 26, 2023

“In over 1,000 years of evolutionary time, we see no evidence of a furin cleavage site in any SARS CoV, except for the SARS-CoV that emerged in Wuhan 1.5 years after researchers proposed to insert a furin cleavage site in a SARS CoV in Wuhan.” Mmmm… https://t.co/rz4B1K2JHP

— Frank Visser (@ReusVisser) March 26, 2023

Unsurprisingly, virologists want the public to believe up is down, wet is dry, day is night, and that they care about lab safety. That journalists keep pretending AR and cohorts are experts in anything other than misinformation peddling is a joke. https://t.co/aXLV3Nw5Ar

— Bryce Nickels (@Bryce_Nickels) March 26, 2023

Kuppalli's statement, and similar statements over the last 24 hours by Eckerle, Gronvall, Rasmussen, and Pease are a public declaration of an inability to read, an inability to reason and/or a desire to deceive.

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) March 26, 2023

I want everyone to observe how confidently "science journalist" @Laurie_Garrett states something as epidemiological fact, pointing to her book

And then read @R_H_Ebright, an actual scientist.

If you just read Garrett, your understanding of science would be wrong. https://t.co/4dqu1GfUzs pic.twitter.com/VCoG9RMVQc

— Alex Washburne (@WashburneAlex) March 27, 2023