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