Wednesday, March 8, 2023

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Excerpt:

"Some say the virus came from nature that, according to recent papers discussed in New York Times, the science is dispositive. Some say it’s too unique, too primed for human transmission, that there’s too much circumstantial evidence that points to COVID–19 coming from a lab. As well, in three years, there’s been no track found to prove that COVID–19 evolved naturally from an animal or a mammal or a tick to become highly infectious to humans. The truth is we don’t know the origins of COVID–19 yet for sure. We don’t have a smoking gun.

First, the science behind COVID–19: the genome of COVID–19 is inconsistent with expectations, and is unique for its group of viruses. COVID–19 has both a binding domain optimized for human cells, and a furin cleavage site, or a small part of the virus that makes it so infectious. That has never been seen before in a SARS-related virus. In other words, COVID–19 has unique characteristics that made it very infectious to humans. These have never been seen before in any other viruses of its type.

Most viral outbreaks are slow and small. CDC data shows SARS infected approximately 8,000 people worldwide, and eight in the U.S. Similar with MERS, which infected approximately 2,000 people worldwide. But COVID–19 was primed for human transmission. It has infected more than 750 million people worldwide. Dr. Redfield, one of our witnesses here today and a virologist, has even said that he believes COVID–19 had a detour from nature to be educated how to infect humans.

Second, the known research occurring in China: We know the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting gain-of-function research on novel bat coronaviruses by creating chimeric viruses, combining two viruses together to test infectivity and infecting mice with these viruses, work that former COVID–19 task force coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx confirmed was, in fact, gain-of-function, contrary to statements by Dr. Fauci. We have learned that the Wuhan Institute has poor biosafety and was conducting this research at only Biosafety Level 2, described as the ‘‘Wild West’’ by Dr. Jeremy Farrar, a virologist from the U.K., now Chief Scientist for the WHO.

We have learned through a leaked DARPA grant application that with U.S. taxpayer backing, the Wuhan Institute proposed inserting furin cleavage sites into novel coronaviruses, the same unique genetic aspect of COVID–19. And we know, according to a State Department fact sheet, the multiple researchers at the Wuhan Institute were sick with COVID–19-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, before the Chinese officially announced the outbreak.

Third, concerning the actions of NIH and EcoHealth Alliance, records show that the National Institutes of Health while the U.S. was under a moratorium on gain-of-function research, exempted EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute from this very ban. Records show that the National Institutes of Health allowed EcoHealth to conduct risky research on novel coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute without going through the potential pandemic pathogen department level review board.

Records show that EcoHealth violated Federal grant policy, and failed to file its five-year progress report for more than two years.

Records show that EcoHealth violated the terms of its grant and failed to report an experiment that resulted in gain-of-function of a coronavirus at the Wuhan Institute.

Fourth, for some reason that we do not yet know, leaders in the scientific community took action to attempt to convince the world that they should not take the lab leak theory seriously. Dr. Francis Collins stated he was more concerned with harm to ‘‘international harmony’’ than he was with investigating the lab leak. Dr. Fauci said the lab leak theory was a ‘‘shiny object that will go away in time.’’

The president of EcoHealth, Dr. Peter Daszak orchestrated a letter in The Lancet that called the lab leak a ‘‘conspiracy theory,’’ a statement that directly benefited Dr. Daszak himself. And four scientists, after a conference call with Dr. Fauci, completely reversed their position. Dr. Kristian Andersen said he found ‘‘the genome inconsistent with evolutionary theory.’’ And Dr. Robert Garry said he ‘‘really can’t think of a possible natural scenario.’’ But a few days later, published a paper saying the exact opposite, a paper based on the new emails we released claim to be prompted by Dr. Fauci himself.

Fifth, the intelligence: FBI Director, Christopher Wray, confirmed publicly that the FBI assessed COVID–19 most likely originated from a lab incident in Wuhan. The Wall Street Journal reported the Department of Energy now also believes a lab leak is the most likely origin. These aren’t run-of-the-mill agencies. The FBI used experts in biological threats and is reportedly supported by the National Bioforensic Analysis Center and the Department of Energy used its own Z Division, experts in investigating biological threats. These are some of the facts as we know them, but there’s so much more to do."

- Hon. Brad R. Wenstrup (chairman of the subcommittee)

https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/115426/documents/...

https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/investigating-the-origin...

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Here's an info dump on the subject from Swiss Policy Research, a website described by Wikipedia as "a website that has been criticized for spreading conspiracy theories":

https://swprs.org/on-the-origin-of-sars-coronavirus-2/

I'm not presenting this as anything other than a source of information, whether true or not. The site clearly has an agenda, but information is information. The statements there should serve as a jumping-off point for further investigation.

On that note, it looks like Google's algorithm is still boosting official sources on the subject, and is conceivably deboosting sources it deems to be unreliable (I'm not sure if it's controversial to state that online censorship was rampant during the pandemic), so the search for information may be deceptively difficult. You may have better luck with alternative search engines.