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Post by Admin on Jun 15, 2021 20:15:55 GMT
Rand Paul rips WHO after announcement of new investigation into COVID origins
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., discusses calls for new COVID origins investigation and Biden’s upcoming meeting with Putin #FoxNews
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Post by Admin on Jun 16, 2021 0:25:53 GMT
As calls grow louder for a more thorough and transparent investigation into the origin of SARS-CoV-2, a top Chinese virologist from the Wuhan Institute of Virology says the theory that the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic escaped from the lab is baseless.
Shi Zhengli, nicknamed “Bat Woman,” leads a group of researchers that studies bat coronaviruses at the laboratory located in the Chinese city where the pandemic began.
In an interview with The New York Times, Shi said there was no evidence that the virus leaked from the institute.
“How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence,” she told the Times.
“I don’t know how the world has come to this, constantly pouring filth on an innocent scientist,” she added.
The theory that the virus may have accidentally leaked from the lab has gained traction in recent months as the exact source of the new coronavirus still remains unknown.
Groups of prominent scientists have called for a deeper and truly independent investigation into the virus's origins following a probe by the World Health Organization (WHO), arguing that WHO officials were not given proper access to necessary data by Chinese authorities. Researchers said the lab leak theory was dismissed too hastily by WHO officials without a real investigation.
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President Biden last month ordered his intelligence community to further investigate the origins of COVID-19 and submit a report in the coming months outlining the most likely origin scenario, while Group of Seven leaders also called for a renewed investigation.
During the Times interview, Shi also pushed back against a recent Wall Street Journal report that three researchers from the institute had sought treatment for flu-like symptoms about a month before the first COVID-19 cases were reported.
“The Wuhan Institute of Virology has not come across such cases,” she said. “If possible, can you provide the names of the three to help us check?”
She also denied conducting or cooperating in gain-of-function experiments — research in which scientists make a pathogen more infectious to develop more effective treatments and vaccines.
“I’m sure that I did nothing wrong,” she said. “So I have nothing to fear.”
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Post by Admin on Jun 18, 2021 5:20:36 GMT
In the early days of the growing coronavirus outbreak that would soon become a pandemic, an elite group of international scientists gathered on a conference call to discuss a shocking possibility: The virus looked like it might have been engineered in a laboratory.
“I remember it very well,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert at the National Institutes of Health, said in an interview with me on Wednesday. “We decided on the call the situation really needed to be looked into carefully.”
The teleconference on Feb. 1, 2020, appears to have played a pivotal role in shaping the early views of several key scientists whose published papers and public statements contributed to the shutting down of legitimate discussion about whether a laboratory in Wuhan, China, might have ignited the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a reporter who has spent a decade revealing hundreds of serious safety breaches at U.S. biological research labs, it has always seemed obvious to investigate whether the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a major coronavirus research center, possibly played a role given that the initial outbreak happened in the same city.
Yet for more than a year, those who publicly raised such questions were too often deemed a crackpot conspiracy theorist or a simpleton who just didn’t understand science.
It has only been in recent weeks that a growing list of high-profile scientists, intelligence officials and politicians – including President Joe Biden – have publicly acknowledged the plausibility of a lab accident and pushed for rigorous investigation.
Could an accident have caused COVID-19?:Why the Wuhan lab-leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
Perhaps that’s because the early concerns among key scientists – like the conference call on Feb. 1, 2020 – were kept private until now. That call likely would have remained secret if not for documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
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Post by Admin on Jun 19, 2021 0:39:54 GMT
Secret meeting may have led to change in COVID origins story: report
Fox News' Steve Hilton and Lara Logan say Dr. Fauci has a guilty conscience on 'Fox News Primetime.' #FoxNews #FoxNewsPrimetime
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Post by Admin on Jun 19, 2021 4:51:32 GMT
A Canadian scientist and Harvard postdoctoral associate said colleagues might have feared vocalizing support for the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis out of concern that it would be viewed as showing support for potentially inflammatory views espoused by former President Trump.
Alina Chan is one of 18 experts who signed a letter in May calling for a thorough exploration into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Although Chan voiced her support for an investigation into the possibility of a lab leak early in the pandemic, she told NBC that experts were careful not to lean too close to views linked to the former president.
"At the time, it was scarier to be associated with Trump and to become a tool for racists, so people didn't want to publicly call for an investigation into lab origins," she said.
The lab leak theory, which hypothesizes that the novel coronavirus accidentally leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has gained traction in recent weeks. Circumstantial evidence, including a Wall Street Journal report that three researchers at the Wuhan lab fell ill in November 2019, challenge the conventional theory that the virus jumped species naturally. This has led President Biden and other world leaders to call for further investigations.
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Additionally, Chan called for an investigation early in 2020 into the virus’ origins, and published a paper suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 had “developed several advantageous adaptations for human transmission” by the time it was first detected.
Chan cautioned, however, that despite emerging calls for fresh investigations, there is not a singular piece of evidence that definitely proves the lab leak theory.
"I know a lot of people want to have a smoking gun," Chan told NBC. "It's more like breadcrumbs everywhere, and they're not always leading in one direction. It's like the whole floor is covered in breadcrumbs."
But the Harvard and MIT credentialed expert believes last month’s letter opened the door for fellow scientists to step away from fears of guilt by association, adding that the letter might offer credibility to alternative theories.
"I think it had a big effect," Chan told NBC. "I think it literally helped all the people who wanted to investigate this by saying: This is not bogus. Top scientists think this is plausible."
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