U.S. Funded Scientist One of Several Wuhan Lab Researchers Sickened During Early Covid Outbreak
In November 2019, less than a month before the Covid-19 pandemic picked up and spread to nations around the world. Several scientists are working on it Wuhan Institute of Virology in China became seriously ill with an unknown virus. One of the researchers was Ben Hu, a scientist who had received significant funding from the US government and whose research focused on “how coronaviruses infect people.” new coverage from the Wall Street Journal shows.
At WIV, Hu was in charge of supervision “Gain of Function” research— the controversial scientific field that involves mutating viruses to make them deadlier and more contagious — including coronaviruses. Gain-of-function research, banned in the US until 2017, is typically used to develop vaccines. Hu and other scientists — now identified as Chinese researchers Yu Ping and Yan Zhu — fell ill from… something… while working in the lab in the fall of 2019. It’s unclear what exactly made Hu and other researchers sick. The Journal writes that the trio became ill with “symptoms that American officials said were related to either Covid-19 or a seasonal illness” – to the point where the men are hospitalized had to – but notes that it has not finally been publicly announced what it was that was causing the symptoms. Still, we can all agree that doesn’t sound great.
The diseases had already been reported in 2021 when the Journal told a story about the illness of researchers in the Wuhan laboratory; The story was based on information obtained by US intelligence but did not identify who was involved. The identity of the researchers involved remained a mystery until last week Public And battwo blogs on Substack, published a story about the incident. The story claims:
According to several U.S. government officials interviewed as part of a lengthy Public and Racket investigation, among the first people infected with the virus, the “patient zero,” included Ben Hu, a researcher who described the “gain-of-function” -Research by WIV led SARS-like coronaviruses increasing the infectivity of viruses.
Details of Hu’s and others’ research were also recently released revealed by a transparency organization called the White Coat Waste Project. The project previously filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the government to obtain documents detailing US funding of research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The documents reveal details of the grants used to fund research work at the WIV until 2020, when President Trump stopped funding the experiments.
According to WCW, one of the grantees for Hu’s research was the U.S. Agency for International Development, while the other — and this is a twist that’s sure to prove controversial — was the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). , the agency that used to be directed from Dr. Anthony Fauci. Fauci served as director of NIAID for over two decades, beginning in 1984. He resigned from his managerial position at the agency late last year. Alternatively, the object of liberal worship And right conspiracy theoriesFauci has been a prominent figure in the public debate surrounding Covid-19, and it’s clear that his former agency’s involvement here will not go unnoticed.
Taken together, the documents and new reporting raise more questions than they answer — and only help deepen the mystery surrounding the origins of the worst pandemic in living memory. In the early days of Covid, scientists banded together zoonotic transmission as the most likely cause of the virus, with senior public health officials claiming it likely originated in the more unsanitary regions of a Wuhan wet market– perhaps through the human consumption of a pangolin or some other animal. Meanwhile, there has been speculation that Covid escaped from a lab or was the result of biotechnology written off reflexively as the terrain of the cranks and conspiracy theorist. However, over time, this conversation has increased significantly delay. Nowadays, the hypothesis of a “laboratory leak” seems more and more likely. Some government agencies even admitted that they believe this is the most plausible explanation for how the virus came about. Indications of a zoonotic transmission could not be concretely confirmed so far; researcher They have not been able to track down the virus to a specific animal.
Hopefully we should know more soon. The US Secret Service is obliged to release the information it has about possible links between the Wuhan laboratory and the origins of Covid-19. an invoice legally signed The declassification passed by President Biden in March ordered declassification no later than this week.
