Scientist Connected to Wuhan Lab Recused from UN Commission Investigating COVID

Last week, we reported that Senator Rand Paul demanded that those involved in funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s coronavirus ‘gain of function’ research not participate in any further investigations.

Here’s the problem. The WHO investigated this the first time, we suggested three people to send to China. They rejected all three and they accepted a guy named Peter Daszak who was the one that funded the lab. So you can’t have the people—like Anthony Fauci or Peter Daszak—who are part of the funding mechanism to send these funds to Wuhan lab.You can’t have them investigating themselves.

It appears Sen. Paul will receive his wish. Wuhan-connected scientist Daszak has been recused from a UN Commission investigating COVID.

Daszak, 55, president of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, was one of 28 experts from around the world asked to analyze how best to respond to the pandemic.The panel comprised leading global figures in public health, economics, philanthropy, diplomacy and politics.It is organized by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which, according to its website, ‘operates under the auspices of the United Nations to mobilize scientific and technical expertise in support of the Sustainable Development Goals.’On Monday, his profile was updated to include the note: ‘recused from Commission work on the origins of the pandemic’.

Earlier this year, I noted that the World Health Organization (WHO) commission’s first report on the coronavirus origin read like Chinese propaganda. One of the reasons could have been Daszak’s presence on the investigative team.

Dr. Peter Daszak, the only U.S. citizen on the WHO team investigating the origins of the virus, has deep ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and went so far as to organize a PR campaign in the early months of 2020 to portray the lab leak hypothesis as a “conspiracy.”Daszak said in a recent “60 Minutes” interview that officials with China’s ministry of foreign affairs kept a close eye on the WHO team’s meetings with scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Daszak later said there was a “limit to what you can do and we went right up to that limit.”Further, the Wuhan Institute of Virology deleted public databases that had information on at least 16,000 virus samples in September of 2019, just three months before the first cases of COVID-19 were reported. The WHO did not request to review the data as part of their investigation because Daszak personally vouched for it.

Most famously, Daszak was in charge of organizing the infamous Lancet article used to assert the coronavirus was from a natural source and deem lab-leak proposals as conspiracy theories. He arranged for over 20 scientists to sign the document.

….Weren’t they even slightly suspicious when the person organizing the letter in The Lancet was none other than the deeply conflicted Dr. Peter Daszak, head of green nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance?Daszak had been collaborating for 15 years with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which we know was conducting dangerous Frankenstein research, known as “gain of function,” on bat coronaviruses, which makes them more lethal and more infective to humans.He co-authored papers with Shi Zhengli, the head of the Wuhan research team, and he funneled part of the $100 million in US government funding he received to her lab.Yet despite his compelling vested interest to absolve the lab of involvement in the pandemic, Daszak drafted the Lancet letter and convinced 26 others to sign it, emails released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed last year.

Recent revelations have been so trouble that the Lancet invited the 27 authors of the letter to re-evaluate their competing interests.

In February, 2020, 27 public health experts co-authored a Correspondence in The Lancet (“Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19”), supporting health professionals and physicians in China during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this letter, the authors declared no competing interests.Some readers have questioned the validity of this disclosure, particularly as it relates to one of the authors, Peter Daszak. In line with guidance from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, medical journals ask authors to report financial and non-financial relationships that may be relevant to interpreting the content of their manuscript.2There may be differences in opinion as to what constitutes a competing interest.Transparent reporting allows readers to make judgments about these interests. Readers, in turn, have their own interests that could influence their evaluation of the work in question. With these facts in mind, The Lancet invited the 27 authors of the letter to re-evaluate their competing interests. Peter Daszak has expanded on his disclosure statements for three pieces relating to COVID-19 that he co-authored or contributed to in The Lancet—the February, 2020, Correspondence…..In a 2004 report, CBS 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley traveled to Malaysia, and interviewed Peter Daszak (who was capturing bats to determine causes—and remedies—of a killer virus). In light of what we have lived for the past year, the video is chilling.

The conflict of interest was even too much for both The Lancet and WHO.

Tags: China, United Nations, Wuhan Coronavirus

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