Covid Investigation Focus Shifts to Chinese Scientists at Wuhan Institute of Virology
Possible “Patient Zero” Ben Hu received US funding from NIH and USAID for work on virus’ Furin Cleavage Site; Zhou Yusen filed a patent for a Covid-19 vaccine, then fell off WIV roof months later.
We recently reported on an investigation by journalists Michael Shellenberger, Alex Gutentag, and Matt Taibbi, whose research led them to conclude that scientists conducting research on novel coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) were the first humans to contract covid.
Now the focus is on those scientists deeply connected to the coronavirus research at the institution.
Legal Insurrection readers might recall I noted that one of the Chinese scientists who first came down with Covid was Ben Hu. Hu was seen on Chinese video handling samples with no personal protective equipment and no regard for any other biosafety measures.
The Intercept’s D.C. Bureau Chief Ryan Grim now reports that Hu received U.S. financial support for gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses. Grim’s assertions are based on documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the transparency advocacy organization White Coat Waste Project.
The funding came in three grants totaling $41 million, doled out by USAID and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, the agency then headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci. Hu is listed as an investigator on the grants.
…The NIAID and USAID grants list Hu as an investigator in the projects being funded. Hu is a top deputy to Shi Zhengli, known in the virology world as “batwoman” for her work extracting samples of viruses from bats in Chinese caves. The FOIA documents were first obtained by White Coat Waste in 2021 but given new relevance with the reporting of Hu’s involvement.
Grim’s report stresses an important link between Hu and the Furin Cleavage Site (FCS). I noted in past reports FCS was suggestive of genetic modification of the coronavirus, as a very small chunk of coronavirus changed in the only area that would impact transmissibility to humans.
It is important to note that the furin site substantially enhances transmission to humans. It is difficult to explain how this strand of viral DNA is substantially altered in one, small area with four amino acids and 12 nucleotides with the remainder of the sequence remaining intact.
Hu is directly tied to the FCS research.
“The investigators spoke to two researchers working at a US laboratory who were collaborating with the Wuhan institute at the time of the outbreak,” the Times reported. “They said the Wuhan scientists had inserted furin cleavage sites into viruses in 2019 in exactly the way proposed in Daszak’s failed funding application to Darpa.” A key hallmark of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is its furin cleavage site (FCS).
“The significance of the fact that ‘patient zero:’ Ben Hu received US funding from NIH and USAID in 2018-2019 is that NIH and USAID support to Hu potentially directly funded the insertion of FCS sequences into SARS-ike coronaviruses that had been proposed in EcoHealth’s/WIV’s unsuccessful 2018 DARPA grant application,” said Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and laboratory director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology. “
NEW: Documents Link Potential Covid Patient Zero to U.S.-Funded Research in Wuhan https://t.co/YwyFn2UDfv
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) June 17, 2023
I would simply like to point out that Grim was once the Washington bureau chief for HuffPost as well as a staff reporter for Politico. Therefore, he makes a valiant attempt to blame the skepticism about lab leak proofs on former President Donald Trump’s administration and seems willing to hold on to the wet market theory (hat-tip, Ace of Spades).
However, given how forcefully Grim presents this case in the article, I can’t help but think this piece represents the start of the walk-back by Democrats about covid origins. The willingness to connect the novel coronavirus to US funding also suggests that Fauci’s days as a media godlet are drawing to an end.
Attention is also now shifting to a Chinese military scientist is suspected of being thrown to his death from the WIV roof.
Intelligence obtained by members of the US Senate reveals that Zhou Yusen filed a patent for a Covid-19 vaccine on February 24, 2020, barely a month after China put Wuhan into lockdown because of the outbreak.
US vaccine developers told investigators that it would have been impossible to have generated the data cited in the patent so swiftly – it would have taken about three months’ work, meaning that scientists at the Wuhan Institute for Virology were secretly working on a Covid vaccine in November, two months before Beijing told the world about the pandemic.
Zhou, who worked for the People’s Liberation Army and was collaborating with Wuhan scientists at the time of the outbreak, died in mysterious circumstances in May 2020, aged 54.
US investigators are said to have been told ‘Zhou fell from the roof of the Institute’, although this has not been confirmed.
Who knew that bioscience research also required fall protection for safety on the job?
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Comments
Fall Protection for biological research…oh my!
That was good! It captures both the silliness of OSHA and illustrates a valid point regarding new occupational hazards in China.
Also a serious occupational hazard for Russians in the know but out of the good graces of the rulers. There’s also the poison thing if that doesn’t work.
Factor in that they are known to drink a lot too.
It looks like they’re finally getting around to doing the investigation they should have done in 2020
It’s like an episode of Blue’s Clues where Blue is denied access to one of the rooms in the house for two years. “We’re not going in there, there’s nothing to see.”
Oh, please.
So, we’re confirming what we confirmed 3.5 years ago that it came from experiments at WIV?
The theory of probability, Ocams Razor.
In problem solving, the theory with smallest set of elements is usually the correct one.
Remember, the lab is located 3.3 kilometers, about 2 miles, from the wet market. The lab was doing research around the viruses that cause Covid. The wet market was alleged to be where it was contacted first.
Another way to look at it, the theory the guilty parties fight hardest against is likely the right one.
Why has is been so hard to connect the dots?
Why has is been so hard to connect the dots?” Answer: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
“Why has is been so hard to connect the dots?”
Appears to be a timing issue. Out-of-sequence events are ignored until the pre-scheduled time to acknowledge them. The “Never let a crisis go to waste” strategy is (finally) being applied by both sides instead of only one.
“Why has is been so hard to connect the dots?”
Because the dots connect to a deliberate release.
Thank God, Wu’s death was not a case of defenestration. That would have been suspicious. Also, it was not the fall that killed him, but the sudden stop at the ground.
Even if release of Wuhan Coronavirus 19 was not intentional, Chinese attempts to confine it to Wuhan while allowing Wuhan residents to travel internationally was an act of unrestricted war. Fauci’s actions are under the most charitable interpretation, manslaughter. Considering the number of people killed, economic damage, and long term vaccine damage, he probably should probably be executed. 6,893,355 and counting.
“Hu was seen on Chinese video handling samples with no personal protective equipment and no regard for any other biosafety measures.”
When you’re a maverick mini-sub pilot, the lethal consequences of your inexperience are at least localized.
LOL. Quick investigate the low ranking Chinese guys. Lord Fauci must be exonerated.
I’m sure that the DOJ has some low level misdemeanors left over after the Hunter Biden investigation.
Chinese safety standards are there for decoration.