Sharyl Attkisson

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Covid-19 origins, the Wuhan lab, US funding, and vaccine connection

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Note: this post was first published Sept. 25, 2020.

  • The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has given millions of taxpayer dollars to a U.S.-based group that partnered with the Wuhan, China lab to study bat coronaviruses.
  • NIH cancelled some funding under pressure in April after the partnership with the Wuhan lab was reported by the media.
  • A few weeks ago, NIH awarded more tax money to the U.S. group.
  • Scientists have long experimented with and genetically altered coronavirus to use as a vaccine "vector."
Wuhan Institute of Virology, China

Starting in 2014, the National Institutes of Health granted millions of dollars in U.S. tax money to a "global environmental health nonprofit" called EcoHealth Alliance based in New York City.

The grant was for an eleven-year-long project entitled: "Understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence." It aimed to study coronavirus in bats in China to determine which strains had the greatest risk of spillover to humans. (In other words, in hopes of preventing something like the Covid-19 pandemic and/or providing quick mitigation.)

A total of  $3,748,715 was given for the project from 2014-2019.

EcoHealth Alliance's partners on the taxpayer-funded project included at least one scientist at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology also "received assistance from the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and other U.S. organizations."

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is located in the area of China where scientists believe the Covid-19 outbreak originated. Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the virus was somehow released from the lab, either by accident or intentionally.

To date, there is no public evidence revealing whether Covid-19 was naturally-occurring, or involved a stop at the Wuhan lab, which was conducting coronavirus research.

U.S. State Department cables had warned of risky practices at the China lab prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, according to The Washington Post's Josh Rogin.

One cable in 2018 warned "that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic."

EcoHealth Alliance's Peter Daszak has reportedly been partnered with Wuhan Institute of Virology virologist Shi Zhengli "for more than 15 years." Zhengli was the scientist named in State Department cables as conducting supposedly risky research on bat coronaviruses that could be dangerous.

In other words: if the Wuhan lab research is ultimately linked to the Covid-19 outbreak, it appears as though it would involve to a project and a scientist who were partnered with and funded by the U.S.

Would U.S. officials and or scientists, therefore, have their own reasons to steer public scrutiny away from the potential lab connection? Could that be a reason why when the perfectly logical question is asked, there seems to be an organized campaign to controversialize whoever asks it and claim it's a "debunked conspiracy theory"?

Daszak stated in April that "no fund from [the grant] have been sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, nor has any contract been signed," but he did not provide other details at that time.

The publication "Nature" states that the Wuhan Institute of Virology "is a subrecipient" on the grant of U.S. taxpayer money to EcoHealth Alliance.

With the Wuhan Institute of Virology's possible role in the Covid-19 outbreak an open question, the Trump Administration cancelled remaining funding for the EcoHealth Alliance project in April.

After receiving political backlash for the cancelled funding, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reinstated the grant, but immediately suspended the China bat coronavirus part of the project pending the Wuhan Institute of Virology granting a request for an outside inspection. NIH also made the project contingent upon getting responses to inquiries regarding the lab's practices and the Covid-19 outbreak. NIH also wanted EcoHealth Alliance to obtain a virus sample from Wuhan.

EcoHealth Alliance criticized the conditions saying they made its research "impossible."

On Aug. 27, it was announced that the National Institutes of Health had awarded an even larger grant of taxpayer money, $7.5 million, to EcoHealth Alliance. EcoHealth Alliance is reportedly one of 11 institutions and research teams approved to receive part of an $82 million bundle of U.S. tax money to study viruses crossing from nature into people, and rapid response strategies.

EcoHealth said its federally-funded research also involved "designing vaccines."

Research “aimed to analyze the risk of coronavirus emergence and help in designing vaccines and drugs to protect us from COVID-19 and other coronavirus threats...” 

EcoHealth

Scientists have long experimented with coronavirus to use as a vaccine "vector"

Scientists have long conducted research into the "potential of coronaviruses as vectors for vaccine development" noting that, "[s]everal features make these viruses attractive as vaccine and therapeutic vectors."

Some research has involved "recombinant" coronaviruses altered in a lab, "bringing together genetic material from multiple sources."

Scientists have also noted "unique safety issues associated with virus-vectored vaccines," warning that such vaccines could mix with wild strains of coronavirus and "theoretically generate a more pathogenic strain."

Viral vector vaccines use live viruses to carry DNA into human cells. The DNA contained in the virus encodes antigens that, once expressed in the infected human cells, elicit an immune response.

Emory University

Read some of the research below.

Coronaviruses as Vectors: Position Dependence of Foreign Gene Expression

Coronaviruses are the enveloped, positive-stranded RNA viruses with the largest RNA genomes known. Several features make these viruses attractive as vaccine and therapeutic vectors: (i) deletion of their nonessential genes is strongly attenuating; (ii) the genetic space thus created allows insertion of foreign information; and (iii) their tropism can be modified by manipulation of the viral spike. We studied here their ability to serve as expression vectors by inserting two different foreign genes and evaluating systematically the genomic position dependence of their expression, using a murine coronavirus as a model. Renilla and firefly luciferase expression cassettes, each provided with viral transcription regulatory sequences (TRSs), were inserted at several genomic positions, both independently in different viruses and combined within one viral genome. Recombinant viruses were generated by using a convenient method based on targeted recombination and host cell switching. In all cases high expression levels of the foreign genes were observed without severe effects on viral replication in vitro. The expression of the inserted gene appeared to be dependent on its genomic position, as well as on the identity of the gene. Expression levels increased when the luciferase gene was inserted closer to the 3′ end of the genome. The foreign gene insertions generally reduced the expression of upstream viral genes. The results are consistent with coronavirus transcription models in which the transcription from upstream TRSs is attenuated by downstream TRSs. Altogether, our observations clearly demonstrate the potential of coronaviruses as (multivalent) expression vectors.

  • Copyright © 2003 American Society for Microbiology

https://jvi.asm.org/content/77/21/11312.short

Full text:

https://jvi.asm.org/content/77/21/11312.full

Coronavirus Reverse Genetics and Development of Vectors for Gene Expression

The large cloning capacity of coronaviruses (>5 kb) and the possibility of engineering the tissue and species tropism to target expression to different organs and animal species, including humans, has increased the potential of coronaviruses as vectors for vaccine development and, possibly, gene therapy.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-540-26765-4_6

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-540-26765-4_6

Unique safety issues associated with virus-vectored vaccines: Potential for and theoretical consequences of recombination with wild type virus strains

Recombination of a live virus-vectored vaccine with a circulating or reactivated latent virus could theoretically generate a more pathogenic strain

Unique safety issues associated with virus-vectored vaccines: Potential for and theoretical consequences of recombination with wild type virus strains

Attenuated viruses contained in the oral poliovirus vaccine frequently recombine with related indigenous human enterovirus strains to produce circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPV), which can cause paralytic disease

Unique safety issues associated with virus-vectored vaccines: Potential for and theoretical consequences of recombination with wild type virus strains

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X16302250#bib0395

Coronavirus derived expression systems

Thus, coronaviruses are promising virus vectors for vaccine development and, possibly, for gene therapy.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168165601002814

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168165601002814

Multivalent and Multipathogen Viral Vector Vaccines

https://cvi.asm.org/content/24/1/e00298-16

Research on rabies virus to use as vaccine vector

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361274/

Dendritic Cell-Specific Antigen Delivery by Coronavirus Vaccine Vectors Induces Long-Lasting Protective Antiviral and Antitumor Immunity

We report here that biosafe coronavirus-based vaccine vectors facilitate delivery of multiple antigens and immunostimulatory cytokines to professional antigen-presenting cells in vitro and in vivo.

Dendritic Cell-Specific Antigen Delivery by Coronavirus Vaccine Vectors Induces Long-Lasting Protective Antiviral and Antitumor Immunity

https://mbio.asm.org/content/1/4/e00171-10.short

Coronavirus-based multigene HIV vaccine vectors 

Coronavirus-based vectors are a promising system to genetically deliver multiple heterologous genes to specific target cells.

https://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R21-AI062246-02

https://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R21-AI062246-02

Multigene RNA Vector Based on Coronavirus Transcription

https://jvi.asm.org/content/77/18/9790.short

Inactivated SARS-CoV Vaccine Prepared from Whole Virus Induces a High Level of Neutralizing Antibodies in BALB/c Mice

The inactivated vaccine was prepared by SARS-CoV virus propagation in Vero cells, with subsequent  β-propiolactone inactivation and Sepharose 4FF column chromatography purification.

Inactivated SARS-CoV Vaccine Prepared from Whole Virus Induces a High Level of Neutralizing Antibodies in BALB/c Mice
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  3. Hello Sharyl,
    Please continue your work digging into what really happened to create the Chinese virus that has killed nearly one million people so far including 200,000 Americans.
    The main stream liberal media will not do the work since they are promoting China all the time and will never tell us the truth.
    Thanks for all your hard work. Please continue pushing for the truth.
    Regards,
    Gregory Sheehy, Reedsville Wisconsin

    Reply

  4. Well, when you say there's no public evidence to date, that's false. You're forgetting Li-Meng and other scientists who've argued that the evidence favors or at least suggests a lab origin. Otherwise, super job, Sharyl. You can't always be up to date on everything.

    Reply

  5. I heard 3.7 million times 2 (From Fauci led NIH) to 2 Chinese scientists to come to U of Chapel Hill,N.Carolina to learn gain-of -function (weaponizing) & onto Fort Dietrich,then Wuhan level 3 biolab.75 million in tax payer funds is astounding.Amazing that a key scientist "funding" this tells us how to stay safe.I wonder if any taxpayer $ helped fund the Event 201 drill in October,how to deal w/ a corona virus global pandemic?This is not just a dupe of global proportions,this points to warcrimes against humanity.

    Reply

    • In 2014, the Obama admin banned gain-of-function research in the USA due to a lab "leak" in the US. So, NIH gets around this by granting funds to EcoHealth who engages Wuhan Lab to continue the research...no?

      Reply

      • You are correct! Basically what happened was that once viral research of this nature was banned in the U.S., it was outsourced to the lab in Wuhan, China. Everyone should read "Plague" and "Plague of Corruption" by Dr. Mikovits and Kent Heckenlively.

        Dr. Mikovits has been ostracized by the scientific community for being honest about certain types of viruses. She is no friend of Dr. Fauci and has stated that his actions caused the death of a number of people with HIV. Dr. Risch, a Yale epidemiologist, has also stated that Fauci has caused the deaths of a number of Covid patients because of the misinformation that he has provided on hydroxychloroquine.

        Note: A number of doctors agree that hydroxychloroquine in the right amount is effective against COVID especially when the patient is also given zinc. Zinc is what actually destroys the virus's ability to replicate and the hydroxychloroquine makes it easier for the zinc to enter the cell. In a panel discuss with Charlie Kirk, one doctor stated that if everyone who has early stage Covid and those who have yet to contract it went on the appropriate amount of hydroxychloroquine, probably with zinc since most of us don't get enough, the pandemic would end in 30 days without the need of a vaccine. See: https://americasfrontlinedoctorsummit.com This is a very inexpensive option. Unfortunately, a vaccine and some other drugs are much more expensive and are recommended by Fauci, the CDC, and the NIH. One wonders if they are getting a kickback.

        Reply

        • And try to get info from EcoHealth's site on who they fund world wide and what is being done with those funds. They made it lot's harder to figure it out. Also, read that Fauci visited the Wuhan Lab last Fall, so if true he was familiar with their work. Do you have a source for that?

          Reply

  6. It sounds very much like they accomplished the modification of a viral strain to infect humans, as was their stated intent. Of course, it was proposed as a means of transmitting therapeutic dna material, but that is not the only way it could be used. The fact that this virus affects different organ systems is exactly what was mentioned as a possible result of the dna that is loaded into the carrier virus. I’d like to believe that this is an over-blown concern, but there could be latent effects on neurological or other systems. Bad f’ing news!

    Reply

  8. “I hope this post is not used to prematurely assign blame or propagate one-sided theories. What I do hope it highlights is the scale of dangerous gain-of-function research that has been and is going on in virology. The Covid-19 pandemic really exposed its huge risks in the face of few benefits: GOF research hasn’t protected us from this outbreak, hasn’t provided us with any effective treatments or vaccines in time to save hundreds of thousands of lives lost to CoV2, and if there is even a 0.1% chance GOF research caused the whole thing, that chance is too high.“ https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748

    Reply

  11. Thank You Sharyl,

    I am not a scientist nor a medical person, so I will not even pretend to comment on those aspects.
    My first thought when I began reading this information realeasing article is that the NIH was enganged in something akin to a money laundering scheme. Separating hard earned money for the American taxpayer and giving it to the enemy. So, how much stuck to their fingers on the way to the ChiCom scientists or how much was returned to them once the grant was let?
    Secondly, obama bans this research in the US under the guise of protecting us and then sells the so called research project to the enemy with substandard safety precautions. This same enemy has no concern for the welfare of its own citizens in an effort to kill Americans.
    Thirdly, this is probably occurring about the same time 0bama is banning US oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico leaving the way open for the ChiComs to exploit the oil resources close to our shores.
    Fourthly, who was the State Department warning? Since, I do not recall any warnings
    the warnings must have went to the ChiComs to be careful or they will be caught infecting Americans.
    Last, once again, the anti-American media ran protection for the enemy and attacked any American smart enough to figure this out or brave enough to tell the truth when they realized what had happened.

    I do have a question. Why can't I use my 'zero' to start obama's name?

    Reply

    • It seems far more plausible that the NIH went "behind" Obama's back to continue what is valuable defense and medical research. Similar to President Kennedy ordering all missiles out of Turkey and during the Cuban Missile Crisis learned they were still there against his orders. Bureacracies, like defense and medical research have a life of their own, especially since they out-live Presidents.

      Reply

  13. Trump was talking about this until it turned out Dr Fauci was the one who moved the research to Wuhan,, so without Trump knowing about it, Fauci became his lead COVID expert, or rather already had the job and used it to drag Trump into it,, see, but Trump don't play that way, when he lays down, he's feigning to make his adversaries think they beat him while he gathers intelligence and comes up with a plan, like, ok, the way you accuse some factions of not wanting questions asked suggests you're open to the real story,, but then are you really open to it, or just within the boundaries of this query?

    lets just suppose the virus struck with Hillary as president, which was assumed to going to be the case when the research was started here, then moved to Wuhan? ahhh, I mean, do you see how the left has tried to use the pandemic politically, not just to unseat Trump but push us in directions where if Biden wins, they can make socialism look like the cure?

    However, what if Hillary was president when it hit? holy crap, and that's not just because Democrats would have had enough power to walk us into socialism, maybe even take a shot at communism, we'd have welcomed it and never been the wiser,, that scenario strongly suggests it was purposely let out of the lab,

    like, ok, North Korea promised us a mysterious holiday present if we didn't ease up on sanctions by the end of the year,, on December 31, the Chinese lied saying a deadly string of pneumonia cases in Wuhan had been investigated and confirmed to not be caused by a virus,, how much would you like to bet if we eased sanctions on North Korea before the end of the year, the Chinese would have told us the truth?

    but see, New World Order types would not plan such an attack on freedom where experiments to create their spear tip just happened to be conclusive right when they scheduled their ambush, like, ok, by moving the work to Wuhan because it was to dangerous to do the work here, that in itself was a biological attack on China because the assumption is if we couldn't handle it, China surely couldn't,,

    that means China knew from the beginning they could biologically attack us along with themselves and it would be our fault, which of course we would have know the same when we moved it there,, so why did they do it?

    how about we suppose, I mean if we're going down conspiracy theory lane, why be shy, lets open it up full throttle to, oh I don't know, the experiments here in the US were successful, after which a plan was devised to unleash the virus on the world, which remember, if it's an attack with a virus they invented that we wouldn't ever know the details about, they knew and know how to control it's spread before they ever set their plan in motion,, but they couldn't do it from a lab in the US if Hillary was gonna have the credibility to lead the humanity to a new world order,,

    bare in mind if it happened under anyone but Trump, we'd have never known it came from a lab,, so there'd be no question it came from nature, like even now as the virus seems to keep coming back as it seemingly evolves to be worse, that could be nothing more than Boris and Natasha, like Angels from the Book of Revelations pouring out deadly diseases on mankind at the end of the world with Rocky and Bullwinkle asleep at the wheel,,

    I can absolutely prove every bit of what I suggest, but then, like you say, nobody wants to hear it, unless you actually do

    Reply

  14. Check out DavidMartin.world blog for a detailed chain of events, starting with the illegal patent of SARSCoV by the CDC in April, 2003. Also, his youtube channel, David Martin World, has many videos tracking the movements of many players involved with this, one in particular entitled, You are under house arrest because of crimes committed by the CDC. Highly recomment.

    Reply

  18. Hi Sharyl,
    Someone has already mentioned David Martin, so I'm late to the party, but here's an interview with attorney Reiner Fullmich where Martin lists the important patents obtained (by number and date), as well as a link to his report. Every indication of RICO here.
    Big takeaways - patents for treatment related to corona viruses were applied for by pharma cos *before* the CDC patents for the viruses were officially released
    -CDC paid to keep its patent applications secret
    -CDC bribed patent office (which had twice refused application because sequence0028 was 99% available in the public domain)
    - all of the elements of the supposed clinically "novel" elements of SARSCov2 were patented between 2008 and 2019.
    Conclusion: there was no outbreak of SARS, we had engineered it, and it had been patented for exploitation 73 times.
    Take a listen, and read the report:
    https://vladtepesblog.com/2021/07/09/dr-david-martin-the-gene-sequence-for-covid-was-patented-decades-ago-and-was-no-accident/
    https://www.davidmartin.world/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The_Fauci_COVID-19_Dossier.pdf

    Reply

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