‘Stop the Money, Stop the Madness’: Time to Ban Risky Gain-of-Function Experiments

By Dr. Joseph Mercola

Despite EcoHealth Alliance’s shady history and potential role in the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci just gave EcoHealth another $3.3 million in additional funding for dangerous gain-of-function research.

Story at a glance:

EcoHealth Alliance was a key participant in risky gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China, which is now suspected of having played a role in the creation of SARS-CoV-2. That research was funded by Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).Despite EcoHealth’s shady history and potential role in the COVID-19 pandemic, Fauci, before leaving office, is now giving EcoHealth another $3.3 million in additional funding.The NIAID has approved a $653,392 EcoHealth grant to analyze “the potential for future bat coronavirus emergence in Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.” That sum is for the first year of a five-year project, so the total funding comes out to about $3.3 million.In addition to collecting and cataloging novel bat coronaviruses, EcoHealth will also “rapidly supply viral sequences and isolates for use in vaccine and therapeutic development, including ‘prototype pathogen’ vaccines.”Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst has introduced the “Defund EcoHealth Alliance Act,” which specifies that “No funds authorized or appropriated by federal law may be made available for any purpose to EcoHealth Alliance Inc, including any subsidiaries and related organizations that are directly controlled by EcoHealth Alliance Inc.” This does not go far enough, however, as there are many others that would simply take their place. What we need is a ban on dual-use, gain-of-function research.

EcoHealth Alliance has received quite a bit of notoriety over the past three years as a key participant in risky gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China, funded by Dr. Anthony Fauci at the NIAID.

EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak was one of the 15 co-authors of the 2015 paper, “SARS-Like Cluster of Circulating Bat Coronavirus Pose Threat for Human Emergence,” which biowarfare expert Francis Boyle claims is “the smoking gun” that reveals the culprits responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.

EcoHealth is also linked to U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine by way of Nathan Wolfe, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader graduate, who has been on EcoHealth’s editorial board since 2004.

Wolf is the founder of Metabiota, now implicated in the operation of biolabs in Ukraine that Russia claims have been conducting secret bioweapons research.

Many articles have been written detailing EcoHealth’s suspected role in the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) funding of its risky gain-of-function research, yet despite that, Fauci, before leaving office, is now giving EcoHealth another $3.3 million in additional funding.

To understand just how outrageous this is, let’s review some of what we know about EcoHealth and its research history.

EcoHealth has a long history of risky research

In a March 31 investigative report, Vanity Fair contributor Katherine Eban reviewed the contents of more than 100,000 EcoHealth Alliance documents, including meeting minutes and internal emails and reports, most of which predate the COVID-19 pandemic, showing a disturbing reality of “murky grant agreements, flimsy NIH oversight and pursuit of government grants by pitching increasingly risky global research.”

Records show EcoHealth received a $3.7 million NIAID grant in 2014 to study the risk of bat coronavirus emergence and the potential for outbreaks in human populations. Nearly $600,000 of that went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which was a key collaborator.

Warning bells started ringing in 2016, when EcoHealth failed to submit its annual progress report. NIAID threatened to withhold funds until the report was filed, and when Daszak finally submitted it, grant specialists found cause for concern.

According to the report, Daszak and his collaborators were seeking to create an infectious clone of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a novel coronavirus with a 35% mortality rate. To that end, they constructed two chimeric coronaviruses that were similar to SARS, the virus responsible for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

The report prompted NIH grant specialists to ask whether the work should be subject to the federal moratorium on gain-of-function research on influenza, SARS and MERS viruses, which had been in place since October 2014.

NIH and EcoHealth circumvented moratorium rules

The moratorium had some loopholes, however, which Daszak exploited to continue his research. In a June 2016 response to the grant specialists, Daszak claimed the SARS-like chimeras they’d constructed were exempt from the moratorium because the viral strains used were not known to infect humans.

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A clear case of regulatory failure

Considering the rationale for the research was that these pathogens could potentially cause a pandemic, Daszak’s claim that the research posed no such risk is rather contradictory.

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Whatever the truth of that might be, what’s clear is that the NIH accepted EcoHealth’s proposal to circumvent gain-of-function rules.

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Why is Fauci now funding EcoHealth again?

With that backstory in mind — and that’s just one story raising questions about EcoHealth’s research ethics and role in the COVID-19 pandemic — why is Fauci now flooding EcoHealth with fresh funds?

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Predictive pandemic planning is a fantasy

The rationale behind the hunt for novel zoonotic viruses is that it will help researchers prepare against future pandemic threats. But looking at the volumes of papers published on coronaviruses, including chimeric coronaviruses suspected of being precursors to SARS-CoV-2, it’s clear that none of it helped prevent a global pandemic.

On the contrary, the evidence seems to point to the COVID-19 pandemic being the result of such research. So, why is the NIH still funding the very organization that gave money to and worked with the very lab the whole world now suspects might be the source of the COVID-19 pandemic?

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We really need to ban all gain-of-function research

As detailed in “The COVID Rabbit Hole: An Inside Look at the Virus’ Origin,” evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 being the result of a lab leak, and that Fauci, Daszak and other researchers, China, the mainstream media, the World Health Organization and tech companies have all worked together to cover it up.

“All so-called biodefense research is biowarfare research. There’s no hard line separating the two. Hence the term ‘dual use’ research. What we need is a ban on dual use gain of function research, i.e., research in which a pathogen is equipped with new functions that makes it more dangerous, which could be used for good or ill.”

COVID-19 would not be the first infectious outbreak caused by a lab leak, and it surely won’t be the last — if we continue to allow mad scientists to continue this kind of work, that is. It’s important to realize that all so-called biodefense research is biowarfare research. There’s no hard line separating the two.

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What we really need is a ban on dual-use, gain-of-function research, i.e., research in which a pathogen is equipped with new functions that makes it more dangerous, which could be used for good or ill. We simply do not need this kind of research. It’s all offensive, as it hasn’t prevented a single epidemic or pandemic to date.

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Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/gain-of-function-research-funding-cola/