Category Archives: DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway

Scientists are Growing Aborted Baby Hair on Lab Rats

Posted on by

Is there a word more descriptive than depravity that really works to define this work between the University of Pittsburgh and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases? Where is the rest of the media on this? Anyone in Congress? Planned Parenthood provided the fetuses….

 

A new video from the Center for Medical Progress exposes a gristly experiment at the University of Pittsburgh that involved scalping five-month aborted babies and implanting their scalps onto rodents.

Now, Pennsylvania leaders are demanding an investigation and urging the university to stop its experiments using aborted baby body parts.

“Publicly available information demonstrates that Pitt hosts some of the most barbaric experiments carried out on aborted human infants, including scalping 5-month-old aborted fetuses to stitch onto lab rats,” the Center for Medical Progress said in a statement.

The information comes from a study that University of Pittsburgh researchers published in September 2020 in the journal “Scientific Reports.” It describes how scientists used scalps from aborted babies to create “humanized” mice and rats to study the human immune system.

Along with the study, the researchers published photos of their experiment – horrific images that show tufts of babies’ hair growing on the rodents.

The Center for Medical Progress video raises even more concerns about unethical and potentially illegal practices at the university, including babies potentially being born alive in abortions, killed and then dissected for their organs.

It also suggests the University of Pittsburgh and local Planned Parenthood, which supplies aborted baby body parts, may be involved in an “illegal quid pro quo” partnership.

“Local Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania abortion providers supply the aborted fetuses, while Pitt sponsors the local Planned Parenthood’s operations,” the investigation found.

What’s more, a number of the experiments using aborted baby body parts at the university are funded by U.S. taxpayers through the National Institutes of Health and, in particular, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases office, CMP found in its investigation.

The Pennsylvania Family Institute letter also urged the university to end its unethical research in an open letter in response to the investigation.

“We call on the University of Pittsburgh to stop all experimentation on aborted babies and the inhumane practice of grafting their skin and body parts onto rodents,” it says.

They urged the state legislature to conduct a full investigation of the university, Planned Parenthood and other groups involved in the experiments.

“This ghastly finding is a product of Pitt’s systemic practices of using aborted babies for inhumane research,” they wrote. “Pitt has been involved in hundreds of fetal kidneys and other organs from aborted babies being distributed for research as part of a project funded by the National Institute of Health. Pitt has also had scientists harvesting fetal livers ‘in vivo’ from fetuses delivered via labor induction.”

Information in the video comes from public documents, including research published in scientific journals and on the National Institutes of Health website.

Action: Sign the open letter calling on the University of Pittsburgh to end its experiments on aborted babies and supporting a full investigation by the Pennsylvania General Assembly. source

 

 

Biden Ignoring Ukraine in Favor of Russia

Posted on by

The real hurt and consequence is Ukraine as you read on.

The Biden administration has waived sanctions on a company building a controversial gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.

The US also lifted sanctions on the executive – an ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin – who leads the firm behind the Nord Stream 2 project.

The move came in a report on Russian sanctions delivered to Congress by the Department of State.

Critics say the pipeline is a major geopolitical prize for the Kremlin.

The project, which would take gas from the Russian Arctic under the Baltic Sea to Germany, is already more than 95% complete.

The Department of State report notes that Nord Stream 2 AG and its chief executive, Matthias Warnig, a former East German intelligence officer, engaged in sanctionable activity.

Nord Stream 2: Biden waives US sanctions on Russian pipeline - BBC News

How it bypasses Ukraine further putting Ukraine into a financial crisis –>

Ukraine crisis: Europe's stored gas high as prices soar - BBC News

But it concludes that it is in the US national interest to waive the sanctions.

 

The Department of State also imposed sanctions on four Russian ships involved in the building of Nord Stream 2, though detractors said that would not be enough to stop the pipeline.

Meanwhile:

Ukrainians breathed a collective sigh of relief last month when Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would withdraw the majority of more than 100,000 troops that had been shifted to the Russian-Ukrainian border. So did the U.S., NATO and the rest of Europe.

But nobody should be breathing easy: Putin isn’t one to stay on the retreat. So, where should we expect his next provocation? Very likely, the waters of the Black Sea.

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and carved off the strategically vital peninsula of Crimea, the largest land grab from a sovereign state in this century. Since then, he has supplied money, training, arms and military advisers to separatist forces in the Donbas region of southeast Ukraine.

The recent buildup was probably a signal to the West of how relentless Putin will be on pressuring Ukraine, and of his deep opposition to it joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It was also a distraction from his persecution of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, and played well with Putin’s base in Russia, where his approval rating soared during the Crimea annexation. Finally, the buildup allowed the Russian military a pretty effective practice run, in case Putin does decide to roll the dice and invade across the border.

Although one should never underestimate Putin’s ability to surprise his geopolitical rivals, this doesn’t seem like the moment for a full-blown land incursion. Putin is already financially overextended with his overseas adventures. Reconstructing Syria will come with a huge bill. Support to Ukrainian separatists is expensive. He has a great appetite for expensive new weapons (militarizing space, for example). And he remains under significant sanctions from the West. source

***

Seems President Biden got the lobby memo to support Moscow.

OS: Biden has not made any moves that would prevent completion of the pipeline, which would transfer natural gas from Russia to Germany while bypassing Poland and Ukraine. That’s a win for both Berlin and Moscow. It’s also a win for Washington lobbyists.

Companies involved with the pipeline spent more than $1 million lobbying on sanctions and other issues related to the project through the first three months of 2021.

Nord Stream 2 AG spent $840,000 on lobbying in the first quarter of 2021, on pace to surpass its nearly $3.6 million lobbying spending last year. The Swiss firm is wholly-owned by Russia’s state-run energy firm Gazprom. Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s executive chairman, is longtime Putin ally, as is Nord Stream CEO Matthias Warnig.

The company spent $600,000 to dispatch Vincent Roberti, a top lobbyist and prolific Democratic donor. Roberti reported lobbying on “issues related to the U.S. position toward the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, including potential financial sanctions affecting the project.” The firm spent another $240,000 to dispatch BGR Group’s Walker Roberts, a former Republican staffer for foreign affairs congressional committees.

Other foreign firms are also dispatching lobbyists to advocate for the pipeline. Five foreign companies partnering on the project — Austria’s OMV AG, the Netherlands’ Shell International, France’s ENGIE, and Germany’s Wintershall and Uniper SE — hired lobbyists at McLarty Inbound to lobby the State Department and the National Security Council. They collectively paid the firm more than $840,000 for lobbying in 2020 and $210,000 in the first quarter of 2021.

McLarty managing partner Richard Burt, the former U.S. Ambassador to West Germany and a member of several influential Washington think-tanks, reported lobbying for a slate of foreign companies that have partnered on the project on “Russian sanctions issues” and “natural gas as an element of European energy security.” Burt donated $2,000 to Biden’s 2020 campaign and $10,000 to pro-Biden super PAC Unite the Country while he was a registered lobbyist for foreign companies partnering with Nord Stream on the pipeline. Biden’s campaign had not refunded Burt’s money at the time of publication, more than 6 months after the donations were given, despite pledging to reject lobbyist donations.

Because firms working for proponents of the pipeline registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act instead of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, details of which government officials the lobbyists met with remain hidden from the public.

Lobbyists for private entities that would otherwise be required to follow FARA disclosure requirements may choose to instead register under the LDA with the House Clerk’s Office and Secretary of the Senate so long as the “principal beneficiary” of the influence operation is not a foreign government or political party. Nord Stream is owned by a Russian state-run firm, but the Kremlin has insisted the pipeline is a “commercial project.”

Your Questions Ready when the UFO Report is Released?

Posted on by

The anticipation is growing as we wait for the report that is slated to be released June 1st. Take notes from the text below if you want some details beyond flying saucers and green people…

The sightings which are not only common in the United States but they too are reported by other countries across the globe. Will these sightings be fully explained? Not likely. So here is a primer for the reader to consider:

    1. We are often told that the weird things in the heavens above are weather balloons, so just accept that answer. Well, there are balloons in the skies and they are not commonly for weather. In fact, those balloons have some very secretive objectives.

      These high-altitude balloons are the property of Raven Aerostar, a division of Raven Industries, based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In recent years, Raven Aerostar has been known for its collaboration with Google’s parent company Alphabet in Project Loon, an ambitious venture intended to extend Internet access to rural areas. The “Loon balloons” were designed by Raven Aerostar to fly at high altitude for extremely long durations. Project Loon announced it would shut down in January this year, despite making significant technical strides. Since then, Raven Aerostar has continued to develop its balloon technologies for other sectors, notably in the realm of intelligence and defense.

      ADSBExchange.com

      The high altitude balloons as seen on flight trackers off Southern California. They have caught people’s attention especially due to the fact that they can stay on station for long periods of time, seemingly flying against the prevailing winds in the area.

      The vehicles appear to be derivatives of Raven Aerostar’s Thunderhead balloon system. The Thunderhead balloons are designed to be able to persist over an area of interest in order to carry out a wide variety of tasks. According to the company, common applications include intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions and acting as communications relays. Additionally, the balloons can also serve roles in augmenting navigational systems.

      Their recent appearance over both coasts of the United States appears to be a test of exactly this networking capability. Federal Communications Commissions records reflect an approved license for one of Raven Aerostar’s subsidiaries, Aerostar Technical Solutions, to fly balloons within a two hundred-mile radius around Vista, California from May 9th until May 30th this year.

      The stated purpose is to test networked radio systems, the Silvus 4400E and Silvus 4200E, on the high altitude balloons. Although the application only lists the California locations, further correspondence in FCC records show a conversation about permitting additional locations on the East Coast:

      Official Email

      The company appears to have aggressively pursued its balloon testing in recent years, with experimental radio license applications dating back until at least February 2020. Balloon tests had previously been approved and conducted across the Southeast and Southwest. For example, residents of Jackson, Mississippi may have noticed a meandering balloon track around May 4th this year. Click here for more crazy details.

       

    2. In December 2020, the government enacted the Intelligence Authorization Act, which called for the release of an unclassified and all-sources report on unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) — the official military term used for unidentified flying objects. The act was included in the mammoth appropriations bill that also included financial aid checks for people living with the economic fallout from Covid-19.The report will include a thorough analysis of
      1. Available data
      2. Intelligence reporting on UAPs

      It will be presented to the congressional intelligence and armed services committees on UAPs.

      When the Pentagon officially released the footage of the unidentified aircraft last year, the agency admitted that the videos aren’t exactly sure what is going on in the video, and that they cannot explain how the crafts are able to pull such maneuvers.

      It remains unclear whether the government believes these to be sightings of foreign aircrafts using technologies unfamiliar to the United States, or whether they believe the craft are not of this world.

What else should we be asking? Well, the military and the intelligence community has some exceptional tools that are helpful in this quest so we may wonder if they are used in processing this report. Tools such as Geo-Spatial, DARPA, and then the known and unknown tools of the Space Force.

There is spacial wide-and communications, satellites (beyond line of sight) and geospatial intelligence that could or should be exploited in this mission of identification.

But wait…there are non-government agencies as well that often contract to government agencies such as Maxar.

From a 2019 blog post on the Maxar site is the following for consideration:

The Space Safety Coalition (SSC) issued the “Best Practices for Sustainability of Space Operations.” This document, co-signed by 21 space companies, advocates that any spacecraft operating at 400 kilometers or more above Earth should include a propulsion system for maneuvering, allowing each spacecraft to move itself out of a potential collision path instead of relying on others to always maneuver around it, as well as a number of other common sense principles. This will create a safer space environment for all to operate in now and for generations to come.

Maxar Technologies fully endorses the “Best Practices for Sustainability of Space Operations” and encourages Congress to introduce legislation based on these best practices. Below is Maxar’s reasoning for supporting the “Endorsement of Best Practices for Sustainability of Space Operations.”

We rely on space for our everyday lives. Weather satellites enable us to forecast the next snowstorm, so we can stock up on food. GPS lets us navigate to a new destination, using maps that come from imaging satellites. GPS also provides the precise timing used for banking transactions and to make it possible for cell phones—and banking transactions—to work. And, of course, there is NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV.

Space is also a big place. To put this into context, between the lowest practical orbit (350 km above Earth’s surface) and geostationary orbit (100 times further up, at 35,000 km), the volume of “near Earth” space is about 270 times the volume of Earth! Current estimates indicate there’s 29,000 objects that are 4 inches or bigger being tracked in that space [1], so it seems like it would be pretty empty and we don’t have to worry about collisions, right?

Well, not exactly. There’s another aspect of space: orbital velocity. Satellites in space don’t stand still, but zip around in their orbits at high speed. In low earth orbit (closest to Earth’s gravitation pull), this is around 7.6 km/sec, or over 16,000 miles an hour! If two objects in space collide, it’s not a gentle nudge but rather a big resounding KABOOM. This results in a lot more small pieces of debris that need to be tracked. If you’re lucky, the collision may knock off a corner of your solar array, like happened when Maxar’s WorldView-2 satellite was hit back in 2016 by a small piece of debris. Fortunately, this had no impact on WorldView-2’s ability to operate. If you’re unlucky, you get a collision like the one between a defunct Russian Cosmos satellite and an Iridium communications satellite back in 2009, which was responsible for nearly doubling the amount of debris in that orbital band.

I’ve mentioned there are about 29,000 tracked objects in space. But there are a lot more pieces too small to track – an estimated 166 million pebble sized pieces [1] are zipping around in space.

While the probability of one of these pieces hitting a satellite is small (on the order of a million to one chance), each collision makes the problem worse. There’s actually a term for this, the Kessler Syndrome, in which each collision makes the problem exponentially worse. We don’t want that to happen, because if it did, it could make certain regions of near Earth space completely unusable for satellites or humans.

Fortunately, we’re quite a long time away from space becoming unusable. Companies are creating new ways to track objects on orbit, including a new commercial solution Maxar is testing, which is the first step in containing the space debris problem. But space, similar to other common areas (like the oceans), requires responsible actions by all space operators to keep it usable for future generations. This is where rules of the road come in, and I’d like to lay out a few common sense ones:

  • Propulsion. Spacecraft operating above 400 km altitude should be required to carry propulsion to executive timely and effective avoidance maneuvers. It’s simply not acceptable for a satellite operator to place the burden of avoiding a collision on other satellite operators; it’s everyone’s responsibility. This is why SSC‘s “Best Practices for Sustainability of Space Operations” advocates for spacecraft operators to adopt space operations concepts that enhance sustainability of the space environment. Why 400 kilometers? It’s a natural dividing line; the International Space Station operates at 403 km altitude (nobody wants to see the movie “Gravity” played out in real life), and below 400 km, atmospheric drag is enough to make those orbits “self-cleaning” (see below).
  • Encryption. Satellites with propulsion should be required to have encryption and authentication on their command link, to ensure that only the satellite operator can control how the propulsion is used. We don’t want a hacker to take control of a satellite and maneuver it into the path of another one to cause an intentional collision.
  • Navigation. Satellites with propulsion should be able to determine their position, and the operators of these satellites should be required to share this position data (along with any planned maneuvers) with a central repository, such as the Combined Space Operations Center (formerly known as the Joint Space Operations Center [JSpOC]), to facilitate safe navigation by all satellite operators. The U.S. government is working on a plan to move this repository to a civilian agency, such as the U.S. Department of Commerce, to enable a more open and accessible repository for all global satellite operators. This is akin to the use of automatic identification system (AIS) transponders in ocean-going vessels, which broadcast their location to other ships using AIS to enable safe navigation, and the data is available publicly online.
  • Littering. Satellites and launch vehicles need to be designed so they do not throw off debris during or after launch. While already largely adopted, it’s important that launch providers and space operators have a plan to deorbit launch materials at the end of their life or move them to a safe orbit that’s out of the way and won’t have collision risks.

We could, however, designate the region below 400 km altitude as an “experimental” zone where the above requirements would not be imposed. These orbits are low enough that any debris will tend to reenter Earth’s atmosphere, burning up within weeks to months, making them much less of a concern. And few, if any, commercial or government satellites operate at those altitudes. Leaving the below-400 km region available without the above restrictions makes operating in space still affordable for operators of the growing number of inexpensive, experimental or educational cubesats.

The commercial and government use of space is accelerating rapidly. It’s time we have a way to regulate space traffic, just like how traffic on Earth is controlled. Even though the first gas-powered automobile was created in the 1880s, it took until the 1910s (three decades!) to bring some sensibility to who had the right-of-way on the road with the invention of the stop light.

Maxar along with the other co-signers of the SSC believe it’s time to bring sensibility to space. We’re asking the U.S. space industry to unite behind these best practices and talk to their senators and representatives about introducing legislation that reflect these best practices. We ask our international industry partners to bring these ideas to their respective governments for consideration. The “Best Practices for Sustainability of Space Operations” is a starting point to getting rules of the road established in space – but, in the big picture, all four common sense principles I’ve outlined above need to be implemented to keep space a safe environment available now and in the years to come.

 

Anyone Notice the Battle for the Arctic?

Posted on by

The Pentagon has a civilian advisory committee where retired flag officers meet and discuss global and domestic conflicts, research them and then present those items to key Pentagon personnel. The question is, do any discussions include the battle for the Arctic?

When General Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense says that climate change and white supremacy are the biggest existential threat to the homeland…others for sure are arguing other real threats and that includes the Arctic.

Back in March of 2018, testimony was presented the Senate Armed Services Committee by commanders of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, the U.S. European Command and the Coast Guard Commandant that the Russian footprint in the Arctic has robustly surpassed that of the United States.

In part:

The U.S. lacks abilities
Despite a change in rhetoric, the facts on the ground remain the same: The U.S. is falling further and further behind in the region, operating a single aging polar-class icebreaker.

“The Arctic is the only theater of operations where the U.S. Navy is outclassed by a peer competitor. Russian surface warships have demonstrated the ability to carry out complex combined operations in the High North, while the American Navy maintains a policy that only submarines operate above the Bering Strait. Are submarines enough of a deterrence? Probably. But I don’t think they provide the real presence needed to assert the U.S.’ rights to the opening Arctic,” Holland explains.

Any reaction by the U.S. to catch up in the Arctic comes about 10 years to late, says Huebert. “Yes, as the current ICEX military exercise shows U.S. submarines have the capability of patrolling the Arctic and surfacing through the ice, but what is lacking are the constabulary capabilities in the form of surface vessels and icebreakers.”

Is the U.S. Waking up?
After more than a decade of lobbying by the U.S. Coast Guard to secure funds to construct a new icebreaker, the agency may finally make progress on this front. Congress’ upcoming appropriations bill is likely to include funding to design and construct a new icebreaker. Still, this falls way short of what would be needed, says Holland. “That is good, but it is late, and there’s no commitment to build the three to five more [icebreakers] that is estimated we’ll need. Nor is there any thought about designing the Navy’s ships of the future so they can operate in the High North.”

Holland hopes that the change in rhetoric marks a newfound seriousness by America’s military leadership about the rapidly growing challenges in the Arctic. This also includes China’s emergence as an Arctic power and its desire to utilize the NSR as its own Polar Silk Road as laid out in its newly-released Arctic strategy.

“These countries have a clear strategic vision for what they want out of the Arctic. As do European Arctic states. It’s time for the U.S. to stand up for its rights and responsibilities as an Arctic nation.” More here.

Why is this even a topic for real?

President Vladimir Putin in recent years has made Russia’s Arctic region a strategic priority and ordered investment in military infrastructure and mineral extraction.

Moscow: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday warned Western countries against staking claims in the Arctic ahead of this week’s Arctic Council meeting in Reykjavik.

The Arctic in recent years has become the site of geopolitical competition between the countries that form the Arctic Council (Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland) as global warming makes the region more accessible.

A ministerial meeting of the eight-country council will take place on Wednesday and Thursday.

“It has been absolutely clear for everyone for a long time that this is our territory, this is our land,” Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow.

“We are responsible for ensuring our Arctic coast is safe,” he said.

“Let me emphasise once again — this is our land and our waters,” he added.

“But when NATO tries to justify its advance into the Arctic, this is probably a slightly different situation and here we have questions for our neighbours like Norway who are trying to justify the need for NATO to come into the Arctic.”

The United States in February sent strategic bombers to train in Norway as part of Western efforts to bolster its military presence in the region.

For the first time since the 1980s, the US Navy deployed an aircraft carrier in the Norwegian Sea in 2018.

President Vladimir Putin in recent years has made Russia’s Arctic region a strategic priority and ordered investment in military infrastructure and mineral extraction.

As ice cover in the Arctic decreases, Russia is hoping to make use of the Northern Sea Route shipping channel to export oil and gas to overseas markets.

Lavrov will meet with his US counterpart Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the Arctic Council ministerial meeting in a test of Moscow’s strained relationship with Washington.

Despite mounting tensions, Russia and the United States during climate negotiations earlier this year noted the Arctic as an area of cooperation.

Three Russian ballistic missile submarines participated in Arctic training drills near the North Pole, and the Russian Ministry of Defense shared footage on Friday of the submarines bursting through the ice.
The drills entailed Russian submarines breaching the ice and Russian troops conducting cold-weather ground maneuvers on the open ice. A pair of MiG-31 Foxhound jet interceptors also flew over the Arctic, with support from an Il-78 aerial refueling tanker. According to Russia’s Navy, about 600 Russian military personnel and civilian personnel were present and about 200 models of Russian weapons and military equipment were involved. Source
An officer speaks on walkie-talkie as the Bastion anti-ship missile systems take positions on the Alexandra Land island near Nagurskoye, Russia, Monday, May 17, 2021. Bristling with missiles and radar, Russia’s northernmost military base projects the country’s power and influence across the Arctic from a remote, desolate island amid an intensifying international competition for the region’s vast resources. Russia’s northernmost military outpost sits on the 80th parallel North, projecting power over wide swathes of Arctic amid an intensifying international rivalry over the polar region’s vast resources. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

For a scary photo essay of the Russians in the Arctic, click here.

 

So while it appears that nobody is really heeding these warnings, yet another discussion was held in 2019 at the Aspen Security Conference. Here the Pentagon released a new Arctic strategy document challenging and addressing the gains made by China and Russia in the Arctic region.

Moscow is deploying more resources northwards and investing in Arctic-capable forces, while Beijing has declared itself a “near-Arctic” power. The U.S. is moving to meet this challenge and give the region more prominence in its strategic planning.

Schultz said the U.S. “should be concerned about Russia, who is way ahead of us in this game, and the emerging aggressive China, who is pushing into the game.” He noted that while Americans may “think about the Arctic as a very faraway place,” the “Russian world view is very much based on the Arctic.”

A “polar security cutter” is currently under construction for the Coast Guard, effectively a militarized ice breaker. Its order demonstrates the U.S military pivot towards the Arctic and an effort to close the gap with its rivals, particularly Russia. More here.

In part of that released strategy document is the following:

NDS goals and priorities guide DoD’s strategic approach to the Arctic.The Joint Force must be able to deter, and if necessary, defeat great power aggression. DoD must prioritize efforts to address the central problem the NDS identifies–i.e., the Joint Force’s eroding competitive edge against China and Russia,and the NDS imperative to ensure favorable regional balances of power in the Indo–Pacific and Europe. Developing a more lethal, resilient, agile, and ready Joint Force will ensure that our military sustains its competitive advantages, not only for these key regions of strategic competition, but globally as well.Maintaining a credible deterrent for the Arctic region requires DoD to understand and shape the Arctic’s geo–strategic landscape for future operations and to respond effectively to contingencies in the Arctic region, both independently and in cooperation with others. DoD’s strategic approach seeks to do so by implementing three ways in support of thedesired Arctic end–state(each described in detail in this document):

•Building Arctic awareness;

•Enhancing Arctic operations;and

•Strengthening the rules–based order in the Arctic

Read the full 19 page document here.

 

At Least 18 Scientists Demand Lab Leak Investigation on Covid

Posted on by

Primer: Who is Dr. Ralph Baric and what is his role in the Wuhan lab?

UNC-CH ranks as a world leader in COVID-19 research - here ...

This page lists documents in Professor Ralph Baric’s emails, which U.S. Right to Know obtained via a public records request. Dr. Baric is a coronavirus expert at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC). He has developed genetic techniques to enhance the pandemic potential of existing bat coronaviruses in collaboration with Dr. Zhengli Shi at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and with EcoHealth Alliance.

The emails show internal discussions and an early draft of a key scientists’ letter about coronavirus origins, and shed some light on relationships between U.S. and Chinese experts in biodefense and infectious diseases, and the roles of organizations such as EcoHealth Alliance and National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

Please email anything of interest we may have missed to [email protected], so that we can include them below.

Items from Baric emails

  1. Tracy McNamara, Professor of Pathology at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California wrote on March 25, 2020: : “The Federal govt has spent over $1 billion dollars in support of the Global Health Security Agenda to help developing nations create the capacity to detect/report/respond to pandemic threats. An additional $200 million was spent on the PREDICT project via USAID looking for emerging viruses in bats, rats and monkeys overseas. And now the Global Virome Project wants $1.5 billion dollars to run around the world hunting down every virus on the face of the earth. They will probably get funding. But none of these programs have made taxpayers safer right here at home.” (emphasis in the original)
  2. Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Vice President for Science and Outreach at EcoHealth Alliance, sought guidance for a request from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) about communicating “potentially sensitive dual-use information” (March 2018).
  3. EcoHealth Alliance paid Dr. Baric an undisclosed sum as honorarium (January 2018).
  4. Invitation to U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) U.S. China Dialogue and Workshop on the Challenges of Emerging Infections, Laboratory Safety, Global Health Security and Responsible Conduct in the Use of Gene Editing in Viral Infectious Disease Research, Harbin, China, Jan 8-10, 2019 (November 2018-January 2019). Preparatoryemails and a travel memorandum indicate the identities of the American participants.
  5. NAS invitation to a meeting of U.S. and Chinese experts working to counter infectious disease and improve global health (November 2017). The meeting was convened by the NAS and the Galveston National Laboratory. It took place on January 16-18, 2018, in Galveston, Texas. A travel memorandum indicates the identities of the American participants. Subsequent emails show that the WIV’s Dr. Zhengli Shi is present at the meeting.
  6. On February 27, 2020, Baric wrote, “at this moment the most likely origins are bats, and I note that it is a mistake to assume that an intermediate host is needed.”
  7. On March 5, 2020, Baric wrote, “there is absolutely no evidence that this virus is bioengineered.”

For more information

A link to Professor Ralph Baric’s emails can be found here:Baric emails (~83,416 pages)

U.S. Right to Know is posting documents from our Biohazards investigation. See:FOI documents on origins of SARS-CoV-2, hazards of gain-of-function research and biosafety labs.

NR:

For well over a year, a certain clique of researchers tarred the idea that COVID-19 initially escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan as a conspiracy theory. Now, their grip on that narrative within the scientific community is loosening, as a growing chorus of experts calls for a closer look at this lab-leak hypothesis.

In a letter published this afternoon at Science, 18 scientists call for an investigation into the pandemic’s origins that does not discount the possibility of a lab leak. “Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable,” they write. “Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks.”

These researchers include Dr. Ralph Baric, a leading coronavirus expert who has done research on bat coronaviruses with Dr. Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and several other prominent virologists. They have joined the WHO director-general, top intelligence officials, and other U.S. government experts in asserting that such a leak remains a possible explanation, despite a joint WHO-China study’s findings that such a theory is “extremely unlikely.” Like the Biden administration and 13 other countries that signed onto a U.S.-led statement after the report’s release, they raise concerns about how the panel reached its findings. Their letter comes as members of Congress have started to ramp up their scrutiny of a potential lab-leak origin. Already, the scientists’ letter has caught the attention of lawmakers involved in COVID investigation efforts, with Representatives Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Brett Guthrie, and Morgan Griffith, saying in a statement, “We look forward to working with them and all who will follow the science in order to complete this investigation.”

Jamie Metzl, an adviser to the WHO and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, explained the letter’s significance on Twitter. “The chokehold on public consideration of an accidental lab incident as a possible #pandemic origin has just been broken. Following publication of the Science letter, it will be irresponsible for any scientific journal or news outlet to not fully represent this viable hypothesis.”

The Science letter finds the joint WHO-China report lacking and evaluates the likelihood of the different origin theories that the panel assessed: “Although there were no findings in clear support of either a natural spillover or a lab accident, the team assessed a zoonotic spillover from an intermediate host as ‘likely to very likely, and a laboratory incident as ‘extremely unlikely.’”

The authors of the letters add, “Furthermore, the two theories were not given balanced consideration. Only 4 of the 313 pages of the report and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory accident.”

The letter doesn’t claim that the lab-leak hypothesis is more credible than the zoonotic origin theory. It’s notable, however, that a letter in a major scientific journal is putting these two theories on equal footing.

The Lancet, another journal, rejected a letter submitted by 14 biologists and geneticists in January arguing that “a lab origin cannot be formally discarded.”

Some figures associated with The Lancet have called the lab-leak scenario a conspiracy theory, including Jeffrey Sachs, the chair of the medical journal’s COVID commission, and Peter Daszak, the chair of the commission’s sub-committee on COVID’s origins. Daszak, whose nonprofit research group received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the National Institutes of Health for studies on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was a member of the joint WHO-China panel and has faced accusations that he failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest.

Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University chemical biology professor, told National Review last month that their efforts helped to create the false impression that there is a scientific consensus against the possibility of a lab-leak origin. “No such consensus existed then. No such consensus exists now,” he said.

This latest entry into the debate, in the pages of a preeminent scientific journal, shows that the ground is shifting away from a hollow narrative that has been all-too pervasive since the start of the pandemic.