Coronavirus: Thread

[grarpamp]

Putting VECTOR and DETRICK to shame...



NIH Officials Allowed EcoHealth Alliance To Self-Police Risky
Gain-Of-Function Experiments In Wuhan

https://www.whitecoatwaste.org/
https://twitter.com/gdemaneuf
https://theintercept.com/2021/11/03/coronavirus-research-ecohealth-nih-emails/
https://republicans-energycommerce.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021.10.27-Letter-to-NIH.pdf
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21055989-understanding-risk-bat-coronavirus-emergence-grant-notice
https://www.scribd.com/embeds/537234609

A cache of newly released communications reveals that the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) allowed nonprofit genetic engineering firm
EcoHealth Alliance to police its own risky research on bat
coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.

According to FOIA documents obtained by WhiteCoatWaste, The Intercept,
and the House Energy & Commerce Committee, NIH officials were
concerned about risky research being done at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology on a US grant.

As The Intercept notes:

    Detailed notes on NIH communications obtained by The Intercept
show that beginning in May 2016, agency staff had an unusual exchange
with Peter Daszak, the head of EcoHealth Alliance, about experiments
his group was planning to conduct on coronaviruses under an NIH grant
called “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” The
notes were taken by congressional staff who transcribed the emails.

    EcoHealth was entering the third year of the five-year, $3.1
million grant that included research with the Wuhan Institute of
Virology and other partners. In a 2016 progress report, the group
described to NIH its plans to carry out two planned experiments
infecting humanized mice with hybrid viruses, known as “chimeras.”

NIH staff members Jenny Greer - a grants management specialist, and
Erik Stemmy - a program officer in charge of COVID research, both
expressed concern over the risky experiments - telling EcoHealth that
their experiments "appear to involve research covered under the
pause," referring to an Obama-era moratorium on gain-of-function
research that could be reasonably assumed to make MERS and SARS
viruses more transmissible in mammals.

One of EcoHealth's experiments involved using genetic engineering to
create chimeric MERS viruses, while another experiment used
bat-virus-derived chimears related to SARS. According to the report,
the researchers infected humanized mice with the altered viruses.

Disturbingly, after the two NIH staff members voiced concerns over
Gain-of-Function research, the agency allowed EcoHealth to dictate its
own definition of GoF, exonerating itself of doing 'risky' research.
The NIH inserted several obscure reporting requirements suggested by
EcoHealth that moved the goalposts of what constitutes GoF.

Of note, The Intercept writes that while the experiments demonstrate a
lack of oversight and present dangers to public health, "none of the
viruses involved in the work are related closely enough to SARS-CoV-2
to have sparked the pandemic," according to several scientists
contacted by the outlet.

In December 2017, GoF research resumed - as long as it adhered to
newly created "Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight," or
P3CO. That said, language crafted by EcoHealth CEO Peter Daszak helped
the nonprofit evade oversight once again.

    In July 2018, NIAID program officers decided that the experiments
on humanized mice — which had been conducted a few months earlier —
would get a pass from these restrictions as long as EcoHealth Alliance
immediately notified appropriate agency officials according to the
circumstances that the group had laid out.

    While it is not unusual for grantees to communicate with their
federal program officers, the negotiation of this matter did not
appropriately reflect the gravity of the situation, according to Jesse
Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
“The discussions reveal that neither party is taking the risks
sufficiently seriously,” said Bloom. “MERS-CoV has killed hundreds of
people and is thought to pose a pandemic risk, so it’s difficult to
see how chimeras of MERS-CoV with other high risk bat coronaviruses
shouldn’t also be considered a pandemic risk.” -The Intercept

"It’s absolutely outrageous," said Pasteur Institute virologist, Simon
Wain-Hobson. "The NIH is bending over backward to help people it’s
funded. It isn’t clear that the NIH is protecting the U.S. taxpayer."

Semantics

In a June 8, 2016 response to NIH concerns, Daszak wrote that because
EcoHealth's proposed chimeric viruses were 'significantly different'
from SARS, the experiments weren't considered GoF, and should not be
restricted.

He wrote that WIV1, the parent of the proposed chimeric SARS-based
virus, "has never been demonstrated to infect humans or cause human
disease," adding that previous research "strongly suggests that the
chimeric bat spike/bat backbone viruses should not have enhanced
pathogenicity in animals."

What's more, Daszak 'gave his group a way out' according to the report.

    If the recombinant viruses grew more quickly than the original
viruses on which they were based, he suggested, EcoHealth Alliance and
its collaborators would immediately stop its research and inform their
NIAID program officer. Specifically, he suggested a threshold beyond
which his researchers would not go: If the novel SARS or MERS chimeras
showed evidence of enhanced virus growth greater than 1 log (or 10
times) over the original viruses and grow more efficiently in human
lung cells, the scientist would immediately stop their experiments
with the mutant viruses and inform their NIAID program officer. -The
Intercept

The NIH accepted that on its face - with Greer and Stemmy formally
accepting it in a July 7 letter noting that the chimeric viruses were
"not reasonably anticipated" to "have enhanced pathogenicity and/or
transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route."

According to virologist Jesse Bloom, EcoHealth's argument that their
research did not pose a risk of infection is in contradiction to their
justification for the work.

"The entire rationale of EcoHealth’s grant renewal on SARS-related
CoVs is that viruses with spikes substantially (10-25%) diverged from
SARS-CoV-1 pose a pandemic risk," said Bloom. "Given that this is the
entire rationale for the work, how can they simultaneously argue these
viruses should not be regulated as potential pandemic pathogens?"

House GOP

Also interested in the latest release is the House Committee on Energy
and Commerce, who wrote a letter to NIH Director Francis Collins
looking for answers.

Summarizing key points is Twitter user @gdemaneuf, with entire letter
embedded below.

    Letters which have not been made public (why?) but for which HHS
arranged an 'in camera' review of printed copies by a bipartisan
Committee, at HHS headquarters on Oct 5 and monitored by HHS staff.

    See particularly pages 6 and 7: pic.twitter.com/Wpa2RmEfOl
    — Gilles Demaneuf (@gdemaneuf) November 3, 2021

    They got way with it on rather specious grounds.
    No proper risk evaluation, instead a focus on arbitrary
definitions which used and abused give an easy free pass.

    (Thanks God, nuclear power stations are not managed with such
casuistic principles - or we would all be long gone).
pic.twitter.com/lksolkTZtv
    — Gilles Demaneuf (@gdemaneuf) November 3, 2021

    Clause which was then just ignored.

    Neither EHA nor the NIH paid attention to it when despite all the
windy reassurances of EHA, spike experiments with SHC014 produced more
than 3 logs of comparative growth (x1000, well beyond the limit of
x10). pic.twitter.com/zsIMo9iLvR
    — Gilles Demaneuf (@gdemaneuf) November 3, 2021

    Fauci has previously stated that:

    "the benefits of such experiments [--] outweigh the risks. It is
more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature, and the need to
stay ahead of such a threat is a primary reason for performing an
experiment that might appear to be risky." pic.twitter.com/0xvjLns80K
    — Gilles Demaneuf (@gdemaneuf) November 3, 2021

    But it may be time to remind him of what he wrote next to that
statement, because it seems that it has totally forgotten about
it:https://t.co/QLaDp4zGtU pic.twitter.com/TF77styfJ0
    — Gilles Demaneuf (@gdemaneuf) November 3, 2021