Newly released internal documents from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany’s federal disease control and prevention agency, reveal a stark disconnect between expert knowledge and public health messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stefan Homburg, a public finance expert and retired professor from Leibniz University of Hanover, brought “seven shocking RKI files” to the attention of the English-speaking world in a video published June 19.
The January 2020 to April 2021 documents suggest that scientific advisers tailored their COVID-19 medical and policy recommendations to align with political directives rather than available evidence.
Commenting on Homburg’s video, former Pfizer Vice President Michael Yeadon, called the political interference with RKI’s scientific analysis and recommendations “appalling” and RKI’s continuing compliance “cowardly.”
‘This event was wholly political’
RKI played a pivotal role in shaping the country’s COVID-19 response. The recently disclosed files include internal meeting minutes from the agency’s crisis management team.
RKI subsequently made over 2,500 mostly unredacted pages publicly available on May 30, citing “public interest in the content of the COVID-19 crisis team protocols.”
According to the RKI’s introduction to the released files, the minutes “reflect the open scientific discourse in which different perspectives are addressed and weighed up.”
The institute cautioned that individual statements in the documents “do not necessarily represent a coordinated position of the RKI and are not always understandable without knowledge of the context.”
Yeadon wrote, “I don’t think there’s an equivalent document which admits repeatedly that this event was wholly POLITICAL and decisions entirely driven by non-technically qualified political people at the top of government.”
‘Experts knew this but stated the opposite’
Homburg discussed how the RKI documents expose several discrepancies between internal expert discussions and public health messaging:
COVID-19 severity: Contrary to public messaging, internal discussions suggested COVID-19 might be less severe than typical influenza. “More people die in a normal influenza wave,” one entry reads. “The main risk of dying of COVID-19 is age.”
“Right — 83 years to be precise, in Germany,” Homburg said.
“Rather, the public was fooled and forced for years to wear FFP2 masks,” Homburg said.
School closures: Experts recommended school closures only in heavily affected areas. “School closures in areas that are not particularly affected are not recommended,” the documents state.
However, Homburg observed, “In the same week, politicians decided to close all German schools for months.”
Vaccine effectiveness and herd immunity: As early as January 2021, RKI experts questioned the propaganda around herd immunity. One entry reads, “Are we saying goodbye to the narrative of herd immunity through vaccination?”
“Pfizer’s preceding clinical trial had not demonstrated protection against serious illness and they had not even tested protection against transmission,” Homburg pointed out. “The experts knew this but stated the opposite in public and even before our courts.”
Vaccine side effects: One file reveals concerns about serious side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine. “Sinus thrombosis is a side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine,” the document states. “There is also a 20-fold increased incidence in men.”
Homburg alleged that shortly after this statement, “German politicians pretended to get the AstraZeneca vaccine.” He showed images of various newspapers announcing vaccinations by Chancellor Angela Merkel, Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach and others.
Despite this internal acknowledgment, Homburg noted, “The experts did not inform the population about this danger, but insisted that AstraZeneca was safe and effective.”
‘Corona was a singular fraud’
The documents reveal a concerning level of political influence on scientific recommendations. One entry starkly illustrates this pressure: “Still high risk, order from the Federal Health Ministry: nothing will be changed until the first of July.”
This directive apparently led to pushing high-risk assessments despite declining case numbers. Homburg argued that this political interference helped the continuation of pandemic mandates.
“In fact, nothing was changed for three years,” he said. “To recall, in summer 2020, Corona cases were approaching zero and the public wanted a halt to the measures.”
The files also expose the experts’ fears of losing their advisory roles if they didn’t comply with political directives. One entry reads, “If the RKI does not comply with the political requirement, there is a risk that political decisionmakers will develop indicators themselves and/or no longer involve the RKI in similar assignments.”
“Corona was a singular fraud,” Homburg concluded. “The virus replaced influenza while the total number of illnesses remained unchanged.”
German politicians divided on response
The documents’ release ignited a fierce debate about the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, reaching the German Bundestag. The following is adapted from Schreyer’s April 30 report on Radio Munich (translated from German).
On April 24, 2024, the Parliament deliberated on a motion by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) parliamentary group to establish a commission of inquiry to review the Corona period. The proposed commission would examine the limits of intervention rights of state and federal governments and review the roles of relevant actors such as RKI.
The debate revealed deep divisions among political parties. The AfD and Free Democratic Party (FDP) supported the establishment of an inquiry commission, while the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Green parties (also called Alliance 90) opposed it, arguing for alternative approaches such as a citizens’ council. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) faction suggested a federal-state working group instead.
Some politicians expressed concerns about the RKI files. CDU member Simone Borchardt argued that the handling of the RKI documents — first releasing them with redactions, then later allowing access to unredacted versions — suggested a deliberate attempt to control or limit information.
The debate also touched on broader issues, with some calling for amnesty for citizens who violated lockdown measures. Others warned against seeking scapegoats or spreading “half-baked conspiracy ideas.”
Since Schreyer’s report, the political landscape in Germany has shifted significantly. The June 2024 European parliamentary elections saw a decline in support for the governing coalition parties, while the far-right AfD made substantial gains, likely strengthening the position of those critical of the government’s pandemic response.
Yeadon called for increased activism to bring more attention to Homburg’s and Schreyer’s revelations, especially in light of the recent “drumbeat of ‘avian influenza’” or bird flu.
“This task cannot be left to a small number of us with the information, because we are so effectively gagged in relation to reaching large numbers of people that the perpetrators are no longer concerned about us speaking out,” he wrote.
From 1996 to 2003, he served on the Scientific Advisory Board at Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance. He also was a member of the Federalism Commission of the Bundestag and Bundesrat from 2003 to 2004, and the Sustainability Council of the Federal Government from 2004 to 2007.
He authored several textbooks on macroeconomics and tax theory and has been regularly called upon as an expert for Bundestag hearings on tax and financial legislation.
Homburg was generally regarded favorably in the press until 2020 when he began questioning Germany’s pandemic policies. Since then, he has written scientific articles and blog posts on the coronavirus crisis and related topics, published podcasts and participated in interviews and talk shows.
The US Supreme Court has ruled in the hotly-awaited decision for the Murthy v. Missouri case, reinforcing the government’s ability to engage with social media companies concerning the removal of speech about COVID-19 and more. This decision, affirming that these actions do not infringe upon First Amendment rights, delineates the limits of free speech on the internet, dealing a massive blow to freedom of expression online and the interpretation that the First Amendment prevents the government from pressuring platforms to remove legal speech.
The verdict, decided by a 6-3 vote, found that the plaintiffs lacked the standing to sue the Biden administration. The dissenting opinions came from conservative justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch.
John Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel at NCLA, responded to the ruling, telling Reclaim The Net, “The majority of the Supreme Court has declared open season on Americans’ free speech rights on the internet,” referring to the decision as an “ukase” that permits the federal government to influence third-party platforms to silence dissenting voices. Vecchione accused the Court of ignoring evidence and abdicating its responsibility to hold the government accountable for its actions that crush free speech.
Jenin Younes, another Litigation Counsel at NCLA, echoed Vecchione’s sentiments, labeling the decision a “travesty for the First Amendment” and a setback for the pursuit of scientific knowledge. “The Court has green-lighted the government’s unprecedented censorship regime,” Younes commented, reflecting concerns that the ruling might stifle expert voices on crucial public health and policy issues.
Further expressing the gravity of the situation, Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya, a client of NCLA and a professor at Stanford University, criticized the Biden Administration’s regulatory actions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Bhattacharya argued that these actions led to “irrational policies” and noted, “Free speech is essential to science, to public health, and to good health.” He called for congressional action and a public movement to restore and protect free speech rights in America.
This ruling comes as a setback to efforts supported by many who argue that the administration, together with federal agencies, is pushing social media platforms to suppress voices by labeling their content as misinformation.
Previously, a judge in Louisiana had criticized the federal agencies for acting like an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.” However, during the Supreme Court’s oral arguments, it was argued by the government that their requests for social media platforms to address “misinformation” more rigorously did not constitute threats or imply any legal repercussions – despite the looming threat of antitrust action against Big Tech.
Here are the key points and specific quotes from the decision:
Lack of Article III Standing: The Supreme Court held that neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs established the necessary standing to seek an injunction against government defendants. The decision emphasizes the fundamental requirement of a “case or controversy” under Article III, which necessitates that plaintiffs demonstrate an injury that is “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly traceable to the challenged action; and redressable by a favorable ruling” (Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U. S. 398, 409).
Inadequate Traceability and Future Harm: The plaintiffs failed to convincingly link past social media restrictions and government communications with the platforms. The decision critiques the Fifth Circuit’s approach, noting that the evidence did not conclusively show that government actions directly caused the platforms’ moderation decisions. The Court pointed out: “Because standing is not dispensed in gross, plaintiffs must demonstrate standing for each claim they press” against each defendant, “and for each form of relief they seek” (TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U. S. 413, 431).The complexity arises because the platforms had “independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment.”
Absence of Direct Causation: The Court noted that the platforms began suppressing COVID-19 content before the defendants’ challenged communications began, indicating a lack of direct government coercion: “Complicating the plaintiffs’ effort to demonstrate that each platform acted due to Government coercion, rather than its own judgment, is the fact that the platforms began to suppress the plaintiffs’ COVID–19 content before the defendants’ challenged communications started.”
Redressability and Ongoing Harm: The plaintiffs argued they suffered from ongoing censorship, but the Court found this unpersuasive. The platforms continued their moderation practices even as government communication subsided, suggesting that future government actions were unlikely to alter these practices: “Without evidence of continued pressure from the defendants, the platforms remain free to enforce, or not to enforce, their policies—even those tainted by initial governmental coercion.”
“Right to Listen” Theory Rejected: The Court rejected the plaintiffs’ “right to listen” argument, stating that the First Amendment interest in receiving information does not automatically confer standing to challenge someone else’s censorship: “While the Court has recognized a ‘First Amendment right to receive information and ideas,’ the Court has identified a cognizable injury only where the listener has a concrete, specific connection to the speaker.”
The case revolved around allegations that the federal government, led by figures such as Dr. Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General, (though also lots more Biden administration officials) colluded with major technology companies to suppress speech on social media platforms. The plaintiffs argue that this collaboration targeted content labeled as “misinformation,” particularly concerning COVID-19 and political matters, effectively silencing dissenting voices.
The plaintiffs claim that this coordination represents a direct violation of their First Amendment rights. They argue that while private companies can set their own content policies, government pressure that leads to the suppression of lawful speech constitutes unconstitutional censorship by proxy.
The government’s campaign against what it called “misinformation,” particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic – regardless of whether online statements turned out to be true or not – has been extensive.
However, Murthy v. Missouri exposed a darker side to these initiatives—where government officials allegedly overstepped their bounds by coercing tech companies to silence specific narratives.
Communications presented in court, including emails and meeting records, suggest a troubling pattern: government officials not only requested but demanded that tech companies remove or restrict certain content. The tone and content of these communications often implied serious consequences for non-compliance, raising questions about the extent to which these actions were voluntary versus compelled.
Tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have become the de facto public squares of the modern era, wielding immense power over what information is accessible to the public. Their content moderation policies, while designed to combat harmful content, have also been criticized for their lack of transparency and potential biases.
In this case, plaintiffs argued that these companies, under significant government pressure, went beyond their standard moderation practices. They allegedly engaged in the removal, suppression, and demotion of content that, although controversial, was not illegal. This raises a critical issue: the thin line between moderation and censorship, especially when influenced by government directives.
The Supreme Court ruling holds significant implications for the relationship between government actions and private social media platforms, as well as for the legal frameworks that govern free speech and content moderation.
Here are some of the broader impacts this ruling may have:
Clarification on Government Influence and Private Action: This decision clearly delineates the limits of government involvement in the content moderation practices of private social media platforms. It underscores that mere governmental encouragement or indirect pressure does not transform private content moderation into state action. This ruling could make it more challenging for future plaintiffs to claim that content moderation decisions, influenced indirectly by government suggestions or pressures, are tantamount to governmental censorship.
Stricter Standards for Proving Standing: The Supreme Court’s emphasis on the necessity of concrete and particularized injuries directly traceable to the challenged government action sets a high bar for future litigants. Plaintiffs must now provide clear evidence that directly links government actions to the moderation practices that allegedly infringe on their speech rights. This could lead to fewer successful challenges against perceived government-induced censorship on digital platforms.
Impact on Content Moderation Policies: Social media platforms may feel more secure in enforcing their content moderation policies without fear of being seen as conduits for state action, as long as their decisions can be justified as independent from direct government coercion. This could lead to more assertive actions by platforms in moderating content deemed harmful or misleading, especially in critical areas like public health and election integrity.
Influence on Public Discourse: By affirming the autonomy of social media platforms in content moderation, the ruling potentially influences the nature of public discourse on these platforms. While platforms may continue to engage with government entities on issues like misinformation, they might do so with greater caution and transparency to avoid allegations of government coercion.
Future Legal Challenges and Policy Discussions: The ruling could prompt legislative responses, as policymakers may seek to address perceived gaps between government interests in combating misinformation and the protection of free speech on digital platforms. This may lead to new laws or regulations that more explicitly define the boundaries of acceptable government interaction with private companies in managing online content.
Broader Implications for Digital Rights and Privacy: The decision might also influence how digital rights and privacy are perceived and protected, particularly regarding how data from social media platforms is used or shared with government entities. This could lead to heightened scrutiny and potentially stricter guidelines to protect user data from being used in ways that could impinge on personal freedoms.
Overall, the Murthy v. Missouri ruling will likely serve as a critical reference point in ongoing debates about the government’s ability to influence and shut down speech.
As recently reported by Reclaim the Net, Anthony Fauci is being called to testify by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan for his “alleged role in the Biden White House’s censorship initiatives.”
Right away a glaring issue emerges: The censorship of dissenting COVID narratives started all the way back in late January-early February 2020, with Fauci implicated in the censorship as early as February 2, 2020. The Committee tacitly acknowledges this by requesting documents dating back to 2019, even as it frames the inquiry politically as a “Biden Administration censorship” problem.
The group responsible for pandemic policy within the Task Force was not HHS or NIAID, where Fauci worked, or any other public health agency. It was the National Security Council (NSC).
We know from the Twitter files and subsequent investigations that the Intelligence Community (FBI, CIA, DHS, CISA) was heavily involved in censoring Americans on many issues, starting at least as far back as 2016. Foreign military/intelligence agencies of allied countries collaborated on censoring the U.S. population.
So if anyone is truly interested in who initiated and enforced censorship of dissenting Covid voices, they should ask the following questions of Fauci under oath:
Who was responsible for the US government’s Covid response policy, including censorship of dissenting views?
We know from official government documents that Covid pandemic policy was set by the National Security Council (NSC), NOT the public health agencies. But who exactly on the NSC was in charge? Who wrote the policy?
Dr. Fauci: Did you participate in crafting the pandemic response policy with the National Security Council, including censorship of dissenting views?
Why were Covid meetings classified?
On March 11, 2020 Reuters reported that “The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified.” Reuters sources said “the National Security Council (NSC), which advises the president on security issues, ordered the classification.”
Furthermore, government officials said “dozens of classified discussions about such topics as the scope of infections, quarantines and travel restrictions have been held since mid-January.”
Dr. Fauci: Why were the Covid response meetings classified? Were you present in those meetings? Were censorship plans discussed in those meetings?
Who was in charge of government communications about Covid?
According to the US Government’s COVID-19 Response Plan, starting on February 28, 2020 “all federal communication and messaging” about the pandemic had to go through the Office of the Vice President, which housed the Task Force, which was led by the National Security Council.
Dr. Fauci: In your role on the Task force, were you in charge of crafting the communications about the pandemic? If not, who on the Task Force was in charge of messaging?
Were you in charge of efforts to censor messaging that questioned or contradicted Task Force/NSC policy?
If not, who was in charge of designing and enforcing the censorship efforts on behalf of the Task Force/NSC?
Why was the CDC forbidden from communicating about the pandemic?
It sounds like the agency that was supposed to be in charge of communicating with the public about the pandemic was itself being CENSORED by the Task Force/NSC.
Dr. Fauci, who forbade the CDC from conducting public briefings about the pandemic?
Why were CDC communications with the public completely shut down?
Was this part of the overall efforts by the Task Force/NSC to censor any messaging that contradicted their policy?
Why was the intelligence community so heavily involved in Covid censorship?
Many deeply and carefully investigated reports show extensive involvement of military/intelligence agencies and personnel in Covid censorship efforts.
Dr. Fauci, were you coordinating with the FBI, CIA, DHS, CISA or any other intelligence entity to censor messaging that questioned or contradicted Task Force/NSC policy?
Why were intelligence agencies involved in censoring Covid messaging?
Were international NGOs and the WHO involved in censorship of American citizens?
Here’s one of the earliest known instances of Covid censorship from all the way back in February 2020, in which the following international cast participated:
Anthony Fauci of the U.S. NIAID and Francis Collins of the U.S. NIH
Tedros Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Bernhard Schwartlander, the WHO representative in China (about whom little info is available online – and who requires more investigation).
Farrar flagged a ZeroHedge article [now archived] in an email to Fauci and Collins, raising the possibility of virus=bioweapon. In the email, he mentioned that the WHO leaders were in the process of making an important decision. He said they might “prevaricate” which means “avoid telling the truth.”
Regardless of whether they prevaricated or not, just two and a half hours later, at approximately 1:57pmZeroHedge was suspended on Twitter.
Dr. Fauci, was your correspondence with Farrar, involving the leaders of the World Health Organization, in any way related to the suspension of ZeroHedge on Twitter?
If so, which of you was responsible for conveying the message to Twitter about the suspension?
Were international organizations like the WHO, and NGOs including the Wellcome Trust, involved in Covid censorship activities in coordination with U.S. officials/agencies?
Were you involved in any international Covid censorship activities?
Please subscribe to my channel here on Bitchute for notifications of new videos and visit my webiste http://www.vernoncoleman.com every week day for new material.
Avery interesting study appeared last week by two researchers looking into the pandemic policy response around the world. They are Drs. Eran Bendavid and Chirag Patel of Stanford and Harvard, respectively. Their ambition was straightforward. They wanted to examine the effects of government policy on the virus.
In this ambition, after all, researchers have access to an unprecedented amount of information. We have global data on strategies and stringencies. We have global data on infections and mortality. We can look at it all according to the timeline. We have precise dating of stay-at-home orders, business closures, meeting bans, masking, and every other physical intervention you can imagine.
The researchers merely wanted to track what worked and what did not, as a way of informing future responses to viral outbreaks so that public health can learn lessons and do better next time. They presumed from the outset they would discover that at least some mitigation tactics achieved the aim.
It is hardly the first such study. I’ve seen dozens of such efforts, and there are probably hundreds or thousands of these. The data is like catnip to anyone in this field who is empirically minded. So far, not even one empirical examination has shown any effect of anything but that seems like a hard conclusion to swallow. So these two decided to take a look for themselves.
They even went to the next step. They assembled and reassembled all existing data in every conceivable way, running fully 100,000 possible combinations of tests that all future researchers could run. They found some correlations in some policies but the problem is that every time they found one, they found another instance in which the reverse seemed to be true.
You cannot infer causation if the effects are not stable.
After vast data manipulation and looking at every conceivable policy and outcome, the researchers reluctantly come to an incredible conclusion. They conclude that nothing that governments did had any effect. There was only cost, no benefit. Everywhere in the world.
Please just let that sink in.
The policy response destroyed countless millions of small businesses, ruined a generation in learning losses, spread ill health with substance abuse, wrecked churches that could not hold holiday services, decimated arts and cultural institutions, broke trade, unleashed inflation that is nowhere near done with us yet, provoked new forms of online censorship, built government power in a way without precedent, led to new levels of surveillance, spread vaccine injury and death, and otherwise shattered liberties and laws the world over, not to mention leading to frightening levels of political stability.
And for what?
Apparently, it was all for nought.
Nor has there been any sort of serious reckoning. The European Commission elections are perhaps a start, and heavily influenced by public opposition to Covid controls, in addition to other policies that are robbing nations of their histories and identities. The major media can call the victors “far right” all they want but this is really about common people simply wanting their lives back.
It’s interesting to speculate about precisely how many people were involved in setting the world on fire. We know the paradigm was tried first in Wuhan, then blessed by the World Health Organization. As regards the rest of the world, we know some names, and there were many cohorts in public health and gain-of-function research.
Let’s say there are 300 of them, plus many national security and intelligence officials plus their sister agencies around the world. Let’s just add a zero plus multiply that by the large countries, presuming that so many others were copycats.
What are we talking about here? Maybe 3,000 to 5,000 people total in a decision-making capacity? That might be far too high. Regardless, compared with the sheer number of people around the world affected, we are talking about a tiny number, a mico-percent of the world’s population or less making new rules for the whole of humanity.
The experiment was without precedent on this scale. Even Deborah Birx admitted it. “You know, it’s kind of our own science experiment that we’re doing in real time.” The experiment was on whole societies.
How in the world did this come to be? There are explanations that rely on mass psychology, the influence of pharma, the role of the intelligence services, and other theories of cabals and conspiracies. Even with every explanation, the whole thing seems wildly implausible. Surely it would have been impossible without global communications and media, which amplified the entire agenda in every respect.
Because of this, kids could not go to school. People in public parks had to stay within circles. Businesses could not open at full capacity. We developed insane rituals like masking when walking and unmasking when sitting. Oceans of sanitizer would be dumped on all people and things. People were made to be afraid of leaving their homes and clicked buttons to make groceries arrive on their doorsteps.
It was a global science experiment without any foundation in evidence. And the experience utterly transformed our legal systems and lives, introducing uncertainties and anxieties as never before and unleashing a level of crime in major cities that provoked residential, business, and capital flight.
This is a scandal for the ages. And yet hardly anyone in major media seems to be interested in getting to the bottom of it. That’s because, for bizarre reasons, looking too carefully at the culprits and policies here is regarded as being for Trump. And the hate and fear of Trump is so beyond reason at this point that whole institutions have decided to sit back and watch the world burn rather than be curious about what provoked this in the first place.
Instead of an honest accounting of the global upheaval, we are getting the truth in dribs and drabs. Anthony Fauci continues to testify for Congressional hearings and this extremely clever man threw his longtime collaborator under the bus, acting like David Morens was a rogue employee. That action seemed to provoke ex-CDC director Robert Redfield to go public, saying that it was a lab leak from a US-funded lab doing “dual purpose” research into vaccines and viruses, and strongly suggesting that Fauci himself was involved in the cover-up.
Among this group, we are quickly approaching the point of “Every man for himself.” It is fascinating to watch, for those of us who are deeply interested in this question. But for the mainstream media, none of this gets any coverage at all. They act like we should just accept what happened and not think anything about it.
This great game of pretend is not sustainable. To be sure, maybe the world is more broken than we know but something about cosmic justice suggests that when a global policy this egregious, this damaging, this preposterously wrongheaded, does all harm and no good, there are going to be consequences.
Not immediately but eventually.
When will the whole truth emerge? It could be decades from now but we already know this much for sure. Nothing we were promised about the great mitigation efforts by governments turned out to achieve anything remotely what they promised. And yet even now, the World Health Organization continues to uphold such interventions as the only way forward.
Meanwhile, the paradigm of bad science backed by force pervades nearly everything these days, from climate change to medical services to information controls.
A 59-year-old man unfortunately died in Mexico in late April. Having been bed-bound for weeks and suffering from type-2 diabetes and chronic renal failure, he was at high risk from respiratory virus infection.
It became newsworthy, and the World Health Organization thousands of miles distant even released a media statement, because recent advances in genetic sequencing allowed the presence of Type A (H5N2) influenza virus – a type of bird flu – to be reported in a single clinical sample a month later. Refuting the WHO’s distant bureaucrats attributing mortality to the virus, Mexico’s health secretary is reported as noting that it was chronic illness that caused the death.
Irrespective of cause, deaths are a tragedy for family and friends. This one made global news purely because of advances in diagnostic technology. The WHO, the media, and a growing pandemic industry had been waiting for this inevitable event, testing and screening, as it is critical to perhaps the largest business scheme in human history. There are hundreds of billions on the table, and the will and means to take it. We all need to understand why, and what is supposed to happen next.
Covid and the Resetting of Public Health
Covid-19 has proven the business case for gain-of-function research. It looks increasingly likely that some genetic fiddling really did succeed in moving a bat coronavirus into humans, where it is more amenable to monetization (there is no profit in sick bats, or fear of them). Importantly, despite the broad economic and health catastrophe that followed, those behind the program are continuing much the same work, and not being held to account. There is vast profit with little or no real risk.
However, what the Covid episode really demonstrated is the financial and political gains that can be achieved irrespective of outbreak severity. As Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret pointed out in mid-2020 in their book Covid-19: The Great Reset, Covid-19 can be used to subvert post-World War II concepts of democracy and human rights and return society to a corporate authoritarian model (“Stakeholder Capitalism”), even though the illness is usually mild.
What is needed is a shared narrative among those who stand to benefit; media, governments, and the corporate world. While the term “Great Reset” seems to have been discarded as unpopular, the World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) stated intent to penetrate governments and change society to the benefit of their members is clearly undiminished.
Devastating mortality is not needed to drive societal change; just the fear of it. You need a test, visuals such as masks and circles on the pavement, a dependent media, and a research and health establishment whose career opportunities are dependent on compliance. The ramping up of surveillance for the vast sea of viral variants that is nature has just been officially confirmed through the adoption of amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations at the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva. Irrespective of the reality of risk or the massively disproportionate public funding required, the world is going to find a lot more potential threats, and is building a whole industry that will ensure they translate into corporate profit.
The Opportunity of Influenza
Avian influenza, or bird flu, has been around perhaps as long as birds (so was likely a dinosaur malady in Cretaceous times). Humans must have lived alongside it for over 200,000 years, and our primate ancestors far longer. Bird flu viruses are part of a range of variants of the influenza virus family that undergo regular mutation and recombination (even mixing genome from viruses that normally infect different species) that makes them appear relatively new to our immune system. This makes them more harmful and results in a new influenza outbreak almost every year, as our immunity from the last one (or from a prior influenza vaccine) only partially addresses the next.
Sometimes, recombination allows an influenza virus that is mostly confined to other animals, such as birds, to undergo a wider shift that allows it to infect other species, such as humans. This is similar to what scientists sometimes try to simulate in the lab through ‘gain-of-function’ research, such as modifying bat coronaviruses to become pathogenic to humans.
Humans have always lived in very close proximity with, and eaten, animals that harbor influenza viruses. The last major ‘spillover’ of influenza from birds to humans was the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918-19. It killed perhaps 20 to 40 million people, most probably due to secondary bacterial pneumonia as there were no modern antibiotics. In the century since, an event of this nature has not recurred, and with modern antibiotics and medical care, the mortality of the Spanish flu should now be far lower.
So, why are we seeing the current hysteria regarding bird flu, and why is the media promoting narratives such as potential mortality massively greater than the Spanish flu or any influenza outbreak in human history? The answer, presumably, lies earlier in this article. A very wealthy corporate and financial sector that is influential over governments and media that knows, and has demonstrated, that wealth can be concentrated to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars through fear of a virus.
There is now a rapidly expanding army of virologists, ‘virus hunters,’ public health bureaucrats, and modelers whose sole reason for receiving funding is to find and publicize new variants of viruses. We have international public-private partnerships devoted to developing and distributing vaccines for such events, supported by taxpayer funding. We also have a draft pandemic treaty that has just been deferred by the WHA, intended to further increase public funding for this private good. From an industry viewpoint, its rapid passage in the coming months would benefit from fear and urgency.
Making Bird Flu Work
Declaration of a bird flu pandemic therefore looks almost inevitable, whether facilitated by ongoing gain-of-function research and a lab leak, or through a natural passage to humans. This inevitability is not so much because it is a real and existential threat, but rather because the industry – the financial-Pharma-media-public health complex that has arisen before and through Covid, needs it. The virus is real. The threat can also be made to appear existential. It is likely to proceed with something like the scenario below.
Traces of genome and even whole viruses can be found in raw agricultural produce. Testing these, and human sewage (contaminated with virus from birds or humans), is already underway and will demonstrate this. Genome has already been found in milk, probably because we looked for it – this has probably also happened often, undetected, before.
Extensive testing of workers on chicken farms and on farms where other infected animals are housed (e.g. dairy herds) will find people who test positive for the virus. Biology is highly variable and some people will establish short-lived mild infections. A few will become severely ill and die due to some immune deficiency or factors such as a very high infective dose. Once listed as a rare pneumonia of unknown cause, such infections can now be definitively pinned as bird flu and used very effectively by media to increase viewership. Within the public health community, these occurrences promote salary and research funding and are extremely important.
Mass killing (culling) at chicken farms. This won’t halt spread, as spread mainly occurs through wild bird species. It could theoretically protect workers from the low (but not zero) risk they face. Importantly, it makes news and promotes a perception that something really bad is afoot. Those who order culls do not suffer from them, and industrial chicken producers are compensated by taxpayers, who will also pay more for eggs and chicken meat. Left unchecked, many chickens would have died in an outbreak, while some would have survived.
Mass killing of secondary hosts such as cattle. Again, a low risk to humans. It is also relatively easy to quarantine cattle herds until an outbreak has run its course. However, culling creates publicity and the impression of a dynamic, desperate response, important in creating a sense of a public health sector scrambling to save the public. It also supports a movement claiming that farming for meat should be replaced by highly processed factory-derived alternative foods, an alternative that is struggling for market share. The fake meat industry is supported by some of the same major investors as Pharma, who are very vocal in the pandemic agenda.
Modeling to demonstrate potential mass death within the population. The major modeling groups (e.g. Imperial College London, University of Washington, Gates Foundation) are funded by entities who are invested in Pharma and gained greatly from Covid-19. Modelers understand outcomes that benefit sponsors, which may have influenced the emphasis on worst-case and highly unrealistic outcomes during Covid-19.
Requirement for mass vaccination (or killing) of backyard chickens to keep the community safe. The concept of ‘greater good’ is the most popular of the concepts that underpin fascism, and can be used to ensure broad compliance, with vilification of non-compliers being the penalty. This was used widely by pro-corporate politicians such as Justin Trudeau to isolate and denigrate those who wanted to weigh harms against the benefits of Covid vaccines or supported the concept of bodily autonomy. The UK and Ireland recently introduced a requirement to register all backyard chickens, to facilitate this process.
Requirement for vaccination of chicken owners – owners of every farm or backyard hen. This will be sold as further protecting their neighbors and communities. Those refusing will be portrayed as ‘putting their entire communities at risk, especially ‘the most vulnerable.’ This message, however distanced from context and reality, is very powerful and the media demonstrated during Covid how willing they are to exploit such division and scapegoating.
Lockdowns, school closures, closure of smaller workplaces. As during Covid, this will involve mainly those lacking influence at WEF and similar forums. There will be some deaths in the community, and even busy ICUs from influenza or other causes. The busy ICUs will be highlighted as unusual (which, of course, they are not) to promote a need to ‘all pull together’ and overcome the threat. This is a difficult message to counter, as on a superficial level such fascistic greater good claims make support for individual choice, fundamental to free societies, difficult.
Population-wide mass vaccination. Mass vaccination can be promoted as inconvenient but necessary as an all-in community safety issue. Although people may be more resistant as harms from Covid vaccination become more widely acknowledged, bird flu is already being portrayed as potentially far worse. The vaccine will be pitched as a way to get freedoms back, a form of coercion once anathema in public health but now mainstream. With hundreds of billions in Pharma sales at stake, it is an extremely hard train to stop. Billions spent on advertising, political sponsorship, and propaganda are literally minor business expenses.
The order of the above steps, and the emphasis, may change. None of the steps will stop bird flu. It spreads through wild bird species and will continue to do so. Occasionally, it will spill over into humans. Very occasionally these will cause a significant outbreak. The Spanish flu was a bad example, but life rapidly went back to normal.
Managing Perceptions
In the century since the Spanish flu, influenza outbreaks have continued to resolve naturally with little change in human behavior, but steadily building alarm. The Hong Kong flu of 1968-69 had been shrugged off as an annoyance and didn’t even stop Woodstock. The SARS outbreak in 2003 (a coronavirus, not influenza) promoted widespread fear, yet killed in total the same as die every 8 hours from tuberculosis. The Swine flu outbreak of 2009, which killed less than normal seasonal influenza, precipitated an international crisis. Pandemics, though real, are mostly about perceptions. So is the response.
The pandemic industry has become far better, and more systematic, at managing perceptions. This is the whole basis on which the behavioral psychology of government ‘nudge units’ was based during Covid. The aim was not a calculated overall public good, but to promote a particular set of public behaviors to address a narrowly defined threat. This is now underway for bird flu. A large part of the populace will comply with increasingly strict measures, not because they have been presented accurate information in context upon which they can make rational choices, but because they are fooled, or coerced, into behaviors they would not normally follow. They will accept restrictions and interventions that they would normally resist.
Unless wider society regains control of the agenda, the Pharma industry and its investors are set to make a killing through bird flu. It will be at least as big as Covid. It will also serve an important role in further building the pandemic industry, justifying the finalization of the postponed WHO Pandemic Agreement (treaty). It is a vital cog in the Great Reset.
Outbreaks do occur and we should monitor and prepare for them. However, we have allowed the development of a system where outbreaks are almost all that matter. Perceptions of risk, and resultant funding, have become grossly disproportionate to reality. The perverse incentives driving this are obvious, as are the harms. The world will be increasingly unequal and impoverished, and sick, building on the outcomes of the Covid response. Fear promotes profit better than calmness and context. It is on us to remain calm and continually educate ourselves regarding context. No one will sell these to us.
David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.
Several medical credentialing boards instituted COVID-19 Misinformation Policies in September of 2021 and have used them to censor and retaliate against academics and practicing physicians who performed research, clinical care, and presented their findings on the early treatment of acute COVID-19 and vaccine safety. The boards’ position is that they and the government agencies they agree with, hold agency over the truth. By establishing that power dynamic, members who disagree with them are spreading misinformation and can be convicted in closed panel meetings without the member being allowed to present their views based upon the data and evidence at hand.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons sued three medical specialty boards for their threatened actions against the board certifications of physicians because of speaking out on medical controversies. Physicians earned and need these board certifications in order to hold professorships, practice medicine in most hospitals, and remain in most insurance networks.
Defendants are the American Board of Internal Medicine (“ABIM”), the American Board of Family Medicine (“ABFM”), and the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology (“ABOG”). In addition, Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary, is a defendant due to alleged government interference with freedom of speech.
The Fifth Circuit also invalidated Galveston Local Rule 6, by which that federal district court has infringed on plaintiffs’ right to amend their lawsuits. The Fifth Circuit agreed with AAPS that this district court rule is contrary to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and thus must be voided.
“AAPS can now pursue its claim against censorship by the Biden Administration,” AAPS Executive Director Jane Orient, M.D., stated.
Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho agreed with the panel majority on the key issues and wrote separately to decry attempts by some today to impose censorship on others. “In America, we don’t fear disagreement—we embrace it. We persuade—we don’t punish. We engage in conversation—not cancellation,” Judge Ho wrote.
“We know how to disagree with one another without destroying one another. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work,” Judge Ho added as he sided fully with this lawsuit against censorship.
The precedent-setting ruling in favor of the First Amendment was issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. This influential Court established the right to object in court to censorship of physicians’ speech on topics ranging from government Covid policies to abortion. AAPS General Counsel Andrew Schlafly should be congratulated for this stalwart effort in defense of our civil liberties.
In a new lawsuit, Webseed and Brighteon Media have accused multiple US government agencies and prominent tech companies of orchestrating a vast censorship operation aimed at suppressing dissenting viewpoints, particularly concerning COVID-19. The plaintiffs, Webseed and Brighteon Media, manage websites like NaturalNews.com and Brighteon.com, which have been at the center of controversy for their alternative health information and criticism of government policies.
The defendants include the Department of State, the Global Engagement Center (GEC), the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and tech giants such as Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), Google, and X. Additionally, organizations like NewsGuard Technologies, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) are implicated for their roles in creating and using tools to label and suppress what they consider misinformation.
Allegations of Censorship and Anti-Competitive Practices:
The lawsuit claims that these government entities and tech companies conspired to develop and promote censorship tools to suppress the speech of Webseed and Brighteon Media, among others. “The Government was the primary source of misinformation during the pandemic, and the Government censored dissidents and critics to hide that fact,” states Stanford University Professor J. Bhattacharya in support of the plaintiffs’ claims.
The plaintiffs argue that the government’s efforts were part of a broader strategy to silence voices that did not align with official narratives on COVID-19 and other issues. They assert that these actions were driven by an “anti-competitive animus” aimed at eliminating alternative viewpoints from the digital public square.
According to the complaint, the plaintiffs have suffered substantial economic harm, estimating losses between $25 million and $50 million due to reduced visibility and ad revenue from their platforms. They also claim significant reputational damage as a result of being labeled as purveyors of misinformation.
The complaint details how the GEC and other agencies allegedly funded and promoted tools developed by NewsGuard, ISD, and GDI to blacklist and demonetize websites like NaturalNews.com. These tools, which include blacklists and so-called “nutrition labels,” were then utilized by tech companies to censor content on their platforms. The plaintiffs argue that this collaboration between government agencies and private tech companies constitutes an unconstitutional suppression of free speech.
A Broader Pattern of Censorship:
The lawsuit references other high-profile cases, such as Missouri v. Biden, to illustrate a pattern of government overreach into the digital information space. It highlights how these efforts have extended beyond foreign disinformation to target domestic voices that challenge prevailing government narratives.
Webseed and Brighteon Media are seeking both monetary damages and injunctive relief to prevent further censorship. They contend that the government’s actions violate the First Amendment and call for an end to the use of these censorship tools.
As the case progresses, it promises to shine a light on the complex interplay between government agencies, tech companies, and the tools used to control the flow of information in the digital age. The outcome could have significant implications for the future of free speech and the regulation of online content.
Conflicts of interest within the medical community have reached record highs as concerns for patient safety and independent scrutiny of Big Pharma products are driven by newly released information showing serious conflicts of interest.
As the investigation into the origins and handling of the COVID-19 pandemic takes center stage through congressional hearings, shocking testimony is being revealed to the public. Shockingly, Dr. Lawrence Tabak, principal Deputy Director of the National Institutes of Health, has admitted under oath that NIH was funding gain of function research. In an even more shocking turn, newly released emails from Dr. David Morens, who worked as Senior Advisor to the Director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases directly under Dr. Anthony Fauci, reveal shocking revelations that senior officials at NIH were purposely using private emails and having in person conversations to avoid FOIA requests. Amidst all of this, HHS has stripped all funding from Peter Daszak, and Eco Health Alliance.
Testimony from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Senior Scientific Advisor David Morens — a longtime aide to former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci — only deepened congressional concerns about the possibility of concealed or destroyed emails concerning connections between the institute and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
A memo and over 150 emails released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Wednesday show that Morens spent considerable time and energy avoiding the Freedom of Information Act — a law that requires federal agency records to be provided to the public on request with limited exceptions.
Morens deleted sensitive emails, conducted official business on a private email account, and worked with an NIAID administrator in the Freedom of Information Office to strategically misspell keywords that the public might request to be searched, the committee alleges.
Morens sought to conceal emails in which he championed his close friend EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak, a scientist who subcontracted NIAID funding to the lab in Wuhan for experiments that made coronaviruses more deadly. Morens said that he and Daszak met twenty years ago and were part of the same close knit “fraternity” among emerging infectious diseases experts.
The subpoenaed emails make clear that Morens repeatedly advocated for EcoHealth and Daszak from within Fauci’s inner circle — serving as an intermediary between Daszak and Fauci — and often using his private Gmail account to shuttle messages.
One email released by the committee suggests that Fauci himself may have subverted public records requests through use of a personal email account, bypassing official channels.
“I can either send stuff to Tony on his private email or hand it to him at work or at his house,” Morens emailed on April 21, 2021. “He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.”
Other emails show Morens and Daszak strategizing about how to convey information to Fauci without leaving a paper trail.
Morens confirmed Wednesday that he discussed grants from NIAID to the Wuhan Institute of Virology with Fauci.
“I certainly told him some things that he asked me to tell him about the situation with Peter [Daszak],” Morens said.
That statement contradicts a transcribed interview Morens gave the committee earlier this year in which he said he did not recall discussing EcoHealth or the Wuhan lab with Fauci.
“The evidence establishes that Dr. Morens likely provided false testimony to the Select Subcommittee,” the committee’s memo states.
The committee may recommend that the Department of Justice investigate Morens for making false statements, a crime in violation of Title 18 Section 1001.
The testimony follows revelations last week that Morens stated he would delete any “smoking guns” implicating a connection between Daszak’s organization and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Far from allaying concerns, Morens’ subpoenaed emails and testimony only raised more questions about the culture at the NIAID around transparency and public records requests. Indeed, the emails and testimony suggest NIAID may have systems in place to help employees evade FOIA requests.
NIAID did not reply to a request for comment.
In addition, Morens wrote an email about the possibility of a “kickback” for helping to restore EcoHealth’s NIAID funding. He wrote profane emails that referred to binge drinking and sex, and made a remark about former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky wearing a skirt, raising concerns about his lack of professionalism and attitudes toward women.
“It is very disturbing to witness this type of behavior from Dr. Fauci’s senior advisor, but the evidence is clear and overwhelming. Dr. Fauci’s NIAID was unfortunately less pristine than so many, including the media, would’ve had us all believe,” said Chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio.
In one of the emails obtained by the committee, Morens acknowledges that the reputation of EcoHealth and Daszak affect the reputations of Fauci and former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins.
“From Tony’s numerous recent comments to me, and from what Francis has been vocal about over the past 5 days, they are trying to protect you, which also protects their own reputations,” Morens wrote in October 2021.
Morens’s attorneys turned over 30,000 emails to the committee responsive to a subpoena on April 30, just before Daszak testified to the committee on May 1. It remains to be seen whether more emails come to light following the new revelations that Fauci apparently used a private Gmail account and that Morens used a Proton Mail account in addition to his Gmail account.
Morens said that the emails about a “back channel,” a “kickback,” and “smoking guns” simply reflected “black humor.” Morens also expressed regret for how his emails had undermined trust in NIAID.
“I’ve already apologized for making snarky and profane comments but I made them thinking that they were made on my private Gmail in a manner that was just between a small group of friends,” Morens said. “It’s embarrassing to me. I shouldn’t have done it. But I accept that I did it. I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry.”
However Morens gave unclear testimony in response to the question of whether he improperly used his personal email to conduct official business.
Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., read out six separate emails in which Morens referred to avoiding FOIA. It took over three minutes to read every one.
“This Gmail communication thing was set up purely to deal with personal things that were not government business,” Morens said.
“How can you say that when in all of these emails you said you were intentionally avoiding FOIA? You said it in your own words, sir,” Lesko said.
Lesko countered that official emails had been forwarded to his private Gmail, that the emails on his Gmail had his official NIAID position in the email signature.
Morens blamed a technical issue.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe you,” Lesko replied.
‘Do I get a kickback???’
When the novel coronavirus emerged from the same city in China with a high security lab specializing in coronaviruses, Daszak’s collaboration with the lab and with University of North Carolina gain-of-function coronavirologist Ralph Baric came under scrutiny — including from non-virologists like Wenstrup.
For his part, Morens helped Daszak with non-public information when concerns about the Wuhan lab prompted NIH to suspend EcoHealth’s grant. Morens forwarded Daszak an email marked “for official use only” in April 2020.
Morens appears to have helped Daszak navigate around NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research Michael Lauer’s request for more information about the Wuhan lab in 2020 as a condition of the reinstatement of the grant, possibly hampering the U.S. government from accessing more information about the research underway there. Morens even personally edited EcoHealth’s response to Lauer, one email shows. That email too contradicts Morens’s transcribed interview earlier this year, perhaps exposing him to criminal penalties.
Daszak’s testimony earlier this month indicated that he never asked the Wuhan lab for genomic data beyond 2015 or so or for relevant lab notebooks — instead merely forwarding a request for information from NIH.
Morens also alerted Daszak to the forthcoming publication of documents released under FOIA in September 2021.
Morens invoked Fauci’s name in an email in which he appealed to an EcoHealth Alliance board member to continue to support the organization upon Daszak’s request.
After the grant was reinstated — despite Daszak’s failure to provide the data and information about the Wuhan lab that NIH requested — Morens sent an email referring to a “kickback.”
“Ahem…. Do I get a kickback??? Too much fooking money! DO you deserve it all? Let’s discuss….” he wrote.
“Of course there’s a kick-back,” Daszak replied.
Morens said the emails were in jest and denied receiving payment or any gifts from EcoHealth or Daszak.
Members of the committee of both parties expressed concerns that Morens used official resources and the imprimatur of the NIAID to improperly assist the embattled EcoHealth, and how that could impact NIAID.
“I just hope you’re going to be very careful as you are telling us what the facts are because I’m very disturbed about other people who may be thrown under the bus in some of the wiley statements you made on your personal statements,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., an apparent reference to Fauci and Collins.
The Department of Health and Human Services has suspended federal funding both to EcoHealth and to Daszak personally pending an investigation into their handling of taxpayer funds. EcoHealth and Daszak could face debarment of any federal funds for several years.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who recently co-launched a bipartisan investigation into biosafety issues at the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, called upon the DOJ to investigate Morens Wednesday and alleged a criminal conspiracy to conceal records at NIAID.
The emails also indicate that Morens played a central role at NIAID in early debates about gain-of-function experiments — specifically, controversial experiments on highly pathogenic avian flu in 2011 — and that he privately criticized scientists in favor of stronger biosafety regulations at Rutgers University, Harvard University and Stanford University.
Peter Daszak is the President of EcoHealth Alliance, the organization most closely associated with the potential lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) that may have started the Covid crisis.
The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability has recently done a lot of “research” on Daszak and EcoHealth, resulting in a published report on May 1, 2024 with the earth-shattering finding that there exist “serious and systemic weaknesses in the federal government’s—particularly NIH’s—grant making processes.” Furthermore, these very bad weaknesses “not only place United States taxpayer dollars at risk of waste, fraud, and abuse but also risk the national security of the United States.”
This sounds pretty serious: Our taxpayer dollars and our national security are at risk. Some very bad things are happening, apparently. What are those bad things? “Weaknesses in the NIH’s grant making process.” Is that really all the Committee could come up with? If those grant-making weaknesses are so terrible, what does it recommend we do about them?
Based on its findings, the Committee recommended some very broad, but not very specific, actions:
To Congress: “Reign in [they used “reign” instead of “rein” – a noteworthy Freudian slip] the unelected bureaucracy, especially within government funded public health.
To the Administration: Recognize EcoHealth and its President, Dr. Daszak, as bad actors…and ensure neither EcoHealth nor Dr. Daszak are awarded another cent, especially for dangerous and poorly monitored research.
The Administration must have taken heed, because a mere two weeks later, on May 15, 2024, the Subcommittee made this triumphant announcement:
“HHS has begun efforts to cut off all U.S. funding to this corrupt organization. EcoHealth facilitated gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight, willingly violated multiple requirements of its multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health grant, and apparently made false statements to the NIH. These actions are wholly abhorrent, indefensible, and must be addressed with swift action.”
Note the bizarre disconnect between the description of “this corrupt organization” and its “abhorrent, indefensible” actions, and the accusations leading to such extreme claims, which include conducting research without proper oversight (nobody ever does that!), violating requirements of its NIH grant (a bureaucratic infraction) and “apparently” making false statements to the NIH (not even for sure).
In any event, “swift action” must be taken. What exactly is that action?
“HHS has begun efforts to cut off all U.S. funding” to EcoHealth. “Begun efforts” – sounds like concrete results are imminent. Not just imminent but consequential. Like “future debarment” and “funding suspension.” (sarcasm intended)
But wait. Didn’t they already do that? Yes, they did.
2020 funding suspension
Quick reminder: On April 24, 2020, the NIH canceled funding for Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) gain-of-function research led by EcoHealth Alliance, because the Trump Administration suspected (or knew) such research may have had something to do with the Covid pandemic.
The scientific world was outraged. Seventy-seven U.S. Nobel Laureates and 31 scientific societies wrote to NIH leadership requesting review of the decision. Gain-of-function research must continue! In August 2020 the NIH reversed the cancellation and started funding EcoHealth and WIV again. [ref]
The Nobel Laureates and scientific societies won the day: Humanity-saving research to develop deadly pathogens not found in nature could continue unhindered by radical NIH funding cuts.
And yet: NIH grants are a mere fraction of EcoHealth Alliance’s overall government funding.
So which funds are being “suspended” this time around?
Actually, none.
The very threatening “notice of suspension and proposed debarment” sent to EcoHealth Alliance by HHS on May 15, 2024, reassures the organization (whose behavior has been abhorrent and indefensible) that “suspension and debarment actions are not punitive.”
We’re not trying to punish you for your bad behavior, the letter says. We just want to make sure there are non-punitive “consequences” for that behavior. For example:
Offers will not be solicited from, contracts will not be awarded to, existing contracts will not be renewed or otherwise extended for, and subcontracts requiring United States Federal Government approval will not be approved for EHA [EcoHealth Alliance] by any agency in the executive branch of the United States Federal Government, unless the head of the agency taking the contracting action determines that there is a compelling reason for such action.
[BOLDFACE ADDED]
In other words, if the head of the “agency taking the contracting action” determines there is “a compelling reason” to contract with Ecohealth, then this whole suspension and debarment thing is moot. So not punitive. And, pretty much, no consequences. And, also, no funds “suspended.”
Nevertheless, given the horrendous behavior of EcoHealth, as detailed in the announcement of the non-punitive consequences – how could any government agencies possibly have compelling reasons to engage in “contracting action” with “this corrupt organization”?
EcoHealth is mostly funded by the State Department and Pentagon
In an extensive expose on Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance,The Intercept reported in December 2021:
EcoHealth Alliance’s funding from the U.S. government, which Daszak has said makes up some 80 percent of its budget, has also grown in recent years. Since 2002, according to an Intercept analysis of public records, the organization has received more than $118 million in grants and contracts from federal agencies, $42 million of which comes from the Department of Defense. Much of that money has been awarded through programs focused not on health or ecology, however, but on the prevention of biowarfare, bioterrorism, and other misuses of pathogens.
[BOLDFACE ADDED]
Here’s what nearly two decades of government funding for EcoHealth Alliance looks like (graph from Interceptarticle):
By far, Daszak’s largest funding pool was the CIA surrogate, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Through USAID, the CIA funneled nearly $65 million in PREDICT funding to EcoHealth between 2009 and 2020.
The military links of the EcoHealth Alliance are not limited to money and mindset. One noteworthy ‘policy advisor’ to the EcoHealth Alliance is David Franz. Franz is former commander of Fort Detrick, which is the principal U.S. government biowarfare/biodefense facility.
So what is the Oversight Committee overlooking – and why?
There is no mention of DoD, DTRA or USAID funding in the Committee’s announcement or in the utterly performative, 100% toothless notice of suspension and debarment they sent to Peter Daszak. Does the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability not know who the major government funders of EcoHealth Alliance are?
If any agency can bypass the suspension and debarment by “determining that there is compelling reason” to fund EcoHealth, what is the point of those non-punitive consequences?
Why this charade of accountability when, in fact, the supposed overseers are willfully ignoring what’s actually going on?
Clearly, the Committee is not interested in investigating Daszak’s role in the biodefense industry that was responsible not just for the gain-of-function research that may have created SARS-CoV-2, but for the entire Covid pandemic response – which was most definitely not about public health and was, in fact, all about creating and administering the medical countermeasures which were the monomaniacal focus of the biodefense responders.
What to ask Peter Daszak if we had actual oversight
If the Committee were serious about investigating Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance, here are some questions they would ask:
Non-public health funding sources and projects
Most of the government funding for EcoHealth Alliance comes not from public health agencies but from USAID (State Department/CIA) and the Pentagon. What projects are these non-public health agencies funding? Are these projects related to biodefense/biowarfare research?
Is the USAID and Pentagon-funded virus research conducted by EcoHealth and/or its partners intended primarily to prepare for naturally occurring pandemics or for potential biowarfare/bioterrorism attacks?
Do the USAID and Pentagon-funded projects conducted by EcoHealth and/or its partners involve creating pandemic potential pathogens as part of biodefense/biowarfare research?
Do you know or suspect that SARS-CoV-2 was an engineered virus created as part of a USAID and Pentagon-funded biowarfare/biodefense project?
Do the USAID and Pentagon-funded projects conducted by EcoHealth and/or its partners involve work on medical countermeasures against potential biowarfare/bioterrorism agents?
Disease X op-ed
On February 27, 2020, before the Covid pandemic had been declared and before anyone in the U.S. had died of Covid-19, you wrote an op-ed for The New York Timesstating that the novel coronavirus was “Disease X.” You explained that the term Disease X was coined by you and a bunch of experts at the World Health Organization in 2018. In your report from 2018, it says:
“Disease X represents the awareness that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently not recognized to cause human disease. Disease X may also be a known pathogen that has changed its epidemiological characteristics, for example by increasing its transmissibility or severity.”
Why were you so sure, so early on, even before we knew there was a pandemic, that this was Disease X? What was it about SARS-CoV-2 (which, after all, was named as a direct successor of the original SARS, to which it was said to be very similar) that made it seem so uniquely dangerous to you? Why did you feel you had to warn the whole world about it on the pages of the NYT?
Did you think SARS-CoV-2 was a known pathogen that had “changed its epidemiological characteristics” by “increasing its transmissibility or severity”? If yes, what made you think that?
Did you think SARS-CoV-2 was a potential bioweapon that had been developed using funds from USAID and DOD by EcoHealth Alliance and/or its research partners in China or elsewhere?
The New York Times has subsequently erased your Disease X op-ed from their online 2/27/2020 issue. You can only find it through the direct link. Why do you think they have made it all but impossible for anyone who doesn’t already know about the article to find it? Do you regret having written it?
Linking Disease X to genetic vaccine platforms
In the NYT op-ed, you provided a link from the term “Disease X” to a 2018 CNN article in which Dr. Anthony Fauci says that, in order to combat such dangerous as-yet-nonexistent pathogens, “the WHO recognizes that it must “nimbly move” and that this involves creating “platform technologies.”
Fauci goes on to say that “scientists develop customizable recipes for creating vaccines. Then, when an outbreak happens, they can sequence the unique genetics of the virus causing the disease, and plug the correct sequence into the already-developed platform to create a new vaccine.”
That sounds an awful lot like the mRNA platform used for the Covid countermeasures that came to be known as the “mRNA vaccines.”
Why did you link to that particular article from your op-ed about disease X? Were you suggesting that the solution to the pandemic that you appeared to be predicting would be a genetic platform in which the “correct sequence” could be plugged to create vaccines?
Were you already aware of the Covid mRNA vaccines being developed at the time of your op-ed (February 27, 2020) by Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer, long before the official launch of Operation Warp Speed (May 2020)?
Is it true that the Pentagon considered the mRNA platforms to be the preferred countermeasures against Covid-19, and that these were always intended to reach full funding and development, starting all the way back in January 2020?
Was the USAID and Pentagon-funded research conducted EcoHealth and/or its partners related to the development of such mRNA vaccines? If so, how?
The need for a crisis to justify funding and development of genetic vaccine platforms
“Until an infectious disease crisis is very real, present, and at an emergency threshold, it is often largely ignored. To sustain the funding base beyond the crisis, we need to increase public understanding of the need for MCMs such as a pan-influenza or pan-coronavirus vaccine. A key driver is the media, and the economics follow the hype. We need to use that hype to our advantage to get to the real issues. Investors will respond if they see profit at the end of the process.”
It sounds like you’re saying we need the media to hype up a crisis so that investors will want to fund the type of pan-coronavirus vaccine that is exactly the genetic platform you highlighted in your op-ed, and also exactly the platform that emerged into public awareness shortly after your op-ed, and became known as the Covid mRNA vaccines.
Can you explain this uncanny overlap between your description of what was needed to get such platforms developed in 2016 and what actually happened in 2020?
Did the USAID and Pentagon-funded research on coronaviruses conducted by EcoHealth Alliance and/or its partners support the development of such platforms? If so, how?
Were you aware of a plan to use the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 as a trigger for the media hype, public-private funding, and massive mRNA vaccine development and deployment in early 2020 – exactly as you described them in 2016?
If you were aware of such a plan, who was involved in it, and what was your role?
CONCLUSION
The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability has made a big show of publicly chastising Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance for terrible behavior in the way they managed their funding from the NIH. The Committee has also highlighted very bad weaknesses in the grant making process of the NIH that need to be corrected.
As a result of the Committee’s recommendations, the HHS (parent agency of NIH) has issued a non-punitive notice to Peter Daszak, stating that EcoHealth cannot receive another penny of government funding… unless a government agency decides there is a compelling reason to provide such funding.
Clearly, all of the Committee’s investigations, reports, recommendations and notices in this matter are purely performative, considering 1) they actually impose no consequences, and 2) they ignore the fact that most of Daszak and EcoHealth’s funding come from military and state department sources for work on biodefense/biowarfare-related projects.
Is the Committee’s work just another example of bureaucratic incompetence and “waste, fraud and abuse” of our precious taxpayer dollars?
Or is it an intentional diversion, to distract us from the work the U.S. government was/is actually funding at bioweapons labs like the one in Wuhan, engineering pandemic potential pathogens and then deploying global public-private partnerships to develop medical countermeasures against those pathogens – all of which came together to create the catastrophe known as the Covid pandemic?
Early in my legal career, I handled many one-day trials. Late one afternoon, I returned to my office. Still wearing my suit and carrying my briefcase, I passed the open office door of a senior colleague named Ben. He called out to me, “How’d you do today?”
I stood in his doorway and replied, “Not good. I couldn’t get their witness to admit what I wanted him to.”
Ben smiled and said, “You’ve watched too much TV. You expect the witness to break down on the stand and admit everything, as grim music plays in the background. That won’t happen. You have to treat every adverse witness as someone who starts with a handful of credibility chips. You let him say whatever he wants and make himself look dishonest saying it. Ideally, he trades those chips in, one-by-one, and leaves the stand without any chips in his hand.”
This made sense. Thereafter, I adjusted my expectations and structured my questions accordingly.
—
Media outlets and writers who fomented Coronamania have, over the past two years or so, been retreating slowly from the fear and loathing they began brewing up in March, 2020. They’ve calculated that a Covid-weary, distractable public won’t remember most of what they said earlier in the Scamdemic.
Last Friday, in two, paired articles, New York Times writers Apoorva Mandavilli and David Leonhardt continue this strategically slow retreat from the Covid lies they’ve sponsored. For the first time, they acknowledge that maybe the shots they’ve praised have caused a few of what jab-o-philic readers will dismiss as minor injuries.
As he begins his summary of Mandavilli’s theme, Leonhardt admits that the notion that vaxx injuries occurred makes him “uncomfortable.” He’s not expressing discomfort about the injuries themselves. He’s concerned that the vaxx critics might be proven correct.
Why would a self-described “independent journalist” be made uncomfortable by facts? What’s so repugnant about simply calling balls and strikes? Why does Leonhardt have a rooting interest? What’s so hard about admitting he’s been wrong, not just about the shots, but about all of the Covid anxiety he and his employer have incited throughout the past three-plus years?
Bear this in mind: In early 2021, Leonhardt went on a 1,600-mile road trip to get injected as early as he could. David, kinda neurotic and def not climate friendly.
Admitting error—or outright complicity with the Scam—during the Covid overreaction would entail losses of face and credibility. After all the harm the media has done, those consequences would be just and proper.
To avoid this result, the media and bureaucrats are backpedaling slowly to try to change their views without too many people noticing. In so doing, they’re very belatedly adopting the views of those, like me, who from Day 1, called out the hysteria driving, and the downsides to, the Covid overreaction.
But while they’ve incrementally changed parts of their message, they hold tightly to the central, false narrative that Covid was a terrible disease that indiscriminately killed millions. The Covophobes continue to falsely credit the Covid injections for “saving millions of lives” and “preventing untold misery.”
Times readers are a skewed, pro-jab sample. Thus, about half of the 1000+ commenters adopt Mandavilli’s and Leonhardt’s mythology that, even if the shots injured people, they were a net positive in a world facing a universally vicious killer. Relying on that false premise, these columnists and the commenters assert that no medical intervention is risk-free and that a few metaphorical eggs were inevitably broken while making the mass vaccination omelet. In their view, such injuries are a cost of doing business.
To begin with, where was such risk/reward analysis when the lockdowns and school closures were being put in place?
Moreover, The Times writers and most pro-jab commenters pretentiously and inappropriately claim the mantle of “Science.” To many, modern medicine is a religion and “vaccines” are a sacrament. Their pro-vaxx faith is unshakable. But these ostensible Science devotees unreasonably overlooked Covid’s clearest empirical trend: SARS-CoV-2 did not threaten healthy, non-old people. Therefore, neither non-pharmaceutical interventions (“NPIs”) nor shots should have been imposed upon those not at risk. The NPI and shot backers weren’t Scientists. They were Pseudo-Scientists.
The Times’s stubborn, apocalyptic Covid narrative and pro-vaxx message has never squared with what I’ve seen with my own eyes. After four years in Covid Ground Zero, high-density New Jersey, and despite having a large social sphere, I still directly know no one who has died from this virus. I indirectly know of only five—relatives of acquaintances—said to have been killed by it. Each ostensible viral victim fits the profile that’s been clear since February, 2020: very old and unhealthy, dying with, not from, symptoms common to all respiratory virus infections, following a very unreliable diagnostic test.
Countering the intransigent shot backers, hundreds of commenters to the Mandavilli piece describe non-lethal injuries they sustained shortly after injecting. But both articles, and many commenters to the Mandavilli article, emphasize that “correlation isn’t causation.”
The persuasiveness of correlation is typically questioned only when one would viscerally prefer not to apply Occam’s Razor and adopt the most straightforward explanation for symptoms that began shortly after injection. I suspect that, in their personal dealings, those who say “correlation isn’t causation” seldom believe in coincidences.
I directly know six people who’ve had significant health setbacks shortly after taking the shots, including one death. These seem like too many coincidences. Further, what would provide convincing proof of vaxx injury causation? Autopsies are, perhaps strategically, rare. Having done litigation, I know experts will always disagree about causation if they’re paid well enough. And ultimately, doesn’t the cited “millions saved” study assume that correlation is causation?
While the peremptory assertions that the shots saved millions of lives are very questionable and poorly supported, many who read these statements will cite these as gospel because “millions” is a memorable, albeit speculative and squishy figure, and because, well, The New York Times said so!
While the columnists use this phony stat to justify mass vaccination, only one in five-thousand of those infected—nearly all of them very old and/or very sick or killed iatrogenically—had died “of Covid” before VaxxFest began. The vast majority of these deceased were likely to die soon, virus or no.
Thus, how can one say that the shots saved millions of lives? For how long were they saved? And did those who conducted the cited “millions of deaths” study believe they’d get future—professional lifeblood—grants if they didn’t find that the shotssaved millions of lives?
Further, Mandavilli and Leonhardt never acknowledge—and may not even know of— the statistical sleight of hand that’s been used throughout by the jab pushers. I’ve described these tricks in prior posts. For example, there was “healthy vaccinee bias:” those who administered the shots strategically declined to inject those who were so frail that the shots’ systemic shock might kill them. And those who injected weren’t counted as “vaxxed” until 42 days after their first shot. As the shots initially suppress immunity and disrupt bodies, one should expect the shots to increase deaths in the weeks after the shot regimen begins. Injectees who died within this initial 42 days were falsely categorized as “unvaxxed.”
FWIW, my wife and I and all other non-vaxxers I know have predictably been fine. The shots didn’t save any of our lives or keep us out of the hospital. Our immune systems did. “The Virus’s” lethality was badly overhyped.
More medical intervention doesn’t necessarily improve health. To the contrary, and especially regarding the shots, less is often more.
While Mandavilli and others blame “vitriolic” anti-vaxxers for discouraging vaxx and booster uptake, vaxx failure itself more strongly discouraged injections than did anything any anti-vaxxer said. The government and media repeatedly touted the shots as “safe and effective” and guaranteed that they would “stop infection and spread.” Montages of these clips are likely still on the Net. Yet, countless injectees—including all injectees whom I know—have gotten sick, several times each.
Consequently, jabbers felt lied to. Based on such directly observable data of vaxx failure and experiencing or seeing vaxx injuries, and without reading studies or conducting courtroom trials, the public made its own observations and rendered its negative verdict about vaxx efficacy and safety by declining vaxx “boosters.” Besides, if anti-vaxxers held such sway over public opinion that they could stop people from taking boosters, their initial warnings would have stopped people from taking the initial shots.
Importantly, and by extension, as we skeptics were right about the shots, we were also right when we criticized the lockdowns, school closures, masks and tests that have been articles of Coronamanic faith. A recent CDC study so has so concluded.
Many of NPI and shot backers have taken refuge in “We-Couldn’t-Have-Known-ism.” But millions, including me, did know, based on widely available information, that the NPIs and shots were always bad ideas. And as we knew that only the old and ill were at risk and that the NPIs would cause great harm, those who are very belatedly admitting that “mistakes were made” not only also could have known; they should have known. Their failure to know reveals either a willful, opportunistic, tribalistic disregard of plainly observable information or a lack of intelligence.
Throughout the Scamdemic, Mandavilli and Leonhardt have belatedly, incrementally changed their disproven views. Their untenable alternative was to persist with a plainly failed narrative and trade in their credibility chips, issue-by-issue. But they’re doing so slowly to evade responsibility for being wrong when it mattered.
For example, for two years, Mandavilli strongly supported keeping schoolkids home. Similarly, 41 months after the Scamdemic began, Leonhardt quoted, with apparent surprise, an “expert” who says that Covid deaths correlate closely with old age. By the time they made these concessions, most of the public already knew that the columnists’ notions were wrong to begin with.
It also took Leonhardt 41 months to admit that Covid deaths were significantly overcounted. But, as when drivers who exhale a .25% blood alcohol level say they “only had a couple of beers,” neither Leonhardt nor the rest of the Covid-crazed will admit howmuch these numbers were strategically inflated.
Leonhardt had also backed Paxlovid, which has long since been widely devalued.
And Leonhardt very belatedly admitted that infection confers immunity: first to individuals, then to the group. By so conceding, he was merely validating a basic epidemiological principle—herd immunity—that was widely accepted before March, 2020 but, from 2020-22, was used to vilify those who stated it.
Further, while Leonhardt and Mandavilli continue to sell the phony “Pandemic of the Unvaccinated” narrative, far more vaxxed, than unvaxxed people have died with Covid.
Conspicuously, Mandavilli and Leonhardt also fail to mention that hundreds of thousands have suffered apparent vaxx injuries or deaths from heart attacks, strokes or cancers and that overall deaths have increased in highly vaxxed nations. Thus, when one considers all causes of death, the shots seem to have caused a net loss, not gain, in life span.
The Times writers ignore the tens of thousands of American post-vaxx deaths listed in the user-unfriendly, and therefore underused, VAERS database and the excess death increases in the most highly vaxxed nations in 2021-22. Unlike the vaxx injured, who are still alive, dead vaccinees tell no tales. Nor do most of their survivors because, as with families who’ve lost a young man in a war, those left to mourn don’t want to believe that their beloved has died avoidably or in vain. The reluctance to attribute deaths to the shots is particularly acute if the bereaved encouraged the decedent to inject.
While Mandavilli and Leonhardt now begrudgingly report that the shots may not, despite all of the ads and bureaucratic assurances, have been so safe after all, conceding that the shots have killed people is a bridge too far. At least for now.
But the Overton Window has been opened. Thus, the media backpedaling will continue, albeit slowly. Vaxx injuries and NPI-induced damage are not emerging trends. They’re established trends that deserve much more coverage than they’ve received. The lockdown/mask/test/vaxx supporters have been thoroughly wrong throughout. They have no credibility chips left.
I derive little satisfaction from watching their pro-vaxx/NPI case crumble. Firstly, unlike in a courtroom, where judges and juries are, at least in theory, focused on what witnesses say, most peoples’ attention is too scattered to notice the Covid fearmongers’ reversals. The media’s retreat has occurred very slowly. As the backtracking fearmongers have cynically calculated, the public’s Covid fatigue will blunt anti-media anger.
Secondly, these media’s concessions come far too late to have much practical benefit. Team Mania’s social, economic and political objectives were accomplished in 2020-22. Sadly, this damage is permanent.
Nonetheless, in order to discourage additional public health, political and economic chicanery and oppression, we must continue to say what’s true: the Scamdemic was a massive, opportunistic overreaction that most people were too naive to apprehend.
Truth is intrinsically valuable. Regardless of outcome, telling the truth is our obligation to posterity.
A longtime aide to former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci allegedly boasted in emails about his ability to evade public records requests and his intention to delete any potential “smoking guns,” a congressional hearing revealed Thursday.
Former National Institutes of Health Acting Director Lawrence Tabak testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which has been investigating an American research organization at the center of suspicions that the COVID-19 pandemic may have resulted from a lab accident in Wuhan.
The hearing follows an announcement Wednesday that this organization — EcoHealth Alliance, helmed by President Peter Daszak — has had its federal funding suspended and could be on track to be debarred from federal funding for years. The enforcement action stems from EcoHealth’s failure to adequately oversee the research it subcontracted to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This research included experiments that made SARS-related coronaviruses more dangerous. Daszak testified before the committee earlier this month.
EcoHealth’s research was underwritten by NIAID — placing Fauci and his aides in the spotlight too. The scrutiny of EcoHealth and NIAID has revealed that Daszak had a close connection to Fauci’s inner circle in the senior advisor to the NIAID director, David Morens.
Morens told the committee in a transcribed interview that Daszak is one of his oldest friends.
Now evidence has surfaced suggesting that Morens evaded the Freedom of Information Act — which requires that records from federal agencies be made public with limited exceptions — and that an unidentified public records official with the NIH helped him to do so.
NIH and NIAID did not immediately reply to request for comment.
Morens boasted about the ability to “make emails disappear” even after a FOIA request had been submitted, according to the committee.
The emails were revealed in questions by House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky.
“Dr. David Morens, a senior advisor to Fauci for decades, wrote in an email to Dr. Daszak, ‘I learned from our FOIA lady here how to make emails disappear after I am FOIA’d but before the search starts. So I think we are all safe. Plus I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to Gmail,’” Comer said Thursday. “Is that consistent with NIH document retention policies?”
“It is not,” Tabak answered.
Asked if the NIH FOIA office instructs employees on how to evade FOIA, Tabak answered, “I certainly hope not.”
U.S. Right to Know is among the organizations that have submitted FOIAs to the NIH for emails from Morens about information with potential relevance to the origins of COVID-19 and is litigating against the NIH over its failure to comply with a January 2022 FOIA request for Morens’s records.
In a separate email, Morens said that he intended to delete any records or emails that might constitute a “smoking gun.”
“He also later wrote Dr. Daszak, ‘We are all smart enough to know to never have smoking guns. And if we did we wouldn’t put them in emails. And if we found them we would delete them,’” Comer said. “Is that consistent with NIH document retention policies?”
“It is not,” Tabak again replied.
According to Comer, Daszak and Morens also collaborated in crafting public messages in response to emails set to be released by NIH under FOIA.
The emails described by Comer undermine Tabak’s prepared testimony at the hearing in which he claimed the NIH is committed to transparency and following the science on the question of the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tabak’s testimony sets the stage for Morens to testify next week. Morens supplied the committee with 30,000 emails the day before Daszak testified before the committee on May 1.
Morens wrote in an email to Daszak in 2021 that he communicates on Gmail “because my NIH email is FOIA’d constantly,” The Intercept previouslyreported.
“Just send to any of my addresses and I will delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times,” Morens wrote.
Looped into this email chain were several virologists who have cast the lab origin hypothesis as a conspiracy theory in the press. These virologists included University of Sydney virologist Edward Holmes, Scripps Institute virologist Kristian Andersen, and Tulane University virologist Robert Garry, who have also been investigated by the committee for their role in an influential paper that dismissed the idea SARS-CoV-2 could have been engineered without disclosing the involvement of Fauci and former NIH Director Francis Collins.
The committee released emails earlier this month showing that Daszak informed Morens of his intention to voluntarily release only enough records to stave off a subpoena for more. The committee is now demanding more documents from Daszak, according to Subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio.
The committee’s investigation is building up to the testimony of Fauci on June 3.
Tabak confirmed Thursday that the NIAID did indeed fund gain-of-function research on coronaviruses in Wuhan through EcoHealth Alliance according to the colloquial understanding.
According to the policy in place from 2014 to 2018 — the “U.S. Government Gain-of-Function Deliberative Process and Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS, and SARS viruses” — the definition of gain-of-function research at the time of the experiments involving the Wuhan Institute of Virology included “research that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause disease.”
Grant reports demonstrate that “chimeric” or combined coronaviruses studied by EcoHealth and the Wuhan Institute of Virology caused more severe disease in mice engineered to express human receptors than the backbone virus.
However, Tabak downplayed the risk posed by these chimeric viruses because they were bat coronaviruses, though the public literature described one of these viruses as “poised for human emergence.”
Fauci repeatedly denied that NIAID funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan in high-profile exchanges with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in 2021.
“Sen. Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially,” Fauci said in a July 2021 hearing.
Tabak confirmed in the hearing Wednesday that in October 2021 the NIH communications office changed the definition of “gain-of-function research” on the NIH website.
Asked to identify which scientist at NIH made or vetted the decision, Tabak could not identify any particular official.
By Donald Neff | Washington Report On Middle East Affairs | January 1996
On January 4, 1948, Jewish terrorists drove a truck loaded with explosives into the center of the all Arab city of Jaffa and detonated it, killing 26 and wounding around 100 Palestinian men, women and children.[1] The attack was the work of the Irgun Zvai Leumi – the “National Military Organization,” also known by the Hebrew letters Etzel – the largest Jewish terrorist group in Palestine. The Irgun was headed by Revisionist Zionist Menachem Begin and had been killing and maiming Arabs, Britons and even Jews for the previous ten years in its efforts to establish a Jewish state.
This terror campaign meant that at the core of Revisionist Zionism there existed a philosophical embrace of violence. … continue
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
