Latest news with #WuhanInstituteofVirology
Gulf Insider
22-05-2025
- Health
- Gulf Insider
Masked NIH Employees Storm Out Of Meeting After Director Bhattacharya Questions Agency's Role In COVID-19 Origins
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), sparked a mass walkout of NIH employees after suggesting that COVID-19 may have originated from a Wuhan lab and that NIH helped fund it. During a staff town hall meeting on Monday, Bhattacharya told NIH employees, 'It's possible that the pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings, and it's also possible that the NIH partly sponsored that research.' That comment prompted dozens of NIH employees to walk out of the meeting. NEW: NIH Director @DrJBhattacharya sparks mass walkout from NIH employees after suggesting COVID-19 may have originated from the Wuhan lab — and that NIH helped fund it."It's possible that the pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings, and it's also possible… — KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) May 20, 2025 As the NIH employees, some wearing masks, stormed out of the meeting, Bhattacharya called after them, 'Nice to have free speech. You're welcome, you guys.' Bhattacharya told the remaining employees, 'If it's true that we sponsored research that caused the pandemic — and if you look at polls of the American people, that's what most people believe, and I've looked at the scientific evidence and I believe it — [then] what we have to do is make sure that we don't engage in research that is any risk…to human populations.' The U.S. has faced growing scrutiny for the NIH's participation in controversial virus manipulation experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology where the FBI and CIA both believe the COVID-19 virus originated. As the new director of NIH, Bhattacharya has also faced a $2.7 billion cut in funding from the federal government as well as the layoffs of more than 1,200 staff members. Bhattacharya has argued that the cuts are necessary since, 'There's been a line of research supported by the NIH that I don't actually fundamentally believe is scientific and that is ideological in nature.' The new NIH director became well known during the pandemic for his support of the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for ending lockdowns for all but the most vulnerable.
New York Post
19-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Trump must make China pay for the death and misery its COVID virus unleashed
When a nation bears the blame for more than 7 million deaths worldwide, what is Washington going to do? More than 1.2 million Americans died as a result of a plague that began in China. Those staggering global and US figures are the numbers reported to the World Health Organization. They make the COVID-19 pandemic the deadliest event the human race has suffered since World War II. The presence of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the city where the scourge originated raised suspicions from the start — was this an unnatural disaster? China was studying coronaviruses in that laboratory, conducting 'gain of function' research that often makes pathogens more infectious and deadly, yet much of America's media reflexively dismissed any possibility of a lab leak, calling it a conspiracy theory born of racist paranoia. That labeling didn't silence the discussion, however: If anything, hearing many of the same organizations that staked their credibility on assurances of Joe Biden's physical and mental fitness to serve as president insist a lab-leak scenario is just a conspiracy theory has made some Americans all the more determined to ask the questions they're told they mustn't ask. Now the Trump administration has weighed in, unveiling a new White House web page last month titled, 'Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19.' But if President Donald Trump thinks Chinese experiments are responsible for more than a million American deaths, how tough is he willing to get on Beijing? He's prepared to punish other nations for the toll their trade strategies have taken on us in mere dollar terms. China is the biggest offender in that respect — but the cost of COVID has been incalculably greater, in lives, not just national wealth. The president hit China with staggering tariffs on 'Liberation Day' April 2, and if 'liberation' meant anything, it was supposed to mean freeing America from Beijing's economic power. Yet disentangling the trade relationship between China and America is painful and difficult, and with Wall Street howling in agony, Trump has pulled back, dropping the tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30% for the next 90 days, after he had already carved out exceptions for products like smartphones and computers. China is economically vulnerable right now, as more manufacturing moves to neighboring nations where wages are lower, including India and Vietnam. Trump has the tools to change China's place in the world economy, keeping it from becoming so central to the global system that no nation could hold it responsible for the next horror emerging from the caves or labs of the Middle Kingdom. Rather than easing the tariffs on China, the administration should put Beijing at a comparative disadvantage and prioritize tariff relief for the developing nations that are China's emerging rivals — and, in many cases, its wary neighbors. Punitive measures against the Chinese economy won't bring back the victims of COVID, of course. But they must not be forgotten, either, and there is a moral dimension to constraining China just as surely as there are strategic and economic ones. The moral indictments against the Chinese Communist Party were overwhelming even before COVID, with the party guilty over decades for the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese and the ongoing oppression of billions, to say nothing of the occupation of Tibet and brutal torments inflicted upon Uyghurs and other minorities and dissenters. None of that criminality stopped the rest of the world, including wrongheaded American administrations, from accepting China as an indispensable partner in trade, helping the communist regime rise to superpower status — an aspiring hegemon in its region with outposts and economic colonies spread across the globe. Yet the whole world felt the lash of COVID, and if that searing experience doesn't change the way the community of nations handles risks from China, there will be more to come. Nothing was able to stop the pestilence that began in China six years ago, but a war that might prove deadlier still can be averted by wise measures now. That means taking the strongest economic steps to build up the fearful neighbors who can hem Beijing in, and stepping away from the trade relationship that hollowed out our industries while building China's factories. Think of it as social distancing on a grand scale. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review.
American Military News
06-05-2025
- Health
- American Military News
Videos: Trump bans ‘dangerous' gain-of-function research funding
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday to ban all federal funding for 'dangerous' gain-of-function research in 'countries of concern,' such as China and Iran, and for research in foreign countries that is 'likely to cause another pandemic.' In a fact sheet accompanying the president's executive order, the White House explained that Trump's order will 'drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology.' According to Fox News, gain-of-function research, which was conducted at the Wuhan Lab in China prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, usually involves the modification of a virus to make it stronger or more infectious. 'For decades, policies overseeing gain-of-function research on pathogens, toxins, and potential pathogens have lacked adequate enforcement, transparency, and top-down oversight,' the White House wrote in the fact sheet. 'Researchers have not acknowledged the legitimate potential for societal harms that this kind of research poses.' READ MORE: Fmr. top Democrat behind major Covid 'cover-up,' House GOP says The White House explained that the president has 'long theorized that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and has consistently pushed for transparency in investigating its origins.' Trump's executive order will prohibit federal funding for 'dangerous' gain-of-function research in 'foreign nations deemed to have insufficient research oversight.' The White House emphasized that the order is intended to prevent 'lab accidents and other biosecurity incidents,' while still allowing 'productive biological research' designed to keep the United States prepared for 'biological threats' and at the forefront of health and biosecurity research. Trump described Monday's executive order regarding gain-of-function research as a 'big deal.' '[It] could have been that we wouldn't have had the problem we had if we had this done earlier,' Trump said. Trump signs an executive order to end federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function research — The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 5, 2025 Highlighting the potential dangers of gain-of-function research, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that while gain-of-function research has traditionally been defended as a tool to create vaccines to 'counter a future pandemic,' 'in all of the history of gain-of-function research, we can't point to a single good thing that's come from it.' RFK Jr.: 'In all the history of gain-of-function research, we can't point to a single good thing that has come from it.' — The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 5, 2025
Scottish Sun
06-05-2025
- Health
- Scottish Sun
Trump signs executive order BANNING Frankenstein-style virus research feared to spawned Covid pandemic in Wuhan lab leak
DONALD Trump has banned all US funding for risky virus research in China and beyond, five years after Covid-19 upended the planet. In a blistering executive order signed Monday, Trump outlawed federal support for gain-of-function experiments in countries like China and Iran — blaming the controversial research for unleashing the global health catastrophe. 7 US President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning risky virus research on Monday Credit: AFP 7 Security personnel keep watch outside Wuhan Institute of Virology in China Credit: Reuters 7 Shi Zhengli - dubbed 'Batwoman' for her work on bat coronaviruses - pictured at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) Credit: EPA 7 An aerial view shows the P4 laboratory at the WIV Credit: AFP The US President said in the Oval Office: 'I said that right from day one it leaked out — whether it was to the girlfriend or somebody else, [a] scientist walked outside to have lunch with the girlfriend or was together with a lot of people — but that's how it leaked out in my opinion. 'I've never changed that opinion, so it can leak out innocently, stupidly and incompetently, but innocently and half destroy the world.' The dramatic order pulls the plug on "any present and all future" funding for experiments that make viruses more infectious or deadly - a field many scientists call "dual-use" research due to its potential military and public health impacts. It will also appoint the National Institutes of Health and other agencies to sniff out and shut down bio-research posing a threat to public safety or national security. According to a White House fact sheet, the measures will "drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology." The move comes amid a renewed global spotlight on the origins of Covid-19. There has been a growing consensus among US intelligence agencies including the FBI, Department of Energy, and the CIA that a lab leak in Wuhan is the likeliest explanation. Trump's team tore into the Biden administration for failing to slam the brakes earlier on risky foreign experiments that 'half destroyed the world.' 'Many people believe that gain-of-function research was one of the key causes of the Covid pandemic that struck us in the last decade,' said White House secretary Will Scharf. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hailed it as 'a historic day' and 'the end of gain-of-function research funding by the federal government.' Trump will NOT run for third term after insisting he was 'not joking' What is gain-of-function research? GAIN-of-function (GoF) research involves altering an organism — typically a virus or bacterium — to give it new or enhanced abilities. When it comes to viruses, this often means making them: • More transmissible (spread more easily between people or animals) • More virulent (cause more severe illness) • Able to infect new species (including humans) The goal is usually to better understand how pathogens evolve or to develop vaccines and treatments. For example, scientists might tweak a flu virus to see how it could mutate to jump from birds to humans — giving researchers a head start on fighting future outbreaks. But GoF research is highly controversial because of the risk it could create a supervirus that escapes the lab — whether accidentally or deliberately — and triggers a pandemic, as many fear happened with Covid-19. 'This dangerous game of function research, which aims at taking pathogens and making them more virulent, more transmissible on humans, many scientists believe is responsible for the COVID pandemic,' added NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. 'This research does not protect us against pandemics, as some people might say. There's always a danger that in doing this research, it might leak out,' he said. 'The vast majority of science will go on under this as normal.' The Covid-19 pandemic, which killed more than seven million people worldwide and over one million Americans, has long been surrounded by suspicion over its origins. Though former NIH boss Dr. Francis Collins and ex-NIAID chief Dr. Anthony Fauci insist the virus likely jumped naturally from animals to humans, others — including former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield — have backed the lab leak theory. It comes after The Sun's explosive Covid lab leak documentary laid bare the mounting evidence and disturbing questions surrounding the virus's emergence in Wuhan — home to China's most secretive bio-research facility. The new crackdown also follows an explosive congressional report last December, which concluded Covid "most likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan" - implicating China, US officials, and scientific institutions in a cover-up. The report also revealed the DOJ had probed the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance - accused of funnelling US taxpayer cash to the Wuhan lab through projects like 'Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.' The program, funded by NIAID and USAID between 2014 and 2021, led to gain-of-function research, according to former The National Institutes of Health (NIH) deputy director Dr. Lawrence Tabak — though officials have denied any direct Covid link. Another proposal, Project DEFUSE, submitted by EcoHealth president Dr. Peter Daszak to DARPA, sought to create chimeric bat coronaviruses — and has since been labelled the 'smoking gun' by lab leak proponents. Though never funded, former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) chief Redfield has warned such projects may still have been tested under other grants. 7 Peter Daszak, a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus, arriving at the WIV in 2021 Credit: AFP 7 Dr. Shi Zhengli is seen touring her lab with Peter Daszak back in 2014 Credit: Social Media - Refer to Source 7 In the early days of the pandemic, Shi sequenced the virus and a critical role in the story of Covid Daszak, who testified before Congress last year, admitted China's biosafety rules were weaker than America's — and said he lacked access to key genomic data from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He has fiercely denied any link between EcoHealth and the outbreak, branding lab-leak theorists 'conspiracy theorists' — a stance echoed by Fauci. But the Department of Defense's own watchdog found the US has struggled to track how much gain-of-function research it's helped fund — citing 'significant limitations' and noting such work could qualify as 'offensive biological' research. An audit sparked by Sen. Joni Ernst found at least seven grants worth more than $15.5 million were channelled through subrecipients to Chinese or other foreign labs. The Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency handed over another $46.7 million to EcoHealth Alliance alone. 'I have been fighting for years to end the insane practice of sending tax dollars to China for sketchy pseudoscience,' said Ernst. 'Thankfully, President Trump is ending the batty experiments, like those conducted in Wuhan, that are dangerous and wasteful.' The executive order pauses all infectious pathogen and toxin research until a new enforcement policy is drawn up by Office of Science and Technology boss Michael Kratsios and acting National Security adviser Marco Rubio. It also comes just days after the US released a bombshell new website on Covid origins - pointing the finger squarely at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In a desperate propaganda push, China hit back last week with a bizarre White Paper claiming the virus may have started in the US — accusing America of 'spreading misinformation' and 'scapegoating' Beijing for its own failures. The document insists Covid 'might have emerged in the United States earlier than its officially-claimed timeline' and slams the US for 'indifference and delayed actions.' But the evidence — and global pressure — continues to mount. 'This is a great win for the American people and common sense,' said Ernst. 'I will continue working to expose and halt all taxpayer-funded risky research of pandemic potential in malign foreign countries!'
The Sun
06-05-2025
- Health
- The Sun
Trump signs executive order BANNING Frankenstein-style virus research feared to spawned Covid pandemic in Wuhan lab leak
DONALD Trump has banned all US funding for risky virus research in China and beyond, five years after Covid-19 upended the planet. In a blistering executive order signed Monday, Trump outlawed federal support for gain-of-function experiments in countries like China and Iran — blaming the controversial research for unleashing the global health catastrophe. 7 7 7 7 The US President said in the Oval Office: 'I said that right from day one it leaked out — whether it was to the girlfriend or somebody else, [a] scientist walked outside to have lunch with the girlfriend or was together with a lot of people — but that's how it leaked out in my opinion. 'I've never changed that opinion, so it can leak out innocently, stupidly and incompetently, but innocently and half destroy the world.' The dramatic order pulls the plug on "any present and all future" funding for experiments that make viruses more infectious or deadly - a field many scientists call "dual-use" research due to its potential military and public health impacts. It will also appoint the National Institutes of Health and other agencies to sniff out and shut down bio-research posing a threat to public safety or national security. According to a White House fact sheet, the measures will "drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology." The move comes amid a renewed global spotlight on the origins of Covid-19. There has been a growing consensus among US intelligence agencies including the FBI, Department of Energy, and the CIA that a lab leak in Wuhan is the likeliest explanation. Trump's team tore into the Biden administration for failing to slam the brakes earlier on risky foreign experiments that 'half destroyed the world.' 'Many people believe that gain-of-function research was one of the key causes of the Covid pandemic that struck us in the last decade,' said White House secretary Will Scharf. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hailed it as 'a historic day' and 'the end of gain-of-function research funding by the federal government.' Trump will NOT run for third term after insisting he was 'not joking' What is gain-of-function research? GAIN-of-function (GoF) research involves altering an organism — typically a virus or bacterium — to give it new or enhanced abilities. When it comes to viruses, this often means making them: • More transmissible (spread more easily between people or animals) • More virulent (cause more severe illness) • Able to infect new species (including humans) The goal is usually to better understand how pathogens evolve or to develop vaccines and treatments. For example, scientists might tweak a flu virus to see how it could mutate to jump from birds to humans — giving researchers a head start on fighting future outbreaks. But GoF research is highly controversial because of the risk it could create a supervirus that escapes the lab — whether accidentally or deliberately — and triggers a pandemic, as many fear happened with Covid-19. 'This dangerous game of function research, which aims at taking pathogens and making them more virulent, more transmissible on humans, many scientists believe is responsible for the COVID pandemic,' added NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. 'This research does not protect us against pandemics, as some people might say. There's always a danger that in doing this research, it might leak out,' he said. 'The vast majority of science will go on under this as normal.' The Covid-19 pandemic, which killed more than seven million people worldwide and over one million Americans, has long been surrounded by suspicion over its origins. Though former NIH boss Dr. Francis Collins and ex-NIAID chief Dr. Anthony Fauci insist the virus likely jumped naturally from animals to humans, others — including former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield — have backed the lab leak theory. It comes after The Sun's explosive Covid lab leak documentary laid bare the mounting evidence and disturbing questions surrounding the virus's emergence in Wuhan — home to China's most secretive bio-research facility. The new crackdown also follows an explosive congressional report last December, which concluded Covid "most likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan" - implicating China, US officials, and scientific institutions in a cover-up. The report also revealed the DOJ had probed the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance - accused of funnelling US taxpayer cash to the Wuhan lab through projects like 'Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.' The program, funded by NIAID and USAID between 2014 and 2021, led to gain-of-function research, according to former The National Institutes of Health (NIH) deputy director Dr. Lawrence Tabak — though officials have denied any direct Covid link. Another proposal, Project DEFUSE, submitted by EcoHealth president Dr. Peter Daszak to DARPA, sought to create chimeric bat coronaviruses — and has since been labelled the 'smoking gun' by lab leak proponents. Though never funded, former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) chief Redfield has warned such projects may still have been tested under other grants. 7 7 7 Daszak, who testified before Congress last year, admitted China's biosafety rules were weaker than America's — and said he lacked access to key genomic data from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He has fiercely denied any link between EcoHealth and the outbreak, branding lab-leak theorists 'conspiracy theorists' — a stance echoed by Fauci. But the Department of Defense's own watchdog found the US has struggled to track how much gain-of-function research it's helped fund — citing 'significant limitations' and noting such work could qualify as 'offensive biological' research. An audit sparked by Sen. Joni Ernst found at least seven grants worth more than $15.5 million were channelled through subrecipients to Chinese or other foreign labs. The Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency handed over another $46.7 million to EcoHealth Alliance alone. 'I have been fighting for years to end the insane practice of sending tax dollars to China for sketchy pseudoscience,' said Ernst. 'Thankfully, President Trump is ending the batty experiments, like those conducted in Wuhan, that are dangerous and wasteful.' The executive order pauses all infectious pathogen and toxin research until a new enforcement policy is drawn up by Office of Science and Technology boss Michael Kratsios and acting National Security adviser Marco Rubio. It also comes just days after the US released a bombshell new website on Covid origins - pointing the finger squarely at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In a desperate propaganda push, China hit back last week with a bizarre White Paper claiming the virus may have started in the US — accusing America of 'spreading misinformation' and 'scapegoating' Beijing for its own failures. The document insists Covid 'might have emerged in the United States earlier than its officially-claimed timeline' and slams the US for 'indifference and delayed actions.' But the evidence — and global pressure — continues to mount. 'This is a great win for the American people and common sense,' said Ernst. 'I will continue working to expose and halt all taxpayer-funded risky research of pandemic potential in malign foreign countries!'
