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robert redfield
What Might the US Owe the World for Covid-19?
A US-funded laboratory origin of Covid-19 would certainly constitute the most significant case of governmental gross negligence in history. The people of the world deserve transparency and factual answers on vital questions.
Mar 16, 2024
The US government (USG) funded and supported a program of dangerous laboratory research that may have resulted in the creation and accidental laboratory release of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the outbreak, the USG lied in order to cover up its possible role. The US Government should correct the lies, find the facts, and make amends with the rest of the world.
A group of intrepid truth-seekers—journalists, scientists, whistleblowers—have uncovered a vast amount of information pointing to the likely laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2. Most important has been the intrepid work of the The Intercept and US Right to Know (USRTK), especially investigative reporter Emily Kopp at USRTK.
Based on this investigative work, the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is now carrying out an important investigation in a Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. In the Senate, the leading voice for transparency, honesty, and reason in investigating the origin of SARS-Cov-2 has been Republican Senator Rand Paul.
The evidence of a possible laboratory creation revolves around a multi-year US-led research program that involved US and Chinese scientists. The research was designed by US scientists, funded mainly by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense, and administered by a US organization, the EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), with much of the work taking place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The US owes the full truth, and perhaps ample financial compensation, to the rest of the world, depending on what the facts ultimately reveal.
Here are facts that we know as of today.
First, the NIH became the home for biodefense research starting in 2001. In other words, the NIH became a research arm of the military and intelligence communities. Biodefense funding from the Defense Department budget went to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s division, the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Second, NIAID and DARPA (in the Defense Department) supported extensive research on potential pathogens for biowarfare and biodefense, and for the design of vaccines to protect against biowarfare or accidental laboratory releases of natural or manipulated pathogens. Some of the work was carried out at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories of the NIH, which manipulated and tested viruses using its in-house bat colony.
Third, NIAID became a large-scale financial supporter of Gain of Function (GoF) research, meaning laboratory experiments designed to genetically alter pathogens to make them even more pathogenic, such as viruses that are easier to transmit and/or more likely to kill infected individuals. This kind of research is inherently dangerous, both because it aims to create more dangerous pathogens and because those new pathogens can escape from the laboratory, either accidentally or deliberately (e.g., as an act of biowarfare or terrorism).
Fourth, many leading US scientists opposed GoF research. One of the leading opponents inside the government was Dr. Robert Redfield, an Army virologist who would later be the Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) at the start of the pandemic. Redfield suspected from the start that the pandemic resulted from NIH-supported research, but says that he was sidelined by Fauci.
Fifth, because of the very high risks associated with GoF research, the US Government added additional biosafety regulations in 2017. GoF research would have to be carried out in highly secure laboratories, meaning at Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) or Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4). Work in a BSL-3 or 4 facility is more expensive and time-consuming than work in a BSL-2 facility because of the added controls against an escape of the pathogen from the facility.
Sixth, one NIH-backed research group, EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), proposed to move some of its GoF research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). In 2017, EHA submitted a proposal to the US Government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects (DARPA) for GoF work at WIV. The proposal, named DEFUSE, was a veritable “cookbook” for making viruses like SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory. The DEFUSE plan was to investigate more than 180 previously unreported strains of Betacoronavirus that had been collected by WIV, and to use GoF techniques to make these viruses more dangerous. Specifically, the project proposed to add protease sites like the furin cleavage site (FCS) to natural viruses in order to enhance the infectivity and transmissibility of the virus.
Seventh, in the draft proposal, the EHA director boasted that “the BSL2 nature of work on SARSr-CoVs makes our system highly cost effective relative to other bat-virus systems,” prompting the lead scientist on the EHA proposal to comment that US scientists would “freak out” if they learned of US government support for GoF research at WIV in a BSL2 facility.
Eighth, the Defense Department rejected the DEFUSE proposal in 2018, yet NIAID funding for EHA covered the key scientists of the DEFUSE project. EHA therefore had ongoing NIH funding to carry out the DEFUSE research program.
Ninth, when the outbreak was first noted in Wuhan in late 2019 and January 2020, key US virologists associated with NIH believed that the SARS-CoV-2 had most likely emerged from GoF research, and said so on a phone call with Fauci on February 1, 2020. The most striking clue for these scientists was the presence of the FCS in SARS-CoV-2, with the FCS appearing at exactly the location in the virus (the S1/S2 junction) that had been proposed in the DEFUSE program.
Tenth, the top NIH officials, including Director Francis Collins and NIAID Director Fauci, tried to hide the NIH-supported GoF research, and promoted the publication of a scientific paper (“The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”) in March 2020 declaring a natural origin of the virus. The paper completely ignored the DEFUSE proposal.
Eleventh, some US officials began to point their fingers at WIV as the source of the laboratory leak while hiding the NIH-funding and EHA-led research program that may have led to the virus.
Twelfth, the above facts have come to light only as a result of intrepid investigative reporting, whistleblowers, and leaks from inside the US Government, including the leak of the DEFUSE proposal. The Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services determined in 2023 that NIH did not adequately oversee the EHA grants.
Thirteenth, investigators have also realized in retrospect that researchers at Rocky Mountain Labs, together with key scientists associated with EHA, were infecting the RML Egyptian fruit bats with SARS-like viruses in experiments closely linked to those proposed in DEFUSE.
Fourteenth, the FBI and Department of Energy have reported their assessments that the laboratory escape of SARS-CoV-2 is the most likely explanation of the virus.
Fifteenth, a whistleblower from inside the CIA has recently charged that the CIA team investigating the outbreak concluded that SARS-CoV-2 most likely emerged from the laboratory, but that senior CIA officials bribed the team to report a natural origin of the virus.
The sum of the evidence – and the absence of reliable evidence pointing to a natural origin (see here and here) – adds up to the possibility that the US funded and implemented a dangerous GoF research program that led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2 and then to a worldwide pandemic. A powerful recent assessment by mathematical biologist Alex Washburne reaches the conclusion “beyond reasonable doubt that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from a lab…” He also notes that the collaborators “proceeded to mount what can legitimately be called a disinformation campaign” to hide the laboratory origin.
A US-funded laboratory origin of Covid-19 would certainly constitute the most significant case of governmental gross negligence in world history. Moreover, there is a high likelihood that the US Government continues to this day to fund dangerous GoF work as part of its biodefense program. The US owes the full truth, and perhaps ample financial compensation, to the rest of the world, depending on what the facts ultimately reveal.
We need three urgent actions. The first is an independent scientific investigation in which all laboratories involved in the EHA research program in the US and China fully open their books and records to the independent investigators. The second is a worldwide halt on GoF research until an independent global scientific body sets grounds rules for biosafety. The third is for the UN General Assembly to establish rigorous legal and financial accountability for governments that violate international safety norms through dangerous research activities that threaten the health and security of the rest of the world.
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CDC Official Says She Was Told to Delete Email on Kids' Covid-19 Risk to Match Trump's School Reopening Message
"Federal employees have affirmative obligations to preserve documents, and destruction of federal records is potentially illegal," warned Rep. James Clyburn.
Dec 09, 2020
The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allegedly ordered agency staff to delete an email sent by a political appointee of President Donald Trump seeking to alter a scientific report on corovanirus health risks in children, a CDC official told Congress this week.
The Hill reports Charlotte Kent, the CDC official responsible for the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWRs), told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis in a transcribed interview on Monday that she was instructed to delete an email regarding Covid-19 risk to young people.
\u201cCDC official tells Congress she was told to delete email seeking to alter scientific report https://t.co/0wT2fvLsZa\u201d— The Hill (@The Hill) 1607627767
The August 8, 2020 email (pdf) was sent by Paul Alexander, the former science adviser to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo. According to Kent, it concerned an effort to interfere in a CDC report on Covid-19 risks to children and teens during the period when President Donald Trump was pushing school districts across the nation to reopen.
"I was instructed to delete the email," Kent said, adding that she found the directive "very unusual." Kent added she was told the order to destroy the evidence came from CDC Director Robert Redfield, although she said she did not speak directly with him about the matter.
When Kent went to delete the email, she found it was already gone; although she said she did not know who deleted it.
\u201c#NEW: A @CDCgov career scientist told @COVIDOversight they were instructed to delete an email regarding political interference.\n\nWe demand the Department end its stonewalling; Dir. Redfield & @HHSgov Sec. Azar must comply with @COVIDOversight's investigation. #EndTheInterference\u201d— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis (@Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis) 1607616829
In a Thursday letter to Redfield and his boss, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, Rep. James Clyburn, (D-S.C.), the subcommittee chair, voiced his "serious concern about what may be deliberate efforts by the Trump administration to conceal and destroy evidence that senior political appointees interfered with career officials' response to the coronavirus crisis at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
"Federal employees have affirmative obligations to preserve documents, and destruction of federal records is potentially illegal," Clyburn warned. "Federal law also provides for up to three years of imprisonment for willful destruction of federal records."
\u201cDeleting government emails is a red flag and can be illegal. When the email in question was from a Trump appointee seeking to exert political influence over the CDC's scientific reports, that raises even more questions. Preserving records is not optional.\nhttps://t.co/teXvgdqVAE\u201d— Noah Bookbinder (@Noah Bookbinder) 1607630700
Kent also told the subcommittee that the CDC postponed the release of a report on a Covid-19 outbreak at a summer camp in Georgia until after Redfield appeared before Congress on July 31 to promote the administration's desired school reopenings.
Alexander, who no longer works at HHS, joined the agency in late March and took a leading role in controlling its coronavirus messaging to reflect Trump's downplaying of the pandemic threats. In September, he tried to prevent Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, from publicly speaking about the risk of the virus to children.
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1,000+ CDC Officials Condemn Trump's Disastrous Pandemic Response, 'Silencing' of Agency
"The absence of national leadership on Covid-19 is unprecedented and dangerous," reads a statement from current and former staffers.
Oct 19, 2020
More than 1,000 current and former officers of "an elite disease fighting program" at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have signed an open letter denouncing President Donald Trump and the federal government's disastrous response to the Covid-19 pandemic and demanding that the prestigious public health agency be allowed to resume its crucial role in protecting the health of the nation's people.
"The absence of national leadership on Covid-19 is unprecedented and dangerous," wrote 1,044 physicians, nurses, scientists, and other health professionals who once were or now are Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers at the CDC.
Hundreds of retired and active EIS officers, sometimes called "disease detectives," have signed the letter to publicly share their "concern about the ominous politicization and silencing of the nation's health protection agency during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic."
"It doesn't take 1,000 EIS officers to see that the Trump administration has made a catastrophic mess of its pandemic response," said Carl Bergstrom, a biology professor at the University of Washington, on social media. But when they do, he added, "the people in charge damn well better pay attention."
\u201cIt doesn't take 1000 EIS officers to see that the Trump Administration has made a catastrophic mess of its pandemic response, but when 1000 EIS officers sign a letter stating this, the people in charge damn well better pay attention. h/t @michaelmina_lab \n\nhttps://t.co/Ira4sl7P3x\u201d— Carl T. Bergstrom (@Carl T. Bergstrom) 1602919683
"Bravo!" tweeted Dr. Rick Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority at the Department of Health and Human Services, in response to the letter.
As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, Bright publicly announced his resignation from the National Institute of Health on October 7 in a scathing statement condemning Trump's deadly ineptitude.
"It's time to speak up," Bright said this weekend on social media. "Silence is complicity."
\u201cBravo \u2066@CDCgov\u2069 EIS officers! It\u2019s time to speak up @CDCgov\u2069 \u2066@US_FDA\u2069 \u2066@NIH\u2069 \u2066@BARDA\u2069. Silence is complicity. #TruthWins #SpeakUp #PushBack https://t.co/fcCkHjwiuE\u201d— Rick Bright (@Rick Bright) 1602907397
Dr. William Foege, a world-renowned epidemiologist and former director of the CDC, has also been an outspoken advocate of whistleblowing to shed light on the Trump administration's refusal to respond adequately to the pandemic.
In late September, Foege sent a letter (pdf) to current CDC director Robert Redfield, urging him to risk his job by speaking publicly about the White House's epic failure to mitigate the coronavirus crisis, as Common Dreams reported.
While Redfield has not taken up Foege's call, the letter signed by over 1,000 former or current CDC "disease detectives" does begin to expose how Trump has undermined the once highly regarded public health agency, jeopardizing thousands of lives in the process.
The letter explains:
In previous public health crises, CDC provided the best available information and straightforward recommendations directly to the public. It was widely respected for effectively synthesizing and applying scientific evidence from epidemiologists and biomedical researchers at CDC and worldwide. Its historic credibility was based on incomparable expertise and 70+ years of institutional memory. That focus and organization is hardly recognizable today.
The U.S. epidemic is sustained by deadly chains of transmission that crisscross the entire country. Yet states and territories have been left to invent their own differing systems for defining, diagnosing and reporting cases of this highly contagious disease. Inconsistent contact tracing efforts are confined within each state's borders--while coronavirus infections sadly are not. Such chaos is what CDC customarily avoided by its long history of collaboration with state and local health authorities in developing national systems for disease surveillance and coordinated control.
When the letter was originally drafted in May, the country's Covid-19 death toll had already surpassed 100,000. "The devastation continues," the signatories wrote, "with an end not yet in sight."
Now, nearly 220,000 lives have been lost to the pandemic in the U.S. alone.
"CDC should be at the forefront of a successful response to this global public health emergency," said the retired and active EIS officers. "We urgently call upon the American people to demand and our nation's leaders to allow CDC to resume its indispensable role."
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