OMG, Sen. Paul grilling Fauci on GOF funding in Wuhan Virology Inst

Off Topic
#22

If you are confused by Matt’s explanation, you aren’t alone. Dr Baric developed the GOF technique known as “no see em” which leaves no traceable markers that would indicate human fiddling with virus RNA.

Dr. Shi Zhengli tagged Dr Fauci in her own paper describing her work on SARS-CoV2, she put Fauci and NIH as sponsors of the work. Analysis by MIT concludes that she was doing Gain of Function.

Here is the follow up interview with Sen. Paul, where he breaks down the issue. You don’t have to be a Virologist to understand the process, the players, or the incredibly damning fact that Coronavirus just happened to emerge at a wet market only 2 miles from the WVI. Give me a break…

#23

Except SARS-CoV2 was not in that paper, the original SARS virus and some others such as MERS were present. SARS-CoV2 was still unknown at the time of that paper.

The paper was studying the origins of Coronaviruses and does not indicate gain of function work.
Whilst the paper itself is listed by Paul/media sources amplifying him such as NYP (paper), no one can point to where the claimed analysis came from that supposedly shows this was gain of function

4 Likes
#24

If you are confused by @mdredmond’s explanation, I’ll try to simplify it.

Evolution is like choo-choo train cars on a choo-choo train track. All the cars have mileage counters. Taking a virus into a lab is like switching some of the choo-choo train cars to another track that goes somewhere else. If you bring those cars back onto the main track and check the mileage, you’ll see that they’re different.

3 Likes
#25

There have been numerous virology papers published on these topics over the last year.

Simply put, if CV19 was a man-made virus, it would have been made using techniques that are unknown to the broader science community, in a manner untraceable to the trained and knowledgeable eye, or at a evolutionary speed that is currently thought by the science community to be impossible. (Thousands of forced changes over a few years.)

All of this points to CV19 not being man-made, as almost every virologist around the world has stated.

But, let’s assume that there are top-secret genome engineering techniques that “the government” has that can do precisely all those things. Ignoring that such a technology would be a quantum leap forward in biological engineering, why would “they” make a killer virus that performs as poorly as CV19.

All things considered CV19 is a bad weapon. Compared to SARS, it barely does anything. If the government wanted to kill people, dropping an infection of SARS on the world would be far more effective. Or any number of other bioweapons.

Then the question arises of Fauci’s financial interest in the matter. Fauci is… a doctor… with intimate knowledge of the best medical products on the market… is anyone surprised that he’s invested in companies that make medical supplies? Why is this a damnation?

I work in the medical field and invest in medical companies that I believe in, including companies that make good masks because I see lots of doctors prefering them. Does that make me a conspirator in selling masks? No, it makes me a knowledgeable investor.

6 Likes
#26

Good analogy and explanation.

Here is an image that depicts the concept, though at a high level. This happens to deal with SARS-Cov-2 as a human virus and not its incidence in bats, but the concept is the same and scientists have collected samples from bats for at least the last decade since SAR1 and MERS.

Each branch is a set of identified mutations that define a variant. Each ending dot is the disappearance of that variant in the population (human or bat).

A (to-be) genetically modified virus will be initially plucked from somewhere in that tree and taken to a lab. Since it is no longer replicating, it will not travel down the branches it would have. It’s stopped.

If it is later reintroduced, it will look like an earlier variant (from where it was plucked) that has reappeared. That hasn’t happened.

@Russell_Crow: I’m not saying that SARS-CoV-2 wasn’t engineered. I’m saying that the only people I’ve heard say it aren’t qualified to have an opinion, much less assert it as fact.

image
image833×655 55.1 KB

6 Likes
#27

This guy is a Molecular Biologist at Rutgers, do you think he and 17 of his professional associates are qualified to question the real origins of Covid-19?

Screenshot_20210513-184752_Chrome~2
Screenshot_20210513-184752_Chrome~21080×1612 238 KB

#28

Well that’s better than an ophthalmologist but that’s still not an expert in the field and by the way they’re our geologist out they don’t believe in a younger. Do not believe in evolution. Do not believe fossils were created when they were that don’t believe the Earth is the age that most geologists say that that the Earth is Young and it’s not the age that most geologists say it is I’m at

#29

Those scientists, and many others, are asking for a full investigation of the wuhan lab safety protocols.

Note that none of them are claiming that the virus was manufactured.

Origination of the virus has been narrowed to a leak from the lab and / or the market nearby. It’s also plausible it could have hit both at relatively the same time if the Bat trader sold some bats to the lab and then at the local market in the same time frame.

Origination is an important question in terms of traceability and understanding the pathogenesis of the virus.

It’s much more important that we (the broader scientific community) make sure that all known safety protocols were followed at WIV, and that if it did escape from there, we figure out how.

The many many calls like those you highlighted above are asking for a thorough investigation into WIV to answer these questions.

If the virus did originate/ escape from WIV (which is considered to be highly unlikely), then either

A) safety protocols were not followed at a level 4 lab

Or

B) CV19 got past the safety protocols.

Both of those are incredibly scary possibilities that need to be thoroughly assessed.

Reiterating, NONE of those scientists are claiming manufacturing of virus. They all want safety questions answered, and China is not being forthcoming with answers or allowing outsiders in.

China’s lack of compliance with international safety study groups is the real scary thing here.

4 Likes
#30

I found the paper. It covers the work her team performed on horseshoe bats while looking for the progenitor to SARS and MERS.

The startling revelation therein is that Shi realizes that the Spike Protein on the virus she names W1V1, doesn’t need a intermediary species to infect human ACE2 receptors. It doesn’t need GOF to infect humans, it is already infectious.

A statement Sen. Paul makes is wrong, this virus could infect humans with no mods and no intermediate species.

http://cel.webofknowledge.com/InboundService.do?customersID=Publons_CEL&smartRedirect=yes&mode=FullRecord&IsProductCode=Yes&product=CEL&Init=Yes&Func=Frame&action=retrieve&SrcApp=Publons&SrcAuth=Publons_CEL&SID=8CFATJMpQN5JhwhF4b4&UT=WOS%3A000327464200045

#31

This is the old 2013 paper, which culminated in a 2015 publication and subsequent controversy. No one denies this was present.

Pauls’ conspiracy tirade against Fauci and the NIH is about the funding to programs that go collect bat guana and study regional endemics as part of understanding natural coronaviruses, claiming that this work is gain of function.

That’s the conspiracy that Paul is pushing, and that is what’s being debated here.

3 Likes
#32

Fauci was backing GOF in 2012. 1 year later Zhengli finds a progenitor to the viruses which caused the SARS (2002) and MERS (2012) outbreaks.

These deadly bugs keep coming out so fast, I don’t think GOF is really useful. The idea of GOF is: we need to get ahead of a virus which will cross to human infection in 100 years. The truth is we have seen 4 deadly viruses crawl out of the bush in 19 years. If MERS were as contagious as Measles, we would be gone by now.

Now, did Zhengli’s virus escape her Lab?

#33

What you’re implying is all of these are somehow tied to GoF; in reality, we have easier travel, tighter grouping, and a societal problem where people feel they don’t need to take basic measures to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

3 Likes
#34

Want to throw an almost on topic log on the fire? How is the risk model affected for some unusually harmful version of avian flu, as more and more cities give in and ease restrictions on keeping chickens on residential lots?

#35

Viruses mutate remember me talking about the parvo virus that infected dog’s mutated from the cops and then we’ve had two seizures crawl out of the Bush for centuries sometimes we didn’t even know that they had crawled out before rapid Transportation Sometimes some of these diseases would come out in fact a villager to all those people would disappear on the virus died out right there it’s like the HIV virus they have dated back to around 1900 but nobody knew it was around it didn’t travel very far. It is very impressive what we can do today with DNA they even believe that I have found the animal that the smallpox virus mutated in when it jumped to humans that far back it was a desert rodent. It’s not something most people know about and quite frankly those of us that are older we didn’t learn I’ve had to go by more Modern Biology books so I could learn more to understand what my friends were we are living in a time of Wonders and there are some researchers that feel we’re going to have a universal coronavirus vaccine within five to six it is it is possible that this might be the last great pandemic because we will be able to develop the vaccines quick enough. I wonder if you realize that they had the basic formula for this vaccine before the end of January of 2020 they had the basic design for the vaccine within 2 weeks of getting the published genome.

#36

I’m not trying to say Dr. Zhengli manufactured SARS-CoV2 in her Lab; to the contrary, I’m saying that Nature is making these bugs a lot faster than we have comprehended.

What you have written regarding the spread of humans to every corner of the Earth, with our fast transport and logistics, can be part of the problem. If Zhengli’s bats were carrying SARS-CoV2, (just as bats carried SARS, MERS, and Ebola), and some enterprising bat catcher caught and brought these critters to market, you don’t need GOF to make these super bugs. All you need is the people dumb enough to eat these little virus factories.

In Austin, TX, 1/2 million bats now live under the Congress Ave. Bridge. In the past, the City of Austin used to exterminate them because they are rabies carriers. There is no rabies problem in Austin, because the bats generally keep to themselves, and nobody is selling them at a wet market on 6th Street.

Likewise, a researcher like Zhengli is just as dangerous as a bat trader. Shi has made many expeditions to Yunnan, to drag these bats back to her Lab in a major population center. Shi sampled 183 horseshoe bats, found 180 carried rabies (they were destroyed) and the surviving 3 gave her the SARS-CoV2 virus. Shi kept this virus viable in her Lab for years. I ask you again, did it escape from Zhengli’s Lab? We may never know.

#37

“now live” as if it’s a new thing? The bats have been there since the bridge was renovated in the early '80s and the construction conveniently left some crevices that were perfectly sized for bats to roost. I’m sure the contractor made an innocent mistake… OR DID THEY!!!

2 Likes
#38

Jesse Bloom and Ralph Baric can’t rule out a Lab leak.

Screenshot_20210514-102637_Chrome~2
Screenshot_20210514-102637_Chrome~21048×1024 180 KB

#39

And we cannot rule out that are tornado in Dallas is caused by is caused by a butterfly landing on a branch of a certain tree in the Amazon. Now it now that idea is highly unlikely because there are better and more scientific explanation. And no our research lab is not the same as that traitors they have security going multiple directions because they don’t want other viruses introduced into an area where they’re setting one because that would cloud the results.

#40

And Fauci straight-up admitted he lied about mask wearing. He’s also lying about his knowledge of gain of function work being conducted at UNC-CH.

1 Like
#41

But the reason he did this was because the exam wasn’t rigorous enough.