Batty supervirus idea
Wuhan-lab defender sought worse strain
Controversial British scientist Peter Daszak, who funneled money from the US government to study coronaviruses in China — then launched a campaign to defend the Wuhan Institute of Virology — once wanted to help create even more infectious versions, leaked documents reveal.
The proposal — spearheaded by Daszak’s New York City-based nonprofit, EcoHealth Alliance — aimed to genetically engineer coronaviruses that were more infectious to humans and then conduct experiments on live bats about 18 months before the first COVID-19 cases emerged. A US Department of Defense agency rejected the funding proposal because the risks of infection were too great.
Scientists at the Wuhan Institute were planning to genetically enhance airborne coronaviruses and release aerosols containing “novel chimeric spike proteins” among cave bats in Yunnan, China, according to the 2018 proposal submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
They also planned to alter coronaviruses to infect humans more easily by introducing “human-specific cleavage sites” to bat coronaviruses.
The purpose of the research was to assess the risk of coronaviruses, work on ways to prevent outbreaks and even vaccinate bats against the virus, according to the proposal.
But the $14 million grant ended up being rejected by DARPA over fears it could result in gain-of-function research, which could make a virus more transmissible and pathogenic.
“It is clear that the proposed project led by Peter Daszak could have put local communities at risk,” DARPA said in rejecting the proposal.
Details of the leaked proposal were released Tuesday by Drastic Research, a group of international scientists investigating the origins of the pandemic. Drastic said it was provided the papers by a whistleblower, and a former member of the Trump administration confirmed the proposal’s authenticity to The Telegraph.
The group questioned whether the research — particularly altering the virus to make it more infectious to humans — still went ahead given the theory that COVID-19 spread from the Wuhan lab.
“Given that we find in this proposal a discussion of the planned introduction of human-specific cleavage sites, a review by the wider scientific community of the plausibility of artificial insertion is warranted,” Drastic said.
The revelation comes one week after a group of GOP lawmakers called for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to subpoena Dr. Anthony Fauci on the origins of COVID-19.
In a letter sent to Pelosi on Sept. 14, they said they have unsuccessfully attempted to seek information from multiple officials about the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases funding that they believe may have been used for gain-offunction research. Fauci is NIAID’s director. The group argued that the information was critical for providing oversight and gaining information to prevent future pandemics, noting that the intelligence community’s report on the deadly virus’ origin was inconclusive.
Fauci was earlier accused by critics of lying after separate documents appeared to contradict his claims that the National Institutes of Health did not fund gain-of-function research at the same Wuhan lab. NIAID is part of the NIH.
The documents were obtained by the Intercept.