patrick.net

🔥 We weren’t the only ones who noticed Dr. Fauci’s stunning admission in that redacted/unredacted gain-of-function email I covered yesterday. Also yesterday, the UK Daily Mail ran this headline:




Human cockroach Anthony Fauci, the highest-paid employee in the federal government before he retired (and you don’t even want to know about his retirement package), consistently denied in his sworn Congressional testimony that the U.S. government ever funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Fauci steadfastly insisted it NEVER EVER HAPPENED. But the Daily Mail reported that in a letter to Attorney General Garland, Senator Rand Paul directly linked NIH funding to Wuhan gain-of-function research into coronaviruses:

“And yet, gain-of-function research was done entirely in the Wuhan Institute by Doctor Shi [Zhengli] and was funded by the NIH,” he said. Paul then cited the paper by WIV scientists titled “Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus.”

The paper specifically talks about ongoing efforts to produce a ‘chimeric’ coronavirus, which means it has been altered by man – otherwise known as ‘gain of function.’

It also details, Paul noted, that the NIH was a source of funding for that research.
Well, how about that? Fauci lied, under oath. You know how to tell whether Fauci is lying? Check to see if his lips are moving.

Grandma Garland won’t do a thing about it, of course, but it’s progress. Drip, drip, drip.

Among other important topics, the House Oversight Committee has been working on the Wuhan lab leak controversy, and last week released a batch of explosive new documents, including what might be the single most important email in the long, sordid history of government covid misconduct.

The Committee’s new disclosures included a Fauci email dated February 1st, 2020, that had been previously released to private FOIA requestors, but in a useless, heavily redacted form. Fauci and the NIH basically gave the private parties who requested the documents the bird with a giant block redaction leaving a couple meaningless words tacked onto either side:




... Anyway, the (b)(5) inter-agency FOIA exception doesn’t apply to the House Oversight Committee, because the Committee IS the government, and doesn’t have to use FOIA to get government documents. So the Committee got from the NIH an unreacted version of the same email, and guess what?

It immediately became perfectly obvious what they were hiding. There’s a key sentence in the middle of the document that, had it been disclosed instead of buried under a planet-sized pile of bureaucratic bovine excrement, might have changed everything:

"The suspicion was heightened by the fact that scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments to determine the molecular mechanisms associated with bat viruses adapting to human infection, and the outbreak originated in Wuhan."

Got that? “The FACT” that scientists in Wuhan “ARE known” — known, not “suspected” — and HOW did they know? — known to be working on gain-of-function research … on what? BAT VIRUSES, that’s what. That sentence proves Fauci and the rest of that colorful group of mobsters knew BEFORE FEBRUARY 1ST 2020 about the gain-of-function bat work in Wuhan, yet they spent three years denying that singular, critically-important fact, and then bribing, threatening, cajoling and making life absolutely miserable for anyone and everyone who dared asked questions.

... This coverup is literally a million times worse than the cholera epidemic the United Nations caused in Haiti and then lied about for six years.

How many deaths could have been prevented if we knew it was not a “novel” virus at all but a human-engineered bioweapon, and didn’t waste thousands of research hours looking in all the wrong places? Worse, bioweapons designers ALWAYS make a cure for their bioweapons along with their diseases. We might have used the KNOWN FACTS to force the Chinese to cough up the cure, or at least turn over all its data about how the virus was created.

Instead, Fauci and company helped protect the Chinese, intentionally creating a miasma of B.S. and confusion that hangs over and smothers the country more than the Canadian wildfire smog.

If you depended on corporate media for information, you wouldn’t even know about this story.

"We really don't know that much about how viruses work."

I read an article, I think on El Gato Malo or Eugyppius, which convinced me that it's possible for one virus to displace another. We really don't know that much about how viruses work.

Influenza (flu) and the common cold are both contagious respiratory illnesses, but they are caused by different viruses. Flu is caused by influenza viruses only, whereas the common cold can be caused by a number of different viruses, including rhinoviruses, parainfluenza, and seasonal coronaviruses. Seasonal coronaviruses should not be confused with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Because flu and the common cold have similar symptoms, it can be difficult to tell the difference between them based on symptoms alone. In general, flu is worse than the common cold, and symptoms are typically more intense and begin more abruptly. Colds are usually milder than flu. People with colds are more likely to have a runny or stuffy nose than people who have flu. Colds generally do not result in serious health problems, such as pneumonia, bacterial infections, or hospitalizations. Flu can have serious associated complications.

REMDESIVIR
RUN DEATH IS NEAR!

Wu et al. reported on Acute Kidney Injury Associated With Remdesivir via a Comprehensive Pharmacovigilance Analysis of COVID-19 Reports; why did CDC, FDA, Fauci, Walensky, NIH, Francis Collins ignore?

More AKI events occurred in cases of male patients and those above the age of 65 years. We detected a significant association between remdesivir and AKI: ROR = 2.81, 95% CI (2.48, 3.18). The association was stronger after the propensity score matching ROR = 3.85, 95% CI (3.11, 4.78). The mean time to AKI event onset was 4.91 ± 7.25 days in COVID-19 cases with remdesivir therapy. The fatality proportion was 36.45% in AKI cases with remdesivir treatment. This pharmacovigilance study identified a significant association between AKI events and remdesivir treatment in COVID-19 patients by mining FAERS real-world big data. Although causality was not confirmed, the association between remdesivir and AKI should not be ignored, especially in the older, male COVID-19 inpatients.

REMDESIVIR
RUN DEATH IS NEAR!

🔬 The puzzle pieces continue to fall into place, and a significant new puzzle piece dropped last week, in the form of a preprint published to MedRxIV on July 31st, titled “SARS-CoV-2 Uses CD4 to Infect T Helper Lymphocytes.”

Although “just” a preprint, it features no fewer than seventy-seven authors. And it has already gathered three positive peer reviews. Let’s start with their conclusion, and then try to unpack what it means. The study’s admittedly obscure conclusion:

We demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein (S) directly binds to the CD4 molecule, which in turn mediates the entry of SARS-CoV-2 in T helper cells. This leads to impaired CD4 T cell function and may cause cell death. SARS-CoV-2-infected T helper cells express higher levels of IL-10, which is associated with viral persistence and disease severity. Thus, CD4-mediated SARS-CoV-2 infection of T helper cells may contribute to a poor immune response in COVID-19 patients.

The researchers figured this out by first using sophisticated genetic software to analyze covid’s RNA. The results showed that covid’s spike protein potentially interacts with 77 different human tissues. But, after they filtered the results for proteins found on the outside of human cells, which are accessible to the spike, they found only one match: something called CD4 helper cells.

Then the researchers proved that covid does target CD4 cells in vivo, including by infecting previously un-infected blood, and by testing blood samples from recovering covid patients. They were very careful and the result seems pretty well established. So it almost seems like the spike was designed to attack this one particular type of cell. But what is it?

CD4 cells are also called “T helper cells.” They are a type of white blood cell playing a critical role in the immune system. Specifically, CD4 is a key part of the adaptive immune response, which is the body's initial defense mechanism against infections.

In fact, at bottom your immune system is coordinated by CD4 cells, which are the front line of recognizing invasive pathogens like viruses and bacteria. The CD4 cells raise an alarm, prompting other types of immune cells to respond appropriately. CD4 accomplishes this by releasing ‘signaling molecules’ called cytokines. In turn, cytokines regulate the activity of more complex immune cells.

Not to beat a dead horse, but CD4 cells are especially important in coordinating the immune response against infections, and they are central to the body's ability to remember and respond to specific pathogens. However, certain viruses, like HIV, specifically target and infect CD4 cells themselves, thereby knocking out the frontline immune response and weakening the overall immune system — which alarmingly creates increased vulnerability to other opportunistic infections.

Opportunistic infections like monkeypox, Hansen’s disease, RSV, and so on. Just to name a few, at random.

So what does all this mean, beyond a weakened immune system? The researchers speculated:

Infection of CD4+ T cells by SARS-CoV-2 could explain lymphocytopenia and dysregulated inflammatory response in severe COVID-19 patients. Moreover, from an evolutionary perspective, infection of CD4+ T cells represents an effective mechanism for viruses to escape the immune response.

In other words, the spike protein’s CD4-attacking feature seems almost designed to avoid the human immune response. Just what you’d want in a bioweapon, for example.

Once inside the CD4 cell, the covid virus weakens and kills it, destroying part of the immune system each time it happens. Worse, this process increases systemic levels of an inflammatory cytokine called Interleukin-10 (IL-10 ), which is associated with “viral persistence,” meaning an IL-10 inflammation makes it harder for the body to clear an infection. So covid — specifically its spike protein — hits the immune system two different ways.

Ultimately, the authors conceded that we don’t know how long the effect lasts:

How long these alterations in T cell function persist in vivo and whether they have long-lasting impacts on adaptive immunity remains to be determined.

But we do know one thing. Every time someone takes a jab, they reset their doses of spike, flooding their bodies with another few months worth. Back at the time the FDA “approved” the safest and most effective vaccines in human history, this effect of attacking the immune system through CD4 was unknown. One wonders, doesn’t one, whether it would have made any difference had these dangerous knock-on effects been publicly known.

Anyway, and most significantly, the authors ended by proposing further research to help develop clinical treatments based on knowing about covid’s CD4-targeted behavior:

Hence, avoiding T cell infection by blocking SARS-CoV-2—CD4 interaction and boosting T cell resistance against SARS-CoV-2 might represent complementary therapeutic approaches to preserve immune response integrity and prevent patients from progressing to the severe stages of COVID-19.

In other words — millions of lives might have been saved had we had known about this problem early in the pandemic. But instead, all those people were given useless remdesivir treatments and smothered by ventilators. And they died in large numbers.

Now let’s take a look at the indisputable evidence that damns the United States government, especially its bloated health agencies.

(Here’s the link to the study.)

🔥 Guess what the evidence shows? Fauci and the NIH knew all along. On January 30th of 2020 — right at the start of the pandemic — a group of Indian researchers published a study, which was nearly immediately forced to be withdrawn, that claimed HIV genes were found inserted into covid’s RNA. HIV also targets the CD4 cell.



So the problem wasn’t hard to find. But even if the CDC and the NIH somehow never saw the withdrawn study, a FOIA’d email dated Tuesday, February 4th, 2020, proves that reprehensible human cockroach Anthony Fauci was separately and directly told about this immuno-destructive feature of covid, at the time when the knowledge could have saved countless lives, but he arrogantly dismissed it. (Or worse, he and the NIH actively suppressed the information.)

Here’s the proof:



There was no good reason for the NIH to fail to follow up on this email. Even bypassing Fauci’s dismissive tone, a tone — “this person” — suggesting the emailer should be submerged in the nearest septic tank until he stopped kicking, even overlooking all that: Fauci forwarded the email to NIH staff for action.

But nothing happened. It just went away.

Remember: as the new study suggested, we might have developed treatments to deal with CD4 infection and IL-10 cytokine expression, treatments that would have saved countless lives. Instead, what did the NIH do? Nothing. Or worse, they aggressively suppressed the discovery.

Maybe they suppressed it because of Fauci’s long, sordid history with HIV. Fauci needed another HIV scandal like a hole in the cranium.

Think about it. Even setting aside the panoply of conspiracy facts suggesting much darker motives, in early February of 2020 Fauci was looking at a brand-new (“novel”) coronavirus to play with. He probably knew full well that thousands of germaphobes would soon be 3D-printing idolic Fauci bobbleheads and setting up little Fauci shrines. The last thing Fauci wanted would’ve been to drag all that old HIV baggage into the covid pandemic.

If that happened, everybody would just be remembering how the bureaucratic human barnacle bungled the HIV pandemic.

And who knows? They might have even pulled him off the project, because of the awful optics. Worse, maybe that ridiculous buffoon Luc Montagnier might’ve been put in charge of the response. Montagnier’s Nobel prize for HIV should’ve been Fauci’s, if it weren’t for all those meddling gay Americans who muddled the waters so much.

But that’s not all. Not even close.

🔥 Let’s not forget about the money. This clip compilation by pandemic heroine Texas Lindsay (may God bless her and keep her long upon the Earth) is relevant and mind-blowing. You might want to watch it twice. Lindsay’s five-minute clip assembled the entire story, but please don’t miss Fauci’s appearance expressing his 2019 desire, his “hope,” to “rapidly respond to something brand new.”

image 4.png
https://twitter.com/TexasLindsay/status/1685736544814972928

Here’s the point. Forget about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for a minute. If an effective treatment targeting covid’s deadliest unique mechanism of harm had been developed, a treatment that could have interrupted the destructive autoimmune cytokine storm by, say, blocking covid’s attack on CD4 cells, the entire pandemic would have been avoided.

And if that had happened, if the pandemic had been avoided, mass mail-in ballots wouldn’t have been authorized, Trump would have been re-elected, the NIH would never have earned billions, and millions of costly social security recipients would still be alive. Not to mention the losses to all the downstream pandemic beneficiaries like Amazon, Bill Gates, corporate media, social media, hospitals, military bio-contractors, and local governments that would never had gotten paid.

To a large group of amoral, devil-worshipping, government-enriched élites, that would have been a catastrophe.

🔥 But it may even be worse than that. If, as the study suggests, covid includes HIV, and works like HIV, then it is possible that the worst is yet to come. HIV starts with cold-like symptoms, just like covid, but then remains dormant for 8-10 years before the truly serious immune deterioration begins.

The connections between covid and HIV aren’t new. Over the last two years, there have been any number of signs of similarities cropping up between HIV and covid, as well as increasing government interest in HIV. For just one example, you’ll recall last year’s push for everyone to get tested for HIV:

https://twitter.com/backtolife_2023/status/1492162356327108612

...

Finally, in the “for what it’s worth” category, from NBC’s report on that bizarre Chinese biolab discovered in an abandoned California warehouse, a similarly-bizarre HIV connection...

So. All of that — and there’s lots more — seems … like a pretty weird coincidence.

🔥 Now remember: we’ve proven Fauci and the NIH knew about covid’s HIV-like effects in February 2020. Yet they rabidly censored all discussion about the problem, even to the extent of shutting down all research or even speculation into the bioweapons design of the virus. After all, if covid was zoonotic (naturally evolved in bats) nobody would even consider something like this. In other words, don’t be silly, what do bats have to do with HIV?

Here’s the bottom line. The decision to include spike protein in the experimental shots may wind up being the most deadly, recklessly negligent, reprehensible, and ultimately horrifying decision ever to emerge from fevered imaginations of mediocre government scientists. Spike’s mechanism of attacking CD4 cells — directly attacking the immune system itself — should have been an absolute disqualifier for inclusion of spike protein in the jabs.

A hundred percent.

Why? Because even if the jabs do protect people from severe cases of covid — a highly debatable claim — they possibly, or even likely, increase the risk of further opportunistic non-covid infections later on, down the road. That’s an incalculable risk. In other words, there’s no way they can realistically say the unquantifiable benefits of the jabs outweigh the incalculable risks.

There’s some good news. The good news is that awareness is growing, and growing fast, as this 77-author study proves, and that means treatments can be developed for affected folks. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about that. But perhaps more importantly, it means that accountability is right around the corner, albeit in legal/scientific time frames.

It wasn’t just Fauci. The FOIA emails prove it was the entire NIH and government health apparatus.

Drip, drip, drip, flood.

"Suppose the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant and its one amino acid reversion mutants were artificially and systematically generated. In that case, we should suspect that the other variants (Alpha to Delta) may also be artificially generated viruses. Indeed, the lack of findings to date that many of the various mutations seen, especially in the early variants, are indeed associated with increased viral infection supports the hypothesis that each variant was artificially synthesized to identify the amino acids of the S protein responsible for infectivity and pathogenicity. The possibility that the set of mutants was artificially generated to identify amino acids of the S protein involved in the infectivity and virulence is supported."

So, there you have it — SARS-CoV-2 wasn’t a one off release of a biological weapon. Rather, it’s an [ongoing?] series of releases of such related biological agents.

Anthony Fauci’s Deceptions

A trove of emails, Slack messages, and other documents reveal Fauci’s behind-the-scenes involvement. ‘Tony doesn't want his fingerprints on origin stories.’

... But last month, a trove of explosive emails and other documents were released by the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. These revealed evidence of Fauci’s and other officials’ behind-the-scenes involvement with scientists and journalists, demonstrating their efforts to quash the lab leak theory.

The recently disclosed private communications, first reported by Public and Racket, lay bare that the “highly qualified” authors of the paper that Fauci had asserted in April 2020 likely disproved a lab leak—what became known informally as the “Proximal Origin” paper—actually had extensive uncertainty about the virus being the result of a natural event. This was grossly at odds with what became their published position.

The paper that Fauci recommended was published on March 17, 2020. But in February, just the month before, Kristian Andersen, one of the paper’s authors, wrote a Slack message to his colleagues saying: “[T]he lab escape version of this is so friggin’ likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario.”

Fauci & Collins Cashed In on Covid: Records Show 58 NIH Royalty Payments Worth $325M

Newly discovered records have exposed the staggering profits that were reaped in the form of royalty checks on the back of the Covid pandemic.

The records show that the former heads of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) massively cashed in from the pandemic.

Former NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins and former NIAID Director Dr. Tony Fauci reportedly received 58 royalty payments between them from companies to license their COVID-19 shots for public use.

The injections were also developed by private pharmaceutical companies using American taxpayer money.

Fauci and Collins both heavily profited through royalties from the continuing payments that arrived in their bank accounts throughout the “pandemic.”

Transparency watchdog OpenTheBooks has published more than 1,500 pages of unredacted records this week.

The documents show which companies paid Fauci and Collins for their inventions.

The records were obtained through a mostly successful probe using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The NIH fought tooth and nail to stop the FOIA requests from being fulfilled. ...

The only thing we do not know is the individual amounts for each payment and its corresponding licenses, which are not listed in the records.

Fauci personally received 37 payments from three companies between 2010 and 2021. ...

Fauci also took in 14 payments from Ancell Corp., which produces immunology tolls, as well as eight payments from Chiron Corp., which was acquired by Novartis in 2006. ...

“Four payments to Collins came from Quest Diagnostics’ Specialty Laboratories, which provides biological testing services; four from Ionis Pharmaceuticals, originally named ISIS, known for RNA-targeted therapeutics; and one from Progeria Research Foundation, a nonprofit specializing in research for the congenital disorder,” explains Just the News.

i actually think the sourcing is a bit lacking and the manner in which is is presented a somewhat misleading and so the numbers are suspect and do not really jibe, but it does raise an important issue:

the NIH is a thieves forest where the public money they take from your taxes is used to fund research, but when the research proves fruitful the royalty payments therefrom often go not to the agency but to the individual staffers who were involved.

not only are they making out like bandits, but they have no obligation to report these royalties or their amounts publicly or even to congress.

there is zero oversight and this makes the insider trading rules in the house and senate look positively benign.

it’s a helluva grift.

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/appointing-great-thieves

As COVID vaccine patent dispute drags on, Moderna forks over $400M to NIH

Vaccine-maker Moderna has forked over $400 million to the National Institutes of Health for using a molecular stabilizing technique borrowed from government and academic researchers in its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine—which the company made roughly $36 billion selling amid the deadly pandemic, according to The New York Times.

Moderna mentioned the payment in the company's latest earnings report, which described the sum as a "catch-up payment" negotiated with the NIH in December as part of a new royalty-bearing license agreement. The agreement will also grant the NIH "low single-digit royalties on future COVID-19 vaccine sales." The company expects to make around $5 billion in COVID-19 vaccine sales in 2023. ...

At the time, then-NIH director Francis Collins told Reuters that the NIH had spent time trying to resolve the dispute amicably with Moderna but had failed. "I think Moderna has made a serious mistake here in not providing the kind of co-inventorship credit to people who played a major role in the development of the vaccine that they're now making a fair amount of money off of," Collins said.

"But we are not done," he added. "Clearly this is something that legal authorities are going to have to figure out." A spokesperson for Collins later clarified to the Times that by "legal authorities," Collins meant government lawyers.

Dr. Fauci, remember when this little lilliputian told us that the best, the optimal vaccine protection is to become infected, natural exposure infection? Recall this? Naturally? Then why COVID change?

"If she got the flu for 14 days she is protected as anybody can be for the best protection or vaccination is to get infected yourself" so who paid him, what did he get from Pfizer & Moderna?

@SpartaJustice

Fauci made sure that none of those kids had guardians which is illegal and then he hid what he was doing to the board. Fauci was disposing of the corpses of these children who died in illegal experiments. These are children who had no parents, nobody was there to protect them.

It's clear that some or all omicron variants were synthesised in a laboratory from which they were somehow released, as part of a deliberate program. Coupled with the lack of synonymous mutations in other variants, this suggests that all variants described after the original Wuhan strain have artificial origins.

It's anyone's guess what the purpose of that experiment might be.

The authors suggest the variants they have found are indeed part of an experiment to characterize the spike protein and the effects of mutations on the virus' behaviour:

Indeed, the lack of findings to date that many of the various mutations seen, especially in the early variants, are indeed associated with increased viral infection (van Dorp et al, 2020) supports the hypothesis that each variant was artificially synthesized to identify the amino acids of the S protein responsible for infectivity and pathogenicity.

Conclusion: this changes everything
If the observations and inferences in this paper are correct - and barring a pure hoax, involving fraudulent depositions to sequence databases, they certainly seem to be - then they provide indisputable evidence that the entire history of SARS-CoV2, at least subsequent to the emergence of the original strain, is artificial.

Someone, somewhere, really is doing all this deliberately.

CIA Official Questioned Over Wuhan Cover-Up Took Job at U.S.-China Consulting Firm

The claim that the CIA used bribes to bury findings supporting a COVID lab leak brings scrutiny of an influential D.C. consulting firm filled with former intelligence officials.




Last week, lawmakers in Congress probing the origins of the coronavirus pandemic revealed that they had heard testimony from a new whistleblower, reportedly “presents as a highly credible senior-level CIA officer,” who claimed that CIA leadership had suppressed an assessment that COVID-19 came from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

According to the whistleblower, six of seven CIA officers researching the outbreak of COVID-19 found evidence to make a "low confidence assessment" of origin from the Wuhan lab. But a senior official allegedly helped muddy the waters and used financial incentives to persuade the officers against the lab assessment, ensuring that the CIA did not blame China.

The lawmakers requested that CIA chief operating officer Andrew Makridis, who coordinated the agency’s response to the pandemic until retiring last year, participate in a voluntary interview with congressional investigators. Makridis, the whistleblower claimed, “played a central role in its formation and eventual conclusion that the CIA was unable to determine" the origins of COVID-19. The congressional letter makes clear that Makridis could soon face a subpoena.

While the source of the virus is still unclear, growing evidence suggests that COVID-19 first emerged at the Wuhan lab and escaped under subpar biosafety standards. Many fear that such a conclusion will further harm U.S. ties to China, and potentially disrupt the $800 billion in trade relations between the two countries.

Makridis, notably, left the CIA to pass through the revolving door into a Washington, D.C. business that monetizes the nexus of U.S.-China relations. He now serves as a senior advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a firm that helps corporate clients navigate delicate national security concerns, particularly surrounding China.

Beacon Global Strategies, founded by a bipartisan group of officials from the CIA, Defense Department, and House Intelligence Committee, maintains high-level contacts throughout the U.S. government and regularly speaks with national security agencies, information that it uses to help clients understand the geopolitical and regulatory landscape.

The firm, now in its tenth year of operation, was founded with seed investment money from Claude Fontheim, a lobbyist who spent two decades representing the U.S.-China Exchange Foundation, a pro-China influence group. Beacon Global Strategies has grown rapidly by advertising its unique insight into U.S. and China policy.

Although the company is not registered as a lobbying firm, officials at Beacon Global Strategies have worked to influence China-related policy.

In 2019, Jeffrey Kupfer, while serving as an adviser to Beacon Global Strategies, directly pressed the Trump administration against a “proposed plan to once again increase tariffs up to 25 percent on Chinese products,” arguing that such tariffs would result in retaliatory trade penalties on American liquified natural gas exports.

That year, Beacon Global Strategies was also hired by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to push back against a Trump administration plan to unwind a partnership that AMD had forged with a Chinese firm to produce state-of-the-art computer chip technology. The administration raised national security concerns over the fact that AMD’s partner worked closely with the Chinese military. The efforts by Beacon Global Strategies to “make peace,” as the Wall Street Journal reported, between AMD and the Trump administration, failed. The U.S. Commerce Department eventually sanctioned AMD’s partner, effectively killing the deal, but not before vital technology had already been transferred to the Chinese.

We’re making slow progress. The UK Telegraph ran a story yesterday headlined, “China lab suspected of Covid leak stripped of US funding for violating biosafety rules.” The sub-headline explained, “Wuhan Institute of Virology broke rules with experiments that increased viral activity more than tenfold, says health department.”

Yes, they are talking about that infamous little (big) shop of horrors, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).



Finally! The Department of Health and Human Services announced last week it was ‘debarring’ the WIV, after evidence proved WIV scientists were engaging in gain of function research by inserting new spike proteins into four different bat coronaviruses. Gosh, all those technical words sound so familiar.

Sadly, ‘debarring’ does not mean “nuked from orbit” or even ” “burned to the ground and salted the earth,” it just means that WIV will be ineligible to receive any U.S. government grants, and it prohibits U.S. scientists from collaborating with WIV scientists.

According to an HHS memo, as late as 2019, the WIV’s problematic coronavirus experiments resulted in at least one chimeric virus that killed 75 percent of infected humanized mice within two weeks, and increased viral activity more than tenfold, in clear violation of government grant guidelines. In spite of that evidence, many grant-grabbing U.S. scientists continue insisting that covid coincidentally made its planetary debut five miles away at a super-low-tech farmer’s market.

But I digress.

Chinese authorities have forbidden any WIV investigation providing access to laboratories, research notebooks, or internal databases. Our mega-funded U.S. health agencies tried super hard to find out, too. The HHS’s memo even said the NIH tried to call the lab several times to ask questions but nobody called them back. Plus, HHS even “tried to contact WIV by fax and email.”

Tough customers, the Chinese, ignoring faxes like that.

Ominously, HHS’s memo also warned there’s no reason to think the WIV has stopped doing all that gain-of-function research, saying: “There is risk that WIV not only previously violated, but is currently violating, and will continue to violate, protocols of the National Institutes of Health on biosafety.”

There is risk? You don’t say. It only took three years for that risk to occur to the geniuses in the federal government.

Oh well. Debarment is a temporary measure and usually lasts three years, but we’ll see what happens this time. The fickle winds of politics never stop blowing, do they? It’s only the wind’s direction that changes.

Still, it’s progress and I will take it. We will keep the drums beating.