USAID funded EcoHealth and Wuhan Lab bat virus experiments
Hunter Biden linked firm raised $30 million for USAID contractor describing it as "what Palantir is to the CIA" whose "mission is to digitize the world’s microbial data"
The letter to Sen Feinstein
Imagine my utter disbelief when I stumbled upon a rather peculiar Jan 31st, 2020 letter written by the Dean of UC Davis, Michael Lairmore, addressed to California Senator Dianne Feinstein just a few weeks after SARS COV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19 became known. It read in part: “PREDICT helped prepare Chinese scientists for disease emergence and raised the flag of awareness for viruses that can spillover from wildlife, especially in food markets. We believe that we dramatically improved the response capacity there working with colleagues with the Wuhan Institute of virology (WIV) to help to identify the virus and share information about it with the world in just days, rather than the months between these steps during the SARS outbreak.”
A few things immediately jump out, many I’ve underlined for your reading pleasure:
—This “PREDICT Project” was being funded by USAID, with Dr. Fauci’s NIH providing “supplemental” funding, and at least a part of the money was being funneled to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the lab at the heart of the COVID pandemic.
—The dean of UC Davis boasted that their USAID funded collaboration with WIV was identifying thousands of viruses all across the world, and took pains to mention that USAID funded the PREDICT program, and that China coordinator Shi Zhengli had identified the closest relative of SARS COV-2. Which is strange, so very strange. You see, Shi Zhengli—dubbed China’s “bat woman” because of her life-long obsession with studying bat viruses—was the most important member of the DEFUSE project, a 2018 grant proposal co-authored by American and Chinese scientists that asked the Department of Defense (DOD) for funding to perform gain-of-function experiments (my words, not theirs) to engineer bat viruses uniquely capable of infecting and spreading between humans. The scientists who wrote the grant were Ralph Baric from the University of North Carolina; Peter Daszak, president of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance; Zhengli Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology; and Linfa Wang from the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. When SARS COV-2 first appeared, it had all the unique properties expected of a virus made according to the DEFUSE recipe. Instead of slowly evolving abilities to attack human cells, SARS COV-2 seemed completely at home inside human cells and spread remarkably easily from human to human (something animal viruses infecting humans struggle with), possibly because it had already been adapted in humanized laboratory mice to the human cell receptor. SARS COV-2 possesses a furin cleavage site, found in none of the other 871 known members of its viral family, which makes it highly unlikely that it gained such a site through the ordinary evolutionary swaps of genetic material within a family. The DEFUSE proposal called for inserting one. You can read more about the DEFUSE proposal by clicking on the below:
—Now here is why this is all so strange: the DOD declined to fund DEFUSE because they were correctly alarmed by the massive spillover potential of gain of function experiments performed at the Wuhan lab, which has long and storied history of accidents and unacceptable safety precautions. But parts of this proposal were eventually funded by the NIH. Therefore imagine my surprise when I read that the NIH was only “supplemental” in funding Shi Zhengli’s work and that it was in fact the USAID that funded the lion’s share of Gain of Function at the Wuhan lab. This gets even more mind-boggling because Shi Zhengli spent the last year claiming she never isolated any viruses closely related to SARS COV-2, the exact opposite of what UC Davis’ letter written to Diane Feinstein four years ago proudly proclaimed.
So who’s lying?
—The UC Davis letter (written 31st Jan, 2020) confidently asserts that COVID-19 (which had been sequenced only days earlier) was a result of a “spillover” (underlined for you above). This is even more bizarre when you consider that the WHO had, only 2 weeks prior to the UC Davis letter claimed no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. How did Michael Lairmore predict (pun intended) the public health apparatus’ change in messaging before it happened?
—The date the UC Davis letter was written—31st Jan, 2020—the US had a grand total of 6 confirmed cases of COVID. Six. How did UC Davis know that COVID would go on to become a global pandemic?
PREDICT was supposed to continue on as DEFUSE
PREDICT was a $200 million virus-hunting consortium between University of California, Davis, EcoHealth Alliance, Metabiota, Smithsonian Institution, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, was part of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats program. The program aimed to identify and prevent pandemic threats through viral surveillance at potential hotspots for spillover from wildlife to humans. Founded in 2009, it grew to include over 30 countries until its end in 2019.
The 364 page USAID PREDICT report entitled “REDUCING PANDEMIC RISK, PROMOTING GLOBAL HEALTH” can be found here at the internet archive since USAID is now offline.
The PREDICT report proudly proclaims: “In China, PREDICT partnered with USAID and set up long-term collaborations with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the Yunnan Institute of Endemic Disease Control and Prevention, Guangxi Normal University, Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention (SHCDC)…”
The report continues: “PREDICT isolated for the first time SARS-like coronaviruses from bats sampled in China, fully characterized the whole genome of two novel bat SARS-like coronaviruses, and demonstrated a bat SARSlike coronavirus with 99.98% sequence homology to SARS coronavirus. The virus was found to bind to the human ACE-2 cell receptor, suggesting that direct transmission to humans from bats is possible.”
Although PREDICT predated DEFUSE by many years, the cast of characters between the two are remarkably similar. Zhengli Shi and Peter Dazak were key leaders for PREDICT while Linfa Wang was hailed as a subject matter expert.
The scientists who wrote DEFUSE were Ralph Baric from the University of North Carolina; Peter Daszak, president of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance; Zhengli Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology; and Linfa Wang from the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.
Dr. Anthony Fauci and his chief lieutenant/senior advisor, David Morens are referenced liberally all over the PREDICT document which is not at all surprising.
Because, not only were Fauci and Morens integral to approving the NIH funding piece of PREDICT, but Morens characterized EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak as a close friend while Daszak described Dr. Morens a his “mentor” during Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup’s (R-Ohio) transcribed interview of Dr. David Morens. Understanding this close personal friendship is critical to putting into context why Fauci and Morens went out of their way to protect the scientists at the heart of PREDICT and DEFUSE with actions that skirted the boundary of what was legal and what wasn’t and at grave risk to their reputations and careers while Fauci went on TV and breathlessly repeated the canard that the mere consideration of a lab leak possibility was anti-science conspiracy tinged with hues of racism.
According to communications uncovered by the COVID select subcommittee, it was revealed that David Morens, Senior Advisor to Dr. Fauci, instructed EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak, to correspond with his personal email instead of his NIH email in an effort to avoid FOIA during COVID. The subcommittee also found that Dr. Fauci used his personal email to conduct official business, allegedly in an effort to circumvent FOIA. In Dr. Morens’s personal emails, he referenced speaking with Dr. Fauci about EcoHealth’s suspended grant and detailed how Dr. Fauci intended to protect Dr. Daszak. The NIH FOIA office allegedly instructed Dr. Morens on how to delete federal records. Then, Dr. Morens admitted to deleting his correspondence with EcoHealth Alliance in an effort to shield himself from public transparency. Dr. Morens explains how he is able “to make emails disappear” and “learned the tricks” to avoid turning over documents from the head of NIH’s FOIA office.
The DEFUSE proposal was a $14 million grant application submitted in 2018 to DARPA by American scientist Peter Daszak and Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Zhengli Shi in which they proposed engineering high-risk coronaviruses of the same species as SARS and SARS-CoV-2 by enhancing (aka gain of function) SARS like bat viruses. Not only was this proposal merely a continuation of the work done by these very same people during PREDICT, but the timing of the 2018 DEFUSE grant coincides with the 2019 conclusion of PREDICT.
If the above statement sounds too conjectural for your tastes, here’s verbatim language from the DEFUSE proposal referencing PREDICT as the basis of conducting further bat experiments and updating bat virus databases.
Descending further into the maelstrom of madness
Metabiota was one of five main partners implementing the $200 million USAID-funded PREDICT. The San Francisco-based firm describes itself as a government and private industry partner specializing in pandemic prediction and mitigation. However, documents from 2017 show that its biosafety and data quality protocols in at least five countries was inadequate and that they were plagued by safety and data problems that held potential for contagion spillover into the general population.
A previous investigation by the Associated Press of the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak uncovered diagnostic errors, poor biosafety practices, and a lack of sample tracking. "This is a situation that WHO can no longer endorse," WHO outbreak expert Dr. Eric Bertherat wrote in a July 17, 2014, email to colleagues.
Bertherat relayed reports of "total confusion" in the government lab split between Metabiota and Tulane at the Kenema hospital in Sierra Leone, noting there was "no tracking of the samples" and "absolutely no control on what is being done." He said the flubbed results were particularly dangerous given suspicion among the local population that international workers were spreading Ebola deliberately. As a result, Metabiota withdrew a project coordinator who reportedly disregarded standard biosafety practices, and a WHO outbreak expert recommended shutting down a diagnostic lab Metabiota shared with Tulane. Eventually, the CDC took control of the lab.
The final outcome of this travesty was that Metabiota discontinued operations in China, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, Republic of Congo, and Guinea, which were transitioned to either UC Davis or EcoHealth Alliance.
USAID senior scientific advisor Andrew Clements suggested to other USAID staff in June 2017 that management changes were needed for the continued success of PREDICT: “I’m writing to let you know that PREDICT is undergoing some internal management changes in a few countries, including China. As a result, the role of Metabiota will be decreased and the role of EcoHealth Alliance [in China] will increase. … While changes in the middle of a project are not ideal, PREDICT felt that this change was necessary to make sure it could deliver the expected results.”
Which means that by 2017, USAID had placed Peter Dasak’s EcoHealth in charge of all bat virus research in China and his collaboration with Ralph Baric, Zhengli Shi and Linfa Wang on DEFUSE was to be a natural extension of his USAID sanctioned monopoly on “enhancing” SARS like bat viruses in China.
The Vice President’s son was in on the action
As if the whole Metabiota affair wasn’t already weird enough, there’s also the matter of its connection with Hunter Biden. In 2008, Devon Archer and Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, co-founded the U.S. investment advisory company Rosemont Seneca Partners. Rosemont Capital, a private-equity firm co-founded by Archer and John Kerry’s stepson, Christopher Heinz, owned 50% of Rosemont Seneca Partners. Rosemont Seneca Partners had a stake in another firm called Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP), which in turn had a stake in Metabiota.
RSTP had invested in Metabiota since 2013, but their 2014 internal memo calling for another $25 million investment in the company is nothing short of jaw-dropping
RSTP’s sales pitch to its investment committee reads “The company’s mission is to digitize the world’s microbial data” Then it goes on to say something more alarming “…now being developed as a software platform for insurance companies to more accurately price their policies based on disease outbreak threats..” and “We believe Metabiota can be to the USDA, CDC and WHO what Palantir is to the CIA…” “will be viewed as a strategic asset to many well capitalized potential acquirers in several different industry verticals. Examples of potential acquirers include Google, for integration into its data analytics and /or sensor businesses (Nest), Monsanto, an agricultural technology company which recently acquired Climate Corporation, and Lockheed, a government contractor that may look to achieve a dominant position in the bio-surveillance market.”
As return on investment, RSTP was to get a seat at the Board of Metabiota and the right to appoint a director.
RSTP pitched the possibility of a pandemic as a great reason to invest in Metabiota
And they highlighted the fact that EchoHealth and UC Davis were already riding the USAID funded PREDICT gravy train.
Thanks to RSTP, we now know that Metabiota CEO, Nathan Wolfe, was on the editorial board of EchoHealth and DARPA’s Defense Science Research council (DSRC).
Which just boggles the mind when you realize that Metabiota staff served on PREDICT’s management team and executive board while Metabiota CEO served on EcoHealth’s board and EcoHealth submitted the DEFUSE project to DARPA where the Metabiota CEO had a seat at the table. What a flaming dung pile of circuitous consanguinity.
Remember that all of this was happening while Joe Biden was the sitting vice president of the United States.
So wildly successful was RSTP’s investment prospectus and their pandemic fueled sales pitch that they surpassed their original goal of raising $25 million for Metabiota by $5 million.
In 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that Hunter Biden had been discharged that February from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine use. Biden had not disclosed the discharge to RSTP members and so in early 2015 he was eased out of the firm, while RSTP rebranded itself under a different name, Pilot Growth Equity.
USAID not only funded Gain of Function, they funded the distribution of mRNA vaccines
USAID has awarded up to 6.9 Billion US Dollars to Pfizer for “COVID-19 VACCINES FOR INTERNATIONAL DONATION” as of July 20, 2021 (contract W58P0521C0002). Of those 6.9 B$, 2.8B$ are reported to have been spent.
(Thanks to Dr. Robert Malone for pointing this out)
In summary, USAID funded global zoonotic virus “enhancement” (read, gain of function) under the guise of preventing pandemics. To do this it partnered with Fauci’s NIH, Peter Dasak’s EcoHealth and the Wuhan Lab at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. The cast of characters between USAID, NIH, PREDICT and DEFUSE are remarkably similar and essentially transposable as one entity followed prospectively over time. The USAID funding began shortly after Joe Biden took office as the vice president in 2009 and one of PREDICTS key partners, Metabiota, saw a massive investment of capital by a company closely associated with Biden’s son. By 2017, EcoHealth had become the driving force behind bat research in China and therefore DEFUSE—which was to commence just as PREDICT was concluding—was to be a natural continuation of their perilous research. Are we really ascribing the interconnectedness of Fauci, Morens, Peter Dasak, the fact that these entities crossed paths repeatedly over time and that Metabiota was at the heart of a previous lab leak, that COVID emerged at the Wuhan lab and that RSTP had sold a contagion-as-profit to its investors as pure coincidence? How many “coincidences” does it take for random chance to no longer become plausible?
When you consider that federal agencies were essentially laundering money to Chinese entities through pass-through intermediates in Academia and EcoHealth, as spectacularly illustrated by this Government Accountability Office graphic, it’s a miracle we haven’t had more pandemics and deadly contagions pummel us on a regular basis. It is time to turn off the spigot of taxpayer funded NIH and USAID slush funds that have long imperiled the health and safety of American citizens.
What great irony then to watch government bureaucrats and University bigwigs bemoaning increased accountability and transparency as jeopardizing the safety of citizens when in fact their actions were endangering us all.
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And how much more evidence do they need before these mass murderers are punished?