Who is Peter Daszak? Outrage as researcher with murky Covid links gets $650K grant to study CORONAVIRUS!
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: A research organization owned by Anthony Fauci's close friend Peter Daszak received another $650,000 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases which is still under his direction. Until August 2027, the new study will look into bats and other coronaviruses in the wild.
Daszak is the head of EcoHealth Alliance, the company conducting the study. Emails between Daszak and Fauci were exposed in the summer of 2021. In one, Daszak seems to thank Fauci for downplaying the idea that Covid-19 was made in a laboratory in Wuhan, China. EcoHealth Alliance previously conducted research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, particularly in "gain-of-function" studies in which organisms have had their genes altered. Unfounded rumors claimed that the Covid virus was developed as a result of this study. In December, Dr Anthony Fauci will step down as director of the NIH after coming under intense criticism. Research in this area "identifies the border region of Southern China, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam as a high risk for future emergence of novel coronaviruses and the potential site where SARS-CoV-2 first spilled over from bats to people," according to the explanation for the funding, as reported by Daily Mail. The study will also check for coronaviruses in South East Asian communities that are near animals.
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According to the NIH, the research would involve providing "viral sequences and isolates for use in vaccine development." “Community-based surveys and biological sampling of people frequently exposed to wildlife in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, to find serological evidence of spillover” is the primary goal of the study. "Sampling and PCR screening of bats and other wildlife at community surveillance sites" will be the other main goal. The new study "may also provide data on wildlife reservoirs and community spillover events of relevance to the origin of COVID-19." "We will quickly provide viral sequences and isolates for use in the creation of vaccines and therapeutics,” the NIH had said in a release. The long-term objective of initiatives like this one, according to the NIH, is to improve worldwide preparedness in the event of a new pandemic.
In April, reports were made public revealing British researcher Daszak's role in coronavirus research in China. They said that his EcoHealth Alliance received several federal grants. Inquiries concerning the origins of Covid have long been centered around Daszak's organization which oddly transformed from a non-profit dedicated to saving manatees to a leading figure in viral gain-of-function research as it competed for federal funding. Based on numerous interviews and more than 100,000 leaked internal documents, the extensive story that was published in Vanity Fair describes how EcoHealth functioned in a world of "murky grant agreements, thin monitoring, and the pursuit of government cash for scientific development, in part by presenting research of sharply growing danger."
'Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence' was the title of a $3.7M grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health to EcoHealth in 2014. Its goal was to develop a pandemic early-warning system. The project entailed collecting bat coronaviruses from China and researching them at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), as well as combining parts of SARS-like viruses from various animals to produce a unique chimera that could directly infect human cells. In order to fill the financial gap created by the expiration of several funds, EcoHealth presented an even more comprehensive study proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA in 2018.
Project DEFUSE included collaborating with WIV to modify bat coronaviruses to have more lethal genetic traits by introducing elements similar to those in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid. DARPA authorities responded by rejecting to provide the $14.2M grant because they deemed the concept hazardous for failing to address important ethical, legal and social problems. Additionally, it has been claimed that Daszak was unrelenting in his efforts to convince Fauci to provide EcoHealth's research with an NIH grant. He would invite Fauci to EcoHealth gatherings that were advertised as "educational," despite the fact that nonprofit representatives referred to them as "cultivation events" where they should network with "prospective government funders" and that cost about $8,000 each.