China’s favorite Covid apologist, Peter Daszak, recused himself from participating in a prestigious medical advisory board on Covid-19 after it was revealed he has massive conflicts of interest.
It may surprise Daszak to find out that if your company gets millions of dollars from research being done at the Wuhan Virology Institute and then that same lab comes under suspicion of leaking the coronavirus that caused the pandemic, you might want to declare a conflict of interest in signing a letter dismissing the theory as hogwash.
The Lancet was forced to “clarify” the letter published in February that stated the lab leak hypothesis was “extremely unlikely” and that none of the scientists or researchers who signed the letter had any conflicts.
In February, 2020, 27 public health experts co-authored a Correspondence in The Lancet (“Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19”), supporting health professionals and physicians in China during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this letter, the authors declared no competing interests. Some readers have questioned the validity of this disclosure, particularly as it relates to one of the authors, Peter Daszak. In line with guidance from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, medical journals ask authors to report financial and non-financial relationships that may be relevant to interpreting the content of their manuscript.
There may be differences in opinion as to what constitutes a competing interest. Transparent reporting allows readers to make judgments about these interests. Readers, in turn, have their own interests that could influence their evaluation of the work in question. With these facts in mind, The Lancet invited the 27 authors of the letter to re-evaluate their competing interests. Peter Daszak has expanded on his disclosure statements.
In truth, Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance didn’t get any money from the Chinese. But the money EcoHealth got from the U.S. government was used to fund research at that lab, which would have been nice to know before such a prestigious medical journal put its name to a letter that Daszak was reportedly the catalyst for.
Daszak has tried so hard to misdirect governments, researchers, and virologists away from any hint that the virus even originated in China.
