New documents obtained by government watchdog Judicial Watch show concerns about virus manipulation at the Wuhan Institute of Virology span back to 2016. The FBI launched an inquiry into gain-of-function research at the facility, which received a number of grants from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
“Judicial Watch announced today that it received 1651 pages of records from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) revealing an FBI ‘inquiry’ into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also show National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were concerned about ‘gain-of-function’ research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China,” Judicial Watch released. “The records reveal several indications of gain-of-function research, as well as failures to comply with reporting regulations, including a May 9, 2016, email marked ‘High’ importance, in which NIH official Carine Normil notes Peter Daszak’s failure to file a progress report on EcoHealth’s bat coronavirus research.”
U.S. intelligence officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, warned Wuhan coronavirus — widely knowns as COVID 19 — was built in a lab.
In June, the China controlled World Health Organization finally acknowledged this fact and is somewhat open to a thorough investigation.
Over two years after the coronavirus was first detected in China, and after at least 6.3 million deaths have been counted worldwide from the pandemic, the World Health Organization is recommending in its strongest terms yet that a deeper probe is required into whether a lab accident may be to blame.
That stance marks a sharp reversal of the U.N. health agency’s initial assessment of the pandemic’s origins, and comes after many critics accused WHO of being too quick to dismiss or underplay a lab-leak theory that put Chinese officials on the defensive.
Reporting from Townhall.
