Thursday, July 22, 2021

Re: Hannity: Fauci, NIH 'may have played a role' in development of COVID-19

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On Jul 21, 2021, at 9:47 PM, Albert wrote:

When President Trump was in office the Wuflu lab leak which has killed 4+ million people worldwide was considered outrageous conjecture. Democrats were happy to call it another Trump composed conspiracy theory.

Now the mainstream media is on board with the Wuhan Lab Leak theory. After all, they have to sell stories even those which fail to support Democratic talking points.

Dr. Fauci is now on a never ending quest to keep out of the "murky waters" of Wuflu's origin. Several things are clear: 1. COVID-19 did not develop naturally (No amount of bat-eating Chinese people can be blamed for this outbreak) 2. The NIH funded gain of function research at the Wuhan Lab 3. Dr. Fauci was fully aware of this funding 4. Dr. Fauci did his best to cover the NIH's tracks in regards to this funding 5. No amount of word symantecs will relief Dr. Fauci of his involvement with the Wuhan Lab.

Btw, I know Dr. Fauci has tough job and his position requires tough decisions. Unfortunately, for Dr. Fauci when it's time for heads to roll, it's always the general's (person in charge) head and not his horse's head which gets chopped off. When you are the head of an organization, you're responsible for everything it does or fails to do.

Hannity: Fauci, NIH 'may have played a role' in development of COVID-19 - Fox News


On Wed, Jul 21, 2021 at 11:21 PM John wrote:
My previous emails quoted articles stating that the Eco Alliance grant to the Wuhan lab had nothing to do with gain of function research. 

Based on the info that I could find, #2 is completely wrong. That makes #3, #4 and #5 wrong too.  


Best wishes,

John Coffey


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From: Larry 

A great exchange that depends on the definition of gain of function...

The NIH funded research in dispute...

Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with notable pathogenesis. Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection with CoVs using the novel spike protein. On the basis of these findings, we synthetically re-derived an infectious full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication both in vitro and in vivo.



On Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 10:00 AM John wrote:
From what I can tell, the grant was for cataloging natural viruses.  It is still possible that the Wuhan lab did do gain of function research, but that is not what the grant was for.

EcoHealth and the NIH and NIAID say no. "EcoHealth Alliance has not nor does it plan to engage in gain-of-function research," EcoHealth spokesman Robert Kessler told us in an email. Nor did the grant get an exception from the pause, as some have speculated, he said. "No dispensation was needed as no gain-of-function research was being conducted."

The NIAID told the Wall Street Journal: "The research by EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. that NIH funded was for a project that aimed to characterize at the molecular level the function of newly discovered bat spike proteins and naturally occurring pathogens. Molecular characterization examines functions of an organism at the molecular level, in this case a virus and a spike protein, without affecting the environment or development or physiological state of the organism. At no time did NIAID fund gain-of-function research to be conducted at WIV."

And in a May 19 statement, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said that "neither NIH nor NIAID have ever approved any grant that would have supported 'gain-of-function' research on coronaviruses that would have increased their transmissibility or lethality for humans."

Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University and a critic of gain-of-function research, told the Washington Post that the EcoHealth/Wuhan lab research "was — unequivocally — gain-of-function research." He said it "met the definition for gain-of-function research of concern under the 2014 Pause." That definition, as we said, pertained to "projects that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route."

Alina Chan, a molecular biologist and postdoctoral researcher at the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, said in a lengthy Twitter thread that the Wuhan subgrant wouldn't fall under the gain-of-function moratorium because the definition didn't include testing on naturally occurring viruses "unless the tests are reasonably anticipated to increase transmissibility and/or pathogenicity." She said the moratorium had "no teeth." But the EcoHealth/Wuhan grant "was testing naturally occurring SARS viruses, without a reasonable expectation that the tests would increase transmissibility or pathogenicity. Therefore, it is reasonable that they would have been excluded from the moratorium."

Chan, who has published research about the possibility of an accidental lab leak of the virus, also said: "But we need to separate this fight about whether a particular project is GOF vs whether it has risk of lab accident + causing an outbreak."

The University of Iowa's Perlman told us the EcoHealth research is trying to see if these viruses can infect human cells and what about the spike protein on the virus determines that. (The spike protein is what the coronavirus uses to enter cells.) The NIH, he said, wouldn't give money to anybody to do gain-of-function research "per se … especially in China," and he didn't think there was anything in the EcoHealth grant description that would be gain of function. But he said there's a lot of nuance to this discussion.

"This was not intentional gain of function," Perlman said, adding that in this type of research "these viruses are almost always attenuated," meaning weakened. The gain of function would be what comes out of the research "unintentionally," but the initial goal of the project is what you would want to look at: can these viruses infect people, how likely would they be to mutate in order to do that, and "let's get a catalog of these viruses out there."'

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain-of-function-disagreement/




On Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 1:02 PM Larry wrote:
Read this again and tell me if you think this is creating a new hybrid covid virus, which adds the spike protein from bats, finding it can replicate in human airways,similar to an epidemic strain, and is replicable in test tubes and living animals.

Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with notable pathogenesis. Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection with CoVs using the novel spike protein. On the basis of these findings, we synthetically re-derived an infectious full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication both in vitro and in vivo.


 
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From: John Coffey 

The accusations are not supported here.  Was this research done at the Wuhan lab and did it have anything to do with the Eco Alliance grant to the Wuhan lab?  So far I don't see that.  The primary people on this paper are from North Carolina, Florida snd the rest of the Americas.

What has been reported, right or wrong, is that the Wuhan lab wasn't doing this and the grant to the Wuhan lab was not funding them to do this.  What was reported was that Gain of Function research was happening in the United States.

There is some chance that the Wuhan lab was doing research not reported.

It is a pretty thin connection to say that Fauci was funding gain of function research at the Wuhan lab and then covering it up.  Although possibly true, I'm not seeing evidence of it yet.  It is a bigger stretch to say that this caused the COVID-19 pandemic. There is not even good evidence that COVID-19 emerged from the lab, although I consider it possible because China is acting like they are covering up something.

It seems to me that people are using Fauci as a punching bag for political purposes.  I see a ton of speculation by commentators who don't seem to know what they are talking about but instead are promoting conspiracy theories.

I'm pretty uncomfortable with the way Rand Paul and Ted Cruz berate witnesses and grandstand instead of just trying to ask questions and get answers.  Many times they don't even let the witnesses answer the question.  I think that Ted Cruz is particularly bad about this.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey




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