Recently released documents, comprising 1,200 pages obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, suggest that US and Chinese scientists had plans to engineer coronaviruses with properties similar to SARS-CoV-2. The DEFUSE grant proposal, led by EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak and involving collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, detailed plans to create 'chimeric' SARS-related viral spike proteins, with University of North Carolina Prof. Ralph Baric set to engineer twenty or more per year, and two to five full-length engineered SARS-related viruses. The proposal, dating back to 2018, included intentions to work with viruses that had a furin cleavage site at the S1/S2 junction and six restriction sites, features present in SARS-CoV-2. This revelation has renewed the debate over the origins of COVID-19 and the possibility of a lab leak.
I think there are few others who want the truth about #OriginOfCovid to come out as much as I do. However, the Defuse draft does not convince me of a specific cloning plan for the pandemic virus or other SARS-like viruses in the Wuhan lab.
Certain scientists ridiculed the idea that COVID could have come from a lab, saying it's impossible based on DNA fingerprints. Now, those scientists' secret research plans have been uncovered, showing a strategy that could have resulted in a virus exactly like COVID in Wuhan. https://t.co/Iy9euE4LmV
Vindication for @VBruttel, @WashburneAlex. They found regularly spaced restriction enzyme sites, dividing SARS-CoV-2 genome in six. They were ridiculed. Now we know DEFUSE (2018) contained plans to create synthetic sarbecoviruses out of six segments using those very enzymes. https://t.co/UchtFxpzeU
This American virologist, University of North Carolina Prof. Ralph Baric, was set to engineer twenty or more “chimeric” SARS-related viral spike proteins per year of the proposal, and two to five full-length engineered SARS-related viruses. Documents previously reported by U.S.… https://t.co/dVnoV7igCG
SHOCK: New documents describe experiments that could have generated the virus’ rare properties. They detail the scientists’ interest in working with viruses precisely like SARS-CoV-2 one year before Covid-19 escaped from the Wuhan lab. https://t.co/WVyzREAkcN
I am perplexed that US scientists still have not disclosed work on SARS-like viruses conducted in collab with Wuhan scientists. “RB [Ralph Baric] has already generated SARS-like chimeras.. from group of bat viruses called 293 (for S1) which is 20% different than epidemic strains” https://t.co/CM6Q5g0T40
🚨 New details have been uncovered in the DEFUSE grant proposal led by EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak‼️ US scientists planned to work with 🇨🇳 Wuhan Institute of Virology to engineer novel coronaviruses with the features of SARS-CoV-2 the year before the virus emerged… https://t.co/4Poxp0Nvna
Extremely impressive reporting. Lab leak skeptics should give this a close read. https://t.co/qiSJaPXB7i
I hear this is the most hotly anticipated story of 2024!!! 1,200 docs obtained by USRTK reveal plans to engineer viruses with the properties of SARS-CoV-2 — including a furin cleavage site at the S1/S2 junction and six restriction sites — in Wuhan. https://t.co/NwXjoVZEdg
Important thread (by a former skeptic of the lab-origin theory) on the question of the origins of COVID. New information comes from a recently released (via FOIA) full research proposal by US and Chinese scientists for studying and cultivating viruses similar to COVID. https://t.co/FwRPML5m2h
🚨🚨 For a long time, it has been assumed that we would never know for certain how covid originated, even as a lab leak seemed highly likely given all the evidence. That was wrong. This stunning piece of new evidence shows the precise lab work that produced the pandemic. https://t.co/LtZSM0kUwL