A esteemed molecular biologist has stepped up to warn the public about “smoking gun” evidence indicating that COVID-19 didn’t just emerge from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology but was actually crafted by scientists at the lab.
Richard H. Ebright, Ph.D., serves as a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, where he holds the title of Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
Additionally, he directs research at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology. Ebright, a former Harvard Junior Fellow, boasts a prestigious array of accolades, including the Searle Scholar Award, Johnson & Johnson Discovery Research Fellowship, Walter J. Johnson Prize, Infectious Diseases Society of America Fellowship, and the National Institutes of Health MERIT Award.
Ebright has further contributed to the scientific community by participating in the National Institutes of Health Molecular Biology Study Section and various special emphasis panels.
He has more than 175 publications and more than 40 issued and pending patents.
Ebright is known for being a outspoken critic of the widely accepted explanation for the origins of the COVID-19 virus. He highlights a 2018 document that he sees as “smoking gun” evidence suggesting that the virus was engineered by scientists at a laboratory in China.
Ebright brings attention to a grant proposal from March 2018 titled “Project DEFUSE.”
Virologists from both the United States and China pushed to secure a $14 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a branch of the Pentagon.
The funding was sought to support research into engineering bat viruses closely linked to SARS-CoV-1, with the aim of understanding their potential for human transmission.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “The proposal for Project DEFUSE specified that the viruses’ infectivity would be enhanced by inserting into them a genetic element known as a furin cleavage site. Depending on the starting viruses, this protocol could have produced SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, which has a distinctive furin cleavage site.”
The plan included Chinese bat researcher Zhengli Shi, President of EcoHealth Alliance Peter Daszak, and Ralph Baric, a professor at the University of North Carolina. Baric allegedly worked together with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on what has been described as “high-risk bat-virus research” back in 2015.
Commentary noted, “The proposal outlines a joint project between Baric’s UNC lab and a team headed by WIV senior scientist Zhengli Shi, the famous ‘Bat Lady’ of the Wuhan lab. The proposal was drafted under the supervision of Peter Daszak — whose EcoHealth Alliance would funnel the hoped-for grant money to the researchers — and was addressed to the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).”
The proposal was ultimately denied by DARPA.
However, there are concerns that Project DEFUSE could have received funding from the Chinese government and been carried out by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The Washington Times reported, “Nonetheless, speculation persists about whether the research may have proceeded with support from the Chinese government. Project DEFUSE also suggested modifications to bat coronavirus spike proteins, introducing ‘human-specific cleavage sites.’ Notably, these techniques are similar to those some biologists surmise could have played a role in crafting the coronavirus responsible for the global health crisis.”
Nicholas Wade, a former science editor at the New York Times, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal stating, “Viruses made according to the DEFUSE protocol could have been available by the time COVID-19 broke out, sometime between August and November 2019. This would account for the otherwise unexplained timing of the pandemic along with its place of origin.”
Dr. Filippa Lentzos, an associate professor specializing in science and international security at King’s College London, has also called for global recognition that the COVID-19 pandemic might have stemmed from scientific research.
“We have to acknowledge the fact that the pandemic could have started from some research-related incident,” Lentzos said in a United Nations speech.
“Are we going to find that out? In my view, I think it’s very unlikely that we will,” she stated.
“We need to do better in future. We are going to see more ambiguous events.”
“There will be an outbreak, and we won’t know if it’s natural, deliberate, or accidental, and as an international community we need to find ways in which we can investigate that,” Lentzos warned.
“For our purposes what is important we need to acknowledge that it could have been, and so what should your responses be.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently released updated COVID-19 guidelines, marking a significant departure from its previous recommendations.
The CDC has revised its guidelines, stating that individuals who test positive for COVID-19 are no longer required to isolate from others for a minimum of five days. The agency now recommends treating coronavirus in a similar fashion to the flu and suggests gathering outdoors to reduce the risk of illness.
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