Prelim Congressional Report Released: Chinese State Records Reveal China May Have Created the SARS-CoV-2
What was their motivation? Protective gain-of-function research… or something more?
When the meltdown at Chernobyl happened, the only response was to deal with it in real time, to respond to the disaster. But once the literal dust settled, an investigation of what led to the disaster unfolded.
Investigation results [1] showed that the interference of political figures and nuances played a pivotal role in the accident. Scientists and workers at the plant, aware of safety precautions, were increasingly prone to ignore them to satisfy career motivations and political or bureaucratic principles, rather than the safety and function of the plant.
Processes and procedures there got so drastically off track regarding safety and function of the plant that eventually the entire thing literally blew up.
Now, we have had a worldwide pandemic originating from the same city that houses the highest level biolab in the nation of China. This lab, like everything in China, is run by an autocrat more powerful than any since the horrific Mao Zedong. The daily, weekly, yearly pressures from this power and money-driven leadership appears to have finally collapsed the function and safety of the lab, just as Chernobyl collapsed, under the weight of political ambition, bureaucracy, and potentially evil.
Vanity Fair and Propublica combined to follow the research on the origin of the virus. Below is a link to Propublica’s report along with a link to the preliminary bipartisan report from Congress.
The final Congressional report is still pending but this preliminary report makes very clear what many of us suspected from the beginning: COVID was most likely caused by a man-made, gain of function virus accident. The virus may have been let out of the lab in a probable lab error or mistake (possibly related to poor equipment and decontamination procedures and equipment). This was clearly impacted by immense pressure from Xi to elevate China’s position in the scientific world (and possibly more) but without the requisite money and leadership to do so. In other words, how authoritarians often operate: Pure, unadulterated self-interest.
Here is Propublica’s report on the bipartisan committee’s research and report:
Here is the preliminary report:
It appears from this report that, like Chernobyl, this was a politically instigated mistake that affected all of earth. We now have two authoritarian governments who, because of their power and money motivations rather than the motivations of serving humanity, allowed catastrophic crisis.
The only question I still have, particularly given the rapidity of China’s response in building a vaccine AND China’s continued COVID lockdowns, is was this JUST a mistake or was the development of the COVID virus part of a larger scheme?
I do not say this to spark conspiracy theories (please, DON’T, just DON’T), but the use of high level biolabs as a military weapon by any nation is something about which every sentient human should be concerned. With a regime capable of vaccinating their people against the virus prior to release, the realm of science regarding the manipulation of viruses takes on a very dark patina. We now have a lived experience of what that could look like — a pandemic- or worse. It behooves every citizen of earth to oversee this science with full transparency.
Some scientists, albeit who may have personal and professional motivations, still resist the report. In fairness, here is an article from The Economist outlining their arguments. I feel their arguments are logically weak. https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2022/10/27/scientists-dispute-a-suggestion-that-sars-cov-2-was-engineered
Just this week, a U.S. lab was sanctioned for work developing a gain of function virus without permission. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boston-university-covid-experiments-nih-invesitgation/ If this can happen here, what more in the way of incompetence or malfeasance is happening in authoritarian-run nations with minimal public transparency?
It appears the answer to that question will remain elusive but the very asking of it should bring cold sweat to the brow of every human. Reputable journalistic organizations such as Foreign Policy have continued to push back against the lab theory, labeling it as recently as this September as a “Conspiracy theory.” https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/09/15/conspiracy-theories-covid-19-commission /What is the motivation there? Is it simply to avoid confusing and anger-provoking conflict with China when so many other issues have us on the brink of a world war with China? I can not disagree with this motivation, if that is what it is, but how do we know?
Many questions remain and the politicization of an issue so important is disheartening.
From Propublica on the “impossibly rapid Chinese development of a vaccine”:
Zhou and his colleagues described their COVID-19 vaccine research in a preprint posted on May 2, 2020. When it was published in a peer-reviewed journal three months later, Reid found, Zhou was listed as “deceased.” The circumstances of his death have not been disclosed.
Authoritarianism is a danger to humanity and to scientists themselves, despite Xi’s obviously self-serving condemnation of democracy.
Xi proved it, himself.
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[1] Members of this committee:
Majority by Rank
Minority by Rank
