In a Tuesday op-ed for Fox News, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) stated that officials from 15 federal agencies were aware in 2018 of the Wuhan Institute of Virology's efforts to develop a coronavirus similar to COVID-19.
“These officials knew that the Chinese lab was proposing to create a COVID 19-like virus and not one of these officials revealed this scheme to the public. In fact, 15 agencies with knowledge of this project have continuously refused to release any info concerning this alarming and dangerous research. Government officials representing at least 15 federal agencies were briefed on a project proposed by Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Paul explained in his piece.
Senator Paul is referring to the DEFUSE project, which came to light following revelations from DRASTIC Research. Documents uncovered indicated that DARPA had been presented with a proposal for EcoHealth Alliance to conduct gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.
And officials from 15 different agencies were aware of this, Paul claims. “This project, the DEFUSE project, proposed to insert a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus that would have been shockingly similar to the COVID-19 virus,” Paul explained.
This means that at minimum fifteen federal agencies were aware from the onset of the pandemic that the Wuhan Institute of Virology and EcoHealth Alliance were seeking federal funding back in 2018 to create a virus similar, if not genetically identical, to COVID-19.
And not one of these 15 agencies warned or spoke up about this or the fact that the Wuhan Institute had been promoting this research. “Not one of these agencies warned anyone that this Chinese lab had already put together plans to create such a virus,” Paul stated.
“Peter Daszak concealed this proposal. University of North Carolina scientist Ralph Baric, a named collaborator on the DEFUSE project, failed to reveal that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had already proposed to create a virus similar to COVID-19. And now we know that 15 agencies heard the proposal and when each agency discovered that COVID-19 was strangely similar to DEFUSE’s proposed virus creation, not one agency head stepped forward to warn the public that the virus might be man-made and therefore already adapted to transmit freely among humans,” Senator Paul continued.
Dr. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was not just briefed on Wuhan’s intent to create the virus, NIAID was actually listed as a participant in the first pitch of DEFUSE. In the proposal, Dr. Fauci’s Rocky Mountain Lab was named as a partner along with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
These documents show that a scientist, one whose lab has received millions from EcoHealth, was also involved in the original plan to create these coronaviruses. Ian Lipkin, the scientist, was also one of the authors of “Proximal Origins,” a paper commissioned by Fauci and head of NIH Francis Collins, to discredit anyone that argued the virus might have originated in the lab. Ian Lipkin never revealed the DEFUSE proposal to the public.
Many people in the government likely knew of this proposal, and every person ultimately chose to conceal information that could have saved lives.
