The first persons known to have died from Covid-19 were three scientists in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, who were engaged in gain of function research on coronaviruses, a new report says.
Gain of function research means artificially enhancing some characteristic of an organism to make it easier to study. In the case of the coronavirus research, this meant making the virus more contagious.
President Obama in 2014 shut down federal funding for gain of function research because he considered it too dangerous. However, the National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases headed by Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, and a major U.S. government grantee, EcoHealth Alliance, deemed their work on SARS-like viruses as not falling under the gain-of-function research of concern definitions and funded this project in China and Southeast Asia..
Unsafe research resulted in release of a disease that has killed millions of people and still is not under control. Michael Shellenberger and his collaborators in this article do not accuse anyone of malign intent - only of recklessness and a coverup.
LINKS
First People Sickened by COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists at Wuhan Institute of Virology by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag for Public.
On Today's Explosive Coronavirus Story by Matt Taibbi for Racket News.
Why Scientists Tweak Lab Viruses to Make Them More Contagious by Emily Willingham for Scientific American (2021).
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