Fair enough, you misunderstood the implications. Not misquoted.
It seemed like common sense back then it was a viable possibility the virus could escape from the Wuhan Lab, esp if the origin of the virus was Wuhan. But the vast majority of mainstream media outlets called everyone who wanted investigation in that direction a Tin Foil conspiracist rather than doing journalistic work and looking at all rational possibilities. I donât know why that became a bandwagon for Democrats to jump on and defend.
I donât know why it was also pinned as a Right Wing conspiracy by the main stream media outlets like CNN, MSNBC, WapoâŚI doubt anyone on the Left who jumped on that bandwagon spent a second to question and examine how they were so easily misled or why it even had to be politicized. It was just common sense to look into and be open to all rational possibilities to find the truth.
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Yes and hence the valuable work of those amateur sleuths, including in the early days guys like laowhy .
Guy
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This story keeps on giving. 
Wuhan scientists planned to release coronavirus particles into cave bats, leaked papers reveal
Documents reveal researchers applied for $14m to fund controversial project in 2018
BySarah Knapton, SCIENCE EDITOR, The Telegraph, 21 September 2021 ⢠5:48pm
Summary
Workers wearing protective clothing disinfect a shopping centre in Wuhan CREDIT: China News Service
Coronavirus Article Bar with counter
Wuhan and US scientists were planning to release enhanced airborne coronavirus particles into Chinese bat populations to inoculate them against diseases that could jump to humans, leaked grant proposals dating from 2018 show.
New documents show that just 18 months before the first Covid-19 cases appeared, researchers had submitted plans to release skin-penetrating nanoparticles and aerosols containing ânovel chimeric spike proteinsâ of bat coronaviruses into cave bats in Yunnan, China.
They also planned to create chimeric viruses, genetically enhanced to infect humans more easily, and requested $14million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to fund the work.
Papers, confirmed as genuine by a former member of the Trump administration, show they were hoping to introduce âhuman-specific cleavage sitesâ to bat coronaviruses which would make it easier for the virus to enter human cells.
When Covid-19 was first genetically sequenced, scientists were puzzled about how the virus had evolved such a human-specific adaptation at the cleavage site on the spike protein, which is the reason it is so infectious.
The documents were released by Drastic, the web-based investigations team set up by scientists from across the world to look into the origins of Covid-19.
In a statement, Drastic said: âGiven that we find in this proposal a discussion of the planned introduction of human-specific cleavage sites, a review by the wider scientific community of the plausibility of artificial insertion is warranted.â
The proposal also included plans to mix high-risk natural coronavirus strains with more infectious but less dangerous varieties.
The bid was submitted by British zoologist Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, the US-based organisation, which has worked closely with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researching bat coronaviruses.
Team members included Dr Shi Zhengli, the WIV researcher dubbed âbat womanâ, pictured below, as well as US researchers from the University of North Carolina and the United States Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Centre.
Darpa refused to fund the work, saying: âIt is clear that the proposed project led by Peter Daszak could have put local communities at riskâ, and warned that the team had not properly considered the dangers of enhancing the virus (gain of function research) or releasing a vaccine by air.
Grant documents show that the team also had some concerns about the vaccine programme and said they would âconduct educational outreach ⌠so that there is a public understanding of what we are doing and why we are doing it, particularly because of the practice of bat-consumption in the regionâ.
Angus Dalgleish, Professor of Oncology at St Georges, University of London, who struggled to get work published showing that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) had been carrying out âgain of functionâ work for years before the pandemic, said the research may have gone ahead even without the funding.
âThis is clearly a gain of function, engineering the cleavage site and polishing the new viruses to enhance human cell infectibility in more than one cell line,â he said.
Daszak was also behind a letter published in The Lancet last year which effectively shut down scientific debate into the origins of Covid-19.
Residents in Wuhan are tested for coronavirus in April 2020 CREDIT: Roman Pilipey/Shutterstock
Viscount Ridley, who has co-authored a book on the origin of Covid-19, due for release in November, and who has frequently called for a further investigation into what caused the pandemic in the House of Lords, said: âFor more than a year I tried repeatedly to ask questions of Peter Daszak with no response.
âNow it turns out he had authored this vital piece of information about virus work in Wuhan but refused to share it with the world. I am furious. So should the world be.
âPeter Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) proposed injecting deadly chimeric bat coronaviruses collected by the Wuhan Institute of Virology into humanised and âbatifiedâ mice, and much, much more.â
A Covid-19 researcher from the World Health Organisation (WHO), who wished to remain anonymous, said it was alarming that the grant proposal included plans to enhance the more deadly disease of Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers).
âThe scary part is they were making infectious chimeric Mers viruses,â the source said.
âThese viruses have a fatality rate over 30 per cent, which is at least an order of magnitude more deadly than Sars-CoV-2.
âIf one of their receptor replacements made Mers spread similarly, while maintaining its lethality, this pandemic would be nearly apocalyptic.â
EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology have been aproached for comment.
Guy
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Favorite trick which I keep repeating.
copy the address and then open a window in incognito, top right select the 3 dots and âmore toolsâ then âdeveloper toolsâ then press Ctl + Shift + P and type Java, click on disable debugger disable java. then paste the address. Change will only affect the incognito window and will be gone when you close it.
View the rest of the article.
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Thank you! Edited for content to be readable.
Guy
Redding this makes me sick in the stomach.
More details emerging:
Guy
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During an interview on Fox News
So a fake news outlet called another outlet fake? SuspiciousâŚ
I only ever follow the Global Times
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You really need to add in RT for a little balance.
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Suspicion confirmed. âJournalistic objectivityâ is a myth.
Walls have closed in on the CCP.
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A surprisingly good report from the Mail, with lots of helpful detail.
Guy
That was a great article.
It didnât even include many other interesting tidbits (probably because there was so much to write about ).
For instance the recent lab leak in Taiwan from mouse experiments , also the fact that SARS CoV-1 had multiple lab leaks.
Also the fact that the lab leak supporting data , especially the data they recovered that the Chinese did their best to delete and hide , was almost all accumulated by amateur sleuths and scientists on a Reddit forum !
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BTW some more facts support WIV spreading:
Love to read it, but itâs paywalled.
Or free trial account that you must sign up for.
No.
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Google for the title, I found it on some other semi pay walled sites. Its about why some people communicating with fauci decided to deny itâs from a lab, for political reasons
We donât want to hurt anyoneâs feelings.
Well it reads more like some scientists want to continue with such research, and a lab leak confirmed is the Chernobyl for them. So they play it down and are just too happy too blame it on bats.
Know the difference, if this is confirmed out of a lab all such research will be over. If itâs from bats they can say thatâs exactly why the need to continue the research!
And yeah not wanting to piss of China is also an aspect. But itâs clear many experts working in exactly that field prefer if itâs never confirmed to be from a lab.
The scandal is who received those mails and what those important people said at the same time in the media