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COVID-19 Deceit

Barry MacDonald — Editorial

Tragically, deceit is a common technique of government. American politics is poisoned by the purposeful saturation of news with blatant falsehoods. Politicians, bureaucrats, and news people deliberately lie to the American public. Politicos disguised as scientists, doctors, bureaucrats, pundits, and statesmen are active in the suppression of the truth.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) are heroes of courage and integrity. If we had an army of investigators of their quality, we could defeat the mendacity of the Left with alacrity.

Senator Paul wrote an essay on Fox News’ website on April 9, entitled “The Great COVID Cover-up: Shocking Truth about Wuhan and 15 Federal Agencies.” Paul shamed the federal agents who were deceitful and complicit in the worldwide calamity of COVID-19. His investigation found that U.S. government officials from 15 federal agencies were aware in 2018 that the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology intended to create a coronavirus similar to COVID-19.

According to Paul, not one person from these agencies made this dangerous Chinese research public before the pandemic. After the emergence of COVID-19, these agencies kept their silence, and they refuse to divulge information on their knowledge, or participation, in the research.

British zoologist Peter Daszak briefed 15 U.S. agencies in 2018. The name of the Wuhan proposed research project was DEFUSE. Daszak briefed the U.S. agencies to obtain U.S. federal funding — taxpayer money — for the Chinese project. Paul writes that the purpose of the Wuhan project was:

“. . . 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.”

Daszak is president of the U.S.-based EcoHealth Alliance. EcoHealth Alliance is a non-governmental organization with the stated mission of protecting people, animals, and the environment from emerging infectious diseases.

A “chimeric virus” contains genetic material derived from two or more distinct viruses. The proposed DEFUSE project was to activate a genetic modification, or, in scientific terms, “insert a furin cleavage site” to make a new virus. The DEFUSE project, pitched to 15 federal agencies to be done in the Wuhan lab, is termed “gain-of-function” research.

Senator Paul cites a disclosure from U.S. Marine Corps Major Joseph Murphy as a source of his investigation. Murphy’s disclosure was obtained by James O’Keefe and Project Veritas in August 2021.

Senator Johnson also cites Murphy’s disclosure. Johnson is the ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the U.S. Senate.

Johnson writes on his official website that Murphy’s disclosure was sent to the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and that office referred it to DoD’s Office of Research and Engineering for investigation.

In January 2022, Senator Johnson sent a letter to DoD Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu, demanding information on Major Murphy’s disclosure.

Johnson wrote:

“According to the Major’s disclosure, EcoHealth Alliance (EcoHealth), in conjunction with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), submitted a proposal in March 2018 to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) regarding SARS-CoVs. The proposal included a program, called DEFUSE, that sought to use a novel chimeric SARS-CoV spike protein to inoculate bats against SARS-CoVs. Although DARPA rejected the proposal, the disclosure alleges that EcoHealth ultimately carried out the DEFUSE proposal until April 2020 through the National Institutes of Health and National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The disclosure highlights several potential treatments, such as ivermectin, and specifically alleges that the EcoHealth DEFUSE proposal identified chloroquine phosphate (Hydroxychloriquine) and interferon as SARS-CoV inhibitors.”

Apparently, information on the DEFUSE proposal is classified, and cannot be released to the public.

Senator Paul writes that the evidence suggests that COVID-19 was a laboratory-enhanced virus purposefully adapted for human transmission. The virus was created to be transmissible between humans. The virus spread globally from China. It killed more than 3.4 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

On the Fox News website Senator Paul writes:

“I have been fighting to obtain records from dozens of federal agencies relating to the origins of COVID-19 and the DEFUSE project. Under duress, the administration finally released documents that show that the DEFUSE project was pitched to at least 15 agencies in January 2018.”

“. . . Disturbingly, not one of these 15 agencies spoke up to warn us that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been pitching this research. Not one of these agencies warned anyone that this Chinese lab had already put together plans to create such a virus.”

Not only was Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) briefed on the Wuhan project, NIAID was listed as a “participant” in the DEFUSE pitch. According to Paul, “Fauci’s Rocky Mountain Lab was named as a partner alongside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the proposal.”

Ralph Baric was a named collaborator of the DEFUSE project, according to Paul. He did not reveal the proposed research at the Wuhan lab. Baric is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, and professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Baric spent 40 years studying coronaviruses, according to Time Magazine.

Ian Lipkin did not reveal the 2018 DEFUSE proposal. Lipkin was part of the original plan to create a coronavirus, according to Paul. Paul reveals that Lipkin’s lab received millions of dollars from EcoHealth. Lipkin is the John Snow Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University. He is a professor of Neurology, Pathology, and Cell Biology. He is the Director of the Center for Infection and Immunity. He was one of the authors of “Proximal Origins,” a paper commissioned to discourage the idea that the virus might have come from a lab.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Fauci, director of NIAID, commissioned Ian Lipkin to write “Proximal Origins.”

Murphy’s disclosure asserts that both NIH and NIAID did “carry out” the DEFUSE proposal. Murphy’s disclosure implies that these agencies helped to finance the project.

According to Senator Paul, Peter Daszak, Anthony Fauci, Ralph Baric, Ian Lipkin, Francis Collins, and scientists at the NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Lab all knew of the Chinese lab’s desire to create a coronavirus that was adapted for human transmission. None of them spoke up. Paul said:

“Likely, hundreds of people in the government knew of this proposal to create a COVID-19-like virus and virtually every one of these people chose to keep quiet, to obscure, and ultimately to conceal information that might have saved lives by letting the world know this was no sleepy animal virus with poor transmission.”

Without the efforts of Senators Paul and Johnson, and without Major Murphy’s disclosure, Daszak’s Wuhan proposal might never have been exposed.

It appears that the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China succeeded. They made the virus.

Questions arise about the conduct of our elite bureaucrats:

• Why is a virus purposefully manufactured to infect humans? If gain-of-function research is designed to create a dangerous virus in order to develop a vaccine — well, this idea backfired.
• Do U.S. government scientists continue to do gain-of-function research on dangerous viruses?
• Why did U.S. government scientists work hand-in-glove with Chinese Communist totalitarians?
• Do U.S. scientists do research on dangerous viruses with the Communist Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, or the North Koreans?
• If U.S. government scientists are in partnership with a hostile nation, would they inform Congress?
• If questioned by Congress about their odd association with hostile nations, would U.S. government scientists tell the truth?
• Do our elite U.S. government scientists serve the American people, or, a secret agenda?

A question about COVID-19 must be asked, because the question is of weighty historical significance: Was the release of the Wuhan virus — by the Chinese — accidental or purposeful?

Rand Paul and Ron Johnson have shown that the prestigious scientists and medical doctors who lead our government response to pandemic viruses cannot be trusted.

Peter Daszak, Anthony Fauci, Ralph Baric, Ian Lipkin, and Francis Collins are Dr. Frankensteins. COVID is their monster.   *