Blockbuster scoop on coronavirus research in Wuhan
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- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
- Written by editor
For the last several months, we’ve been fighting in court to get the U.S. government to release records about virus research, hoping to shed light on how the pandemic began.
Now that they’ve finally begun to comply with a judge’s order, what we’ve found is explosive: The National Institutes of Health appears to have funded controversial “gain of function” research in bat coronaviruses in China — calling into question previous denials by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Viruses described in the documents we’ve received were not closely related to the virus that causes Covid-19 and so could not have caused the pandemic.
However, these previously unpublished reports raise serious questions about whether other activities at the Wuhan lab could be linked to the pandemic —... and about what has not yet been disclosed.
Our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit is ongoing, and we expect to receive many more documents. This is an expensive and complex reporting project, but we believe the public has a right to know the truth about risky research that could cause pandemics.
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The closest relative of SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, is a virus found in bats. So how did it jump to humans?
Many scientists believe the virus passed to humans through “natural spillover,” making the jump in a setting such as a wet market or rural area where humans and animals are in close contact.
And while the specific experiment funded by NIH described in these documents could not have led to the Covid-19 pandemic, the documents show what one expert called “exactly the scenario imagined by many lab-leak scenario proponents” occurring in the Wuhan lab, with scientists intentionally making coronaviruses more dangerous in order to study them.
Our reporters are continuing to follow every lead, and our attorneys are fighting to get them access to the documents they need to get to the bottom of this critical story. The stakes could hardly be higher.
Thank you,
The Intercept team
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