Peter Daszak (R) and other members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus, arrive at the Wuhan Institute of Virology on Feb. 3, 2021. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images
Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a group initiated by Peter Daszak was soliciting funding for a lab leak prevention and preparation program, a newly discovered document reveals. Daszak later became known as a leading figure in Dr. Anthony Fauci’s funding of gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
Daszak also helped instigate the infamous Lancet letter, which was published at the start of the pandemic in February 2020, that had the aim of shutting down any discussions about the possibility that COVID-19 had emerged from a lab.
“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” Daszak and his partners stated in the Lancet letter.
However, before the pandemic, as the newly released document proves, the group initiated by Daszak had been soliciting–and receiving–taxpayer money to prepare for the likelihood of a lab leak involving a lab-enhanced virus.
The document is in the form of a 2017 PowerPoint presentation that was obtained through freedom of information litigation by the transparency group U.S. Right to Know. A second version of the presentation with slight variations was recently found by data scientist and COVID-19 origin investigator Gilles Demaneuf using an image search.
The PowerPoint presentation was part of a pitch to potential funders to bankroll a new project called the Global Virome Project. This project was the brainchild of Daszak and a number of collaborators, with the ostensible aim to collect virus data to prevent and prepare for pandemics. The project sought $1.2 billion to $3.4 billion in funding over a 10-year period.
The first slide of the presentation, immediately after the cover page, explains that “[t]he world is facing an increasing dual threat from the natural emergence of deadly infectious pathogens, and the accidental and/or intentional release of their laboratory-enhanced variants.”
NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci listens to President Joe Biden (out of frame) speak during a visit to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., on Feb. 11, 2021. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Notably, it acknowledged that dangerous viruses were being brought to labs to be made more dangerous, and that they could escape from such labs. As the world would later learn, at the same time that Daszak was pitching the Global Virome Project, he and the Wuhan Institute of Virology were collecting wild viruses and enhancing them at the Wuhan lab under the auspices of Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
The next slide in the presentation acknowledges that this new unnatural “threat from ‘lab-enhanced’ viruses is actually intensifying.” On the same slide, it states that “Gain of function and DIY research is elevating the risk of the accidental and/or deliberate release of deadly novel biological agents.”
On another slide, the Global Virome Project was said to present “a path to identifying and characterizing those viruses that have the greatest potential to infect humans, and their laboratory enhanced variants — so we can prepare for them before they jump to us.”
Despite these admissions in the 2017 funding pitch, Daszak later denied any possibility of a lab origin when what was almost certainly a laboratory-enhanced virus emerged on the doorsteps of the Wuhan Institute in 2019. Instead, Daszak and his co-signatories of the Lancet letter accused anyone who voiced concerns over a lab leak of creating “fear, rumors, and prejudice.” As we now know, anyone who suspected a lab leak was merely echoing what Daszak himself was claiming in the PowerPoint presentation.
The P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on May 13, 2020. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images
The presentation was attached to a July 2017 email that discussed outreach to potential funders of the Global Virome Project, including the Pentagon, the National Institutes of Health (with Fauci specifically named as the project’s contact person), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The email to which the PowerPoint was attached was sent by Cara Chrisman of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and was copied to Dennis Carroll, also of the USAID. Both Carroll and Chrisman used government email addresses for the exchange. Other notable recipients of the email were Daszak and Jonna Mazet of the University of California at Davis (UC–Davis).
Daszak, Carroll, and Mazet would later become signatories of the Lancet letter.
Additional email recipients included at least two staff members of Metabiota. Similar to Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance, Metabiota is a so-called virus-hunting group. It has been previously reported by the New York Post that Metabiota also partnered with Hunter Biden’s company Rosemont Seneca. Through the company, Hunter Biden not only funded Metabiota but also introduced Metabiota to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where he served on the board, proposing that the two sides start a “science project” involving biolabs in Ukraine.
While it isn’t known whether any Ukrainian labs were involved in the Global Virome Project, it is known that staff from EcoHealth Alliance, USAID, UC-Davis, and Metabiota were all part of the project and knew about the PowerPoint slides. The staff members involved weren’t only familiar with the extreme dangers posed by lab-enhanced viruses but also sought funding to prepare for these dangers.
However, when the pandemic hit, the people involved either remained silent or–in the case of Daszak, Mazet, and Carroll–actively covered up what had happened and accused others of being conspiracy theorists.
Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the visit by the World Health Organization team tasked with investigating the origins of COVID-19, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on Feb. 3, 2021. Thomas Peter/Reuters
While it isn’t known how much total funding the Global Virome Project has received since its inception in 2017, it’s known that the project continues to actively seek funding.
A USAID spreadsheet obtained by U.S. Right to Know shows that USAID paid at least $270,000 directly to the Global Virome Project.
Both the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) also were discussed by Daszak and his associates at USAID, UC–Davis, and Metabiota as possible avenues for partnerships and funding.
According to the newly unearthed PowerPoint presentation, the Global Virome Project’s “organizational partners” include pharmaceutical giant Merck, as well the NIAID, which at the time was headed by Fauci. A spreadsheet included in the freedom of information return further lists Mark Zuckerberg’s foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, as well as pharmaceutical company Johnson and Johnson and the Wellcome Trust as potential funders.
The Wellcome Trust is a trust established by the former pharmaceutical giant Wellcome (now GSK). The trust was until recently headed by Jeremy Farrar, who, in early 2020, helped Fauci shape the narrative against claims that COVID-19 had come out of the Wuhan lab. Farrar is now the World Health Organization’s chief scientist.
Bats in a cage at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, in a 2017 video. Screenshot
Dennis Carroll, who was director of pandemic influenza and other emerging threats at USAID when the Global Virome Project was being established, is now chairman of the project. Daszak is secretary and treasurer of the project and Lancet letter signatory Mazet is a board member.
The deep financial and other entanglements of a U.S. government agency, USAID, with the Global Virome Project are evident, as is the fact that Carroll transferred from a prominent position at USAID to a prominent position in the Global Virome Project.
However, the biggest takeaway from this latest document release is that Daszak and his associates were seeking taxpayer money to prepare for a pandemic caused by a laboratory-enhanced virus, a fact they later concealed from the public while aggressively pushing the natural origin narrative.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
