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Peter Daszak has a new grant from the NIH to study bat coronaviruses in the wild
- qualifiedai 4y agowhat could possibly go wrong this time! I strongly recommend “Viral” by Ridley and Chan to those who haven’t read it.
- ciguy 4y agoHow is this guy not in jail yet? Much less out there receiving more grants?
- tru3_power 4y agoWhat’s the backstory here? Why would he be in jail? Also the link in the original post has almost zero detail on what this grant is for.
- _-david-_ 4y agoHe is possibly responsible for the creation of covid. He is the president of EcoHealth Alliance who was helping fund research into corona viruses and gain of function in Wuhan. He also was involved with the WHO investigation on the lab leak hypothesis despite his conflict of interest and basically denied it could have come from the lab.
- uup 4y agoA lot of backstory on this guy and his organization: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-nonprofit-at-the-center-of-the-lab-leak-controversy/amp https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-no... TLDR is that this guy was acting as a fundraiser for research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology where they were specifically making novel coronaviruses, e.g. by creating chimeric viruses of SARS and MERS, and then using those viruses for gain of function research, e.g. by infecting humanized lung tissue in mice.
- LatteLazy 4y agoThere is a crazy conspiracy theory that he created COVID 19. It's nonsense but people lap it up and pretend they're part of some secret club who alone know the truth.
- hunterb123 4y agoDismissing things as a "crazy conspiracy theory" adds nothing. All indicators point to a lab leak. The project was called DEFUSE, proposed in 2018, it was led by Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance and funded by the NIH. https://drasticresearch.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/main-document-preempt-volume-1-no-ess-hr00118s0017-ecohealth-alliance.pdf https://drasticresearch.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/main-doc... These things are known now, after being long denied by those involved.
- LatteLazy 4y agoThere is no evidence, none at all, of a lab leak. Even you admit that when you limit yourself to "indicator". And it is a conspiracy theory. You need the CCP, Trump, Biden, Facci, dozens of labs staff, and any decent virologist or geneticist to all work together to hide it. Come on, get real, stop pretending.
- junofan 4y agoThe guy just had his grant terminated for not turning over records. What’s your explanation for this counter-intuitive behavior?
- LatteLazy 4y agoWhen was he terminated? One of his grants was suspended when he failed to get the US federal government access to china, something that was a bit above his pay grade, but that was in 2020!? But please, tell me how that conclusively proves a lab leak? Come on. You can believe it, that's up to you. But don't pretend there is any evidence.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
- braydenm 4y ago"Grant proposal: Many people believe a dormant Balrog resides under the Misty Mountains and poses an ongoing threat to the people of Middle Earth. We propose an expedition to awaken the Balrog in order to observe and characterise its unique dangers." - https://mobile.twitter.com/robertwiblin/status/1576712748481671169 https://mobile.twitter.com/robertwiblin/status/1576712748481...
- AbrahamParangi 4y agoWe’ve had one, yes. But what about second Covid?
- peteradio 4y agoYou have my sword. And you have my bow! And my CASH! - NIH
- egberts1 4y agoUnintended gain of function.
- yucky 4y ago"Unintended"
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- photochemsyn 4y agoCorruption in American academia isn't restricted to professors publishing cooked-up data on a regular basis, it's also seen in the funding structure of the major agencies, where insiders funnel grants to their loyal apparatchiks further down the feeding tree. Really, anyone interested in this topic needs to start with a little dive into the procedures and practices of Trofim Lysenko within the Soviet Academic system (c.1925-1965). Everyone who supported Lysenko's theories got grants and promotions - those who didn't, exited the field. A similar dynamic exists between advocates of active gain-of-funcdion research at the NIH and affiliates, and various funding decisions.
- RichardCNormos 4y ago
- throwawaybutwhy 4y agoThe NIAID is just a civilian arm of the biological research Gorgon. Without active involvement (and nudge-nudging, wink-winking) of the government there would be no gain-of-function studies.
- m0llusk 4y agoThis proposal appears to be nothing more than a broad survey involving sampling and screening. This does not culture anything or infect any animals or any such.
- poopnugget 4y ago
- dTal 4y agoSampling is also risky, as it involves traipsing around in bat caves taking samples, hopefully with adequate PPE, and then driving into big cities to study them. It's one of the possible vectors for Covid-19.
- conception 4y agoTrue but it’s also how we found the SARS source. Knowing where infections are living has value.
- junofan 4y agoThe guy just had a grant terminated for failing to turn over records.
- m0llusk 4y agoThere are multiple stories about what happened to that grant. Demands were made by the NIH suddenly and without precedent. Failing to meet those demands is what got the grant terminated. The motivations for the demands are apparently political rather than scientific and according to some are a "horrible precedent" that may break some explicit ethics rules about how grants and handled. This is particularly sad now that we have essentially proven that the wet market was the source of the virus. This was all about a made up narrative that was intended to serve political ends instead of being motivated by science and the quest for truth.
- qclibre22 4y agoThe optics of this are bad. I'm surprised NIH bureaucrats let this one through. While the science objectives may be okay, perhaps another group could have done it.
- dadjoker 4y agoTo say this is bats*t crazy is incredibly appropriate.
- tubalcain 4y ago
- throwawaymaths 4y agoWe don't know that for sure (though I believe it). He is responsible for defending people who covered it up.
- philcrocket 4y agoGreat summary of what's going on from Saager on Breaking Points. You can search for "Fauci CAUGHT Funding Lab Leak Research, Culprit AGAIN" on YT or direct link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBEEjeG6Xls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBEEjeG6Xls
- pcdoodle 4y agoOh great. Hopefully it doesn't become fauci 2.0.