VANITY FAIR on COVID Lab Leak: UNC Scientist Instrumental in Creation and Cover Up

Dr. Ralph Baric, UNC

RALEIGH – When being grilled by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) on the funding of ‘gain of function’ research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, now at the heart of the corporate presses sudden awakening to the origins of the pandemic, America’s COVID Czar Dr. Anthony Fauci snapped back that ‘if any gain of function research was going on, it was going on in North Carolina.’

It’s not exactly the kind of shout out North Carolinians would want when the subject is the exploration of possibly nefarious origins of a new virus that served to plunge the world into Pandemic Panic, took lives, ruined more lives, and has fundamentally shifted the Western world into a totalitarian direction.

Especially not select scientists at the University of North Carolina that appear to be, not just peripherally involved in controversial research, but implicated at the very heart of activities that created the novel SARS-CoV2 in a Wuhan lab, and then colluding with Fauci and another pivotal funder to cover it up.

This unfortunate Carolina connection is all covered in damning deep dive by Vanity Fair (seriously) that details the growing case for a Chinese lab leak as the source of COVID-19, and documents the cover up that followed.

From Vanity Fair (emphasis added):

“[…] As they combed open sources as well as classified information, the team’s members soon stumbled on a 2015 research paper by Shi Zhengli and the University of North Carolina epidemiologist Ralph Baric proving that the spike protein of a novel coronavirus could infect human cells. Using mice as subjects, they inserted the protein from a Chinese rufous horseshoe bat into the molecular structure of the SARS virus from 2002, creating a new, infectious pathogen.

This gain-of-function experiment was so fraught that the authors flagged the danger themselves, writing, “scientific review panels may deem similar studies…too risky to pursue.” In fact, the study was intended to raise an alarm and warn the world of “a potential risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations.” The paper’s acknowledgments cited funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and from a nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance, which had parceled out grant money from the U.S. Agency for International Development. EcoHealth Alliance is run by Peter Daszak, the zoologist who helped organize the Lancet statement. […]”

The above referenced funding from the National Institutes of Health is what Sen. Paul pressed Fauci on, who squirmed and shifted blame for risky research to other actors like Baric at UNC.

But it goes further, beyond the conception, the decision to knowingly engage in what they themselves entertain as ‘too risky to pursue,’ and creation of the virus itself; as the world became engulfed in a Pandemic Panic, these same actors scrambled to create a counter narrative to cover up their culpability in helping the Chinese spark a worldwide contagion that hobbled the West in ways not yet fully appreciated.

“[…] It soon emerged, based on emails obtained by a Freedom of Information group called U.S. Right to Know, that Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific unanimity.

Under the subject line, “No need for you to sign the “Statement” Ralph!!,” he wrote to two scientists, including UNC’s Dr. Ralph Baric, who had collaborated with Shi Zhengli on the gain-of-function study that created a coronavirus capable of infecting human cells: “you, me and him should not sign this statement, so it has some distance from us and therefore doesn’t work in a counterproductive way.” Daszak added, “We’ll then put it out in a way that doesn’t link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice.”

Baric agreed, writing back, “Otherwise it looks self-serving and we lose impact.”

Baric did not sign the statement. In the end, Daszak did. At least six other signers had either worked at, or had been funded by, EcoHealth Alliance. The statement ended with a declaration of objectivity: “We declare no competing interests.” […]”

When the lab leak theory was dusted off in early January, after being pummeled into the ground as a ludicrous conspiracy theory for a year by the corporate press and State interests, secret meetings and brainstorming sessions were organized by the figures in the State Department that were alarmed with the weakness of the ‘natural origin’ case.

One of those calls with experts included, who else, Dr. Ralph Baric. According to the article, Baric downplayed an analysis that suggested a lab leak as more likely than previously accepted, but admitted that key features of the pandemic suggested exactly that.

“[…] Baric added that, if SARS-CoV-2 had come from a “strong animal reservoir,” one might have expected to see “multiple introduction events,” rather than a single outbreak, though he cautioned that it didn’t prove “[this] was an escape from a laboratory.” That prompted Asher to ask, “Could this not have been partially bioengineered?” […]”

At this point in January 2021, a year after the first documented case of COVID in the United States, and after months of helping orchestrate narratives to steer the world toward natural origin theories, Baric has got to be sweating bullets. The State Department is asking if it could be bioengineered and leaked from a Chinese lab when Baric knows he and other scientists have DID bioengineer the virus, and set the research loose in sloppy Chinese lab.

To his credit, Baric didn’t buckle under that pressure. Whereas his colleagues, including the Chinese research partner that helped created this new human-infecting pathogen with gain of function research, defiantly dismissed and mocked the lab leak theories to protect themselves, Baric notably signed a letter with other scientists calling for an honest look at what happened.

“[…] On May 14, in a statement published in Science Magazine, 18 prominent scientists called for a “transparent, objective” investigation into COVID-19’s origins, noting, “We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data.”

Among the signers was Ralph Baric. Fifteen months earlier, he had worked behind the scenes to help Peter Daszak stage-manage the Lancet statement [proclaiming natural origin]”

A guilty conscience may have led Baric to do the right thing.

However, another curiosity remains. With one of the central characters in the biggest, truly global story scandal of the last 100 years works at the state’s flagship university, you’d think local news outlets here in North Carolina would be busting down Baric’s door to ask him questions. Yet, with all the Pandemic Panic — the constant COVID update press conferences; the restrictions, the school closures, the pain and suffering caused by a new virus — led by the likes of Governor Roy Cooper, Health Czar Mandy Cohen, and Leftists all over the media; no one is interested?

For the full investigative report by Vanity Fair, go here.

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