The Federal Observer
US taxpayer money was used to experiment with coronaviruses from the Chinese lab thought to be the source of the Covid pandemic more than a year before the global outbreak, an investigation has found.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), under Dr Anthony Fauci’s leadership, infected 12 Egyptian fruit bats with a ‘SARS-like’ virus called WIV1 at a lab in Montana in 2018, just 15 minutes away from the Maryland presidential retreat Camp David.
The WIV1-coronavirus was shipped from the Wuhan lab the FBI believes caused the Covid pandemic and was tested on bats acquired from a ‘roadside’ Maryland zoo.
The research – revealed this week by a campaign group – determined the novel virus could not cause a ‘robust infection’.
But the research is more evidence of ties between the US government and the Wuhan lab, as well as the funding of dangerous virus research across the globe.
Eight novel viruses, including one belonging to the same family as Covid, were found in labs across China
Between 2015 and 2023, at least seven US entities supplied NIH grant money to labs in China performing animal experiments, totaling $3,306,061
The paper – SARS-Like Coronavirus WIV1-CoV Does Not Replicate in Egyptian Fruit Bats – was published in the journal Viruses in 2018. The study was first flagged by DRASTIC, a group of internet activists who investigate the origins of Covid-19 and the lab leak theory.
The group White Coat Waste Project is now using the Freedom of Information Act to request more details about the experiment.
The White Coat Waste Project is a watchdog that has been fighting to stop sending American tax dollars overseas to fund dangerous virus research.
