A Chinese researcher isolated and mapped COVID-19 (and submitted it to a US-run database) at least two weeks before Beijing officially identified the virus that has claimed more than 3 million lives worldwide. , according to new explosive documents.
The documents, obtained from the US Department of Health and Human Services by House Republicans and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, show that virologist Dr. Lili Ren uploaded almost the entire sequence of the structure of COVID-19 to a database managed by the US government in December. Accessed January 28, 2019.
Their work was nearly identical to what Beijing finally presented to the World Health Organization on Jan. 11, 2020, when the virus had already spread around the world, according to documents obtained by Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee. The House of Representatives.
The extra two weeks could have proven critical to the global response to the pandemic and the development of COVID-19 vaccines as scientists raced to understand the virus in late 2019 and early 2020.
Ren, of the Institute of Pathogen Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, attempted to publish information about the virus on GenBank, operated by the US National Institutes of Health.
Her work, however, was never posted on the site but was removed after she failed to respond to technical issues with her submission, issues that did not pertain to the science behind her work, the documents state.
Scientists at the Institute of Pathogen Biology of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences study the coronavirus in February 2020. REUTERS
Ren is also a sub-recipient of the controversial nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance.
The New York-based organization helped fund coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese laboratory that has long been examined as the possible origin of COVID-19.
EcoHealth directed funds from grants it received from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to the Wuhan lab, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been banned from receiving US funding for the next 10 years due to evidence that the pandemic originated in the Chinese laboratory.
Dr. Anthony Fauci was director of the NIAID during the pandemic and has received widespread criticism for his handling of the crisis. He retired in December 2022.
Ren did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment on his submission to GenBank.
The documents revealing early COVID-19 sequencing were released after the House Energy and Commerce Committee threatened to subpoena the Department of Health and Human Services.
The House committee noted that Ren’s case is the first known case in which a Chinese researcher’s initial work on COVID sequencing was deleted after being submitted to GenBank, suggesting interference from Beijing.
Committee chairs Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said the incident highlights the need to further investigate what officials Chinese and American health officials knew in the early days of the pandemic.
The full virus sequence that China presented in January was identical to Dr. Lili Ren’s deleted work in December. Getty Images/iStockphoto
“This important discovery further underlines why we cannot trust any of the so-called ‘facts’ or data provided by the PCC. [Chinese Communist Party] and casts serious doubt on the legitimacy of any scientific theory based on such information,” the lawmakers said in a statement.
“The American people deserve to know the truth about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and our investigation has uncovered numerous causes for concern, including how taxpayer dollars are spent, how our government’s public health agencies operate, and the need for more oversight of research grants to foreign scientists,” they added.
“The documents released today are consistent with the testimony uncovered by the Select Subcommittee and the published work of Dr. Jeremy Farrar,” a spokesperson for the House panel investigating the coronavirus pandemic told The Post.
Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, told The Post that the information obtained by the House committee had been in the public domain since February 2020, when the Chinese newspaper Caixin published an article about it, which was removed shortly after. .
Medical workers struggled to treat the first patients at the center of the outbreak in Wuhan, China. REUTERS
Ebright previously published in X about the details on April 2, 2020, saying that genome sequencing of the virus began on December 24 and an analysis confirmed it was a “new coronavirus related to SARS-CoV, but different from December 27.”
“Of course, it is misconduct, actionable misconduct, that the NIH withheld this information from Congress for months,” Ebright told The Post.
“Former NIH Director Collins and former NIH Acting Director Tabak must be held accountable for their malfeasance, with, at a minimum, the loss of federal jobs and pensions,” he added.
“This latest revelation from Rep. McMorris Rodgers that HHS had a nearly complete viral sequence in December 2019, weeks earlier than previously claimed, is just the latest example of HHS’s attempts to prevent the public from fully understanding where COVID-19 originated,” the senator said. “Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told The Post.
“In September 2023, I revealed that NIAID official Dr. Ping Chen reported on safety issues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in November 2017. HHS continues to refuse to provide me with an unredacted version of Dr. Chen already made her available for an interview. “The American people deserve the full truth about the origins of COVID-19.”
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who also investigated the origins of the virus and U.S. government subsidies going to Wuhan labs, told the Post that he is convinced China is responsible for “creating, unleashing and subsequently covering up “. one of the deadliest virus outbreaks in the world,” but he has not faced any consequences from the Biden administration.
“The silence from this administration when it comes to holding China responsible for anything, let alone unleashing a virus that killed 1.1 million Americans, is deafening,” Marshall said.
The Chinese embassy did not comment on the incident but defended China’s response to the pandemic and the information it presented to the world.
“China has continued to refine our COVID response based on science to make it more targeted,” an embassy spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.
“China’s COVID response policies are science-based, effective and consistent with China’s national realities. “They can stand the test of history.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn