Power Stays In The Shadows

Pandemic Origin and Biosafety Concerns Missing from G20 Agenda

The forthcoming 2023 G20 summit, hosted by India, will convene under the banner of “One Earth, One Family, One Future.” This resonant theme, as the official declaration asserts, underscores the intrinsic value of all lives and the intricate connections between them. Regrettably, no events in the history of G20 exemplify these principles as starkly as the global tragedy wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

India, the summit’s host, bore the brunt of the devastation, with the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting over 5 million Covid-related deaths in the country. The global number surpasses 25 million. In this context, India and all other G20 nations must urgently address the pandemic’s origin and take decisive measures to avert future crises. Despite this urgency, unfortunately, the G7’s prior omission of Covid-19’s origin from its discussions may mirror a broader trend.

The inquiry into Covid-19’s origin is riddled with perplexing inconsistencies from the outset.  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the WHO staged a dog and pony “collaborative investigation” in 2021 which yielded a conclusion favoring the frozen food supply chain theory over the lab leak hypothesis. In the West, the dog and pony show turned into a pangolin and raccoon dogs circus which was led by the National Institute of Health (NIH) leadership and a selective clique of virologists with deep conflict of interest (COI). They held secret meetings in early 2020, claiming that they had changed minds from likely a lab leak to the market origin due to pangolin data. After the pangolin was debunked as the animal host, they didn’t change their minds but moved on to claim raccoon dogs were the new hosts. The raccoon dogs’ data were debunked within days, arguably the most despicable gaslighting and fastest scientific U-turn in the field of virology.

Recent revelation comes from private Slack chats among virologists, authors of the influential “proximal origin” paper in Nature Medicine (2020).  The paper, exposing troubling manipulation, was backed by the NIH directors Fauci and Collins and used by multiple science agencies and governments as a basis to rule out lab leaks. The authors themselves made a good case for lab leaks in their messages and emails privately. The non-profit organization Biosafetynow has initiated a petition to retract this fraudulent paper; Nature Medicine now tactically admits that this paper was merely a point-of-view, not an actual analysis.

A line from the film Oppenheimer – ‘power stays in the shadows’ – eloquently captures parallels between nuclear weapon development in the 1940s and the precarious politics surrounding gain-of-function (GoF) virus research today, bolstered by NIH support. While nuclear research and development has the civilian application of nuclear power generation,  the GoF experiments that make viruses more transmissible or lethal have zero civilian applications but bioweapon implications. Moreover, enhanced virus transmissibility and lethality carry grave risks, compounded by the possibility of accidental leaks due to inadequate biosafety or simple human errors, which could be the case for the Covid-19 origin. Crucially, the GoF research is unrelated to vaccine development. The mRNA vaccines were developed due to advances in basic science research, not GoF endeavors.

Given the frailty of market-origin evidence and its susceptibility to scrutiny, the default presumption should favor a lab-leaked origin. Furthermore, accumulating circumstantial evidence backed by sources such as the FBI, the Department of Energy, and the National Centre for Medical Intelligence supports this hypothesis. Should GoF proponents or the CCP or NIH wish to validate Covid-19’s natural origins, revealing the genuine animal host and ancestral genetics stands as a compelling step. Scientific integrity relies on independently verified evidence, not gatekeeping, appeals to authority, or resorting to censorship.

The real challenge for world governance today isn’t just about the origin of Covid but also the measures that need to be taken to improve biosafety and limit GoF experiments. The origin of Covid can be determined, without needing CCP’s help, as we had outlined specific steps previously. Given the likely shared responsibilities of the Chinese and American governments that accidently resulted in the Covid pandemic, the silence from the rest of the world concerning the origin of Covid could be understood from realpolitik or geopolitical perspectives. After all, the United States and China are the world’s top military and economic powers, and “we may never know” gives a way out for all parties involved.

Even if world leaders and international agencies falter in unmasking the truth, avenues to mitigate future pandemic risks persist. Notably, some states are scaling back GoF research, echoing President Barack Obama’s actions in 2014. Another example is that, in 2021, Thai scientists declined American funding to sample novel viruses in remote bat caves due to perceived risks. As the leaders of the world’s 20 major economies convene in India, a spotlight should pierce the shadows, exposing forces that perpetuate deception and shirk accountability, thereby ensuring a brighter, more responsible future.