Scientists Backtrack, Admit Proposed Virus Experiments Could Have Been Done in China

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Earlier statements said the experiments were definitely never done.

A scientist with close ties to China and the U.S. government is now saying that risky experiments he proposedโ€”which some experts believe could have led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2โ€”may have been done, deviating from earlier statements.

Another scientist involved in the proposal also says he doesnโ€™t know if the work was done.

โ€œTo the very best of my knowledge … the work hasnโ€™t been done,โ€ Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, told a congressional panel this week.

Mr. Daszak, however, admitted that he doesnโ€™t know whether scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China have done the proposed experiments.

โ€œDo you know if the WIV started this work?โ€ he was asked during a U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing in Washington.

โ€œNo,โ€ Mr. Daszak replied.

โ€œThen you canโ€™t say that the work was not done,โ€ Mitch Benzine, the staff director for the panel, said.

โ€œThere is no evidence of the work being done. There is no evidence that WIV started it,โ€ Mr. Daszak said.

Has he ever asked Shi Zhengli, a top scientist at the WIV, whether she carried out the proposal?

The proposal in question, dubbed Project DEFUSE, was submitted in 2018 to the U.S. government as EcoHealth and its partners, including WIV, sought to take viruses from bats, reverse engineer them, and add features. Some outside scientists say the proposed work could have led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) declined to fund the proposal, expressing concerns that adding features to coronaviruses could create a dangerous virus.

After the proposal was leaked to the public in 2021, Mr. Daszak and EcoHealth have said definitively that the proposed experiments never took place.

โ€œThe DARPA proposal was not funded. Therefore, the work was not done. Simple,โ€ Mr. Daszak told The Intercept in 2022.

โ€œThe proposed research was never done,โ€ EcoHealth added in a recent statement.

Ralph Baric, a University of North Carolina virologist who was also listed in the DEFUSE proposal, also said in newly disclosed testimony that he did not know whether the proposed experiments were conducted.

โ€œCertainly not by my group,โ€ Mr. Baric told the subcommittee. โ€œI donโ€™t know what China did.โ€

Mr. Baric and Ms. Shi have created chimeras, or combination viruses, among other work together.

Byย Zachary Stieber

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