56 Comments
Feb 6, 2023Liked by Jim Haslam

Home run.

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Feb 22, 2023Liked by Jim Haslam

Hi Jim, what do you make of this new preprint showing that Huazhong Agricultural University was inserting a MERS spike into a HKU4 backbone in 2019/2020? https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.02.12.528210v2

The Huazhong Agricultural University also worked on the insertion of an FCS into a porcine coronavirus in 2015 together with Utrecht University: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25972540/

Deigin mentioned that in 2013 Shibo Jiang had reported the creation of a novel RIRR cleavage site via a 12-nucleotide insertion (CGG ATC AGG CGC), although not in a coronavirus: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0080005

Are these papers relevant to the question if WIV or another Wuhan lab were able to create SC-2 in 2019?

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Feb 24, 2023Liked by Jim Haslam

@Jim: it was a serious question. Do you think these papers indicate WIV was capable of engineering furin cleavage sites and build SARS-CoV-2? Or is this still rather unlikely?

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great questions and difficult answers but will try.

all of those published papers you reference (Deigin, Utrecht, Shibo Jiang) + VanDogen

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.18.512756v1

confirm what all admit (Baric, Drosten, informed lab leakers like Adrian Jones, etc) that Chinese virologists can shuffle spikes (~10% genome) into EXISTING backbones (30,000nts). But no published papers in China showing an ability to create a new backbone (e.g. SARS2). I like to paraphrase Drosten above: China can make a new car stereo (e.g. WIV1 with shuffled spikes) but can't create a new car (e.g. SARS2). To put another way, SARS2 isn't Chinese junk, it is "seamless assembly" with the latest Reverse Genetic system on the planet

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7120940/

the 'China did it' counter will now claim SARS2 was an unpublished backbone and that could be, but I now debate which (lab) animals the SARS2 backbone transmits? There are only 5 on the planet and 4 are found in Montana (American mink, deer, deer mice, EFB bats).

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debate with Deigin about Jiang's RIRR:

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1530611234898432000?s=20

https://twitter.com/ydeigin/status/1511048193651486721?s=20

debate with Ebright regarding Utrecht FCS paper:

https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1526197508199706626?s=20

debate with Ebright and Deigin about WIV copying Baric method

https://twitter.com/ydeigin/status/1520970508384178176?s=20

Chicken coronavirus furin cleavage site from Beijing lab

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1555382966842441730?s=20

Ron, please let me know of any questions as this is VERY inside baseball

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regarding WIV inserting the furin cleavage site, it appears to be technically impossible. WIV used Vero cells which kick out the FCS immediately.

Most of the speculation Shi did it was based on her missing the FCS in her RaTG13 Nature paper but everyone missed the FCS in early January, including Baric.

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1536584943878426625?s=20

WIV showed 0 interest in FCS with 0 published papers <2020

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=shi%2C+z%5Bauthor%5D+and+cleavage&sort=date&size=200

all FCS research was Baric and Western virologists

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1500158205430841346?s=20

And UNC and Baric literally published the FCS (RRAR) in 2018

https://twitter.com/Dr_Al911/status/1481728179790237704?s=20

why did Baric insert the FCS? he saw it as the key element in a vaccine to prevent a coronavirus from 'Jumping Species'

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879625716301341

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Mar 1, 2023Liked by Jim Haslam

Jim, is this UGGUCGC sequence found in SARS2? If I understand it correctly, Baric inserted this sequence in a SARS1 LAV candidate in 2018? But this wasn't a self-spreading vaccine, was it? Is the sequence also present in Ratg13 and Banal-52?

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Ron, correct. UGGUCGC was at the start of Orf1a in both RaTG13 and Banal-52, exact same location as described in Baric's 2018 LAV bat vax paper

https://twitter.com/tony_vandongen/status/1589270552824274944?s=20

But it was moved in SARS2 to the ~middle of Orf1a.

https://twitter.com/tony_vandongen/status/1589019122889023489?s=20

Why? I like Rossana's answer

https://twitter.com/Rossana38510044/status/1414112089027792897?s=20

Only Baric knows but he likes the word "rewiring." A detailed talk on assembly a consensus sequence (e.g. SARS2) from 2009 in Hong Kong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjmSMFnfWm8

and correct Baric's 2018 LAV bat vax was not self spreading, that is Vincent Munster specialty, who Baric teamed up with after losing Darpa Defuse in 2018

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1525248242677579778?s=20

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Mar 1, 2023·edited Mar 1, 2023

How relevant is the 2017 WIV dissertation Ebright mentioned? It's still only about inserting spike genes, not FCS. But does it show WIV was able to use advanced RGS and Baric seamless technology?

https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1500588917812183040

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that's another WIV paper showing they can shuffle spikes into an existing WIV1 backbone, not a new backbone like SARS2. WIV1 is really the only infectious clone the WIV has, and UNC may have helped them make it but not sure

https://twitter.com/Engineer2The/status/1583864076622794753?s=20

the only "seamless" RGS was published by Baric in 2017 and includes BsaXI RE site

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1632016652400226305?s=20

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Mar 1, 2023·edited Mar 1, 2023

Jim, many thanks for your detailed reply. This is very convincing indeed. Excellent points on spike insertion vs. FCS insertion and backbone. You are a very thorough and much underrated researcher of this topic.

Was Baric's "seamless technology" really used when creating SARS2? I thought Bruttel/Washbourne/VanDongen found the restriction sites are still there in the genome?

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I debated Bruttel about this very subject before he published

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1541801304560996353?s=20

but it is MORE work to leave the BsaI sites in the genome

https://twitter.com/Friedemann1/status/1583520011075080192?s=20

his paper/theory is basically based on a Baric paper

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1583288905259835392?s=20

and they reference WIV1 clone which is basically Chinese junk

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1567246411334385667?s=20

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Is the 2019 Beijing paper about FCS insertion and neurotropism in a chicken CoV, mentioned by Deigin, relevant to the SARS2 engineering question? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6832359/

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that chicken CoV FCS paper used an existing sequence and was in frame.

https://twitter.com/past_is_future/status/1441983130999529477?s=20

SARS2 is a novel sequence with FCS inserted out of frame which basically means a pro's pro did it

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1631634947214655488?s=20

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Very convincing. I am thinking the DEFUSE project was probably done in Laos-Singapore-UNC. Its not like the Pentagon cant fund small projects like this out of their dark petty cash account😀

RaTG13 still bothers me. Shi renamed it RaTG13 in 2018 but only published 2757 bp RNA then . Why not publish the entire sequence?

Here it says full sequencing done in 2018

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2951-z

Could the HIV insert and FCS have been added to RaTG13 sequences to make natural origin more plausible for Sars-Cov-2 and Laos samples. Without any samples how can the RaTG13 sequences be validated?.

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WIV was so poor they couldn't afford the new/used/shared/contaminated $1M Illumina unit until 2018. They sequenced RdRp/Orf8 of RaTG13 on June 2017 and uploaded 1 yr later. They sequenced the spike in late 2018 so TBD. But NIAID/NCBI is probably sitting on it.

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1278460075770871808?s=20&t=CR_7CnzgQoJTO8Q1Mdq2pw

Baric probably asked for RaTG13, Shi shared like other samples she couldn't isolate. He published a "fascinating" fragment of RaTG13 (search UGGUCGC) in 2018. It was his unicorn going back to 2015

https://www.statnews.com/2015/11/09/sars-like-virus-bats-shows-potential-infect-humans-study-finds/

"Baric said if the viruses were too distantly related to SARS, more than 25% different, they would not be able to make a hybrid that would infect human cells" (RaTG13 spike = 25% off SARS1)

I think its more proof Fauci funded Defuse around July 2018. It's just called $82M CREID project awarded in 2019.

Re HIV inserts also found in Laos Banal samples collected by US Military in 2017, Banal is the rabbit hole

https://twitter.com/tony_vandongen/status/1545210084854304768?s=20&t=YBDT1R8BmnZKYY58Pva6UA

great questions, let me know

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Thanks. Not publishing or uploading it to any database after they had full sequence in 2018 in still suspicious IMO.

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Shi collected SHC014 in 2013 but it wasn't published (by Baric) until 2015

https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985

Baric didn't upload SCH014-MA15 until AFTER SARS2 emerged

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0924-2

"Some consider my 2015 paper in this light, although after consultation with the NIH and the journal, we purposely did not provide the genetic sequence of the chimera in the original publication. Thus, our exact (No See'm) method remained obscure."

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Thanks but I am talking about RatG13. According to the November 2020 Addendum the full sequence of RaTG13 was done in 2018 but not published. A partial sequence ~2700 ntd was published in 2018.

From what I understand, according to some reviewing it following release, the quality of the full sequence was not high, so this may explain not publishing, but I don't know.

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RaTG13 was partially published in 2018 Baric's LAV bat vaccine paper, #55 referencing the "lethal human sequences" of the abandoned Mojiang mineshaft

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0175-7

UGGUCGC is the "fascinating" and "unique" Orf1a TRS of RaTG13

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0175-7/figures/1

question #4

https://web.archive.org/web/20201005103456/https://heraclitusoncovid19.com/origin-of-covid-19/

https://twitter.com/Rossana38510044/status/1312413367903178754?s=20&t=j-WKvG7kLo6_unbcgzOpUg

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Feb 7, 2023Liked by Jim Haslam

This is quite the tour de force.

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Feb 6, 2023Liked by Jim Haslam

Home run indeed.

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Mar 5, 2023·edited Mar 5, 2023

I've heard a lot about prion like domains. Are their presence suspicious in an LAV for bats? And what about the "toxic like peptides in plasma, urine and fecal samples from Covid-19 patients". I presume these came from the LAV. Why are these in a self spreading vaccine designed for bats?

Also, (if I understand your posts,) is it known what corona virus sarscov2 was designed to create immunity for in bats? Or was this just a test to if an LAV in bats would work as a prototype for a human host?

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yes, there's a lot of toxic things inside SARS2, because it is an animal vaccine so no FDA/EU regulations on what can be inside of it. And why virologists like vaccinating (lab) animals.

this LAV bat vaccine was ironically designed to protect bats against human like viruses in the SE Asian area

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1634392559911878661?s=20

this one just spilled over into the human population inside the Wuhan BSL4 during Dani's project. and the latest idea was to make them self spreading so it's easier to reach all the remote bat caves, no need for expensive spraying equipment, just 1 jab into 1 bat and it spreads by itself.

https://twitter.com/Megan3Griffiths/status/1633159112266510340?s=20

Bats (and deer, mink, deer mice) unfortunately have a similar ACE2, furin and RBD as us humans.

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1565839639637905408?s=20

I don't know much about prions, bats probably make a good model b/c of rabies, but the guy that should know won't talk about the elephant/deer in the lab leak room

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1632942830644518912?s=20

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@Jim: "Again, NIAID’s database would sit on this Chinese genome sequence until 2022" Who decided not to publish ratg13 for four years? Shi Zhengli? NIAID? Why?

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Feb 13, 2023·edited Feb 13, 2023Author

the 4 yr embargo was basically everyone's decision (WIV, NIAID database called NCBI, the Aussie Eddie Holmes). The story was a bit convoluted, but most agree how science papers and genomes publishing works.

Per Eddie who was on unpublished RaTG13 paper

https://youtu.be/5u94foNmpKE?t=2820

more discussion here

https://twitter.com/franciscodeasis/status/1556566502496780288?s=20&t=LooonM5tXH5rdwMOmTyPfA

https://twitter.com/emilyakopp/status/1575644375182299136?s=20&t=LooonM5tXH5rdwMOmTyPfA

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