The World Health Organization (WHO), based in Switzerland, formed a team of 27 international experts called the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) to investigate the origin of COVID-19. SAGO leaned toward a Wuhan wet market spillover but concluded that the origin remains unknown based on current scientific evidence.
In May 2025, a 24-page, unpublished letter with over 100 references was submitted to SAGO. Several virologists have read it, but most are scared of it. SAGO deserves credit for reviewing everyone’s theories, including this one, which they discussed on page 46.
A report entitled ‘The Most Plausible Origin of SARS-CoV-2’ was also shared with SAGO via email in late May 2025, summarizing a recent book by Haslam, which proposes a laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2 and incriminating specific individual scientists in the USA, Singapore and China based on the DEFUSE proposal (Haslam and Haslam, 2024). There were several misconceptions, misinterpretations and speculations in this report, some that SAGO addresses here. While recombinant chimeric live vaccine technology has been patented by University of North Carolina (UNC), the DEFUSE proposal did not propose to vaccinate bats using this vaccine. The proposal instead involved recombinant antigen (synthetic protein) vaccine that would not replicate or spread. Implicated proposals by NIH involved vaccinating bats with vectored vaccine (Modified Vaccinia Ankara, Vesicular Stomatitis Virus) which similarly would not spread, and these proposals did not involve coronaviruses. The SHC014 sequence provided by WIV to UNC is not closely related to SARS-CoV-2 but belongs to another sarbecovirus clade (Menachery et al., 2015). Recombinant vaccine vector genome elements including HKU3 do not belong to the clade to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs, so that SARS-CoV-2 cannot be derived from this vector. Animal experiments on SARS-CoV-2 in US laboratories do not allow conclusions regarding geographical origins of SARS-CoV-2. Several additional arguments put forward in the report and book appear to be caused by misunderstandings, misquotations or confusion of terms. These affect all elementary motifs of the overall theory put forward.
SAGO calls my theory “elementary” while making elementary mistakes:
While recombinant chimeric live vaccine technology has been patented by the UNC, the DEFUSE proposal did not propose to vaccinate bats using this vaccine.
Yes, Baric himself wrote in the 2018 DARPA Defuse bid that he wanted to test his patented HKU3-Smix vaccine in bats.
At the same time, Baric patented his novel HKU3-Smix chimera, now called SARS2.
UNC 2018 patent for an HKU3-Smix chimeric spike antigen
Baric himself would lead this SARS-like bat vaccine work in “wild-caught” Chinese horseshoe bats, housed exclusively at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
At the WIV, 20 Rhinolophus (Chinese) bats will be captured and inoculated
SAGO’s 27 scientists then accurately describe Baric’s safe vaccine technology as non-transmissible. An excerpt from the unpublished letter submitted to SAGO in May 2025:
Before testing Old World bats, Baric planned to test his chimera on New World bats. One issue: “I have no bat colony,” he emailed in March 2018. “No way for me to do the [bat infection] experiment—which I definitely think needs to be done, or we have no credibility. My understanding [is] another bat colony exists in China.” His Defuse bid proposed using Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) as a “surrogate.” SARS-CoV-2 infects this North American species but does not transmit efficiently.
The $14 million DARPA Defuse transferable vaccine was safe but expensive. It relied on a non-transmissible technology that required expensive field application in remote bat caves. In May 2018, DARPA rejected the bid, partly due to its 50% higher cost than competing transmissible technologies—also known as self-disseminating, contagious, self-spreading vaccines. Due to their novelty, transmissible animal vaccines are exempt from gain-of-function oversight.
DARPA’s program manager [Jim Gimlett] testified NIH personnel participated in the 2018 review of these novel vaccines. Between 2015 and 2020, the NIH funded multiple studies on self-disseminating vaccines. Vincent Munster’s Rocky Mountain Lab (RML) in Montana, an original vendor on the DARPA Defuse proposal, had won two out of five DARPA projects with scalable, transmissible vaccine technology.
In Defuse, Baric proposed infecting live Chinese bats with the WIV1 genome, but plans were advancing, except in Montana. In December 2018, after the DARPA Defuse bid was rejected, Baric and Munster co-published a study using Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) and the WIV1 genome—one of Baric’s favorites—but failed to achieve infection. They concluded that overcoming the ACE2 species barrier required “intracellular proteases” or a furin cleavage site. Mammalian bat cells also contain furin-like enzymes.
SAGO’s 27 scientists then conflate Baric’s in vitroLAV research with Munster’s in vivoVSV research by responding:
The proposal instead involved recombinant antigen (synthetic protein) vaccine that would not replicate or spread. Implicated proposals by NIH involved vaccinating bats with vectored vaccine (Modified Vaccinia Ankara, Vesicular Stomatitis Virus, VSV) which similarly would not spread, and these proposals did not involve coronaviruses.
I’ve seen Munster’s unpublished 2018 DARPA Preempt (VSV) bid for bat “vaccine transmission.” Munster claimed he could perform aerosol vaccination to block transmission from bats to humans. He bragged to DARPA about ongoing bat infection experiments with coronaviruses in Egyptian fruit bats.
Baric and Munster’s published research distinguished the scope of work between UNC and RML. Baric supplied genomes, while Munster supplied the Egyptian fruit bats. The letter’s opening paragraph even separated the two lines of UNC and RML research.
If a virus is engineered, its spillover location—such as Wuhan—does not indicate where it was engineered, whether through in vivo transmission work at RML or in vitro genomic research at the UNC. In 2018, UNC was one of several vendors that proposed to “inoculate bats” against SARS-like viruses. Because of their novelty, bats and their viruses were exempt from gain-of-function oversight.
The 24-page letter also detailed Baric’s 2018 live attenuated bat vaccine (LAV) that referenced RaTG13:
By October 2018, Baric published a Nature paper on a live attenuated bat vaccine, referencing the Mojiang mineshaft where the RaTG13 sample originated. He described a “unique sequence motif” (UGGUCGC) to prevent recombination. This motif (CRG7) appears near the start of the open reading frame (ORF1a) in RaTG13, BANAL-52, and SARS-CoV-2.
SAGO’s 27 scientists then describe Baric’s “bookends” called WIV1, SHC014, and HKU3 to claim nothing nefarious in his UNC freezer:
The SHC014 sequence provided by WIV to UNC is not closely related to SARS-CoV-2 but belongs to another sarbecovirus clade (Menachery et al., 2015). Recombinant vaccine vector genome elements including HKU3 do not belong to the clade to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs, so that SARS-CoV-2 cannot be derived from this vector.
The HKU3-Smix chimera comes from clade 2b (vector), the same as SARS2. From Baric’s 2024 testimony, he described the above as follows, without mentioning his patent:
So SARS1 from 2003 is the bookend, right? You know how much variation. WIV1 and SHC014 have about 8 to 12 percent variation in the spike or the RBD. The clade 2 strains like HKU3 have 30 to 35 percent variation in the spike, they've got deletions in the RBD, they can't use human ACE2 receptors. If you take those two numbers, subtract 10 of 12 from 35, divided by 2, added to 12, you get a number between 20 and 25 [percent different from SARS1]. And that was our prediction, that there would be strains with that much variation that could still use human ACE2 receptors…I'm interested in the bookends and a couple intermediate ones because that's what's best for countermeasure development.
The SARS2 genome is 20% different, and its small spike is 25% different, so Baric’s fuzzy math was brilliant for developing “countermeasures.”
In a 2009 Hong Kong conference, Baric outlined how he would create the SARS2 genome using a consensus sequence with RaTG13, Laos Banal-52, six fragments, type IIS restriction sites, HAE, TRS, etc.
SAGO then fails to understand the meaning of the word “chimera,” or Baric’s “intermediate ones,” so a refresher from my January 2024 Substack post:
According to Greek mythology, a chimera is a mythical or fictional creature composed of parts from various animals, used to describe anything that is composed of disparate parts or perceived as wildly imaginative, implausible, or dazzling.
Baric’s 2018 notes to DARPA
Ralph Baric’s chimera is dazzling to nature’s eyes because Mother Nature has never seen a novel chimera like SARS2. In virology, a chimera is a virus that contains genetic material derived from two or more distinct viruses. According to a 2018 meeting about the DARPA Defuse proposal, Baric has built a novel chimera that was 20% different than SARS1 (also known as epidemic strains).
Two years after Baric wrote the above, a novel chimera approximately 20% different from SARS1 emerged in Wuhan. However, Baric’s alibi was always strong, as he never sent his chimeras to China.
Munster did that for him. The proof? WA1!
Unpublished SAGO letter
I can tell that the ancestral strain of SARS2, called WA1, is undermining SAGO’s Wuhan wet market narrative. SAGO’s 78-page report mentioned the wet market’s lineage A & B nearly 10 times, but WA1 zero times. SAGO writes back to me:
Animal experiments on SARS-CoV-2 in US laboratories do not allow conclusions regarding geographical origins of SARS-CoV-2.
SAGO skips the most incriminating part of the letter, which outlined four Patient 0s traveling from Wuhan to Hong Kong, Germany, Canada, and the United States. Like my book, we will focus on America’s Patient 0, which is proof of a Wuhan lab leak and a US lab origin. Excerpt from the unpublished letter:
On January 19, 2020, an American hospital isolated a sequence (WA1) from an adult male returning from Wuhan. This American man never visited the Wuhan wet market, but acquired the best-known ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2.
American researchers used the Seattle, Washington area strain (WA1) for transmission tests in various species. The oldest strain of SAR2-CoV-2 was “collected” by a Wuhan traveler but isolated in America. That ancestral strain from Wuhan transmits efficiently in five North American (lab) animals.
The WA1 strain (or proCoV2) predates Lineages A and B from the Wuhan wet market. Therefore, WA1 contains biological evidence of a Wuhan-area lab leak and a U.S.-area lab origin.The supporting evidence for this conclusion is described below.
The United States Centers for Disease Control (US CDC) manages one of the world’s three known colonies of Rousettus aegyptiacus. In 2024, a US CDC employee confirmed their colony was a “non-natural” host for WA1. Besides the US CDC and FLI in Germany, the third known colony is maintained at Colorado State University (CSU). In February 2020, Tony Schountz of CSU infected their colony with WA1. By April 2020, Schountz informed Munster that the bats exhibited reservoir host characteristics—efficient transmission without symptoms. Schountz bred this colony for Munster’s DARPA PREEMPT project, which aimed to develop a transmissible bat vaccine.
RML used the WA1 sequence in a successful Syrian hamster transmission experiment. However, the Nature publication was published four years after the pandemic, and RML combined the WA1 sequence with the Delta variant.
RML used the WA1 sequence in a successful American mink transmission experiment. However, they mixed the sequence with the B.1.1.7 variants.
Colorado State University used the WA1 sequence in a successful deer mice transmission experiment. Their PLOS Pathogenspaper was aptly titled, “SARS-CoV-2 infection, neuropathogenesis, and transmission among deer mice: Implications for spillback to New World rodents.”
Kansas State University used the WA1 sequence in a successful white-tailed deer transmission experiment. However, they combined the ancestral sequence with the Alpha variants.
SAGO’s report listed all 5 of the above mammals, along with many others, to claim SARS2 “exhibits a broad ACE2 receptor-binding” but the letter countered:
If a genome is engineered in one lab but released in another, the virus will naturally seek its optimal host. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the virus effectively “investigated” each species it encountered by testing compatibility with its ACE2 receptors. This revealed its transmissibility across a limited range of hosts. In short, while COVID-19 infected many species, it spread efficiently in only a few.
In 2018, a scientist collaborating with DARPA and RML on transmissible vaccines outlined three of those US lab animals: Egyptian fruit bats, deer mice, and hamsters.
SAGO’s 27 scientists argued that “animal experiments on SARS-CoV-2 in U.S. laboratories” could not be used to support a Wuhan lab leak theory. But unlike the virologists who wisely sidestepped my WA1 animal model question in the book, SAGO took the bait—and collapsed under the weight of the evidence. Since Munster developed the virus in Montana and sent it to Wuhan for testing, the “geographical origins of SARS-CoV-2” are no longer in doubt.
To summarize, the letter cites peer-reviewed evidence supporting both a Wuhan lab leak and a Rocky Mountain Lab origin. The truth-seeking scientific community identified who did it, but no one likes the test results.
SAGO on DARPA Defuse
Although SAGO claims the DARPA Defuse proposal was released via FOIA, it was initially discovered by Major Joseph Murphy in a Top-Secret Pentagon folder, prompting a FOIA request that further implicated Baric’s research.
The SAGO takes note of reports by civil groups and had been approached by several including DRASTIC who investigated the DEFUSE grant proposal by EcoHealth Alliance, previously rejected for funding a project on bat coronaviruses, which was released publicly following a Freedom of Information Act request by the organization US Right To Know.
SAGO states that Defuse was “rejected for funding,” but the letter details how Daszak and Baric resubmitted DARPA’s TA1 and TA2 under NIAID’s 2R01 and U01 CREID grants.
Unpublished SAGO letter
SAGO’s conflict of interest?
One of the 27 scientists on the SAGO committee was part of Daszak’s CREID grant, which funded DARPA Defuse and the creation of Covid.
1 of 27 scientists on the WHO SAGO 2025 report
The same SAGO member, who appears above and below, is next to Dani Anderson, who edited this CREID document before entering the Wuhan BSL4 in June 2019.
Christian Drosten and Andreas Lisewski’s MERS-MA30 research made the final cut, but SAGO didn’t cite Baric’s 2019 research on MERS-MA30 (aka SARS2 furin cleavage site called PRRAR):
Furin cleavage site elements - similar but not identical to those in SARS-CoV-2 - are commonly found in S proteins of members of the subgenera Embecovirus, Hibecovirus and Merbecovirus such as HKU1, OC43, and MERS-CoV that typically contain 2-3 arginine and optionally an additional lysine moiety (Andersen et al., 2020; Stout et al., 2021). A polybasic FCS with an additional arginine moiety has also evolved upon repeated serial passaging in mice in MERS-CoV, termed MERS-CoV MA-30 (Li et al., 2017; Lisewski, 2024). The FCS in this virus (PRRVR) resembles that in SARS-CoV-2 (PRRAR), but the nucleotide coding of identical amino acids is different between these viruses.
Since Sarbecoviruses (SARS1, RaTG13, etc.) do not have an FCS, Baric had to research Merbecoviruses such as MERS, which does have an FCS.
SAGO’s conclusion
Information and evidence is also lacking to assess the possibility of a laboratory origin - either the evidence is not available or has not been provided to the scientific community. As a result, SAGO has been unable to adequately assess this route for human infection and therefore is not in a position to rule this out as a possibility. Hypotheses submitted to the SAGO or available in the public domain on intentional manipulation of the virus however, are not supported by accurate science, and not currently considered as the likely source…
SAGO remains committed to science and will continue to evaluate any and all new sound scientific evidence and data as it is made available through public or private sources to clarify the origins of SARS-CoV-2. If provided with reliable evidence, SAGO is available to evaluate all possibilities to revise this report.
SAGO mixed up the HKU3 genome with the HKU3-Smix chimera and Baric’s LAV with Munster’s VSV. Then, SAGO wrongly claimed Munster’s technology wasn’t transmissible. It’s clear that the WA1 ancestral strain has struck a nerve; SAGO mentioned lineages A and B ten times but insists I can’t use WA1 to draw “conclusions regarding geographical origins.” I’m just glad they paid attention to the book and letter, but collective institutions will cover this up. They do not want to be “incriminating specific individual scientists.”
The letter only “incriminated” Covid’s creators, Baric and Munster, for covering up their creation that Fauci funded. Baric knew the Covid vaccine antidote but withheld it; Munster downplayed aerosol transmission despite housing all five mammalian models in his lab. Everyone else has an alibi, including Daszak, Shi, Dani, etc. As the letter concluded:
In the end, the peer-reviewed literature revealed a bitter truth: Fauci, Baric, and Munster concealed the evidence of a likely U.S. lab origin of SARS-CoV-2. Only by publishing the unpublished data and addressing the still outstanding questions can the scientific community restore credibility and rebuild public trust, and can justice be done for a pandemic that claimed millions of lives and trillions of dollars of lost income worldwide.
SAGO reconvenes in July 2025 with new members
If any truth-seeking “expert” wants their name on the right side of history books, please get on the new SAGO commission this summer.
Eventually, everyone will have the chance to read and evaluate the letter themselves. In the meantime, listen to Google AI moderators discuss its contents.
The documentary ‘As The Last Bell Tolls’ is a compilation of clips from various sources featuring various experts over the years, some of whom are sadly no longer with us. It leads the viewer through the story of the covid era that governments and their advisers have tried to keep hidden from the public, beginning after the rollout of covid “vaccines.”
Baric is a modern day Mengele. His only competitor is Fauci.
Democide is the murder of any person or people by their government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder.
..........Now watch this!
As The Last Bell Tolls (Documentary)
By Rhoda Wilson on August 19, 2024
https://expose-news.com/2024/08/19/as-the-last-bell-tolls-documentary/
The documentary ‘As The Last Bell Tolls’ is a compilation of clips from various sources featuring various experts over the years, some of whom are sadly no longer with us. It leads the viewer through the story of the covid era that governments and their advisers have tried to keep hidden from the public, beginning after the rollout of covid “vaccines.”