A response to World Health Organization
We believe SAGO fails to understand the word “chimera”
On June 27, 2025, the WHO's Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) publicly responded to our private letter:
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.
The following is a point-by-point rebuttal to SAGO’s valuable feedback:
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.
We did not “incriminate” scientists in Singapore and China; instead, we provided them with alibis and referred to them as quiet whistleblowers. We identified Ralph Baric, Vincent Munster, and Tony Fauci as the creators and funders of SARS-CoV-2. We highlighted their post-pandemic actions in covering up the origins, as detailed in the timeline below. The world could have managed COVID-19 if we had known SARS-CoV-2 was a contagious animal vaccine.
By definition, a man-made pandemic would have “incriminating” evidence. As the book summarizes, each of them is individually innocent, but collectively they created COVID-19.1 Munster will likely blame Baric’s furin cleavage site, and Baric will probably blame Munster’s aerosol transmission models. Both will likely blame whoever approved the Wuhan bat experiment, which was perhaps Fauci.
While recombinant chimeric live vaccine technology has been patented by UNC, the DEFUSE proposal did not propose to vaccinate bats using this vaccine.
Baric himself stated in the 2018 DARPA Defuse bid that he wanted to test his patented HKU3-Smix chimeric spike antigen as a “targeted broad-based boosting strategy in bats.” Baric’s scope of work was to “lead the targeted immune boosting work…extended to small groups of wild-caught Rhinolophus sinicus bats at WIV.”2
Baric was more explicit in his DARPA Defuse notes, writing, “It is anticipated that recombinant S glycoprotein based vaccines harboring immunogenic blocks across the group 2B coronaviruses will induce broad based immune responses that simultaneously reduce genetically heterogeneous virus burdens in bats, thereby reducing disease risk in these animals for multiple years.”3
The proposal instead involved recombinant antigen (synthetic protein) vaccine that would not replicate or spread.
This is correct, as described in Part 2 of the letter, that Baric’s transferable bat vaccine technology was safe but expensive. Cheaper transmissible technologies were developed at the Rocky Mountain Lab, where Baric and Munster have collaborated since 2013.4
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 letter distinguished between Baric’s in vitro work (e.g., 2018 live attenuated bat vaccine referencing the Mojiang mineshaft) and Munster’s in vivo research (e.g., Egyptian fruit bats).5 6 7
We have since reviewed Munster’s DARPA Preempt bid (VSV) for bat “vaccine transmission.” In 2018, Munster claimed he could perform “aerosol vaccination to block transmission from bats to humans.” He also boasted to DARPA about ongoing “bat infection experiments with coronaviruses in Egyptian fruit bats.” Munster’s detailed 2018 bid outlined a test involving naive bats placed with infected bats to test vaccine transmission. Ironically, Tony Schountz of CSU replicated this test in 2020 using Munster’s Egyptian fruit bats and the WA1 isolate from SARS-CoV-2.
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).
Yes, we agree because our letter clearly states that HKU3-Smix and HKU3r-CoV, which were listed in the 2018 and 2019 documentation, are precursors to the SARS-CoV-2 genome.8 Baric described both of these spikes as having a 25% divergence from SARS-CoV-1, and the SARS-CoV-2 spike has a 24.7% divergence. The entire SARS-CoV-2 genome is 20% divergent, matching Baric’s DARPA Defuse notes.9
The SHC014 sample served as a logistical example of Shi’s willingness to share genomes before publication, similar to RaTG13. Baric was reluctant to upload his SHC014-MA15 chimera, indicating his desire to keep his engineering methods secret. Baric was willing to share his SHC014 chimeras with Linfa Wang and Dani Anderson, but not with Shi. For example, Baric wrote to Wang, “Might want to test in captive bats infected with SARS or select SARS-like viruses, like SHC014, which we could provide.”10
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.
Yes, we agree, as nowhere in the letter does it claim that HKU3 is SARS-CoV-2. We believe the committee fails to understand the word “chimera,” which refers to the combination of two or more viruses to create a new genome, like HKU3-Smix. According to Baric’s Figure 1 in his 2018 patent, the HKU3-Smix genome is in the group 2b clade, positioned between HKU3 and SHC014, similar to SARS-CoV-2.11
Baric’s 2018 patent, where HKU3-Smix = SARS-CoV-2
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.
Due to the unusual logistics of the WA1 isolate, which was collected in Wuhan but isolated in the US, we can also prove a Wuhan area lab leak. Denying this evidence is akin to denying Darwin himself. Once again, the WA1 isolate is the most well-known ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2, which transmits efficiently among only five known mammals outside of humans.
Suggested corrections to the SAGO report
SAGO’s Table 2 inaccurately includes four species that do not efficiently transmit SARS-CoV-2: raccoon dogs, BALB/c mice, ferrets, and cats.12 While the table correctly lists four of the five known efficient transmission models—deer mice, white-tailed deer, Egyptian fruit bats, and Syrian hamsters—it omits American mink. Notably, none of these five species are native to the Wuhan area.
In other words, the animals thought to have carried SARS-CoV-2 from the Wuhan wet market are actually kept at the Rocky Mountain Lab in Montana. A recent FOIA on Munster’s email indicates he tested unpublished UNC chimeric coronaviruses in Egyptian fruit bats. This unpublished chimera, called “MERS-like” or HKU4, included a furin cleavage site. We also examined Munster’s successful 2018 DARPA PREEMPT grant, which proposed developing a self-disseminating coronavirus vaccine (MERS) in Egyptian fruit bats.
Baric’s 2018 UNC-RML emails indicate he added the furin cleavage site line: “It is possible that the WIV1-CoV S glycoprotein is not processed by surface or intracellular proteases, which have been shown to be important host restriction factors during coronavirus entry.”13 While the SAGO report highlights the MERS-MA30 molecular clone, it does not mention Baric’s reference to that clone in 2019.14
Regarding the discovery of the 2018 DARPA Defuse grant proposal, it was not initially released by Baric or obtained through FOIA. Instead, it was discovered in a Top-Secret Pentagon folder by U.S. Marine Corps Major Joseph Murphy during the summer of 2021.15 A follow-up FOIA was issued by U.S.R.T.K., through the U.S. Geological Survey, to obtain Baric’s detailed notes on his HKU3-Smix chimera.
As for SAGO’s claim that the Defuse proposal was simply “rejected,” unpublished emails from Daszak suggest otherwise. Baric repurposed key language from the Defuse proposal’s Technical Area 1 (TA1) and Technical Area 2 (TA2) sections into two EcoHealth grants submitted by Daszak to NIAID: 2R01AI110964 and U01AI151797.16
For example, in October 2018, Daszak sent Baric the above draft of the NIAID grant. Daszak’s draft used Shi Zhengli’s 2018 progress report, focusing on her WIV1 genome experiments, which are closer to SARS-CoV-1. But Baric added the highlighted 2018 text below with HKU3r-CoVs, or SARS-CoV-2.
In other words, Baric has recycled the TA1 DARPA Defuse text into the NIAID R01 grant renewal. And no one knew, except for Baric. After the DARPA Defuse documents were leaked in September 2021, Daszak appeared caught off guard by Baric’s inclusion of a paragraph proposing the insertion of a furin cleavage site.
Due to NIAID space constraints, the furin cleavage site reference from DARPA Defuse (above) was cut from the final U01AI151797 CREID bid drafted by Baric in June 2019 (below). Baric has recycled text from the TA2 DARPA Defuse text into the NIAID U01 grant.
We raise this not to assign guilt, but to illustrate how Baric’s actions helped obscure the origins of a global tragedy. DRASTIC has since exposed his latest concealment. This draft offers a 2018 window into the mind of a man fixated on testing a live virus with a furin cleavage site in bats at Wuhan.
Most researchers—like Tony Schountz—act in good faith. In fact, Schountz is the only reason we know that Munster aerosolized Baric’s agent.17 In other words, if Schountz didn’t know, then neither did the CIA, SAGO scientists, or the FBI. Yet, when misconduct happens—especially on this level—integrity requires that it be investigated, not ignored.
Timeline of a cover-up
2019
Jun 20: Baric’s draft U01AI151797 CREID bid lists “furin cleavage site.”
Jun 23: Dani Anderson edits the U01 CREID bid before entering Wuhan BSL4.
Oct 16: Baric’s #41 references the MERS-MA30 molecular clone (PRRVR).
Oct 25: Fauci visits RML in Montana and meets with Heinz Feldmann.
Nov 18: Daszak lists Fauci as a “key” person on the CREID decision.
Nov 29: Dani Anderson & Linfa Wang visit BSL4 and then leave Wuhan.
Dec 3: Fauci has a teleconference with the RML director.
Dec 9: NIAID program officer promotes bat vaccines at Singapore conference, asking, “Should a bat vaccine be considered to control Nipah transmission? Bats constitute the reservoir, not only of Nipah but also other viruses causing disease in humans. Preventing viral shedding from bats could prevent human disease.”
2020
Jan 8: Fauci edits EcoHealth bat vaccine paper with RML transmission models.
Jan 10: SARS-CoV-2 genome is published, and Wang resigns as Duke’s EID director. Munster emails Baric, “Perfect! Right between your favorite viruses:-)”
Jan 13: Fauci schedules a weekly teleconference with Munster and RML.
Jan 24: Shi uploads RaTG13 to the GISAID database.
Jan 27: Fauci gets a detailed pandemic briefing from Munster.
Jan 30: Kristian Andersen wants to call the FBI, but he testified that Fauci would do it.
Jan 31: Farrar introduces Fauci to Andersen, who says SARS2 “looks engineered.”
Feb 1: Andersen creates a Slack channel and drafts his one-page lab leak report. Farrar organizes the teleconference with Fauci and Andersen, but not Baric. According to Baric’s testimony, Fauci invited him to that teleconference. Andersen aligns Shi’s RaTG13 sequence with the SARS-CoV-2 genome to show the “gain of furin cleavage site.”
Feb 2: Fauci asks Francis Collins to delete emails.
Feb 3: Fauci organizes a NASEM meeting, where Baric verbally “attacked” Andersen.
Feb 4: Andersen references the NASEM meeting and submits the first draft of Proximal Origin to Fauci, who admits to “reviewing.”
Feb 6: Baric, Daszak, and Wang start the Lancet letter condemning “conspiracy theories.” Baric doesn’t sign because it “looks self-serving and we lose impact.”
Feb 7: NASEM letter to White House referenced Andersen and Baric but omits furin cleavage site.
Feb 9: Engineering rumors reach Munster’s inbox, who jokes with his postdoc.
Feb 11: Fauci invites Munster and Feldmann to the WHO Mission to Wuhan, but claims they are too busy to travel. Fauci meets with Baric at his NIAID office, where they discuss “chimeras.”
Feb 12: Andersen emails Nature, stating that Fauci had “prompted” the publication of the Proximal Origin paper.
Feb 13: Andersen stops referencing the NASEM meeting in the Proximal Origin draft.
Feb 17: Baric claims that Shi “may be arrested” for publishing RaTG13.
Feb 26: Dani Anderson tells NBC News she works with coronaviruses and live bats.
Feb 26: Baric gave a one-hour presentation to Congressional staff but left out FCS.
Feb 26: Baric edits a paper claiming, “No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2.”
Feb 28: Andersen et al. revise footnote number 20 by replacing the citation from Baric’s 2015 Nature paper with an unrelated 2014 Spanish lab paper by Almazán et al., stating, “The genetic data irrefutably shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.”
Mar 5: US government officials ask Baric if SARS-CoV-2 is engineered, but he says no.
Mar 8: Fauci tells Andersen, “Nice job on the [Proximal Origin] paper.”
Mar 10: Fauci and Baric give a joint presentation on the pandemic but omit FCS.
Mar 17: Munster publishes in NEJM that airborne transmission is “plausible.”
Mar 17: Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 published by Andersen et al.
Mar 31: Fauci downplays aerosol transmission during a White House press conference, just days after emailing Munster.
Apr 17: Fauci references the Proximal Origin paper during a White House press conference.
Apr 20: Fauci emails the Proximal Origin paper to that same journalist.
Apr 20: Tony Schountz from CSU sends the Egyptian fruit bat results to Munster.
May 8: Baric describes the Proximal Origin arguments as “compelling.”
2021
Feb 25: Baric’s wife asks Daszak to use their Gmail accounts.
May 14: Baric signs a Science letter calling for an investigation into Shi’s BSL2.
Jun 27: Dani Anderson now claims to be working on Ebola while in Wuhan BSL4.
Sep 8: Intercept published NIAID’s 2R01AI110964 and U01AI151797 CREID grant, which Major Murphy read and referenced in his DoD whistleblower cover letter.
Sep 19: Baric and Dani Anderson appear on CNN, pointing the finger at Wuhan BSL2.
Sep 21: DARPA Defuse document is leaked by Major Murphy and published.
Oct 1: Linfa Wang identifies Baric as the author of the FCS in Defuse.
Oct 7: Colorado State University wins a $6.7 million bat breeding facility for Chinese horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus affinis)
2022
Jan 11: US Senator confronts Fauci with Major Murphy’s letter. Fauci claims, “We have never seen that [Defuse] grant, and we have never funded that grant.”
Oct 4: RML announces a $125 million live bat testing and breeding facility.
Nov 23: Fauci did not recall Jan 2020 emails about “our team” of Munster and Baric.
2023
Nov 17: NIAID releases a statement admitting that Baric and Munster’s joint research began in 2016 with live Egyptian fruit bats, and RML has experts in coronaviruses.
2024
Jan 8: Fauci admits he never contacted the FBI on behalf of Kristian Andersen.
Jan 22: Baric breaks two years of silence by testifying but never provides a biological alibi, and claims Fauci invited him to the Feb 1, 2020, teleconference.
May 18: Daszak confirms that Dani Anderson had live Chinese bats in her BSL4.
Jun 3: Fauci testified that his WIV subgrant was “molecularly impossible” to have created SARS-CoV-2. However, the SARS2-like genome HKU3r-CoV was listed in both the 2R01AI110964 and U01AI151797 grants, which funded DARPA Defuse.
2025
Jan 19: Fauci receives a pardon backdated to January 1, 2014. Eight months later, on July 29, 2014, Fauci notified Francis Collins of NIH that Heinz Feldmann at RML was developing a self-spreading wildlife vaccine.
Haslam, Jim. COVID-19: Mystery Solved book. Chapter 30.
DARPA Defuse document (3.24.18) on pages 7-8 and 19 of 75. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21066966/defuse-proposal.pdf
USGS DEFUSE full batch (1.18.24) Baric notes on page 179 of 1417. https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/USGS-DEFUSE-2021-006245-Combined-Records_Redacted.pdf
Fauci, Baric, Munster. MERS. 2013. 3:31:00 timestamp. https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=12908
Nuismer et al. (2020). Self-disseminating vaccines to suppress zoonoses. Nature Ecology & Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1254-y
Graham et al. 2018. “Evaluation of a Recombination-resistant Coronavirus as a Broadly Applicable, Rapidly Implementable Vaccine Platform.” Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-018-0175-7
Van Doremalen et al. 2018. “SARS-Like Coronavirus WIV1-CoV Does Not Replicate in Egyptian Fruit Bats (Rousettus Aegyptiacus).” Viruses. https://doi.org/10.3390/v10120727
Intercept FOIA of 2R01AI151797 for “HKU3r-CoVs” on page 486 of 528. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21055989/understanding-risk-bat-coronavirus-emergence-grant-notice.pdf
Baric interview (1.22.24) on HKU3-Smix stating HK3 is HKU3, but 293 is a typo on page 199 of 212. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Baric-TI-Transcript.pdf
USGS DEFUSE full batch (1.18.24) Baric notes on page 173 of 1417. https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/USGS-DEFUSE-2021-006245-Combined-Records_Redacted.pdf
Baric et al. 2015. “US9884895B2 - Methods and Compositions for Chimeric Coronavirus Spike Proteins.” Figure 1 group 2B HKU3-Smix. https://patents.google.com/patent/US9884895B2/en
“SARS-CoV-2 in Animals: Susceptibility of Animal Species, Risk for Animal and Public Health, Monitoring, Prevention and Control.” 2023. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/sars-cov-2-animals-susceptibility-animal-species-risk-animal-and-public-health
Van Doremalen et al. 2018. “SARS-Like Coronavirus WIV1-CoV Does Not Replicate in Egyptian Fruit Bats (Rousettus Aegyptiacus).” Viruses. https://doi.org/10.3390/v10120727
Menachery et al. 2019. “Trypsin Treatment Unlocks Barrier for Zoonotic Bat Coronavirus Infection.” Journal of Virology. https://doi.org/10.1128/jvi.01774-19
US Senator Marshall FOIA page 7. https://www.marshall.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/Senator-Marshall-Letter-to-IC-OIG-Oct-2024-DOD-records.pdf
Intercept FOIA of U01AI151797 NIAID grant including “HKU3r-CoVs” https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21055988/risk-zoonotic-virus-hotspots-grant-notice.pdf
U.S.R.T.K. NIH batch #61 (10.7.24) Schountz Rousettus bat email on pages 20 & 392 of 520. https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/NIH-FOIA-Request-56077-March-Production_Redacted.pdf
The Most Plausible Origin of SARS-CoV-2
We address the SAGO Committee to suggest the most plausible origin of SARS-CoV-2 and to recommend investigative priorities and action. Our scenario is based on extensive data of various kinds: forensic, genomic, epidemiological and others, all of which support the scenario we present. There is still considerable evidence to be revealed from records in t…
I am glad you are continuing to pursue the origins of SARS-CoV2 and the subsequent cover-ups with vigor and seemingly endless attention to detail. This is an enormously important question. Every government in the world has failed their citizens entirely by not investigating the origins thoroughly.
I last updated my list of documents and events https://vitamindstopscovid.info/07-origins/ in August 2024/ It starts with a link to this Substack as the best place to keep up with recent developments.
Salute!