Meet the woman who published peer-reviewed proof of a lab origin
An interview with Dr. Li-Meng Yan
Nature is one of the most prestigious science journals — the kind every researcher dreams of publishing in. The COVID-19 origin debate has centered on peer-reviewed papers, most famously the natural-origin Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2.
Professors and virologists have often taunted independent lab leak researchers: Publish in reputable journals like Nature if you want to be taken seriously. But with a peer-review process mired in politics and gatekeeping, that’s nearly impossible. Well, that happened — and her name is Dr. Li-Meng Yan, from Hong Kong.
Dr. Yan defected to America early in the pandemic and became a lightning rod for the COVID-19 debate. Below are excerpts from our interview earlier this year.
Hi, Jim,
Thank you! I love America and enjoy my life here.
Though I love Hong Kong and miss it, as a top target of China's government’s Fox Hunting operation, I can’t go back as long as the CCP regime exists.
Limeng
Follow her freedom of speech here and here.
At the suggestion of others, I had a detailed email exchange with Dr. Li-Meng Yan. She was the first and only virologist to claim that COVID-19 originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology's BSL4 lab. She attempted to warn the world about an airborne, engineered pathogen but was banned from Twitter and ridiculed by The Washington Post. The American newspaper derisively wrote:
Yan’s lab origin research, which was posted to the scientific research repository Zenodo without any review on September 14, 2020, exploded on Twitter, YouTube, and far-right websites with the help of such conservative influencers as Republican strategist Stephen Bannon, who repeatedly pushed it on his online show “War Room: Pandemic.” Yan expanded her claims on October 8, 2020, to blame the Chinese government explicitly for developing the coronavirus as a “bioweapon.”
Just a few months earlier, Dr. Yan had already published peer-reviewed evidence of a Wuhan lab leak in Nature.
Five years later, Dr. Yan is still the subject of Dutch interviews, natural origin books, and lab leak documentaries. I avoid the bioweapon debate—after all, a transmissible animal vaccine like COVID is just an attenuated human bioweapon. I like Fauci’s own term, “dual-use research of concern.”
Dr. Yan claims COVID was intentionally released from the Wuhan BSL4. I’ve argued that COVID would’ve required BSL-5 to contain, given it was designed to spread in the air upwards of 60 feet. So, rather than debating lab leak versus deliberate release, we’ll call this what it is: a lab-origin debate.
Dr. Yan is this debate's most technically accurate lab-origin scientist, with peer-reviewed proof of a Wuhan lab origin! Her critics even described her as a hard worker. Our conversation covered a range of topics, from her early warnings about aerosol transmission to Ralph Baric’s involvement. Below is a summary of our exchange.
Dr. Yan’s Early Whistleblowing and Media Exposure
When asked whether she was the first scientist to discuss a lab origin openly, Dr. Yan clarified that she initially shared her findings on January 19, 2020, through the Chinese-speaking YouTube channel Lude Media. This was the first time the lab-origin theory was publicly discussed, accompanied by supporting evidence.
Since January 19, 2020, my revelation of the COVID-19 origin was delivered anonymously via the Chinese-speaking channel Lude Media on YouTube, which immediately caused a huge response from both the Chinese government and Chinese people.
According to Dr. Yan, her information was quickly shared with figures such as Steve Bannon, Kyle Bass, and Bill Gertz during a live-streamed meeting in New York City on January 23, 2020—the same day Wuhan announced its lockdown.
Bannon told the New York Times that, unlike Dr. Yan, he did not believe the Chinese government “purposely did this.” But “there are also no coincidences,” and “Dr. Yan is one small voice, but at least she’s a voice.”
Dr. Yan told The Washington Post, “I didn’t know [Bannon] was so controversial when I was in Hong Kong.” She claimed that her warnings about the virus's lab origin were relayed to then-President Trump via Peter Navarro, which she believes influenced the US travel ban on Chinese passport holders in late January 2020.
Her first appearance in English-speaking media was on Fox News on July 10, 2020. This made her the first virologist to openly discuss a lab origin on a major Western media platform.
While we sat on our couch, hiding from the mysterious virus, she was the first whistleblower to appear on American TV. As I’ve learned, putting your face on camera and stepping between two giant nation-states is not an enjoyable experience.
Unlike most virologists who have just PhDs and do not deserve the medical title of Doctor, Dr. Yan deserves it. She received both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the 7-year medical doctor program at Xiangya Medical College of Central South University in China in 2009. She obtained a medical doctor's license in China in the same year. In 2014, she completed a PhD in ophthalmology from Southern Medical University in Guangzhou.
Dr. Yan earned both a clinical medical degree and a license, and then went on to complete a research PhD. That combination is rarer and does justify calling her both “doctor” in the medical and academic sense.
After this, she studied virology and immunology (especially influenza vaccine development and SARS-CoV-2) as a postdoc in the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) until April 2020. She shared this video of her HKU lab growing the novel coronavirus in culture.
To this day, Dr. Yan considers herself the only whistleblower with first-hand information from a Chinese virology lab. Coronavirus research boomed after SARS1 emerged near Hong Kong in 2003.
Between 2003 and 2020, a total of 8,433 publications were produced. The US was the leading publishing country, and the University of Hong Kong (HKU) was the leading institution. Yuen Kwok-Yung of HKU, Christian Drosten of Germany, and Ralph Baric of UNC were the most productive researchers. The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was not in the top 10.
In 2013, Dr. Yan’s husband, R. A. Perera of HKU, was the first to identify camels as the intermediary species for MERS. Five years later, HKU put its MERS isolate on dry ice and shipped it to Vincent Munster in Montana. Fauci and his aerosol specialist, Munster, used those samples to aerosolize a MERS vaccine for camels.
Virology is an exclusive world that requires peer review and shared samples, so for a virologist to rock the boat is refreshing.
The first of many publications
At HKU, Dr. Yan studied influenza, just like Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Munster. Her experimental work was focused on studying influenza virus transmission and testing attenuated influenza vaccines in lab mice.
In 2018, Kawaoka published a study using a Syrian hamster model for transmission experiments. Dr Yan said, “I've discussed that study with the first author of that [2018] paper and Yoshihiro Kawaoka (the PI of the paper) in a conference before the outbreak.”
Dr. Yan’s August 2019 presentation in Singapore was titled “Induction of Heterologous Protection by Combined Use of Sequential Influenza Vaccination Strategy in Balb/c Mouse.”
Unlike humanized mice, hamsters were used as a model for COVID transmission. However, no Syrian hamster research was conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) or the University of North Carolina (UNC).
Most Chinese labs rely on Chinese hamsters, which aren’t a transmission model. Dr Yan had access to Syrian golden hamsters at HKU, unlike Ralph Baric at UNC or Shi Zhengli at WIV. By contrast, Vincent Munster of Rocky Mountain Lab proposed using Syrian hamsters in his 2018 DARPA PREEMPT bat vaccine work.
There were no Syrian hamsters at the Wuhan wet market, so Dr. Yan’s inside story on the poor raccoon dogs is interesting:
On January 15-16, 2020, I was told by Dr. Leo Poon (of HKU) to find out evidence of raccoon dog as host in Wuhan. Leo showed me an email with a raccoon dog in a cage, asking me to “focus on” that poor animal as an animal host in Wuhan.
The plan is to blame the illegal trade of raccoon dogs on Huanan Seafood Market and fulfill the zoonotic origin. My (HKU) lab is the best team to announce it, because the professors (Guan Yi, Kwok-Yung Yuen, Malik Peiris) have discovered civet cat in SARS1 as host in 2003, and my husband discovered camel as the host in MERS in 2014. It’s CCP’s typical tactic, “holding the voice on the scientific issues.”
When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Dr. Yan knew which transmission model was needed. On January 22, 2020, a Hong Kong sample (VM20001061/2020) was isolated from an adult male who had returned from Wuhan. Dr. Yan and her HKU colleagues were the first, on May 14, 2020, to publish peer-reviewed lab-origin evidence in Nature!
The Hong Kong patient zero isolate (VM20001061/2020) transmitting in Syrian hamsters is lab leak-proof, just like the WA1 isolate in America and the BavPat1 isolate in Germany.
Dr Yan was one of the first co-authors on that paper. She warned the world, “These results suggest that transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among hamsters was mediated mainly by aerosols, rather than by fomites.”
Aerosols are tiny particles transmitted through the air. Fomites refer to the transmission of diseases through objects like door knobs, food, and handshakes. Meanwhile, Munster called aerosol transmission “plausible” but promoted the fomite conspiracy theory, which Munster later admitted led to the hand sanitizing pandemic.
Dr. Yan was the first to warn the world that COVID was airborne, based on her research with Syrian hamsters. Yet for another year, Munster publicly downplayed aerosol transmission—only to publish his own hamster study a year after hers. Meanwhile, Kawaoka and Baric ran a hamster transmission experiment too, but with the later D614G variant, not with the ancestral strain like WA1.
Lab leakers got distracted by the “humanized mice” narrative, even though those models don’t transmit COVID at all. Meanwhile, Dr Yan wrote in her first of three lab origin reports:
It is noteworthy that, based on the work done on SARS-CoV, the hACE2-mice, although suitable for SARS-CoV-2 adaptation, is not a good model to reflect the virus’ transmissibility and associated clinical symptoms in humans. We believe that those scientists might not have used a proper animal model (such as the golden Syrian hamster) for testing the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 before the outbreak of COVID-19. If they had done this experiment with a proper animal model, the highly contagious nature of SARS-CoV-2 would be extremely evident, and consequently, SARS-CoV-2 would not have been described as “not causing human-to-human transmission” at the start of the outbreak.
Dr Yan’s reward for warning the world? Online accounts attacked her; they called her “small hamster Yan” or “hamster keeper Yan.”
Yan versus Ebright
Dr. Yan recently experienced the irrationality of Richard Ebright, who blocked her on Twitter after she claimed that COVID-19 originated from the Wuhan BSL4. I once asked Ebright: Do you honestly believe a virus that spreads up to 60 feet and infects in less than 15 minutes leaked from BSL2? Ebright replied, “Yes.”
CGG-CGG and the Genetic Clues of Lab Manipulation
In our exchange, I asked whether Dr. Yan was the first to identify the unusual CGG-CGG codon pair in SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein. She credited her co-author, Dr. Shu Kang (pseudonym), with raising this issue in his Nerd Has Power blog, which was based on the revelations she shared with him as early as January 18, 2020.
Notably, the CGG-CGG sequence is rare in coronaviruses and is associated with genetic engineering. Fauci was asked about this codon site during his 2021 Congressional testimony.
The three Yan reports
In the first report (https://zenodo.org/records/4028830#.YP8eQuT3aEc), Dr. Yan provides “smoking gun” evidence to prove ZC45/ZXC21, not RaTG13, are the backbones of SARS-CoV-2.
The second report (https://zenodo.org/records/4073131) reveals the falsified theories and fake virus sequences used to support a natural origin, including the RaTG13 sequence.
In the third report (https://zenodo.org/records/4650821), Dr. Yan explains point by point why the two peer-reviewed nature-origin papers from MIT Press and Johns Hopkins University failed to refute the Yan reports.
Was RaTG13 a smoke screen?
Our discussion moved to the controversial bat coronavirus RaTG13, which Shi Zhengli of the WIV published on January 24, 2020. Dr. Yan argued that RaTG13 was fabricated to divert attention from the true viral backbones, ZC45/ZXC21. According to her, Shi’s publication of RaTG13 misled Western virologists into thinking the virus came from nature. At the same time, the genetic evidence in her reports suggested RaTG13 was a fake sequence designed to conceal the lab-engineered nature of SARS-CoV-2.
Dr. Yan explained that the lack of a furin cleavage site (FCS) in RaTG13 was a deliberate choice. Since no known lineage B betacoronaviruses, aside from SARS-CoV-2, possess an FCS, adding one to RaTG13 would have raised immediate red flags. Instead, the Chinese virologists created a fraudulent sequence without the FCS, and later introduced RmYN02, a bat virus published in June 2020, which contained a partial FCS mimic (-PAA-) to create the illusion that FCS insertions could occur naturally. Dr Yan explains:
As I explained, RaTG13 virus is not real in nature, but the previously published sequence of 4991 from Mojiang is real. However, 4991 contains a unique RdRp gene, which is considered a potential drug target. So RdRp from 4991 is put into SARS2 to replace the RdRp from ZC45/ZXC21. While making a highly similar “bat ancestor” of SARS2, they also put the same segment in RaTG13.
I asked about Shi’s partial upload of RaTG13 in 2018?
Dr. Yan replied:
The sequence submitted in 2018 is the “RdRp gene.” However, the description mentions the article on it, the 2020 RaTG13 paper. This means the name “RaTG13” didn’t appear until Shi's 2020 paper. In 2018, it was just an RdRp segment part of an unknown virus.
On the full publication date of RaTG13?
The complete sequence of RaTG13 was not submitted to NIH GenBank until January 27, 2020. Dr. Yan said, “Shi Zhengli was not asked to submit the first article about RaTG13 before I anonymously exposed the truth on Lude Media on Jan 19, 2020.”
There were Dr. Yan’s five key messages in that early broadcast:
The virus (SARS2) was created in a Chinese military (PLA) laboratory using ZC45/ZXC21 as the template.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government is actively covering up information.
There is human-to-human transmission.
No intermediate hosts of wild animals exist, and the Huanan seafood market is not the origin of the virus.
If not controlled immediately, the virus may lead to a pandemic, and many mutants will emerge inevitably and rapidly.
What are ZC45/ZXC21?
According to Dr. Yan, ZC45/ZXC21 are the real backbones of SARS-CoV-2 based on a variety of reasons, including but not limited to:
The Chinese government has invested large amounts of money and manpower in long-term military-civilian integration joint projects to collect novel zoonotic pathogens related to emerging infectious diseases. Until the Wuhan outbreak, ZC45/ZXC21 were the closest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 (~89% identical to SARS-CoV-2 on the nucleotide level) in the NIH Genbank, which were discovered and rescued in the lab by Chinese scientists. The significance of "rescued ZC45/ZXC21" is that, compared to a pure artificial virus sequence (like RaTG13), the live and natural viruses (ZC45/ZXC21) have special advantages for weaponization, and they are already confirmed to have the potential to infect humans.
ZC45 and ZXC21 were discovered on the Zhoushan Islands, Zhejiang Province (Eastern China), by a joint team led by military scientist Col. Chang-Jun Wang (王长军) in the Nanjing Command between 2015 and 2017. Wang was promoted to senior colonel (equal to Brigadier General in the US) in 2020. After ZC45/ZXC21 was successfully rescued, different teams engineered it to gain multiple functions, leaving genetic characters as the smoking gun. It’s like a car manufacturer, which can have many workshops for parts and assembly. WIV is one “workshop,” and there are other teams involved, including WIV, the Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS), the WHO reference lab at the University of Hong Kong where I worked, and researchers overseas, e.g., Dr. Fang Li in Minnesota University and Dr. Lanying Du who was in NY blood center but now in Georgia State University.
As described in the 1st Yan Report, receptor-binding motif (RBM) within the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, a unique furin-cleavage site in its Spike protein, 94.2% identical Orf8 protein, and 100% identical E protein between ZC45/ZXC21 and SARS-CoV-2 are all smoking gun evidence in SARS2 genome. Moreover, it describes a synthetic route of creating SARS-CoV-2 in a laboratory setting, based on substantial literature support and genetic evidence in the SARS-CoV-2 genome.
Additionally, Shi Zhengli submitted another article about SARS-CoV-2 earlier on the same day (Received 20 Jan 2020, Accepted 21 Jan 2020, Published online: 31 Jan 2020), in which Shi never mentioned the existence of RaTG13. Instead, Shi and her colleagues, Jiang ShiBo and Du Lanying, admit the closest viruses are ZC45/ZXC21.
(https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/22221751.2020.1723441) Moreover, considerable evidence suggests that Jiang and Du played important roles in developing SARS-CoV-2 with the PLA.
Although the steps presented herein should not be viewed as exactly those taken, the key processes should not differ significantly. Importantly, our work here demonstrates how SARS-CoV-2 can be conveniently designed and created in research laboratories by following proven concepts and using well-established techniques.
What about the Mojiang Miner Passage theory?
According to the 2nd Yan Report, the Mojiang Miner Passage (MMP) hypothesis is fatally flawed, she said, and the Mojiang mine cave theory regarding RaTG13 is incorrect.
What about Ralph Baric’s role?
Dr. Yan was critical of Baric. In a 2009 presentation at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), Baric showcased a synthetic SARS-like virus genome with six segments and five restriction sites—similar to those of SARS-CoV-2.
Dr. Yan believes Baric’s work demonstrates the long-standing technical feasibility of creating chimeric SARS-like viruses through synthetic biology. She directly connects Baric’s research to the CCP's covert bioweapons program, highlighting his close ties to her former mentor at HKU, Professor Malik Peiris:
"Baric was very likely invited to visit HKU by my ex-boss Prof. Malik Peiris. Malik has been playing a significant role in CCP's cover bioweapon projects and is actually an International Communist involved in CCP's hunting against me."
Baric, she argues, is not a mastermind of the bioweapon project but rather a compromised figure:
"Baric is not the core researcher in CCP's covert bioweapon project. Instead, he is a useful idiot who is compromised and shares mutual benefits with CCP. He intended to lie about COVID-19 origin for his personal benefits."
In Yan’s view, the CCP uses Baric as a scapegoat to deflect blame onto the U.S. and shield China from accountability.
Baric vs Shi
Dr. Yan noted that Baric received approval in 2020 to generate a full-length infectious clone of RaTG13 but never published the results. According to Dr. Yan, this suggests that RaTG13 was either defective or could not be successfully cloned—possibly because the sequence was fabricated and not biologically viable.
Dr. Yan also claimed to have unpublished evidence that Shi Zhengli privately admitted to other Chinese virologists that no live RaTG13 virus existed in her lab, further supporting the hypothesis that RaTG13 was a purely digital construct.
In an interview with Science Magazine, Shi clarified that RaTG13 was just that: a sequence. “I would like to emphasize that we have only had the genome sequence and did not isolate this virus.” The WIV had isolated only three viruses, none of which were closely related to SARS-CoV-2.
Vero Cells and the Furin Cleavage Site Deletion
One of the most counterintuitive pieces of evidence Dr. Yan presented in her first report was the observation that SARS-CoV-2 loses its furin cleavage site (FCS) when cultured in Vero cells—a line derived from African green monkeys. Since Vero cells lack the protease needed to maintain the FCS, the site is frequently deleted during laboratory culturing. Dr. Yan noted that this was a critical clue for lab manipulation because the WIV used Vero cells in its experiments.
Dr. Yan explained that Chang-Jun Wang’s lab, which studied the ZC45 and ZXC21 bat coronaviruses (which Dr. Yan claims are the actual backbones of SARS-CoV-2), also used Vero E6 cells. Their inability to successfully rescue the infectious ZC45/ZXC21 virus from Vero cells was documented in a 2018 study. This, she argued, highlights the limitations of Vero cells in propagating certain bat coronaviruses, making the deletion of the FCS a key indicator of lab-based cell culture experiments.
Baric’s Use of Human Airway Epithelial (HAE) Cells
Baric used human airway epithelial (HAE) cells rather than Vero cells in his SARS-CoV-2 experiments. Unlike Vero cells, HAE cells maintain the furin cleavage site, making them a more accurate model for human infection. Dr. Yan confirmed that HAE cells are available in China, suggesting that Chinese labs could have used them in SARS-CoV-2 engineering experiments.
She cited a 2021 study demonstrating that SARS-CoV-2 rapidly loses its FCS when cultured in Vero cells, but not in HAE cells. This supported the theory that the virus was initially engineered in a lab using cell lines that preserve the FCS.
The Unpublished Evidence of Baric’s 2018 TRS Sequence
Another intriguing point raised in our discussion was the presence of a unique transcription regulatory sequence (TRS) motif, UGGUCGC, in RaTG13. This feature appears in Baric’s 2018 LAV bat vaccine paper.
Dr. Yan speculated that Baric’s 2018 work may have unintentionally mirrored the genetic engineering techniques used by Chinese researchers, or that Chinese scientists deliberately appropriated his methods. However, she did not believe Baric was aware of RaTG13 before the pandemic; instead, she viewed him as a “useful tool” whose expertise was exploited by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Baric said Shi could be “arrested” for publishing RaTG13.
On the SARS-CoV-2 restriction sites
Dr. Yan’s third report highlights how restriction enzyme-based cloning—a widely used technique—was dismissed by pro-natural-origin scientists as too complex for creating the SARS-CoV-2 virus. She refutes this claim by pointing to the EcoRI and BstEII restriction sites in the spike protein of ZC45, a bat coronavirus.
Dr. Yan explains that introducing restriction sites is a trivial task for trained molecular biologists:
"The need to introduce EcoRI and BstEII sites into ZC45 does not negate the possibility of ZC45 being used as the template for the creation of SARS-CoV-2. As we have described in our report, the introduction of these sites is extremely convenient and routine for trained molecular biologist."
Dr. Yan further highlights that Shi Zhengli herself used restriction enzyme cloning methods in 2008 to modify the receptor-binding motif (RBM) of coronaviruses, demonstrating the technical feasibility of engineering SARS-CoV-2.
How did Dr. Yan find the restriction sites?
https://zenodo.org/records/4028830
Dr. Yan’s co-author, Dr. Shu Kang, said: “The two restriction sites were found when I was studying the sequence of SARS-CoV-2. Since I know where in the sequence they have used restriction sites to swap RBM, I looked carefully at such places. At the exact same locations, I found these two restriction sites; they didn’t bother to try to change the sites even slightly. Although they used more deceptive restriction sites, they nonetheless mutated highly conserved amino acids, further indicating the genetic engineering here.”
Alina Chan’s Role in Misinformation
In a candid exchange, Dr. Yan criticized Alina Chan, the co-author of Viral, for discrediting her as a source of misinformation. Dr. Yan argued that Chan’s stance had shifted over time, contributing to confusion and obfuscation regarding the origins of the virus.
She noted that Chan’s recent comments expressing uncertainty about the lab leak theory were part of a broader pattern of scientists creating confusion and turning the origin investigation into a “mysterious deadlock.” Dr. Yan viewed this tactic as beneficial to the CCP, as it helped deflect blame from China.
Dr. Yan, unlike Alina Chan, is precise with the publication date of RaTG13.
The DARPA DEFUSE Proposal and Bioweapons Development
Finally, Dr. Yan and I discussed the DARPA DEFUSE proposal, which was submitted by Baric, Peter Daszak, Shi Zhengli, and Linfa Wang in March 2018. The proposal described creating chimeric coronaviruses with novel FCSs—a feature that aligns with the genetic makeup of SARS-CoV-2. Dr. Yan believed this proposal revealed the US’s involvement in controversial coronavirus research. Still, she emphasized that the CCP had its own bioweapons program, which she claimed was the true source of the pandemic.
In August 2021, before Major Murphy leaked DARPA Defuse, I [Jim Haslam] thought COVID was a self-disseminating biodefense vaccine for PLA troops.
Danielle Anderson, Linfa Wang, and CCP Ties
Dr. Yan expresses strong suspicions about Linfa Wang and Danielle Anderson, both of whom were in Wuhan’s BSL4 lab in November 2019. Prof Wang, according to Dr. Yan, is embedded in the scientific community, facilitating the transfer of knowledge and technology for China’s bioweapons program. Dani Anderson, a former Assistant Professor of Wang’s, is not privy to the PLA’s bioweapons secrets.
Dani Anderson publicly denied lab leak suspicions, claiming that WIV staff were routinely tested and no one showed signs of illness. However, Yan dismisses Anderson’s claims, stating:
"Actually, her statement above is consistent with the information I collected since Dec 31, 2019 via my sources in China. The lab safety problems in BSL-2 labs in China don't mean that the same sloppy work happens in BSL-3/4 labs."
Conclusion: The Need for Accountability
Dr. Yan tells a story of scientific betrayal, political corruption, and CCP cover-ups. Her warnings highlight the complicity of international scientists, including figures like Baric, who became unwitting enablers or “useful idiots” in the CCP’s bioweapons program. Dr. Yan concludes:
"[Baric] needs to be put on trial for the damage caused by his lies and actions."
What is HKU’s bioweapon role?
Dr. Yan reveals details about her former workplace, HKU, which she claims played a pivotal role in advancing the CCP’s covert bioweapons program. In 2019, Elsevier ranked the lab the world’s top coronavirus research lab. The lab effectively served as a front for gathering foreign technology and expertise under the guise of scientific exchange.
As Yan states in a documentary interview:
"If you want a biological weapon, you need to accumulate knowledge, you need to improve technology. So how do you get these technologies? This is exactly the most important role that my laboratory in Hong Kong plays... they will feel that this is Hong Kong, and this is international. The members of our team have unique opportunities to obtain your knowledge, your materials, and even, they want and can corrupt and buy you."
This deception allowed the CCP to acquire critical bioweapon knowledge from international scientists while concealing its military ambitions.
CCP’s Disinformation and Controlled Opposition
Dr. Yan claims that the CCP has weaponized disinformation by infiltrating both scientific and activist circles. She identifies the New Federal State of China (NFSC), a group founded by Miles Guo, as a CCP-controlled opposition.
As of August 2025, Steve Bannon’s anti-CCP buddy, Miles Guo, is in an American prison awaiting sentencing after being convicted in July 2024 of multiple fraud and money laundering charges. Guo was found guilty of orchestrating a conspiracy that defrauded his online followers of over $1 billion to fund his luxurious lifestyle.
Dr. Yan claims that Guo, an alleged dissident, is, in fact, a double agent spreading disinformation to mislead the public. She warns that CCP disinformation agents deliberately amplify the “U.S.-created virus” narrative, shifting the blame away from China:
"For CCP, Baric can be scapegoated to avoid accountability. Therefore, by spreading disinformation and concealing evidence detrimental to China, Baric is depicted as the mastermind in the pandemic to bolster the anti-America narrative. It is an unrestricted war tactic by Xi-CCP regime to evade punishment for crimes against humanity."
About the other Wuhan whistleblowers
A Chinese citizen journalist, Zhang Zhan, was recently released from a four-year jail sentence for recording the Wuhan BSL4. However, she was re-detained, and now she faces new charges of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.” She is starting a second trial in Shanghai.
Three pro-lab leak scientists recently published a paper calling for more transparency from the Chinese government. They invoked Dr. Li Wenliang, the ophthalmologist, as the whistleblower. They are wrong, as it was Dr. Li-Meng Yan.
However, Dr. Li Wenliang was the first Wuhan resident to publicly share information about the COVID-19 outbreak on WeChat. Weeks later, he died like many. The New York Times investigated his death based on medical records and an exclusive interview with a key witness. They found nothing nefarious about his treatments.
Other patient 0 rumors
Chao Shan was working on Zika at UTMB-Galveston until December 2019, but is currently listed at the WIV.
3 sick in WIV?
The infamous three who fell ill at the Wuhan Institute of Virology appear to be a David Asher rumor, who was at the State Department from 2020 to 2021. He said it came from “two foreign government scientists” who talked to “someone” inside the WIV. He’s admitted there’s no documentation, which “cannot be verified, and their motives are unclear.” He also got one of the three names backward: “Ping Yu,” not Yu Ping.
The Austrian “experts”
Not a Bioweapon, or is it? The Role of Perceived Threats and Media Use in COVID-19 Misperceptions
Baric lab was paid by Pfizer to increase the lethality of Dengue Virus
https://geoffpain.substack.com/p/directed-evolution-gain-of-function
Jim - it's been explained to you that UGGUCGC in RaTG13 is in a coding region of ORF1ab, not an intragenic region. Therefore it's just a short sequence that codes amino acids, and being only 7 nucleotides long is found in millions of sequences that Ralph Baric has had nothing to do with.