Ralph Baric propaganda?

Excerpts from his new New York Times essay

Ralph Baric of UNC and Ian Lipkin of Columbia did not mention their conflict of interest!

January 2018 DARPA Defuse draft

Baric and Lipkin were the original members of EcoHealth’s DARPA Defuse bid. In later drafts, Lipkin and Vincent Munster were removed, but everyone else remained. This 2018 proposal created a Chinese bat vaccine in US labs and tested it in Wuhan labs.

The only lab leaker who liked Baric’s new New York Times essay was, you guessed it, Richard Ebright. Read it here. Later, Ebright read the lab leak room and questioned Baric’s motive.

via @MarioKoopmans

Lipkin and Baric call themselves “virus experts” and start the New York Times essay by blaming some other scientists:

There’s a central question that many scientists face: How can scientific discoveries drive humanity’s progress without posing a dire risk to it? As virus experts, we’re committed to research that uncovers pandemic threats and helps protect people from them. But we are concerned about how some scientists are experimenting with viruses in ways that could put all of us in harm’s way.

In 2007, Lipkin supported Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth (then called the Consortium for Conservation Medicine) in the bat collection business. In 2010, the NYT called Lipkin the “master virus hunter,” and Tony Fauci said, “Lipkin really stands out from the crowd.” Lipkin was tasked with finding autism links between measles and mumps vaccines!

In 2013, Baric wrote the same letter of support for Daszak’s R01 NIAID grant in China. Lipkin’s Columbia lab helped smuggle coronaviruses (via USAID Predict) to Baric’s lab.

It’s just a sequence, not a sample, that Baric recreates in UNC

None of this was mentioned, but Baric and Lipkin continued their NYT essay:

In a study published in the scientific journal Cell, a group of researchers reported the discovery of a coronavirus in bats that has the potential to spread to humans.

The Shi Zhengli Cell paper made the lab leak news because it was a BSL2 experiment. Lab leaker Alina Chan called it an “ominous” experiment, so Baric and Lipkin seized the opportunity to divert our attention away from their DARPA Defuse bid.

Alina published her own NYT misinformation claiming that “Defuse was never funded by the United States. However, in his testimony, Dr. Fauci explained the WIV would not need to rely on U.S. funding to pursue research independently.” No, Alina, DARPA, a $3 billion agency, didn’t fund Defuse, but Fauci’s NIAID was twice the size. Emily Kopp did the same, claiming “U.S. agencies” didn’t fund Defuse. Fauci’s NIAID funded Defuse.

Baric and Lipkin continue by accusing Shi of running the same experiments they were running:

In a series of experiments, the (Wuhan) scientists show that this virus, HKU5-CoV-2, can efficiently infect cells of humans and a wide range of other animal cells. The findings raise the possibility that humans and other animals could be infected by this virus. This coronavirus belongs to a subgroup of viruses that are classified alongside the one that causes MERS and that can have fatality rates far higher than that of the virus that caused the Covid pandemic.

Turns out that Baric already had an HKU5 molecular clone with Munster’s postdoc, Michael Letko:

Unlike MERS, SARS was classified as a select agent, so Baric used MERS as a gain-of-function workaround. Baric calls select agents the “S word.”

Notice that Baric’s colleagues can’t do the high-level coronavirus engineering he does. The guy sitting next to Baric, sexual harasser Michael Katz, was later fired by Baric during a UNC audit. Lipkin was called “Butt Lesion” by the Proximal Origin writers for his sexual harassment claims. But Baric and Lipkin keep the focus on the WIV:

The Wuhan Institute of Virology, where many of the researchers work or have worked, is at the center of the controversy regarding the origin of the Covid pandemic. We do not imply that the institute is responsible for the Covid pandemic, nor do we have any certainty that this newly discovered virus has the potential to cause the next one. What worries us is the insufficient safety precautions the researchers took when studying this coronavirus.

Baric’s limited public statements on a potential lab leak have always mentioned Shi’s BSL2. In every interview before Defuse leaked, he implied Shi’s BSL2 was suspect. After Defuse leaked in September 2021, he went radio silent, so this is his first public statement.

Research laboratories have different levels of security, based on its categorization on a biosafety level scale, from BSL-1, the lowest, to BSL-4. Lower-security labs are used for studying infectious agents that either don’t cause disease in people or pose only moderate risk. The higher-security laboratories are for studying pathogens that can spread in the air and have the potential to cause lethal infections.

Western scientists like Baric publicly lobby for the Chinese competition to use a higher BSL3 because it slows down their research. Baric’s 2017 reverse genetic system was so advanced that he could pre-assemble genomes under BSL2 conditions. The six segments with five restriction sites found in SARS2 prove that Baric preassembled the SARS2 genome in his UNC BSL2. Then, under police escort, the RNA was moved from his BSL2 to the BSL3, where the 30,000-nucleotide SARS2 genome was fully assembled. Around February 2019, this SARS2-like genome was shipped to Munster’s BSL4 at RML, who forwarded it to Danielle Anderson’s BSL4 in Wuhan.

Daszak responded with another 'cufflink' clue

Baric continues in NYT but doesn’t tell us who was inside that Wuhan BSL4:

BSL-4 labs are the ones featured in movies where scientists walk around in what look like spacesuits with air hoses and shower in decontamination chambers when their work is done. BSL-3 labs limit access to specifically trained staff members, have locking double doors for enhanced security and specific air handling and sterilization systems. Workers wear head-to-toe personal protective equipment and are under medical surveillance for signs of laboratory-acquired infection that could pose a risk to others.

Decisions about what level of precaution is appropriate for research are typically made by a study’s lead scientist and an institutional biosafety committee that includes scientists, physicians, administrators and members of the local community.

Baric testified in 2024, “Their [WIV] regulations state pretty clearly that they don’t consider culturing bat viruses at BSL2 as a biosafety concern. I also had that verbally confirmed by Zhengli Shi at a Harbin [January 2019] meeting, when I told her she should move it all to BSL3 and why. So I know that. She also said in that meeting that all animal work is done at BSL3.”

This HKU5 Wuhan research was conducted by Shi in a test tube (in vitro) using Vero cells that deleted the SARS2 furin cleavage site (FCS). Researchers used Baric’s human airway epithelial cells to keep the SARS2 FCS.

Shi’s 2020 computer skills relied on 2-decade-old MS-DOS software that omitted the SARS2 FCS on accident, but Baric continues:

The (WIV) researchers behind the Cell paper began by studying the new virus in ways that do not require growing live virus — like through computer analysis. But after establishing that the virus can probably infect human cells, the researchers performed experiments with the fully infectious virus. They did not conduct these experiments in a BSL-3 or BSL-4 laboratory but in a laboratory described as BSL-2 plus, a designation that is not standardized and not formally recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and that we think is insufficient for work with potentially dangerous respiratory viruses.

This work was apparently approved by the local institutional biosafety committee and adhered to national biosafety standards. But it is not sufficient for work with a new virus that could have significant risks for people worldwide.

Peter Miller asks: Shouldn't this actually be an update against “Covid was a lab leak?” If the Wuhan Institute of Virology created SARS2 and leaked it by doing the work at BSL2, why would they still work with viruses at BSL2, five years later?

Pete Lincoln

had the best answer: Because coronaviruses found in bats are not very dangerous (both transmissible AND pathogenic) for humans. They must be adapted for humans through intermediate hosts and/or engineering.

Munster of RML and Linfa Wang of Duke always used a BSL4 for their live bat challenge studies. This is risky animal (in vivo) research. Covid would have leaked from a BSL5 since it was designed to be contagious. The current danger is in Western labs testing Western products in Eastern labs. “Transnational virology research is like an ‘anarchical society’ where collaboration between the unregulated scientific communities of China, the West and Japan has often been ignored by many national governments and regional organizations.”

Baric and Lipkin are the pot calling the kettle black in their NYT essay:

Herein lies a crucial problem that the world must address. Scientists and policymakers in the United States have spent years discussing and debating how to regulate risky virus research, sometimes contentiously. But this work happens in other countries, too — and not all countries approach questions about the safety of this work in the same way. So one country’s decisions about how to approach studying risky pathogens can go only so far.

Wherever in the world it happens, work with viruses that have the potential to become threats to public health should be restricted to facilities and scientists committed to the highest level of safety. As the leading international public health agency, the World Health Organization should take the lead in rigorously clarifying these standards. But we need other mechanisms to ensure that researchers worldwide follow the rules. Agencies inside and outside government that fund this sort of work should require proof that investigators meet global standards. Scientific journals should have similar standards for the studies they accept.

Baric did not mention wanting to lead the live bat research in the Wuhan lab.

DARPA Defuse final bid

Virology is an international industry, similar to an automotive supply chain.

DARPA Defuse bat sample logistics

Bat samples were shared via a “cold chain” in DARPA Defuse. Baric (BRS24) even discussed mailing SHC014 to Linfa Wang to “test in captive bats.”

DARPA Defuse draft notes

Baric crafted the DARPA Defuse gain-of-function workaround, so good luck to the new NIH Director, Jay Bhattacharya, who is trying to stop it. Baric is like the North Carolina fox watching the Washington D.C. henhouse—an insider with too much knowledge and experience. Baric flexes:

Last week was the 50th anniversary of the 1975 Asilomar Summit, where scientists came together to establish guidelines for research with genetically modified microbes. Today many more discoveries and threats are on the horizon. Potentially dangerous research should not be done without proper precautions to prevent deliberate or accidental spread.

The above is called the Bootlegger and Baptist regulatory concept since opposing groups seek identical regulations, which creates a barrier to entry and increases the product's value. Lipkin, the “Virus Hunter,” and Baric, the “Coronavirus Hunter,” sign off:

W. Ian Lipkin is a professor of epidemiology and the director of the Center for Infection and Immunity and the Global Alliance for Preventing Pandemics at Columbia University. Ralph Baric is a professor of epidemiology, microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Feel free to send a letter to the New York Times. Here was my letter to the Editor:

Dr. Lipkin and Dr. Baric failed to disclose their conflict of interest: both were original vendors on the $14.2 million DARPA Defuse bid. This 2018 grant proposal to the U.S. military included plans to insert furin cleavage sites into novel coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2, with live bat testing planned at the BSL3 in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). The proposal states, “Prof. Baric (UNC) will lead the targeted immune boosting work,” extending to “small groups of wild-caught Rhinolophus sinicus bats at WIV.”

Last year, Baric testified that “the idea of manipulating the protease [e.g., furin] was clearly mine. No question.” Yet, on February 26, 2020, during a presentation to U.S. congressional staff, he failed to mention SARS-CoV-2’s furin cleavage site. When asked on March 5, 2020, in the Red Dawn emails, whether the virus had "any restriction sites in this strain that are not present in others of the same family, suggesting this is engineered?" Baric responded, “No, there is absolutely no evidence that this virus is bioengineered.” Yet, Baric testified that he saw both the restriction sites and furin cleavage site in January 2020.

Why omit key details?

Jim Haslam
Author, COVID-19: Mystery Solved

Vanity Fair loves Fauci & Baric

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/inside-the-fbis-lab-leak-investigation

The lab leak article is sourced by a retired FBI agent, Jason Bannan, who is playing catch-up.

Bannan previously quizzed Baric’s colleague and cover-up collaborator, Susan Weiss, about DARPA Defuse, which Vanity Fair didn’t mention.

As VF previously reported, one of the world’s foremost coronavirologists, Ralph Baric, testified before the Republican-led Oversight and Accountability’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that he had specifically warned Shi Zhengli that the WIV’s critical coronavirus research was being conducted in labs with insufficient biosafety protections. He urged her to move the work to a more secure BSL-3 lab, he testified, but she did not heed his recommendation.

No mention of Baric’s furin cleavage site plans in the article, but Susan Weiss emailed in February 2020, “I have been speculating how that [furin cleavage] site have appeared at S1/S2 border. I hate to think to was engineered-among the MHV [mouse hepatitis virus] strains.” Baric used the MHV model for his No See’m research.

Baric ghost-edited their natural origin paper writing, “I think the community needs to write these editorials, and I thank you for your efforts, Ralph.” Weiss's colleague later replied, “We don’t want to appear that we are defending Ralph even though he did nothing wrong.” Their paper was titled “No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2.”

The Vanity Fair article did rehash an old Mojiang mineshaft conspiracy:

The mine shaft became a hot spot for studying viral emergence, and the WIV collected numerous samples from there, including one named Ra4991. Six years later, with SARS-CoV-2 overtaking the world and an army of scientists searching for a progenitor virus, Shi Zhengli and several colleagues published a paper noting that the WIV possessed a viral sample they had named RaTG13, which proved to be 96.2% similar to SARS-CoV-2. That meant RaTG13 was the closest known match at the time to the virus that caused COVID-19.

Shi renamed the 4991 bat sample to RaTG13 in 2018. Shi uploaded RaTG13 to the NIH database on July 12, 2018, but it was embargoed for 4 years. Then, Shi republished RaTG13 to GISAID on Jan 24, 2020, kickstarting the Feb 1 teleconference. That’s when Fauci called Baric to shut up Kristian Andersen, but Vanity Fair worries:

But any new revelations could fuel a right-wing crusade to lay the blame for the pandemic at the feet of Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of NIAID.

French lab leak article

https://theconversation.com/the-lab-leak-origin-of-covid-19-fact-or-fiction-250462

SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19, has a single origin. If it did escape from a laboratory, it could not have simultaneously leaked from two separate labs conducting different types of research. Two mutually incompatible hypotheses are not two points in favor of a lab origin.– and this is not even considering alternative lab-leak scenarios positing that the virus was engineered in a U.S. lab and then sent to Wuhan.

The French author Florence Débarre, who used to be a lab leaker before arguing zoonotic origin, linked to this Newsweek article quoting Robert Redfield:

Baric has been the subject of a fringe theory that he was partly responsible for the virus since early 2020, a claim repeated by Senator Rand Paul at a congressional hearing in May 2021.

Baric has previously called for an investigation into the origins of the virus, signing an open letter in 2021 published in Science. The virus expert dismissed as premature the findings of a joint probe by the World Health Organization and China that said the chance of a lab leak was "extremely unlikely."

In January this year, Baric told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis that the regulations at the WIV in China "state pretty clearly that they don't consider culturing bat viruses at BSL-2 as a biosafety concern." He said he urged the researchers to move the biosafety one level higher to 3.

Baric signed that May 2021 Science letter calling for an investigation into Shi’s BSL2, but DARPA Defuse leaked months later, and he went radio silent. Years later, he emerged for congressional testimony, where he dug himself into a deeper hole. Baric also participated in the February 2020 NASEM cover-up.

NASEM leaders making $1 million

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/structural-racism-top-taxpayer-funded-academy-rife-dei-programs-hefty-executive-salaries

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) are private, nonprofit institutions. The New York Times reported that in 2023, NASEM derives 70% of its budget from federal funds and received $200,616,000 in taxpayer funding from grants and contracts, according to its Treasurer’s Report.

National Academy of Medicine President Victor Dzau receives a salary of $1,026,973 per year, National Academy of Engineering President John Anderson earns $1,027,185 yearly, and National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt earns $1,061,843 yearly. All three were members of the February 2020 lab leak cover-up.

Francis Collins resigned

Collins was the former NIH director and part-time lab manager who resigned.

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/03/01/g-s1-51514/francis-collins-nih-national-institutes-health-resigns

NIH FOIA

Collins asked his deputy director Larry Tabak, “So are we actually tasking NSABB to review P3CO?” Tabak bluntly responded, “We run NSABB on behalf of HHS.” NSABB was the bureaucratic board overseeing gain-of-function.

Collins & Tabak saw “DARPA as an inspiration” for their Bethesda bureaucracy; “however, a DARPA-like approach is radically different from NIH’s standard mechanisms of operation and will require a new way of thinking.”

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25549706/tobias-v-hhs-21-cv-02850-22825-partial-production-redacted.pdf

Collins, Fauci, and Farrar pre-pandemic

Jeremy Farrar from Wellcome Trust organized the infamous February 1, 2020, teleconference, when Fauci secretly invited Baric. However, this Farrar presentation was during a June 2019 NIH meeting, and Fauci sat in the first row.