‘1 in a Billion’ Chance Covid Emerged from Nature, By Chris Knight (Florida)
The Covid lab leak hypothesis was examined at a hearing of evidence by US Senators. Although the attempt to get to the truth of the matter was tampered by communist China refusing to release data about the activities of the Wuhan Institute of Virology at the time of the Covid release, indirect evidence pointed to a lab release, the Senate inquiry concluded.
One expert witness, Steven C. Quay, M.D., Ph.D., CEO of Atossa Therapeutics Inc. and former faculty member at Stanford University's School of Medicine, showed that there are at least seven features that the Covid virus, SARS-CoV-2, has, which are not likely to evolve in nature, but which would be found in a lab constructed virus. "The statistical probability of finding each feature in nature can be determined," Quay said, "and the combined probability that SARS2 came from nature is less than one in a billion."
There was a consensus that this sort of gain-of-function research does not serve any useful purpose in the development of drugs, and that given the dangers that come from this, such research needs to be controlled. Unfortunately, the Senators did not probe even deeper into the drive by the military industrial complex to create such bioweapons to keep up the pace with communist China, which will make no attempt to control anything, as the Covid-19 release, whether accidental, or more likely deliberate, shows. No doubt the communists will release another such bug upon the West prior to the Taiwan invasion.
"The COVID-19 lab-leak theory — far from being a myth or conspiracy theory — is supported by a "preponderance of evidence" U.S. senators today acknowledged in a historic bipartisan hearing.
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Gary Peters, a Democratic senator from Michigan, and ranking member Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) led the two-hour committee hearing examining the available evidence on the origins of COVID-19. CHD.TV aired the hearing.
The Chinese government refuses to release key data from the Wuhan Institute of Virology from around the time COVID-19 emerged, making it difficult to assess the lab-leak theory and come to a conclusion.
Nonetheless, much evidence points toward a lab leak rather than a natural spillover from animals, according to both expert witnesses Steven C. Quay, M.D., Ph.D. — CEO of Atossa Therapeutics Inc. and former faculty member at Stanford University's School of Medicine — and Richard H. Ebright, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and chemical biology and lab director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University.
Ebright is also on the leadership team of Biosafety Now, a nongovernmental organization that "advocates for reducing numbers of high-level biocontainment laboratories and for strengthening biosafety, biosecurity, and biorisk management for research on pathogens."
'1 in a billion' chance COVID emerged from nature
Quay — who began by telling the committee he was speaking "as an independent scientist" with no relevant financial ties — explained that the genome of SARS-CoV-2 has seven features that would be expected to be found in a virus constructed in a laboratory and which are not found in viruses from nature.
"The statistical probability of finding each feature in nature can be determined," Quay said, "and the combined probability that SARS2 came from nature is less than one in a billion."
Ebright said his extensive research and gathering of documents likewise pointed toward a lab leak.
He also said the "gain-of-function" research on potentially dangerous pathogens — like the experiments underway at the Wuhan Institute when COVID-19 emerged — "has no civilian application" but is easy for researchers to do and make money doing.
"Researchers undertake it because it is fast," Ebright said, "it is easy, it requires no specialized equipment or skills, and it was prioritized for funding and has been prioritized for publication by scientific journals."
"These are major incentives to researchers worldwide, in China and in the U.S.," he pointed out.
Moreover, gain-of-function research is largely unregulated, Ebright said.
There needs to be an independent agency that oversees and regulates this risky research, he said.
"Only after there is an acknowledgment," Ebright said, "that there is a very real possibility — not a remote possibility, but a very real possibility — of a lab origin will there be the political will to impose regulation on this scientific community that has successfully resisted and obstructed regulation for two decades."
Ebright added, "I see this acknowledgment today in a bipartisan fashion among members of this committee."
When asked how important it is that legislators pass a law to regulate gain-of-function research, Ebright said it's a "matter of survival."
"It's that important," Ebright said. "There needs to be an entity that is independent of agencies that fund research and perform research to eliminate the structural conflict of interest that has existed with current self-regulation by agencies that perform and fund research."
Paul said the committee will hold a hearing in the future focused on reforming gain-of-function research in the U.S.
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