While much critical writing on the Covid origins issue has focused upon Dr Fauci, there is another key player less discussed, Dr Peter Daszek. Here is how he fits into the great Covid story. In some respects, he is as important, if not more so to the present state of affairs than Fauci.
“There are two prevailing theories about the origins of SARS-CoV-2. The first is that SARS-CoV-2 emerged naturally and jumped from wildlife to humans, with or without an intermediary host. The other is that the virus was being kept and/or studied in a lab, from which it escaped.
Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, is one of the most ardent supporters of the natural origins theory. He told The Associated Press in November 2020 that SARS-CoV-2 could have passed from a wildlife poacher to a trader who brought it to Wuhan. Daszak also organized the publication of a scientific statement, published in The Lancet and signed by 26 additional scientists, condemning such inquiries as “conspiracy theory.”
Daszak, however, is part of the World Health Organization team that investigated the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and has a long history of close ties to the Chinese laboratory in question — the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), from where it appears increasingly likely that the virus emerged.
The video, “Deception in America Episode One: The Tale of Peter Daszak,” presents a succinct history of his involvement, as well as that of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and who has also long backed dangerous coronavirus research, including that conducted by EcoHealth Alliance. According to the film:
“From the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, said to have begun some time in December of 2019, the battle to control the narrative has been fought ferociously by global organizations, CEOs, billionaires and the programs at the center of the Wuhan Institute of Virology controversy … Despite his attempts to shift the blame to anyone else but himself and his team, all roads eventually lead back to Daszak.”
EcoHealth Alliance Is the Middleman for NIAID’s WIV Funding
EcoHealth Alliance is a nonprofit organization that receives millions in funding every year from NIAID, and then gives it to WIV. In fact, the film reveals that, since 2002, EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak have received over 32 grants worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from NIH, with most coming from NIAID:
“Over the years, Peter Daszak and the Ecohealth Alliance have received $5,764,128 from the Fogarty International Center and $7,875,012 from the NIAID, for a grand total of $13,639,140.”
EcoHealth Alliance also has contracts with other government departments worth millions of dollars. The following contracts are among them:
- $4.5 million with the Department of Defense (DOD)
- $2.9 million with DOD
- $499,000 with the National Science Foundation
- $566,000 with the Department of Homeland Security
- $1.2 million with the Department of Commerce
There are many others as well. According to USASpending.gov, EcoHealth Alliance has 36 contracts with various government agencies. Over the years, the organization has been awarded $61.5 million, with DOD chief among its funders, giving them a total of $41.9 million. Overall, 91% of EcoHealth Alliance’s funding comes from government grants.
Daszak Joins the Lancet Commission on COVID-19
Daszak has extensive connections, including having worked for the Center of Infection and Immunity at Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, alongside colleague Jeffrey Sachs, the former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia. Sachs, also an adviser to the United Nations, spearheaded the Millennium Villages project, which was an attempt to reduce extreme poverty in Africa, supporting a shift to self-sufficiency.
While the project claimed to be a success, an evaluation in 2012 revealed its goals were unrealistic and serious questions were raised about the project’s ability to create long-lasting impact, along with its cost-effectiveness.
Sachs also wrote a number of articles in support of China, stating, for instance, that “the U.S., not China, is the real threat to international law,” and was named chair of the Lancet Commission on COVID-19. He then named Daszak as one of the commissioners.
“Peter Daszak’s constant involvement with people like Jeffrey Sachs and the World Economic Forum suggests that he could be another one of those types of men who are so disconnected with reality that they will do anything to shape the world, not realizing what they are doing,” the film noted.
In fact, in a Tweet from May 10, 2011, EcoHealth Alliance wrote, “Q for the crowd: is western style democracy, a la USA, compatible with sustainability? Or is eastern style (a la China) better?” As further noted by the film:
“Peter Daszak’s Ecohealth Alliance receives far more in funding from the U.S. government, including grants from the Department of Defense, among others. He is also closely associated with Jeffrey Sachs via Columbia, who frequently appears alongside George Soros in talks and seminars.
Daszak is very well connected to many globalist enterprises and their organizers. His own organization touts the sustainable development goal model, originally devised by Jeffrey Sachs.
So, when Peter Daszak deflects and says his team and their research that are directly involved the Wuhan Virology Lab has nothing to do with the SARS coronavirus outbreak in 2019, it follows a pattern that the organizations he surrounds himself with do, wherein they blame a lack of funding, or other outside factors. It is never his fault.”
Daszak’s Gain-of-Function Research
Gain-of-function (GOF) research refers to studies that have the potential to enhance the ability of pathogens to cause disease, including enhancing either their pathogenicity or transmissibility. Such research is by its very nature controversial, since there are clear risks should the information be misused or the pathogens escape (or are maliciously released).
Jonathan Latham, Ph.D., a molecular biologist and virologist and Allison Wilson, Ph.D., a geneticist, are among those who believe gain-of-function research performed at WIV played "an essential causative role in the pandemic."15 However, Daszak continues to say emerging infectious diseases come from climate change and ecological drivers, ignoring the gain-of-function research that he and his organization are directly involved with.
For instance, as reported by Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director for the Organic Consumers Association, EcoHealth Alliance lists WIV and the Wuhan University School of Public Health as subcontractors under a $3.7-million NIH grant titled, “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”
EcoHealth Alliance also used a sub-grant17 from the University of California at Davis to fund a gain-of-function experiment by Shi Zhengli, Ph.D., the director of WIV’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, also known as “bat woman,” and colleague Ralph Baric from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, involving the use of genetic engineering to create a “new bat SARS-like virus ... that can jump directly from its bat hosts to humans.” According to Baden-Maye:
“The work, ‘A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence,’ published in Nature in 2015 during the NIH’s moratorium19 on gain-of-function research, was grandfathered in because it was initiated before the moratorium … and because the request by Shi and Baric to continue their research during the moratorium was approved by the NIH.
As a condition of publication, Nature, like most scientific journals, requires authors to submit new DNA and RNA sequences to GenBank, the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information Database. Yet the new SARS-like virus Shi and Baric created wasn’t deposited in GenBank until May 2020.”
Unacceptable Risks of a Man-Made Pandemic
Daszak and WHO officials continue to state that safety guidelines make it very unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 could have escaped from a lab, but a paper published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists22 revealed in 2012 that it’s a matter of when, not if, a potential pandemic pathogen (PPP) escapes.
At the time, they noted that there were at least 42 facilities engaged in research on live PPPs, “and the actual number is likely higher.” Using a conservative estimate that the probability for escape from a lab in a year is 0.3%, they found:
“[This] translates to an 80 percent likelihood of escape from at least one of the 42 labs every 12.8 years, a time interval smaller than those that have separated influenza pandemics in the 20th century. This level of risk is clearly unacceptable.”
In fact, biosecurity breaches in high containment biological labs in the U.S. and around the world have occurred with surprising frequency, and as the film noted:
“It is hardly reassuring that despite increased policy demands for rigorous biosecurity procedures, potentially high-consequence breaches occur nearly daily. In 2010, 244 unintended releases of bioweapon candidate ‘select agents’ were reported. Being practical, the question is not if such escapes will result in a major civilian outbreak, but what the pathogen will be and how well it can be contained, if it can be contained at all.”
WHO’s investigative commission, tasked with identifying the origin of SARS-CoV-2, announced the Wuhan Institute of Virology and two other biosafety level 4 laboratories in Wuhan, China, had nothing to do with the COVID-19 outbreak in February 2021. Since then, WIV deleted mentions of its collaboration with the NIAID/NIH and other U.S. research partners from its website. It also deleted descriptions of gain-of-function research on the SARS virus.
Several members of the U.S. Congress have now vowed to launch their own investigation to explore the lab accident theory. The Energy and Commerce Committee has also requested extensive records from both the NIH and EcoHealth Alliance detailing research and collaborations with WIV.
If SARS-CoV-2 did, in fact, come from a lab, it shows clearly that gain-of-function research is the real threat and reason for locking down the healthy and highlights the disturbing truth that any such pathogen manufactured to infect humans can be designated as a biological weapon, even if it was created with non-nefarious intentions.”