China’s Wuhan Virus Research Awaits Exposure by Key Witnesses

This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory (C) on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei Province on May 27, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

Commentary

White House adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, who directed U.S. funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), often testifies to government committees. Congress has yet to hear from others who are familiar with the WIV, such as Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance.

The House Foreign Affairs committee has found “strong evidence that suggests Daszak is the public face of a CCP [Chinese Communist Party] disinformation campaign designed to suppress discussion about a possible lab leak.” According to a report from the committee’s Republican minority, Daszak “attempted to hide his close association with [China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology] while he referred to anyone in the scientific community who said a lab leak should be investigated as promoting a conspiracy theory.”

According to the report, Daszak also orchestrated a letter in the Lancet purporting to debunk the lab-leak as a conspiracy theory, and teamed with Chinese collaborators to intimidate scientists who remained skeptical. In an April 18, 2020 email, Daszak thanks Fauci for “publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” which conducted dangerous gain-of-function research to make viruses more lethal and transmissible. Fauci maintains the virus that causes COVID-19 developed naturally in the wild.

This evidence makes a case that Daszak should testify to Congress, under oath. So should Dr. Nancy Messonnier, former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Messonnier brokered the news about the pandemic.

In a series of telebriefings in early 2020, Messonnier repeatedly referred to a “novel coronavirus” and a “new virus” that would “gain a foothold in the U.S.” Messonnier, who started her CDC career with the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), did not indicate what was novel about this virus, where the virus came from, or how the virus could spread in the United States.

When asked about travelers from Wuhan to the United States, Messonnier told reporters that was “not something that I’m at liberty to talk about today” but did not reveal which U.S. official laid down the restriction, or why. When reporters asked if China was being truthful about the pandemic, Messonnier said, “We have a lot of information from China,” but did not explain the content.

Current CDC director Rochelle Walensky hailed Messonnier as a “true hero” but she was reassigned last May, then suddenly resigned with no explanation. Messonnier has now taken a position as executive director for Pandemic Prevention and Health Systems at the Skoll Foundation. There is no bar against calling Messonnier to testify before Congress, under oath. A Chinese researcher who should join her is Dr. Xiangguo Qiu.

From a leading post at Canada’s National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, Qiu shipped to the WIV a cargo of deadly pathogens, including Ebola Makona, Mayinga, Kikwit, Ivory Coast, Bundibugyo, Sudan Boniface, Sudan Gulu, MA-Ebov, GP-Ebov, GP-Sudan, Henra, Nipah Malaysia, and Nipah Bangladesh.

Qiu worked closely with four facilities believed to be involved in Chinese biological weapons development, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In 2017-2018 alone, Qiu made at least five trips to the Wuhan lab. And in August 2017, the National Health Commission of China approved research activities involving the Ebola, Nipah, and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever viruses at the Wuhan facility.

When her shipment of pathogens was discovered, Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng were “escorted” from the NML by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and eventually dismissed from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Qiu stacks up as the most informative witness on the COVID-19 pandemic. But at the time of writing, reporters are unable to locate her.

Until the Chinese researcher can be located, Congress should call Peter Daszak and Nancy Messonnier and put them under oath. What are they helping China to hide? Embattled Americans have a right to know. Meanwhile, on the origin of the pandemic, read “The Science Suggests a Wuhan Lab Leak,” by Steven Quay and Richard Muller.

As the authors conclude, “The presence of the double CGG sequence is strong evidence of gene splicing, and the absence of diversity in the public outbreak suggests gain-of-function acceleration. The scientific evidence points to the conclusion that the virus was developed in a laboratory.”

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.