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Scottish Sun
14 hours ago
- Health
- Scottish Sun
World Health Organisation admits they STILL have no idea what caused Covid pandemic – but refuses to rule out lab leak
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A LEADING theory that the Covid pandemic originated from a lab leak in China cannot be ruled out, the World Health Organisation said. A team of experts set up by the WHO in 2021 to investigate Covid's origins said 'all hypotheses remain on the table' - while also accusing Beijing of not giving up critical information. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 7 China's Wuhan lab has been at the centre of the lab leak theory since Covid emerged just miles from the facility 7 Staff members line up at attention as they prepare to spray disinfectant at Wuhan Railway Station 7 Dr Shi Zhengli - dubbed 'Batwoman' for her research on bat coronaviruses - at the Wuhan Institute of Virology The Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (Sago) said on Friday that most data suggests the idea that the virus jumped from animals to humans. This is the same conclusion the WHO came to in 2021. Watch the documentary in full on our YouTube channel here Their new report made the bombshell claim that a lab leak theory should "not be ruled out". But they added: "Nor can it be proven until more information is provided." Group chair Marietjie Venter said after three years of investigating, they were unable to come to a certain conclusion of the pandemic's origins. They blasted China for not releasing all necessary data to determine Covid's creation - despite hundreds of requests for genetic sequences and biosecurity information to the government. She Venter: "Therefore, this hypothesis could not be investigated or excluded. "It was deemed to be very speculative, based on political opinions and not backed up by science." Venter said the 27-member group could not reach a unanimous conclusion on Covid's origins, following one member's resignation earlier this week. Three other scientists also asked for their names to be removed from the new report. I was in Oval Office with Trump at start of pandemic - no one was closer to Chinese officials than me & I believe Covid was engineered in lab Covid-19 emerged just eight miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Scientists there had been importing and manipulating bat coronaviruses and had been filmed handling animals with inadequate protection. Venter added that there was no evidence proving Covid was created in a lab, nor was there any indication it was spreading before December 2019 anywhere outside of China. She said: "Until more scientific data becomes available, the origins of how SARS-CoV-2 entered human populations will remain inconclusive." Beijing has consistently refused to release full details about the lab in Wuhan, despite repeated requests for information from multiple countries. 7 A woman wearing a face mask holds a baby that wears a protective shield in Wuhan 7 The P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan Credit: AFP 7 Covid killed millions worldwide in the pandemic It comes after The Sun's explosive Covid lab leak documentary laid bare the mounting evidence and disturbing questions surrounding the virus's emergence in Wuhan - home to China's most secretive bio-research facility. In April, the US unveiled a bombshell new web page on the origins of Covid, blaming the Wuhan Institute of Virology for unleashing the killer virus. And in a fresh propaganda push, Beijing insisted "substantial evidence" showed Covid "might have emerged in the United States earlier than its officially-claimed timeline, and earlier than the outbreak in China". The document - titled Covid-19 Prevention, Control and Origins Tracing: China's Actions and Stance - was released via China's official Xinhua news agency. It unashamedly accused the US of "indifference and delayed actions" during the global Covid fight - and of scapegoating China to deflect from its own "mismanaged" response. It wrote: "The US has made China the primary scapegoat for its own mismanaged COVID-19 response." 7 Security guards keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology The report added that America was 'spreading misinformation' and wasted 'precious time China had secured for the global fight against the pandemic". It revived Beijing's long-standing claims that it shared information with the world in a "timely manner". The paper added: 'The US should not continue to 'pretend to be deaf and dumb', but should respond to the legitimate concerns of the international community.' In May Donald Trump banned all US funding for risky virus research in China and beyond, five years after Covid-19 upended the planet. The US President said in the Oval Office last month: 'I said that right from day one it leaked out — whether it was to the girlfriend or somebody else, [a] scientist walked outside to have lunch with the girlfriend or was together with a lot of people — but that's how it leaked out in my opinion."
The Irish Sun
14 hours ago
- Health
- The Irish Sun
World Health Organisation admits they STILL have no idea what caused Covid pandemic – but refuses to rule out lab leak
A LEADING theory that the Covid pandemic originated from a lab leak in China cannot be ruled out, the World Health Organisation said. A Advertisement 7 China's Wuhan lab has been at the centre of the lab leak theory since Covid emerged just miles from the facility 7 Staff members line up at attention as they prepare to spray disinfectant at Wuhan Railway Station 7 Dr Shi Zhengli - dubbed 'Batwoman' for her research on bat coronaviruses - at the Wuhan Institute of Virology The Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (Sago) said on Friday that most data suggests the This is the same Watch the documentary in full on our YouTube channel Their new But they added: "Nor can it be proven until more information is provided." Advertisement Group chair Marietjie Venter said after three years of investigating, they were unable to come to a certain They blasted China for not releasing all necessary data to determine Covid's creation - despite hundreds of requests for genetic sequences and biosecurity information to the She Venter: "Therefore, this hypothesis could not be investigated or excluded. "It was deemed to be very speculative, based on political opinions and not backed up by science." Advertisement Most read in The US Sun Venter said the 27-member group could not reach a unanimous conclusion on Three other scientists also asked for their names to be removed from the new report. I was in Oval Office with Trump at start of pandemic - no one was closer to Chinese officials than me & I believe Covid was engineered in lab Covid-19 emerged just eight miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Scientists there had been importing and manipulating bat coronaviruses and had been filmed handling animals with inadequate protection. Advertisement Venter added that there was no evidence proving Covid was created in a lab, nor was there any indication it was spreading before December 2019 anywhere outside of China. She said: "Until more scientific data becomes available, the origins of how SARS-CoV-2 entered human populations will remain inconclusive." Beijing has consistently refused to release full details about the lab in Wuhan, despite repeated requests for information from multiple countries. 7 A woman wearing a face mask holds a baby that wears a protective shield in Wuhan Advertisement 7 The P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan Credit: AFP 7 Covid killed millions worldwide in the pandemic It comes after The Sun's explosive Covid lab leak documentary laid bare the mounting evidence and disturbing questions surrounding the virus's emergence in Wuhan - home to China's most secretive bio-research facility. In April, the US unveiled a bombshell new Advertisement And in a fresh propaganda push, Beijing insisted "substantial evidence" showed Covid "might have emerged in the United States earlier than its officially-claimed timeline, and earlier than the outbreak in China". The document - titled Covid-19 Prevention, Control and Origins Tracing: China's Actions and Stance - was released via China's official Xinhua news agency. It unashamedly accused the US of "indifference and delayed actions" during the global Covid fight - and of scapegoating China to deflect from its own "mismanaged" response. It wrote: "The US has made China the primary scapegoat for its own mismanaged COVID-19 response." Advertisement 7 Security guards keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology The report added that America was 'spreading misinformation' and wasted 'precious time China had secured for the global fight against the pandemic". It revived Beijing's long-standing claims that it shared information with the world in a "timely manner". Advertisement The paper added: 'The US should not continue to 'pretend to be deaf and dumb', but should respond to the legitimate concerns of the international community.' Read more on the Irish Sun In May Donald Trump banned all US funding for risky virus research in China and beyond, five years after Covid-19 upended the planet. The US President said in the Oval Office last month: 'I said that right from day one it leaked out — whether it was to the girlfriend or somebody else, [a] scientist walked outside to have lunch with the girlfriend or was together with a lot of people — but that's how it leaked out in my opinion ." The Sun's investigation into the origins of Covid 'Smoking gun' docs show Pentagon US government Wuhan Covid 'lab leak' firm Covid was Crumbling sewers, no PPE, & filthy cages – Wuhan Covid 'lab leak' scientists China's Secret memo shows how Wuhan lab chief France
Gulf Insider
22-05-2025
- Health
- Gulf Insider
Masked NIH Employees Storm Out Of Meeting After Director Bhattacharya Questions Agency's Role In COVID-19 Origins
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), sparked a mass walkout of NIH employees after suggesting that COVID-19 may have originated from a Wuhan lab and that NIH helped fund it. During a staff town hall meeting on Monday, Bhattacharya told NIH employees, 'It's possible that the pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings, and it's also possible that the NIH partly sponsored that research.' That comment prompted dozens of NIH employees to walk out of the meeting. NEW: NIH Director @DrJBhattacharya sparks mass walkout from NIH employees after suggesting COVID-19 may have originated from the Wuhan lab — and that NIH helped fund it."It's possible that the pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings, and it's also possible… — KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) May 20, 2025 As the NIH employees, some wearing masks, stormed out of the meeting, Bhattacharya called after them, 'Nice to have free speech. You're welcome, you guys.' Bhattacharya told the remaining employees, 'If it's true that we sponsored research that caused the pandemic — and if you look at polls of the American people, that's what most people believe, and I've looked at the scientific evidence and I believe it — [then] what we have to do is make sure that we don't engage in research that is any risk…to human populations.' The U.S. has faced growing scrutiny for the NIH's participation in controversial virus manipulation experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology where the FBI and CIA both believe the COVID-19 virus originated. As the new director of NIH, Bhattacharya has also faced a $2.7 billion cut in funding from the federal government as well as the layoffs of more than 1,200 staff members. Bhattacharya has argued that the cuts are necessary since, 'There's been a line of research supported by the NIH that I don't actually fundamentally believe is scientific and that is ideological in nature.' The new NIH director became well known during the pandemic for his support of the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for ending lockdowns for all but the most vulnerable.
New York Post
19-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Trump must make China pay for the death and misery its COVID virus unleashed
When a nation bears the blame for more than 7 million deaths worldwide, what is Washington going to do? More than 1.2 million Americans died as a result of a plague that began in China. Those staggering global and US figures are the numbers reported to the World Health Organization. They make the COVID-19 pandemic the deadliest event the human race has suffered since World War II. The presence of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the city where the scourge originated raised suspicions from the start — was this an unnatural disaster? China was studying coronaviruses in that laboratory, conducting 'gain of function' research that often makes pathogens more infectious and deadly, yet much of America's media reflexively dismissed any possibility of a lab leak, calling it a conspiracy theory born of racist paranoia. That labeling didn't silence the discussion, however: If anything, hearing many of the same organizations that staked their credibility on assurances of Joe Biden's physical and mental fitness to serve as president insist a lab-leak scenario is just a conspiracy theory has made some Americans all the more determined to ask the questions they're told they mustn't ask. Now the Trump administration has weighed in, unveiling a new White House web page last month titled, 'Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19.' But if President Donald Trump thinks Chinese experiments are responsible for more than a million American deaths, how tough is he willing to get on Beijing? He's prepared to punish other nations for the toll their trade strategies have taken on us in mere dollar terms. China is the biggest offender in that respect — but the cost of COVID has been incalculably greater, in lives, not just national wealth. The president hit China with staggering tariffs on 'Liberation Day' April 2, and if 'liberation' meant anything, it was supposed to mean freeing America from Beijing's economic power. Yet disentangling the trade relationship between China and America is painful and difficult, and with Wall Street howling in agony, Trump has pulled back, dropping the tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30% for the next 90 days, after he had already carved out exceptions for products like smartphones and computers. China is economically vulnerable right now, as more manufacturing moves to neighboring nations where wages are lower, including India and Vietnam. Trump has the tools to change China's place in the world economy, keeping it from becoming so central to the global system that no nation could hold it responsible for the next horror emerging from the caves or labs of the Middle Kingdom. Rather than easing the tariffs on China, the administration should put Beijing at a comparative disadvantage and prioritize tariff relief for the developing nations that are China's emerging rivals — and, in many cases, its wary neighbors. Punitive measures against the Chinese economy won't bring back the victims of COVID, of course. But they must not be forgotten, either, and there is a moral dimension to constraining China just as surely as there are strategic and economic ones. The moral indictments against the Chinese Communist Party were overwhelming even before COVID, with the party guilty over decades for the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese and the ongoing oppression of billions, to say nothing of the occupation of Tibet and brutal torments inflicted upon Uyghurs and other minorities and dissenters. None of that criminality stopped the rest of the world, including wrongheaded American administrations, from accepting China as an indispensable partner in trade, helping the communist regime rise to superpower status — an aspiring hegemon in its region with outposts and economic colonies spread across the globe. Yet the whole world felt the lash of COVID, and if that searing experience doesn't change the way the community of nations handles risks from China, there will be more to come. Nothing was able to stop the pestilence that began in China six years ago, but a war that might prove deadlier still can be averted by wise measures now. That means taking the strongest economic steps to build up the fearful neighbors who can hem Beijing in, and stepping away from the trade relationship that hollowed out our industries while building China's factories. Think of it as social distancing on a grand scale. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review.
American Military News
06-05-2025
- Health
- American Military News
Videos: Trump bans ‘dangerous' gain-of-function research funding
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday to ban all federal funding for 'dangerous' gain-of-function research in 'countries of concern,' such as China and Iran, and for research in foreign countries that is 'likely to cause another pandemic.' In a fact sheet accompanying the president's executive order, the White House explained that Trump's order will 'drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology.' According to Fox News, gain-of-function research, which was conducted at the Wuhan Lab in China prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, usually involves the modification of a virus to make it stronger or more infectious. 'For decades, policies overseeing gain-of-function research on pathogens, toxins, and potential pathogens have lacked adequate enforcement, transparency, and top-down oversight,' the White House wrote in the fact sheet. 'Researchers have not acknowledged the legitimate potential for societal harms that this kind of research poses.' READ MORE: Fmr. top Democrat behind major Covid 'cover-up,' House GOP says The White House explained that the president has 'long theorized that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and has consistently pushed for transparency in investigating its origins.' Trump's executive order will prohibit federal funding for 'dangerous' gain-of-function research in 'foreign nations deemed to have insufficient research oversight.' The White House emphasized that the order is intended to prevent 'lab accidents and other biosecurity incidents,' while still allowing 'productive biological research' designed to keep the United States prepared for 'biological threats' and at the forefront of health and biosecurity research. Trump described Monday's executive order regarding gain-of-function research as a 'big deal.' '[It] could have been that we wouldn't have had the problem we had if we had this done earlier,' Trump said. Trump signs an executive order to end federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function research — The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 5, 2025 Highlighting the potential dangers of gain-of-function research, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that while gain-of-function research has traditionally been defended as a tool to create vaccines to 'counter a future pandemic,' 'in all of the history of gain-of-function research, we can't point to a single good thing that's come from it.' RFK Jr.: 'In all the history of gain-of-function research, we can't point to a single good thing that has come from it.' — The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 5, 2025
