Peter Daszak has a new grant from the NIH to study bat coronaviruses in the wild

https://reporter.nih.gov/search/0jAp779zVkaN-DEsKnKa5A/project-details/10522470

by nailer • 4 years ago

76 32 4 years ago

reporter.nih.gov

qualifiedai• 4 years ago

what could possibly go wrong this time!

I strongly recommend “Viral” by Ridley and Chan to those who haven’t read it.

ciguy• 4 years ago

How is this guy not in jail yet? Much less out there receiving more grants?

tru3_power• 4 years ago

What’s the backstory here? Why would he be in jail? Also the link in the original post has almost zero detail on what this grant is for.

_-david-_• 4 years ago

He is possibly responsible for the creation of covid.

He is the president of EcoHealth Alliance who was helping fund research into corona viruses and gain of function in Wuhan. He also was involved with the WHO investigation on the lab leak hypothesis despite his conflict of interest and basically denied it could have come from the lab.

uup2• 4 years ago

A lot of backstory on this guy and his organization: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-no...

TLDR is that this guy was acting as a fundraiser for research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology where they were specifically making novel coronaviruses, e.g. by creating chimeric viruses of SARS and MERS, and then using those viruses for gain of function research, e.g. by infecting humanized lung tissue in mice.

LatteLazy3• 4 years ago

There is a crazy conspiracy theory that he created COVID 19. It's nonsense but people lap it up and pretend they're part of some secret club who alone know the truth.

braydenm• 4 years ago

"Grant proposal: Many people believe a dormant Balrog resides under the Misty Mountains and poses an ongoing threat to the people of Middle Earth. We propose an expedition to awaken the Balrog in order to observe and characterise its unique dangers." - https://mobile.twitter.com/robertwiblin/status/1576712748481...

AbrahamParangi2• 4 years ago

We’ve had one, yes. But what about second Covid?

peteradio• 4 years ago

You have my sword.

And you have my bow!

And my CASH! - NIH

egberts1• 4 years ago

Unintended gain of function.

yucky• 4 years ago

"Unintended"

photochemsyn• 4 years ago

Corruption in American academia isn't restricted to professors publishing cooked-up data on a regular basis, it's also seen in the funding structure of the major agencies, where insiders funnel grants to their loyal apparatchiks further down the feeding tree.

Really, anyone interested in this topic needs to start with a little dive into the procedures and practices of Trofim Lysenko within the Soviet Academic system (c.1925-1965). Everyone who supported Lysenko's theories got grants and promotions - those who didn't, exited the field.

A similar dynamic exists between advocates of active gain-of-funcdion research at the NIH and affiliates, and various funding decisions.

throwawaybutwhy• 4 years ago

The NIAID is just a civilian arm of the biological research Gorgon. Without active involvement (and nudge-nudging, wink-winking) of the government there would be no gain-of-function studies.

m0llusk2• 4 years ago

This proposal appears to be nothing more than a broad survey involving sampling and screening. This does not culture anything or infect any animals or any such.

dTal• 4 years ago

Sampling is also risky, as it involves traipsing around in bat caves taking samples, hopefully with adequate PPE, and then driving into big cities to study them. It's one of the possible vectors for Covid-19.

conception• 4 years ago

True but it’s also how we found the SARS source. Knowing where infections are living has value.

peyton2• 4 years ago

The guy just had a grant terminated for failing to turn over records.

m0llusk2• 4 years ago

There are multiple stories about what happened to that grant. Demands were made by the NIH suddenly and without precedent. Failing to meet those demands is what got the grant terminated. The motivations for the demands are apparently political rather than scientific and according to some are a "horrible precedent" that may break some explicit ethics rules about how grants and handled. This is particularly sad now that we have essentially proven that the wet market was the source of the virus. This was all about a made up narrative that was intended to serve political ends instead of being motivated by science and the quest for truth.

qclibre22• 4 years ago

The optics of this are bad. I'm surprised NIH bureaucrats let this one through. While the science objectives may be okay, perhaps another group could have done it.

dadjoker• 4 years ago

To say this is bats*t crazy is incredibly appropriate.

philcrocket• 4 years ago

Great summary of what's going on from Saager on Breaking Points. You can search for "Fauci CAUGHT Funding Lab Leak Research, Culprit AGAIN" on YT or direct link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBEEjeG6Xls

pcdoodle• 4 years ago

Oh great. Hopefully it doesn't become fauci 2.0.

Peter Daszak has a new grant from the NIH to study bat coronaviruses in the wild

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