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Third of Team Appointed by WHO to Investigate Origins of Covid Have Conflicts of Interest

by Toby Young
17 October 2021 10:03 AM

The World Health Organisation is embroiled in a new scandal: at least a third of its team investigating the origins of COVID-19, appointed last week, have conflicts of interest due to research links or previous statements about the disease. Ian Birrell in the Mail on Sunday has more.

The team of 26 scientists, selected from 700 applicants, were named last week after the UN body had its initial efforts frustrated by China and was then widely criticised after they declared it “extremely unlikely” that the pandemic began with a laboratory leak.

Michael Ryan, a senior WHO official, said the new Scientific Advisory Group on the Origins of Novel Pathogens (Sago) had possibly the last chance to discover the origins of Covid-19 “in a collegiate, collective and mutually responsible way”.

Yet there is growing dismay over the inclusion of seven members of the discredited previous group, whose findings echoed the Beijing regime’s line – alongside others who have dismissed fears of a lab incident as conspiracy theory.

Tory MP Bob Seely, of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said: “Why does the new team include people who are compromised? Two whitewashes are not better than one. The world is owed a robust independent inquiry.”

The seven members of the previous study group include British professor John Watson and Dutch scientist Marion Koopmans.

Koopmans runs a viroscience department collaborating with EcoHealth Alliance, the US organisation headed by British scientist Peter Daszak, which funded high-risk bat-virus experiments in Wuhan.

She has published 27 papers with her colleague Ron Fouchier, one of the world’s most controversial researchers into ‘gain of function’ experiments, which aim to make animal viruses more transmissible and able to infect humans.

New members of the WHO team include German virologist Christian Drosten, who signed an influential Lancet statement last year that attacked “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin” and praised Beijing’s “rapid, open and transparent sharing of data”.

One of the two biosafety specialists is Kathrin Summermatter, a Swiss scientist who has praised the security of Chinese labs and said the idea of a research incident is “a classic conspiracy theory”.

Filippa Lentzos, a biosecurity expert at King’s College London, has insisted that it is vital to keep all theories open, and said: “There appear to be many in the group who do not have an open mind – an essential quality in any scientific investigative team.”

You can read the story in the Mail on Sunday here.

Tags: Covid originsLab Leak TheoryWHO

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32 Comments
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PhantomOfLiberty
PhantomOfLiberty
3 years ago

I think they are telling us what happened anyway. Hundreds of Fauci FOI emails show there was a cover up – what’s the point of going to Wuhan: the Chinese are withholding documents which could be made to appear instantly on the World Wide Web. Ten days ago I watched a BMJ seminar where a dozen health officials played dumb: one of them admitted there was cover up but said that didn’t prove anything. Well, actually it proves there was cover up, and why do you have a cover up: BECAUSE SOMETHING HAPPENED AND EVERYONE KNOWS REALLY. And what are they doing: THEY ARE WASTING EVERYONE’S TIME.

Last edited 3 years ago by PhantomOfLiberty
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PhantomOfLiberty
PhantomOfLiberty
3 years ago
Reply to  PhantomOfLiberty

Gratifying, to find that Marion Koopmans – who was on Fauci’s original cover up conference is there again. Note that first person on Fauci’s list is Patrick Vallance https://uncoverdc.com/2021/07/14/faucis-emergency-teleconference-the-players/

13
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PhantomOfLiberty
PhantomOfLiberty
3 years ago
Reply to  PhantomOfLiberty

Not to put too fine a point on it the same stinking liars who were in charge of global health two years ago are still directing it. Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the Wuhan World Military Games and of the other military game in New York, Event 201.

11
0
Hopeless
Hopeless
3 years ago

A fig-leaf “investigation”, blatantly rigged. The un-brainwashed part of the world has it firmly in mind that the Chinese (and probably others) are at the back of this disease. That being so, what would result from a skewed enquiry other than exoneration of all possible guilty parties and “bad actors”.

Even if it were, by some miracle, to find a Chinese source, what then would ensue? A garbled report and nothing else whatsoever.

24
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BeBopRockSteady
BeBopRockSteady
3 years ago
Reply to  Hopeless

It happened in China, the players are global and knee deep it it.

They have to stack this for a whitewash, as obvious as it is. They have no other option, otherwise they’ll have to admit their complicity and that would be suicide.

9
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jennyw
jennyw
3 years ago
Reply to  BeBopRockSteady

Indeed. I wasn’t surprised one bit to see the name Christian Drosten pop up in the WHO’s so called investigation team. The corrupt are a close knit global circle of cretins.

cast.jpg
Last edited 3 years ago by jennyw
3
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crisisgarden
crisisgarden
3 years ago

Let’s not rush to judgement and assume that this is just another piece of theatre intended to give the impression that the WHO is interested in world health or the truth.

Actually, no, I’ve decided to rush to judgement; forget that.

25
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Annie
Annie
3 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

No need to rush. The judgement was certain and obvious from the beginning of the entire, lying bollox.

26
-1
Barbara Baker
Barbara Baker
3 years ago

So, is this also the same Christian Drosten who “invented” the gold standard RT-PCR test that has driven all this madness? I suspect so

30
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David101
David101
3 years ago
Reply to  Barbara Baker

Absolutely. He firstly produced a workflow of the RT-PCR tests as a diagnostic tool and the test-kits went viral after the WHO accepted it (despite never having been intended as a diagnostic tool – only a research tool). Next came the dissention-silencing letter to the Lancet “standing strongly against” conspiracy theories, signed by none other than Drosten. THEN he was appointed to the EC’s advisory panel on Covid-19!
This is a man with some kind of clout when it comes to marketing the illusion of a natural pandemic.

14
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PhantomOfLiberty
PhantomOfLiberty
3 years ago
Reply to  David101

And he was on Fauci’s emergency call too, with Koopmans on 1 Feb 20 although Patrick Vallance was Fauci’s principle addressee

https://uncoverdc.com/2021/07/14/faucis-emergency-teleconference-the-players/

So comforting to know the special relationship is in good shape.

12
0
Bungle
Bungle
3 years ago
Reply to  Barbara Baker

Well spotted Babs. I think they’re having a giraffe!

3
0
eastender53
eastender53
3 years ago
Reply to  Barbara Baker

It’s far far worse. Drosten actually ‘developed’ the markers that tell Kary Mullis’ perfectly legitimate process what to look for. Drosten was doing this before there was any talk of a pandemic. Lacking the complete makeup of the virus (it’s never been isolated, to this day), he took took the bits the Chinese had given him and filled in the blanks with ‘similar virus fragments’. His paper was peer reviewed and published within two days. A cursory glance at the reviewers shrieks conflict of interest.

One more thing about Drosten. To obtain the qualification he claims to have earned requires the lodging of three copies of the thesis with the University. In his case two cannot be found and the third is so badly ‘water damaged’ as to be unreadable. Reiner Fuellmich and his team have him in their sights.

The appointment of him and others to this inquiry shows how intoxicated with power and corruption the whole edifice has become. We know, they know that we know, and they simply don’t care.

12
0
RickH
RickH
3 years ago

The shit-show has brought tumbling down any idea of trust in reasonably objective investigation – into anything.

It’s easy to say ‘Twas always thus. Really’ – but this is definitely a different order of the problem, and the very idea of ‘science’ goes out the window, along with the concept of reasonably reliable information.

Of course, absolute objectivity is a chimera – but there are rational boundaries, and these have been breached continually, to the point where the WHO as the lead organisation has no credibility to start with.

The HoC report was but one illustration of how ‘investigations’ now have no problem with simply justifying preconceptions based on ludicrous ‘evidence’.

Last edited 3 years ago by RickH
30
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PatrickF
PatrickF
3 years ago

All in the WHO are liars.

16
0
Rowan
Rowan
3 years ago
Reply to  PatrickF

Not just the WHO, look no further than our own cuddly government.

16
0
brachiopod
brachiopod
3 years ago

Has anyone explained why Dr David Martin isn’t on the panel? After all he seems to know where all the bodies are buried in the US Patent Office.

11
0
Barbara Baker
Barbara Baker
3 years ago
Reply to  brachiopod

I think you answered your own question….

7
0
Anonymous
Anonymous
3 years ago

“two whitewashes are not better than one.”
I think that quote will become one of my all-time favourites.
I’ve never seen or heard it said, and could well be wrong, but I cannot help but feel we’re mistakenly doing second things first: –
Establishment entities are unlikely to change a situation in which they’re ‘establishment’. If situation changes, they’re likely to quickly follow suit to be ‘establishment’ in that situation.
Courts, WHO etc are ‘establishment’.
That leaves the grass-roots to change situation, then ask ‘establishment’ to establish that situation.
Violence won’t change situation except to get it reinforced by ‘establishment’.
As grass-roots we’re under – ideal place to pull rug from under high-ups’ feet.
I’m sure that ‘every little does help’. Individually we’re powerless but collectively we’re far more numerous than the higher-ups.
If each came up with their own ideas of how, did them in their personal sphere and shared their ideas, I think there’d be so many different ideas happening all over the place, the higher-ups couldn’t cope with the variety and scatter of ‘happenings’.
We can’t do big ‘happenings’ but we can do a wide variety of tiny widely-scattered ones. The more the merrier because the more effective

13
0
CynicalRealist
CynicalRealist
3 years ago

It probably doesn’t really matter who is carrying out the investigation – the CCP is never going to allow the lab to release documentation which would cast China in a bad light. We can all form an opinion based on the information currently available (and most of us on here would probbaly reckon that it was manufacturerd and did come from that lab). It’s not likely that it will ever be definitively proven one way or the other though.

10
-1
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago

The WHO is a wholly discreditable and dangerous outfit stuffed with charlatans. I would not believe anything that it has to say.

16
0
RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Outside of pandemic paradise times, the WHO is busy with stuff like try to convince people they’ll die of cancer when they drink milk. Of course, they have a statistics linking both.

4
0
JP Sand
JP Sand
3 years ago

Kudos, Toby! It would be fantastic to know: how many of WHO’s covid-origins investigative team are FULLY VACCINATED? That’s news we could use.

6
0
Bungle
Bungle
3 years ago

Just heard WHO is changing its name to HOW – second line in small letters ‘do we keep conning the lemmings?’

4
0
JP Sand
JP Sand
3 years ago
Reply to  Bungle

As it is, we’ve got: WHO keeps conning the lemmings?

3
0
RW
RW
3 years ago

I keep wondering why people want to know this (the true origins of Sars-CoV2).

So-called gain of function research is no research at all. It’s people trying to combine their imagination with high-tech in an attempt to out-Frankenstein Frankenstein in order to create pathogens more likely to make humans really sick. Activities one would usually associate with the mad scientist or Bond villain tropes. It doesn’t matter if they genuinely believe to do something sensible, it obviously ain’t so and their toys should be taken from them before the do any real damage as they’re lacking the judgement to be trusted with anything possibly dangerous to others.

But that’s true regardless of the origins of Sars-CoV2. It’s there, hence, we need to deal with it, preferably in a more intelligent way than Chinese party geronocrats or wokesters suffering from permanent hysteria. It doesn’t really matter where it came from.

Last edited 3 years ago by RW
4
-2
Bungle
Bungle
3 years ago
Reply to  RW

Nice comment RW but I do think it matters as the gain of function was between Wuhan and the University of north Carolina and this type of ‘research’ had previously been banned by the Obama administration. Because we know where it came from, we could, theoretically, stop them doing it again, but, the people don’t know, don’t want to know and would say black is white whatever they saw!

0
0
JohnnyDollar
JohnnyDollar
3 years ago

Especially the shyster puppet right at the top

1
0
swedenborg
swedenborg
3 years ago

https://www.commentary.org/articles/james-meigs/covid-fauci-lab-leak-gain-of-function/

A recommended article about this topic.

0
0
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
3 years ago

How else are they going to come up with the ‘right’ answer if they’re not conflicted?

0
0
IanC
IanC
3 years ago

A third with conflicts of interest? That’s just the ones who haven’t covered their tracks very well. Probably more like three quarters.

1
0
imp66
imp66
3 years ago

WHO’d have thought…Pigs in troughs… self-serving b’stards…

0
0

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