In my recent article on ‘The Greatest Story Never Told: German Virology in Wuhan – and Montana‘, I asked:
If you were a detective investigating a crime – for instance, the creation of a supposedly deadly virus (whether it was in fact so deadly is, of course, another matter) – whose behaviour would you find suspicious? The behaviour of those who themselves expressed concern about a lab-leak and were keen on investigating the matter… or the behaviour of those who were dismissive and defensive and tried to shut the conversation down?
The allusion was to the famous ‘Fauci e-mails‘ and the even more famous February 1st 2020 conference call in which a select group of international scientists and public health officials discussed the possibility of an artificial, laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2.
As we know from the e-mails, those who were dismissive and defensive and tried to shut the conversation down were the Dutch gain-of-function researcher Ron Fouchier and, above all, Germany’s Covid oracle and designer of the ‘gold standard’ COVID-19 PCR test, Christian Drosten. Those who expressed concern about a possible lab origin of SARS-CoV-2 and were keen on investigating the possibility were a group of Anglosphere researchers led by the U.S.-based Danish virologist Kristian Andersen, who first brought the matter to the attention of Anthony Fauci, and indeed Fauci himself.
Far from appearing like some mastermind or evil genius behind the gain-of-function experiments which many suspect gave rise to SARS-CoV-2, the picture which emerges of Fauci in the e-mails is that of someone who is seriously out-of-his-depth and unfamiliar with the subject matter. (See, for instance, the February 8th email in which he asks whether serial passage in a laboratory could have the same effect as natural adaptation in the wild and admits that “this is not my specific area of expertise”.)
But there is also someone else who expressed concern about a possible lab origin of SARS-CoV-2 and called for an investigation: namely, none other than Ralph Baric, the very American virologist who in the most popular theory of a laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2 is regarded as the very ‘father’ of the virus! Moreover, Baric did not only express concern and call for the matter to be investigated behind-the-scenes. He did so publicly.
Baric is thus one of the signatories of a May 2021 letter in the journal Science which is simply titled “Investigate the origins of COVID-19”. The letter criticised a recently published joint WHO-China study for giving short-shrift to the laboratory hypothesis. “Although there were no findings in clear support of either a natural spillover or a lab accident,” the authors noted,
the team assessed a zoonotic spillover from an intermediate host as “likely to very likely” and a laboratory incident as “extremely unlikely”. Furthermore, the two theories were not given balanced consideration. Only four of the 313 pages of the report and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory accident.
“We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data,” the authors insisted.
The other signatories include Alina Chan, one of the most well-known and dogged defenders of the lab-origin hypothesis and co-author with Matt Ridley of Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19.
Contrast Baric’s public support for pursuing the laboratory hypothesis with the behaviour of Christian Drosten. Not only, as shown in my previous article, was Drosten calling behind-the-scenes, in the e-mails, for the lab-leak theory to be “debunked” and “dropped”, he is also a signatory of the now infamous February 19th 2020 statement in The Lancet, which amounts to a nearly tearful appeal to ‘leave the Wuhan Institute of Virology alone!’
“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” the authors (also including Peter Daszak and Jeremy Farrar) wrote,
Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus. … We want you, the science and health professionals of China, to know that we stand with you in your fight against this virus.
Why was Christian Drosten so nervous about the emergence of the lab-leak hypothesis in early 2020 and why was he so eager to put it to rest? Was it merely because of his heartfelt concern for the hurt feelings of the researchers of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)? Or was it because he feared that a serious investigation into the possibility of a lab-leak in Wuhan would ultimately lead to the joint German-Chinese lab in the city, which is co-directed by his colleague Ulf Dittmer and which, unlike the WIV, is located right in the area of the initial COVID-19 outbreak.
As documented here, Dittmer’s virology department at Essen University Hospital had collaborated on publicly-funded research with the WIV for a decade, and Drosten met Shi Zhengli of the WIV and other Institute researchers and officials at a symposium organised by Dittmer in Berlin in 2015. Dittmer, Drosten and Shi can be seen in the below photo from the event.
Dittmer was recently named President of the Gesellschaft für Virologie (Society of Virology), the specialist association of German-speaking virologists. Drosten is on the advisory board of the same organisation.
Why did Drosten not mention the German-Chinese lab in his conversations with Anthony Fauci, Kristian Andersen and his other Anglosphere counterparts in early 2020? At roughly the same time, he was telling the German daily Die Berliner Zeitung that he had heard about the novel virus in Wuhan from virologist colleagues in the city.
Two years later, in February 2022, after the DEFUSE proposal had first been leaked online, Drosten would claim in the German press that if he had only known about it, he would have thought twice about signing the Lancet statement. DEFUSE famously involves Baric’s creation of a chimeric virus similar to SARS-CoV-2 and includes the WIV as partner. Drosten, it should be noted, had recently been accused by the German physicist Roland Wiesendanger of participating in efforts to cover up of the lab-leak hypothesis: an accusation which is borne out precisely by the since published e-mails.
“Some people in the USA, above all, knew about these experiments,” Drosten said testily in his remarks about DEFUSE. “Many scientists, including me, put our hand in the fire for the colleagues in Wuhan [by signing the Lancet statement], but were not informed about these projects.”
But this was easy for Drosten to say. It was no problem for him to throw Daszak and Baric under the bus. The DEFUSE proposal, after all, had been leaked, and, in the meanwhile, a vast cache of documents related to it is publicly available thanks to an American FOIA request. It should be recalled that DEFUSE was not even funded anyway.
But what do we know about Drosten’s own RAPID project, which was fully-funded by the German government from 2017 through last year and which, as shown in my last article, also involved gain-of-function experiments?
What do we know about TRR60, Ulf Dittmer’s Sino-German Transregional Collaborative Research Centre, which included the WIV as partner and which received millions of euros in funding from the German Research Foundation from 2009 until 2018? Per his own report available here (p. 7), the below photo shows Dittmer in October 2013 at none other than the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where an assessment of the project in view of further funding was being conducted.
What do we know, finally and above all, about the German-Chinese lab in Wuhan which grew out of TRR60 and which was launched in May 2017, just a two-and-a-half years before the official outbreak of COVID-19 in the city?
Where are the freedom-of-information requests? Where are the vast caches of documents? Where are the detailed funding proposals? Where, for that matter, are the email exchanges between, say, Drosten and German officials or Dittmer and his Chinese colleagues?
Ralph Baric undoubtedly makes a nice scapegoat. But what does Christian Drosten have to hide?
Postscript: Entirely fortuitously, shortly after finishing the above article, what appears to be a full and authentic version of Christian Drosten’s RAPID project grant proposal was made available to me. Oddly enough, given that the funding organisation was the German Ministry of Education and Research – but helpfully for international readers and researchers – the version is in English. It can be consulted here. Thanks @TimRealityDE!
Robert Kogon is the pen name of a widely-published journalist covering European affairs. Subscribe to his Substack and find him on Bluesky.
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It wasnt an accident it was leaked deliberately to coincide with 2020. The fact the 3 letter agencies who actually control our media amplified the message to such an extent makes this so obvious. They even went so far as to brand it 19 to make sure this obvious connection wasn’t made by ordinary ppl.
“Far from appearing like some mastermind or evil genius behind the gain-of-function experiments which many suspect gave rise to SARS-CoV-2, the picture which emerges of Fauci in the e-mails is that of someone who is seriously out-of-his-depth and unfamiliar with the subject matter.”
I find this an incredibly naive statement.
Fauci has spent a lifetime in political circles, and he is VERY good at the political game. He very rarely implicates himself. He’s quite OK with contradicting himself on (in his book) small beer, like face masks, but when it comes to the big stuff, he is a very, very canny operator. In my view he shows full awareness of the fact conversations are recorded and meeting minutes taken. He manipulates others into a position of compromise. In my estimation the guy is a real life modern machiavelli. The extent to which he has mastered the art of deception is almost admirable.
However look at what he actually does, and a different picture emerges. Look at his relationship to Remdesivir. Consider the fact of his unwillingness to disclose the details of his financial gains from Big Pharma. Look at the actions of the people working under him, who expressed scepticism, but went against their initial position. Consider the fact the only one out of that famous phone call who ended up actually compromising himself saying it looks like a lab leak and then in the actual publication that it doesn’t is Kristian Andersen, the most naive and probably most honest out of the lot. But also a softer character who is more manipulable. IMO you can be pretty sure Fauci had a few follow up chats after minuted meetings. Caught up with a few key actors in the corridor. Hinted a few times about funding x, y and z research projects. Remember it was Fauci who initiated the natural origins paper, Fauci who gave the press conference talking about the paper like he had just stumbled upon it and it proved his point (none of which is indictable in a court of law). THAT in my opinion, is what reveals who Fauci is (as well as RFK Jr’s book of course), not the evidence that will stack up in a court of law. He’s far too canny to who left much of that around.
I should add others on the call also contradict themselves in spirit, but were canny enough to use hedging language. Only Kristian Andersen spoke plainly and directly and without hedging.
Yes I agree. From the minute the SARS2 story broke Fauci was clever enough to have played dumb, even with his colleagues via email. He is politically savvy and knew they would probably be made public.
There isn’t “one evil genius” behind an “accidental” leak.
It was very carefully planned scamdemic – and that means thousands were involved.