I mentioned earlier a 2017 pitch deck of the Global Virome Project co-authored by Daszak that puts zoonosis and lab-leak exactly on the same footing and refers to lab-enhanced pathogens.
Without further ado, here are the key slides:
Slide 2:
These are the very first words of the very first slide, ignoring the title slide.
The next slides repeat the message and explain why the GVP can help detect outbreaks caused by the very real risk of lab-escape of potentially enhanced viruses.
Let's read this again👇🏻
Slide 4:
Again the threat of a lab accident is very clearly outlined, including the elevated risk of lab-leaks from pathogens enhanced via Gain-of-Function.
Daszak (EHA) was one of the main authors behind that Sep 2017 slide deck, with Carroll & Mazet.
@Johnincarlisle
Slide 5:
The Global Virome Project will help develop countermeasures for both zoonosis and lab-enhanced viruses, and will help detect the lab-made ones by mapping most natural strains👀
@RogerMarshallMD @Jim_Jordan @JamieMetzl @R_H_Ebright @RichardKock6 @emilyakopp @zeynep
Slide 8:
Coronaviruses are especially important in this context.
Slide 9:
The Global Virome Project presents a path to identifying and characterizing those viruses that have the greatest potential to infect humans, and their laboratory enhanced variants..👀
@DFisman @Megankstack @SenatorBraun @SenHawleyPress @SenJoniErnst @SenRickScott
Slide 11:
That key slide explains how that Viral Atlas will be used to tackle the dual threats of zoonosis & leaks/releases of lab-enhanced viruses.👀
Same emphasis on both.
@BallouxFrancois @rustyrockets @Tantalite @natashaloder @SecBlinken @Globalbiosec @BiosafetyNow
Slide 13:
As countermeasure, a universal coronavirus vaccine that covers a broad spectrum from MERS to SARS is needed.
Note to self: Better not leak when developing one. 🥸
@fastlerner
Slide 15:
'GVP impact 3: Rapid Identification of lab-enhanced viruses' 👀
Again, the GVP sampling effort should make it possible to quickly confirm if we are facing a lab-enhanced / unnatural phenotype:
@Ayjchan @alisonannyoung @mattwridley @AlexanderKekule @SenRandPaul
Slide 17:
The GVP infrastructure will help get a handle on "man-made" threats even after the end of the GVP program (10 years):
Slide 25:
On the zoonosis side, we see evidence of SARS like coronavirus infections in Yunnan and none in Wuhan.
Wuhan is actually a good control group for that:
[This was later released in a paper by Shi ZL & Daszak, sent for publication in Nov 2017]
Slide 34:
Let's talk 💰.
$1bln of grants over 10 years will allow us to tackle these dual threats.
Also we will do some modelling and lab-based work to assess the zoonotic potential of newly discovered viruses.
Note to self: Really make sure that you don't leak a 🦠
Slide 40:
We conclude with some usual names.
EcoHealth Alliance, USAID, NIH, Metabiota, Pasteur Institute, etc plus China Academy of Sciences, Chinese CDC, BGI for a China pitch.
Slide 40 (cont.):
Note the Star Trek Emblem between USAID and Columbia Uni on the slide above.
Likely an insider joke based on Season 1, Episode 4, "The Naked Time" (1966).
All while asking for $1bln of funding over 10 years. Yippee 🥳
That pitch deck has been online for years.
A simple Google image search ("laboratory-enhanced viruses") immediately returns it. I found it that way a year ago.
Before I give a bit of context about this deck, here is the Slideshare link:
slideshare.net/SirTemplar/2017-0907-global-virome-project
Notes:
I saved the Sep 2017 deck as a PDF here:
drive.google.com/file/d/1cztLeoAc1hEwBPf616KUJeNZxIf2balz/view?usp=share_link
There is a very similar June 2017 deck (26 slides instead of 41) that was attached to a FOI by @USRightToKnow.
@garyruskin has authorised me to release an extract of that FOI:
drive.google.com/file/d/1J2UE8O4V4BVABpu6ImohRhNL3TVLxrvw/view?usp=share_link
Context:
The USRTK FOI extract gives us some context for the GVP pitch deck.
👉🏻 The June 2017 deck was being reviewed by Peter Daszak (EHA), Dennis Carroll (USAID), Jonna Mazet (UC Davis), Nathan Wolfe and Eddy Rubin (Metabiota) for the coming GVP launch.
None of these people ever mentioned it.
And they have all kept telling us that lab-escapes and lab-enhanced pathogens were pure conspiracy theories.
Or that we were wasting time asking for better oversight of GoF.
More specifically, that GVP slide deck was being prepared for the launch of the Global Virome Project at the Prince Mahidol Award Conference in Bangkok in early 2018.
pmac2018.com/site/home
Slide 22 of the short June 2017 deck explains the situation at the time quite well.
The "first wave" country launches refer to Thailand (TVP) and China (CVP).
For Thailand, the DoD already had its entries.
Supaporn in particular had long been an asset there, working with DARPA and DTRA/CBEP.
DTRA was looking for funding more sampling work there at that exact time:
For China, George Gao announced the launch of the Chinese Virome Project during the first major GVP international planning meeting held in Beijing in Feb 2017.
The GVP had some serious catch-up to do.
Extracts from US Embassy (Beijing) cables:
drive.google.com/file/d/1JbHPOxLiF8nCh8CVYaH7zGMNcjPMENWN/view?usp=share_link
Of importance: funding in China was already available in 2017 for the Chinese version of the GVP, for instance under program 973.
More money was likely to come under various Road and Belt initiatives (which implies sampling in other Asian countries).
At the time the idea of the GVP team was to offer a front seat to China so as to integrate its CVP.
EcoHealth Alliance seemed to be even toying with the idea of giving the driving seat to China, possibly to try to convince the US to step in with some massive grants.
There was certainly plenty of confusion in the GVP team as to what the best approach was:
- get the US to lead asap with substantial backing and funding, or
- hand the lead over to China, despite likely data sharing issues.
drive.google.com/file/d/1Rs5eyGsPNGm0rr1Kx14N4ok2Ri_dVsp5/view?usp=share_link
Other countries joined the US administration in questioning whether China could be trusted to share its collected viruses, especially if it was building the main database, which effectively would put it in a leadership position:
And some serious issues were also being raised by the US Consulate in Wuhan as to the reliability of China as a key scientific partner on such a project.
Its behaviour there in 2017 did not inspire confidence.
twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1515596451363323907?s=20
The short GVP deck of June 2017 was being prepared a few months after the Beijing meeting.
Its slide 22 gives us the "Start-up" Team that was then being considered:
- Daszak & Gao: Science & Technology
- Lipkin & Linfa Wang: Lab Platform
- Rubin & Di Liu (WIV): Database
Key question: But whom was the GVP deck intended for?
The pitch about detecting lab-outbreaks, including of lab-enhanced pathogens, was likely made for the DoD.
DTRA and DARPA are mentioned in a GVP planning email of 21 July 2017:
drive.google.com/file/d/1GhplJasMGEXeweeL7uZr2ylcFD8y0P4b/view?usp=share_link
And this is confirmed in a GVP Funding & Lobbying spreadsheet, showing a contact with DARPA in November 2017 (Dennis Carroll -> Matt Hepburn).
That spreadsheet was included in the FOI. Here is a copy.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LYTxPcgN_nfAORk4lPRmPL8VA5fJsvUj
All this happened when the 10-year PREDICT grants were ending and EHA was feeling the pinch.
EHA first tried to secure $1bln of grants over 10 years for the GVP.
Here are Daszak, Carroll and Mazet exactly one week after that email between them with the GVP slides.
Then in early 2018 EHA would put a DEFUSE proposal for DARPA, which proposed the creation (chimera/FCS insert), fine-tuning (passaging) and testing of lab-enhanced SARS-like viruses with the WIV.
vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-nonprofit-at-the-center-of-the-lab-leak-controversy
Deeper context:
After 9/11 & the anthrax attacks, the US started looking very actively at countermeasures and detection/attribution mechanisms for pathogens outbreaks (see TMTI below).
In 2016, as Genome Editing was becoming easier and cheaper, more concerns were raised:
The concerns were not only with terrorist groups (main focus after 9/11), but also with state actors.
The concerns also included the possibility of accidental release of lab-enhanced pathogens during civilian research projects.
bit.ly/BiotechRiskAssessment_Dec17
Then in ~2017 more alarm bells started ringing in the US, as China was launching a very ambitious Synthetic Biology program and was readying two P4s: in Wuhan and in Kunming.
I wrote in detail about it here: bit.ly/3nhcK9Q and bit.ly/3TKHyf6.
Track II cooperation was the only card in US hands.
At the same time, US factions pushed back against regulations that would just hinder similar work in the US and not affect the 'bad guys'.
2017 is when the NIH quietly lifted the GoF moratorium.
twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1602377215416885248?s=20
See also this Jan 2020 NASEM report with the usual names popping up:
'A Strategic Vision for Biological Threat Reduction' - The US DoD and Beyond
(The whole thread is worth checking).
twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1602628689287864321?s=20
So the DoD was naturally high on the list for likely funding.
The GVP pitch then played precisely on some previous DoD efforts for the detection of lab-enhanced pathogens as we shall soon see. 🎯
Which now brings us to the TMTI and the DoE.
The Transformational Medical Technology Initiative was a 10-year program started in 2007 to 'successfully counter future genetically engineered biological weapons' and 'develop broad-spectrum medical countermeasures that will benefit the warfighter.'
bit.ly/TMTI_Intro
The main ideas behind the DTRA TMTI were
- to rely on sampling to fill gaps in knowledge and
- to use top US laboratories, especially the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to design ways of detecting lab-enhanced pathogens.
osti.gov/biblio/1016982
Hence the Global Virome Project falls squarely within the need to get samples to fill the gaps and be able to detect lab work.
See this TMTI report written by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (under the Dept. of Energy) for DTRA:
osti.gov/biblio/971776
This other report from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for DTRA has a few interesting notes about early efforts at Generic Engineering identification:
osti.gov/biblio/1016982
One key point here is that the Livermore lab was one of the main players tasked with the problem of identifying lab-enhanced pathogens
And they came up with a 'most likely' lab origin for SARS-CoV-2 (with 'low confidence').
nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-energy-department-lab-investigating-covid-knows-what-its-talking-about/
Effectively the GVP pitch of sampling for detection of lab-enhanced pathogens was an answer to a well known interest of the DoD. 🎯
The slides are not an aberration.
And the DEFUSE pitch to DARPA soon after isn't either.
defensemedianetwork.com/stories/preparing-for-the-unthinkable/
But you would never have heard of DEFUSE without DRASTIC leaking it.
And you never saw these GVP slides showing the assessment of equal risk of zoonosis and lab-leak (including of modified pathogens) until now.
Daszak, involved up to the neck in both, never said a thing🤔
At this stage it is worth remembering that Holmes, Rambaud and Andersen initially denounced the Global Virome Project as a waste of resources.
They explained that its goal of prediction & prevention of future pandemics was rather illusory.
twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1443808412832202759?s=20
That strongly worded take-down of the GVP was published in Nature in June 2018.
media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-018-05373-w/d41586-018-05373-w.pdf
This was in reaction to a Science article extolling the virtues of the GVP, naturally without mentioning its other dimension (i.e. the detection of lab-enhanced pathogens from just-as-likely lab-accidents).
Published Feb 2018, pushed by Daszak.
bit.ly/GVP_Science_Feb2018
In contrast to the cosy Science shoo-in, another piece sent over by Daszak, Mazet & Watson in Dec 2017 to the WHO Bulletin did raise some good questions.
See the short extract of the FOI included here (the rest will be released by @USRightToKnow).
drive.google.com/file/d/1XQRHKNwsMclxwrLrJFwKJEd3dnrojpK6/view?usp=share_link
Here is the WHO Bulletin piece:
apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/272418/PMC5872013.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
So what happened to the GVP?
After the Wuhan outbreak, the GVP was recycled in the DEEP VZN program, a $125 million 5-year USAID smaller scale alternative announced in May 2021, with some of the usual US partners.
It excludes China.
@RogerWicker @ChuckGrassley
The DEEP VZN program description oddly states that SARS-CoV-2 is clearly zoonotic due to its host plasticity (despite no host animal having ever been found)
Why even bother with that speculation?
And obviously no mention of lab-enhanced viruses.
govtribe.com/file/government-file/revised-7200aa21rfa00005-rfi-deep-vzn-appendix-i-dot-docx
By the time of the outbreak, the GVP was in fact moribond.
By early 2019 the data access issue had become a major sticking point.
But Rubin was still considering letting China take the lead rather than to call it off.
@VoteMarsha
In Oct 2018 Hongying Li made a very short EcoHealth Alliance presentation to the Chinese partners (CAS, Gao, etc).
The title:
'Working Towards a China-Led Virome Project'
It is 💯% redacted
drive.google.com/file/d/1fcnM1cBAcO9x4fRIWXp2vV2bG9RflBJA/view?usp=share_link
Fast forward to April 2020, and Daszak will be telling Hongying Li, the EcoHealth Alliance employee that was the liaison with the WIV and did that short China-led GVP presentation, NOT to upload the latest WIV sequence data from PREDICT-2 into Genbank.
Subtle irony.
As it is, we are also still waiting for China to reopen access to its main viral database that became externally inaccessible in Sep 2019 (despite being funded in part by the US and Europe).
So clearly some of these concerns were spot on.
theintercept.com/2021/12/28/covid-pandemic-virus-hunters-ecohealth-alliance-peter-daszak-wuhan/
Now let's imagine that you have been worried about China's huge ambitions in Synthetic Biology since around 2017, just as it was readying two P4s (Wuhan, Kunming).
At the same time you were witnessing a hardening of China's position (Wuhan consulate, Kunming P4, etc)
The only cards that you then have in your hands are:
- a Track II effort
- some hope of building a viral atlas that can then be used for attribution (lab-leak vs. zoonosis), under the guise of various sampling programs that you may soon be able to expand with the GVP.
So you bank heavily on the first card (Trust) and start pushing the second (Verify).
You take Baric to China (53'35'' below) and share some great synthetic biology technologies and ideas, to try to ingratiate yourself and get access (Trust).
See for instance the Harbin conference of Jan 2019, with for the very first time a dedicated workshop on 'Responsible Conduct in the Use of Gene Editing in Pathogen Research'.
Ralph Baric, David Franz were there.
drive.google.com/file/d/1K2V3aAQjFJkoM2q_jyozdXgJcMceeRaz/view?usp=sharing
And you keep sampling under various programs (GVFI, PREDICT, NIH, DoD/NMRC, ), while making sure you get these samples back home to build your viral atlas (Verify).
Eg; 2014-19 NIH grant EHA, 'Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence"
twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1456414362583777285?s=20
Then in late 2019 a novel coronavirus, with a never seen FCS that you were just contemplating, starts an outbreak in Wuhan, of all places.
What is the first thing you do?
Simple: You need to kill the non-natural virus idea ASAP.
China will oblige.
twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1595522740718432256?s=20
Then it's just business as usual, without China but with the same other players.
twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1456416173768151044?s=20
1U01Al151797 is the post-outbreak grant to Daszak (2020-25), 'Understanding Risk of Zoonotic Virus Emergence in EID Hotspots of Southeast Asia'.
If it all plays out well, you may even be able to get more support for the idea of sampling systematically left and right, starting with DEEP VZN.
Which by now is effectively the only card left in your hand to address the biosecurity risk.
nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-coronavirus-wuhan-and-us-scientists-planned-to-create-new-viruses/EHG7EQK7UGVB2TPSADMQZ52RBM/?c_id=2&objectid=12476848