(Headline USA) U.S. health agencies were pushing for an interactive partnership with China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) since at least 2017, according to documents obtained by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch.
The documents show that Gray Handley, associate director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, forward information about the WIV to his colleagues and said, “China’s interest in the global virome project presents an opportunity for global health cooperation.”
“U.S.-China collaboration on the Global Virome Project is an opportunity to lead innovation in science, collaborate with China, and potentially contribute to scientific breakthroughs,” Handley said in a summary of the WIV’s Global Virome Project.
A key selling point of the proposed partnership with the WIV was “pandemic preparedness” and an ability to rapidly detect viruses to prevent outbreaks, according to the documents.
“While U.S.-based NGOs and academics are likely to provide some leadership for the GVP, it will be important for the USG [U.S. government] to remain engaged in significant ways with the GVP, to ensure that U.S. interests are adequately reflected in this effort, which will facilitate the development of countermeasures against future threats (pandemic preparedness), and enable rapid detection of viral threats and increase the capacity to handle them,” the summary of the partnership states.
However, the documents also show that U.S. officials were admitting amongst themselves that China was not being forthcoming about its research, especially in Jan. 2020, when the COVID-19 virus was first beginning to emerge.
The documents prove that the NIH, under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, was very involved with the WIV and its controversial viral research well before the pandemic. The NIH funded the WIV and even trained Wuhan’s scientists, according to one 2018 message obtained by Judicial Watch.
Fauci, however, has denied that the NIH funded gain-of-function research in the WIV and defended his partnership with the WIV.
