Why Are We Helping the Communist Chinese Develop Biological Weapons?

 

At this point, I thought it was impossible for my government to disappoint me. Apparently, I was mistaken. Our ironically named National Institutes of Health (NIH) has just acknowledged that it was helping the Communist Chinese develop biological weapons. “Gain of function” research simply means developing viruses that are more dangerous than the ones that exist naturally. There is only one reason to engage in such research: to kill a lot of people, millions and millions, all over the world. Why else would you want diseases that are more deadly than the ones we already have? I’m not surprised that communists want to develop such weapons. But why are we helping them? If you think I’m making this up, check out the first sentence from this morning’s news story:

Despite repeated denials by NIAID Director Anthony Fauci that his agency used American taxpayer money to fund Chinese gain-of-function research on bats infected with coronaviruses, the National Institutes of Health – which oversees NIAID – admitted in a letter to House Oversight Committee ranking member James Comer, R-Ky., that a “limited experiment” was indeed conducted.

Perhaps I’m missing something here. But I can’t imagine what it might be.

We’re helping the Communist Chinese develop biological weapons. Maybe we’re helping a little. Maybe we’re helping a lot.

But why are we helping at all?

The National Institutes of Health. Helping the Communist Chinese develop biological weapons. Who on earth thought that was a good idea?

I was going to write a clever post about this. But I don’t feel like it. This is just too horrifying.

My God …

Published in General
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 72 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    The sad part is that Fauci will continue to be lauded by the media and will never face any consequences for his actions. He and Francis Collins committed perjury — proven fact — and they’ll never see the inside of a prison.

    But yes, along with “why was this done at all?” the question “why was this done in partnership with the Chinese?” is an obvious question, and I can think of no legitimate reason.

    • #1
  2. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Dr. Bastiat: We’re helping the Communist Chinese develop biological weapons.

    I thought they were helping us.

    • #2
  3. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    I heard the theory advanced that we would become better at developing new and more powerful vaccines. That seems like setting fire to the smokehouse so one will become better at putting out smokehouse fires.

    • #3
  4. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    What I heard was that we had to do it to come up with a treatment for it ahead of time in case we got it.

    • #4
  5. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Flicker (View Comment):

    What I heard was that we had to do it to come up with a treatment for it ahead of time in case we got it.

    I’ve heard the same argument.  

    But hoping that you might possibly develop a vaccine for a disease that doesn’t exist until you create it is absurd.  If you don’t want to get that disease that doesn’t exist, why don’t you just not create it? 

    I very much doubt that that is their true motivation.

    • #5
  6. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Dr. Bastiat: This is just too horrifying.

    Indeed.

    • #6
  7. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):
    But hoping that you might possibly develop a vaccine for a disease that doesn’t exist until you create it is absurd.

    That’s the brilliance of it.

    • #7
  8. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):
    But hoping that you might possibly develop a vaccine for a disease that doesn’t exist until you create it is absurd.

    That’s the brilliance of it.

    Brilliance ≠ Convoluted.

    • #8
  9. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):
    But hoping that you might possibly develop a vaccine for a disease that doesn’t exist until you create it is absurd.

    That’s the brilliance of it.

    Brilliance ≠ Convoluted.

    Well, to be honest, it did start with an accident with a condom and a time machine.

    • #9
  10. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    I have a conspiracy theory of my own that I’ve been kicking around since this began, that at Fauci’s request, researchers in Wuhan were working on developing a universal flu vaccine, and playing with coronaviruses to see if they could be used to overpower and eradicate the influenza viruses. When I read somewhere that the gain-of-function tests involved altering mouse lungs to more closely approximate human lungs, it was yet another checkmark in my conspiracy theory column. Fauci cannot admit that he was doing this because the world’s hatchet of condemnation for reckless research would come down instantly.

    As insane as that theory sounds, the use of microorganisms to treat diseases caused by microorganisms and positive uses of microorganisms in promoting human health are growing fields in medical research.

    Furthermore, the flu is disappearing (or simply not making people sick) where the covid-19 virus is active. See this and this. The American Microbiology Society (I can’t find the link at the moment) has said for the past year that they couldn’t figure how the two are interacting, but most likely the covid-19 microorganisms create an environment that is inhospitable to the influenza virus.

    Throughout the pandemic I’ve been watching this out of curiosity. I’ve been seeing also that flu bugs are actually showing up in the covid-19 testing, but not significantly. So it’s still out there, just not multiplying at the same rate it usually does.

    It would make a lot of sense that Fauci was interested in this field of inquiry. The flu years 2017 and 2018 were devastating globally.  About a year ago I watched an American Experience NPR documentary about the influenza pandemic in 1917 through 1919, and it contained numerous interviews with Fauci. This was before the current pandemic began so it wasn’t political–he wasn’t trying to justify his recommendations. But his frustration in battling the influenza virus was very noticeable.

    Airborne disease is different from body-fluid-borne disease. He believes he has had some success with the body-fluid-borne diseases such as Zika and Ebola.

    He has a huge ego. He has been running the CDC, but many people often described the World Health Organization as just a department of the CDC. We funded the WHO mostly. And he ran that show. He is used to wielding a lot of power and to letting his imagination escape normal boundaries. He’s been the emperor in his world. Tyrants do crazy things.

    If it ever turns out to be true, I’ve told my kids to remember that I guessed this when this pandemic started. :-) :-)

    • #10
  11. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    I should add how I think this happened because one would think if there were any truth to my theory, it would have come out by now. I think Fauci agreed to fund their gain-of-function research with the perhaps only spoken agreement that the research would lead to a prevention strategy against influenza. That’s why we’re not seeing an apparent connection. 

    • #11
  12. DonG (CAGW is a hoax) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a hoax)
    @DonG

    Dr. Bastiat:

    We’re helping the Communist Chinese develop biological weapons.  Maybe we’re helping a little.  Maybe we’re helping a lot.

    But why are we helping at all?

    The premise is that we can pre-develop a vaccine for something that does not exist in nature.   That is dumb, because (1) that vaccine will likely not be useful for a different virus that might emerge naturally and (2) the mRNA vaccines were created in one weekend after after the Fauci’s Frankenvirus had been sequenced.  We never needed any pre-development, since we generate a vaccine in days.  Making a vaccine is easy, proving it safe and effective is hard and that can’t be done in a lab. 

    This whole pandemic was caused by doctors with too much money and hubris wanting to play God.  We need Nuremberg trials with public hangings to discourage this kind of behavior.  Maybe have the trials in Afghanistan, those people are creative with their punishments.

    • #12
  13. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    MarciN (View Comment):
    I have a conspiracy theory of my own that I’ve been kicking around since this began, that at Fauci’s request, researchers in Wuhan were working on developing a universal flu vaccine, and playing with coronaviruses to see if they could be used to overpower and eradicate the influenza viruses.

    Ok.  Perhaps I guess.

    But wouldn’t have Dr. Fauci have already said, “Hey – we’re just trying to eradicate influenza here.  We’re not trying to develop new types of coronaviruses.  That would be crazy!”

    • #13
  14. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    MarciN (View Comment):

    I should add how I think this happened because one would think if there were any truth to my theory, it would have come out by now. I think Fauci agreed to fund their gain-of-function research with the perhaps only spoken agreement that the research would lead to a prevention strategy against influenza. That’s why we’re not seeing an apparent connection.

    I also want to add that the CCP would have been interested in a deadly virus that targeted old useless people and spared children. The impoverishment of their senior citizens, particularly their rural poor, has been an embarrassment to the CCP for decades. The Wuhan researchers would have known that children in general lack the ACE II inhibitors (I think I’ve got that right) for this new virus to attach to. This virus would help the CCP achieve its objectives too. 

    • #14
  15. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    I think there are many more ramifications to this story.

    • First and foremost, the Senior  NIH officials including Fauci, Collins and Tabak blatantly lied to Congress which should  initiate a   call from the President, the AG and Congress for an immediate dismissal of not only Fauci and friends and everyone connected to them  and at the very least the prosecution of all those  for incredibly gross negligence and many, many multiple counts of manslaughter.

    • But the beyond the niceties of lying to Congress, it would seem that Fauci et al funded the development of COVID, and should have known of it’s development .  They should have known in January of 2020 exactly what COVID was and how to deal with it.

    From Zerohedge: “In a letter addressed to Rep. James Comer (R-KY), NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence A. Tabak cites a “limited experiment” to determine whether “spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model.” According to the letter, humanized mice infected with the modified bat virus “became sicker” than those exposed to an unmodified version of the same bat coronavirus.”

    The smoking gun.  Plain and Simple. 

    “We also learned in September that 18 months before the Pandemic, Daszak applied for a grant to release enhanced airborne coronaviruses into the wild in an effort to inoculate them against diseases that could have otherwise jumped to humans, according to The Telegraph, citing leaked grant proposals from 2018.

    New documents show that just 18 months before the first Covid-19 cases appeared, researchers had submitted plans to release skin-penetrating nanoparticles containing “novel chimeric spike proteins” of bat coronaviruses into cave bats in Yunnan, China.

    They also planned to create chimeric viruses, genetically enhanced to infect humans more easily, and requested $14million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to fund the work.

    Daszak hoped to use genetic engineering to cobble “human-specific cleavage sites” onto bat Covid ‘which would make it easier for the virus to enter human cells’ – and included plans to commingle high-risk natural coronaviruses strains with more infectious, yet less deadly versions. His ‘bat team’ of researchers included Dr. Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as well as US researchers from the University of North Carolina and the US Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center.”

    What is being  described here is clearly the forerunner of COVID. So Fauci et al had to know exactly what COVID was when it appeared in January of 2020, because the NIH had been involved in it’s development with the Chinese Military and the Bat Lady  Dr. Shi Zhengli.  

    Everything Fauci et al has done since has been to weaponize the problem to advance a crazy Police State agenda  rather than  protecting the American Public, by demanding crippling lockdowns, banning cures,  like HCQ and Ivermectin, to the development of the killer mRNA “vaccines” and now the implementation of these  Police State vaccine Mandates.

    • #15
  16. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    MarciN (View Comment):
    I have a conspiracy theory of my own that I’ve been kicking around since this began, that at Fauci’s request, researchers in Wuhan were working on developing a universal flu vaccine, and playing with coronaviruses to see if they could be used to overpower and eradicate the influenza viruses.

    Ok. Perhaps I guess.

    But wouldn’t have Dr. Fauci have already said, “Hey – we’re just trying to eradicate influenza here. We’re not trying to develop new types of coronaviruses. That would be crazy!”

    I haven’t a theory on that except that perhaps it was wild thinking, in retrospect he knows it was wild thinking and dangerous, and he is afraid to admit it. That’s all I can think.

    Tyrants can act on their impulses. That’s what I think happened. I think he signed off on this gain-of-function testing with this flu-control idea in mind, of some good that he wanted to come out of it. In light of the current pandemic, he is realizing that it was an insane idea. So he’s afraid to admit it.

    I’m picturing him blurting out his flu-prevention idea at his International Criminal Court trial that I see coming.

    • #16
  17. Mark Alexander Inactive
    Mark Alexander
    @MarkAlexander

    Dr. Fauci – Munchausen’s by proxy on a global scale. The case is stronger than you think.

    https://kirstenmortensen.com/munchausen-syndrome-by-proxy-on-a-societal-scale/

    • #17
  18. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat: We’re helping the Communist Chinese develop biological weapons.

    I thought they were helping us.

    Please, could you elaborate exactly what you see as the distinguishing characteristic between “us and them”, referring to the respective governments, not the people.

    • #18
  19. Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Democracy) Coolidge
    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Democracy)
    @GumbyMark

    This letter, which grudgingly admits that gain of function occurred but claims it had nothing to do with Covid-19, is a Modified Limited Hangout (admitting some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case).

    Bottom line is Fauci and segments of the virology community thought the best way to prevent a pandemic was to find novel coronaviruses in bat caves, bring them hundred of miles to a lab in a city of 11 million people, and enhance them to increase their infectiousness and virulence to humans.  And then they covered it up when it backfired.

    When the Obama administration banned gain of function research in 2014 it unfortunately turned over the task of establishing the development of detailed guidelines, monitoring, and reviewing projects to Anthony Fauci.  Fauci, who wanted to continue the research (and still does!), managed to write guidelines and implement them in such as way as to not impede the projects he wanted to proceed.

    Fauci is the 21st century version of J Edgar Hoover, a career bureaucrat (he’s headed NIAID since 1984, held senior positions there since 1974 and started working at the agency in 1968 – and his wife is head of the Bioethics Dept of the National Institutes of Health of which NIAID is a part).  He’s accumulated enormous power and prestige, has very little oversight, loves publicity, manages the media well, has a cult following that will turn on anyone who attacks him.

    Josh Rogin, who wrote Chaos Under Heaven, a very good account of China policy in the Trump administration which concludes with the Covid pandemic, reported that when he tried to talk to researchers about Fauci they would not go on the record with criticisms because he controlled so much of their funding.

    • #19
  20. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    What could possibly go wrong?  The Chinese do stuff and a bunch of friends of Tony get their names as co-authors on a paper about the sequencing.

    Then there is the liability factor.  If there is a killer virus “oops” on the campus of NIH that kills people, Congress might cut funding by as much as 3 to 5% so better to have the “oops” kill Chinese people instead and hope it does not spread.

    And of course, it made more sense to help the Chinese develop ways to kill us because the Taliban and the Iranians don’t yet have the technological sophistication to operate at that level of biowarfare.

    • #20
  21. WI Con Member
    WI Con
    @WICon

    MarciN (View Comment):

    He has a huge ego. He has been running the CDC, but many people often described the World Health Organization as just a department of the CDC. We funded the WHO mostly. And he ran that show. He is used to wielding a lot of power and to letting his imagination escape normal boundaries. He’s been the emperor in his world. Tyrants do crazy things.

    If it ever turns out to be true, I’ve told my kids to remember that I guessed this when this pandemic started. :-) :-)

    @marcin I can’t recall the source where I read the number of papers Faucci has put his name on (Ace of Spades?), it was ridiculous though, like he was ‘publishing’ (really just putting his name on work others had done) somethingf like 3 papers a week or month – he’d had his name on like 1,400 papers. I got the impression that him putting his name on things was just ‘cost of doing business’.

    It makes one wonder just how much of the medical/health care system is distorted by bureaucrats like him. Dangerous and deadly distortions (Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquin).

     

    Was looking for source, here’s one – based on this one, that 15.1 research works/yr, in addition to every CNN/MSNBC show for the past two years – incredible.

    Anthony S. Fauci’s research works | National Institute of …

    https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Anthony-S-Fauci-38754271
    Anthony S. Fauci‘s 755 research works with 73,408 citations and 11,589 reads

     

     

    • #21
  22. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    The purported reason for gain of function research is NOT bioweapons. It is easier to study a highly virulent pathogen that spreads easily than a less lethal and contagious  one. If a virus has a 100% lethal rate & spreads like measles than one can tell in a short time and with a few lab animals wether your intervention is effective. Obviously, the down side is if it escapes from the lab you have a catastrophic situation- which is why many thought pursing such research was crazy.

    to give a similar example in medicine- leukemia is a lot easier to study than breast or prostate cancers- leukemia kills quickly while breast & prostate cancer can take many years. It is no accident we have had more success developing therapy for leukemia than breast cancer. 

    • #22
  23. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    WI Con (View Comment):

    MarciN (View Comment):

    He has a huge ego. He has been running the CDC, but many people often described the World Health Organization as just a department of the CDC. We funded the WHO mostly. And he ran that show. He is used to wielding a lot of power and to letting his imagination escape normal boundaries. He’s been the emperor in his world. Tyrants do crazy things.

    If it ever turns out to be true, I’ve told my kids to remember that I guessed this when this pandemic started. :-) :-)

    @ marcin I can’t recall the source where I read the number of papers Faucci has put his name on (Ace of Spades?), it was ridiculous though, like he was ‘publishing’ (really just putting his name on work others had done) somethingf like 3 papers a week or month – he’d had his name on like 1,400 papers. I got the impression that him putting his name on things was just ‘cost of doing business’.

    It makes one wonder just how much of the medical/health care system is distorted by bureaucrats like him. Dangerous and deadly distortions (Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquin).

     

    Was looking for source, here’s one – based on this one, that 15.1 research works/yr, in addition to every CNN/MSNBC show for the past two years – incredible.

    Anthony S. Fauci’s research works | National Institute of …

    https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Anthony-S-Fauci-38754271
    Anthony S. Fauci‘s 755 research works with 73,408 citations and 11,589 reads

    Another of the many reasons that taking the vaccine is a roll of the dice as far as I’m concerned.

     

     

     

    • #23
  24. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    MarciN (View Comment):
    He has a huge ego. He has been running the CDC, but many people often described the World Health Organization as just a department of the CDC. We funded the WHO mostly. And he ran that show. He is used to wielding a lot of power and to letting his imagination escape normal boundaries. He’s been the emperor in his world. Tyrants do crazy things.

     I saw firsthand many years ago in a high-end military facility (AFIP) that sharp-elbowed bureaucratic infighters and grant-mongers could steamroll rivals even if what they cranked out was unimaginative quasi-garbage.  Fauci personifies the breed–enough knowledge to be conversant but without the skill, focus or temperament to actually do breakthrough research, smooth patter for the muggles in Congress and elsewhere who provide the funding, sharply attuned to the relevant issues du jour and how to monetize them, network-building, favor and obligation accumulation skills that would make Tony Soprano envious and, very importantly, shameless flexibility.

    After we break up Facebook, Twitter and Google we need to take a hard look at the financial pipeline for medical research.

     

    • #24
  25. Mountie Coolidge
    Mountie
    @Mountie

    Percival (View Comment):

    I heard the theory advanced that we would become better at developing new and more powerful vaccines. That seems like setting fire to the smokehouse so one will become better at putting out smokehouse fires.

    That’s the rational that the West has for doing Gain of Function. I’m sure the Communist Party of China would provide other motives. 

    • #25
  26. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    MarciN (View Comment):
    He has a huge ego. He has been running the CDC, but many people often described the World Health Organization as just a department of the CDC. We funded the WHO mostly. And he ran that show. He is used to wielding a lot of power and to letting his imagination escape normal boundaries. He’s been the emperor in his world. Tyrants do crazy things.

    I saw firsthand many years ago in a high-end military facility (AFIP) that sharp-elbowed bureaucratic infighters and grant-mongers could steamroll rivals even if what they cranked out was unimaginative quasi-garbage. Fauci personifies the breed–enough knowledge to be conversant but without the skill, focus or temperament to actually do breakthrough research, smooth patter for the muggles in Congress and elsewhere who provide the funding, sharply attuned to the relevant issues du jour and how to monetize them, network-building, favor and obligation accumulation skills that would make Tony Soprano envious and, very importantly, shameless flexibility.

    After we break up Facebook, Twitter and Google we need to take a hard look at the financial pipeline for medical research.

     

    I think this is the process (funding through government grants and loan guarantees) that has consumed the college level education process. Is Climate Change research operating on a similar path?

    • #26
  27. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Look, we’re going to do the gain-of-function research.  The real question is, Why are we doing it with our sworn enemy?

    It’s bad enough we’ve handed over a ton of our manufacturing capability to the ChiComs (Hello, Rust Belt!).  But to work with them on weapons?  Insanity.

    I think COVID started with a leak in the Wuhan lab.  However, I also think the ChiComs decided to take advantage of the leak to see where it led, and to gauge our reaction.  Now they know that a bioweapon release will result in the imposition of authoritarian rule by our own government.  No doubt they are thinking once authoritarianism is imposed, they can move in laterally and take over.

    No, seriously.  Wasn’t it Thomas Sowell who thought Obama would surrender if Iran or some other Muslim terrorist group detonated a nuclear weapon in one of our cities?

    • #27
  28. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):
    I think this is the process (funding through government grants and loan guarantees) that has consumed the college level education process. Is Climate Change research operating on a similar path?

    Totally captured by alarmists. 

    • #28
  29. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):
    I think this is the process (funding through government grants and loan guarantees) that has consumed the college level education process. Is Climate Change research operating on a similar path?

    Totally captured by alarmists.

    Dissent is very unprofitable!

    • #29
  30. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):
    I think this is the process (funding through government grants and loan guarantees) that has consumed the college level education process. Is Climate Change research operating on a similar path?

    Totally captured by alarmists.

    Dissent is very unprofitable!

    Winston, how many fingers am I holding up? Have we always been at war with EastAsia?  Are polar bears extinct?  The Great Barrier Reef gone?  The Maldives underwater?

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.