Reporter : Adam Schrader / Source of Extract : Daily Mail / Editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
Medical researchers with the Chinese army engineered mice with humanized lungs in 2019 to test viruses on them, it has been reported.
The mice, developed using CRISPR gene-editing technology, were mentioned in an April 2020 study which researched their susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the COVID-19 illness, Vanity Fair revealed in its bombshell investigation.
Of the study's 23 co-authors, 11 of them worked for the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, the medical research institute for the Chinese army.
Investigators with the U.S. National Security Council, researching the origins of the pandemic, determined that the mice referenced in the study were created in the summer of 2019 - just months before the emergence of the pandemic.
The National Security Council investigators also reportedly believed they had 'uncovered important evidence' supporting the theory that COVID-19 had leaked from a lab and began reaching out to other federal agencies, Vanity Fair reported.
'We were dismissed. The response was very negative,' said Anthony Ruggiero, the a senior director at the National Security Council.
Shi Zhengli, the Wuhan Institute of Virology lead researcher on coronaviruses known as the 'Bat Woman' for her research on bat viruses, appears to have tested at least two novel coronaviruses on humanized mice in the last three years, Vanity Fair also revealed - citing comments she made to a scientific journal and grant information.
Shi has refuted claims that COVID-19 leaked from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and that the facility conducts military research.
However, Shi was interviewed in a Scientific American article, first published in March 2020, in which she recounted how she 'frantically went through her own lab's records from the past few years to check for any mishandling of experimental materials, especially during disposal.'
Shi was relieved when none of the genetic sequences from patients with COVID-19 matched those of the viruses her team had sampled from bat caves.
'That really took a load off my mind. I had not slept a wink for days,' Shi told the outlet.
In January, the State Department released a fact sheet slamming the Chinese Communist Party of 'systematically' preventing a 'transparent and thorough investigation of the COVID-19 pandemic's origin.'
The State Department acknowledged in the fact sheet at the time that the virus 'could have emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals.'
'Alternatively, a laboratory accident could resemble a natural outbreak if the initial exposure included only a few individuals and was compounded by asymptomatic infection,' the fact sheet reads.
The State Department noted that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has 'collaborated on publications and secret projects with China's military' while 'presenting itself as a civilian institution.'
'The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017,' the sheet reads.
Bloomberg reported that China later denounced the State Department's fact sheet as 'full of fallacies' and the 'last madness' of 'Mr. Lies' Mike Pompeo, the former Secretary of State.
The Vanity Fair report also detailed in-length other evidence that supports the lab-leak theory while detailing how U.S. investigation into COVID-19's origin have been impeded from investigating that theory.
Updates
U.S. virus investigation: The Chinese military participated in the development of humanized lung mice in 2019
Reporter : Li Zhaoxi / Editor : Li Jia / Translation, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
Image : On 23 February 2017, staff were working in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (P4 Laboratory) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan, Hubei, China. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)
According to the American magazine Vanity Fair, these bioengineered rodents were developed through a gene editing technology called CRISPR and mentioned in a study in April 2020. Virologists from the U.S. government flagged the study to remind officials of the National Security Council (NSC), that are responsible for investigating the source of SARS-CoV-2 (CCP virus), to take the study seriously.
Among the 23 co-authors of the study, including 11 researchers from the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, the highest medical research institution of the Chinese Communist Party, their project involves determining the sensitivity of mice to the virus that causes covid.
Vanity Fair stated that when investigators from the National Security Council tried to trace the source and try to determine the timetable for the study, they realized that the humanized lungs of these small rodents were sometime in the summer of 2019, that is, created before the outbreak of the covid pandemic.
This discovery made NSC officials suspect that the CCP military is using mice to test whether various viruses can infect humans. Moreover, NSC officials seem to have found supporting evidence for the CCP virus laboratory leak theory.
However, Anthony Ruggiero, NSC's senior director in charge of anti-proliferation and biological defense, told Vanity Fair that when NSC officials provided this information to other agencies, the other party ignored them, "the reaction was very negative".
Vanity Fair also quoted Shi Zhengli, a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), Chinese Academy of Sciences, on a review of a scientific journal and information from the CCP government database to prove that the chief coronavirus researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology seems to have tested on humanized mice to gauge the effectiveness of two new, but undisclosed, coronaviruses.
A former national security official who reviewed classified U.S. information also told Vanity Fair that inside the WIV, military and civilian researchers "are conducting animal research in the same damn space."
Vanity Fair stated that neither Shi Zhengli nor the director of the WIV responded to their repeated requests for comment, including a detailed list of questions.
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