Information Control Skewed Science And Public Opinion
Feb. 27, 2023—On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal broke the news about a leaked classified U.S. intelligence report that says the Covid-19 virus most likely originated from a laboratory leak. The report matters in more ways than one.
At stake are lessons for international cooperation in organizations, trust in government and responsible media management.
The article carefully points out the disparate views of different U.S. agencies and says the newly leaked report comes from the Department of Energy. That’s significant because DOE “has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.”
According to the WSJ, the DOE and the FBI believe the virus came from a Chinese lab. Meanwhile, four other agencies and a national intelligence panel judge that it came from natural transmission while two other agencies say they are undecided.
It’s noteworthy, however, that the public does not have access to these reports or the sources behind them.
Three years after a virus emerged with devastating effects is still a mystery to many. The pandemic killed over a million Americans and shut the world down, yet rumors are still circulating. What we do know is the virus emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019, and the Chinese Communist Party government has not been forthcoming with information.
At stake are lessons for international cooperation in organizations, trust in government and responsible media management.
Scientists Global Collaboration Over Inquiry And Truth
It’s important new information is getting into the public record. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, it was seen as heresy to question that the virus originated anywhere except through natural transmission. A group of scientists including Peter Daszak signed a letter insisting as much, and much of the U.S. media followed.
“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” the Feb. 19, 2020 letter published in The Lancet said. “Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.”
Daszak led a New York-based research organization called EcoHealth that received U.S. government funds to work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Despite the obvious conflict-of-interest, his comments were viewed as gospel among many U.S. media outlets.
A House Oversight Committee is now requesting extensive information from Daszak about his correspondence as head of EcoHealth.
Wuhan Institute Collected And Studied ‘Most Dangerous Pathogens’
A careful review of publically available—or open source—information suggested as early as April 2020 that Covid-19 most likely started in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As the GER reported at the time, the WIV started studying bat-borne viruses at least as early as 2004. By January 2018, the WIV opened a National Bio-safety Laboratory after receiving credentials to work on the most dangerous pathogens. The researchers went on cave expeditions throughout China, from the Tibetan highlands to the southern coast, collecting samples of viruses found in bats.
It was a prestigious credential for China to win approval. It meant “Chinese scientists can study the most dangerous pathogenic microorganisms in their own lab,” China Daily reported at the time. The CCP had plans to replicate the lab throughout the country.
But even then in 2018 scientists outside China expressed concern about pathogens escaping from the lab.
Science As God, And Real Information As Fraud
Despite all that evidence leaning in the direction of a lab mishap or worse, many U.S. media outlets dismissed it outright, often quoting Daszak. Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of White House Coronavirus Task Force, insisted the virus originated in the wild and could
CBS News reported in May 2020 that the nation’s leading infectious disease scientists wouldn’t even consider a lab leak. “When asked if there could have been a scenario where scientists found the virus outside the lab, brought it back and then it escaped, Fauci shut the line of questioning down,” CBS reported.
It was later discovered that Fauci purposely suppressed the theory of a lab leak for the sake of global collaboration. In a conference call with Fauci, other virologists, and former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins on Feb. 1, 2020, some of the scientists raised the possibility that the virus emerged in the lab or was even possibly engineered there, The Intercept reported in January 2022.
Fauci faced intense scrutiny by members of Congress, particularly during Senate hearings. But he insisted in televised media interviews that any criticism against him was “attacks on science.”
WHO At Fault
The record of the World Health Organization is also troubling. At the beginning of the virus, the WHO took China’s lead in downplaying the dangerous nature of the virus. The WHO wrongly reported it found “no evidence of human-to-human transmission.” The agency soon reversed course, but the warnings it issued came late.
The WHO later took part in a China-led study of the origins of the virus which merely put forward a China-led theory too incredulous to repeat. (But if you want to know about that, you can read the GER‘s reporting of it at the time as the U.S. “deep concerns” about it.)
Censorship By Social Media
However, worse of all for U.S. citizens came censorship in social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube about the origins of the virus. It not only came at a time when most people were cut off from in-person communication, it also demonstrated how big tech companies quickly and easily adopted the Chinese Communist Party’s model of controlling speech.
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