Latest / U.S. Right to Know articles / Ralph Baric warned COVID statement could be used for 'nefarious purposes to shift blame,' email shows

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Ralph Baric warned COVID statement could be used for 'nefarious purposes to shift blame,' email shows · U.S. Right to Know articles

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  Ralph Barrick warned COVID statement could be used for nefarious purposes to
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  shift blame email shows. Written by Lewis Campbell. In
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  early February 2020, scientists and USS intelligence officials scrambled to understand the
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  origins of the emerging coronavirus. Prominent virologist Ralph Barrick was asked to
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  make a public statement, knocking down claims that a chimeric coronavirus created
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  in his University of North Carolina laboratory using genetic materials supplied by
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  a Wu-San scientist was the virus causing the outbreak. Barak thought the
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  scientific answer was straightforward. The viruses differed by more than 5,000 nucleotides.
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  The individual building blocks what make up a viral sequence, he wrote,
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  adding the chimeric viruses created at his laboratory were never sent to
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  China. But what appeared to worry him more was how his statement
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  might be used. In a February 6 email to a group of
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  scientists who advise U.S. Intelligence agencies, Barrick said the requested statement could
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  help rebut claims circulating on Chinese social media, but, he warned, it
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  also could be used for nefarious purposes to shift blame. I have
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  received a few concerning, if not threatening, emails, Barrick wrote. He said
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  he had informed his university and advised the group he believed that
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  you should be informed as well. The email, which was among records
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  recently obtained by U.S. Right to Know, through an ongoing Freedom of
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  Information Act lawsuit against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,
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  does not identify who asked Barrick to make the statement, and it
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  does not say whose blame he feared might be shifted, or on
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  to whom. But it captures an early moment in the COVID-19 origins
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  debate when a key US coronavirus researcher who had
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  collaborated with Wuhan Institute of Virology scientist Zheng Li Shi was concerned
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  about how a rebuttal might be used. A request for a public
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  statement. Beric had collaborated for years with scientists studying SARS related bat
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  coronaviruses, including she. In 2015, Barrick and SHEA co-authored a nature medicine
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  paper describing experiments involving a chimeric SARS-like coronavirus. Researchers at UNC constructed
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  the virus using the backbone of a mouse-adapted SARS-coronavirus and the spike
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  protein encoded by SH014, a SARS-like bat coronavirus sequence supplied by SHIE's
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  group. The resulting virus replicated efficiently in primary human airway cells and
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  produced pathology in mice. Findings that later made the study a recurring
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  subject of debate over the risks of coronavirus research. By early February
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  2020, claims were circulating that the virus created in the 2015 study
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  was connected to the emerging outbreak in Wuhan. Barrick's February 6 email
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  suggests that someone had asked him to make a public statement rebutting
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  that allegation. The identity of the person or organization that asked Baric
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  to make the statement is redacted in the email released to U.S.
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  Right to Know. Barrick's name is also redacted, but he is identifiable
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  from the context of the production, which came through ongoing litigation in
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  response to a FOIA request for Barrick's communications with the Biological Sciences
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  Experts Group, BCG, and from overlapping public records that place him in
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  the exchange. Barrick laid out what he considered the key scientific facts
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  to reject the allegation, citing key differences between the SHC 014 Chimera
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  and SARS-CoV-2, which was then still referred to as 2019 NC. Barrick
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  later made the same basic argument publicly.
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  emphasizing the large genetic differences separating this experimental virus from SARS-CoV-2, and
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  saying that the chimeric viruses had not been sent to Wuhan. What
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  is new is the contemporaneous context surrounding the request that he say
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  so publicly. Nefarious purposes to shift blame. Baric told the intelligence advisors
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  that he could see a legitimate reason for making the statement. Claims
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  about his laboratory's virus were circulating on Chinese social media, and a
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  factual rebuttal could help counter them. But he also saw another possibility.
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  The statement Barrick warned might be used for nefarious purposes to shift
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  blame. The email does not explain what Barrick meant by that phrase,
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  s say who might use the statement for such a purpose, or
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  specify where he feared blame might be shifted. That ambiguity is important.
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  The emails, does not support attributing the concern to China, the US
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  government, another laboratory, or any particular person or institution. Barrick's unease extended
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  beyond the request itself. I have received a few concerning, if not
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  threatening, emails, he wrote. I have informed my university, Baric added, and
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  believe that you should be informed as well. The warning came as
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  Barrick was already advising U.S. Intelligence about the emerging coronavirus. A January
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  28th presentation he provided included discussion. Of a possible Accidental Release from
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  IV, and later whistleblower testimony was by CIA Operations Officer James Erdman
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  3rd says a revised version provide two days later omitted the lab
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  leak possibility from that discussion. The January 28 presentation itself included an
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  accidental release section, discussing Iv's work with SARS-related bat coronaviruses. Other
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  emails from Baric's current and former colleagues provide a contemporaneous glimpse into
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  his activities during the same period. U.S. Right to Know recently obtained
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  the emails through a separate, ongoing FOIA lawsuit against the Department of
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  Energy. In an email on February 7, UNC coronavirus researcher Timothy Shiehan
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  described the atmosphere surrounding Baric as survival mode, writing that he was
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  on the phone with all these big people and has to meet
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  with Fauci next week about this. That meeting took place February 11,
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  and another virologist later wrote that Baric had told him he sat
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  in Fauci's office talking about the outbreak and chimeras. Former Berwick researcher
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  Amy Sims later responded to Sheehan that she saw that Berwick had
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  given at least two presentations on campus and one at his secret
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  agent meeting as well, an apparent reference to his briefing of the
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  Biological Science Experts Group that helped to advise ODI. That means the
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  February 6th email came during a period when Barracks was cis-simultaneously dealing
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  with public allegations about his own research and advising US intelligence as
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  officials investigated the emerging outbreak. Another public statement the same day. Barrick's
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  warning also coincided with a separate effort to shape a public scientific
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  response to claims about COVID-19's origins. On February sixth, Barrick
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  was involved in discussions with EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Dach and other
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  scientists about what eventually became a statement published in The Lancet, condemning
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  conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID nineteen does not have a natural origin.
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  Those emails have been public for years after US Right to Know
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  obtained them through FOI requests. That day, Deshak separately emailed Beric to
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  say that he and Linfa Wang had concluded that Berak, Wang, and
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  Deshak should stay off the statement so it would have some distance
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  from us. We'll then put it out in a way that doesn't
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  link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice,
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  Dashak wrote. Beric agreed. Otherwise it looks self serving and we lose
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  impact, he replied. Dassack ultimately did sign the statement, which was published
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  in the Lancet on February nineteenth with twenty seven signatories. Its authors
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  said they strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID nineteen does not
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  have a natural origin. The February 6 email about the 2015 Camera
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  was a separate exchange. The available records do not show that Dashak
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  asked Baric to issue the statement about the chimeric virus, that the
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  two public messaging efforts were coordinated, or even that the people requesting
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  them were the same. Barwick was also consulted later that month on
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  another scientific commentary rejecting claims that SARS-CoV-2 had been engineered in a
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  lab. Emails previously obtained by US Right to Know show that Barrick
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  and she had reviewed the manuscript before its publication in Emerging Microsom
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  and Infections, and that at least some of their comments were incorporated
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  into the paper. However, neither was acknowledged as a contributor. During The
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  process, the journal's editor wrote to the authors, We don't want to
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  appear that we are f defending Ralph even though he did nothing
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  wrong. The commentary was published February 26, 2020, under the title No
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  credible evidence supporting claims of the Laboratory Engineering of SARS-CoV-2. The scientists
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  who drafted the commentary also privately distinguished between laboratory engineering and the
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  possibility of an accidental lab release. In a February 16 email, lead
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  author Shan Lu Liu wrote that we cannot rule out the possibility
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  that the virus leaked from the lab and proposed changing the commentary's
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  working title from SARS-CoV-2, No Evidence of a Laboratory Origin, to language
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  focused more narrowly on whether the virus had been engineered. What was
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  and was not sent to Wuhan Barrick's statement that his lab's chimeric
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  viruses were never sent to China did not mean his laboratory had
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  never provided research materials to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Four days
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  after sending his warning to the intelligence advisors, Barrett contacted Sims, who
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  had only recently left his lab for a job at the DOE's
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  Pacific Northwest National Lab, with a question about an earlier transfer to
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  Wuhan, DOE emails show. It's a mad house here. I need your
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  memory, Beric wrote on february tenth. Do you have any recollection as
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  to when we sent the Ace two mice to China? Institute of
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  Virology in Wuhan? Sims replied that she was 90 sure we did
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  indeed sent the mice to China It took forever to get everything
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  approved, she wrote, offering to search her old emails for more details.
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  Although that acknowledged transfer does not contradict Barrick's February sixth statement that
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  he hasn't sent the chimeric viruses to China, that were studied in
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  the twenty fifteen collaboration with Wuhan researchers, The exchange illustrates that Barrick
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  appeared to be attempting to piece together the timing of research materials
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  he had transfer to the Wuhan lab in the days after he
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  briefed intelligence officials about the pandemic's possible origin. The University of North
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  Carolina has since withheld thousands of pages of records about Barwick's laboratory
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  research in response to public records requests, including its formal transfer agreements
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  with the WE, known as Material Transfer Agreements or MTAs, which contain
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  details about research materials Barwick's lab shared with the Wuhan lab. Legal
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  efforts to obtain such records have been stymied. Barrick seventy-two retired from
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  UNC in June after four decades at the university. His departure came
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  weeks after the Department of Health and Human Services suspended him from
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  receiving further federal research funding, and launched proceedings that could debar him
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  from federal funding for at least three years, possibly longer. That action
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  involves separate, federally funded virus research conducted years before the pandemic. HHS
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  has accused Barrick of a pattern of deception in communications with the
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  National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases about whether his research involved
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  gain-of-function experiments to make viruses become more infectious and potentially dangerous to
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  humans. Barrick has vigorously denied wrongdoing, calling the allegations bullshit
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  and telling Science magazine that he planned to appeal the proposed debarment.