Facebook’s ‘independent fact checkers’ relied on a letter spearheaded by a major financial backer of the Wuhan Institute of Virology to ‘debunk’ articles exploring the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a leak from the lab, it has emerged.
For nearly a year, Facebook censored articles exploring the lab leak theory, labeling them ‘false information’ and punishing news publishers by limiting their reach on the platform, before the social media giant sheepishly reversed course last month.
Facebook relies on third-party fact-checkers to ‘debunk’ false claims, and in the case of the lab leak theory, a February article from Facebook partner Science Feedback played a key role in the social media site’s censorship.
The article, which purported to ‘debunk’ a New York Post opinion column questioning China’s denials of a lab leak scenario, prominently cited a letter to The Lancet, a leading medical journal, signed by ’27 eminent public health experts’.
It has now emerged that the Lancet letter, which played a key role in suppressing early debate on the pandemic’s origins, was not only signed but organized by Peter Daszak, whose group funneled U.S. taxpayer dollars to controversial gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The article used by Facebook to ‘debunk’ lab leak theory cited Peter Daszak’s Lancet letter. He is seen above at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2020
Relying on the Science Feedback article citing the Lancet letter, Facebook swiftly cracked down on articles exploring the lab leak theory, including this February 2020 opinion piece
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen above. His company faces criticism after reversing its nearly year-long ban on posts proposing that COVID originated from a lab
Though no definitive proof has emerged yet to show whether COVID-19 leaked from a lab or crossed over to humans directly from an animal, mounting evidence in support of the lab leak theory has emerged in recent weeks — after academics dismissed it as impossible for more than a year.
It is now clear that many of the leading experts in emerging coronavirus threats, who rushed to dismiss the lab leak theory early in the pandemic, were potentially conflicted, fearing that confirmation of a leak would shut down virology labs around the world and cut off their precious flow of funding.
However, few played as key a role in suppressing debate as Daszak, the British-born founder of non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, which takes in millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars and parcels them out to facilities conducting gain-of-function research, including WIV.
Gain-of-function research is a controversial field that involves collecting dangerous viruses and genetically modifying them to be more deadly, in order to study the risks of future outbreaks.
Emails since released through public records requests show that Daszak secretly organized the February 19, 2020 Lancet letter, which established a veneer of ‘scientific consensus’ and quashed debate.
The Science Feedback article (excerpted above) prominently quoted the Lancet letter that Daszak secretly organized to quash theories that COVID-19 escaped from a lab
For news publishers, being labeled false information by Facebook can have serious consequences
Daszak urged colleagues involved in gain-of-function research not to sign the letter, in order to obscure the connection, telling one: ‘We’ll then put it out in a way that doesn’t link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice.’
Relying on the Science Feedback article citing the Lancet letter, Facebook swiftly cracked down on articles exploring the lab leak theory, including a February 23, 2020 opinion piece for the New York Post by Steven Mosher.
The article was titled: ‘Don’t buy China’s story: The coronavirus may have leaked from a lab.’
‘The piece was widely read online — until Facebook stepped in,’ the Post’s editorial board wrote of the incident.
Facebook quickly reduced the spread of the article and slapped a ‘false information’ label on top of it, along with a link to the Science Feedback post ‘debunking’ the lab leak theory.
For news publishers, being labeled false information by Facebook can have serious consequences.
Facebook severely limits the spread of articles it deems debunked, pushing them far down in the News Feed, if they appear at all.
Anyone who tries to share a ‘debunked’ article on the social media site is met with blaring warnings that they are spreading ‘false information’.
Though Facebook’s system of ‘strikes’ against a publisher is opaque, a news organization that repeatedly publishes articles deemed false information can see the reach of all their articles reduced.
Publishers could also see warning labels blazed across their Facebook Pages if the company repeatedly labels their posts false information.
Facebook did not immediately respond to questions from DailyMail.com on Saturday morning about its fact-checking procedures and Daszak’s role in its early determinations on how to assess theories on the pandemic origins.
Daszak declined to answer questions from DailyMail.com reporters who visited his home on Friday, instead warning them to ‘leave the area and never come back’ and calling police.
Daszak has also not yet responded to a list of 34 questions about his involvement with the Wuhan lab that the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent him in April, despite a May 17 deadline to respond.
Publishers can see warning labels blazed across their Facebook Pages if the company repeatedly labels their posts false information
Daszak declined to answer questions from DailyMail.com reporters who visited his home on Friday, instead warning them to ‘leave the area and never come back’ and calling police
In its April 16 letter, the congressional committee asked Daszak to provide details of what federal funds were passed on to the WIV, what information they have on bat viruses worked on at the lab that are closely related to Covid-19, and what his charity knows about a mysterious database of virus genomes held by the lab taken offline in 2019.
The letter asked a total 34 questions and gave a deadline of May 17, 2021 – but has still received no response, a source close to the committee told DailyMail.com.
‘Total silence. They seem to be refusing to acknowledge anything from us,’ the source said.
After more than a year of censoring debate over the lab-leak theory, Facebook reversed course in late May, as President Joe Biden revealed that elements of the intelligence community consider the lab leak origin a likely scenario.
‘In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps,’ Facebook said in a statement.
‘We’re continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge.’
Now one of the original lab leak deniers calls for a ‘thorough investigation’ into Covid’s origin as he admits ‘a lot of disturbing information’ has surfaced since he signed Lancet letter denouncing theory
By Joe Davies For Mailonline
Dr Peter Palese, a professor of microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, has U-turned after previously supporting a letter denying that COVID-19 could’ve leaked from a Wuhan lab
One of the 27 Covid lab leak deniers who signed a letter denouncing the theory that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan has now called for a ‘thorough investigation’ into Covid’s origins, MailOnline can reveal.
Dr Peter Palese, a microbiologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, signed the letter in the Lancet in February last year claiming the virus could only have been natural in origin and to suggest otherwise would create ‘fear, rumors, and prejudice’.
The ‘bullying’ letter, orchestrated by Dr Peter Daszak, the head of a non-profit that funnelled U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was criticized by experts for ostracizing anyone offering different opinions on the virus’ origins, dismissing them as conspiracy theorists.
It is only now, nearly 16 months after that letter was published in the world-renowned medical journal, that the theory Covid was accidentally leaked from a lab in Wuhan is being looked at seriously.
US President Joe Biden last week ordered intelligence agencies to launch a probe into whether Covid was man-made after all. But China immediately hit back and called the suggestion a ‘conspiracy’.
And now Professor Palese, 77, has made a significant U-turn, admitting all theories on how Covid came about now need proper investigating.
He told MailOnline: ‘I believe a thorough investigation about the origin of the Covid-19 virus is needed.
‘A lot of disturbing information has surfaced since the Lancet letter I signed, so I want to see answers covering all questions.’
Asked how he was originally approached to sign the letter and what new information had come to light specifically, Professor Palese declined to comment.
Pictured: Security personnel keep watch outside Wuhan Institute of Virology during the visit by the World Health Organization (WHO) team in February
Palese spoke out as America’s leading pandemic expert Dr Anthony Fauci continues to face fevered calls to resign after emails revealed that leading virus experts warned Covid could be man-made even as he downplayed the possibility.
The emails also showed he communicated with Dr Daszak, the head of the non-profit that funnelled U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan lab.
Biden threw his support behind the embattled expert on Friday, saying: ‘Yes I’m very confident in Dr Fauci.’
Another scientist who signed the letter, Dr Jeremy Farrar – director of the Wellcome Trust in London – declined to comment on the Fauci allegations but said it remains ‘most likely’ the virus came from an animal but ‘there are other possibilities which cannot be completely ruled out and retaining an open mind is critical’.
Dr. Daszak – a key architect of the Lancet letter – runs the New York-based, tax payer-funded non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, which has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
He worked with the lab’s so-called ‘bat woman’ Shi Zhengli as they investigated and modified coronaviruses.
Shi, 57, proved that horseshoe bats were behind a SARS virus that killed nearly 800 people in 2002 and has collected thousands of samples from bat caves.
Dr Daszak was one four Brits to sign the letter, including SAGE advisor Sir Jeremy Farrar and two other experts working for the Welcome Trust at the time. The letters’ signatories included four others who worked for EcoHealth.
Jamie Metzl, who sits on the World Health Organization’s advisory committee on human genome editing and is a form Bill Clinton administration staffer, said Dr Daszak’s letter was a ‘form of thuggery’.
He said: ‘The Lancet letter was scientific propaganda and a form of thuggery and intimidation.
‘By labeling anyone with different views a conspiracy theorist, the Lancet letter was the worst form of bullying in full contravention of the scientific method.’
MailOnline has approached the letters’ other signatories for comment.
One of them, Dr Jeremy Farrar – who sits on the UK Government’s SAGE scientific advisory panel and who spoke with Fauci and others in early 2020 – said in a statement: ‘The origins of Sars-Cov-2 are not yet certain – it is possible the origin will never be fully established – but nature is a powerful force and, in my view, the most likely scenario is that the virus crossed from animals to humans and then evolved in humans.
‘The best scientific evidence available to date points to this. It is most likely it crossed the species barrier to infect and then adapt to humans at some point in 2019, but there are other possibilities which cannot be completely ruled out and retaining an open mind is critical. There is no place for unsubstantiated rumour, or conspiracy theories often fuelled for political purposes.
‘Understanding the origins of this disease, and any zoonotic infection, is absolutely critical to successfully preventing future outbreaks and protecting lives globally. The answers can only be found in robust scientific evidence, with full transparency from all involved. There has been too much conjecture and theory without data or evidence, although still there is not enough transparency.’
A Freedom of Information Act request revealed Dr Daszak told his fellow signatories in an email that the letter would not be sent under the EcoHealth logo ‘and will not be identifiable as coming from any one organization of person’.
The emails show he even considered not signing the letter himself, although in the end he did.
The idea, he said was for it to be coming from ‘a community supporting our colleagues’.
The letter — titled ‘Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting Covid-19’ — praised the Chinese ‘who continue to save lives and protect global health during the challenge of the Covid-19 outbreak’.
It went on to add: ‘We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.
‘Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumors and prejudices that jeopardize our global collaboration in the fight against the virus.’
It ended with the words: ‘We declare no competing interests.’
Dr Peter Daszak, 55, from Manchester, orchestrated a behind-the-scenes ‘bullying’ campaign to ensure blame for Covid was directed away from a Chinese lab with which he had worked closely.
Dr Daszack worked with the lab’s so-called ‘bat woman’ Shi Zhengli (pictured left) as they investigated and modified coronaviruses. Shi, 57, proved that horseshoe bats were behind a SARS virus that killed nearly 800 people in 2002 and has collected thousands of samples from bat caves
The letter proved so influential that it virtually ended debate on the origin of Covid for more than a year.
Anyone who suggested it could have been man-made was shot down amid accusations of anti-Chinese xenophobia.
Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control told Vanity Fair he received death threats after floating the theory that the virus could have been man-made.
He said: ‘I was threatened and ostracized because I proposed another hypothesis. I expected it from politicians. I didn’t expect it from science.’
The theory the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was originally dismissed by left-leaning media outlets last year as a conspiracy theory after it was mentioned by then-President Donald Trump.
But they have now changed course with the launch of the US investigation.
Liberal US outlets, who slammed Mr Trump when he said a year ago said he had ‘a high degree of confidence’ that the virus escaped from a lab, have finally conceded that he may have been right — after a year ridiculing the suggestion.
The lab-leak theory was bolstered last week after it was revealed three workers at the Wuhan lab were hospitalized in November, 2019, months before Covid was first discovered in China.
China claims the virus was transmitted to humans from an animal host, with bats and pangolins both named as potential sources. Many scientists agree that is the most likely theory.
Professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge Ravi Gupta, a member of Nervtag, said the theory has not yet been investigated with ‘scientific rigor’.
He told The Telegraph: ‘The possibility was not adequately explored due to lack of access to primary records by the WHO group. Lab leak has not been scientifically rejected as a cause using [the] scientific rigor that one would expect.’
A soon to be published report by a team of British and Norwegian experts suggests it is possible to trace the creation of the virus to research in China that began in 2008.
Professor David Relman, a microbiologist at Stanford University, said the theory needs to be investigated by an international consortium of scientists in collaboration with the UN.
He said: ‘Ideally, an investigation would rely on an international consortium of scientists under the auspices of many national academies of science working in partnership, in collaboration with an international governance entity, the UN Secretary General’s Office, or something of that sort.’
And Harvard epidemiologist Professor Marc Lipsitch said a lab escape scenario ‘remains plausible enough that it should be looked into rigorously’.
He told the paper: ‘This is not a fringe position, given that multiple European governments and Dr Tedros have said the same.’
He said that while scientists are not saying a lab origin is more likely than a natural one, a thorough investigation is needed to reveal the cause of the pandemic.
As Dr Daszak’s links to the Wuhan lab become clearer, more questions are being asked about his influence over the WHO team that went to China in January and stayed for four weeks searching for answers.
The team was met with resistance in China. Authorities there made them quarantine for two weeks in Wuhan and barred two members completely after they tested positive for coronavirus antibodies.
But critics say the WHO researchers were too cozy with Chinese authorities, who are desperate not to shoulder the blame for a worldwide death toll now approaching 3.6 million.
They claim its members may have been influenced by a tour they took round a ‘propaganda museum’ which described Wuhan’s fight against the virus and the leading role taken by President Xi Jinping.
Daily Mail has been asking if the virus stemmed from a Wuhan lab since April 2020
The Daily Mail has consistently questioned the early consensus that COVID-19 was transmitted to humans directly from animals.
Our reporters have dug into the details and challenged the assumptions about how the pandemic originated.
APRIL 4, 2020:
Did coronavirus leak from a research lab in Wuhan? Startling new theory is ‘no longer being discounted’ amid claims staff ‘got infected after being sprayed with blood’
Ministers fear that the coronavirus pandemic might have been caused by a leak from a Chinese laboratory, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Senior Government sources say that while ‘the balance of scientific advice’ is still that the deadly virus was first transmitted to humans from a live animal market in Wuhan, a leak from a laboratory in the Chinese city is ‘no longer being discounted’.
One member of Cobra, the emergency committee led by Boris Johnson, said last night that while the latest intelligence did not dispute the virus was ‘zoonotic’ – originating in animals – it did not rule out that the virus first spread to humans after leaking from a Wuhan laboratory.
APRIL 15, 2020:
Mike Pompeo demands truth from Beijing as US investigates if COVID-19 escaped from Wuhan lab during experiments and China covered it up by blaming ‘wet’ food markets
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has demanded that China ‘come clean’ following reports that coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory, not as a bioweapon, but as part of bungling experiments to prove that Chinese scientists were superior to Americans in identifying emerging virus threats.
It comes after President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the U.S. is trying to determine whether the coronavirus first crossed to humans accidentally during experiments with bats at the Wuhan Institute of Virology Lab.
After word of the outbreak finally became public, Chinese leaders were quick to blame Wuhan’s ‘wet market’ where wild animals — though not bats — are sold for consumption, leading one source to tell Fox News the debacle is the ‘costliest government coverup of all time.’
MAY 2, 2020:
Wuhan virus lab ‘cover-up’: Startling photos of scientists wearing little protection as they handle deadly bat samples vanish from website of Chinese institute at the centre of global suspicion over pandemic
Pictures which appear to show slack safety standards at the Chinese laboratory at the centre of international suspicion over Covid-19 have been systematically deleted from its website – as Donald Trump continues to ramp up the pressure on Beijing over its potential role in the outbreak.
During the past month, Wuhan’s Institute of Virology has removed photographs of scientists working in its laboratories and edited out references to visits by US diplomats who subsequently raised the alarm about the laboratory’s work on bats.
US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he had seen intelligence that gave him a ‘high degree of confidence’ that the global crisis had its origins in the institute – a month after The Mail on Sunday first revealed that British Cabinet Ministers had received classified briefings raising the possibility of a leak from the institute.
Downing Street did not take issue with President Trump’s remarks. ‘There are clearly questions that need to be answered about the origin and spread of the virus,’ a spokesman for Boris Johnson said.
MAY 30, 2020:
Beijing now admits that coronavirus DIDN’T start in Wuhan’s market… so where DID it come from
China has become used to public confessions on television. But this time the words came from one of the nation’s top officials and had seismic global implications.
‘At first, we assumed the seafood market might have the virus, but now the market is more like a victim,’ said Gao Fu, director of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
Gao’s initial analysis had made sense after previous outbreaks of zoonotic viruses (diseases that jump from animals to humans). Yet suspicion grew over the Chinese government’s failure to share data from animals sampled in the market following its early cover-ups.
JANUARY 2, 2021:
China lab leak is the ‘most credible’ source of the coronavirus outbreak, says top US government official, amid bombshell claims Wuhan scientist has turned whistleblower
One of America’s most senior government officials says the most ‘credible’ theory about the origin of coronavirus is that it escaped from a laboratory in China.
Matthew Pottinger, who is President Donald Trump’s respected Deputy National Security Adviser, told politicians from around the world that even China’s leaders now openly admit their previous claims that the virus originated in a Wuhan market are false.
Mr Pottinger said that the latest intelligence points to the virus leaking from the top-secret Wuhan Institute of Virology, 11 miles from the market, saying: ‘There is a growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus.’
JANUARY 9, 2021:
New cover-up fears as Chinese officials delete critical data about the Wuhan lab with details of 300 studies vanishing – including all those carried out by virologist dubbed Batwoman
The Chinese government is facing fresh accusations of a cover-up after officials deleted crucial online data about the laboratory suspected of being the source of Covid-19.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that hundreds of pages of information relating to studies carried out by the top-secret Wuhan Institute of Virology have been wiped.
Details of more than 300 studies, including many investigating diseases that pass from animals to humans, published online by the state-run National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) are no longer available.
APRIL 24, 2021:
Worrying new clues about the origins of Covid: How scientists at Wuhan lab helped Chinese army in secret project to find animal viruses
Scientists studying bat diseases at China’s maximum-security laboratory in Wuhan were engaged in a massive project to investigate animal viruses alongside leading military officials – despite their denials of any such links.
Documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday reveal that a nationwide scheme, directed by a leading state body, was launched nine years ago to discover new viruses and detect the ‘dark matter’ of biology involved in spreading diseases.