New Colorado Bat Lab Location CSU Confirmed to Develop ‘CDC Tier 1 Select Agents’ Like Ebola Despite University's Denials
New Colorado Bat Lab Location CSU Confirmed to Develop ‘CDC Tier 1 Select Agents’ Like Ebola Despite University's Denials
The website for BioMARC, a manufacturer owned and operated by CSU, confirms the org works with biological agents and toxins that potentially pose a severe threat to humans.
As health workers in Denver, Colorado receive doses of a “shedding” and live virus-containing Ebola vaccine, concerns have been raised over a new bat research facility to be built just up the road, at Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins.
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The Denver vaccinations were given as “preventative measures in case of a future outbreak.”
The new $12 million taxpayer-funded facility in Fort Collins will reportedly be working with Ebola, even despite the city’s checkered past tinkering with deadly viruses.
CSU Denies Working with Ebola
For years, CSU has denied working with Ebola.
A nearly decade-old media tip sheet from the university claims that “CSU does not work with the Ebola virus.”
The tip sheet says this is because the university “does not have a Biosafety Level 4 facility, the highest safety level, which is required for research with Ebola and other highly dangerous pathogens.”
A laboratory requires a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) rating in order to conduct research on Ebola.
Another CSU webpage devoted to information regarding bat research conducted at the university asserts that the Ebola virus “will not be studied in the new building or in any CSU building.”
It goes on to claim that CSU “does not and cannot possess these viruses. Our facilities are not built to research these viruses.”
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Other CSU Publications Confirm University Works with ‘Select Agents’
However, this contradicts statements made on other CSU websites that confirm the university does participate in the development of biopharmaceutical products related to “Select Agent[s] (SA)” and “CDC Tier 1 select agents,” which include Ebola.
BioMARC is a non-profit biologics Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization owned and operated by CSU serving biopharmaceutical companies and government agencies, according to CSU’s website.
BioMARC was created “to translate and produce biopharmaceutical products for non-clinical, clinical, and commercial use under Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) and BSL-2 containment (including spore former containment) and Select Agent (SA) biosecurity conditions.”
Another of the CSU-owned organization’s web pages reads: “We specialize in high containment: Biosafety Level 2 (BSL-2) and Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3), and CDC Tier 1 select agents.”
Select Agents are biological agents and toxins deemed to pose severe threats to public health and safety.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirm Ebola is a select agent.
The two agencies define tier 1 select agents and toxins as those “require[ing] additional security measures to be implemented including the addition of pre-access suitability assessments, extra access controls, and extra barriers.”
This could explain how CSU’s BioMARC was able to aid in the development of an Ebola vaccine for the U.S. military.
An October 2014 USA Today report revealed:
BioMARC, a high-containment biopharmaceutical facility operated by CSU, is manufacturing the vaccines for the U.S. Department of Defense for use in human clinical trials. There’s no approved Ebola vaccine, and the Colorado State lab will make small amounts of the vaccine for testing purposes.
CSU was chosen for the work in part because it has equipment that can make vaccines without using live Ebola virus, reducing the risk of infection to workers or the public. University researchers also conduct tuberculosis, hantavirus and West Nile virus research at the lab west of the city.
CSU Bat Lab Grant Cites Ebola Virus
Despite CSU’s denials that the new bat lab will study Ebola, a description for the project’s grant published on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) website emphasizes that “[b]ats are reservoirs, or suspected reservoirs, of many zoonotic viruses, including SARS, SARS2 and MERS coronaviruses, Nipah and Hendra viruses, and Ebola and Marburg viruses.”
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CSU Board of Governors Meeting Document Confirms Bat Lab to Study Ebola
Furthermore, a document from a 2022 CSU Board of Governors meeting obtained by White Coat Waste Project (WCW), a taxpayer watchdog organization, shows that CSU will conduct Ebola experiments on bats in conjunction with NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Lab.
A section of the document titled “Benefits of the Project” reads:
Construction of the proposed bat facility will help meet the immediate needs of the CSU research community and our national collaborators. Beyond investigators at CSU, this project will enhance regional and national efforts to understand the complex role of bats in virus emergence. Studies planned with collaborators at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton MT will assess the susceptibility of bats to Nipah virus and ebolaviruses. The colony will also provide a valuable source of tissues and reagents for in vitro studies.
“After what we exposed in Wuhan, giving the disgraced EcoHealth Alliance and its cronies millions more of our tax money to traffic infected wild bats from Asia to US animal labs for dangerous virus experiments is a recipe for disaster,” said Justin Goodman, WCW’s Senior Vice President.
“We first uncovered how EcoHealth and Fauci shipped tax dollars to the Wuhan lab for reckless bat virus-hunting and gain-of-function experiments that violated federal policy and that the FBI and others believe caused COVID. Now, we’ve documented how boneheaded bureaucrats at the NIH, Pentagon and other federal agencies are bankrolling another EcoHealth bat lab that risks prompting a pandemic right here at home.”
Goodman continued: “We’re working with Congress right now to curtail wasteful government spending on virus-hunting and animal experiments by EcoHealth and others that can cause lab leaks and create bioweapons. The solution is simple. Stop the money. Stop the madness.”
You can download the full document here:
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You did some good digging here, but I think you misunderstand what the lab in Colorado will be able to do. They cannot work on live Ebola at CSU, without a BSL-4, but plans call for them to breed and house the bats that can be used for Ebola research. The documents, and your research, show they plan to work with RML in Montana. They have a BSL-4 at RML.
CSU will ship them the bats for Ebola research in the Montana BSL-4. They’ll probably ship em to Boston, to Ft. Detrick, to Atlanta, and other places that are equipped or will get equipped to deal with bats in BSL-4 labs. If you want to stop more Ebola research in the US, figure out a way to stop the shipment of bats from CSU, or don’t let them come to Colorado in the first place.
A suggestion.