NIH's 2017 Reversal of Gain-of-Function Research Ban Only Applied to 2 Virus Families: Coronavirus and Influenza—One Caused the 2019 COVID Pandemic, the Other Is About to Cause a Bird Flu Pandemic
Raises lab leak and bioweapon worries, as well as questions about the U.S. government's intentions.
The only two virus families re-authorized by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to receive funding for dangerous gain-of-function (GOF) experiments happen to include the virus that caused the last pandemic and the virus that will cause the next pandemic.
Follow Jon Fleetwood on Instagram @realjonfleetwood / Twitter @JonMFleetwood
In October 2014, the government paused funding for GOF research on coronaviruses and influenza viruses, following the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s reevaluation of the potential risks and benefits associated with the risky science.
But the pause was lifted in December 2017, an NIH press release reports.
“Today, the National Institutes of Health announced that it is lifting a funding pause dating back to October 2014 on gain-of-function (GOF) experiments involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses,” the NIH announcement reads. “GOF research is important in helping us identify, understand, and develop strategies and effective countermeasures against rapidly evolving pathogens that pose a threat to public health.”
Both SARS—which the COVID-19-causing SARS‑CoV‑2 virus belongs to—and MERS viruses belong to the coronavirus family, while influenza has its own family.
Coincidentally, a SARS‑CoV‑2 coronavirus would cause the COVID pandemic of 2019, just two years after the funding pause reversal.
And now in 2024, fears of an imminent influenza bird flu pandemic are reaching fever pitch.
Follow Jon Fleetwood on Instagram @realjonfleetwood / Twitter @JonMFleetwood
On Wednesday, Australia reported its first human case of H5N1 avian influenza in a child who authorities said had been infected in India.
On the same day, it was reported that a second person in the U.S. had been infected with bird flu linked to dairy cows, according to a Michigan Department of Health and Human Services publication.
Moreover, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), along with state partners, are continuing to investigate the outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus in multiple states.
That the only two virus families that have been reauthorized to receive GOF funding from the NIH since 2017 have been at the center of the last COVID pandemic as well as the potentially incoming bird flu pandemic raises questions about the U.S. government’s intentions and involvement.
Questions aimed at the government are especially relevant considering Congress in March 2024 passed a spending bill that conveniently allocates over $1 billion for a future animal-to-human influenza pandemic, months before bird flu was on anyone’s radar.
It should be noted that this website has been sounding the alarm regarding bird flu and the government’s involvement with it since February 2024, as well as safe and effective treatments for the disease (here, here).
Follow Jon Fleetwood on Instagram @realjonfleetwood / Twitter @JonMFleetwood
Dr. Richard Bartlett, an emergency room director and recipient of the Texas Department of Health and Human Services Meritorious Service Award, told this website he believes we could be witnessing a “bioweapon” attack in the making.
“I’m extremely concerned that the public will not be able to connect the dots,” said Dr. Bartlett. “I anticipate the same playbook that was used during COVID will be used during this potential future bird flu pandemic.”
“We need to entertain the possibility that we will be dealing with a bioweapon, not a natural phenomenon. It might be that the mainstream messaging and propaganda broadcast to the American people will be to call it a normal ‘Flu A’ that spun out in nature, when in reality it’s a mass casualty bioweapon event with an influenza virus that was genetically engineered in a lab.”
A “loophole” in the international ‘Biological Weapons Convention’ (BWC) treaty allows the U.S. government to produce bioweapons from the most dangerous pathogens known to mankind, so long as the stated purpose is for “peaceful uses,” like vaccine development.
This means the government can make the problem (a more lethal version of a virus) and the solution for that problem (a vaccine for that virus) at the same time.
Case in point, the USDA has been funding GOF experiments on bird flu while simultaneously making a vaccine for the disease, raising more questions about the government’s intentions and involvement with bird flu.
A laboratory leak involving bird flu is also feasible, especially in light of the U.S. Energy Department’s conclusion that the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has likewise confirmed that the COVID pandemic was probably the result of a lab “incident” in Wuhan.
If a lab leak caused the COVID pandemic, it could cause an influenza pandemic.
In fact, the U.S. has “temporarily relaxed strict guidelines” for handling, storing, and transporting dangerous H5N1 bird flu samples (here), a move that adds to worries the virus will escape containment.
Follow Jon Fleetwood on Instagram @realjonfleetwood / Twitter @JonMFleetwood
Former CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield recently told NewsNation he’s “obviously most worried about bird flu.”
“Right now, it takes five amino acid changes for it to be effectively infecting humans. That’s a pretty heavy species barrier. But this virus is already now in 26 mammal species, as you most recently saw: cattle,” he said in the interview. “But in the laboratory, I could make it highly infectious for humans in just months.”
“That’s the real threat. That’s the real biosecurity threat that these university labs are doing bio-experiments that are intentionally modifying viruses—and I think bird flu is going to be the cause of the Great Pandemic—where they’re teaching these viruses to be more infectious for humans.”
In an earlier interview with Centerpoint TV, Redfield predicted the coming influenza pandemic would be much worse than COVID.
“I don’t believe [COVID] is the ‘great pandemic,’” he said. “I believe the great pandemic is still in the future. And that’s going to be a bird flu pandemic from man. It’s going to have significant mortality, in the ten to fifteen percent range. It’s going to be trouble. And we should get prepared for it.”
Follow Jon Fleetwood on Instagram @realjonfleetwood / Twitter @JonMFleetwood
U.S. Gov't Is Making a Vaccine for a Virus It Also Happens to Be Making More Deadly: Bird Flu
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending $1 million of American taxpayer money to fund gain-of-function experiments on dangerous bird flu (avian influenza) viruses in collaboration with Chinese scientists, according to a new report.
Biden Signs Into Law Spending Bill That Could Apply Over $1 Billion to Future Bird Flu Pandemic: Doctor Says 'Bioweapon Event' Could Be Imminent
Summary: Biden signs $1.2 trillion spending package Legislation allocates $708,272,000 for emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases Additional $315,000,000 earmarked for flu pandemic preparation, includes vaccine production Congress readies over a billion dollars for future animal-to-human infectious diseases, like bird flu (influenza)
Treaty 'Loophole' Allows World Governments to Develop Deadly Bioweapons Like COVID and Corresponding Vaccines: Yale Professor (Video)
The ‘Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and On Their Destruction,’ known as the “Biological Weapons Convention” (BWC), was opened for signature in April 1972 and took effect in March 1975.
8 Studies Support Ivermectin's Effectiveness Against Influenza Amid Bird Flu Pandemic Worries
As the H5N1 influenza A virus (IAV) infects birds and mammals, including humans, across the world, health experts are warning a bird flu pandemic could be “100 times worse” than COVID-19.
7 Studies Confirm Antiviral 'Xofluza' Is 'Drug of Choice' for Bird Flu, as USDA Tests Ground Beef for Virus
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will begin testing ground beef for H5N1 bird flu (influenza) particles, as the virus has reportedly been found in nearly three dozen dairy herds across nine states.
NIH Admits Funding Gain-of-Function Research in Wuhan, China (Video)
Dr. Lawrence A. Tabak, Principal Deputy Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), on Thursday admitted before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that his agency did fund risky gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China.
As Media Hypes Bird Flu-Infected Cows, Bird Flu Vaccine Discovered to Contain Neurotoxin Mercury, Dog DNA, Cancer-Causing Chemicals: FDA Package Insert
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are claiming rampant bird flu (H5N1 avian influenza) has spread to dairy cattle across several states.
U.S. 'Relaxes' Biolab Regulations for Handling Deadly Pathogens Despite Ex-CDC Chief's Bird Flu Pandemic Warning
The United States has “temporarily relaxed strict guidelines” for handling, storing, and transporting dangerous H5N1 bird flu samples, following a request from the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), a U.S. government-funded nonprofit membership organization.
How is this not a domestic terrorist kind of thing?