White House touts Covid-19 'lab leak' theory on new website
Source: CNN
By Sarah Owermohle
Published 1:37 PM EDT, Fri April 18, 2025
The White House on Friday morning launched a new website championing the theory that the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was a manmade pathogen that leaked from an infectious disease laboratory in Wuhan, China.
The page revives a long debate about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic that has seen investigations by federal agencies, global health organizations and congressional committees. The CIA in January issued a report concluding that a lab leak was likely, but with “low confidence” in that judgment, paralleling similar conclusions from the Energy and State departments.
The CIA had previously said it did not have enough information to make a determination about where the virus originated. The World Health Organization has said it remains open to all hypotheses, including that the virus spread from animals to people in a Wuhan market.
Yet the Trump administration’s new website takes the lab leak theory even further than most of those reports, stating that the virus “possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature” and “if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t.”
...
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/18/politics/white-house-covid-lab-leak-website/index.html
The only hypothesis which the current data supports is the hypothesis that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in nature and spread through a market in Wuhan. No one has any evidence that there was a lab leak. To claim that the virus originated through a lab leak is a dishonest statement which ignores the principle that any such claim must be based on evidence found in data, not in the biases present in some politically convenient conspiracy theory.
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WSHazel
(316 posts)Why did Trump let it happen? Wasn’t he President in 2019?
womanofthehills
(9,636 posts)After anthrax & other lab leaks. So Ralph Baric of UNC started coordinating with Wuhan. Shi Zhengli & Baric wrote papers on bats & gain of function together. You can read them if you search for them.
When Trump won - he reversed Obama’s ban on gain-of-function in US and it remains that way today. In 2019, Fort Detrick bio lab was closed for 3 months too - for severe safety violations. You can look it up - Military Times reported on it and local newspapers.
Everything is so weird - At one point Univ of Galveston bio lab trained some Wuhan scientists.
Scary thing - is there are hundreds of bio labs all over the world - some believed to be unknown. Wujan was doing their work in bio 2 labs when most agree that work should have been done in bio 4 labs ((more secure)
xocetaceans
(4,131 posts)...safely perform GOF research. This was the notice from the NIH and what follows is a link to the P3CO from the Obama White House's archive.
NIH Lifts Funding Pause on Gain-of-Function Research
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. 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. The funding pause was lifted in response to today’s release of the Department of Health and Human Services Framework for Guiding Funding Decisions about Proposed Research Involving Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens (link is external)(HHS P3CO Framework).
...
We have a responsibility to ensure that research with infectious agents is conducted responsibly, and that we consider the potential biosafety and biosecurity risks associated with such research. I am confident that the thoughtful review process laid out by the HHS P3CO Framework will help to facilitate the safe, secure, and responsible conduct of this type of research in a manner that maximizes the benefits to public health.
I would especially like to acknowledge the efforts of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine(link is external) for their thoughtful deliberations on the issues surrounding this important area of research. The work of these committees was instrumental in guiding the United States Government in its job of creating rigorous policy that allows vital research to move forward.
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, National Institutes of Health
https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-lifts-funding-pause-gain-function-research
HHS P3CO Framework (This is linked to the National Archive's website and has the January 2017 PDF from the Obama White House.)
If ones listens to what Dr. Baric had to say back in late 2014, it should be clear that what is referred loosely to as GOF research is a valuable tool for surveillance and for establishing treatments (see from 8:09 to 17:25 in the video, and take particular note of his last slide):
Which "most agree" do you mean? How about an actual citation which would support that claim that Wuhan should have been working in BSL-4?
Here, for example, is the policy of the CDC:
Laboratory Biosafety Guidelines for working with SARS-CoV-2
...
SARS-CoV-2 specific guidance
To determine appropriate biosafety mitigation measures, laboratories should perform an activity-specific comprehensive risk assessment that evaluates laboratory facilities, personnel and training, practices and techniques, safety equipment, engineering controls, and other risk mitigation measures. Biosafety professionals, laboratory management, and scientific and safety experts should be involved in the comprehensive risk assessment process.
At a minimum, BSL-2 facilities, practices, and procedures are recommended for diagnostic research, anatomic pathology, environmental, and virus propagation activities utilizing SARS-CoV-2. At a minimum, ABSL-2 is recommended for work with these viruses in animal models.
...
https://www.cdc.gov/covid/php/lab/index.html
As is clear from the CDC website, BSL-2 and ABSL-2 are noted as the minima, not BSL-4.
One other note is that your assertion of the statement "So Ralph Baric of UNC started coordinating with Wuhan." seems to be incorrect: the implication in your post is that that happened after and as a consequence of 2014's pause of GOF research, but as is noted in your later post in this thread:
" “In 2013, the American virologist Ralph Baric approached Zhengli Shi at a meeting. ...." "
Basically, between the nonspecific, hyperbolic terminology ("scary", "unknown", "severe", "weird" ) that is present in your posts in this thread and the factual inaccuracies that are also present ( "bio 4 (sic) labs", "he (Trump) reversed", "2014" ), it seems that you really have not followed what happened with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic closely enough to comment in an informed manner about it. You cite nearly nothing and seem to write in such a way to provoke fear and conspiracy theory. If you are able to take the time to understand his presentation, taking the time to listen to Dr. Baric's presentation from 2014 in the above video might clarify the issue.
bucolic_frolic
(49,811 posts)That is what is happening here.
NCDem47
(2,763 posts)All of it fake news. All of it to take him down. I do think his handling of it is what gave Biden the edge that election. It's what Trump remembers as he was shown the door out. "So unfair" 
58Sunliner
(5,621 posts)They never did find an animal who has the exact virus or one that is close enough. If it was man made, I'd bet on Russia. It would explain his need to project and place blame.
PSPS
(14,470 posts)I wasn't aware of it until Covid. People devote their lives and careers to this fascinating field. They looked at the SARS virus and unanimously agreed that it was not a lab leak or man-made. It almost certainly originated in the wet market. All of these conspiracy theories are merely trump and his sycophants deflecting because it was hurting him politically. They even went after Dr. Fauci, ridiculously claiming he was responsible for its "creation!"
58Sunliner
(5,621 posts)and the info as to what was carried by animals and there are enough distinct differences that do not necessarily point to a natural mutagenesis simply because some of the differences in the rna show no mutations from SARS 1. You would expect to see evidence, in the animal population that carries SARS, of these changes/mutations. There is enough disagreement between experts regarding the assumption of an animal origin, that can not be proven, that the jury is still out imo. Doesn't mean it's unequivocally one way or another. Aside from the horror this virus unleashed, it is a fascinating conundrum.
xocetaceans
(4,131 posts)Seriously, RNA is mentioned at least six times in this following paper, and that is just looking at its abstract.
The architecture of the SARS-CoV-2 RNA genome inside virion
Changchang Cao, ... Yuanchao Xue
Nature Communications 12, Article number: 3917 (2021)
Abstract
SARS-CoV-2 carries the largest single-stranded RNA genome and is the causal pathogen of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. How the SARS-CoV-2 RNA genome is folded in the virion remains unknown. To fill the knowledge gap and facilitate structure-based drug development, we develop a virion RNA in situ conformation sequencing technology, named vRIC-seq, for probing viral RNA genome structure unbiasedly. Using vRIC-seq data, we reconstruct the tertiary structure of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and reveal a surprisingly “unentangled globule” conformation. We uncover many long-range duplexes and higher-order junctions, both of which are under purifying selections and contribute to the sequential package of the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Unexpectedly, the D614G and the other two accompanying mutations may remodel duplexes into more stable forms. Lastly, the structure-guided design of potent small interfering RNAs can obliterate the SARS-CoV-2 in Vero cells. Overall, our work provides a framework for studying the genome structure, function, and dynamics of emerging deadly RNA viruses.
...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22785-x
58Sunliner
(5,621 posts)xocetaceans
(4,131 posts)...are what "close enough" means in your statement and why it seems (based on what was in your statement) that some sort of linear progression from SARS-CoV to SARS-CoV-2 might be being imagined and that any progression (i.e., more realistically, a divergence from that common ancestor) was not in the presence of other similar viruses from that subgenus which might also contribute to affecting changes to their respective viral genomes. In looking at the "genealogy" (Do you mean "phylogeny" by chance? See the second referenced paper below for a phylogeny.) it IS clear that SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 have a common ancestor in the subgenus Sarbecovirus. Is it your contention that they are the only inhabitants of that subgenus or that they are have some sort of linear progression from one to the other? From the way that you've stated your claims, that seems to be what you're implying.
Also, your other comment about "What they do look for in (DNA) extractions are the markers of the virus in human (DNA)." is wholly unrelated to anything relevant to the origin of SARS-CoV-2, and it really seems to be quite a random remark.
All in all, it seems that you have not followed the pandemic very closely, and that is ok, but amplifying evidence-free conspiracy-adjacent ideas (Russia did it?) is not useful to fostering public health or science in the USA. In fact, your cited genomic similarities are more indicative of the position that the virus did not originate in a lab leak than of anything else: it makes both design (too complicated) and passaging (too lengthy a process) unlikely sources.
So, given the present state of the ACTUAL EVIDENCE, a zoonotic origin for SARS-CoV-2 is the only currently tenable hypothesis.
Bat coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2 and infectious for human cells
Sarah Temmam, ..., & Marc Eloit
Nature 604, pages 330–336 (2022)
Abstract
...
Main
The origin of SARS-CoV-2, as well as its mode of introduction into the human population, are unknown at present. Since its emergence, numerous animal species have been studied to identify possible reservoirs and/or intermediate hosts of the virus, including a large diversity of insectivorous bats of the genus Rhinolophus. Despite the recent report of various SARS-CoV-2-related viruses in R. shameli (isolated in Cambodia in 2010 (13)), R. pusillus and R. malayanus (China, 2020 and 2019, respectively(2)), R. acuminatus (Thailand, 2020(3)) and R. cornutus (Japan, 2013(4)), the closest SARS-CoV-2 bat-borne genome still remains the one from R. affinis, RaTG13 (China, 2013(5,6)), with 96.1% identity at the whole-genome level. Several studies also suggested the involvement of pangolin coronaviruses in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 (refs. 7,8,9). Since its appearance in humans, SARS-CoV-2 has evolved through sporadic mutations and recombination events(14), some of which correspond to gains in fitness allowing the virus to spread more widely, or to escape neutralizing antibodies(15).
To decipher the origin of SARS-CoV-2, it is therefore essential to ascertain the diversity of animal coronaviruses, and more specifically, that of bat coronaviruses. Although the identification of SARS-CoV-2 in bats is a main goal, a more realistic objective is to identify the sequences that contribute to its mosaicism. The spike sequence seems essential, as it determines the binding affinity and accessibility of the receptor-binding domain (RBD) to the cellular ACE2 receptor and is therefore responsible for host range(10,11,12). The closest related bat strain identified so far (RaTG13) has a low RBD sequence similarity to SARS-CoV-2, and with only 11/17 hACE2 contact amino acid residues conserved with SARS-CoV-2, its affinity for hACE2 is very limited16. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 poorly infects bats and bat cells tested so far(17). In addition, no bat SARS-CoV-2-like virus has been shown to use hACE2 to efficiently enter human cells, and none has the furin cleavage site that is associated with an increased pathogenicity in humans(18). The SARS-CoV-2 RBD binds to R. macrotis ACE2 with a lower affinity than to hACE2 (ref. 19). An essential piece of information—finding bat viruses with an RBD motif genetically close to that of SARS-CoV-2 and capable of binding to hACE2 with high affinity—is therefore missing.
We speculated that this type of virus could be identified in bats living in the limestone karstic terrain common to China, Laos and Vietnam in the Indochinese peninsula. Here we report the presence of sarbecoviruses close to SARS-CoV-2 whose RBDs differ from that of SARS-CoV-2 by only one or two contact residues, strongly bind to the hACE2 protein and mediate hACE2-dependent entry and replication into human cells. Despite the absence of the furin cleavage site, these viruses may have contributed to the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and may intrinsically pose a future risk of direct transmission to humans.
...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04532-4
Genomic and evolutionary comparison between SARS-CoV-2 and other human coronaviruses
Zigui Chen, ..., Paul KS Chan
...
1. Introduction
...
Phylogenetically, SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 share a most recent common ancestor within the subgenus Sarbecovirus, and are relatively distant to MERS-CoV (belonging to the subgenus Merbecovirus) in the genus Betacoronavirus (Fig. 1 ).
...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7718587/
Phylogeny of Viruses
AE Gorbalenya
...
Phylogenetic analysis is used in a wide range of studies to address both applied and fundamental issues of virus research, including epidemiology, diagnostics, forensic studies, phylogeography, origin, evolution, and taxonomy of viruses. First question to be answered during an outbreak of a virus epidemic concern the virus identity and origin. Answers to these questions form the basis for implementing immediate practical measures and prospective planning enabling specific and rapid virus detection and epidemic containment, which may include the use and development of antiviral drugs and vaccines. Among different analyses performed for virus identification at the early stage of a virus epidemic, the phylogenetic characterization is used for determining the relationship of a newly identified virus with all other previously characterized and sequenced viruses.
...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7150205/
womanofthehills
(9,636 posts)Wuhan scientists were always getting samples from their bat caves and our own Ralph Baric of UNC also had huge numbers bat strains.
The scientific papers on SARS 2 were written by the two of them with about 10 others.
58Sunliner
(5,621 posts)womanofthehills
(9,636 posts)“Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research “
“Lab-made coronavirus related to SARS can infect human cells.” https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18787
You need to be a working scientist to access this. Probably why Obama stopped gain of function research in US in 2014 - but Trump brought it back in 2019. Ralph Baric is America’s top coronavirus expert - his lab is bio level 3 at University of North Carolina. Shi is well known as “the Bat Lady” of Wujan.
Interesting article from MIT technology
“In 2013, the American virologist Ralph Baric approached Zhengli Shi at a meeting. Baric was a top expert in coronaviruses, with hundreds of papers to his credit, and Shi, along with her team at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, had been discovering them by the fistful in bat caves. In one sample of bat guano, Shi had detected the genome of a new virus, called SHC014, that was one of the two closest relatives to the original SARS virus, but her team had not been able to culture it in the lab.
Baric had developed a way around that problem—a technique for “reverse genetics” in coronaviruses. Not only did it allow him to bring an actual virus to life from its genetic code, but he could mix and match parts of multiple viruses. He wanted to take the “spike” gene from SHC014 and move it into a genetic copy of the SARS virus he already had in his lab. The spike molecule is what lets a coronavirus open a cell and get inside it. The resulting chimera would demonstrate whether the spike of SHC014 would attach to human cells.”
Really long but very interesting article Baric and Shi wrote papers together- -
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/29/1027290/gain-of-function-risky-bat-virus-engineering-links-america-to-wuhan/
58Sunliner
(5,621 posts)".. the zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not established. In particular, the bat viruses most closely related to SARS-CoV-2 were sampled from animals in Yunnan province, over 1,500 km from Wuhan. There are relatively few bat coronaviruses from Hubei province, and those that have been sequenced are relatively distant to SARS-CoV-2 in phylogenetic trees (Lin et al., 2017). The simple inference from this is that our sampling of bat viruses is strongly biased toward some geographical locations. This will need to be rectified in future studies. In addition, although sequence similarity values of 96%–97% make it sound like the available bat viruses are very closely related to SARS-CoV-2, in reality this likely represents more than 20 years of sequence evolution".
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867420303287
xocetaceans
(4,131 posts)...say that zero shared DNA is "somewhat low", though.
58Sunliner
(5,621 posts)in human dna.
The argument regarding the shared genetics of the viruses still are relevant.
".. the zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not established. In particular, the bat viruses most closely related to SARS-CoV-2 were sampled from animals in Yunnan province, over 1,500 km from Wuhan. There are relatively few bat coronaviruses from Hubei province, and those that have been sequenced are relatively distant to SARS-CoV-2 in phylogenetic trees (Lin et al., 2017). The simple inference from this is that our sampling of bat viruses is strongly biased toward some geographical locations. This will need to be rectified in future studies. In addition, although sequence similarity values of 96%–97% make it sound like the available bat viruses are very closely related to SARS-CoV-2, in reality this likely represents more than 20 years of sequence evolution".
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867420303287
bsiebs
(826 posts)
Basso8vb
(857 posts)
yellow dahlia
(2,247 posts)Reuters article from March 2020, explaining how the grifter had removed CDC personnel from China in 2018.
https://archive.ph/6mqrl
xocetaceans
(4,131 posts)By Marisa Taylor
March 25, 2020 11:52 PM UTC
WASHINGTON(Reuters) - The Trump administration cut staff by more than two-thirds at a key U.S. public health agency operating inside China, as part of a larger rollback of U.S.-funded health and science experts on the ground there leading up to the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters has learned.
Most of the reductions were made at the Beijing office of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and occurred over the past two years, according to public CDC documents viewed by Reuters and interviews with four people familiar with the drawdown.
The Atlanta-based CDC, America’s preeminent disease fighting agency, provides public health assistance to nations around the world and works with them to help stop outbreaks of contagious diseases from spreading globally. It has worked in China for 30 years.
The CDC’s China headcount has shrunk to around 14 staffers, down from approximately 47 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the documents show. The four people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the losses included epidemiologists and other health professionals.
...
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-us-slashed-cdc-staff-inside-china-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak-idUSKBN21C3NE/
yellow dahlia
(2,247 posts)He changed the world.
And now he plans to break it even more.
xocetaceans
(4,131 posts)...how he only half seemed to take it semi-seriously after the stock market started to collapse. Even then, his motivation at that time seemed more aligned with not looking bad in public so he could be re-elected, instead of guiding the country through the pandemic with as little loss of life as possible. All the while, he bounced from bright light to ivermectin to hydroxychloroquine to disinfectant in disjointed flights of self-centered, stream-of-consciousness quackery.
He should have been charged with some degree of criminal negligence for all of the deaths in the US that resulted from his inability to lead. Bob Woodward's book on the pandemic, after all, had Trump acknowledge that Trump "knew" the seriousness of the pandemic at least as early as the first week of February 2020. (Still, Trump is mostly completely unsullied by knowledge. Just the other day, he actually told the Italian Prime Minister in the Oval Office that he was unaware of what "the Congo" is.)
The Congo
Trump (starting at 13:37 in the video) : "...All over the world... the Congo and Africa... Many, many people come from the Congo. I don't know what that is, but they came from the Congo, and all over the world, they came in...opened their jails...."
People must have forgotten how absolutely worthless his leadership was and also how abjectly stupid he actually is.
area51
(12,282 posts)shows how he still lives rent-free in nazi heads. 
Skittles
(163,413 posts)yes INDEED
