Despite the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s U.S. taxpayer-funded collaborators such as EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak’s insisting that the controversial lab never worked with live bats, evidence including patents and archived news reports reveal otherwise.
The evidence follows Daszak – whose organization funneled money from Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to partner with the Wuhan Institute of Virology – equating claims that the Wuhan lab worked with live bats to “conspiracy theories.”
“This is a widely circulated conspiracy theory. This piece describes work I’m the lead on & labs I’ve collaborated w/ for 15 yrs. They DO NOT have live or dead bats in them,” Daszak, who also served as a World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 investigator, tweeted.
A 2009 profile on the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Director Shi Zhengli – dubbed “bat woman” – in a Chinese state-run media outlet, however, outlines how the lab collected bat samples:
At that time, the experiment needed to go to the wild to collect bat samples, and the whole process was very hard. “Ms. Shi not only participated in the whole process, but also took everyone to climb the mountain and into the cave.” Assistant researcher Zhang Huajun recalled. To prevent the infection of the virus carried by bats, “Ms. Shi would repeatedly remind everyone to wear gloves and masks before each departure. Wear work clothes and prepare for protection.”
By 8:30 p.m., Luo’s team has collected a full rack of swabs and bagged a dozen live bats for further testing back at the lab. Luo hopes that this time, the results will come out differently. His colleague points out a firefly bobbing up and down in the pitch-black cave. “It might be a good omen,” Luo says with a smile.
The unearthed articles, which directly undermine Daszak’s claims, come amidst footage of Wuhan Institue of Virology researchers interacting with live bats also uncovered by an investigative network known as “DRASTIC.”
The Wuhan Institute of Virology also filed a patent in 2018 for a “carnivorism bat rearging cage” which allows bats to be “capable of healthy growth and breeding under artificial condition.” “The utility model relates to a kind of wild animals to tame breeding apparatus technical field, more particularly, to a kind of carnivorism bat Rearging cage,” the patent adds.
