The prevailing mentality amongst the media is that 'the fairies came along in the night' and uncovered the cover-up.

What i hear a lot now is that people have moved on or that they're over talk of Covid's origin - not over talk of Covid - which is still going full steam - just over talk of giving credit to those who did the hard yards - credit which they never gave in the first place.

It's the usual pattern for a cover-up when you've got the power to prevent an investigation/prosecution:

Deny, suppress, censor, lie - for as long as you possibly can - then when that becomes unsustainable due to the weight of evidence that still gets through to the public, despite your best efforts to crush it - then you say you've 'moved on'.

Trump was dismissed as a conspiracy theorist and denounced as a racist for pinning the blame for COVID on China and promoting the theory that the virus may have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Social media platforms and many media outlets called it "settled science" that he was incorrect.

A year later, the narrative has shifted. Trump's suspicion of the Wuhan lab is now mainstream. International anger at China's obfuscation of the origins of the pandemic boiled over. Biden ordered US intelligence agencies to investigate the origins of the pandemic, including the lab leak theory. And while that investigation was inconclusive, a group of amateur sleuths known as DRASTIC has compiled a lot of evidence that suggests the science of the lab leak theory is anything but settled.

Thanks to DRASTIC, we now know that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had an extensive collection of coronaviruses gathered over many years of foraging in the bat caves, and that many of them—including the closest known relative to the pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2—came from a mineshaft where three men died from a suspected SARS-like disease in 2012. We know that the WIV was actively working with these viruses, using inadequate safety protocols, in ways that could have triggered the pandemic, and that the lab and Chinese authorities have gone to great lengths to conceal these activities. We know that the first cases appeared weeks before the outbreak at the Huanan wet market that was once thought to be ground zero for the pandemic.

None of this proves that the pandemic started in the Wuhan lab, of course: it's entirely possible that it did not. But the evidence assembled by DRASTIC amounts to what prosecutors call probable cause—a strong, evidence-based case for a full investigation.

These developments have forced some awkward U-turns on Trump's critics. Newspapers corrected stories, Facebook stopped censoring posts suggesting the virus could have been manmade, and PolitiFact yanked a "fact check" calling the lab-leak theory "debunked."

On May 11, 2021, Fauci was asked by Senator Rand Paul on Capitol Hill if the virus might have emanated from the Wuhan lab and Fauci answered, "The possibility certainly exists, and I am totally in favor of a full investigation."

DRASTIC coverage comprised a very large portion of this article.

So great to see DRASTIC cracking it for an article.

Global Times: Shu further explained that the members of the organization act separately when publishing articles or launching campaigns. Specifically, most of the articles or reports by DRASTIC are completed by one to three people. Members tend to collect evidence related to the origins of the novel coronavirus individually instead of collectively. Team founder Billy Bostickson has also worked with members outside the organization on so-called "reports".

Weirdly, the story tries to link DRASTIC with an official US plot to undermine China.

(Lü Xiang) noted that the US is carrying out a "political war" against China with the tracing of the origins of COVID-19 and is now using both overt and covert means in its mission. .. He said that the US has a long tradition, experience and the planning skills to use "political war" against countries it does not agree with. Its ability to "disguise laundry detergent as a biological weapon" is unmatched by other countries.

The reality is that the mainstream in the US and elsewhere have done their absolute best to suppress the info generated by DRASTIC. The recent US Intelligence report with its pointless 'non-finding' shows that's still largely the case.

This suggests our man, Peter Daszak, is in hot water. When he was putting out all that CCP propaganda i was thinking 'Pete, you must be very confident you're not gonna get caught - coz if you do, you're gonna go down as one of the greatest villains in the history of humanity'.

'Scapegoat' is not quite the right word coz Daszak deserves everything he gets for his lead role in (a) dangerous GoF experiments at WIV and (b) lying to cover it up - but this goes way way deeper than a rogue scientist.

Had a discussion/argument with a friend a few months ago - they said: 'So you're saying all these reputable science journals, Nature, New Scientist, Lancet, etc - they're all corrupt?'

I replied 'Yep' - though it sounded kind of incredible in my own ears. But given the misinformation they platformed - and the truth that they actively suppressed - it's an inescapable conclusion. (Breathtaking stupidity is the only other explanation.)

Then you've got all the media, big-tech, the politicians, the intelligence agencies, the entire WHO organization, famous universities ...

The enormity of this is staggering - which makes me worry 'How are we going to reform this when the entire system is rotten to the core?'

That fall, the State Department team got a tip from a foreign source: Key information was likely sitting in the U.S. intelligence community’s own files, unanalyzed.

The key word here for me is likely.

It suggests the source is pretty sure they would have it as matter of course, as a result of their regular collection of data.

So where does intelligence get regular collection of data? Basically from open or closed sources, open sources being anything publicly available. DRASTIC, for example, has built its entire case, I presume, on open source data. So there's a possibility that information is still hiding in some archive of open source data. The CCP surely deleted any mention of it, but information on the internet is hard to delete entirely.

And closed source (or whatever spooks call it) is everything else.

Regardless, this use of the adverb likely is bugging the shit out of me. It's rich, pregnant, telling.

Or, perhaps the source was just being a snobbish shit and using likely in the polite, indirect suggestive sense meaning, "You have the fucking file you idiot because I gave it to you six months ago."

We'll likely never know.

Not long after came a 'scientists statement' signed by Ralph Baric that went further. Baric has worked at WIV on GoF experiments.

Hmmm... possibly....

But how would he have known about the sickened WIV researchers? If it is him, either he was on site when it happened or someone gave him the information. If we can establish that he was not on site at the time, then either it wasn't him or someone gave him the information.

Like patient 0, who is source 0 in this case?

Of course, Baric could be the primary source for US intelligence regardless of his location at the time of the event, but if he were not on site, that would indicate someone perhaps knowingly passing on sensitive information rather than talk around the water cooler if he were on site. So there is a difference there.

Not long after came a 'scientists statement' signed by Ralph Baric that went further. Baric has worked at WIV on GoF experiments.

Hmmm... possibly....

But how would he have known about the sickened WIV researchers? If it is him, either he was on site when it happened or someone gave him the information. If we can establish that he was not on site at the time, then either it wasn't him or someone gave him the information.

Like patient 0, who is source 0 in this case?

How 'bout the performance of US intelligence? - has to be culpable. Did the same thing with Anthrax - seems what they normally do.

I'm guessing intelligence has failed repeatedly because it functions as an arm of whoever is in office rather than some objective, autonomous, information gathering organization. If somebody says don't go there, they won't go there. If some dickhead politician says kill that line of inquiry, they kill it.

Perhaps intelligence is a misnomer.

Not long after came a 'scientists statement' signed by Ralph Baric that went further. Baric has worked at WIV on GoF experiments.

(then a stampede of rats)

It follows that he's looking for a deal. Those guys - the Lipkins the Barics working on biodefense - they are well-acquainted with US intelligence higher ups. This is where they develop their 'Master of the Universe' complexes.

How 'bout the performance of US intelligence? - has to be culpable. Did the same thing with Anthrax - seems what they normally do.

Immense job to fix this - but it's gotta be done.

To one former federal health official, the situation boiled down to this: An institute “funded by American dollars is trying to teach a bat virus to infect human cells, then there is a virus” in the same city as that lab. It is “not being intellectually honest not to consider the hypothesis” of a lab escape.

That is, always has been, always will be the biggest piece of evidence. I've watched a lot of crime tv series in my time - how do you rule out the chief suspect without any investigation?

I get why the CCP are doing it - but what's the motivation of all these scientific experts, media, politicians, economists?

That's when you need an investigation into the investigation. But who can do it?

People talk about a 'culture problem' at a football club - this is culture problem with culture itself.

There's a way out. It's simple but somehow hard - involves getting back to truth. Normal truth. Not some secret 'higher truth' that justifies a bunch of non-truths.

Get that part right - the foundation - build from there.

Here's a possible scenario:

Andersen and Holmes find that it was engineered, but then Lipkin gets a call from his powerful mates in the CCP saying he needs to control the situation. Fauci is also concerned coz the NIH has helped fund the GoF research that produced the virus - despite a then-ban on GoF research in America.

They go to Andersen and Holmes:

Lipkin: Sorry guys, we can't report that. Think of the damage it would do for future research efforts that we're all involved in. Kristian, the new Scripps research facility in Shenzhen would be scrapped and Eddie, you'd lose your lucrative honorary professorships in China - not to mention your ties to WIV and Bat Lady. We have to think about what's for the greater good here.

Fauci: And how's it going to look if comes to light that the NIH funded the research that produced it? This is not just about deflecting blame from the CCP - we're involved in this as well.

Andersen: Then what are we gonna do? Are you suggesting we cover it up?

Lipkin: It's not a cover-up - we just don't need to report it. As you said - 99.9% of the virus looks like a normal bat virus - let's just focus on that part.

Fauci: What we say, it will still be 99.9% true - that's pretty good, right?

Lipkin: Exactly. Why add fuel to the conspiracy theorists when we can do something great for the world?

Holmes: I don't know - what if we get caught? They're gonna burn us alive.

Fauci: Eddie, you'll be burned alive if we don't do it.

Holmes: But we can say it was an honest mistake if we come clean now. If we get caught altering....

Lipkin: We won't get caught! Who's gonna catch us? We've got Nature, Lancet, New Scientist on board - we've got the media - we've got most politicians - the rest we marginalize and discredit.

Fauci: These are the hard decisions that you need to make when you have a position of power. You have to think 'What's for the greater good?'

Lipkin: In this case, the greater good is also best for us - it's a no-brainer. But we've got to act fast - we need to get ahead of this - the conspiracy theorists are growing by the day. Kristian, you start work on a paper that 'definitively proves' it was natural in origin - i'll get into Nature and hit the media circuit. Peter will work Lancet and get a bunch of other scientists on board.

Fauci: Then it will be 'the weight of science' versus a few disparate 'crackpots' - how can we lose?

Andersen: Ok, let's do it!

That fall, the State Department team got a tip from a foreign source: Key information was likely sitting in the U.S. intelligence community’s own files, unanalyzed. In November, that lead turned up classified information that was “absolutely arresting and shocking,” said a former State Department official.

This seems to be a major takeaway from their research. I've looked back over previous articles on the tip off regarding the sick researchers, and I have not yet found a previous mention of the source having such an intimate connection to US intelligence, intimate enough to know what they would probably have in their files.

For example, the Washington Post article of May 23 puts it this way:

WASHINGTON—Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory.

The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”

Then on May 24 the Washington Post gives a bit more information regarding the source:

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that three WIV researchers became ill enough in November 2019 that they sought local hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report, though officials expressed differing views over the strength of the evidence. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Monday the information came from a foreign entity, and that the U.S. needed additional information to independently verify it.
(emphasis added)

The Guardian is vague on the source in on May 24:

China has vehemently denied a Wall Street Journal report citing US intelligence materials that said several members of staff at a key virus laboratory in Wuhan had fallen ill shortly before the first patient with Covid-like symptoms was recorded in the city on 8 December 2019.

So, so far as I can tell, Vanity Fair has given us more than anybody else so far regarding the source of this information. If what Vanity Fair reports is true, we can assume that:
-the source is well known to US intelligence
-the source knows US intelligence operations well
-the source had some sort of regular dealing with US intelligence, OR, the source had knowledge of a stream of US intelligence source and knew what that stream would include

This narrows the field dramatically. If what VF reports is true, this wasn't some nurse tipping them off. Also, it means there may be much more to come.

This also indicates that there was massive coverup in the US, along with, perhaps coordinated with, that in China.

It's that second question that might serve as a lead of sorts. How did they know the US had the facts, knowingly or not? They knew that that US intelligence had information about six sick lab researchers. How would they know that?

A related question is, how did US intelligence get the information that they failed to analyze? But the real intriguing point is that the source new more about the US intelligence than the US intelligence services themselves!

The simplest answer is that the source gave the information to intelligence previously, bundled with other intelligence, and the reference to the illnesses was simply glossed over and forgotten.

That fall, the State Department team got a tip from a foreign source: Key information was likely sitting in the U.S. intelligence community’s own files, unanalyzed. In November, that lead turned up classified information that was “absolutely arresting and shocking,” said a former State Department official. Three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, all connected with gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, had fallen ill in November 2019 and appeared to have visited the hospital with symptoms similar to COVID-19, three government officials told Vanity Fair. (emphasis added)

This suggests there is actually hope, and it gives even more of a Deepthroat feel to the whole thing. One question is, do they know who the foreign source is, or not? Regardless, how did the foreign source know what information was likely in US intelligence files?

It's that second question that might serve as a lead of sorts. How did they know the US had the facts, knowingly or not? They knew that that US intelligence had information about six sick lab researchers. How would they know that?

A related question is, how did US intelligence get the information that they failed to analyze? But the real intriguing point is that the source new more about the US intelligence than the US intelligence services themselves!

Phrases like, "according to documentation of the meeting obtained by Vanity Fair," and "said four former State Department officials interviewed by Vanity Fair. " give a Watergate, Deepthroat feel to this whole mess. Keep in mind a "State Department official" can be most anyone who worked for the State Department, which is enormous.

Some excerpts of interest:

A months long Vanity Fair investigation, interviews with more than 40 people, and a review of hundreds of pages of U.S. government documents, including internal memos, meeting minutes, and email correspondence, found that conflicts of interest, stemming in part from large government grants supporting controversial virology research, hampered the U.S. investigation into COVID-19’s origin at every step. In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it.

In an internal memo obtained by Vanity Fair, Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote that staff from two bureaus, his own and the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, “warned” leaders within his bureau “not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19” because it would “‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.”

---

As months go by without a host animal that proves the natural theory, the questions from credible doubters have gained in urgency. To one former federal health official, the situation boiled down to this: An institute “funded by American dollars is trying to teach a bat virus to infect human cells, then there is a virus” in the same city as that lab. It is “not being intellectually honest not to consider the hypothesis” of a lab escape.

---

Park, who in 2017 had been involved in lifting a U.S. government moratorium on funding for gain-of-function research, was not the only official to warn the State Department investigators against digging in sensitive places. As the group probed the lab-leak scenario, among other possibilities, its members were repeatedly advised not to open a “Pandora’s box,” said four former State Department officials interviewed by Vanity Fair. The admonitions “smelled like a cover-up,” said Thomas DiNanno, “and I wasn’t going to be part of it.”

This is corruption on an astonishing scale - that shit never stops by itself - never. It only stops when it's exposed and made to stop.

To do that it takes incredible dedication and persistence in the face of constant suppression and vilification. Drastic have broken through that finally and altered the course of humanity - that sounds ridiculous - but it's true.

Well put! I wonder who has the movie rights to their story? You know there's going to be one. I hope it does their efforts justice.

Your post didn't include what to me is the most astonishing part of that email:

"We have a good team lined up to look very critically at this, so we should know much more at the end of the weekend. I should mention that after discussions earlier today, Eddie, Bob, Mike, and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory. But we have to look at this much more closely and there are still further analyses to be done, so those opinions could still change." (emphasis added)

So there it is...

We managed to play a 'small but pivotal' role in exposing the Proximal Origin paper by pointing out that the authors were up to their eye-balls in China ties, as well as documenting the fact that WIV was performing backbone insertions on viruses to make them more contagious.

Congrats to your little site, Formosahut - it has made a difference! Man, how i would love it if we could catch up for a mead or two to celebrate!

But hats off to DRASTIC. This could have gone either way - in fact it was looking for a long time like it was going to be smothered by the overwhelming force of big-everything - media, tech, science, politics.

This is corruption on an astonishing scale - that shit never stops by itself - never. It only stops when it's exposed and made to stop.

To do that it takes incredible dedication and persistence in the face of constant suppression and vilification. Drastic have broken through that finally and altered the course of humanity - that sounds ridiculous - but it's true.

They won't get the full credit they deserve as the media desperately covers their arses and pretends they've unearthed 'new evidence' as they take ownership of the lab-leak reality. But those who have been involved in the effort to expose this massive fraud know the critical role DRASTIC has played - and is continuing to play - coz this is far from over.

In the fullness of time, i trust that their relentless pursuit of the truth (all done for free Vs the billions paid to the experts to cover it up) will be enshrined in the history of Covid (with a tiny footnote for Formosahut!).