“No need for you to sign the ‘Statement’ Ralph!!”

“No need for you to sign the ‘Statement’ Ralph!!”

EXCERPT: The two other scientists, coronavirus experts Ralph Baric and Linfa Wang, were included as signatories in an early Feb. 6 draft of The Lancet statement, but did not appear in the final version. In the emails, Baric agreed with Daszak’s suggestion not to sign The Lancet statement, writing “Otherwise it looks self-serving, and we lose impact.”
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“No need for you to sign the ‘Statement’ Ralph!!”

by Sainath Suryanarayanan
US Right to Know, February 15, 2021
https://usrtk.org/biohazards-blog/no-need-for-you-to-sign-the-statement-ralph/
[links to sources at this URL]
EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak’s quip in a newly surfaced email exchange with two leading virologists sheds more light on the motives behind an influential statement in The Lancet signed by 27 prominent scientists condemning “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”
The emails show how Daszak and other experts tried to undermine the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a biolab in Wuhan near the first reported outbreak of COVID-19.
U.S. Right to Know previously reported that Daszak drafted the statement for The Lancet, and orchestrated it to “not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person” but rather to be seen as “simply a letter from leading scientists”.
The new emails, obtained by U.S. Right to Know, indicate Daszak considered not signing the statement himself, and suggested that two other scientists who have collaborated with EcoHealth Alliance also not sign, “so it has some distance from us and therefore doesn’t work in a counterproductive way.” Daszak noted his intent to release the statement “in a way that doesn’t link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice.”
The two other scientists, coronavirus experts Ralph Baric and Linfa Wang, were included as signatories in an early Feb. 6 draft of The Lancet statement, but did not appear in the final version. In the emails, Baric agreed with Daszak’s suggestion not to sign The Lancet statement, writing “Otherwise it looks self-serving, and we lose impact.”
Daszak did ultimately sign the statement himself, but was not identified as its lead author or coordinator of the effort.
EcoHealth Alliance is a New York-based nonprofit that has received millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funding to genetically manipulate coronaviruses, including with scientists at the WIV.
Daszak is a central figure in investigations of SARS-CoV-2’s origins. He is a member of the World Health Organization’s team of experts tracing the novel coronavirus’s origins, and The Lancet COVID 19 Commission.
The new emails underscore Daszak’s self-serving effort to create a scientific consensus about SARS-CoV-2’s “natural origin.” They are yet another reason why he should not be charged with investigating the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

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