Boston Lab Makes New Deadly Covid Strain

Source:Daily Mail    Published:2022-10-19     Hist:

A senior US health official today admitted that controversial Covid manipulation research carried out in a laboratory in Boston was not authorized — despite being funded by taxpayer money.

DailyMail.com exclusively revealed yesterday that a team from Boston University had developed a hybrid Covid virus — combining the Omicron and original Wuhan strains — which had an 80 per cent lethality rate.

Public records indicate it was partly paid for using a grant awarded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the federal government's main research agencies.

As part of any Government-funded research grants, teams have to explain what the money is being used for and how it will benefit the public.

But today, Dr Emily Erbelding, director of NIAID’s division of microbiology and infectious diseases, said the Boston team did not clear the work with the agency.

She claims she only found out the experiments might have involved enhancing a pathogen of pandemic potential after reading reports in the media on Monday.

Dr Erbelding admitted feeling uneasy about the type of research the grants had been used to fund — given the lingering questions about the role of virus manipulation studies and the origins of Covid.

Boston University's biosafety level 3 National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory extracted the spike protein from Omicron and attached it to the original Wuhan strain that first emerged in China.

The team then exposed it to human cells in a petri dish and to live mice. The mutant virus killed 80 per cent of the rodents. 

The researchers quickly came under fire from many scientists and politicians alike who said they were 'playing with fire' and accused them of conducting 'gain-of-function' research.