NIH Bankrolled Chinese Scientist Who Mapped SARS-CoV-2 Two Weeks Before China Told World About COVID

Investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker said documents obtained by the U.S. House of Representatives Energy…

Children's Health Defense

A Chinese researcher with ties to China’s government and military — and to Dr. Anthony Fauci — mapped the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 and submitted it to a U.S. government database in December 2019, two weeks before the virus’ sequence was officially revealed.

The delay may have worsened the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, some experts said.

The revelations arise from documents the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provided to the U.S. House of Representatives Energy & Commerce Committee last month as part of an ongoing investigation into the origins of COVID-19. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) first reported the story on Jan. 17.

The researcher, Dr. Lili Ren, is affiliated with the Institute of Pathogen Biology in Beijing which, according to a statement by the committee, has ties to the Chinese Community Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army of China.

According to the WSJ, the institute is part of the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

The documents show that Ren was on the payroll of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the agency overseeing the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), directed at the time by Fauci.

“The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has confirmed that Dr. Ren’s December 28, 2019 sequence was nearly identical to the sequence later made public by the China CDC on January 10, 2020, which at the time was the first known sequence,” the committee said in its statement.

The documents raise “questions anew about what China knew in the pandemic’s crucial early days,” the WSJ said.

But according to investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker, writing for The Disinformation Chronicle, “The disclosures call into further question what officials at the [NIH] knew about research they were funding in China where the pandemic began.”

Ren was on the payroll of the NIH in December 2019, according to a grant awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit operated by Peter Daszak, Thacker reported. The NIH awarded the grant in 2014 for a multi-year project, “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”

“The grant shows that taxpayers paid Ren a salary, although NIH redacted the amounts for salary and benefits,” Thacker wrote, referencing the documents obtained as part of the committee’s investigation…