meet the chair of secret NSABB gain-of-function risk review committee

 2-27-2019  by Marc Lipsitch and Tom Inglesby 

  The overwhelming majority of scientific studies are safe; even the worst imaginable accident, such as an infection of a lab worker or an explosion, is unlikely and would harm only a handful of people.  But creating potentially pandemic pathogens creates a risk — albeit a small one — of infecting millions of people with a highly dangerous virus.  For this kind of research there is no justification for keeping risk-benefit deliberations secret….

Amazingly, despite the potential public health consequences of such work, neither the approval nor the deliberations or judgments that supported it were announced publicly. The government confirmed them only when a reporter learned about them through non-official channels….

  But with deliberations kept behind closed doors, none of us will have the opportunity to understand how the government arrived at these decisions or to judge the rigor and integrity of that G-O-F authorization process.

  The debate in the United States over the past five years took place mainly among a small group of scientists and made only token efforts to inform or engage the wider citizenry. We need public discussion and debate about the risks and benefits of these kinds of experiments. And because viruses do not respect borders, the conversation must move beyond the national level, to coordinate the regulation of dangerous science internationally.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-is-funding-dangerous-experiments-it-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about/2019/02/27/5f60e934-38ae-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html

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  “In other words,” Milton Leitenberg, Center for International and Security Studies, University of Maryland, “gain of function techniques were used to turn bat coronaviruses into human pathogens capable of causing a global pandemic.”

  Leitenberg reviewed the published literature on the corona virus and China and reached the following conclusions:  There’s a record of poor safety and viruses escaping from Chinese labs, at least since 2004.  This includes the Wuhan institutes.  China suppressed information, especially about the corona virus.  In addition, China initiated a “disinformation campaign” regarding the “origins” of the corona virus: “targeting “US biological laboratories.”

Leitenberg also stated there’s “a record of gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, including passage of a bat coronavirus construct through experimental animals.”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/24/frankenstein-chimeras-covid-wuhan-labs-and-biosafety/

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  Names of the expert-panel members have been kept secret, along with the panel’s reviews of gain-of-function and other virus and pathogen experiment proposals….For damage control, the White House and the NIH convened a meeting of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB),30 the panel that had previously written the rules for reviewing gain-of-function research, with the intent of getting the NSABB on board with keeping everything secret.

  At that meeting the man who chairs the committee that decides which gain-of-function research can be funded by the government revealed himself.

  Christian Hassell, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Chemical and Biological Defense, Senior Science Adviser to the Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response — and chair of the secret NSABB gain-of-function risk review committee — acted as a government spokesperson.           Hassell cautioned that disclosing the names of the government (likely including military) scientists who sat on his committee could “chill” people from serving.  He claimed that the administration was “committed to enhancing transparency” but warned that this would probably require new action by Congress.  For damage control, the White House and the NIH convened a meeting of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB),30 the panel that had previously written the rules for reviewing gain-of-function research, with the intent of getting the NSABB on board with keeping everything secret.   https://mimicnews.com/gain-of-function-experiments-lie-at-root-of-the-pandemic

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  Prior to joining the Department of Defense, Dr. Hassell was an Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he served as Director of the FBI Laboratory.   He previously held research and leadership positions at Los Alamos National Laboratory and DuPont.  Dr. Hassell is an analytical chemist with specialization in sensors, diagnostics and bioprocessing  https://www.phe.gov/newsroom/bio/Pages/Hassell.aspx

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  Dow Chemical Co and DuPont said on Friday the companies had successfully completed their planned $130 billion merger to form DowDuPont.  https://fortune.com/2017/09/01/dow-dupont-merger-complete/

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Dec 2006                                                                                                                                                                                  In 1942, introducing a book entitled Patents for Hitler by Gunther Reimannthe, the lawyer Creekmore Fath wrote:        "Since the middle thirties, whenever a German business group wanted to make an agreement with any business concern beyond the borders of Germany, it was required first to submit a full text of the proposed agreement to the Reichsbank.  The Reichsbank rejected or rewrote until the agreement met its approval.  The Reichsbank approved no agreement which did not fit into the plans of the Nazi State and carry that state another step toward its goal of world domination. In other words, any American firm which reached an agreement or dealt with a German firm . . . was dealing ... with Hitler himself.

  As war approached, the links between the Rockefellers and the Nazi government became more and more firm.  In 1936 the J. Henry Schroder Bank of New York had entered into a partnership with the Rockefellers. Schroder, Rockefeller and Company, Investment Bankers, was formed as part of an overall company that Time magazine disclosed as being "the economic booster of the Rome-Berlin Axis."  The partners in Schroder, Rockefeller and Company included Avery Rockefeller, nephew of John D., Baron Bruno von Schroder in London, and Kurt von Schroder of the BIS and the Gestapo in Cologne.  Avery Rockefeller owned 42 percent of Schroder, Rockefeller and Baron Bruno and his Nazi cousin 47 percent.  Their lawyers were John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles of Sullivan and Cromwell. Allen Dulles (later of the Office of Strategic Services) was on the board of Schroder.https://libcom.org/library/allied-multinationals-supply-nazi-germany-world-war-2

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  On a bright May morning in 1944, while young Americans were dying on the Italian beachheads, Thomas Harrington McKittrick, American president of the Nazi-controlled Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, arrived at his office to preside over a fourth annual meeting in time of war.  This polished American gentleman sat down with his German, Japanese, Italian, British and American executive staff to discuss such important matters as the $378 million in gold that had been sent to the Bank by the Nazi government after Pearl Harbor for use by its leaders after the war.  https://libcom.org/library/allied-multinationals-supply-nazi-germany-world-war-2