Hearing exposes how politics slowed U.S. investigation into COVID origins
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in a hearing last week continued to peel back the curtain on the sluggish early U.S. investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
More than three years have passed since a highly transmissible novel coronavirus first emerged out of Wuhan, China, yet key details about the pandemic’s origin are still unclear. The pandemic’s earliest days remain in dispute as certain intelligence remains classified.
Strong evidence demonstrating the virus gained the ability to infect humans in an intermediate animal has yet to emerge. Some evidence may have been lost to time as the possibility of a lab origin has been maligned as a conspiracy theory for years. Momentum languished for years as Democrats are loath to investigate controlled Congressional committees.
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in sworn testimony that the intelligence community has enough circumstantial evidence to conclude a research-related accident at the city’s coronavirus labs sparked the pandemic.
See Emily Kopp’s reporting, Hearing exposes how politics slowed U.S. investigation into COVID origins
Kopp discussed her assessment with The Hill TV Rising. "This hearing showed that there were two major reasons [for a delay into a lab leak pandemic origin investigation]...Beijing and Washington," she said.
New USRTK docs added to UCSF library: Over 700 new documents have been added to the U.S. Right to Know Food Industry Collection. We acquired the documents during our ongoing investigations into the regulatory and academic influence of large food and beverage companies. Read more here about our collaboration with the UCSF Industry Documents Library.
Launching the U.S. Pesticide Atlas: Join author Anna Lappé, Stacy Malkan from U.S. Right to Know, and other contributors to the U.S. Edition of the Pesticide Atlas at a webinar this Wednesday, April 26; 10:30 a.m. PT / 1:30 p.m. ET. You can register for the free webinar here The Atlas is a comprehensive overview of facts and data on global pesticide use and trade, its impact on people, their health and biodiversity, and alternative solutions.
Right to know loss: Today, we lost most of our FOI litigation against the University of Maryland for documents of Dr. Rita Colwell, who sits on the board of directors of the EcoHealth Alliance. UMD is a taxpayer-funded public university. “It ought to assist — not hinder — efforts to uncover the origins of Covid-19,” writes Gary Ruskin. “That means, at least, stop stonewalling FOI requests that might possibly help find the origins of the current pandemic, or prevent the next one.” The Maryland circuit court decision is here.