One of the key members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team looking into where COVID-19 originated has a lengthy history suggesting he may hold a vested interest in determining the virus did not leak from a lab – and the media is hardly talking about it.
Much reporting on the WHO’s recent visit to Wuhan has done little to characterize Dr. Peter Daszak, the sole U.S. citizen on the team, and his background. Daszak has a long financial history with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), previous reporting shows. He even organized a PR campaign in early 2020 to paint the lab leak hypothesis as a “conspiracy” in order to relieve the lab and Beijing of any potential scrutiny.
WHO’s investigative team recently ended its mission and declared it unlikely that the virus originated from a lab, only to flip flop on the assertion hours later. By then, dozens of pro China headlines echoing Beijing’s talking points had already been published.
Members of the press widely covered the WHO’s findings, with publications like The New York Times declaring that “China Scores a Public Relations Win After W.H.O. Mission to Wuhan.”
NBC reported the news, too, and cited “Chinese researchers working at the lab” as among those who have dismissed the theory that the virus leaked from the lab. Business Insider wrote that the WHO experts were so sure of the lab theory post-investigation that they were able to take the “hypothesis off the table” entirely.
Other publications, like BBC News and the Associated Press, even cited Daszak in their reporting, but not his direct financial ties in the lab and its research. The AP noted that Daszak said the team “enjoyed a greater level of openness than they had anticipated, and that they were granted full access to all sites and personnel they requested.”
That level of “openness” Daszak bragged about was actually the exact opposite, we found out later. China withheld key information from the WHO team, according to the Wall Street Journal.
CNN’s Becky Anderson spoke with Daszak about the investigation, too. Over the course of about five minutes, Anderson did not ask Daszak any questions regarding his history with the Wuhan lab and his open condemnation of the lab theory from the very start of the pandemic.
The hypothesis contends that COVID-19 might have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. Members of the media, along with Chinese operatives on Twitter, dismissed the theory as a “baseless” conspiracy for nearly a year.
On Wednesday, just after the WHO team’s announcement pushed back on the lab leak theory, Daszak criticized the State Department and U.S. intelligence for not blindly trusting the group. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday that it won’t draw a conclusion regarding the findings until the department reviews the WHO’s report.
Daszak tweeted in response to Price’s comments and suggested people not “rely too much on US intel.” He also wrote that the White House should “TRUST” the panel first and only later “VERIFY” the information.
President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, disagreed Saturday in no uncertain terms.
“We have deep concerns about the way in which the early findings of the COVID-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them,” Sullivan said in a statement released by the White House.
Daszak’s Wednesday comments are just the latest in his effort to exclude the very real probability the virus leaked from a lab, despite the fact that...
