Amid conflict of interest concerns, EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak has been recused from the U.N.-back COVID-19 origins investigation.
The Lancet COVID-19 Commission's website offers a new disclaimer noting "recused from Commission work on the origins of the pandemic," after many have noted the conflict of interest in Daszak's group not only directing U.S. grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but Daszak's own involvement in the last investigation in China.
That latter probe was an independent commission for the World Health Organization, but conducted under the watchful eye of Chinese government officials in Wuhan. That investigation discredited the lab leak theory and suggested a natural origin of the global coronavirus pandemic.
"Peter Daszak was golden," Far East expert Gordon Chang told Newsmax's "John Bachman Now" on Tuesday. "He actually felt so bold last year that he admitted to The New York Times that he had discounted the lab leak theory to protect his friends at the Wuhan institute, so that's a pretty emboldened statement.
"Now he's been removed and part of it is because of his own misconduct."
Daszak has also been revealed in emails to Dr. Anthony Fauci early during the pandemic for having discredited the potential for a lab leak origin.
"I just wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology," Daszak wrote April 18, 2020, according to emails obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request. "From my perspective, your comments are brave, and coming from your trusted voice, will help dispel the myths being spun around the virus’s origins."
Daszak also reportedly organized a statement from scientists to condemn "conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." That statement claimed signatories had "no competing interests," according to the New York Post.
But now reports show The Lancet revealed Daszak concealed his conflict of interest.
Daszak updated disclosure reads in part (PD are his initials and old English spelling SIC):
"EcoHealth Alliance's work in China was previously funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Neither PD nor EcoHealth Alliance have received funding from the People's Republic of China. PD joined the WHO – China joint global study on the animal origins of SARS-CoV-2 towards the end of 2020 and is currently a member. As per WHO rules, this work is undertaken as an independent expert in a private capacity, not as an EcoHealth Alliance staff member. The work conducted by this study was published in March, 2021. EcoHealth Alliance's work in China includes collaboration with a range of universities and governmental health and environmental science organisations, all of which are listed in prior publications, three of which received funding from US federal agencies as part of EcoHealth Alliance grants or cooperative agreements, as publicly reported by NIH. EcoHealth Alliance's work in China is currently unfunded. All federally funded subcontractees are assessed and approved by the respective US federal agencies in advance and all funding sources are acknowledged in scientific publications as appropriate. EcoHealth Alliance's work in China involves assessing the risk of viral spillover across the wildlife–livestock–human interface, and includes behavioural and serological surveys of people, and ecological and virological analyses of animals."
"[Daszak] failed to disclose conflict of [interest] information stuff to The Lancet when he wrote articles, which is a serious charge if you're a scientist or a researcher," Chang told host John Bachman. "So, I think this means pretty much the end of Peter Daszak, and that means we could see more questioning of Anthony Fauci, because the two of them were very close. They worked together. Fauci sent money to Wuhan through Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance.
"This really is perhaps, I think, the beginning of the end for Fauci himself."
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