{"id":2539,"date":"2022-04-22T16:15:20","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T16:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/?p=2539"},"modified":"2022-04-26T14:00:13","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T14:00:13","slug":"wuhan-lab-allowed-to-destroy-secret-files-under-its-partnership-with-us-national-lab-agreement-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/?p=2539","title":{"rendered":"Wuhan Lab Allowed to Destroy \u2018Secret Files\u2019 Under Its Partnership with US National Lab, Agreement Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Days of Noah\n
\u201cBut as the days of Noe were, so shall also the \n\n
coming 2555: <\/font>parousia, par-oo-see\u00b4-ah; from the present participle of 3918; a being near, i.e. advent (often, return; specially, of Christ to punish Jerusalem, or finally the wicked); (by implication) physically, aspect: \u2014 coming, presence<\/span><\/div> of the Son of man be.\"\n \u2014 Matthew 24:37<\/blockquote><\/span><\/div>\n\n
Tyrants\n
\u201cThere were\n
giants 5303: <\/font>>nphiyl, nef-eel\u00b4; or lIp\u25can nphil, nef-eel\u00b4; from 5307; properly, a feller, i.e. a bully or tyrant:\u2014giant.<\/span><\/div> in the earth in those days;\"\n\n \u2014 Genesis 6:4<\/blockquote>\n
Corruption\n
\u201cThere were\n
corrupt 7843: <\/font>> shachath, shaw-khath\u00b4; a primitive root; to decay, i.e. (causatively) ruin (literally or figuratively):\u2014batter, cast off, corrupt(-er, thing), destroy(-er, -uction), lose, mar, perish, spill, spoiler, x utterly, waste(-r)<\/span><\/div> before God, and the earth was filled with violence.\"\n \u2014 Genesis 6:11<\/blockquote><\/strong><\/div>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Article Source:<\/span><\/strong> Epoch Times<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has the right to make a partnering U.S. lab wipe all data arising from their collaborative work, a legal document reveals.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) of cooperation, signed between the Wuhan lab and the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch, makes it obligatory for each of the two labs to delete \u201csecret files\u201d or materials upon the request of the other party.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe party is entitled to ask the other to destroy and return the secret files, materials, and equipment without any backups,\u201d\u00a0states<\/a>\u00a0the MOU obtained by U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit investigative research group focused on public health, through a freedom of information request.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The MOU focused on promoting research and training cooperation between the two labs. It was signed in 2017 and stayed in effect through this October. But the confidentiality terms would remain binding even after the agreement\u2019s five-year duration expires, the agreement states.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The document goes on to broadly define what materials are to be treated as \u201cconfidential,\u201d opening the door to potentially all documents and data from any collaboration being subject to a deletion request.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAll cooperation and exchange documents, details, and materials shall be treated as confidential info by the parties,\u201d the MOU states.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The WIV has been at the center of the controversy due to growing speculation that the virus that causes\u00a0COVID-19<\/a>, which has now killed millions around the globe, may have leaked from the facility. The lab has denied these allegations, but Beijing has blocked international investigators to data and records from the facility, thus preventing any meaningful probe into the hypothesis.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

WIV and the Galveston National Laboratory formally declared their partnership the following year to \u201cstreamline future scientific and operational collaborations on dangerous pathogens,\u201d according to a joint announcement in the journal Science.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Experts said the MOU terms about data removal raise alarm bells and can potentially constitute a breach of the law.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe clause is quite frankly explosive,\u201d Reuben Guttman, a partner at Guttman, Buschner & Brooks PLLC who focuses on ensuring the integrity of government programs, told Right to Know. \u201cAnytime I see a public entity, I would be very concerned about destroying records.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t just willy nilly say, \u2018well, you know, the Chinese can tell us when to destroy a document.\u2019 It doesn\u2019t work like that,\u201d he added. \u201cThere has to be a whole protocol.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christopher Smith, a spokesperson for the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), told Right to Know that the lab was \u201cbuilt by the National Institutes of Health to help combat global health threats.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAs a government-funded entity, UTMB must comply with applicable public information law obligations, including the preservation of all documentation of its research and findings.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Epoch Times has contacted the UTMB and the Galveston lab.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under Scrutiny<\/strong><\/h2>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Galveston National Laboratory is one of two federally-funded university-based highest-level biosecurity labs in the United States. It began collaborating with the WIV in 2013, cooperation that entails training WIV scientists and conducting joint research programs. The then-Galveston lab director James Le Duc, who retired last year, made multiple trips over the years to WIV.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Galveston lab was also among the first in the world to receive samples of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly three weeks after Le Duc\u00a0urged<\/a>\u00a0his Chinese counterparts to share the material.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The revelations contained in the 2017 MOU appear to contradict claims from WIV scientists that they would never scrub critical research information.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, who heads the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the WIV, had characterized allegations that her lab would delete such data as \u201cbaseless and appalling.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEven if we gave them all the records, they would still say we have hidden something, or we have destroyed the evidence,\u201d she said in a February interview with MIT Technology Review.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

In September 2019, months before several of its researchers\u00a0allegedly fell <\/a>ill with COVID-like symptoms; the facility took its main database of virus samples offline.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Wuhan lab\u2019s safety standards have also attracted scrutiny since the pandemic broke out in the city. Footage from 2017 showed that some researchers from the facility were feeding a bat while\u00a0wearing only surgical gloves<\/a>, and at least one researcher wore only a pair of regular glasses and a surgical mask when out collecting bat samples.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

In April 2020, the Department of Education launched a probe into Galveston National Laboratory\u2019s ties with the Wuhan lab. The Epoch Times has contacted the department for comment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

That same month, Le Duc had asked Shi to review a draft briefing he prepared for the university and the Congressional staff investigating the issue.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cPlease review carefully and make any changes that you would like. I want this to be as accurate as possible, and I certainly do not want to misrepresent any of your valuable contributions,\u201d he wrote in an email to Shi that Right to Know obtained. Shi, one day earlier, declined to talk with Le Duc over the phone \u201c[d]ue to the complicated situation\u201d but insisted that the virus \u201cis not a leaky [sic] from our lab or any other labs.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Smith, UTMB\u2019s director of media relations, had told the investigative group that \u201cthe information Dr. Le Duc wanted Dr. Shi to review was a description of her research on coronaviruses as he understood it.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

In corresponding with others, Le Duc nonetheless acknowledged that he considered a lab accident a possible source of the pandemic.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is certainly possible that a lab accident was the source of the epidemic, and I also agree that we can\u2019t trust the Chinese government,\u201d he wrote on April 10, 2020, according to another email obtained by the group.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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An aerial view shows the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei Province on April 17, 2020. (HECTOR RETAMAL\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corruption","category-days-of-noah","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2539"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2645,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions\/2645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}