SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
4 WASHINGTON, D.C.
INTERVIEW OF; RALPH S. BARIC, Ph.D.
MONDAY, JANUARY 22, 2024
Overview
Dr Baric makes a lot of sense in regard to risk and is obviously an extremely capable man. Unlike Dr Daszak he knows what a conflict of interest is. That said the following issues arise from his testimony:
- He takes a number of positions in regard the question of whether Covid 19 had a natural, lab escape or lab engineered origin;
- His methodology for attribution to a natural origin appears flawed;
- His reasons that the furin cleavage is natural, are unconvincing.
- He made the incredible claim he could engineer Covid 19 by “shotgun mutagenesis” and selection.
This is a free-standing analysis and I have read nothing else put before the Committee. However, I was very surprised that no questions were put to Dr Baric in regard to a core issue: who among the leading scientists took what positions in regard to origins. This is particularly so as the clash between factions was venomous and it is unclear who was the source of exampled animosity. It appears it was Dr Garry who attributed comments, which labeled his concern of there being a lab origin as “ludicrous crackpot theories”, to Dr Baric, who in turn denied it. Moreover, there is conflicting testimony over whether Dr Baric was even at the crucial February 1st of 2020 Red Dawn teleconference.
This contradictory testimony around the crucial teleconference is central to the claim of unanimity of scientific opinion expressed in the notorious “Proximal Origin” paper.
natural, lab escape or lab engineered origin
Early in his testimony Dr Baric stated:
1786 about earlier, just on the frequency and the exposure level
1787 in nature versus lab, it’s massively — what’s that called,
1788 massive — the scales are massively weighted to natural
1789 origins, yes, sorry
He later stated:
3064 A I signed a paper that said that that
3065 was — that a laboratory scenario needed to be carefully
3066 evaluated. I think that says it all as well.
And in conclusion he stated:
… have things in our box that we can rapidly
5268 implement in the population to protect them, should either
5269 one emerge from nature or by some sort ‘of nefarious purpose.”
The question arises as to why Dr Baric is now concerned about a future “nefarious purpose” but in ardently affirming the natural origin theory completely discounted one in regard to Covid 19.
scales are massively weighted to natural origins the data screams
In support of this position Dr Baric stated that if one takes the number of bat exposures, multiplied by the years between SARS1 & 2 which is then factored by the diversity of viruses in nature, as follows:
1523 The recent data with coronaviruses, for
1524 example, that was published in Southeast Asia argues that
1525 there’s somewhere between 50 to 60,000 exposures where people
1526 working with bats come in contact with bat coronaviruses.
While Dr Baric may be implying this, there is no clear correlation between “published in Southeast Asia’ and the catchment area of the Wuhan wet market. Similarly, no clear correlation between “people working with bats” and the number of those who could have transmitted Covid 19 from bat collection to bat buyers.
1531 So 2002, SARS emerged; 2019, SARS2 emerged. That’s 17 years
times 50,000 exposures a year, it’s actually a little higher.
So about a million exposures between human disease outbreaks.
17 x 50k is 850k not 1m. More importantly Dr Baric gives no reason for this timeframe. Sars did not derive from bats. While I imagine viruses may ‘compete’ or provide cross immunity, this is not relevant to outbreaks. I may be missing something, but cannot see any basis for this metric. It also raises the question as to why transmission from bat to man took so long. It can be accounted for by evolution of the virus in bats, but that introduces a variable that makes any statistical analysis Dr Baric relies on pure guesswork.
1538 And so when you get to origins, for example, and you ask the
question, what’s more likely, is it a lab leak or is it
natural processes? You’re looking at one in a million, a
million exposures occurring over 17 years versus what happens
in a laboratory setting. No chance it’s even close. And the
diversity in nature, hundreds of millions of times more
diverse than what was in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
So that gradient is huge. And if you consider that, it’s
more likely to be a natural event than it is to come out of
the laboratory. The data — that’s what the data screams.
The diversity factor only works on the presupposition Wuhan was not working on a Covid 19 precursor or worse. If Wuhan was working on a Covid 19 precursor or worse, then the chance that a naturally occurring transmissible and virulent bat virus was the origin fades into the hundreds of millions of diverse non-transmissible and non-virulent bat viruses.
the data stops screaming at Dr Baric
Despite the data’s screams, Dr Baric later took a more nuanced position
2521 is that the market was the site of amplification in late
2522 December, January. That’s still two months from the origin
2523 date, based on a molecular clock, which means it was
2524 circulating somewhere before it got there. And the question
2525 is, where was it?
2975 I gave in the BSEC
2976 meeting on January 25th or 26th. My summary of the origin of HVC022550 PAGE 121
2977 the pandemic was the following.
2978 There are three potential causes for, that pandemia. First is
2979 natural origin, second was laboratory escape, and the third
2980 was genetically engineered.
2994 wrote a piece on his origin paper in Immunology, and said
2995 that laboratory escape was possible because of safety
2996 procedures in their laboratories
3064 A I signed a paper that said that that
3065 was — that a laboratory scenario needed to be carefully
3066 evaluated. I think that says it all as well.
Proximal origin
In regard to the notorious “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” paper: 3023 But the first conclusion was, “our analysis clearly show that
3024 SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully
3025 manipulated virus.”
3026 Do you agree?HVC022550 PAGE 123′
3027 A I would agree with that statement, in terms of
3028 the data that was available at the time. That’s absolutely
3029 true. It’s still true today.
It is noticeable that Dr Baric does not use ‘proximal origins’ term “analysis” but the word “data”, as he later discussed:
3286 their interpretation of the data as it sat at the time, that
3287 there wasn’t any evidence, scientific evidence that it was
3288 engineered. It doesn’t mean that that kind of data won’t
3289 emerge in the future. It just means that, at that moment in
3290 time, there was no data to support it.
Data and analysis are different things. To say that you have analysed an issue and came to a clear conclusion, is very different to saying that there is insufficient data to draw a conclusion. As set out in Dr Baric’s testimony there was a suspicious lack of data coming from Wuhan.
Furin Cleavage issue
As set out below, Dr Baric’s refutation of the furin cleavage indicating engineering is that it could have been done much better and looks more like a natural recombination. However, this ignores the possibility that it was done this way to look like a natural recombination. His point that such a recombination “usually screws things up” doesn’t apply, as sadly this did not happen.
2782 How would you kind of refute Dr. Garry’s points there?
A The sequence, you only need to insert three
amino acids to make a furin cleavage site. Four is a
nucleotide. Four amino acids went in asymmetrically. Why
would anybody engineer that and do it that way, putting in an
extra residue which is a proline, which puts kinks in
proteins, it usually screws things up. And ultimately, that
proline changed within a few — within one or two variants.
So that didn’t make a lot of sense to me. But if you were
going to engineer it, I guess the question would be, you
don’t need to put four amino acids in, it’s easier to put
three amino acids in, in the frame. And also, you’d probably
want to put one in that was efficient. The sequence in SARS2
is not a very efficient cleavage site.
Q So Dr. Garry was just kind of wrong?
A You can make — no, I’m not saying he’s wrong.
I’m just saying that means if it went in that way, then it
was nefarious purposes to begin with, right? Because you’re
basically trying to cover up what you did.
I don’t think — I mean, when I looked at it, when it went inHVC022550 PAGE 114
i2802 asymmetrically, that was more akin to recombination for me
Engineering Covid
Later speaking engineering gave reasons why it couldn’t be done:
3320Now, I’m going to tell you why it can’t be done. The
3321 transfection efficiency of a molecular clone for
3322 coronaviruses was, at best, 5,000 cells. So that means you
3323 can quarry 5,000 genomes at a time. Four to the 1200th power
3324 is a whole lot of zeroes. I calculated it out. One
3325 researcher would require something like 500,000 years. So if
3326 you’ve got 100 researchers doing it, you could get it down toHVC022550 PAGE 135
3327 54 years. Then you have the problem of figuring out which
3328 one was going to be pathogenic in humans. So that’s just the
3329 start. So it’s not possible to actually do that with the
3330 current technology.
However, then Dr Baric made the following mike drop statement:
3331 Now, people will say, well, you can do shotgun mutagenesis
3332 across the genome, but you still have all those genomes that
3333 you have to filter through to the one that would be
3334 pathogenic in humans.
3335 How would you select them? I know how I would select them.
3336 I’m not going to tell you how I’m going to select them, but I
3337 would, because you don’t want me to answer the question on
3338 the table unless you press me. (emphasis added)
Dr Baric’s testimony was that he could make Covid 19 by “shotgun mutagenesis”. There is no doubt that Dr Baric is a very capable scientist and from his other testimony, well beyond Chinese scientists. However, it could not be said that there were no US or European scientists of similar ability to Dr Baric. It is a possibility that the Wuhan research was passed back to Ecohealth and Covid 19 was then created at Fort Derrick.
February 1st of 2020 Red Dawn teleconference
who among the leading scientists took what positions in regard to origins
In answer to a question as to his involvement with Dr Fauci, Dr Baric stated:
327 But after January 1st, 2020, I was on a phone conference with
328 him on February 1st of 2020 that had to do with the origins.
329 I met with him in his office with several staff, high level
330 staff, both including himself and other representatives from
331 both the extramural and intramural program for NIH on, I
332 think, February 12, 2020. And I believe that’s it.
333 Oh, yes, I was also part of — we were both part of an email
334 exchange that was associated with the Red Dawn group, which
335 was basically trying to help prepare the United States to
336 respond to — to track and respond to the emerging COVID-19
337 pandemic
However, it was put to Dr Baric that he was not included in the invites:
2649 Q I want to jump ahead and talk about the
2650 February 1st, 2020 conference call you referenced when I went
2651 through the names. In the email back-and-forths, and the
2652 notes and the invites, you’re not listed anywhere,
2653 were on that conference call?
2654 A I wasn’t listed on any of the invites?
2655 Q No.
2656 A I didn’t know that.
This is very odd as Dr Baric clearly thought he was at the meeting and recounted discussion at length. However, counsel referred to Dr. Andersen’s interview as follows:
2685 A Okay •
2686 Q We asked him these questions and asked him
2687 about the call.
2688 He said, “Ralph Baric, for example, is a name that came up.
2689 We all know Ralph, Ralph is a very important coronavirus
2690 biologist, but we also know that Ralph had very close
2691 associations and collaborations with the Wuhan Institute of
2692 Virology, for example. So if this did, in fact, originate
2693 from a lab, then, of course, he would not be a person to have
2694 on a call like this.”
The conference call on 1 February 2020A was a key meeting of the ‘Red Dawn’ group which was later raised again, as follows:
3202 you weren’t on the February 1 conference call organized by
3203 Jeremy Farrar?
3204 A Since I apparently wasn’t on the email invite,
3205 there’s uncertainty in what call I was on. But certainly
3206 Dr. Fauci was there, certainly there were four evolutionary
3207 biologists there, certainly there were people like Ron
3208 Fouchier, who I think was also on the call, and several other
3209 corona virologists, so I’m pretty sure I was on that call.
Of this meeting Dr Baric stated
2675 meeting was heavily dominated by the evolutionary biologists,
2676 who were split on the origin of the virus
Dr Baric later dated
2715 … a fairly strong consensus, I think
that was building toward the end of the call, that there
wasn’t data to support engineering, that there were other
alternatives for the furin cleavage site.
But then Dr Baric stated:
2754 …there was a lot of uncertainty from the evolutionary
biologists, in terms of whether it could be lab escape or
whether it could be natural processes, because both of them,
it can pass between virus and culture, you’ll get mutations.
If you come from nature, it’s got mutations.
2777 Dr. Garry, after the call, in the notes, expressed
concern over — he called it a 13 nucleotide insertion that
was created at the site, and said I just can’t figure out how
this gets accomplished in nature, but in a lab, it would be
easy.
Dr Baric starts with a split, which becomes a “fairly strong consensus, that there wasn’t data to support engineering” which then reverted to
“a lot of uncertainty” and “concern”. And we are not talking about lab leak, but engineering here.
Counsel for the majority raised another very curious exchange, as follows:
Dr. Andersen produced some Slack messages to us between him,
2955 Dr. Holmes, Dr. Garry, Dr. Rambaut, and then some were
2956 redacted, and we reviewed them in camera
Dr Garry said:
2969 Q “I should mention that Ralph Baric pretty much
2970 attacked me on the call with NASEM,” National Academies,
2971 “essentially calling anything related to potential lab escape
2972 ludicrous, crackpot theories. I wonder if he, himself, is
2973 worried about this, too.”
Dr Baric’s took serious issue with this, as follows:
2974 A I don’t recall this. So because of this, I’m
2975 going to at least say one thing that I gave in the BSEC
2976 meeting on January 25th or 26th.
2975 going to at least say one thing that I gave in the BSEC
2976 meeting on January 25th or 26th. My summary of the origin
2977 the pandemic was the following.
2978 There are three potential causes for, that pandemia. First is
2979 natural origin, second was laboratory escape, and the third
2980 was genetically engineered.
2981 Q And what was the date of that again?
2982 A January 25th or 26th of 2020. So I don’t know
2983 where he’s coining from. That may have been his
2984 interpretation, but I’m surprised. I’m really surprised.
2994 wrote a piece on his origin paper in Immunology, and said
2995 that laboratory escape was possible because of safety
2996 procedures in their laboratories. So it’s not consistent
2997 with what I also reported to other groups publicly on when
2998 interviewed. So I don’t believe he’s attributing that to the
2999 right person.
Counsel then appears to agree that Dr Garry was not talking about Dr Baric, as follows:
3004 messages to us, they redacted some. So there’s a big black
3005 box over them, and we requested to review them in camera.
3006 A So he’s talking to somebody else, then.
3007 Q Yes.
3008 A Okay. No, I would just say that’s
3009 inconsistent with what I’ve said publicly and privately that
3010 can be verified.
So who was Dr Garry talking about? And who was accusing their eminent colleagues of, “ludicrous, crackpot theories”. For some unknown reason counsel for the majority asked no questions in regard to this.
Conclusion
Dr Biric’s testimony was incredibly contradictory. He said he had a bad memory for names but it seems he has trouble remembering what he just said.
As a lawyer I am very puzzled as to why the majority counsel did not tease out what Dr Biric should have known about the competing views in the 1 February Red Dawn teleconference and other discussions. It is noted that there while there may be some slippage as to dates, positions would appear to be more fixed. It is bizarre that there is conflicting evidence on who derided who about “ludicrous crackpot theories”. That and if scientists were speaking of each other thus, is in stark contrast to Daszak’s “we stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” which informed the ironically anti-science “trust the science” propaganda.
Predictably counsel for the minority tried to push the line:
790 Q Sure. And taking out bioengineered, I think
1791 there’s much consensus that that is not what we’re looking at
1792 here.
It also appears that they were primed by someone very know legible in the field, as this question shows:
1389 Is there a sense that because MA15 has
1390 enhanced replication and lethality, that it has been
1391 preadapted to be pathogenic in mice, that it is unsurprising
1392 1 that by removing its spike and replacing it with the spike
1393 from another virus, say SHC014, the resulting chimera would
1394 be less pathogenic than the full length original MA15?
As can be seen in line 1391 “that” has been used ungrammatically, and “as’ should have been used. This indicates the lawyer got handed the question and did not compose it himself. When at 1491 Dr Biric asked “Is that answering your question? I’m hoping I’m answering your question. Mr. Romero. [counsel for minority] replied “I think so.”
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