1/ NEW: In 2019, NIH lab chief Vincent Munster proposed to his postdoctoal student the idea of inserting a furin cleavage site into SARS-like spikes “to enhance infectivity,” newly obtained records show. His lab also sought and obtained unpublished SARS-related sequences for the same research project that year. Along with the rejected DEFUSE proposal, this is the second documented instance of scientists proposing to engineer a furin site into a wild bat coronavirus spike to boost infectivity in the two years before the COVID pandemic emerged. Story: usrtk.org/covid-19-origins/b…

1/ NEW: When Wuhan’s Zhengli Shi invited Ralph Baric to a 2016 emerging-viruses conference, the UNC researcher declined -- but offered his top mouse-model scientist in his place. Lisa Gralinski studied SARS and bat SARS-like virus pathogenesis in mice, Baric told Shi. We’ve posted 195 pages of newly obtained records on Gralinski’s trip to Wuhan and her later contacts with WIV scientists. usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads…

NEW: In Feb. 2020, Ralph Baric was being asked to publicly knock down claims linking his coronavirus research to the Wuhan outbreak. Privately, he warned a group of scientists advising U.S. intelligence that such a statement could be used for “nefarious purposes to shift blame.” He added he was receiving “concerning, if not threatening” emails. My latest story based on records pried loose via @USRightToKnow's continuing FOIA efforts: usrtk.org/covid-19-origins/r…

Reading the @FBI's latest release of records in response to a @USRightToKnow #FOIA lawsuit for intelligence on COVID origins is a little like playing a national security version of Mad Libs. There are a LOT of [REDACTED] blanks. But what remains visible around them is pretty interesting ... 1/4 🧵

New docs, same secrecy: @ENERGY is continuing to classify and withhold a revised version of a COVID-origins assessment even though @ODNIgov already officially disclosed the underlying findings. DOE is also withholding the title & substance of a later October 2021 assessment that appears to embody DOE’s post-90-day-review position. Why the continued secrecy, DOE? Additional context here: usrtk.org/covid-19-origins/i… Full docs posted here: usrtk.org/covid-19-origins/f…

A year-plus wait. A lawsuit. Then @StateDept’s answer this week to our #FOIA requesting release of the COVID-origins intel it shared with U.S. spy agencies: a form letter withholding the latest record entirely as classified. "Upon review, we have determined the record must be withheld in its entirety..." The Trump admin promised “maximum transparency.” Congress twice ordered that records be made public. But the government continues to stonewall & keep secrets about what it knows from the public.