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Wednesday, September 27, 2023

China's 'Batwoman' Warns Of New COVID Outbreak

Shi Zhengli, the Peter Daszak collaborator whose Wuhan virus database was altered 48 hours before the Chinese government ordered virus samples destroyed in the early days of the pandemic, and whose team was using genetic engineering to create 'chimeric SARS-like viruses to test on humanized mice' at the lab across town from ground zero for Covid-19, has warned that it's 'highly likely' that we'll see another coronavirus outbreak.

"If a coronavirus caused diseases to emerge before, there is a high chance it will cause future outbreaks," she warned in a recent paper co-authored with colleagues.

In this study Shi’s team from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, evaluated the human spillover risk of 40 coronavirus species and rated half of them as “highly risky”.
Of these, six are already known to have caused diseases that infected humans, while there is evidence that a further three caused disease or infected other animal species. -SCMP

"It is almost certain that there will be future disease emergence and it is highly likely a [coronavirus] disease again," the study warned, after looking at various viral traits - including population, genetic diversity, host species and any previous history of zoonosis – diseases that jump from animals to humans.

Shi and pals also identified potential zoonotic hosts for a new Covid pathogen (of which there are none for Covid-19), including bats, rodents or possible intermediary hosts such as camels, civets, pigs or pangolins - which the damage control 'natural origin' types (such as Daszak) have been desperately trying to locate to exonerate themselves.

Shady Shi...

According to the US State Department, "several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses."

"This raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli's public claim that there was "zero infection" among the WIV's staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses."

Zhengli came under fire in 2015 over her controversial 'gain-of-function' research creating chimeric bat viruses designed to infect humans (but suggesting that an emergent coronavirus that's over 96% similar to a bat coronavirus could have escaped from Zhengli's lab is a conspiracy theory).

According to a 2021 statement by former UK Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith - a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, the revelations are yet another example of a Chinese coverup.

"China is clearly trying to hide the evidence," he said, adding "It is vital that there is a thorough investigation into what happened but China seems to be doing all it can to stop that happening. We don’t know what was going on in that laboratory. It may well be the case that they played around with bat coronaviruses and made some kind of mistake. Unless China opens itself up to scrutiny, the world will assume they have something to hide."

According to the State Department, "starting in at least 2016 - and with no indication of a stop prior to the COVID-19 outbreak -- WIV researchers conducted experiments involving RaTG13, the bat coronavirus identified by the WIV in January 2020 as its closest sample to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2% similar).

Further, "The WIV has published a record of conducting "gain-of-function" research to engineer chimeric viruses. But the WIV has not been transparent or consistent about its record of studying viruses most similar to the COVID-19 virus, including "RaTG13," which it sampled from a cave in Yunnan Province in 2013 after several miners died of SARS-like illness."

Also of note, "hundreds of pages of information" spanning over 300 studies conducted by WIV were wiped from a database, including some which discuss passing diseases from animals to humans - which were published online by the state-run National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and are no longer available, according to the Daily Mail.

Secret military activity

The State Department further noted that "Secrecy and non-disclosure are standard practice for Beijing," adding that "For many years the United States has publicly raised concerns about China's past biological weapons work, which Beijing has neither documented nor demonstrably eliminated, despite its clear obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention."

According to the release, "Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China's military. The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017."

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/highly-likely-chinas-batwoman-warns-new-covid-outbreak

Hunter Biden indicated Joe was ‘family’s only asset’: whistleblower documents

First son Hunter Biden apparently referred to his father, President Biden, as “my family’s only asset” while discussing his overseas business ventures in June 2017, according to new IRS whistleblower documents released Wednesday by the House Ways and Means Committee.

Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) told reporters Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler had furnished the panel with more than 700 pages of additional messages, emails and documents about their five-year investigation of Hunter, now 53.

The evidence dump came hours before the House Oversight Committee will hold its first public hearing in the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden, which was ordered Sept. 12 by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

The disclosures included a June 6, 2017, text message from Hunter in which he appears to acknowledge that his foreign interests were only undertaken to promote his “family’s brand.”

“It’s plane [sic] f—ing English. Why in gods [sic] name would I give this marginal bully the keys [to] my family’s only asset?” Hunter vented to a business associate identified only as “James,” — likely James Gilliar, who had received just over $1 million months earlier from another Biden family associate, Rob Walker.

Hunter’s efforts, Smith said, resulted in the Biden family raking in at least $20 million from entities in at least seven countries, on which the first son evaded tax payments.

At the same time, the president was aware of his son’s business and crossed paths with several of Hunter’s associates in meetings and phone calls, Smith added.

“These documents show a clearer connection between Joe Biden, his public office, and Hunter Biden’s global influence peddling scheme that resulted in over $20 million in payments to the Biden family,” he said. “In addition to then Vice-President Joe Biden attending lunches and speaking on the phone with his son’s business associates, the details released today paint a fuller picture of how Joe Biden’s vice- presidential office was instrumental to the Biden Family’s business schemes.

Here’s what the Biden family business scandal impeachment inquiry would look like

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry Tuesday into President Biden — turbocharging congressional power to acquire documents and testimony about Biden’s role in his family’s foreign business dealings while he was vice president.

House Republicans already have issued an array of demands to executive branch agencies relating to Joe Biden’s involvement with first son Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden’s international dealings — in many cases setting September deadlines that could soon escalate into litigation.

The inquiry aims to answer a number of questions:

What’s in Joe Biden’s vice presidential emails?

While vice president, Joe Biden used the pseudonyms “Robert L. Peters” and “Robin Ware” to communicate with staff members — leaving a paper trail of nearly 5,400 written records.

The House Oversight Committee demanded those communications from the National Archives with an Aug. 31 deadline, but a source tells The Post the agency did not comply.

What do Hunter Biden’s bank records show?

Congressional Republicans are preparing to issue subpoenas to banks for accounts held by Hunter and James Biden — after previously subpoenaing some of the associates’ bank statements.

The records could show whether any money was transferred to Joe Biden from his relatives’ foreign income streams and also whether they covered a substantial portion of his expenses. It’s possible the House will later seek the president’s bank records too.

“The evidence shows a pattern of Hunter Biden creating for-profit entities to shield at least $20 million from foreign sources from taxes and hide the trail of payments that led to members of the Biden family,” Smith went on. “The growing body of evidence further calls into question the Justice Department’s attempted sweetheart plea deal for Hunter Biden, and the reasons for appointing the architect of that plea deal as the special counsel for Hunter Biden’s case, in light of officials’ efforts to protect President Biden and his son.”

Shapley and Ziegler went to the Ways and Means Committee this past spring with claims that the Justice Department had interfered in the probe of the first son, who is scheduled to appear in Delaware federal court Oct. 3 to answer to gun charges — but has so far avoided further indictments initially sought by IRS tax investigators, including for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

“IRS investigators provided worksheets they compiled as part of their investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax crimes, which connect his business activities to official government activity while Joe Biden served as vice president” Smith told reporters.

In one email released Wednesday, then-Delaware Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf told a group of investigators — including Ziegler — that then-presidential candidate Joe Biden was outside the “scope” of their probe and “[t]here should be nothing” about him included.

“Please focus on FARA evidence only,” Wolf wrote in her Aug. 7, 2020, response to a draft search warrant — approximately three months before the 2020 election.

Shapley also took note of one Justice Department official saying they were not “personally interested” in a May 2021 report compiled by tax investigators that noted potential “campaign finance criminal violations” related to Hunter’s “sugar brother” attorney Kevin Morris, who had helped the first son pay off more than $2 million in tax liabilities.

In another email, a CNN producer told IRS investigators in September 2021 that he received an email from Hunter Biden in which the first son said he had expected all his troubles to vanish once his father became president.

“This file makes it abundantly clear that IRS investigators were concerned there was in fact a connection between Hunter Biden’s global influence peddling Joe Biden and official US government activity,” according to Smith.

Other disclosures show Democratic lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies gave then-Vice President Biden talking points ahead of a December 2015 meeting with Ukrainian officials.

That memo was also shared with Hunter, his partners at Rosemont Seneca — Eric Schwerin and Devon Archer — and Burisma’s owner Vadym Pozharskyi.

The lobbying firm had informed Burisma executives in a proposal that as part of its services it would “educate key officials in Washington, DC, followed by a trip to Kiev proposed for mid-December 2015.”

Blue Star Strategies also said it would “promote” the “closure” of an investigation into Burisma by Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin.

Pozharskyi in a November 2015 email thread to Hunter Biden and Devon Archer expressed concern that the proposal did not “offer any names of top US officials here in Ukraine,” such as the US ambassador, as “targets for improving Nikolay’s case,” referring to the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky.

“If, however, this is done deliberatly [sic] to be on the safe and cautious side, I can understand the rationale,” Pozharskyi added.

He went on to say that the influence of “high-ranking US officials in Ukraine (US Ambassador) and in US” and a visit from American policymakers would send a “signal” of support for Burisma in order “to close down … pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine.”

Schwerin followed up by confirming that the failure to mention names was “definitely done deliberately to be on the safe and cautious side.”

Archer further told Hunter Biden that he needed to “deliver” Pozharskyi’s message to Blue Star about the proposal, which the then-second son confirmed in a follow-up phone call before asking the Burisma owner to retain the lobbying firm.

With the contract agreed upon, Blue Star held a December 2015 conference call days before then-Vice President Biden’s planned trip to Kyiv, in which he told the lobbyists he was prepared to ask for “serious reforms” of the prosecutor’s office.

Biden later boasted in 2018 that he pressed Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko to oust Shokin in exchange for $1 billion in US loan guarantees during that visit. Shokin was dismissed the following March by a vote of Ukraine’s parliament.

https://nypost.com/2023/09/27/hunter-biden-apparently-called-joe-familys-only-asset/

BrainStorm's ALS cell therapy resoundingly rejected by FDA advisers

FDA advisers were unmistakable in their assessment of BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics’ treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): there's just no evidence it works.

Members of the Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee voted 17 to 1—with one abstention—that there was not substantial evidence to show that the company’s cell therapy, NurOwn, was effective at stymying the progression of mild-to-moderate ALS. It’s a near-final blow for the company’s approval ambitions after two prior rejections from the agency.

The decision validates what the agency has conveyed for more than two years now, which is that NurOwn has failed to show any evidence of efficacy and that critical parts of the manufacturing process remain unclear.

The agency posted a rare regulatory update in March 2021 acknowledging the need for new ALS treatments but underscored the lack of benefit in the company’s phase 3 trial. The FDA also flagged “a modest excess in deaths in those treated with NurOwn,” though the significance was unclear at the time. FDA said then that if BrainStorm had additional clinical studies planned, then it would continue to provide advice and guidance.

That didn’t happen and BrainStorm instead submitted an approval application in 2022 based on an exploratory analysis of the same phase 3 trial. The FDA refused to accept the application for a host of reasons that centered on a lack of demonstrated efficacy and insufficient manufacturing information. The agency told the company to try again with more data but BrainStorm instead filed the application over protest in February—a rarely used Hail Mary drugmakers can leverage to force a public hearing on an application.

Just a few days ago, BrainStorm made a last-minute change to the application to trim the desired indication from patients with ALS to patients with mild-to-moderate ALS. The FDA held firm during the meeting that the data do not suggest that the treatment benefits patients in this newly selected subset, either.

At the meeting, BrainStorm emphasized two key points to try and make the case for efficacy: the first was that a subgroup of patients with a Revised Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale (ALSFRS-R) of 35 or higher had a much better response to the treatment than placebo.

This scale ranges from 0 to 48 and measures the severity of the disease. A high score indicates more normal function, while lower scores suggest more severe progression.

The rate of response for patients with scores below 35, or more severe disease, was about the same as placebo, the company said.

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/brainstorm-cells-als-cell-therapy-resoundingly-rejected-fda-experts

Food Stamp Program Losing $1 Billion Every Month To Alleged Fraud, Errors: Sen. Ernst

by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. food stamp program is losing around $1 billion a month owing to alleged fraud and errors, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has warned.

The lawmaker issued the warning in a Sept. 26 press release announcing new legislation aimed at combating the alleged billions of dollars in monthly losses from the United States Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which allows low-income families with benefit cards to buy basic food items at approved grocery stores.

Known as the "Snap Back Inaccurate SNAP Payments Act," the legislation would slash spending by nearly $1 billion a month by ensuring all errors—regardless of the amount—be counted.

The bill also directs state governments to stop handing out benefits to individuals who are not eligible, requires states to pay back what they owe, and directs states to recollect SNAP overpayments, ensuring that each household only receives exactly what they are eligible for.

Additionally, the legislation will hold states accountable for payment error rates to incentivize better management of funds, and improve the accuracy of SNAP payment error rates by requiring all errors to be reported.

The number of Americans enrolled in the SNAP program increased from 35.7 million in 2019 to 41.2 million in 2022, according to data released earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Meanwhile, SNAP costs rose from $60.3 billion in 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic, to a record-setting $119.5 billion in 2022.

*Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) speaks at a Senate Republican news conference in the U.S. Capitol Building on March 9, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)*

States Must 'Pay the Piper'

However, Ms. Ernst said seven states—Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas, Louisiana, Alaska, and Mississippi—have "intentionally manipulated" the amount of SNAP payments they were making to residents and ultimately pocketed $60 million.

The Justice Department has since settled those allegations of improper manipulation of the SNAP program with various state agencies across those seven states and recovered more than $60 million in connection with its investigation.

"Families across the country are going hungry while bureaucrats are jumping the line to gobble up SNAP dollars, either as a meal ticket to beef up state budgets or a self-serve buffet of benefits for themselves or others who do not qualify," the senator said in Tuesday's statement. "I’m snapping back! It’s time for states at fault to pay the piper and eat the costs of their taxpayer waste. Instead of overserving bureaucrats, let’s end the waste and set a place at the table for hungry families," Ms. Ernst added.

The Iowa Republican noted that the majority of errors from the food stamp program are owing to "overpayments" or benefits paid to recipients who are not actually eligible to receive them.

In June, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that states had an overpayment error rate of 9.84 percent.

In 2022, there were approximately $11.2 billion in overpayments reported, however the exact number is unknown because the USDA excludes errors totaling $54 or less.

Speaking to The Washington Times, Ms. Ernst said the state of Maryland is one of the worst offenders, paying out benefits to more than 86,000 residents who did not qualify for the SNAP program. Despite the error, the state has "no plans" to try and get the money back, she said, with officials citing the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the senator.

Benefit Fraud Cases on the Rise

In recent years, an increasing number of fraud cases relating to the food stamp program and other federal programs, particularly in the form of organized schemes run by those actually running such programs, have also been prosecuted across the United States.

They include in Delaware, where seven people employed by the Department of Health and Social Services and were responsible for issuing Electronic Benefit Transfer cards stole nearly $1 million in federal food benefits, and in Florida, where two owners of a convenience store allegedly ran a huge food stamp scam amounting to around $88,000.

Just last week, a Romanian national was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $2,980 in restitution after pleading guilty to swiping Los Angeles County food and assistance payments from legitimate beneficiaries.

Fraud and errors relating to food assistance programs are not the only problems.

The SNAP abuse is part of approximately $3 trillion in improper payments made by federal agencies since 2004, according to Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO of watchdog Open the Books, which is more than the entire annual GDP of France.

Among the "worst offenders" are the departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury, Labor, and Education; and the Small Business Administration (SBA), according to Open the Books, although the latter agency has insisted that its accuracy rates are "high."

"This is the definition of a dinner-table issue. Senator Ernst has identified a kind of improper payment that strikes right at the heart of an American’s life – their need to feed themselves and their families nutritious foods," Mr. Andrzejewski said in a statement. "While we’ve demonstrated that fraud runs rampant across government, stealing right from our plates is an especially pernicious way to make your ill-gotten gains."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/food-stamp-program-losing-1-billion-every-month-alleged-fraud-errors-sen-ernst

Mayo Clinic Nukes Hydroxychloroquine Information Page After People Take Notice

One day after the Mayo Clinic's endorsement of Hydroxychloroquine was highlighted for use in Covid-19 patients, they scrubbed the page and then blamed a 3rd party vendor for supplying the information.

The original page read: "Hydroxychloroquine may be used to treat coronavirus (COVID-19) in certain hospitalized patients," which was highlighted various people and oulets, including ZeroHedge, and former Trump official Peter Navarro.

Now, the Mayo Clinic redirects people to a "safe" page.

Of course, pro-vax (we assume) outlets pounced on the fact that this information has been there since at least May of 2020.

Which means... by the transitive properties of woke outrage, the Mayo clinic has been spreading misinformation for three years? Cancel them!

Meanwhile, an analysis of dozens of studies on Hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19 reveals a 72% lower mortality risk when taken early, and a 41% lower mortality risk when given early into hospitalization (when both HCQ and Ivermectin are known to be less effective vs. at first symptoms).

See the full study results here...

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mayo-clinic-nukes-hydroxychloroquine-information-page-after-people-take-notice

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