(1) Covid-19 at Wuhan Military Games in October 2019 - a superspreader event?(2) India: Modi gov't sides with WHO, but doctors prescribe Ivermectin(3) Indian Bar Association suit against WHO's chief scientist for disinformation about Ivermectin(4) New Study Links Ivermectin to ‘Large Reductions’ in COVID-19 Deaths(5) After 300 Million Injections FDA Finally Issues Warning on mRNA COVID-19 Shots for Heart Failure(6) Doctor fired from Uni for asking for "informed consent" on vaccines(7) Amazon forces America’s Frontline Doctors to find new host server(8) Scientists Call for Investigation into Journals That Dismissed Wuhan Lab Theory(1) Covid-19 at Wuhan Military Games in October 2019 - a superspreader event?https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/23/congress-wuhan-military-games-2019-covid/Opinion: Congress is investigating whether the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan was a covid-19 superspreader eventby Josh RoginJune 23, 2021 at 8:00 p.m. GMT+10In October 2019, more than 9,000 international athletes from more than 100 countries traveled to Wuhan, China — and many of them later got sick with covid-19-like symptoms. But there has never been a real investigation into whether the virus that causes covid-19 was already spreading at the Wuhan Military World Games. Now, multiple U.S. lawmakers are demanding the U.S. government begin one.The Military World Games, which are held every four years, are like the Olympics for military athletes. The games in Wuhan were the largest in the event's history, and the Chinese government went all out. The U.S. delegation came with 280 athletes and staff representing 17 sports, ranging from wrestling to golf. (Team USA brought home the bronze in the latter competition.) During the two-week event, however, many of the international athletes noticed that something was amiss in the city of Wuhan. Some later described it as a "ghost town."As the covid-19 pandemic took hold worldwide in early 2020, athletes from several countries — including France, Germany, Italy and Luxembourg — claimed publicly they had contracted what they believed to be covid-19 at the games in Wuhan, based on their symptoms and how their illnesses spread to their loved ones. In Washington, military leaders either dismissed the idea out of hand or weren't aware of it. Meanwhile, no one performed any antibody testing or disease tracing on these thousands of athletes. No one even attempted to find out whether the games in Wuhan was, in fact, the first international pandemic superspreader event.If more evidence were discovered, it would add to the growing body of evidence that the virus was circulating in Wuhan as early as October 2019, months before the Chinese government acknowledged it to the rest of the world. U.S. intelligence reports have said that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized with covid-like symptoms in November 2019. But U.S. officials have said they have other information suggesting that the outbreak began even earlier.Nailing down the timeline of the pandemic's origin is a crucial task. The United States needs to do its best to figure it out, lawmakers are now saying, regardless of where the data leads."Given unanswered questions surrounding the origins of the pandemic, information involving the health of service members who participated in the 2019 games could provide key evidence in understanding when COVID-19 first emerged," Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) wrote in a letter Monday to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "While anecdotal, these reports raise important questions about the timeline of the initial COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan."Has the Pentagon tested the 280 members of the U.S. delegation for antibodies? Were any attempts made to trace outbreaks at the bases they returned to? Has the U.S. military ever communicated with other militaries who participated in the games to share information or data? Is any investigation currently underway?These are some of the questions Gallagher is putting to the Pentagon. He noted that Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said he believes that the virus began spreading in Wuhan during September or October of 2019 and that more evidence has emerged that the virus was already present inside the United States by December 2019.Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) wrote a separate letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on this issue Tuesday, asking whether his department was aware of any U.S. athletes who fell ill after returning from Wuhan. He also wanted to know whether HHS was either looking into the issue or discussing it with the Defense Department."The World Military Games' proximity to the [Wuhan Institute of Virology] and the new details of the athletes potentially being exposed to COVID-19 while participating in the event present an alarming coincidence our government must investigate to establish an accurate timeline of the outbreak," Marshall wrote. "If these individuals were exposed in October, this evidence will further help us understand the origin of COVID-19 and prepare for future outbreaks."HHS did not respond to a request for comment. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told me that the Defense Department has no knowledge of covid-19 infections among U.S. troops participating in the 2019 World Military Games. He said that there's no evidence U.S. military personnel were infected before travel restrictions the U.S. government implemented in early 2020."We fully support ongoing investigative efforts into the origins of COVID-19 — efforts that would, of course, benefit from full transparency by Chinese authorities," he said.Of course, there's no way the U.S. government could have such evidence if they never tested the athletes in the first place. Five senior national security officials from the Trump administration told me that no one even thought to test the U.S. military athletes who returned from Wuhan. At that time, they noted, the conventional wisdom was that covid-19 had broken out in December 2019, not two months earlier.The State Department's only consideration of the Wuhan Military World Games came when the Chinese foreign ministry began citing the event in its own propaganda in March 2020. The Chinese asserted that U.S. Army personnel might have brought the virus to Wuhan from Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., where the U.S. Army bioresearch program is based. That didn't make sense because the first outbreak was in Wuhan, not Maryland. But the Trump team never took it any further than that."We were aware in the administration of the Chinese government's misinformation campaign accusing the U.S. military of bringing covid to Wuhan at those games, which obviously we didn't take seriously and didn't consider to be a good-faith effort to get to the bottom of it," David Feith, a former State Department official, told me. "To the extent there are now or there were all along credible reports of sick athletes from those games, we should certainly chase them down and learn more."If the Biden administration is as serious as it claims to be regarding investigating the pandemic's origins, it must go back and test all the U.S. military personnel who were in Wuhan for antibodies and then attempt to trace any outbreaks that might have come from their trip to the games. Other countries with athletes who got sick must do the same. It's true, the value of the data may have waned over time, because antibodies dissipate and tracing is more difficult. But it's still worth trying, and there's no honest argument for ignoring this issue.Determining the timeline of the outbreak is crucial to understanding the origins of the pandemic — and to getting a clearer focus on the scope of the Chinese government's coverup. The politics don't matter. It's a matter of national security and public health.(2) India Ivermectin: Modi gov't sides with WHO, but doctors prescribe IvermectinFrom: "Sandhya Jain" <jsandhya@gmail.com>Subject: RE: Delhi re-opensDear PeterDelhi has reopened slowly because lockdown has hurt people and the economy. Modi has neglected serious areas of the economy for years and the 2020 by him and 2021 lockdown by states has virtually crippled the nation. I am not economically savvy so I can't discuss but I can see and feel the impact. I have been privately warning for years before Covid was on the horizon.But reckless Big Daddy-ism has now exposed everything. It's too painful ... If we can avoid being publicly exposed as the next Venezuela it will be enough.Re Ivermectin - government made the Union Health Ministry BLINDLY follow the corrupt WHO-Fauci on everything. We surrendered our own HCQ, but Ivermectin is being used by doctors everywhere despite guidelines because there is nothing else to give ...(3) Indian Bar Association suit against WHO's chief scientist for disinformation about IvermectinFrom: "Sandhya Jain" <jsandhya@gmail.com>Subject: Damning admission on Coronavirus development-Sandhya Jain-14 June 2021https://www.organiser.org/Encyc/2021/6/14/Damning-Admission-on-Coronavirus-Development.htmlDamning admission on Coronavirus developmentSandhya JainOrganiser, 14 June 2021While health experts are now demanding serious studies on the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) that was initially touted as a cheap and effective way to control COVID-19, Ivermectin advocates say that the drug can treat all stages of COVID-19 and reduce hospitalisation and mortality rates due to its anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. [...]As the second wave of COVID-19 peaked in India and treatment became controversial in the wake of swiftly changing advisories from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Indian Bar Association on May 25, 2021, served legal notice against WHO's chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan for "spreading disinformation and misguiding the people of India" on the use of ivermectin to treat the disease. It accused her of pursuing an agenda.The association pointed out that Swaminathan ignored research and clinical trials from two organizations, viz., the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance and the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD). Both organisations have presented solid data showing ivermectin prevents and treats COVID-19.However, in a tweet on May 10 (since deleted after notice was issued), Swaminathan asserted, "Safety and efficacy are important when using any drug for a new indication. WHO recommends against the use of ivermectin for COVID-19 except within clinical trials." (WHO Chief Scientist Served Legal Notice In India For Allegedly Suppressing Data On Drug To Treat COVID-19, Tyler Durden, June 08, 2021).Swaminathan's tweet came soon after Goa's health minister announced that every resident of the state (18 years and above) would be given ivermectin as prevention regardless of COVID-19 status, as part of a government program to check the spread of the virus. The association demanded a clear response from Swaminathan on several key points, failing which it would initiate prosecution under sections of the Indian Penal Code and Disaster Management Act, 2005.The WHO chief scientist included a link to the statement of the Pharma major Merck, on ivermectin. Merck held a patent on the drug until 1996, and claimed in February 2021 that available data did not support the efficacy and safety of ivermectin beyond what the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved it for. Merck is conducting trials on an anti-viral drug, Molnupiravir, for COVID-19 outpatients, but it has not shown any benefits in hospitalized patients.Merck hopes that the new drug will impair the virus's ability to replicate and thus inhibit severe illness and hospitalization. Ivermectin has already done this in a meta-analysis of 57 clinical trials involving more than 18,000 patients, according to <https://ivmmeta.com/#top>ivmmeta.com, a website that provides real-time meta-analysis of ivermectin studies. In 23 early treatment studies, ivermectin showed 78 percent improvement in patients, and in 14 preventative trials, there was 85 percent improvement. In late treatment studies, there was 45 percent improvement in 20 studies.Ivermectin advocates say the drug can treat all stages of COVID-19 and reduce hospitalization and mortality rates due to its anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. But US federal health authorities and the WHO are reluctant to approve ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment. In its Living Guideline, the WHO advised against the use of ivermectin except in a clinical setting, citing inconclusive data.However, Dr. Pierre Kory, president and Chief Medical Officer of the FLCCC Alliance (Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance) alleged that there are strenuous efforts to censor information on the efficacy of ivermectin against COVID-19. He admonished, "We have randomized [trials], you have observational [studies], you have case series, you have epidemiologic analyses, and then the clinical experience of doctors. You can't find a doctor who has incorporated ivermectin into their treatments who will come back and say my patients didn't get better, you can't find that doctor."Indeed, doctors across the world, including the United States, are offering ivermectin to their patients. Doctors who refused to administer the drug to patients suffering severe COVID-19 were ordered by judges to do so. Indian Bar Association's legal notice cites the case of 80-year-old Judith Smentkiewicz who made a full recovery after being on a ventilator and told she only had a 20 percent chance of survival. Her family obtained a court order so she could receive additional doses of ivermectin. They believe this saved her life.Dr. Tess Lawrie, director, Evidence-based Medicine Consultancy Ltd. and co-founder of BIRD panel, observed that though the anti-viral drug, Remdesivir, is the only FDA-approved therapy for treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients, it showed no effect on mortality and minuscule benefit on time of recovery. Eventually, WHO removed it from the approved treatments for COVID-19. It is pertinent that a course of Remdesivir costs over $3,000, while ivermectin costs $3 to $12, according to Dr. Pierre Kory of the FLCCC.Indian States such as Goa and Uttar Pradesh that used ivermectin preventatively or as early treatment saw a sharp decline in COVID-19 cases. However, Tamil Nadu essentially banned ivermectin in favour of Remdesivir, which resulted in a steep hike in cases and deaths. The Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering noted that Tamil Nadu saw 20,421 new cases and 434 deaths on June 6, while Goa recorded 403 new cases and 16 deaths, and Uttar Pradesh reported 1,037 cases and 85 deaths. Uttar Pradesh has been distributing free medical kits with seven days' worth of medication, including ivermectin, for COVID-19 positive patients under home isolation.Health experts are now demanding serious studies on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) that was initially touted as a cheap and effective way to control COVID-19, until the pharmaceutical majors succeeded in pushing it off the list of approved treatments.(4) New Study Links Ivermectin to ‘Large Reductions’ in COVID-19 Deathshttps://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/new-study-links-ivermectin-to-large-reductions-in-covid-19-deaths_3867278.htmlBY TOM OZIMEK June 21, 2021 Updated: June 21, 2021The use of the antiparasitic drug ivermectin could lead to "large reductions" in COVID-19 deaths and may have a "significant impact" on the pandemic globally, according to a recent pre-print review based on peer-reviewed studies.For the study (pdf), published June 17 in the American Journal of Therapeutics, a group of scientists reviewed the clinical trial use of ivermectin, which has antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties, in 24 randomized controlled trials involving just more than 3,400 participants. The researchers sought to assess the efficacy of ivermectin in reducing infection or mortality in people with COVID-19 or at high risk of getting it.Using multiple methods of sequential analysis, the researchers concluded with a moderate level of confidence that the drug reduced the risk of death in COVID-19 patients by an average of 62 percent, at a 95 percent confidence interval of 0.19–0.79, in a sample of 2,438 patients.Among hospitalized COVID-19 patients, the risk of death was found to be 2.3 percent among those treated with the drug, compared to 7.8 percent for those who weren’t, according to the review."Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease," the authors wrote.Since the start of the pandemic, both observational and randomized studies have evaluated ivermectin as a treatment for, and as prevention against, COVID-19 infection."A review by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance summarized findings from 27 studies on the effects of ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection, concluding that ivermectin ‘demonstrates a strong signal of therapeutic efficacy’ against COVID-19," the researchers wrote, referring to one recent review, which was based on data from both peer-reviewed studies and pre-print manuscripts.They cited another recent review that concluded that ivermectin reduced deaths by as much as 75 percent, while noting that neither the National Institutes of Health in the United States nor the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended the use of ivermectin outside clinical trials for use against COVID-19.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in a note on "Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19," warns that it has received "multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses.""Using any treatment for COVID-19 that’s not approved or authorized by the FDA, unless part of a clinical trial, can cause serious harm," the FDA said in the note, adding that it hasn’t reviewed data to support the use of ivermectin in COVID-19 patients.The WHO said in March that "the current evidence on the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19 patients is inconclusive" and that, until more data becomes available, the agency recommends that "the drug only be used within clinical trials."The authors of the efficacy study argued, however, that the drug has an "established safety profile through decades of use" and "could play a critical role in suppressing or even ending the SARS-CoV2 pandemic.""The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally," they wrote in the study abstract.The authors noted in their publication that all the studies on which they based their conclusions have been peer-reviewed.Follow Tom on Twitter: @OZImekTOM(5) After 300 Million Injections FDA Finally Issues Warning on mRNA COVID-19 Shots for Heart Failurehttps://healthimpactnews.com/2021/after-300-million-injections-and-as-demand-wanes-fda-finally-issues-warning-on-mrna-covid-19-shots-for-heart-failure/June 24, 2021After 300 Million Injections and as Demand Wanes FDA Finally Issues Warning on mRNA COVID-19 Shots for Heart Failureby Brian ShilhavyEditor, Health Impact NewsAfter injecting Americans with over 300 million doses of one of the mRNA COVID-19 bioweapon shots since December 13, 2020, the FDA has finally agreed to force Moderna and Pfizer to put warning labels on their shots over a "likely association" between the injections and heart problems, which they claim is "rare."The warning comes as the vast majority of Americans who wanted one of the mRNA injections have already been injected, as demand for the shots has decreased to levels seen back in December, just after the shots were given emergency use authorization and were beginning to be rolled out.According to the CDC’s latest report published yesterday, June 23, 2021, "318 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through June 21, 2021," with only 12 million of those doses being the "J&J/Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine."As we have been reporting throughout the rollout of these non-FDA approved injections, hundreds of cases of people suffering heart problems, including DEATH, have been reported to VAERS, the Government database that tracts adverse reactions to "vaccines." [...](6) Doctor fired from University for asking for "informed consent" on vaccineshttps://reclaimthenet.org/doctor-fired-from-university-of-saskatchewan/June 25, 2021Doctor fired from University of Saskatchewan after posting online statement asking for "informed consent" on vaccinesThe response was swift.By Christina MaasPosted 1:08 pmDr. Francis Christian was fired from his position at the University of Saskatchewan and is being investigated by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan for an online statement calling for informed consent when it comes to vaccines.Dr. Christian has been a surgeon for over 20 years. In 2018, he was appointed to the position of Director of Surgical Humanities Program and Director of Quality and Patient Safety at the University of Saskatchewan. He also co-founded the Surgical Humanities Program and is an editor of the Journal of The Surgical Humanities.On June 23, Dr. Christian was suspended from all teaching responsibilities, and will no longer be an employee of the University of Saskatchewan from September 2021. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan is also investigating him after receiving a complaint about a statement he released last week.In a statement to over 200 doctors, released on June 17, Dr. Christian recommended informed consent when administering COVID-19 vaccines to children. The statement made it clear that he is pro-vaccine, does not represent any group, the University of Saskatchewan, or the Saskatchewan Health Authority."I speak to you directly as a physician, a surgeon, and a fellow human being," Dr. Christian said in the statement before going on to recommend the principle of informed consent so that the patient is "fully aware of the risks of the medical intervention, the benefits of the intervention, and if any alternatives exist to the intervention.""This should apply particularly to a new vaccine that has never before been tried in humans… before the vaccine is rolled out to children, both children and parents must know the risks of m-RNA vaccines," he added.The surgeon noted that he was yet to hear of "a single vaccinated child or parent who has been adequately informed" about the risks of COVID vaccines in children.His statement argued that m-RNA vaccines are experimental. Dr. Christian further argues that the vaccines do not qualify for "emergency use authorization" in kids because "Covid-19 does not pose a threat to our kids. The risk of them dying of Covid is less than 0.003% – this is even less than the risk of them dying of the flu. There is no emergency in children."Dr. Chrisitian also noted the vaccines have caused "serious medical problems for kids" around the globe, such as "a real and significantly increased risk" of heart inflammation and myocarditis.The College of Physicians and Surgeons sent him a letter stating that it has "received information that you are engaging in activities designed to discourage and prevent children and adolescents from receiving Covid-19 vaccination contrary to the recommendations and pandemic-response efforts of Saskatchewan and Canadian public health authorities."The Litigation Director of The Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, the organization representing Dr. Chrisitian in the complaint made against him, expressed his concerns over medical professionals getting censored and punished for expressing views contradicting the government’s narrative."We are seeing a clear pattern of highly competent and skilled medical doctors in very esteemed positions being taken down and censored or even fired, for practicing proper science and medicine," said Cameron."Censoring and punishing scientists and doctors for freely voicing their concerns is arrogant, oppressive and profoundly unscientific," he added."Both the western world and the idea of scientific inquiry itself is built to a large extent on the principles of freedom of thought and speech. Medicine and patient safety can only regress when dogma and an elitist orthodoxy, such as that imposed by the Saskatchewan College of Medicine, punishes doctors for voicing concerns," Cameroon concluded.(7) Amazon forces America’s Frontline Doctors to find new host serverhttps://reclaimthenet.org/americas-frontline-doctors-scrambled-for-new-host-after-webflow-pulled-support-due-to-amazon-misinformation-rule/June 22, 2021America’s Frontline Doctors scrambled for new host after WebFlow pulled support due to Amazon "misinformation" ruleThe doctors have faced much censorship over the last year.By Christina MaasPosted 7:15 amAmazon could have forced America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) offline had the organization not acted quickly to look for an alternative. The Big Tech company seems to have taken issue with the organization for claiming COVID-19 vaccines may not be worth it in children.America’s Frontline Doctors had its website built with WebFlow, which is ultimately hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS).Amazon, like other Big Tech, deemed the organization’s content to be "misinformation" and issued a notice last month that it should be removed from AWS."We wanted to reach out to you about your project, americasfrontlinedoctors.org. This project is hosting misinformation about vaccines and was reported as objectionable content to AWS," the notice from WebFlow stated. "AWS is the service we use at Webflow to host our websites so we can no longer host americasfrontlinedoctors.org."Amazon gave the organization until May 31 to switch to a different host.The notice forced AFLDS to rebuild its website from scratch using servers located around the globe."We were forced to take immediate action because we will never allow Jeff Bezos and Amazon to censor us from speaking freely about medical treatments, medical studies and individual liberty, or from challenging the government narrative surrounding COVID-19 vaccines," the AFLDS said in a statement."Jeff Bezos and Amazon cannot argue with our scientific data and facts, so they would rather delete us entirely," the statement added. "We have already been blacklisted on social media, and cannot host videos on YouTube. We must build our own internet servers that cannot be silenced by Big Tech, Big Pharma or Big Government."AFLDS is an organization that claims to be committed to "providing Americans with science-based facts about COVID-19 and fighting the politicization of medicine and media censorship."It first became popular when it held a censored press conference where some of its members promoted hydroxychloroquine, an FDA-approved medication that the WHO and CDC at the time insisted is not effective against COVID.Amazon’s notice came a few days after AFLDS filed a motion seeking a temporary restraining order (TRO) at a federal court against the vaccination of children under the age of 16. The organization argued that the emergency use authorization (EUA) allowing the vaccination of kids should not have been granted.(8) Scientists Call for Investigation into Journals That Dismissed Wuhan Lab Theoryhttps://www.nationalreview.com/corner/scientists-call-for-investigation-into-journals-that-dismissed-wuhan-lab-theory/By JIMMY QUINNJune 15, 2021 8:04 PMOne aspect of the growing support for an investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s potential role in COVID-19’s origin is the way in which certain scientific journals laundered the arguments made by those who had an interest in diverting attention from the lab-origin hypothesis.Pro-China ideologues and well-regarded medical researchers with an apparent interest in ensuring that U.S.–China cooperation on coronavirus research continued worked with prominent medical journals, such as the Lancet, to cast the idea as a conspiracy theory that inflames anti-Asian sentiment.Now, as wider acceptance of the lab-leak theory has taken hold, scientists are calling for a congressional investigation into the tangled web of journals, researchers, and others who sought to muddle the debate about the deadly disease’s origins.Voice of America spoke to Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist and outspoken lab-leak proponent, and Nikolai Petrovsky, a professor at Flinders University in Australia, about prominent medical journals’ rejection of articles that didn’t fit the supposed scientific consensus before the lab-leak explanation went mainstream:Scientists skeptical from the start of the natural-spillover theory, including Petrovsky, Ebright and a so-called Paris Group of scientists, which drafted two open letters on the origins of coronavirus, say an inquiry into the role of major science journals is in order. Much of the focus has been on The Lancet and Nature but other leading  journals have come under criticism, including Science, an academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science."This pandemic has exposed just how vulnerable our scientific institutions including our academies, universities and scientific journals are to politicization and covert influence," says Petrovsky. "At the same time as exerting undue influence over Western journals, China is launching hundreds of its own journals over which it will have direct control and are offering easy routes to publication and incentives for scientists to publish in them," he adds."An inquiry by Congress into this might be a good first step although this is also a much broader international issue, that should ultimately involve an international effort to fix these problems," he told VOA.Petrovsky says he and others faced tremendous hurdles in getting published papers casting doubt on the natural-spillover theory. He says if a rare paper was initially accepted for consideration, it fell at the second stage when it was sent to reviewers to consider its merits and would then be rejected. "Almost all the scientific community, from which reviewers are selected, had been indoctrinated by the misleading and heavily manipulative early Lancet and Nature Medicine commentaries that suggested any questioning of the origins should be seen as an attack by conspiracy theorists from the extreme right," he says.The worry expressed by Ebright and Petrovsky in the article is that these publications’ business interests in China prevented a fair reckoning with a theory that has cast the Chinese Communist Party’s actions in a negative light. These concerns are not unwarranted: As VOA notes, the publisher of Nature and Scientific American censors articles considered sensitive by the Party.Ebright told National Review in April that leading figures associated with the Lancet’s COVID commission propagated the false idea that there was a scientific consensus on the disease’s origins. "No such consensus existed then. No such consensus exists now."Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee already are investigating one such researcher, Peter Daszak, chairman of the commission’s subcommittee on COVID’s origins, and his organization, EcoHealth Alliance. On April 18, they sent Daszak a request for documents, though that request centers on grants issued by the National Institutes of Health and not Daszak’s contribution to the scientific debate.Given the egregious way in which a clique of researchers created the widely accepted false impression that the lab-leak explanation is a kooky conspiracy theory, the public deserves answers, and Congress should help answer the question of whether deference to Beijing’s political sensitivities shaped editorial decisions about global public health during a devastating pandemic. ==