Investigation Reveals Dangerous Bat Studies at CSU

The White Coat Waste Project uncovered 22 wasteful, dangerous bat studies funded by tax dollars and conducted in Colorado with ties to EcoHealth Alliance. 

More details regarding Colorado State University’s (CSU) dangerous virus experiments on bats have been uncovered. The White Coat Waste Project (WCWP) revealed the details of 22 experiments. The experiments include Sars, CoV, Mers, Cedar, Nipah, and Sosuga viruses. 

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic and Chairman Wenstrup stated they have documents that show the virus that started the COVID-19 pandemic leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was provided funding from U.S. taxpayers by Anthony Fauci’s The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The former CDC director has stated that the avian flu can become highly transmissable within humans via lab experiments and that this will be the next pandemic. Meanwhile, CSU is using tax dollars to fund mad scientist experiments on viruses obtained from the other side of the world. 

BREAKING – Former @CDCgov director Dr. Robert Redfield corroborates our observations that the primary threat of H5N1 Bird Flu stems from gain of function research conducted in US labs.

"In the laboratory, I could make it highly infectious for humans in months … that's the real… pic.twitter.com/XNLo5k2Vea

— McCullough Foundation (@McCulloughFund) May 10, 2024

In one protocol, the experimenters infect Jamaican Fruit Bats with the Cedar virus. The Cedar virus is classified as a biosafety level 4, which involves the most severe viruses like Ebola. The CDC describes level 4 biosafety as “The microbes in a BSL-4 lab are dangerous and exotic, posing a high risk of aerosol-transmitted infections. Infections caused by these microbes are frequently fatal and without treatment or vaccines.” 

The CSU frequently asked questions in attempts to calm public concerns about the transmissibility of viruses and lab leaks. They say they do not do gain-of-function research, which involves manipulating the virus to cause mutations artificially. Doing so can create new pathogenic mutations that are potentially more fatal than the original virus. 

Language was added to the Cedar virus protocol that says “direct reinfection of the Cedar virus up to 15 times in bats to see if the infection becomes more robust.” This intentional mutation of the virus can potentially cause an already fatal virus to become more transmissible and deadly. CSU does not describe this research as a “gain-of-function,” which is reminiscent of Fauci raising his shaky voice declaring that Senator Rand Paul has ‘no idea’ what he was talking about when he alleged the NIH-funded gain-of-function experiments in Wuhan. 

Justin Goodman, the senior vice president of the White Coat Waste Project, said the Cedar virus protocol and other viral experiments being conducted at CSU labs are a form of function research. “Serial passage is a common gain of function technique,” Goodman said. “They would say ‘no’ because there is no evidence it would affect humans. The definition that they currently work with at the NIH and federal agencies is that it’s got to be likely to infect humans. This is funded by CSU and not NIH, so it doesn’t have to go through a gain of function review.” 

When asked for comment, CSU provided a link to the university’s bat research website, which states, “CSU has no plans to conduct gain-of-function infectious disease research with bats that could increase the transmission of a virus or other pathogens to humans. Instead, CSU infectious disease research in university laboratories is focused on studying the fundamental response of a bat’s immune system to infectious pathogens, such as viruses as they already exist. This includes examining bats’ inflammatory responses when a virus is introduced into their systems. CSU is not conducting research related to viruses and bats where there could be a risk of creating a new pathogen that would cause increased harm to humans.”

Goodman said the whole point of the research at the CSU lab, which they are calling Wuhan West, is to supercharge viruses to make them more infectious. “What you are trying to find is how it becomes more infectious,” Goodman said. ”You are modifying a virus to make it more virulent.” 

Dr. Bryce Nickels, co-founder of the non-profit Biosafety Now and a Professor of Genetics at Rutgers University, has particular concerns about Nipah virus research that he calls “insanity.” The virus exists in a remote area of Malaysia on the other side of the world. “Nipah is very interesting in the sense that in order to study it here in Colorado, they are developing a bat colony,” Dr. Nickels said. “We don’t have that bat in the U.S. We’re bringing the bats that harbor Nipah into the U.S. to infect them with Nipah here. Why would you support that if you’re in Colorado?”

Dr. Nickels added, “If you have something that’s killed maybe 200 people over the course of a decade in a remote area of the world, why on earth would you say it’s important to bring it into the U.S. to study it here when it has a fatality rate of 40 to 70 percent? They’re selling this idea that ‘oh, we found a virus in a remote area that’s poised to create a worldwide pandemic. We know it’s going to get to the U.S. It’s going to be trouble, so we have to study it in advance.’”

Another protocol studies the Sosuga virus, which is classified as biosafety level 3. This protocol also calls for “direct reinfection up to 15 times to see if the infection becomes more robust.” Scientists have to self-report their research as being gain of function, which doesn’t happen. That would require them to have more regulatory oversight of their research project. 

A 2018 research paper on Sosuga virus found only one case of infection in humans, but the author states that detection in Ugandan bats over three years indicates a “possibility” for future spillover into humans. Again, a virus that has infected one person in a remote area of the world has the “possibility” of spilling over to humans, so CSU uses internal funds that come from Colorado taxpayer dollars to conduct serial passage (gain of function) research in populated areas of the United States. 

The argument can go two different ways. If only one person has ever been infected, and it is not that dangerous, why does the U.S. government need to fund research studies for a virus that exists nowhere near U.S. soil? If the pathogen is dangerous, do the supposed benefits outweigh the risks? 

Funding From DARPA and the DOD

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) provided a $10.3 million grant for a study to starve bats and infect them with Nipah, SARS-CoV-2, and influenza. The NIH is currently providing funding for this project and has spent $6.9 million in taxpayer dollars so far. The Nipah virus is another level 4 biosafety risk that is highly contagious and has fatality rates of “40-75% of human cases.” CSU makes clear on its website that they do not work with the Nipah, Ebola, or Marburg viruses in CSU labs as their “facilities are not built to research these viruses.” They will, however, consult with other labs across the country regarding work on these viruses. CSU and EcoHealth will import bats infected with Nipah, but they claim the research will be conducted at the NIH Rocky Mountain lab in Montana. 

“This is bioweapon research,” Goodman said. “There’s literally no reason unless you’re developing bio-weapons to go into remote parts of the world and bring viruses like cedar, Japanese encephalitis, and Nipah into U.S. laboratories and manipulate them in the serial passage and other experiments to make them more dangerous. These are viruses we would not have any contact with otherwise. Instead, we’re bringing them onto our shores and weaponizing them in laboratories and claiming it’s for the public good and to prevent the pandemic. This type of animal experimentation has literally never stopped a pandemic and likely caused one that killed 20 million people.”

Dr. Nickels said his biggest problem with the research is that the scientists and health officials are not being honest with the public about the studies they are conducting. He said that the only reason to study these viruses is for the purposes of bioweapons research, and that it’s “hard to separate virology and military at this point.” 

Dr. Nickels said the current ‘sales pitch’ is, “‘This is a high containment facility where we’re studying very dangerous viruses to protect you.’ That’s a different sales pitch than ‘We’re studying these highly lethal viruses because we could use them as a bioweapon, or they might be used against us as a bioweapon.’ That’s a very different conversation.”

“Personally, I think we just need to say no,” Dr. Nickels said. “This is not a good idea, regardless of whether our adversaries have Nipah. We shouldn’t bring it here to study it, because this is the stupidest thing anybody could do. Being in an arms race with viruses that are extremely lethal can be highly transmissable and hard to control if they got out of the lab. We set up the program to work on Nipah in China. This is how insane we are. We helped facilitate allowing China to study Nipah.”

$2.5 million has been paid by the Department of Defense with an account titled “Combatting Weapons of Mass Destruction” for a research study at CSU on the viral ecology of bats in Uganda. 

Dr. Nickels said that virologists have “stoked fear” that research is needed to create a new vaccine ahead of the next pandemic. He is also concerned about the potential for a malicious actor to release the pathogen on purpose. 

“The more research that is done on them in labs, you increase the chances an accident will happen or some bad actor will deliberately release the pathogen,” Dr. Nickels said. “The anthrax attack in the U.S. was determined to be done by somebody working on anthrax in the lab. The most significant bio-terror attack on the U.S. was an inside job.  Increasing the amount of bioweapons increases the chance of an inside bioterror attack.”

Animal Welfare/Abuse 

It is not only dangerous experiments that are concerning under the CSU bat research team but also serious violations of animal welfare. A study about Japanese encephalitis calls for collecting  60 alligators, 120 snakes, 60 lizards, 60 frogs, 180 bats, 60 pigs. The researcher will manually restrain the animal to allow “mosquitos to feed on them.” 

This sounds reminiscent of the cruel experiments exposed by the WCWP regarding NIAID funding of studies that involved cutting out the vocal cords of beagle dogs so experimenters wouldn’t have to hear the horrid cries as the dogs get eaten alive by sandflies. The revelations of the study sparked the hashtag “#beaglegate” which led to public outcry. It also caused the Washington Post and other media outlets to jump to Fauci, NIAID, and NIH’s defense. 

Goodman said they have proof that Fauci and NIAID funded that study despite their best efforts to claim otherwise. Goodman said, “Subsequently, we received documents showing the actual grant documents that not only did Fauci fund that stuff, the exact project. We got emails that were exchanged inside NIAD where the NIH openly admits, ‘We actually don’t know if we funded this or not.’ After the Washington Post ran a Sunday cover story hit piece about us calling it fake beagle research, we got the documents saying they did fund it and the NIH’s own leadership admitted in emails, ‘We may have actually funded this thing.’”

Goodman said cruel and wasteful animal experimentation is still happening with projects that were authorized under Fauci’s leadership. “They’re rounding up discarded pet dogs and infesting them with biting flies in Iowa and then killing them,” Goodman said. “Infesting them with ticks and killing them. All of this stuff is still going on. We just worked on legislation that got introduced a couple of weeks ago to defund all of the NIH dog testing.”

Goodman said the NIH is the largest single funder of animal research with a whopping $20 billion each year that is wasted from taxpayer funds. If that research funding was split evenly amongst the 165 million taxpayers in America, each individual is contributing $121 every year to wasteful, abusive studies. 

Goodman added more context by saying, “Currently, under federal law, you can conduct any experiment, no matter how wasteful or painful on dogs, as long as you fill out the right paperwork. There’s experiments being funded by our tax dollars on dogs where they’re being covered in ticks, hundred of ticks, and left to suffer without pain relief. Maximum pain experiments. Those are completely legal and being actively funded with our tax dollars.”

“The only thing these people care about is lining their pockets,” Goodman said. “These experiments don’t help anyone except the people getting paid to do them. In some cases, not only do they not help people, they harm them. The experiments range from the scary to the sadistic to the silly, and unfortunately, there’s a lot of scary and sadistic stuff happening.”

Another CSU study involves infecting multiple animal species with SARS-CoV-2, including dogs, cats, and bats. Following the infection, samples are collected, and the animals are killed. 

Reported Lab Accidents

A series of incidents were reported. Based on the evidence, it can be assumed that many lab accidents that occur go unreported. Here are some of the concerning highlights:

-Lab techs were reported not to follow proper cleaning and caging protocols. 

-SARS- CoV-2 sprayed onto an experimenter’s gown and respirator

-Select Agents were found in frozen samples that they didn’t know of – the CDC had to be alerted about it. 

-A biohazard bag full with mice carcasses was found between two buildings.

-A container full of liquids used to clean waste from a mouse infected with Chronic Wasting Disease fell off the cart and spilled on the floor. 

-An experimenter was splashed with blood from a mouse infected with Tuberculosis on their face. 

-Fluids from experiments with SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a bag containing biohazard waste. 

Lab Leak Frequency

Alison Young, an investigative reporter, wrote a book detailing examples of lab leaks and unintentional exposure to dangerous viruses that go unreported. In an article for the Guardian, Young breaks down some examples of breaches that were covered up and quarantines that were ended prematurely. The University of Wisconsin-Madison ended the quarantine of a potentially exposed lab worker without consulting the health department or notifying the public while they were working with the H5N1 avian flu. 

Daniel Lopez, the Research and Investigations Director of the WCWP, joined the call and added some enlightening details about the frequency of lab leaks in the United States. “Once every three days, there is a lab accident with select agents,” Lopez said, “Once every three days with this small list, the CDC gets reports of these accidents. CDC also redacts who was performing these experiments. There is a lot of secrecy on that side as well. If we expand to other viruses that are not on this list of select agents. There’s a lot more happening. Once every three days of this short list of the worst of the worst.”

Dr. Nickels said the way Fauci, Collins and other health officials tried to cover up the potential that COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan lab is evidence that they cannot be trusted to reveal the truth about lab accidents in the future. “You have virologists mobilizing to sell a false narrative to the public that this didn’t have anything to do with our research,” Dr. Nickels said. “So, it’s even worse than you might think, which is that if it would leak out of a lab, you should have no confidence that scientists would tell the truth about that happening. They just didn’t. They covered it up, regardless of whether it was from a lab or nature.”

EcoHealth Connection

EcoHealth Alliance is on the hot seat for its role in the suspected lab leak that started the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, Peter Daszak and his organization still receive federal grants to conduct dangerous experiments. The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is attempting to debar Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance from receiving federal grants, but that only applies to the acquisition of future grants. Goodman said Congress has the power to enact legislation to prevent EcoHealth from using the taxpayer funds they have already received to continue acquiring bats for the CSU research. 

The White Coat Waste Project’s motto, “Stop the money! Stop the madness!” aptly reflects concerns over the government’s spending of billions of dollars on bioweapons research and the lack of transparency from scientists about the risk/benefit analysis of these studies. Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at WCWP, urges concerned citizens to contact their representatives to support legislation that protects the well-being of Americans and ensures tax dollars are used for reasonable purposes, stating, “Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay for it. It’s already caused one pandemic, and it’s going to cause another one; it’s just a matter of time.”