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Rep. Brad Wenstrup: China had biological weapons ambitions long before the COVID-19 pandemic

By jdheyes // 2023-01-06

A noted lawmaker said China was clear about its biological weapons ambitions long before the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak that turned into a global pandemic. Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, along with other Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), have released a report about the origins of the viral outbreak. "Our State Department has put things out over the past, even going back to 2005, that China is interested in offensive bioweapons," Wenstrup told the "Capitol Report" program on NTD, the sister media outlet of the Epoch Times, on Dec. 16 – two days after the report was published. The Ohio Republican pointed to research done by the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Fifth Institute of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS), which is the top medical research organization for the Chinese military. "In 2005, the U.S. State Department publicly stated the U.S. assessment that China also operates an offensive biological weapons program, specifically identifying two Chinese entities as likely involved, one of which is the Fifth Institute. In a 2006 declaration of compliance with the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention, China acknowledged that the Fifth Institute specifically conducts research on SARS coronaviruses," the report noted. "Indeed, a review of academic research on the PubMed database maintained by the U.S. National Institutes of Health shows Fifth Institute scientists have extensively published research on coronaviruses, including work conducted with researchers at the WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology). In short, the AMMS' Fifth Institute has a long history with China's bioweapons program, coronaviruses, and the WIV." In his interview, Wenstrup also noted a book titled “The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Artificial Humanized Viruses as Genetic Weapons,” which was released by AMMS in 2015. “The book described how to create weaponized chimeric SARS coronaviruses, the potentially broader scope for their use compared to traditional bioweapons, and the benefits of being able to plausibly deny that such chimeric coronaviruses were artificially created rather than naturally occurring,” the report noted. Wenstrup, who is also a medical doctor, said that the ChiCom military research center collaborated with the WIV, the facility at the center of the theory that COVID-19 was developed and then accidentally leaked or was purposely released. "The central premise of the AMMS book is that SARS-CoV-1, the strain of coronavirus that caused the 2002 SARS outbreak, did not emerge naturally but was a chimeric virus artificially engineered as a genetic weapon to infect humans," the congressional report stated. "The book described the PLA researchers’ broader belief that other nations are developing chimeric coronaviruses to use as genetic weapons. The authors described how to create weaponized chimeric SARS coronaviruses, the potentially broader scope for their use compared to traditional bioweapons, and the benefits of being able to plausibly deny that such chimeric coronaviruses were artificially created rather than naturally occurring." Wenstrup mentioned a scientist with the Chinese military's Fifth Institute, General Zhou Yusen, who may have worked with the WIV for years before the pandemic. Wenstrup said that Zhou was "heavy into the gain of function type research or chimeric research," which is believed to have created COVID-19. "Notably, in the spring of 2020, as global COVID-19 cases surpassed seven million and COVID-19 deaths surpassed 400,000, General Zhou reportedly died under mysterious circumstances," according to the GOP report. There's little doubt that China was responsible for creating and spreading COVID-19. This latest report merely confirmed that belief while adding many new details. Sources include: TheEpochTimes.com Republicans.Intelligence.House.gov

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