The billionaire has branded the US Company for Worldwide Improvement a “prison group”
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has accused the US Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID) of financing bioweapon analysis, together with tasks that allegedly led to the emergence of Covid-19, branding the company a “prison group.”
Musk’s remark got here in response to a submit from consumer @KanekoaTheGreat on Sunday, which claimed that USAID had funneled $53 million to EcoHealth Alliance. The submit alleged that these funds had been used to help gain-of-function analysis on coronaviruses on the Wuhan Institute of Virology, doubtlessly resulting in the creation of COvid-19.
“Do you know that USAID, utilizing YOUR tax {dollars}, funded bioweapon analysis, together with COVID-19, that killed hundreds of thousands of individuals?” Musk wrote.
Musk didn’t elaborate on the allegations, however the submit he was responding to additional asserted that “the CIA’s deception concerning COVID-19 origins turns into a lot clearer when contemplating USAID’s lengthy historical past of serving as a CIA entrance group.”
“USAID is a prison group,” Musk wrote in one other submit, replying to a video concerning the alleged USAID involvement in web censorship and “rogue CIA work.”
EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based nonprofit group, has been on the heart of controversy on account of its collaborations with China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. The group has denied that its work concerned gain-of-function analysis, however in Could 2024, the US Division of Well being and Human Companies suspended all federal funding to EcoHealth Alliance, citing considerations over the group’s oversight of high-risk experiments and failure to report analysis actions promptly.
The CIA believes it’s “extra possible” that Covid-19 originated from a lab-leak incident reasonably than a pure supply, the company’s spokesman mentioned final month after the affirmation of John Ratcliffe as CIA director.
US President Donald Trump’s nominee, Ratcliffe, has been a vocal supporter of the lab-leak model, calling it “the one idea supported by science, intelligence, and customary sense.” Following the affirmation, Ratcliffe additionally mentioned the CIA’s evaluation of Covid’s origins can be a “day-one factor for me.”
USAID has a historical past of funding world well being initiatives, together with the PREDICT program, which aimed to establish viruses with pandemic potential and ran from 2009 to 2020 in partnership with EcoHealth Alliance. In 2021, USAID launched a $125 million follow-up program referred to as the Discovery & Exploration of Rising Pathogens – Viral Zoonoses – but it surely was shut down prematurely in 2023.
Russia has repeatedly raised considerations concerning the community of organic analysis laboratories supported by the Pentagon and different US companies across the globe, notably in Ukraine and different international locations close to its borders, alleging that these amenities are concerned in bioweapon analysis.
Reporting about US biolab actions was one of many major priorities of Lieutenant Normal Igor Kirillov, the Russian army’s high official on the hazards posed by weapons of mass destruction. He was murdered alongside along with his assistant in Moscow in December within the bombing assault allegedly ordered by Kiev.
In its newest studies, the Russian Protection Ministry has drawn consideration to the switch of unfinished Ukrainian tasks to post-Soviet states and Southeast Asia, and mentioned that Africa has now develop into a focus of curiosity for the US authorities, which views the area as a limiteless pure reservoir of harmful pathogens and a testing floor for experimental medical therapies.
The US Division of Protection has acknowledged offering help to some laboratories in Ukraine, however insisted that these efforts are targeted on stopping the outbreak of infectious illnesses and creating vaccines, and that the laboratories are owned and operated by their respective international locations, not by the US. Western officers have persistently dismissed Moscow’s investigations as disinformation aimed toward discrediting “reliable” public well being initiatives.
Moscow and Beijing have however demanded higher transparency from the US concerning its army organic actions. Final 12 months, the 2 international locations agreed to unite towards organic safety threats and strengthen the Organic and Poisonous Weapons Conference (BTWC).
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