Wuhan Institute of Virology

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is a research laboratory in the Hubei province of China that is adminstered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most notably, WIV runs China's only biosafety level 4 (BLS-4) laboratory. Most notably, that BLS-4 WIV lab performed research on coronaviruses for years up through the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic, which was observed as an outbreak centering around the densely populated city of Wuhan.

The WIV broke ground in 1956, originally named the Wuhan Microbiology Laboratory. After suffering a series of name changes over the years, WIV stuck in 1978.

The Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the WIV is virologist and researcher of SARS-like coronaviruses, Shi Zhengli. Zhengli and her team

In April 2012, six miners became ill after entering a disused copper mine inhabited by bats in southwest China, and three died. Researchers from the WIV were called in to investigate. They discovered several new coronavirus samples in the mine.¹⁾

The WIV as at the center of some versions of genetic engineering and lab leak hypotheses of the origins of SARS-CoV-2. The first reported cases of COVID-19 were in nearby residents of Wuhan.

• Jan 27, 2022 - Chinese Scientists From Wuhan Discover “Potentially Deadly” New Strain Of Coronavirus²⁾
  • Preprint: Xiong et al³⁾
  • The NeoCoV strain
  • They fear it could make the jump to humans.
  • Uses ACE2 for entry.
  • Scientists seem to already know there is no cross-reactive immunity with SARS-CoV-2 or MERS-CoV.

March 29, 2022 Just The News By Madeleine Hubbard National Institutes of Health deleted COVID info at Wuhan researcher's request

The National Institutes of Health deleted information about COVID-19 genetic sequencing during the pandemic at the request of researchers in Wuhan, China, a move that created consternation in science circles, according to emails obtained by a nonpartisan whistleblower and government oversight group.

The emails obtained by the Empower Oversight group show a Wuhan University researcher submitted virus sequence information to the NIH's Sequence Read Archive in March 2020 – the same month the World Health Organization declared a pandemic and about two months after the virus was detected in Wuhan.

The scientist made an additional submission on the virus in June 2020, according to the emails. Later that day, he asked the NIH to retract the submission, claiming it was made in error.

The NIH responded by saying it preferred to edit or replace submissions over replacing them.

A few days later, the researcher submitted another request to withdraw the genetic sequence from the NIH database, according to the emails.

The NIH agreed to the researcher's request one day later, and asked for clarification on whether another submission should be deleted.

“I had withdrawn everything,” an unnamed NIH official said to the Wuhan researcher in an email.

The emails were obtained after Empower Oversight sued the NIH under the Freedom of Information Act. You can read them here. File - nih-foia-request-56712_redacted.pdf ⁴⁾

The documents also show an expert advised then-NIH Director Francis Collins and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who leads the agency's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that COVID originated outside of the Wuhan food market, as the Chinese government has claimed.

Additional emails show that the NIH directed reporters to more favorable coverage about the deletion.

“Off the record: we think this WaPo story does a good job characterizing the situation,” NIH's Renate Myles wrote to a reporter at The Hill newspaper, directing the journalist away from a New York Times story because of its “tone.”

“These documents raise several questions that need further investigation to answer fully,” according to a report by Empower Oversight, founder by a former top staffer for Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley. “Congress should press the NIH for answers on why it is stonewalling Senate inquiries and dragging its feet on basic transparency through FOIA.”

The group says one of the most disconcerting elements of the emails is evidence showing the NIH has refused to participate in a transparent process to examine data on the deleted sequences.

“Most importantly, why has NIH refused to examine archival copies of deleted sequences in an open scientific process to determine whether any of that information might be able to shed light on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic?” the group asked.

However, that argument was dismissed by NIH official Steve Sherry.

Although sequences are never fully deleted, according to the agency, Sherry told a researcher who asked for transparency, “As you know, when data sets are withdrawn from the database, that status does not permit use for further analyses.” ⁵⁾

page 9/238 ⁶⁾

From: Carl Zimmer carl.zimmer@nytimes.com Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2021 9:48 AM To: NLM Communications NLMCommunications@nlm.nih.gov; Crutchman, Alise (NIH/NLM)

Last night a preprint was published by Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute, on how he recovered SARS-CoV-2 sequences originally stored on SRA; https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.18.449051v1

Dr. Bloom mentioned that he had spoken to Dr. Stephen Sherry of NCBI about the request from the authors to delete the sequences.

I'm writing about the preprint. If possible, I'd like to see a copy of the email from the scientists who requested the deletion. The project is Bio-Project PRJNA612766 by Aisu Fu and colleagues at Wuhan University.

I'd like to know why they requested its deletion, if they gave any reason.

(NIH reply)

NIH is aware of Dr. Bloom’s preprint submission. Staff at the National Library of Medicine, which hosts the Sequence Read Archive (SRA), have reviewed the submitting investigator’s request to withdraw the data. These SARS-CoV-2 sequences were submitted for posting in SRA in March 2020 and subsequently requested to be withdrawn by the submitting investigator in June 2020.

The requestor indicated the sequence information had been updated, was being submitted to another database, and wanted the data removed from SRA to avoid version control issues. The submitting investigator published relevant information about these sequences by preprint in March, 2020 and in a journal in June, 2020. Submitting investigators hold the rights to their data and can request withdrawal of the data.

page 22 From: Myles, Renate (NIH/OD) [E] Sent: Monday, June 21, 2021 Hi all- The attached paper was submitted to BioRx for preprint. The researcher is focusing on early genome sequence data on SARS-CoV-2 that the submitter requested be deleted. Unfortunately, the author of the paper is assigning motive and suggesting that the purpose of deletion was to obscure its existence. Below are reactive statement and QA in case we get media interest. Please let me know ASAP if NLM has any concerns with this language. (reply Q & A redacted )

page 75/238 (additional detail redacted) From: (redacted) Received: Fri Jun 05 2020 21:45:04 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) To: Bioproject Support bioprojectheip@nchinim.nih.gor; I want to retract a submission, and the BioProject ID is priNA637497. I'm sorry for my wrong submitting. Thank you for your help.

page 78 From: NLM Support nm-support@nim.nih.gov; Received: Tue Jun 16 2020 09:00:09 GMT-0400 Subject: Re: case #CAS-555084-29T9P7: Re: SUB7554642/subs/sra/SUB7554642/overview “TRACKING:000414000006890 ex OS Do you want to withdraw al SUA objects created n your account? There are 2 submissions SUBTS54642 and SUBTI4T304. Also, bioprojects and bio samples whould be withdrawn as well, right?

page79 From: (6Received: Tue Jun 16 2020 20:48:44 GMT-0400 (EasternDaylightTime) To: nim-support@nim.nih.gov nim-supoort@nim.nih.gov; NLM Support nim-support@nim.nih.gov; Triage Team nim-Support@nim.nih.ov; Subject: Re: Re: case #CAS-555084-29T9P7: Re: SUB7554642/subs/sra/SUB7554642/overview “TRACKING:000414000006890 DearBOIS ‘Thanks for your replay. Yes, | want to withdraw both 2 submissions SUB7554642 and SUE7147304. The ‘Bioprojects, Biosampies and all SRA objects should be withdrawn as well. Best regards (redacted)⁷⁾

Unverified document authenticity - purported to be executed Confidentiality Agreement with records destruction provision between University of Texas Medical School and Wuhan Institute of Virology