The UNC researcher’s work on coronaviruses and his connection to the Wuhan lab are now receiving renewed attention after RealClearInvestigations learned that the federal government has quietly removed Baric from all his NIH grants. RCI has also learned that UNC placed Baric on leave. UNC has also refused to cooperate with NIH officials as they have attempted to gather more facts and emails about Baric’s coronavirus research, which evidence leads them to believe led to the coronavirus pandemic.
Baric did not respond to multiple, detailed requests for comment and clarification about these matters and other issues reported by RCI. UNC Chancellor Lee H. Roberts did not respond to multiple requests for comment about actions taken against Baric nor UNC’s lack of cooperation with the federal government.
RCI’s months-long review of hundreds of pages of emails and interviews with more than a dozen current and former congressional staffers and administration officials shows that Baric’s public proclamations about his work, which has been connected to tens of millions of dollars in federal research grants, have not always reflected his own private reservations about risky experiments. Baric has also participated in campaigns to cast doubt on the dangers of virus research, while politicians and the FBI have sought to protect him. In addition, the University of North Carolina has blocked both private individuals and federal agencies demanding more transparency.
“He’s got good PR people at the University of North Carolina helping him, but nobody has strung together his entire history,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right to Know. Ruskin has been suing Baric’s university since 2020 to obtain access to his communications, and his nonprofit has published thousands of emails spotlighting Baric’s work and ties to research in Wuhan, China. “Six years later, we still know so little,” he said. “That’s just amazing to me. The public deserves to know what happened.”
“The investigations have been terrible,” said a senior congressional staffer who has followed the Senate and House probes of the COVID pandemic. “And Ralph Baric’s fingerprints are everywhere.”
A researcher whose security clearance allowed him to view still-classified documents told RCI there is no doubt the virus came from a lab in Wuhan. “This is a good view of what happened to virology,” he said. “They started willy nilly mutating viruses, and then got upset when this led to 20 million deaths.”
“UNC has also refused to cooperate with NIH officials as they have attempted to gather more facts and emails about Baric’s coronavirus research, which evidence leads them to believe led to the coronavirus pandemic.”
UNC gets boatloads of money from the Federal govt. Leverage for cooperation is there is investigators are serious.
“And Ralph Baric’s fingerprints are everywhere.” This is only a “crime of the century” sort of thing. We have every reason to demand the truth be brought to light.
I found this report to be pretty fascinating, J. Sobran. There is suddenly movement on this issue after all these years have passed. Let justice be done.