/qnotables23/ - ===Q Notables 2023===

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509008 (150123ZMAR23) Notable: Fouchier - The Deadliest Virus

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>>46233

At the annual meeting of the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza, in Malta, several hundred astonished scientists sat in silence as Ron Fouchier, a Dutch virologist at the Erasmus Medical Center, in Rotterdam, reported that simply transferring avian influenza from one ferret to another had made it highly contagious. Fouchier explained that he and his colleagues “mutated the hell out of H5N1”—meaning that they had altered the genetic sequence of the virus in a variety of ways. That had no effect. Then, as Fouchier later put it, “someone finally convinced me to do something really, really stupid.” He spread the virus the old-fashioned way, by squirting the mutated H5N1 into the nose of a ferret and then implanting nasal fluid from that ferret into the nose of another. After ten such manipulations, the virus began to spread around the ferret cages in his lab. Ferrets that received high doses of H5N1 died within days, but several survived exposure to lower doses.

When Fouchier examined the flu cells closely, however, he became alarmed. There were only five genetic changes in two of the viruses’ eight genes. But each mutation had already been found circulating naturally in influenza viruses. Fouchier’s achievement was to place all five mutations together in one virus, which meant that nature could do precisely what he had done in the lab. Another team of researchers, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, at the University of Wisconsin, created a slightly different form of the virus, which, while not as virulent, was also highly contagious. One of the world’s most persistent horror fantasies, expressed everywhere from Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” to “Jurassic Park,” had suddenly come to pass: a dangerous form of life, manipulated and enhanced by man, had become lethal.

Fouchier’s report caused a sensation. Scientists harbored new fears of a natural pandemic, and biological-weapons experts maintained that Fouchier’s bird flu posed a threat to hundreds of millions of people. The most important question about the continued use of the virus, and the hardest to answer, is how likely it is to escape the laboratory. “I am not nearly as worried about terrorists as I am about an incredibly smart, smug kid at Harvard, or a lone crazy employee with access to these sequences,” Michael T. Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota Health Center, told me. Osterholm is one of the nation’s leading experts on influenza and bioterrorism. “We have seen many times that accidental releases of dangerous microbes are not rare,” he said.

Osterholm’s anxiety was based in recent history. The last person known to have died of smallpox, in 1978, was a medical photographer in England named Janet Parker, who worked in the anatomy department of the University of Birmingham Medical School. Parker became fatally ill after she was accidentally exposed to smallpox grown in a research lab on the floor below her office. In the late nineteen-seventies, a strain of H1N1—“swine flu”—was isolated in northern China, near the Russian border, and it later spread throughout the world. Most virologists familiar with the outbreak are convinced that it came from a sample that was frozen in a lab and then released accidentally. In 2003, several laboratory technicians in Hong Kong were infected with the SARS virus. The following year, a Russian scientist died after mistakenly infecting herself with the Ebola virus.

p2

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509010 (150123ZMAR23) Notable: Fouchier - The Deadliest Virus

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>>46234

Biological labs are given four possible biosafety-level security grades, ranging from BSL-1 to BSL-4. Research on the most lethal and contagious organisms is carried out at BSL-4 laboratories. Under U.S. guidelines, BSL-3 facilities contain microbes that cause “serious or potentially lethal diseases” but do not easily pass among people, or for which there are easily accessible preventives. BSL-4 laboratories house agents that have no preventives or treatments. The labs in Rotterdam and in Wisconsin where the H5N1 ferret work was conducted were both BSL-3 facilities that had been enhanced with additional security measures. In such laboratories, scientists are typically subjected to security checks; they wear spacesuits and breathe through special respirators. Although no safeguards are absolute, negative air filters attempt to insure that no particles accidentally escape from the lab.

“I feel terrible—I took it from a job creator.”

Link copied

Last December, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a panel of science, defense, and public-health experts, was asked by the Department of Health and Human Services to evaluate Fouchier’s research. The panel recommended that the two principal scientific journals, Science and Nature, reconsider plans to publish information about the methods used to create the H5N1 virus. It was the first time that the Advisory Board, which was formed after the anthrax attacks of 2001 to provide guidance on “dual use” scientific research, which could both harm and protect the public, had issued such a request. “We are in the midst of a revolutionary period in the life sciences,” the advisers wrote. “With this has come unprecedented potential for better control of infectious diseases and significant societal benefit. However, there is also a growing risk that the same science will be deliberately misused and that the consequences could be catastrophic.” The Times published an editorial that echoed the Advisory Board’s concern, and even questioned the purpose of the experiments: “We believe in robust research and almost always oppose censorship. But in this case the risks—of doing the work and publishing the results—far outweigh the benefits.” The journal New Scientist agreed: “ONE MISTAKE AWAY FROM A WORLDWIDE FLU PANDEMIC.” Television talk shows and the Internet pulsated with anxiety.

The widespread alarm led Science and Nature to agree to postpone publication. Fouchier’s virus, which now sits in a vault within his securely guarded underground laboratory in Rotterdam, has fundamentally altered the scope of the biological sciences. Like the research that led to splitting the atom and the creation of nuclear energy, the knowledge that his experiment has provided could be used to attack the public as well as to protect it.

“Terror is not an unjustified reaction to knowing this virus exists,” Osterholm, who serves on the Advisory Board, told me. “We have no room to be wrong about this. None. We can be wrong about other things. If smallpox got out, it would be unfortunate, but it has a fourteen-day incubation period, it’s easy to recognize, and we would stop it. Much the same is true with SARS. But with flu you are infectious before you even know you are sick. And when it gets out it is gone. Those researchers have all of our lives at the ends of their fingers.”

Fouchier, a lanky forty-five-year old man with intense blue eyes, works at one of the most highly regarded virological laboratories in Europe. “I have spent many years and this institution has paid millions of dollars to insure that this research was carried out in the safest possible manner,” he told me when we met in a conference room in the grim research facility that houses his laboratories at the Erasmus Medical Center. The center devoted several years to constructing a special lab for Fouchier’s research. From the windows, one can see barges and hulking gray cranes; Rotterdam is Europe’s busiest port. It is an industrial cityscape whose bleakness, on the day I visited, seemed to match Fouchier’s mood. As he spoke, he stared at his hands, which he clenched nervously. “People are acting like I am some mad scientist,” he said.

p3

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509015 (150124ZMAR23) Notable: Fouchier - The Deadliest Virus

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>>46235

Fouchier spent much of his career working on the structure of the AIDS virus. In 1997, he abruptly turned to bird flu, both because he was fascinated by its molecular structure and because he quickly grasped its pandemic potential. He has published scores of scientific articles on how influenza viruses move between species. Since December, however, when the Advisory Board recommended postponing publication of the bird-flu research, and some of his colleagues called for stopping it entirely, he has felt, he says, like the focus of “an international witch hunt.” He was incensed. “To attempt to prevent this research from reaching the largest number of scientists is bullshit,” he told me. “The more people who have access to it, the more likely we are to get answers to the many questions we still need to ask. Everyone who knows anything about virology can get hold of the recipe.” There were nearly a thousand people at the Malta meeting where he first announced his findings. “This moratorium serves some fake sense of security,” he said. “It does not serve the public health.”

Fouchier, as well as Kawaoka and other researchers, had been trying for years to learn whether H5N1 could trigger a worldwide pandemic. He wondered why the virus has destroyed so many poultry flocks in the United States, Europe, and Asia but infected so few people. Fouchier hoped to characterize the properties that make the virus so much deadlier than others. The only way to answer these questions was to create a variant that would cling to human cells in the nose and throat. Fouchier’s research was hardly the work of a furtive renegade. Several international review committees oversaw his experiments, and he received funding from the National Institutes of Health. Despite the risks, most people in his field believed that the experiments were necessary. Moreover, they were not without precedent. In 2002, Eckard Wimmer, at Stony Brook University, stitched together hundreds of DNA fragments, mostly acquired via the Internet, then used them to create a fully functional polio virus. In the fall of 2005, several published academic papers described the genomic sequence of the 1918 Spanish flu, which caused the world’s deadliest influenza pandemic. In each case, the publications were initially denounced but were eventually accepted as valuable.

“In this profession, you always do it wrong,” Ab Osterhaus, a leading infectious-disease expert who runs the virology department at Erasmus, said. “Either you give too much warning or not enough. Either you take things too seriously or not seriously enough. Fouchier’s work is essential, and the questions it raises must be addressed.”

There have been many hypotheses about how bird flu could become epidemic. Most researchers had believed that the avian virus would have to combine with human genes in pigs. Pigs usually serve as a mixing vessel for influenza viruses that make the transition from poultry to humans. (This is how the global pandemic starts in Steven Soderbergh’s recent film “Contagion”: Gwyneth Paltrow is exposed to a pig that’s been infected by a bat, and soon much of the world is dead or dying.) Other scientists believed that the H5 protein, because of its molecular structure, could not easily infect human cells. (Strains of influenza are named for two proteins on their surface that latch on to respiratory cells and make it possible for them to invade our lungs.) “There has been a lot of speculation that this virus cannot be transmitted easily or through the air,” Fouchier told me. “That speculation has been wrong.”

Although no animal study can predict with certainty what will happen in humans, ferrets get flu pretty much the way we do. Their lung physiology is similar to humans’, and avian-influenza viruses bind to the same receptor cells in their respiratory tracts. Still, there has been sharp debate among scientists about whether results in ferrets can predict how humans will react to similar infections, with some researchers discounting the data entirely.

p4

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509017 (150124ZMAR23) Notable: Fouchier - The Deadliest Virus

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>>46236

“The mutations . . . could cause the viruses to be more transmissible between humans,” Peter Palese, a prominent microbiologist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, wrote recently. “But this is simply unknowable from available data.” Palese argues that the virus may be better adapted to ferrets than to other mammals.

“You cannot say, ‘Just forget about it, because it happened in a ferret,’ ” Fouchier said. “This is our best model. But you also can’t say, ‘Because it happened in a ferret, it will happen in a human.’ So it becomes a question of whether it’s worth the risk of finding out. This is one of the most dangerous viruses you can imagine. It’s not my virus—it’s our virus. And it’s out there. We need to deal with that. And, if we focus on what matters, we can.”

Once you create a virus that could kill millions of people, what should you do with it? And how should you handle the knowledge that made it possible?

There have been angry calls for Fouchier’s virus to be destroyed, for it to be transferred to a military-level bioweapons facility, and for research to be stopped entirely. “It’s just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and highly contagious virus,” Dr. Thomas Inglesby, a bioterrorism expert and the director of the Center for Biosecurity, at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said. “And it’s a second bad idea for them to publish how they did it, so others can copy it.”

Still, most scientists who work with viruses insist that the value of this research outweighs the risks. Anthony S. Fauci, the longtime chief of the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told me, “Those data could help scientists determine rapidly whether existing vaccines or drugs are effective against such a virus, as well as help in the development of new medications. It’s hard to stop something if you don’t know what it’s made of. Naturally, if epidemiologists in countries where pandemics most often arise know what they are looking for, they will be able to move with greater urgency to contain the spread.”

“It’s a magic potion that makes everything you say interesting.”

Link copied

How likely is it that publishing the genetic sequence could help a terrorist, a rogue, or a legitimate researcher who might develop a novel vaccine or drug? “Most of us are unequivocal about the value of the research,” Fauci said. “But deciding what to do with these types of studies is complicated. At the moment, there are no official governing bodies to regulate such decisions. They rely on the good will of researchers.” Fauci and others have noted that, precisely because flu is so hard to control, the virus would be difficult to use as a weapon.

In this case, as in most other cases, the work was supported heavily by the National Institutes of Health, and it seems unlikely to proceed without U.S. government support. Scientists bicker as vigorously as any other group, but rarely about the right to share and publish the data on which their research depends. Even the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity has made clear its general support for open investigation and full publication. The scientific method and the entire edifice of institutional research depend on such openness; without it, progress would slow dramatically. As biology has become more accessible, the balance between freedom and protection has become harder to maintain. This is certainly not the last time that preventing wide dissemination of information may seem necessary. But who should make those decisions, and how? Scientists fear that any regulatory body will stifle research. In 1975, when biologists met at Asilomar, California, to discuss the potential hazards of the new field of recombinant DNA technology, the group drew up voluntary guidelines to govern their research. Those guidelines have worked well, and that meeting is often regarded as a model of coöperative regulation.

p5

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509019 (150124ZMAR23) Notable: Kash Patel: J6 Report Reveals Intel Withheld from Intelligence Agency, The Truth of J6

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Kash Patel: J6 Report Reveals Intel Withheld from Intelligence Agency, The Truth of J6

The agencies lied to Chris Miller two days before J6 on their readiness

https://rumble.com/embed/v2aksmu/?pub=4

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509021 (150125ZMAR23) Notable: Fouchier - The Deadliest Virus

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>>46237

We live in a very different world now. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently gave a speech at a biological-weapons conference in Geneva in which she stressed that the threat of biological terror can no longer be ignored. “There are warning signs,” Clinton said, including “evidence in Afghanistan that . . . Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula made a call to arms for—and I quote—‘brothers with degrees in microbiology or chemistry to develop a weapon of mass destruction.’ ”

While scientists disagree sharply about whether it would be easy to replicate such a virus in a laboratory, and whether it would be worth the effort, there is no question that we are moving toward a time when work like this, and even more complex biology, will be accessible to anyone with the will to use it, a few basic chemicals, and a relatively small amount of money.

Those realities have compelled many scientists to reconsider their unilateral support of the principle of open research. “I can tell you that when I began this journey I was certainly of the view that everything should be out and science should not be interfered with,” Arturo Casadevall, the chief of infectious disease at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a member of the Advisory Board, said at a recent forum on the issue sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences. “And as the result of hundreds of hours of the deliberative process I changed my mind.” Others are even more emphatic, arguing that although the information is bound to become available, any delay is better than none. Many countries lack proper surveillance capacities, and existing vaccines are not good enough to stop influenza viruses from taking hold in the human population. By the time that public-health officials were fully aware of the swine-flu virus that originated in Mexico in 2009, for instance, it had spread across the globe.

In January, a few days before we met in Rotterdam, Fouchier had agreed to a sixty-day moratorium on the project, but only after he received a long, late-night phone call from Fauci, who convinced him that a worldwide time-out—the first since the beginning of the era of molecular biology—would allow people to cool off and enable them to explain the value of such research to the public. In mid-February, a committee of specialists, including Fouchier, met in Geneva at the W.H.O. headquarters and announced that the papers would eventually be published in full, but that a sixty-day moratorium was probably not long enough. It is not clear when or where the research will continue.

Attempts to control information or to prohibit research rarely succeed for long. As the physicist and synthetic biologist Rob Carlson has written, most notably in his 2010 book, “Biology Is Technology,” in the case of crystal methamphetamine both prohibition and efforts by the federal government to shut down production labs have failed, and in similar ways. In each case, success in cracking down on small-time dealers led to failure on a larger scale. Carlson believes that cutting the flow of H5N1 data will have the same effect. “Any attempt to secure the data would have to start with an assessment of how widely it is already distributed,” he wrote recently on his blog, Synthesis. “I have yet to meet an academic who regularly encrypts e-mail, and my suspicion is that few avail themselves of the built-in encryption on their laptops.” Carlson noted that, in addition to university computers and e-mail servers in facilities where the science originated, the information is probably stored in the computers of reviewers, on servers at Nature and Science, at the Advisory Board, and, depending on how the papers were distributed and discussed by the board’s members, possibly on their various e-mail servers and individual computers as well. “And,” Carlson wrote, “let’s not forget the various unencrypted phones and tablets all of those reviewers now carry around.”

Carlson and others argue that restricting publication would retard the progress of the research without increasing safety. With influenza viruses, speed matters. Vaccine-production methods have not changed substantially in sixty years, and it was months before a useful vaccine was widely available for the H1N1 pandemic of 2009. That virus infected more than a billion people. Future bird-flu research could help scientists learn how it is transmitted through the air, why it makes the leap from animal to man, and how specifically it binds to human cell receptors. By placing the virus into tissue culture, scientists could discover more about how it destroys cells and make a better assessment of whether current vaccines would protect us—and, if they wouldn’t, the research could guide us toward making more effective vaccines. None of these experiments are without risk, but one must also consider the risk of not carrying them out.

p6

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509024 (150125ZMAR23) Notable: Fouchier - The Deadliest Virus

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>>46241

“We can learn a great deal about transmission of influenza virus through the air from this work, and it’s something we know very little about,” Ab Osterhaus, the leader of the Erasmus team, said. “Nobody was going to make this virus in his garage. There are so many better ways to create terror. You have to compare the risk posed by nature with the theoretical risk that a human might use this virus for harm. I take the bioterror threat very seriously. But we have to address the problems logically. And nature is much more sophisticated than anyone in any lab. Nature is going to manufacture this virus or something like it. We know that. Bioterrorists might, but nature will. Look at the past century: the 1918 flu, H.I.V., Ebola, and H1N1. The Spanish flu took months. SARS maybe a couple of weeks. This is happening all the time, and we have ways to fight it. So where is the greatest risk? Is it in someone’s garage or in nature? Because you cannot prevent scientists from getting the information they need to address that risk. I understand politics and publicity. But I also understand that viruses do not care about any of that.” ♦

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Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509046 (150130ZMAR23) Notable: ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE CONDUCTED RISKY EXPERIMENTS ON MERS VIRUS IN CHINA

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ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE CONDUCTED RISKY EXPERIMENTS ON MERS VIRUS IN CHINA

Documents released by the NIH contradict previous assertions by EcoHealth Alliance about its experiments on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan.

https://theintercept.com/2021/10/21/virus-mers-wuhan-experiments/

Documents released by the National Institutes of Health yesterday raise new questions about government-funded research on viruses conducted in China. The annual grant reports from EcoHealth Alliance, which the NIH sent to The Intercept in response to a lawsuit, provided additional evidence that the U.S. nonprofit — which studies emerging infectious diseases — and its sub-awardee, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, were engaged in risky experiments and that the NIH may not have been fully aware of these activities.

In September, The Intercept received two grant proposals by EcoHealth Alliance that were submitted to the NIH. One of the proposals, “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” detailed troubling and potentially dangerous research conducted with bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China. But the first release of the documents, which The Intercept received more than a year after it requested them, did not include the progress report for the grant’s fifth and final funding year.

Yesterday, the NIH provided that missing report for the period ending May 2019, which was inexplicably dated August 2021. That summary of the group’s work includes a description of an experiment the EcoHealth Alliance conducted involving infectious clones of MERS-CoV, the virus that caused a deadly outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2012. MERS has a case-fatality rate as high as 35 percent, much higher than Covid-19’s. The scientists swapped out the virus’s receptor-binding domain, or RBD, a part of the spike protein that enables it to enter a host’s cells, according to the report. “We constructed the full-length infectious clone of MERS-CoV, and replaced the RBD of MERS-CoV with the RBDs of various strains of HKU4-related coronaviruses previously identified in bats from different provinces in southern China,” the scientists wrote.

“Changing the receptor binding site on MERS is sort of crazy,” wrote Jack Nunberg, a virologist and director of the Montana Biotechnology Center at the University of Montana, in an email to The Intercept after reviewing the documents. “Although these new chimeric viruses may retain properties of the MERS-CoV genetic backbone, engineering of a known human pathogen raises new and unpredictable risks beyond those posed by their previously reported studies using a non-pathogenic bat virus backbone.” The researchers’ intent, which some scientists consider integral to defining gain-of-function, remains unclear.

“In the very same report, they showed data that one of their chimeric SARS-like viruses caused more severe disease in a humanized animal model than the original virus,” said Alina Chan, a Boston-based molecular biologist and co-author of the upcoming book “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” “After seeing that result, why did they do similar work using the MERS human pathogen?”

p1

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509048 (150131ZMAR23) Notable: ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE CONDUCTED RISKY EXPERIMENTS ON MERS VIRUS IN CHINA

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>>46243

>>46243

The Intercept previously asked EcoHealth Alliance about work on MERS-CoV referenced in sections of the grant that NIH released in September. At the time, EcoHealth spokesperson Robert Kessler insisted that the group had not conducted the work. “The MERS work proposed in the grant is suggested as an alternative and was not undertaken,” Kessler wrote in an email in September. Kessler did not respond to a query The Intercept sent yesterday about the apparent falsity of his previous statement.

The work with the MERS virus complicates EcoHealth Alliance’s previous claims that the research covered in the grant had not involved work with “potential pandemic pathogens,” or viruses, bacteria, and microorganisms that carry a likely risk of uncontrollable spread between humans. Kessler had previously told The Intercept that “All the other viruses studied under this grant are bat viruses, not human viruses.” But MERS is known to infect and spread in humans, and was specifically designated under the NIH’s former pause on funding gain-of-function research of concern.

Other questions arise from the group’s experiments with bat coronaviruses. As The Intercept previously reported, the EcoHealth Alliance grant proposals released in September contained descriptions of an experiment on mice that had been genetically engineered to contain an enzyme receptor found in human cells. These “humanized mice” were infected with bat coronaviruses containing parts of other viruses. At certain times during the experiment, the mutant viruses reproduced far more quickly in the mice than the original bat virus on which they were based and were also somewhat more pathogenic, leading several experts to conclude that they fit the NIH’s definition of gain-of-function research.

The federal government temporarily paused such gain-of-function research involving potential pandemic pathogens in 2014, though it was resumed in 2017, when the Department of Health and Human Services introduced guidelines known as P3CO, which were meant to safeguard against the risk of disease outbreak.

In September, The Intercept asked the NIH whether anyone at the agency was aware of the humanized mouse experiments and whether, after they resulted in evidence of enhanced virus growth greater than 1 log over the parental backbone strain, the grantees were made to “stop all experiments with these viruses and provide the NIAID Program Officer and Grants Management Specialist, and Wuhan Institute of Virology Institutional Biosafety Committee with the relevant data and information related to these unanticipated outcomes,” as the grant had specifically required. We also asked why that research was not subject to either the temporary pause or the P3CO guidelines.

In response, NIH spokesperson Elizabeth Deatrick wrote, “The PI [principal investigator] reported these results in the year 4 progress report and grant renewal application. The research described was reviewed, and was determined not subject to the 2014-2017 Gain-of-Function Research Funding Pause or to the P3CO Framework.”

Yet in a letter sent to Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., yesterday, NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak seemed to suggest that the agency had not been aware of the problematic research. “EcoHealth failed to report this finding right away, as was required by the terms of the grant,” Tabak wrote to Comer, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which also received a copy of the annual progress report from the bat coronavirus grant yesterday.

While critical of EcoHealth Alliance, Tabak also seemed to suggest that there was nothing alarming about the research, which he referred to as “limited experiments.” After acknowledging that some of the humanized mice that were infected with the mutant viruses became sicker than those infected with the original viruses, he said the scientists had not been intent on that outcome. “As sometimes occurs in science, this was an unexpected result of the research, rather than something the researchers set out to do.”

Tabak also emphasized, as The Intercept has previously reported, that the viruses studied in the mouse experiments were so evolutionarily distant from SARS-CoV-2 that they could not have mutated into the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic. That view was echoed in a brief analysis of the research that NIH posted to its website yesterday.

p2

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509053 (150132ZMAR23) Notable: ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE CONDUCTED RISKY EXPERIMENTS ON MERS VIRUS IN CHINA

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>>46244

Also among the documents NIH released to The Intercept yesterday was the original version of an annual report from the fourth year of the bat coronavirus grant. The version released to The Intercept in September indicated that it had been submitted in 2020, after the pandemic began and more than two years after it was due. The two versions appear to be almost identical, though they include different reference publications. NIH has not yet released communications around the grant that may explain why the document was updated.

According to Tabak’s letter, the NIH has demanded additional information from EcoHealth Alliance. “EcoHealth is being notified that they have five days from today to submit to NIH any and all unpublished data from the experiments and work conducted under this award,” he wrote. “Additional compliance efforts continue.”

“This is a pattern of dishonesty,” said Chan, the molecular biologist and “Viral” author. “It should be clear now that we cannot take the word of conflicted parties in the search for the origin of Covid-19,” she added. “It is urgently important that the public and investigators gain full access to all EcoHealth documents relating to research conducted in Wuhan.”

Update: October 21, 2021, 2:33 p.m. ET

This story has been updated to clarify a statement by Jack Nunberg and include an additional comment from Alina Chan.

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Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509078 (150136ZMAR23) Notable: Only ONE member of failed SVB's board had a career in investment banking - and the rest were Obama, Clinton mega-donors

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>>>/qresearch/18509052

Only ONE member of failed SVB's board had a career in investment banking - and the rest were Obama, Clinton mega-donors

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11859379/Only-ONE-member-failed-SVBs-board-experience-investment-banking.html

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18509314 (150210ZMAR23) Notable: #22698

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Notables - FINAL

#22698

>>46208, >>46213, >>46218 Biden - It's time for Congress to ban assault weapons. // BREAKING: This EO ain't shit, and targets gangbangers

>>46209 Silicon Valley Bank’s U.K. arm to be acquired by HSBC for just over $1

>>46210 Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) donated about $73.5 million to (BLM) Black Lives Matter-related groups, social justice causes, records show

>>46211 Silicon Valley Bank deleted their Twitter - you can download it from my Telegram

>>46212 Robert Kennedy Jr tells Jimmy Dore anthrax was mailed to the two senators trying to block the Patriot Act in 2001

>>46214 Moody’s Downgrades the Entire U.S. Banking System

>>46215 China’s Threat: Studeman Warns Americans to be More Informed

>>46216 NATO military excercise "Orion" in the streets of French cities

>>46217 James O'Keefe - Twenty new people have purchased cameras on their own and are now activated in my citizen army!

>>46219 Ecohealth Alliance Conducted Risky Experiments on the MERS Virus in China Was Gain of Function

>>46220, >>46221, >>46223 Was NIH-funded work on MERS virus in China too risky? Science examines the controversy

>>46224 Georgian nationalists protest against the foreign interference of Western NGOs in their country's domestic affairs.

>>46225 MERS-Cov genetic sequence is patented

>>46226, >>46227, >>46228, >>46229, >>46230, >>46231 Fouchier study reveals changes enabling airborne spread of H5N1 - 6/21/12

>>46232 Maryland mayor resigns after being arrested on more than 50 counts of child pornography.

>>46233, >>46234, >>46235, >>46236, >>46237, >>46241, >>46242 Fouchier - The Deadliest Virus

>>46238, >>46251 DJT - The Great Patriots at The Gateway Pundit Site are doing an incredible job delivering TRUTH to the American People.

>>46239 Kash Patel: J6 Report Reveals Intel Withheld from Intelligence Agency, The Truth of J6

>>46240 Former SEC lawyer-turned-stock-fraudster pleads guilty in second securities scam

>>46222 Ben Garrison - "Is This The Death Of The Dollar?"

>>46243, >>46244, >>46245 ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE CONDUCTED RISKY EXPERIMENTS ON MERS VIRUS IN CHINA

>>46246 Fouchier is notable for his research on respiratory viruses of humans and animals, antigenic drift, and influenza virus zoonoses, transmission and pandemics

>>46247 Only ONE member of failed SVB's board had a career in investment banking - and the rest were Obama, Clinton mega-donors

>>46248 Oregon HS students had to write ‘sexual fantasy,’ include sex toys in assignment

>>46249 Manhunt Underway For Ex-Chief of Staff of Former Governor Larry Hogan

>>46250 AG Letitia James to host ‘Drag Story Hour’ for kids in NYC — sparking outrage

>>46252 Antifa smashing doors and windows at UC Davis entrance where Charlie Kirk is speaking

FINAL - BAKING!!

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510164 (150411ZMAR23) Notable: President Donald J. Trump in Davenport, IA

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>>46254

>https://rumble.com/v2cu47k-live-president-donald-j.-trump-in-davenport-ia.html

Streamed on: Mar 13, 7:15 pm EDT

President Donald J. Trump in Davenport, IA

45th President of the United States Donald J. Trump to Deliver Remarks on America First Education Policy in Davenport, Iowa on March 13th, 2023 at 7:15PM EDT

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510220 (150420ZMAR23) Notable: New Wuhan Scandal: US Agencies Double-Paid Virus Research Costs

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New Wuhan Scandal: US Agencies Double-Paid Virus Research Costs

The US government may have made tens of millions of dollars in duplicate payments for virus research at the Wuhan Institute for Virology, according to a review of government records by a former federal investigator, CBS News reports.

"What I've found so far is evidence that points to double billing, potential theft of government funds. It is concerning, especially since it involves dangerous pathogens and risky research," said Diane Cutler, whose services were engaged by Kansas Republican Senator Roger Marshall.

Cutler has more than 20 years of experience investigating healthcare fraud and white-collar crime, an her conclusions spring from her review of over 50,000 documents relating to US grants that financed coronavirus research in China.

The apparent double-payments, made via the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and US Agency for International Development (USAID), related to a variety of claimed costs, including salaries, travel, medical supplies and equipment.

Anonymous sources told CBS the damage may amount to tens of millions of dollars. Marshall has turned over Cutler's findings to USAID and the agency's internal watchdog, which has launched an investigation of its own. It could take six months or more.

On Feb. 28, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau had long ago concluded the Covid-19 pandemic was most likely the result of a leak from a Chinese lab. Days earlier, it was reported that the Department of Energy had in 2020 reached its own determination that a lab leak was most likely.

This month, former NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci was accused of prompting a cadre of scientists to publish a paper disproving the lab-leak theory – just days after scientists warned Fauci, in February 2020, that Covid-19 may have indeed leaked from a lab.

Two authors of that same paper who initially expressed concerns over a lab-leak but then changed their tune went on to receive millions in NIH grants under Fauci.

Fauci earned at least $480,654 a year in his NIH-NIAID role, making him the highest-paid employee in the federal government. Now, the increasingly disgraced graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts is raking in a pension estimated at $414,000 – more than the US presidential salary.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/new-wuhan-scandal-us-agencies-double-paid-virus-research-costs

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510283 (150431ZMAR23) Notable: What was left of the team responsible for Microsoft AI ethics has now been wiped out completely

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>>>/qresearch/18510274

https://www.techradar.com/news/microsoft-lays-off-team-responsible-for-ai-ethics

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510462 (150509ZMAR23) Notable: SILICON VALLEY BANK HAS TIES TO EPSTEIN, CHINA, WELLS FARGO, SCHWAB, JP MORGAN, FIDELITY AND MORE…

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SILICON VALLEY BANK HAS TIES TO EPSTEIN, CHINA, WELLS FARGO, SCHWAB, JP MORGAN, FIDELITY AND MORE...

https://www.bitchute.com/video/1vYontGLVGeU/

What do you want to bet it goes all the way back to the White House? I would be surprised if it did not.

Source: Amazing Polly: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/ZofFQQoDoqYT/

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510480 (150512ZMAR23) Notable: SILICON VALLEY BANK HAS EPSTEIN CONNECTION (AND MORE)

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>>46261

AmzingPolly

BOOM! SILICON VALLEY BANK HAS EPSTEIN CONNECTION (AND MORE)

https://www.bitchute.com/video/jxSDqdA2MUB7/

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510577 (150541ZMAR23) Notable: Adam Schiff Named As ‘Person of Interest’ in VIP Child Sex Ring Investigation

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Adam Schiff Named As ‘Person of Interest’ in VIP Child Sex Ring Investigation

(..not sure about the sauce on this)

Rep. Adam Schiff has been caught up in a child sexual exploitation investigation that has already ensnared some of his closest friends, according to law enforcement sources in Los Angeles.

But the big prize is still to come, as investigators ensure sure that all of their ducks are in a row and all of the evidence they are gathering will stick, according to sources.

moar

https://newspunch.com/adam-schiff-named-as-person-of-interest-in-vip-child-sex-ring-investigation/

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510580 (150542ZMAR23) Notable: US to limit PFAS 'forever chemicals' in drinking water

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US to limit PFAS 'forever chemicals' in drinking water

By Madeline Halpert BBC News, New York March 14, 2023

The US government has proposed its first-ever restrictions on six harmful chemicals found in drinking water.

Research has suggested over 200 million Americans likely drink water contaminated with PFAS chemicals, which have been linked to a host of health issues, including cancer.

But up until now, the pollutants have only been regulated by some US states.

The US on Tuesday issued a rule that would require communities to test and treat water for six of the chemicals.

Once implemented, it will "prevent thousands of deaths and reduce tens of thousands of serious PFAS-attributable illnesses", the Environmental Protection Agency said.

Dubbed "forever chemicals", PFAS persist for years in the environment.

What are PFAS chemicals and how dangerous are they?

PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of thousands of chemicals. The pollutants, which repel water, oil and grease, are used in hundreds of everyday products from dental floss to cookware to firefighting foams.

Though most US companies have phased out manufacturing of the most well-studied types of PFAS chemicals, PFOS and PFOA, they remain widespread in the environment due to their lack of degradation.

'Forever chemicals' over safe levels in rainwater

In 2022, the EPA found the pollutants could cause harm at levels "much lower than previously understood" and that almost no level of exposure was safe, as the chemicals have been linked to a host of health conditions, including reproductive issues, decreased immune function, thyroid disease and asthma.

Research is ongoing to determine how different levels of exposure can lead to various health effects.

The new US regulations come as countries around the world are reckoning with how to regulate the forever chemicals. Both Canada and the European Union are in the process of proposing and adapting new universal limits on PFAS levels in drinking water.

What will the EPA rules do?

The new federal limits will help close large gaps in existing PFAS drinking water regulations, which are currently imposed by only 10 states, according to Sarah Doll, the national director of Safer States, which tracks regulations of the chemicals.

Specifically, the new rule - which experts said would be finalised after a 60-day period of public comment - will require communities to test for two of the "forever chemicals", PFOA and PFOS, and treat for them if they are found at levels higher than four parts per trillion. The rule also requires communities to monitor four other PFAS chemicals- PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS and HFPO-DA - as a mixture.

The EPA limits will likely have a wider impact on public drinking water quality as the thorough testing and treatment process required for PFAS will allow utilities to rid water of other contaminants besides PFAS, said Dr Lee Ferguson, a professor of environmental chemistry at Duke University.

But the new rules could also cause some communities to worry about the safety of their drinking water, as PFAS is widespread, and the new treatment systems could take time to put into place, said Dr Carol Kwiatkowski of the Green Science Policy Institute, an environmental advocacy organisation.

"Wherever you test for it, you find it," said Phil Brown, a co-director of the PFAS Project Lab at Northeastern University.

Who will pay to treat the water?

The restrictions could help reduce health inequalities in the US, protecting Americans who are unknowingly being exposed to PFAS and other contaminants, experts told the BBC.

Communities with poorer-quality drinking water systems stand to reap the largest benefits from the new EPA limits, but could also struggle the most to implement the new systems, which could cost as much as $5m (£4.11m) outright for a smaller town, according to Dr Brown.

Alissa Cordner, the co-director of the PFAS Project Lab, which researches the chemicals, said it will help boost municipal water protections in states currently without PFAS rules.

"This is an important step in bringing up the floor of health protections."

Through its infrastructure law, the Biden administration has dedicated $5b to address water contaminants like PFAS, $2b of which is designated for disadvantaged communities. Still, that may not be enough, experts said.

As a result, states are looking to the polluters themselves to help foot the bill. More than a dozen states have sued companies they allege are responsible for PFAS contamination, including Minnesota, where manufacturing company 3M settled in 2018 with the state for $850m, which had sued the firm claiming it had damaged drinking water. The company has it will stop making and using "forever chemicals".

But while cleaning up the chemicals marks an important first step to protecting Americans' health, the most safe and cost-effective method would be to limit the manufacturing of the chemicals, experts said.

"You have to turn it off at the source," said Dr Kwiatkowski. "It doesn't make any sense to keep cleaning them out of the water if we keep putting them back in."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64955159

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510608 (150549ZMAR23) Notable: RAF and German jets intercept Russian aircraft near Estonian airspace

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RAF and German jets intercept Russian aircraft near Estonian airspace

By Christy Cooney BBC News March 15, 2023

RAF and German fighter jets have intercepted a Russian aircraft near Estonian airspace in the first joint operation of its kind.

The two Typhoons were scrambled on Tuesday to intercept an Il-78 Midas refuelling plane flying between St Petersburg and Kaliningrad.

The plane had failed to communicate with air traffic control in Estonia.

The British and German air forces are currently conducting planned joint Nato air policing in the region.

The interception itself was routine, but it is the first time such an operation has been carried out together by the two countries.

The incident comes amid heightened tensions between Nato and Russia over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, although there is no evidence of any link with Tuesday's reported collision between a Russian fighter jet and a US drone over the Black Sea.

After escorting the Midas, the two jets were redirected to intercept an An-148 airliner that was also passing close to Estonian airspace.

The jets are part of the RAF's 140 Expeditionary Air Wing and the German 71 Tactical Air Wing Richthofen.

The RAF is preparing to take the lead on Nato's long-established Baltic air policing mission from the German air force in April.

It will then lead the mission for four months, with joint British and German operations set to continue until the end of April.

Four RAF Typhoon jets are currently deployed as part of the mission and are based at the Ämari air base in Estonia.

Minister for the Armed Forces James Heappey said: "Nato continues to form the bedrock of our collective security. This joint UK and German deployment in the Baltics clearly demonstrates our collective resolve to challenge any potential threat to Nato's borders, whilst demonstrating our combined strength."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64960706

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510668 (150605ZMAR23) Notable: Virgin Islands subpoena multiple banks for Jeffrey Epstein's financial records

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>>>/qresearch/18510502

>>46261

http://abcnewsradioonline.com/national-news/virgin-islands-subpoena-multiple-banks-for-jeffrey-epsteins.html

Virgin Islands subpoena multiple banks for Jeffrey Epstein's financial records

Comments Off Share ArticleShare Article

Rick Friedman/Rick Friedman Photography/Corbis via Getty Images

By JAMES HILL, ABC News

(NEW YORK) – The government of the U.S. Virgin Islands is upping the ante in its quest to pierce the veil of secrecy that cloaked the life and wealth of financier Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased sex-offender who accrued a fortune of more than $650 million under mysterious circumstances.

At least 10 financial institutions including Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank have been issued subpoenas in recent weeks from the office of USVI Attorney General Denise George, according to court filings reviewed by ABC News. The subpoenas seek account records, transaction details and communications concerning Epstein, his estate, and more than 30 corporations, trusts and nonprofit entities connected to him.

The move comes as lawyers for Epstein's estate are locked in an increasingly acrimonious duel with George, who filed a civil forfeiture lawsuit against the estate in January, five months after Epstein died while in a federal jail in New York. The complaint alleges that Epstein constructed a network of companies and individuals to enable and conceal his alleged sex-trafficking of girls and young women to Little St. James, his luxurious private island resort off the east coast of St. Thomas.

Cont:

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510669 (150606ZMAR23) Notable: Virgin Islands subpoena multiple banks for Jeffrey Epstein's financial records

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>>46268

"Epstein, through and in association with defendants, trafficked, raped, sexually assaulted and held captive underage girls and young women at his properties in the Virgin Islands," the suit said.

Earlier this month, the attorney general revealed in court filings that her office is also scrutinizing the alleged role of Ghislaine Maxwell in Epstein's operation. Maxwell, 58, was arrested on July 2 and charged in a federal indictment in New York. She is accused of grooming three minor girls and enabling their sexual abuse by Epstein between 1994 and 1997. In some cases, prosecutors allege, Maxwell participated in the abuse. She has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and a trial is scheduled for next year.

"The Government is and has been actively investigating Maxwell's participation in the criminal sex-trafficking and sexual abuse conduct of the Epstein Enterprise," wrote Ariel Smith, deputy attorney general of the USVI in a court filing on July 11.

Lawyers for Epstein's estate are seeking to dismiss the government's lawsuit as an untimely action that is interfering with the estate's ability to preserve its assets and to pay claims to its creditors, including alleged victims of Epstein's decades-long pattern of abuse. A voluntary claims restitution program established by the estate began accepting claims from survivors last month.

"Mr. Epstein is not continuing his alleged criminal enterprise, as he is dead," wrote Christopher Kroblin, an attorney for the estate in a court filing in May. "The Government sat on its hands while Mr. Epstein was alive notwithstanding that he registered as a sex offender with the Government ten years ago and continued to do nothing even months after Mr. Epstein's death."

Cont:

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510671 (150606ZMAR23) Notable: Virgin Islands subpoena multiple banks for Jeffrey Epstein's financial records

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>>46269

Epstein first acquired property in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1998, purchasing Little St. James, an island off the east coast of St. Thomas, for about $8 million. He then spent millions of dollars developing an elaborate compound, with a main house, swimming pool, helipad and guest villas overlooking the Caribbean Sea. Starting in 2010, Epstein made the island his permanent residence and established a host of vaguely-named entities in the territory to run his business, charitable and personal affairs. He would later, through a series of separate transactions totaling more than $20 million, complete the purchase of a larger, neighboring island called Great St. James.

The source of his extravagant wealth has long defied logical explanation. Epstein grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood in Brooklyn's Coney Island, never finished college, and amassed his fortune while boasting of managing money only for billionaires – though his only publicly-known client was Leslie Wexner, the founder of The Limited. Wexner would later accuse Epstein of misappropriating millions of dollars from his family fortune.

Among the entities listed in the USVI government's subpoenas to the banks are Plan D, which owned Epstein's Gulfstream jet; Nautilus, Inc., which owned Little St. James; and Maple, Inc., which owned his New York mansion.

Cont:

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510675 (150607ZMAR23) Notable: Virgin Islands subpoena multiple banks for Jeffrey Epstein's financial records

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>>46270

Several of the financial firms are also being asked for records concerning "The Butterfly Trust," an Epstein-related entity that opened accounts at Deutsche Bank in 2014 and which listed several of Epstein's alleged co-conspirators among its beneficiaries, according to a report from New York state regulators released earlier this month.

That report found that Deutsche Bank maintained its relationship with Epstein until late 2018 despite multiple "suspicious transactions" and "red flags" that could have been related to his alleged sex-trafficking operation.

Epstein allegedly used the Butterfly Trust and various other accounts to "send over 120 wires totaling $2.65 million to beneficiaries … including some transfers to alleged co-conspirators or women with Eastern European surnames," regulators noted, as well as to make "lawsuit settlement payments to alleged victims, and rent, legal, and immigration expenses made to or on behalf of young (albeit adult) women," according to the report.

Deutsche Bank agreed to pay penalties of $150 million for compliance failures in connection with the banks dealing with Epstein, according to the New York State Department of Financial Services.

Cont:

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510679 (150608ZMAR23) Notable: Virgin Islands subpoena multiple banks for Jeffrey Epstein's financial records

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>>46271

"We acknowledge our error of onboarding Epstein in 2013 and the weaknesses in our processes, and have learnt from our mistakes and shortcomings," a bank spokesperson said of the report's findings. "Immediately following Epstein's arrest, we contacted law enforcement and offered our full assistance with their investigation."

A Deutsche Bank spokesperson declined to comment on the subpoenas from the United States Virgin Islands. Representatives from JPMorgan Chase and Citibank also declined to comment.

Cont:

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510682 (150608ZMAR23) Notable: Virgin Islands subpoena multiple banks for Jeffrey Epstein's financial records

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>>46272

Other banks and brokerage firms that were issued subpoenas, according to the court records, include Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab, Bank Leumi, Wells Fargo, Northern Trust and Silicon Valley Bank.

Spokespersons for Fidelity, Charles Schwab and Leumi did not respond to requests for comment. Wells Fargo declined to comment.

Silicon Valley Bank declined to comment on pending litigation, but a spokesperson said that "to the best of our knowledge, Silicon Valley Bank has not had, and currently does not have, any business dealings with the individual or the entities named in the subpoena."

A spokesperson for Northern Trust, Doug Holt, did not comment directly on the subpoenas but said that "like other financial institutions, Northern Trust regularly cooperates with information requests from regulators or law enforcement officials."

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 7:13AM by ABC Audio PermalinkPermalink

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510712 (150619ZMAR23) Notable: Drone pilots fight foreign wars from remote Nevada desert - 6/20/18

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Drone pilots fight foreign wars from remote Nevada desert

foxnews.com/us/drone-pilots-fight-foreign-wars-from-remote-nevada-desert

Air Force

Published June 20, 2018 3:36pm EDT

INDIAN SPRINGS, Nev. – Inside the Creech Air Force Base one hour north of Las Vegas, military pilots navigate counter-terrorism missions across the world – from a windowless room in a military installation adjacent to a two-lane highway.

The base serves as the nerve center for the country’s drone program (officials take umbrage at the term drone – these aircrafts are not your tech friend’s hobby toy). Pilots act as combatants in the sky over places like Syria, Iraq, and locations in Africa. But they’re sitting in a cockpit in the middle of the desert.

“We fly with the same laws of armed conflict with our manned brethren. We fly with the same rules of engagement. In many ways, I would say because we’re there and we have that persistent look, we’re there for a long time on top of the targets, we generally have a little bit more situational awareness than a fighter crew or bomber crew that checks into the airspace and there to drop our bombs and get-out-of-here type thing,” said Lt. Col Ronnie, who leads the wing of pilots at Creech and is one himself. Pilots at the base are only allowed to give their first names because of security reasons.

The program is no secret. Depictions of these pilots and their tasks have been portrayed again and again in Hollywood, lending to a not fully formed view of what these pilots endure and the training they undergo.

But specifics of gathered intelligence and ongoing missions, obviously, remain under wraps. Many details of the program are kept secret due to the sensitivity of the operations conducted by the pilots. Fox was not granted access to view a pilot’s cockpit.

Quiet, low lighting, with the constant hum of computers, the room where the cockpits are have no windows to the outside to maintain focus. Intrusion and interference is extremely limited. No one can enter the cockpit without permission.

For the aircraft itself, the long flown MQ-1 Predator was recently retired and pilots now control exclusively the MQ-9 Reaper, which offers more capabilities. That includes visual sensors with a wide range of sight – laser, infrared, and full motion video – to be the “eyes in the sky.” It has a range of 1,150 miles and a ceiling of 50,000 feet in altitude.

An MQ-9 Reaper drone is parked underneath a hangar on the tarmac at Creech Air Force Base. (Fox News)

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510715 (150620ZMAR23) Notable: Drone pilots fight foreign wars from remote Nevada desert - 6/20/18

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>>46274

“Over time, the sortie durations have increased with the reaper. It carries more weapons,” said Col. Julian Cheater, commander of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing at Creech. “The rest of the world has taken note and seen we’ve got longer loiter times, persistent attack and reconnaissance options available to us and really that precise ability to target the enemy,” Cheater added.

Due to the opaque nature of the program, misperceptions inevitably rise. Cheater said he has to constantly dispel the notion that these RPA’s are autonomous.

“What we do is completely manned. There’s not an unmanned system at all. It just so happens that, that man or that woman is not co-locating with the aircraft. The cockpit is on the ground somewhere, so it is a very hands-on operation,’ said Cheater.

Pilots are briefed before they sit in the cockpit and remain there for eight-hour shifts, with periodic breaks. But sometimes mission intelligence changes at a moment’s notice. Pilots need to adapt quickly.

The MQ-9 Reaper requires extensive maintenance when not in use. The drones are also shipped from Creech Air Force Base in crates to bases around the world. (Fox News)

“It could be anything from adversary interference to the game plan to things like weather. We may get out there and find that the weather precludes us from being able to do the mission we were planning to do and so we have to adjust,” Ronnie said.

Asked if the pilots ever get nervous or anxious for a mission, Lt. Briana said that she relies on the trust of the aircrew and that there really isn’t time for uncertainty. She added there are days when the hunt can be a waiting game of sorts, as well.

“Usually, I have a sense of why we’re looking at what we’re looking at, even if I don’t have specific details…there are some days when we’re looking at the same spot for multiple hours…but I don’t think we ever find ourselves bored inside the cockpit,” Briana said.

Drone pilots are in constant contact with many different groups, including ground forces. Reports say that an operator’s command takes 1.2 seconds to reach the drone via satellite uplink.

The logo of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing is emblazoned on the side of the MQ-9 Reaper (Fox News)

Critics say human error can lead to collateral damage with the death of civilians in hitting a target.

Cheater underscored that these are not indiscriminate carpet bombs being conducted haphazardly, but are pinpoint blasts that can thwart an enemy encroaching on coalition forces, saving countless lives.

In any case, Creech offers counseling and services for those pilots who need to talk through certain moral implications of the job.

But that stigma is dated, according to officials in the program. The strikes that are carried out are so coordinated that, at the end of the day, pilots understand the significance of the work they do and how it preserves national security.

“I’m extremely proud of what I do,” Briana said, “and I try to share that with people when they ask and there’s not an operational security reason not to.”

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510783 (150643ZMAR23) Notable: At America’s Most Lawless Border (With Arizona Sheriff)

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At America’s Most Lawless Border (With Arizona Sheriff) 🇺🇸🇲🇽

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdJN1dgBJcY

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510805 (150654ZMAR23) Notable: United States Sanctions Human Rights Abusers and Corrupt Actors Across the Globe - 12/21/17

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>>46261

Wat dis?

Found in comments:

Shhh! Here's a little something to help you along in your research. You almost there!

Closer than most...

- Dispite what we're being told, by shills and the fake news propaganda networks, A lot has and is happening.

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0243

The privately owned fed is dead- Bankrupt way back 2019 it was signed off 2020. All the seizures to come back to the world's population.

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0243

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510809 (150656ZMAR23) Notable: United States Sanctions Human Rights Abusers and Corrupt Actors Across the Globe - 12/21/17

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>>46261

>>46279

United States Sanctions Human Rights Abusers and Corrupt Actors Across the Globe

December 21, 2017

New Executive Order Implements Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act,

Provides for Treasury Sanctions Against Malign Actors Worldwide

Washington – Today, the Trump Administration launched a new sanctions regime targeting human rights abusers and corrupt actors around the world. Building on the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act passed by Congress last year, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order (Order) today declaring a national emergency with respect to serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world and providing for the imposition of sanctions on actors engaged in these malign activities. In an Annex to the Order, the President imposed sanctions on 13 serious human rights abusers and corrupt actors. In addition, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), acting on behalf of the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, imposed sanctions on an additional 39 affiliated individuals and entities under the newly-issued Order.

“Today, the United States is taking a strong stand against human rights abuse and corruption globally by shutting these bad actors out of the U.S. financial system. Treasury is freezing their assets and publicly denouncing the egregious acts they’ve committed, sending a message that there is a steep price to pay for their misdeeds,” said Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin. “At the direction of President Trump, Treasury and our interagency partners will continue to take decisive and impactful actions to hold accountable those who abuse human rights, perpetrate corruption, and undermine American ideals.”

As a result of today’s actions, all of the assets within U.S. jurisdiction of the individuals and entities included in the Annex to the Order or designated by OFAC are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them. Further details on these designations are included below.

Cont:

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0243

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/18510866 (150726ZMAR23) Notable: #22700

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Notables - FINAL

#22700

>>46254, >>46266 DJT - THANK YOU IOWA! #MAGA

>>46255 President Donald J. Trump in Davenport, IA

>>46256 New Wuhan Scandal: US Agencies Double-Paid Virus Research Costs

>>46257, >>46258 Robert Bruce Zoellick (Evergreen Park, IL), World Bank, Corruption Hunters, Hillary Clinton and Moar

>>46259, >>46260 What was left of the team responsible for Microsoft AI ethics has now been wiped out completely

>>46261 SILICON VALLEY BANK HAS TIES TO EPSTEIN, CHINA, WELLS FARGO, SCHWAB, JP MORGAN, FIDELITY AND MORE…

>>46262 SILICON VALLEY BANK HAS EPSTEIN CONNECTION (AND MORE)

>>46263 Elliot Smerling - SVB related

>>46264 Adam Schiff Named As ‘Person of Interest’ in VIP Child Sex Ring Investigation

>>46265 US to limit PFAS 'forever chemicals' in drinking water

>>46267 RAF and German jets intercept Russian aircraft near Estonian airspace

>>46268, >>46269, >>46270, >>46271, >>46272, >>46273 Virgin Islands subpoena multiple banks for Jeffrey Epstein's financial records

>>46274, >>46275 Drone pilots fight foreign wars from remote Nevada desert - 6/20/18

>>46276, >>46277 Speculation mounts over ID of ‘new’ Biden family member who got cut of $3M wire

>>46278 At America’s Most Lawless Border (With Arizona Sheriff)

>>46279, >>46280 United States Sanctions Human Rights Abusers and Corrupt Actors Across the Globe - 12/21/17

FINAL - BAKING!!