COVID Investigator Removed from WHO Team After China Ties Revealed
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Marion Koopman
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

Marion Koopmans, a member of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) first team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, appears to have been removed from the group’s new “effort” to uncover the truth about the virus following reporting by the National Pulse revealing her long ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

When the WHO first released its lineup for the newfound Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) in October, Koopmans was listed as one of its 28 members. The updated SAGO list, however, now omits Koopmans as a contributor to the work of ascertaining the origins of the coronavirus outbreak.

Dr. Hume Field, a Science & Policy Advisor to EcoHealth Alliance, was disappointed to see Koopman removal from the list.

Prior to the shakeup, the National Pulse exposed Koopmans’ role on a scientific advisory board of the Centers for Disease Control of Guangdong, China.

“She has advised on the building of the laboratory capacity for emerging infectious disease detection in this region, and has ongoing research collaborations trying to unravel emergence and spread of viruses through the animal production chain in this region,” states a summary of her work with the regime-run body.

Koopmans is also the author of scientific research papers and articles financially supported by CCP grants.

A July 2020 study of hers entitled “Exploring utility of genomic epidemiology to trace origins of highly pathogenic influenza A/H7N9 in Guangdong” was “supported by grants from National Key Research and Development Program of China [and] the National Key Research and Development Program of China.”

Another 2017 study focusing on the Zika virus was also funded and executed by the Guangdong provincial government, per a summary:

“We thank all of the related laboratory and administrative personnel at Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Jiangmen Center for Disease Control and Prevention for their contribution to the follow-up investigation,” the summary reads. “The present study was supported by grants from the Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Program and the National Key Development Program.”

Another Koopman-led 2014 study done alongside Guangdong Provincial CDC researchers on InfluenzaA(H7N9) was “supported by 12th five-year-major projects of China’s Ministry of Public Health.”

Koopmans has also authored a host of studies given money by the state-run China Scholarship Council. This includes reports on Norovirus, Rotavirus, Calcineurin, and migration.

Koopmans appears to have gotten the same treatment as fellow World Health Organization (WHO) researcher Peter Daszak, whose Wuhan Institute of Virology collaborations were funded by Anthony Fauci and who was removed from Lancet’s COVID-19 commission following a number of exposés by The National Pulse revealing Daszak’s work with the Chinese Communist Party.

The Lancet commission’s website read that Daszak “recused from Commission work on the origins of the pandemic.”

The National Pulse reported Daszak is a major confidant and ally of Fauci:

The National Pulse also unearthed Daszak’s detailed descriptions of the research he conducted alongside his “Chinese colleagues,” including “bat lady” Shi Zhengli, where he admits to manipulating bat coronaviruses into “killer viruses.” The collaborative research was funded in part by Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), as Daszak divulged on a 2020 podcast, “we have 16,000 bat samples in a freezer in China that we collected using U.S. taxpayers’ money.”

Daszak, who has led conferences sponsored by Chinese Communist Party-run scientific organizations, has also co-authored studies funded by the Chinese government and participated in conferences conducted by state-run media outlets. Daszak has also claimed that people “misunderstand the Chinese government” while defending the regime’s handling of COVID-19.

The WHO maintained earlier this year that it is “extremely unlikely” that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

“The theory that the virus was introduced into the human population as a result of a lab accident did not warrant future study,” said the WHO’s Dr. Peter Ben Embarek.

Since assuming office, Joe Biden has swiftly worked to weaken America’s position relative to China.

It was also Biden who rolled back President Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the WHO. The decision to keep the country in the UN agency and to continue funding it was pleasing to Anthony Fauci, whose National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases gave money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

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