It is false that the creation of the Covid-19 virus in the laboratory is proven – 06/08/2023 – Health

There is no scientific evidence that the new coronavirus was purposely created to get “the world to accept a universal vaccine model”. The origin of the virus is still being researched and the evidence so far points out that the coronavirus originated in bats. The allegations about the origin of Sars-CoV-2 were made by David E. Martin, an American businessman, in a lecture at the European Parliament that has already been the target of verification by Comprova —the event did not bring together the greatest scientists in the world, unlike than had been announced by the organizers, who were five of the 705 deputies.

In his speech at the event, as verified by Projeto Comprova, Martin alleges, without any evidence, that the virus that causes Sars (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) would be the result of laboratory research that created a virus for inoculation in humans. He makes the conclusion based on the existence of patents for the manipulation of Sars-CoV, requested in 2003, and on a study that evaluated the inoculation of the virus in humans in 2015. With this, he concludes that the Covid-19 virus has already it had been worked on for years in laboratories.

The 2015 study was published by the journal Nature; in 2020, the scientific journal attached a note on the misuse of research. “We are aware that this article is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe an animal is the most likely source. of the coronavirus”, informs the text.

Sars-CoV was discovered in 2002, with the Sars epidemic that originated in China. In 2004, a study in cooperation between China and the United Kingdom identified evidence of animal origin for Sars-CoV. Later research showed that bats are the natural reservoir of this virus (2013 and 2016).

On Sars-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, the WHO (World Health Organization) created an international commission in 2020 to research its origin, but has not yet released the final report. A preliminary document concluded that the most likely hypothesis is that the virus emerged from bats in the province of Wuhan, China. How it spread to humans is still unclear, but there are two main possibilities: that it occurred naturally or that it infected someone involved in research, inside a laboratory – neither theory says that the virus was spread from intentional way.

False, for Comprova, is content that was invented or that has been edited to change its original meaning and deliberately disseminated to spread a falsehood.

Reach

Comprova investigates suspicious content with greater reach on social networks. Until June 7, the publication on Twitter had 361.2 thousand views, with 9.7 thousand likes, 4.3 thousand retweets and 346 comments.

How do we check

First, we searched for the origin of the video posted on Twitter, using Search by Image, to verify the identity of the man shown and on which occasion the speech was uttered. Upon confirming that this is a participation in the ICS3 (Third International Covid Summit), which took place in May at the European Parliament, it was possible to identify that it was the businessman David E. Martin.

The article researched Martin’s biography and the studies mentioned by him in his presentation. In addition, it consulted the WHO to verify the progress of the international study on the origin of Covid-19.

undefined origin

The commission of experts formed by the WHO to investigate the origin of Sars-CoV-2 has not yet issued a final opinion on the emergence of the disease. The initial report, published in March 2021, pointed out that the coronavirus would have emerged from bats in the province of Wuhan, China, passed to an intermediate species and then reached humans.

The document also classified it as “highly unlikely” that the virus escaped from a laboratory in China. thesis of emergence with the participation of bats as the most likely, and that an intermediate species would have passed the virus to humans at the Huanan Seafood Market, in Wuhan.

This relationship between coronavirus and bats was described based on research with SARS-CoV initiated during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome pandemic, which occurred between 2002 and 2004, especially in Asia. The virus that causes Sars, although different, is from the same family as Covid-19 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers), whose first recorded case was in 2012.

Even so, no hypothesis has been ruled out and the analysis follows that the virus may have reached humans after an accident in the laboratory. At the end of May, Professor George Gao, vice president of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, who served at the China Center for Disease Control (CDC) until 2022, spoke generally on the subject and said that in the context of scientific all hypotheses must be analyzed.

In January of this year, the genetic material of the first cases of Covid-19, which occurred at the end of 2019 in China, was released, and the result found the presence of animal DNA. This constitutes evidence of a zoonotic (animal) origin of the virus. After that, the WHO even publicly asked China to provide transparency to all the data it has on the virus.

The Chinese government countered the entity’s position and guaranteed that all research data that seeks the origin of the new coronavirus is being made available in a scientific way. China also asked the organization not to “politicize” the issue.

Who is David E. Martin

He is an entrepreneur and responsible for founding several companies in the commercial, technology and finance sectors. Currently, he is the founding CEO of M ∙ CAM Inc, which operates in financial risk management based on intellectual property, that is, it works with the quality audit of patents for public and private entities. He has also been a public policy adviser to the US Congress and the State of Virginia, both in the area of ​​intellectual property law.

On his personal website, he describes himself as “entrepreneur, teacher, author, storyteller, inventor, global foresight consultant, father, friend”. He further states that “his first invention was an integrated laser system to target and treat inoperable tumors.” In the LinkedIn profile indicated as Martin’s, there is information that he completed a postgraduate degree in physiology at Ball State University and a PhD at the University of Virginia, in the area of ​​physiology and sports medicine.

Studies named after David E. Martin while associated with the University of Virginia relate to disease diagnoses and treatments, particularly of the cruciate ligaments of the knees. Still on his website, he claims that his “mathematics helped to unravel the way the human body processes hormones and led to the detection and treatment of many diseases”.

Since 2020, with the onset of the pandemic, Martin has stood out among denialists with the use of his conspiracy theory that the virus responsible for Covid would have been a laboratory creation, used as a human weapon and for the benefit of laboratories in search of a vaccine.

In August 2020, Martin participated in the conspiracy documentary Plandemic: Indoctornation, a video that was banned from platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, for spreading false claims. In the documentary —which makes statements classified as false by Comprova—, Martin is credited, among other functions, as a national intelligence analyst and founder of the IQ100 Index (which is an index responsible for measuring the growth of companies that use patented technology) .

In his participation, he states that the development of Covid-19 is based on research between health institutes in the United States and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, something similar to what was said in the presentation made at the European Parliament. “The United States could say that it was China (who would have created the virus). China could say that the United States did it”, he concludes in the documentary.

The statement is based on the fact that the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) of the United States owns the patent for the Sars-CoV virus, as well as other institutions and companies. In 2007, the year the patent was obtained, the CDC informed that the interest was to be able to provide information about Sars publicly. That is, the CDC obtained the patent so that research and public communication about the virus would not be hindered by commercial companies, which sought exclusive private control of information about Sars-CoV.

At the European Parliament in early May, Martin was credited as a patent specialist and active in tracking intellectual property right approvals to check whether there are suspicious activities in patent applications with the interests of institutes or companies. He develops his presentation based on the thesis that Covid-19 is the result of the pathogenic development of the coronavirus by laboratories, but does not show any scientific evidence.

Difference

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is a respiratory disease caused by a virus from the coronavirus family called Sars-CoV.

Covid-19 is the disease caused in humans infected by Sars-CoV-2, another virus in the coronavirus family. Sars-CoV-2 was known, at the beginning of the pandemic, as “new coronavirus”.

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What the publisher says

The report looked for one of the profiles that published the false content, but did not receive a response until the publication of this text.

What can we learn from this check

It is necessary to be careful with the use of foreign characters and, at first, unknown to the majority of the population as authorities in a given subject.

There is a need to research the speakers or interviewees and the context of the speech reverberated on social networks. In addition, conspiracy theories, such as the idea that institutes or companies created a disease in pursuit of profit, must be questioned, especially when evidence is not presented.

The verification also shows the need to obtain information from the professional press and seek more information from official and control bodies, such as in relation to the origin of diseases and their transmitters.

why do we investigate

Comprova monitors suspicious content published on social networks and messaging apps about public policies and elections at the federal level and opens investigations for those publications that have achieved greater reach and engagement. You can also suggest checks via WhatsApp +55 11 97045-4984. Suggestions and questions related to questionable content can also be sent to Sheet via WhatsApp 11 99486-0293.

Other checks on the topic

The pandemic is a frequent subject of Comprova checks, which recently checked, for example, that vaccines against Covid-19 were not banned, that deputy repeats misleading allegations about the ineffectiveness of immunizations and that video decontextualizes old excerpts from television news to deceive about chloroquine.