BREAKING: How did more than 10,000 units of counterfeit
#Ozempic
enter U.S. drug supply w/ fake repetitive serial numbers, undetected? In my deep-dive
@VanityFair
investigation, I unravel Lot NAR0074's mystery, and delve into America's Rx gray market /1
BREAKING: my months-long
@VanityFair
investigation on
#COVID19
origins is live. Interviews w/ over 40 people, review of hundreds of pgs. of U.S. gov't docs. incl. internal memos, meeting minutes, email correspondence, found.... /1
BREAKING: My latest
@VanityFair
story, a detailed investigation into how the White House secretly drafted, then abandoned, a plan to nationalize America's broken
#COVID19
diagnostic testing system. /1
BREAKING: my
@VanityFair
investigation into
@EcoHealthNYC
,
@NIAIDNews
transparency and debate over
#COVID19
origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. /1
The plan, reported for 1st time here, was killed amid shifting WH logic: “political folks believed that because [virus] was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy....”
@ProjectLincoln
/2
In a 12/9/20
@StateDept
meeting, officials say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome att'n to U.S. gov't funding of it. /3
WH secretly procured 3.5 million Chinese-made diagnostic tests from UAE company. Tests, delivered to
@UAEEmbassyUS
, didn't work. The invoice simply lists client name as "WH". Without a legit gov't contract, invoice cannot be paid.
@COVIDOversight
@weareoversight
/3
NOW: Straight up lie from
@POTUS
, that because of Operation Warp Speed, Pfizer had reached 90% efficacy in vaccines. Claiming that Pfizer is part of Operation Warp Speed. Fact-check: untrue. Pfizer took no development $$ from USG.
Friends, my book Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom comes out today. When this journey began 10 yrs ago, I never thought it would lead me to expose egregious fraud in overseas generic drug plants we rely on. Looking back, here are a few key moments (thread)
Conflicts of interest, in part from large US gov't grants supporting controversial virology research, known as "gain-of-function," hampered U.S. gov't investigation into
#COVID19
origins, and legit. questions on
#LabLeak
hypothesis, at every step. /2
Question of the day: is FBI physically protecting Mike Flynn? At this point in Russia, they usually start falling out of windows.
@MalcolmNance
@matthewamiller
In internal memo, Thomas DiNanno, then acting ass't secretary of
@StateDept
Arms Control, Verification, Compliance bureau documented his team was "warned...“not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19” because it would “‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.” /4
Former
@CDCgov
director
@redfield_dr
got death threats from fellow scientists after telling CNN he believed
#COVID19
had lab origin. “I was threatened and ostracized because I proposed another hypothesis,” Redfield told
@VanityFair
. /7
How much U.S. taxpayer $$ went to Wuhan Institute of Virology? On her CV, a lead researcher Shi Zhengli listed U.S. gov't support of more than $1.2 million over 5 years: $665,000 from
@NIH
; $559,500 from
@USAID
. /6
With Americans waiting 7+ days for
#COVID19
test results, the
@RockefellerFdn
has a detailed plan to overhaul nation's testing system. Exclusive interviews w/ President Rajiv Shah, others on how to fix. /4
Four former State Dep't officials told
@VanityFair
they were repeatedly advised not to open a "Pandora's box." DiNanno said: “smelled like a cover-up, and I wasn’t going to be part of it.” /5
Personal note: reporting this story has been like an Escher drawing. Each time I thought I'd gotten to top of the staircase, it turned again. Had to peel away conspiracy theories/racist insinuations from legit. concerns, of which there are many. /8
EXCLUSIVE: My latest
@VanityFair
special report uncovers an almost decade-long trail of warnings issued by
@ENERGY
to
@NIH
, other gov't agencies, about risk that US-funded biology research could be misused by overseas partners. /1
BREAKING: our 5-month investigation w/
@ProPublica
into a "complex and grave situation at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. I hope to have a tweet thread up in an hour or so, to detail my work w/
@jeffykao
on this special report.
"Right now, I'm scared," warns
@CDCDirector
on press call, emotion in her voice: 10% increase in cases over last week; deaths rising to 1,000 per day. Warns of European trajectory.
#COVID19
.
President Biden writes to UN secretary-general expressing his intention to rejoin
@WHO
: "Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration."
Once
#COVID19
began, top US gov't officials suspected Wuhan lab leak. Dr. Redfield, then CDC director, urged Fauci to investigate lab leak. He tells
@VanityFair
he was then excluded from confidential deliberations: "They made a P.R. decision...to have one narrative only." /5
My latest for
@VanityFair
: "I don't give a shit about that," Jared Kushner says of social distancing at
@WhiteHouse
meeting this Spring, reflecting Trump admin scorn for safety protocols.
Exclusive: for my latest in
@VanityFair
, I reviewed closed-door testimony that University of North Carolina coronavirologist Ralph Baric gave to
@COVIDSelect
in January. /1
An extraordinary take-no-prisoners interview on
#COVIDorigins
w/
@JeffDSachs
: "Finally, after two and a half years of this, it’s time to fess up that it might have come out of a lab...."
@JoeNBC
@senorrinhatch
Yup, those lazy-assed kids with cancer who refuse to get a job. Why help them when we can bail out struggling private jet owners?
An amazing
@VanityFair
crew worked countless hours to land this story.🙏to my fabulous editor
@mike_hogan
, tireless fact checkers Brendan Barr & Dale Brauner,
@lili_pike
for terrific reporting & impeccable Chinese translation,
@radhikajones
for green light & more. /10
EXCLUSIVE:
@VanityFair
/
@ProPublica
special report from inside Senate
#COVID19
origins investigation.
@jeffykao
+ I got 100s of pages of Senate research findings, 500+ documents from inside Wuhan Institute of Virology, consulted CCP experts: 🧵👇 /1
Great news! I am looking forward to paying out of pocket, filling out a lengthy form, mailing that in to my barely-functional insurance co., and waiting for reimbursement. Multiply by 300 million, and I'm sure that will
#StoptheSpread
.
Breaking:
@HHSGov
has recommended that
@EcoHealthNYC
- the U.S. science nonprofit that helped fund risky coronavirus research at Wuhan Institute of Virology - be debarred from further federal research funding. Why does this matter? A look back at some key moments.🧵👇/1
🚨BREAKING🚨
Today, based on evidence uncovered in
@COVIDSelect
's recent report, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services commenced formal debarment proceedings against EcoHealth Alliance.
EcoHealth will now face an immediate, government-wide suspension of taxpayer
SCOOP: My latest
@VanityFair
investigation chronicles the battle in the Trump Admin's final days over which federal employees would get scarce
#COVID19
vaccinations.
#ShotChasers
(corrected link) /1
The documents - most predate pandemic - shed light on the world
@EcoHealthNYC
operated in: one of murky grant agreements, flimsy NIH oversight and pursuit of gov't grants by pitching increasingly risky global research. /2
Robert Liston (1794-1847) was a Scottish surgeon who is most famous for amputating a patient's leg in under 2.5 minutes, operating so quickly that in the process also amputated the fingers of his assistant and slashed the coattails of a spectator, who dropped dead from sheer
Given the disclosures of the last few days - early, high-level
#lableak
concerns, US gov't failure to police risky research in China -- maybe the folks who raised early legit concerns about
#COVIDorigins
, only to be dissed as conspiracy theorists, are kinda' owed an apology.
In heated
@NIH
meeting to discuss
@jbloom_lab
preprint on deleted
#SARSCoV2
sequences,
@K_G_Andersen
proposed to delete or revise preprint before it became public, according to Bloom's account of meeting obtained by
@VanityFair
. /6
For years,
@EcoHealthNYC
cultivated gov't officials at
@cosmos_dc
cocktail events, where EcoHealth pres.
@peterdaszak
worked to share podium w/ Fauci. "Cultivation events" were "great way to increase our visibility to federal funders," Daszak told his board. /3
BREAKING: Big scoop from
@KatherineEban
featuring Trump admin emails pushing to "flood NY and NJ" with chloroquine, to the horror of some career health officials
This:
@drewmagary
nails the wink-wink "copy spigot" access game that Wolff explodes. Michael Wolff Did What Every Other White House Reporter Is Too Cowardly to Do | GQ
NEW: My latest
@VanityFair
special report takes a deep dive into
@GovRonDeSantis
' 180 pivot on
#COVID19
vaccines, from promoting to investigating them. Will anti-vax policy become an official part of GOP platform? /1
This is long overdue. Opinion | The world deserves a thorough review of the pandemic. Congress must set up a covid-19 commission. - The Washington Post
.
@EcoHealthNYC
pursued risky
@DARPA
grant at point organization faced huge budget shortfall.
@peterdaszak
fumed at application mistakes, telling his staff they needed a "change in culture" as part of "mentaility to get money." /4
"Mentions of lab leak were frequently followed by warnings that “many” or “most” researchers didn’t think it had happened, but I never found any basis for this sweeping assertion: Did somebody poll all the scientists?"
EXCLUSIVE: My new special report in
@VanityFair
: a deep dive into
@US_FDA
#COVID19
response. Agency besieged w/ product pitches funneled from Trump
@WhiteHouse
, based on new internal docs and dozens of exclusive interviews, including w/
@SteveFDA
. /1
Breaking: Pleased to share my
@VanityFair
special report on
@WhiteHouse
deliberations over
#COVID19
rapid testing. In an October 22 meeting, the administration got a detailed 10-pg plan to ramp up rapid testing to "prevent holiday COVID surge." /1
An excellent
@VanityFair
team worked long hours helping to land this story. My brilliant editor
@mike_hogan
, fact checker extraordinaire Brendan Barr, terrific research help from
@RebeccaAydin
+ Stan Friedman. And terrific input from the top
@radhikajones
23) Unanswered questions drove me to this investigation: 10 years, reporting on 4 continents, 240+ interviews; 20,000+ confidential FDA docs. The book is on Amazon here: , or
@HarperCollins
,
@eccobooks
here: . Happy reading!
A significant follow by
@WSJ
: FBI Director Christopher Wray said that the Covid pandemic was probably the result of a laboratory leak in China. And
@SenSchumer
commits to a probe. via
@WSJ
Today, a
@WSJ
story disclosed that US Dep't of Energy has concluded
#COVID19
"most likely arose" from a lab leak, citing classified intel recently provided to
@WhiteHouse
and key congress members. Some thoughts on where this revelation leaves us: 🧵👇 /1
NEW: My latest
@VanityFair
special report tells the inside story of a skirmish over early
#SARSCoV2
data from Wuhan market bet. 2 leading scientific teams: China & international. China's former CDC director George Gao spoke extensively w/ /1
Sources have asked what I think of new
@USRightToKnow
post:
@EcoHealthNYC
aimed to get
@DARPA
grant $$ 4 risky coronavirus work, by concealing that some would be done w/ low safeguards at Wuhan Inst. of Virology, not in NC as purported. A 🧵👇 /1
You may have heard that a research proposal called DEFUSE lays out a blueprint for the creation of COVID.
You may also know that other scientists brush off DEFUSE because the risky virology was to take place in North Carolina.
Today new docs obtained by me indicate American
What this email makes clear, yet again, is that many experts arguing publicly that a possible
#SARSCoV2
lab leak was a groundless conspiracy theory, knew/discussed in real time the strong possibility that it was true.
Huge bombshell in
@USRightToKnow
's new FOIA drop.
Charles Calisher, lead author of the fraudulent Lancet paper ("We...strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin") privately confessed that it totally could've come out of the lab.
A small update to my recent
@VanityFair
#COVIDorigins
investigation. I obtained an additional email, sent from one leading scientist to another, as they drafted a crucial March 2020 letter, which argued that a lab accident was not plausible: /1
Well, with "New Yorkers] are going to suffer and die and that's their problem," up in Times Square and trending on Twitter, seemed reasonable to change up my pinned tweet.
WARNING: Violent graphic content. We've published video of the moments leading up the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt. At one point, the Capitol police blocking the door to the Speaker's Lobby step aside and let the mob pound on the glass to get in.
A little personal news: in coming year, I will continue at
@VanityFair
w/ a new title & expanded mandate. As a special correspondent, I will pursue deep-dive stories on federal agencies, incl. in national security/intelligence domains, and still report on science & /1
My latest
@VanityFair
story is live: the Biden Admin's shift in
#COVID19
tactics & messaging spark conflict among top MDs: should we be preventing infections or letting Americans choose their own risk? /1
Emails just released by
@GOPoversight
reflect how
@NIH
leaders helped shepherd Proximal Origins paper through publication to help refute
#LabLeak
hypothesis. Influential scientists worked publicly to discredit the theory but privately thought was /1
"Privately, Eban found, a few scientists were writing to each other that there may have been a lab origin for Covid-19. But publicly, they said something different, shutting the door on the lab origins theory...." via
@voxdotcom
.
@POTUS
told
@DavidMuir
yesterday, "I wish I had thought about ordering" 500 million at-home tests "two months ago." But that plan was clearly presented to his administration. /5
My latest
@Reuters
investigation: Internal
@US_FDA
emails/other records show that federal health officials knew a
@Bayer
donation of 3 mil
#chloroquine
drugs to the Strategic Nat'l Stockpile was potentially dangerous: 1/
The best, clearest - most balanced - take yet on significance of leaked grant proposal from
@EcoHealthNYC
, proposing to do GOF research w/ Wuhan Institute of Virology. by
@fastlerner
,
@maiahibbett
Baric also testified he does not believe research showing a market origin for
#SARSCoV2
holds up, due to genomic evidence pointing to earlier start date (Oct. 2019) for pandemic. The research has a "major problem" with its timeline, he told Congressional investigators. /5
An excellent idea from
@heffnera
on the post-Trump ethics cleanup: "denying federal assistance, be it PPP or vaccines, on the basis of American communities' political representation should be criminalized."
@CDCDirector
.CDCdirector warns that states are "opening up at levels that we would not recommend." Explains that "vaccinations will be so much slower if we have another surge to deal with as well."
But don't worry, everyone. Not enforcing sanctions and playing dead while Russia continues to attack our elections will not endanger U.S. security. We're cool.
Jim Mattis and Rex Tillerson privately warned senior trade officials today that Trump’s proposed tariffs could endanger the U.S. national security relationship with allies, five people familiar with the meeting tell WaPo.
Today, Daszak will testify before
@COVIDSelect
, which has released a report calling on NIH to recommend
@EcoHealthNYC
and Daszak personally be debarred from receiving federal funds. /6
A shoutout to these calm, kickass female state election secretaries, like Kathy Boockvar in PA, who are killing it on a huge, public stage. Frankly, they are a league above some of their quavering, stammering freaked-out male counterparts.
#Elections2020
Ongoing allegations that
@FLSurgeonGen
cooked data showing mRNA vaccines cause increased cardiac death among young men. As I recently reported,
@GovRonDeSantis
used that data to help justify a grand jury investigation into
#COVID19
vaccine makers:
You may recall Florida's vaccine analysis which claimed that mRNA vaccines are associated with increased risk of cardiac death in young men.
This week,
@TB_Times
published earlier, unpublished drafts of that analysis.
Those earlier drafts tell a dramatically different story...
So, I'd like to think
@mcuban
's
@costplusdrugs
represents the future for America's drug supply, or -- what has been possible all along: transparently priced, dramatically cheaper generic drugs, that will ultimately be made in the
#USA
. This transformation will require/1
The fifth episode of the PREVAIL podcast is now up! This one concerns Jared Kushner's greatest crime, and features a fascinating discussion with Vanity Fair investigative reporter
@KatherineEban
:
1st: h/t to
@emilyakopp
for persisting on
#COVID19
origins. The story is toxic to most news outlets due to (false) claims that it's somehow right-wing/anti-science to investigate how upwards of 10-million people died. Only a small band of journos continues to actually report: /2