It has been noticed by U.S. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri that many scientists have been attacked by the U. S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) because of comments made about SARS-CoV2 and the Covid pandemic that do not conform to the official narrative. Unfortunately, I was one of them. The attack in my case was a trumped-up case brought by the ORI(NIH Office of Research Integrity) against me, leading to a recent judgment.
This case demonstrated that the ORI personnel could not properly understand the science in my papers, and they erroneously claimed they were fraudulent. This bizarre conclusion was addressed by one of the expert witnesses in the case, Professor Ridgway Scott. In the ORI rebuttal of my witnesses, the lawyer Lucy Stark, Attorney at U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the General Counsel, said that Scott was not qualified to judge this matter, being just a mathematician. This unfortunately reflects the all too prevalent trend in biomedical and pharmaceutical research to disparage rigorous quantitative thinking.
This attack by ORI can be traced to my paper: Ariel Fernandez (2021) Molecular Biology Clues Portray SARS-CoV-2 as a Gain-of-Function Laboratory Manipulation of Bat CoV RaTG13, ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters 12, 941, where I observed some anomalous facts about the genome coding for SARS-CoV-2. This was then interpreted by some to support the lab-leak theory, and there were various attempts to get the paper retracted, including some spearheaded by Peter Daszak, the NIH contractor that subcontracted the gain of function research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Peter Daszak is one of the masterminds of the COVID cover-up. Given the colossal death toll world-wide and the catastrophic economic consequences, Peter Daszak and his NIH contacts were strongly motivated to cover up the origin of COVID-19 censoring any dissenting voices (like mine) that challenged the official narrative of a natural zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2.
I tried valiantly and respectfully to interact with ORI, but to no avail. A total of three Administrative Law Judges (ALJ) at ORI considered the case, the first being Carolyn Coozad Hughes, who did not act on the case. The second ALJ, Karen Robinson, shelved the case for nearly two years. Unfortunately, neither of them quashed the case. Finally a third ALJ agreed to rule against me, and then she retired.
Although many other scientists, according to Senator Hawley, have suffered similarly, my case indicates some fundamental flaws in NIH and the ORI. The ORI can be weaponizedto attack anyone, without proper legal safeguards.
The irony is that the attacks on me were intended to deflect support for the lab-leak theory on the origins of SARS-CoV2. As with many cover-ups, it has instead called attention to the support by NIH and others of the research at the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology regarding illegal gain-of-function research.
NIH implemented a massive cover-up on the origin of COVID-19 as soon as the public became aware that one of its institutes, NIAID (National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases), had been funding gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses. This type of research serves a dual purpose: to design powerful antigens for engineered spillover scenarios and also to create bioweapons. This dual purpose befitted NIAID hosting of biodefense intitiatives. As we all learned, things did not go well with these adventures, and so NIH hastily imposed an official “natural origin” narrative (The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2) while fiercely censoring any dissenting voice. The NIH censorship was aimed at crushing any suggestion of a lab origin (*). In his US Senate page, Senator Josh Hawley (R.-Mo.) emphasized that NIH was committed to destroy anyone opposing the narrative that COVID was a natural occurrence precisely because of NIH’s role in funding gain-of-function research at the lab.
(*) US Senate Hearing on COVID 19 /HSGAC. Date: June 18, 2024: Senator Josh Hawley stated that “Every dissenting voice raised against the [COVID-19] natural origin was suppressed as per Fauci’s intructions” (1:32-1:36). “The fraudulent Nature Medicine paper [on the natural origin of COVID-19] was used by Fauci to mobilize government to censor people”. “People lost their job because of this, they were discredited” (1:37). At the same venue, Senator Rand Paul said: “[Francis] Collins [NIH’s former president] and Fauci ordered everybody who disagreed with the natural origin of COVID-19 should be taken down” (1:54).
On May 27, 2021, I became the first scientist to publish a research paper characterizing SARS-CoV-2 as a gain-of-function lab product likely to have been engineered as a bioweapon. My paper
was immediately perceived as a threat to NIH, the kind of threat that put in motion its repressive machinery.
A week after it got published, an intramural NIH contractor threatened me with weaponizing the Office of Research Integrity(ORI/DHHS) to discredit my findings on SARS-CoV-2. Furthermore, as shown in this article, on June 6, Peter Daszak, the NIH contractor that subcontracted the gain of function research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and one of the masterminds of the COVID cover-up, frantically demanded the retraction of my article while launching a fierce attack on my reputation. To exert its censorship, the NIH weaponized the ORI against me, as the intramural contractor said it would do. As shown in this article, ORI resurrected a case closed over a decade earlier and, without any understanding of my research papers, charged me with research misconduct.
As rubberstamped by administrative law judge Margaret Brakebusch (decision CR6690), the ORI/DHHS has now found ten of my published papers to contain invalid results. Upon request, I will produce the necessary evidence to show that the assertions by ORI are wrong, nefarious and unfounded.
The attacks on my work constitute acts of corruption by NIH associated with a COVID-19 cover-up concerning the true origin of SARS-CoV-2. As it has been made public (*), the cover-up involved the suppression and censorship of dissenting voices that opposed the official narrative that SARS-CoV-2 was a natural occurrence of zoonotic origin.
Please contact me as you deem fit for evidence regarding this matter. For further clarification, please consult:
Ariel Fernandez learned about the COVID-19 cover-up as he became the first researcher challenging the official narrative on the origin of COVID-19 in a scientific publication. Consequently, he was subjected to the NIH censorship (*) and the ORI was weaponized as the case was built against him.
The Office of Research Integrity at NIH (ORI) resurrected a case closed for fifteen years against Prof. Ariel Fernandez, issuing findings of research misconduct. As rubberstamped by administrative law judge Margaret Brakebusch (decision CR6690), the ORI resurrected a case dating back to 2010. Prof. Fernandez claims the assertions by ALJ Brakebusch and the ORI/DHHS are wrong and unfounded. According to this disclaimer, he is willing to provide the exculpatory evidence on any specific charge to anyone that gives a sound reason to request it.
In her decision, ALJ Brakebusch stated that it is an "undisputed fact" that Fernandez falsified experimental data while he held the Karl F Hasselman Professorship at Rice University. Nothing can be further from the truth. Prof. Fernandez is a theoretician who relied on collaborations with experimentalists to validate his hypothesis. To prove the genuine provenance of the data from Lilly Research Laboratories, Fernandez offered the certification of Dr. Sangtae Kim, Vice President of the company at the time. To prove the validity of the questioned experimental results, Fernandez offered the expert testimony of Prof. Ridgway Scott from the University of Chicago, and presented the affidavit testimonies of his former doctoral students at Rice University: Drs. Sridhar Maddipati, Xi Zhang and Jianping Chen, and that of his collaborator Dr. Axel Blau. To prove that the synthetic chemistry of wrapping compounds reported in his works was valid, Fernandez offered the official certification of the University of Wisconsin-Madison-Small Molecule Facility signed by Dr. John Feltenberger, a specialist in the systhesis of the wrapping compounds designed by Prof. Fernandez. To prove that the whistleblower Abhinav Tiwari was lying, Prof. Fernandez offered the testimony of Sean Sessel, an undergraduate at Rice at the time, working is the same project as the whistleblower.
Certification from Sangtae Kim, Vice President at Lilly, on the genuine provenance of the experimental data reported by Ariel Fernandez.
To picture the level of dishonesty and cluelessness of ALJ Brakebush’s decision CR6690, it suffices examine the following section from her ruling:
He [expert Scott] further added “it seems that ORI is beating a dead horse with a broken whip. They should be strongly criticized for raising these false issues.” Id. He concluded his statement by asserting:
“It is personally disturbing to me to see such a poor quality of analysis emerging from ORI. ORI has access to everyone in the field to provide expert opinion. But they seem to have found a very weak group of scientists in this case. This reminds me of my teaching days. I saw behavior like. this, but not from the good students. I cannot give ORI a passing grade in this case.”
While Scott extensively discussed his opinion regarding what he felt to be ORI’s erroneous findings, he provided no proof to support Respondent’s assertions that the experiments or research data in issue were produced by Lilly.
How can this expert opinion not constitute a material dispute of facts sufficient to prevent any judge from granting summary judgment to ORI? Why should the expert that was supposed to assess the validity of the results also prove provenance? This was the call of the Vice President of Eli Lilly, Dr. Sangtae Kim.
Brakebusch and ORI are both in the DHHS payroll. The implication is that the appeal is a travesty of justice. In her decision, Brakebusch rejected all evidence and witnesses presented by Prof. Fernandez. Brakebusch is the third ALJ that heard the case. Previously, Judges Carolyn Cozad Hughes (12/2022-2/2023) and Karen Robinson (2/2023-12/2024) did not adjudicate.
The attack on Fernandez's reputation is part of the NIH censorship instigated beginning June 5, 2021 (exhibits below) by Peter Daszak, the NIH contractor who subcontracted to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, and, ultimately, by Anthony Fauci, the former head of NIAID. These attacks constitute acts of NIH corruption associated with the COVID-19 cover-up concerning the true origin of SARS-CoV-2. As it has been made public (*), the cover-up involved the suppression and censorship of dissenting voices that opposed the official narrative that SARS-CoV-2 was a natural occurrence of zoonotic origin. Prof. Fernandez became the first such dissenting voice. This is evidenced by his paper published on May 27, 2021:
This work portrayed SARS-CoV-2 as the result of a gain-of-function modification purposely designed to produce a bioweapon. The following paragraph from Fernandez's paper suggested for the first time in a published paper that SARS-CoV-2 had been probably designed as a bioweapon:
"An indicator that the NIH-funded research had gone too far arose when the tinkered CoV-RaTG13 became endowed at the spike protein with a “detonator”, that is, a cleavage site recognized and activated by the host-cell enzyme furin ... This site has not been identified in other CoVs from the same lineage."
It is worth emphasizing that the furing cleavage site was first characterized as the smoking gun by Ariel Fernandez in May, 2021. By September 2021, the unfunded D.A.R.P.A. proposal DEFUSE (HROO111850017) by Peter Daszaket al. became known to the public. This proposal served as blueprint to create SARS-CoV-2 and corroborates what Ariel Fernandez had already stated regarding the furin site as the weaponization element:
Paragraph on page 13/75 of DEFUSE Proposal (HROO111850017 EcoHeath Alance (Daszak), showing the blueprint to incorporate the furin (proteolytic) cleavage site, identified as the smoking gun by Ariel Fernandez in his analysis of SARS-CoV-2.
The COVID paper by Ariel Fernandez published on May 27, 2021 was immediately perceived as a threat by NIH. By June 6, Peter Daszak was frantically demanding its immediate retraction, as shown in the exhibits below. The paper was not retracted because there was nothing wrong with it. Only an expression of concern was issued. This outcome was unsatisfactory to NIH: Ariel Fernandez had to be censored because his publication challenged the official narrative on the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 (*). To implement the COVID-19 cover-up, the ORI was weaponized. The ORI issued a charge letter against Fernandez by August, 2022, in a case that had been closed for over a decade: Ariel Fernandez had to be discredited, like anyone else who challenged the official narrative.
(*) Hearing on COVID 19 at the Senate/HSGAC. Date: June 18, 2024: Senator Josh Hawley stated that “Every dissenting voice raised against the [COVID-19] natural origin was suppressed as per Fauci’s intructions” (1:32-1:36). “People lost their job because of this, they were discredited” (1:37). Senator Rand Paul said: “[Francis] Collins [NIH’s former president] and Fauci ordered everybody who disagreed with the natural origin of COVID-19 should be taken down” (1:54).
Daszak's frantic reaction to Ariel Fernandez's first published paper disproving the official narrative.
Daszak threatened by Fernandez's findings showing that SARS-CoV-2 was designed as a bioweapon.
