In a shocking revelation, newly obtained documents have exposed serious safety concerns at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in 2017, three years before the Covid-19 pandemic. The documents indicate that warnings from US researchers about genetically engineered viruses at the Chinese lab were raised but ignored or censored.

The documents revealed that energy officials had raised concerns with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about collaborations with the WIV, warning that the research conducted there could be misused for military purposes. The lab was found to have a "serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate," further raising safety concerns.

One unnamed official from the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was headed by Anthony Fauci at the time, was instructed to erase the safety failures in her report to avoid angering China. This censorship was not an isolated incident, as concerns about genetically engineered viruses were dismissed by Francis Collins, the longtime head of the National Institutes of Health, who labeled the claims as "science fiction."

The WIV received indirect funding from the US through grants awarded to EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), a research group at the center of the Covid lab leak theory. The NIAID official who visited the lab in 2017 discovered that researchers at the WIV were planning to study Ebola using a technique called reverse genetics. However, due to China's prohibition on importing the virus, the team intended to engineer it in their lab.

Alarmed by this information, the NIAID official expressed her concerns to colleagues, stating, "I don't want the information... to get out," fearing that it would jeopardize collaboration between the NIAID and the WIV. Her worries were shared by F. Gray Handley, NIAID's associate director for international research affairs, who recommended deleting the comment.

The documents also revealed that the WIV suffered from a "serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate" the lab, according to communication from the US embassy. However, crucial information raising concerns about the lab's plans to engineer Ebola was omitted.

The engineering of a lethal virus has been a subject of concern, with the Department of Energy issuing a threat assessment in 2016 regarding genetically engineered biological samples and viruses. Francis Collins dismissed these risks as "science fiction," but the DOE proposed monitoring the sale of genetic components and better detecting evidence of genetic engineering.

Despite the safety concerns surrounding the WIV lab, it continued to receive international support, and the NIAID funded the lab's coronavirus research through grants sent to EcoHealth Alliance. Months before the pandemic began, DOE officials even issued a warning to NIAID, stating that the research the US was contributing to at the WIV could be misused for military purposes.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology remains at the center of the controversy surrounding the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified report suggesting the lab as a potential source, other government agencies hold different views. The revelations from these newly obtained documents have sparked further inquiries into the actions taken by US officials and the potential censorship surrounding the lab's safety concerns.