The Wall Street Journal is playing sleight of hand over an (allegedly) upcoming Trump executive order that would halt federal funding for gain- of-function (GoF) research.
For starters, they frame opposition to GoF as partisan, and suggest that concerns over it are recent. Journalist Paul Thacker of The Disinformation Chronicle breaks it down.
For example, the WSJ writes "The gain-of-function studies had been a staple of research into viruses, but became an object of controversy and criticism during the pandemic crisis. Republicans in Congress criticized the studies."
Wrong: GoF has been under scrutiny for more than a decade. In fact, the Obama Administration banned it in 2014, which is why Dr. Anthony Fauci offshored it to Wuhan, China via EcoHealth Alliance.
Next, the Journal suggests that only "some Republicans" who think GoF caused Covid-19, when in fact a majority of Americans think that's the case, including 53% of Democrats.
The article also cites scientists with huge conflicts of interest, and that "Many scientists and public-health officials have said there isn’t any public evidence that an experiment at the Wuhan lab could have created the virus that caused the pandemic."
Wrong: The government was concerned at the highest levels that the virus started in a lab.
Poster Comment:
Lots of emails at source. Too many to copy. WE MUST BAN GAIN OF FUNCTION RESEARCH. WE WILL NOT SURVIVE TWO MORE PANDEMICS.