Before COVID, an NIH Lab Chief Proposed Making a SARS-Like Bat Virus More Infectious
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NIH scientist proposed engineering coronavirus to be more infectious weeks before pandemic, emails show
NIH virologist Vincent Munster emailed his postdoc on Oct. 6, 2019, proposing to engineer a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus spike protein to “enhance infectivity.” The proposed modification matches the central genetic feature cited by lab-leak proponents as evidence SARS-CoV-2 did not arise naturally. Munster’s lab also solicited and received unpublished bat coronavirus spike […]
Before COVID, an NIH lab chief proposed making a SARS-like bat virus more infectious
Vincent Munster and Michael Letko (photos from NIH and WSU) By Lewis Kamb | U.S. Right to Know | October 15, 2026 On a Sunday morning in October 2019, the chief of the virus ecology unit at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories emailed a postdoctoral scientist in his lab with an idea. […]
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