{"id":13897,"date":"2026-01-05T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=13897"},"modified":"2025-11-13T15:03:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T20:03:57","slug":"ralph-baric-the-worlds-top-coronavirus-researcher-discussed-human-adaptation-of-coronaviruses-with-the-cia-before-covid-began","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=13897","title":{"rendered":"Ralph Baric, the world’s top coronavirus researcher, discussed “human adaptation” of coronaviruses with the CIA before Covid began"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Does that mean the CIA caused Covid? Well, no. But it does mean Baric needs to answer publicly about his relationship with US intelligence agencies before and during Covid – and his silence since.<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Alex Berenson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years before<\/em> Sars-COV-2 emerged from China, Dr. Ralph Baric \u2014 a North Carolina virologist who worked closely with the Chinese lab that is the likely source of the virus \u2014 met with American spies to discuss the \u201chuman adaptation\u201d of coronaviruses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emails released<\/a> by Kentucky senator Rand Paul reveal the meetings, which again raise the question of whether American spies are protecting Baric and covering up their own possible role in risky Chinese lab work that likely caused Covid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Paul is pushing the agencies for more documents that may finally offer an answer \u2014 nearly six years after Covid began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2020, Baric has largely escaped scrutiny, despite his central role pushing for risky coronavirus research<\/a> and working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology \u2014 the most likely source of the virus. (I wrote about Baric and his relationship with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci<\/a> in a two-part series<\/a> last year.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric has never even had to testify under oath in public about his coronavirus work. The new emails may help explain why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are heavily redacted. Still, they make clear that Baric has had a long relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which was created after Sept. 11 to help supervise the CIA. (The emails were first reported<\/a> by Emily Kopp of the Daily Caller.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September 2015, an official at the ODNI emailed Baric to tell Baric that someone at the CIA hoped he could \u201cdraft a short paper outlining some of the items you discussed during the last quarterly meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That email offers no further specifics, but the CIA official then follows up by telling Baric \u201cthe topic concerns Coronavirus evolution and possible natural human adaptation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric responded to the CIA officer that he would \u201cbe glad to discuss this in more detail\u201d \u2014 as soon as he returned from a trip to China whose purpose he did not specify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Not quite a smoking gun, but locked and loaded for sure\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the time, Baric was working closely with Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology on research to make coronaviruses more dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 2015, the two scientists would publish a paper<\/a> on work they had done combining two coronaviruses to make a new one that aggressively attacked lung cells. In a press release<\/a> about the research, Baric called the new virus \u201chighly pathogenic\u201d \u2014 while implying that it was natural rather the work of his lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baric and Shi kept working closely following the 2015 paper, with Peter Daszak, a British zoologist who ran a National Institutes of Health-funded group called \u201cEcoHealth Alliance,\u201d frequently collaborating. And on Dec. 31, 2019, as the first reports of a mystery virus in Wuhan began to circulate among scientists, Baric emailed Daszak to ask what he\u2019d heard of the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Baric has publicly dodged making definitive statements on his view of Covid\u2019s origins, the emails that Paul released show that Baric worried from the first that a lab leak might have been responsible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In late January, he warned a secret American intelligence group of the risk of \u201caccidental release,\u201d noting that the Wuhan lab had worked on highly infectious coronaviruses in \u201cBSL2 [Biosafety Level 2] conditions\u201d \u2014 laboratories not designed to handle such transmissible viruses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yet Daszak, Baric\u2019s close collaborator, spent the spring of 2020 doing everything possible to derail any public discussion of a lab leak theory. In April 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci strongly publicly<\/a> denied the possibility as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Baric has stayed mostly out of sight. After giving an interview to an Italian television network in 2020<\/a> in which he explained it is possible to modify coronaviruses without leaving evidence, he did not (as far as I can determine) make any public statements until March 2025, when he wrote an opinion piece<\/a> in the New York Times calling for stricter standards for viral research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He would know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So just how close was Baric to the \u201cthree-letter agencies\u201d \u2014 the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation \u2014 as well as to Fauci and Ft. Detrick (the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, where the military conducts research on potential biological pathogens)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We still do not know. But Rand Paul is pushing Tulsi Gabbard and the ODNI to release whatever it has on Baric, the Wuhan lab, and its coronavirus research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deadline for ODNI to turn over documents is tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2024 ARTICLE ABOUT BARIC\u2019S LINKS TO TONY FAUCI AND HIS CORONAVIRUS RESEARCH IN TWO PARTS BELOW)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did Tony Fauci say under oath he barely knew top coronavirus scientist Ralph Baric – when in fact Fauci hosted a daylong 2013 meeting where Baric laid out his plans for risky research?<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Alex Berenson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 12, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Why<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(PART 1)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read full story<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten years ago, microbiologist Ralph Baric told Tony Fauci and the world he would make coronaviruses more lethal. Then – with Fauci’s backing – he did.<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Alex Berenson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 15, 2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does that mean the CIA caused Covid? Well, no. But it does mean Baric needs to answer publicly about his relationship with US intelligence agencies before and during Covid – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1300,445],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bioweapon","category-policies-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13897"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13901,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13897\/revisions\/13901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}