There's only so much of my time I'm willing to waste, so I don't want to read the book.
But out of curiosity I thought I'd take a look through the reviews.
Found this on goodreads:
But out of curiosity I thought I'd take a look through the reviews.
Found this on goodreads:
Fred Peachman
25 reviews
1 follower
Written October 2022.
There were 22 chapters. The first 8 provided background on the author's life prior to his time with EHA (Eco Health Alliance). He felt they were necessary to explain what happened while he worked for EHA. They provided background information about his professional development.
In most chapters there was some distinct rambling going on. The book in summary:
On October 17, 2014, President Barack Obama’s Administration declared a moratorium on gain of function research. At about the same time, EHA submitted a research proposal to NIH (National Institutes of Health) titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence”. The proposal was submitted to get funding for gain-of-function research but the wording of the proposal obfuscated this fact. It was authored by Peter Daszak, President of EHA. The book's discussion of the proposal in Chapter 9 is important and must be read closely. Chapter 13, about the PREDICT program covers the introduction of Dr. Shi Zhengli to Dr. Ralph Baric by Peter Daszak. Baric is described as the "godfather of gain of function research" and Zenghli is from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Baric taught Zhengli how to genetically engineer bat viruses using funding from the PREDICT program. Daszak pitched them both on the need to conduct gain of function studies on bat coronaviruses so that a vaccine could be created for whatever pathogenic virus resulted from the studies.
Readability:
The prose didn't always flow well. Many sentences were tortured to the point of discomfort while reading them. I have the feeling that the manuscript was never proofread for grammar, syntax, readability etc. This issue was compounded by an overabundance of acronyms, many of them ridiculous. E.g. "DRASTIC" for "Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19". Really! I guess when you read any account of events closely tied to government you must expect this. As an example of how perplexing the acronym situation got in this book, consider this sentence from page 225: "After reviewing the NIH policy of how GoF and DURC recombinant DNA regulation is supposed to properly function, this begs the question: Was EHA’s GoF DURC work ever reviewed by the RAC?". You better stay fully immersed (don't read a piece of it and come back later) or you will not keep up. The book could at least have provided an index of acronyms.
Huff has expressed much concern for biosafety and biosecurity throughout the book, and described the lack of it in gain of function research.
He makes clear that for most of his professional life he was surrounded by scoundrels, miscreants, and ne're-do-wells. Because of his intelligence and diligent work ethic he was able to accomplish important things in spite of them. It is his opinions of these people (particularly Peter Daszak) that helped shape his opinions of what happened regarding covid. He left EHA in 2016 but has closely documented events and issues that happened since then.
Other notes:
Chapter 16: COVID Timeline starts in 1987! This chapter reiterates and summarizes the material in chapters 9 thru 15. If you got lost in the acronym stew, this chapter will bring it back together for you.
Chapter 20: describes U.S. government tactics to intimidate him, which led to his decision to become a whistle-blower. A very interesting account.
So: is this book the Truth About Wuhan? I'm inclined to believe so.