On the Origin of the Deadliest Pandemic in 100 Years - An Investigation

In this compelling whodunnit, Elaine Dewar reads the science, follows the money, and connects the geopolitical interests to the spin. When the first TV newscast described a SARS-like flu affecting a distant Chinese metropolis, investigative journalist Elaine Dewar started asking questions: Was SARS-CoV-2 something that came from nature, as leading scientists insisted, or did it come from a lab, and what role might controversial experiments have played in its development? Why was Wuhan the pandemic's ground zero―and why, on the other side of the Atlantic, had two researchers been marched out of a lab in Winnipeg by the RCMP? Why were governments so slow to respond to the emerging pandemic, and why, now, is the government of China refusing to cooperate with the World Health Organization? And who, or what, is DRASTIC? Locked down in Toronto with the world at a standstill, Dewar pored over newspapers and magazines, preprints and peer-reviewed journals, email chains and blacked-out responses to access to information requests; she conducted Zoom interviews and called telephone numbers until someone answered as she hunted down the truth of the virus’s origin. In this compelling whodunnit, she reads the science, follows the money, connects the geopolitical interests to the spin―and shows how leading science journals got it wrong, leaving it to interested citizens and junior scientists to pull out the truth. "In On the Origin of the Worst Pandemic in 100 Years: An Investigation, prize-winning author and journalist Elaine Dewar spins a compulsive whodunit. From the first television newscast describing a SARS-like flu affecting a distant Chinese metropolis, she began to ask key questions: Was SARS-CoV-2 something that came from nature, as leading scientists insisted? Or a lab? Why was Wuhan, the Chicago of China, the pandemic's ground zero? Why were governments so slow to respond? Who is Shi Zhengli, Wuhan's "Bat Woman"? What light did her experiments shed on the pandemic's origin? Who are Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng, and what is their connection to the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Why were they marched out of Winnipeg's National Microbiology Laboratory by the RCMP? What role did controversial gain-of-function experiments play in the development of SARS-CoV-2? Why is the government of China refusing to cooperate with the WHO as it tries to get to the bottom of things? Who, or what, is D.R.A.S.T.I.C.? Reading the science, following the money, connecting the geopolitical interests to the spin, Dewar shows you how leading science journals got it wrong leaving it to interested citizens and junior scientists to pull out the truth."-- Provided by publisher