Carolina Flu.
And Duke, too?

THE DOCUMENTED CONNECTION

Two research teams in the same proposed project.

The 2018 DEFUSE proposal named researchers from both UNC and Duke-NUS Medical School as collaborators, assigning them distinct roles in the proposed research. Ralph Baric’s UNC team and Linfa Wang’s Duke-NUS team were part of the same proposed project.

Duke-NUS is based in Singapore and was established through a partnership between Duke University and the National University of Singapore. That relationship matters when identifying which institutions conducted research, exercised oversight, or hold relevant records.

What could the records tell us?

Research plans, grant applications, correspondence, collaboration agreements and material-transfer records could help establish what was proposed, what was carried out, and whether related work continued through other funding sources.

The rejected DEFUSE proposal does not establish that its experiments were performed. It does identify specific research plans and collaborators whose records could help test competing explanations.

RECORDS THAT COULD TEST THE HYPOTHESIS

Danielle Anderson’s work and travel

Danielle Anderson’s research visits to the Wuhan Institute of Virology are particularly relevant to testing Jim Haslam’s hypothesis. In a 2021 interview, Bloomberg described her as the last and only foreign scientist to have conducted research in the institute’s BSL-4 laboratory, reporting that her most recent stint ended in November 2019.

Travel itineraries, visit dates, correspondence, project assignments and records documenting the purpose and funding of her laboratory work could clarify what she was doing, whom she worked with, and whether any activities were connected to the research Haslam identifies.

Related records concerning Linfa Wang could establish when their visits overlapped, whether they travelled together, and how their work was coordinated. Duke-NUS separately documents Wang’s visit to Wuhan from January 14 to 18, 2020; the sources linked here do not establish a shared return journey.

These documents could directly test important parts of Haslam’s hypothesis, including its proposed chronology and research connections. They could support those connections, reveal a different sequence of events, or rule them out.

Duke can help provide answers.

We encourage Duke to identify and release relevant documents it holds and support disclosure through its Duke-NUS partnership. Greater transparency could help resolve unanswered questions about COVID-19’s origins and allow Jim Haslam’s hypothesis to be tested, confirmed, revised or refuted against the evidence.