Press release: Letter sent by Senator Johnson to Department of Defense (DOD) Secretary Lloyd Austin and Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu.
"On January 10, 2022, Project Veritas published an August 2021 disclosure from U.S. Marine Corps Major Joseph Murphy concerning the origins of COVID-19. According to the document, Major Murphy sent the disclosure to the Department of Defense (DoD) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for investigation. It is my understanding that the disclosure was subsequently referred by the DoD OIG to the DoD’s Research and Engineering office for further investigation.
According to the Major’s disclosure, EcoHealth Alliance (EcoHealth), in conjunction with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), submitted a proposal in March 2018 to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) regarding SARS-CoVs. The proposal included a program, called DEFUSE, that sought to use a novel chimeric SARS-CoV spike protein to inoculate bats against SARS-CoVs. Although DARPA rejected the proposal, the disclosure alleges that EcoHealth ultimately carried out the DEFUSE proposal until April 2020 through the National Institutes of Health and National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The disclosure highlights several potential treatments, such as ivermectin, and specifically alleges that the EcoHealth DEFUSE proposal identified chloroquine phosphate (Hydroxychloriquine) and interferon as SARS-CoV inhibitors."