US officials are quietly shutting down a taxpayer-funded $125million project to hunt for new viruses due to fears it could spark another pandemic. 

DEEP VZN – pronounced deep vision – was launched in October 2021 with the aim of finding and studying novel pathogens in wildlife in Asia, Africa and Latin America. 

While the research was meant to prevent human outbreaks and pandemics, critics, including Biden administration officials, are afraid it could do the opposite and have voiced their fears about the potentially ‘catastrophic risks’ of virus hunting.

And their concerns are amplified due to the growing suspicion Covid emerged from an American-sponsored lab in Wuhan, China – a theory the FBI subscribes to.

The project was meant to run until 2026, but DEEP VZN was shut down in July 2023 after a wide swath of experts stressed concerns over the safety of the research.

Announcement of the closure came Thursday in a feature published in The BMJ by investigative journalist David Williams. 

While this is the most recent to come to light, it is far from the first research the US has conducted on this matter. 

For more than a decade the government has funded international projects aimed at identifying exotic viruses among wildlife that could infect humans someday, sending millions to support various similar projects. 

Money has flown overseas from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

DEEP VZN, which stands for Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens – Viral Zoonoses, was launched by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in October 2021 and less than two years later, USAID officials informed members of Senate committees with jurisdiction over DEEP VZN the program was being shut down. 

The premature closure of the project came abruptly and was privately relayed to Senate aides by the office of Atul Gawande, USAID’s assistant administrator for global health.

The news was buried in a congressional budget document hundreds of pages long and was discussed during interviews Mr Williams conducted with federal lawmakers and researchers. 

At its launch, USAID said the ‘ambitious new project’ was meant to work with partner countries and the global community to ‘build better preparedness for future global health threats.’

The organization said the project would ‘strengthen global capacity to detect and understand the risks of viral spillover from wildlife to humans that could cause another pandemic.

‘The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how infectious diseases threaten all of society, up-ending people’s lives and attacking societies at their cores. 

‘It is also a strong reminder of the connection between animals, humans, and the environment, and the effect that an emerging pathogen spilling over into humans can have on people’s health and on global economies.’

The project was being carried out by scientists from the Washington State University Paul Allen School for Global Health among other research and partner entities. 

The goal was to collect more than 800,000 samples over the five-year period, mostly from wildlife, to identify a subset of ‘previously unknown’ viruses that ‘pose a significant pandemic threat.’

The university sought to detect 12,000 new viruses throughout the program’s run and scientists hoped the information would not only help prevent future pandemics, but also better prepare health officials if one did emerge. 

‘DEEP VZN is a critical next step in the evolution of USAID’s work to understand and address the risks posed by zoonotic diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans.’

However, in a statement regarding the closure of the program, USAID said it had determined the research was ‘not an agency global health security priority at this time’ and its decision reflected ‘the relative risks and impact of our programming.’

Now, the organization said it will focus on improving laboratory capacity, disease monitoring, human resources, biosafety and security and risk communication. 

Criticism of the program arose almost immediately after its launch from wide-ranging government figures and advisers, including health, biosafety and security officials, as well as Senators and White House officials.

In a private letter to a USAID administrator in November 2021, members and staff at both the Senate foreign relations committee and the Senate appropriations committee said they were ‘particularly concerned’ about DEEP VZN’s research into ‘studying unknown viruses in areas where there is high risk of animal to human spillover.’

They continued: ‘Given all of the outstanding questions surrounding the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is critically important that this initiative be adequately vetted.’

Additionally, a biosecurity, biosafety and White House official, advised the same USAID administrator to shut down DEEP VZN in December 2021, Mr Williams wrote. 

After a review of the project aimed to ensure it would be conducted in a way to adequately manage risks, USAID told researchers in March and November 2022 to not collect samples of viruses until proper safety protocols were reviewed. 

However, federal records show through the spring of 2023, USAID continued to fund research while the project leaders established more labs, technicians and support staff needed to handle the volume of genetic samples collected.

In interviews, White House officials told Mr Williams the decision to discontinue DEEP VZN reflected the Biden Administration’s ‘commitment to weigh more rigorously the risks and potential benefits of research projects.’

The officials referenced policy recommendations that only supported research like DEEP VZN’s if there was no other safer method that would produce the same benefits and only after ‘unnecessary risks have been eliminated.’ 

Virus hunting has been a point of contention long before the Covid pandemic and scientists have dismissed the notion it could lead to lifesaving drugs or the prevention of a pandemic. 

Now, in the wake of the pandemic, more people in the science community have raised additional concerns, warning the risks of collecting animal-to-animal transmitted viruses should be highly considered as this type of research typically involves collecting animal blood, excrement or saliva and transporting samples to labs for analysis. 

A misstep at any point in the process could produce a catastrophic outcome and result in a new pandemic. 

In May, three leaders of the Republican-controlled House Energy and Commerce Committee asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine the benefits and risks of virus hunting, expressing this very concern. 

The lawmakers said in a letter to GAO that while similar research has identified thousands of new viruses, scientists question if collecting animal viruses can ‘accurately predict those that may infect humans, or what the effect would be if and when humans are subsequently infected.’

They continued, according to The BMJ feature, warning that others in the community ‘have suggested these types of programs risk unintentional infection of field or laboratory workers that could result in an accidental outbreak.’

GAO began an audit into DEEP VZN following the letter, but told Mr Williams it would not be completed until spring 2024. 

Block stars Ryan and Rachel Carr tease mystery new TV project as they share behind-the-scenes images with camera crew at their home

By A. James For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 21:14 EDT, 2 August 2023 | Updated: 02:16 EDT, 3 August 2023

Aboriginal land law changes hit blue chips: Shake-up threatens £217bn Australian project

By James Salmon In Perth For The Daily Mail

Updated: 17:12 EDT, 28 June 2023

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A major cancer research project in memory of singer Sarah Harding will look for early signs of breast cancer in young women.

Harding, who was part of the pop group Girls Aloud, died from the disease aged 39 in 2021 and one of her final wishes was to find new ways of spotting breast cancer early when it is more treatable.

The new Breast Cancer Risk Assessment in Younger Women (Bcan-Ray) project will become one of the first in the world to identify which women are at risk of getting the disease in their 30s.

Around 2,300 women aged 39 and under are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK each year.

The project, which will run in Greater Manchester, is being made possible thanks to funding from the Christie Charity, Cancer Research UK and the Sarah Harding Breast Cancer Appeal, which is supported by Harding’s family, friends and Girls Aloud bandmates Cheryl Tweedy, Kimberley Walsh, Nadine Coyle and Nicola Roberts.

Speaking about the study before her death, Miss Harding said: ‘Research is incredibly important in the fight against cancer.

‘Although this research may not be in time to help me, this project is incredibly close to my heart as it may help women like me in the future.’

Miss Harding was treated at the Christie cancer hospital in Manchester.

Catherine Craven-Howe, 33, from Hale in south Manchester, is the first person to take part in the new trial.

She is studying medicine at Liverpool University while working as a healthcare assistant in an eating disorders unit.

Her first appointment included a low dose mammogram to assess her breast density and a saliva sample for genetic testing.

She said: ‘Although I don’t have breast cancer myself and I don’t have a history of it in my family, I know just how important clinical trials and research are.

‘I hope my participation will help devise a simple test to detect the likelihood of breast cancer for young women like me in the future.’

Eight to ten weeks after her appointment, Ms Craven-Howe will receive feedback about her risk of breast cancer.

Later, she will undertake a psychological impact questionnaire and receive a breast cancer risk statement at the end of the study, likely to be in 2025.

The project aims to examine the risk factors most commonly found in women diagnosed with breast cancer in their 30s with the hope of building a model to identify these women in the future.

Researchers hope their findings will enable all women to have a risk assessment for breast cancer when they reach the age of 30, with those deemed high risk given access to early screening and opportunities to prevent cancer developing.

The study will recruit 1,000 women aged between 30 and 39, including 250 with breast cancer but no family history of the disease.

The saliva samples will also help experts from the Christie and Cancer Research UK establish which types and patterns of genes are implicated in cancer with a view to developing personalised risk scores.

These can be combined with other breast cancer risk factors such as when a woman’s periods started, alcohol intake and use of the contraceptive pill.

The density of breast tissue may also play a part in the level of risk of getting the disease.

Miss Harding’s consultant, Dr Sacha Howell, who is leading the Bcan-Ray study, said: ‘Sarah spoke to me many times about breast cancer research and was really keen for more to be done to find out why young women are being diagnosed without any other family members having been affected by the disease.

‘There are too many young women in their 30s like Sarah tragically dying from breast cancer and we need to find out how we can more accurately identify those in whom it will develop.

‘Currently the only indicator we have is based on family history but this only helps predict one third of cases.

‘While there is research available in the over-40s, this will be the first study in young women.

‘With breast cancer still the leading cause of death in women under 50, we need to find ways to identify those most at risk and offer them breast screening to detect cancers earlier, when treatment is more likely to be successful.’

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘Even in the darkest days of her cancer journey, Sarah Harding was a fearless advocate for research.

‘She bravely faced up to the pain the cancer caused her, undergoing treatment whilst thinking of ways to help other women in a similar position.

‘Since Sarah’s death, it has been inspiring to see people coming together in her memory to support life-saving research.

‘The money raised in Sarah’s name will go a long way towards diagnosing breast cancer earlier in younger women.

‘The Bcan-Ray project will fulfil Sarah’s dying wish to help women like her. By harnessing the power of cutting-edge science, we can look forward to the day where all women can live free from the fear of breast cancer.’

It comes after the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, thanked her social media followers today for their ‘kindness and support’ following her own breast cancer diagnosis.

She is now urging all people to get checked and said her diagnosis was a ‘wake up call’ to get ‘super fit’. 

The duchess, nicknamed Fergie, said she is ‘hugely thankful’ to hospital staff involved in the mammogram which detected her breast cancer and believes her experience ‘underlines the importance of regular screening’.

Sarah, 63, and Prince Andrew’s ex-wife, was diagnosed with an early form of the disease after a routine screening, her spokesman said, which had presented no symptoms.

After undergoing surgery at the private King Edward VII hospital in Marylebone, central London, she has been told her prognosis is good and she is recuperating at Windsor with her family.

In a statement, a spokesman said Sarah wanted to ‘express her immense gratitude to all the medical staff who have supported her in recent days’.

After Sarah Ferguson’s shock cancer diagnosis… here’s how YOU can check your breasts for cancer and the key signs to look out for

Sarah, Duchess of York, has undergone an operation to treat breast cancer, it has been revealed.

The 63-year-old duchess was diagnosed after a routine mammogram and has since undergone surgery, which her spokesperson said was successful.

Breast cancer is one of the most common forms of the disease in the UK, with around 55,000 women and 370 men being diagnosed with it each year, according to Breast Cancer Now. 

While breast cancer is highly treatable, it is crucial to spot it as early as possible, as the longer it goes without treatment the higher the risk it can pose.

Despite years of pleas from cancer charities, more than a third of women in the UK still do not regularly assess their breasts.

With thousands across the country unsure of how to spot the key signs of the potentially deadly cancer, here MailOnline gives a guide on how to check your breasts and other symptoms to look out for.

How and what should you check? 

Checking your breasts could help find signs of breast cancer early. This means you have a better chance of beating the disease, experts say.

It should be part of your monthly routine so you notice any unusual changes, charity CoppaFeel says.

But according to a YouGov survey commissioned by Breast Cancer Now, 39 per cent of women don’t bother.

More than half who do not check their breasts simply forget to, while 16 per cent do not know how to check. 

Dr Sarah Kayat, who, with the help of a topless cancer survivor, showed viewers on ITV’s This Morning how to perform a breast exam, said at-home breast exams save 1,300 lives in the UK each year.

You can check in the shower, when you are lying down in bed or in the mirror before you get dressed.  

Because breast tissue isn’t just found in your boobs, it’s also important that men and women check the tissue all the way up to their collarbone and underneath their armpit. 

There is no right or wrong way to check your breasts, as long as you know how your breasts usually look and feel, says the NHS.

But one of the most popular methods online involves using the pads of your fingers.  

Simply, rub and feel from top to bottom, feel in semi-circles and in a circular motion around your breast tissue to feel for any abnormalities, according to a guide shared in a blog post by the University of Nottingham. 

If you spot any changes you should get it checked out by your GP.  

Women aged between 50 and 70 should also be attending routine breast cancer screening. 

Check for… 

A lump or swelling

Using your fingers feel for lumps or swellings in the breast, upper armpit and chest.

A lump or an area of thickened breast tissue that doesn’t move easily is one of the first noticeable symptoms of breast cancer, says the NHS.

And according to the American Cancer Society, it’s the most common symptom. It says the lumps are often hard and painless.

But when feeling for unusual lumps and bumps it is important to know what is normal for you, experts say.

The NHS advises women get used to how their breasts feel at different times of the month. This is because some women have tender and lumpy breasts, near the armpit, around the time of their period.

The feel of your breasts can also change after the menopause as normal breasts can feel softer less firm and not as lumpy.

As well as checking for lumps, visible changes to the shape and size of the breast is also important.

Changes to the skin

Another common sign of breast cancer is a change the skin.

This can usually just be seen in the mirror and includes puckering or dimpling of the skin.

The dimpling skin is often compared to orange peel and can be associated with inflammatory breast cancer, which is a rare but aggressive form of cancer. 

A change in colour is also a warning sign to get checked out, says Breast Cancer Now.

If you notice your breast looks red or inflamed, it could be a sign of cancer.

Pain is only a symptom of breast cancer in rare cases, the NHS says. But if you feel pain or discomfort in one breast that doesn’t go away you should see your GP.

A nipple change

It’s important to not just check your breast tissue for abnormalities, but also your nipples, experts say.

Look for rashes or crusting around the nipple.

The NHS says this could look like eczema, crusting of the skin, scaly, itchy or red skin.

You should also check the position of your nipple, the NHS advises.

If it is being pulled in or starting to point in a different way to usual, it could be a sign of breast cancer.

Another warning sign to get checked out by your GP is discharge from either nipple.

Discharge is more common in ductal carcinoma in situ, which is an early form of breast cancer that starts in the milk ducts. 

Cancer Research says the discharge can also be blood stained.

Mark Zuckerberg could launch his own rival platform to Twitter in the coming months, all part of his masterplan to capitalize off the chaos and user dissatisfaction under Elon Musk’s leadership.

Coding began at Facebook’s parent company Meta this past January on the new social app, codenamed Project 92, as Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox told a companywide meeting earlier this month. 

And big name celebrities are already in talks to commit their posts to the platform, including broadcasting legend Oprah Winfrey and Tibetan religious leader the Dalai Lama — a curious choice, coming in the wake of the Buddhist icon’s bizarre ‘suck my tongue’ incident this past spring. 

‘We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run,’ Cox told Meta employees, lobbing a thinly veiled criticism at Musk’s Twitter operations. 

The dig elicited cheers from Meta’s assembled staff, according to The Verge. 

The rich, the famous and the influential, Cox said, are desperate for a new platform ‘that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution.’ 

Reports suggest that the new app’s public-facing name could become ‘Threads’ and that it will feature a continuous scroll of text, just like Twitter, along with buttons akin to both the Like and Retweet functions. 

Threads will also hew closer to Twitter’s original 180-character limit, offering a slightly longer, but still short 500-character limit per post. As one social media industry inside put it, Threads will look ‘remarkably similar to Twitter.’

Many ordinary Twitter users, as well as the platform’s large community of scientific experts, academics and even former NASA astronauts, have also sought out alternatives in recent months.

Mastodon — a free, decentralized and open-source microblogging platform — has increasingly become a haven for scientists hoping for more level-headed conversations between themselves.

‘I have been much more active there than I have been on Twitter,’ astronomer Mark McCaughrean of the European Space Agency told Science late last year, following his own move to Mastodon. 

Many have described the platform as a more democratic alternative than Twitter, because Mastodon’s decentralized structure means that no single person, company or sever has full control of its operations.

Last November, Mastodon reported over 70,000 new sign-ups on a single Friday, in direct response to Musk’s finalized $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.

‘If it becomes too toxic and abusive,’ Emory University virologist Boghuma Titanji also told Science amid Twitter’s raucous transition, ‘I will leave to preserve my well-being and consider other platforms.’

Former NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez vowed to jump from the platform as well, amid Musk’s plans to convert ‘blue check’ verification into a pay-to-play scheme, although Hernandez nevertheless remains an active tweeter to date. 

But Musk has also received praise by those, like Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Republican Senator John Kennedy on Capitol Hill, who see the billionaire as a champion of free speech for reinvigorating First Amendment rights on the platform.

Musk, Senator Kennedy said last December, had taken a ‘very courageous stand on the First Amendment’ since acquiring Twitter. ‘He’s tough as a pine knot.’

‘Project 92,’ which Cox explicitly described as ‘our response to Twitter,’ will integrate with Instagram’s current account system, allowing Instagram users to automatically transfer their followers and user information straight to the new microblogging site.

It will also integrate with Mastodon, and other decentralized platforms that use the same ActivityPub API system as Mastodon, Cox said. 

The design of the app, according to social media consultant Matt Navarra, ‘looks remarkably similar to Twitter,’ or really old Twitter, as Musk’s version continues to experiment with everything from longer posts, to newsletters, to exclusive live broadcasts. 

Navarra, who claimed internal knowledge of Meta’s plans, told the Sydney Morning Herald that Meta’s Twitter-killer could launch as soon as ‘the end of the month or beginning of next month.’

‘They have been onboarding people for a little while,’ Navarra said. ‘I know for a fact they’ve been talking to a British celebrity, and some US big name stars.’

That said, the only name disclosed by Meta’s chief product officer Cox as a lock for their new platform was the Minneapolis, Minnesota-native music producer DJ Slime, who Cox boasted had committed to using the app. 

Cox told company employees that Meta’s goal for ‘Project 92’ was to make an app that emphasized ‘safety, ease of use, reliability’ to ensure that creators had a ‘stable place to build and grow their audiences.’  

Meta, Cox said, will be making the app public ‘as soon as we can.’

Channing Tatum wears a jumpsuit as he works on an art project with kids in Brooklyn while promoting his book The One And Only Sparkella And The Big Lie

By Amy Lamare For Dailymail.Com

Published: 14:16 EDT, 1 June 2023 | Updated: 14:27 EDT, 1 June 2023