NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[longfellow95]

Fauci started funding the Wuhan lab after the NIH placed a moratorium on studies of these 'gain of function' pathogens in the US, back in 2014.

From a ScienceMag report dated Dec 19th 2017:-

Concerns over so-called “gain-of-function” (GOF) studies that make pathogens more potent or likely to spread in people erupted in 2011, when Kawaoka’s team and Ron Fouchier’s lab at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, announced that they had modified the H5N1 bird flu virus to enable it to spread between ferrets. Such studies could help experts prepare for pandemics, but pose risks if the souped-up pathogen escapes the lab. After a long discussion, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) decided the two studies should be published and federal officials issued new oversight rules for certain H5N1 studies.

But U.S. officials grew uneasy after the publication of new GOF papers and several accidents in U.S. biocontainment labs. In October 2014, they announced an unprecedented “pause” on funding for 21 GOF studies of influenza, MERS, and severe acute respiratory syndrome viruses. (At the time, NIH said there were 18 paused studies.) NIH eventually exempted some studies found to pose relatively little risk. But eight influenza studies and three MERS projects remained on hold.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/nih-lifts-3-year-ban-funding-risky-virus-studies

My highlighting.

What the hell legitimate reason is there to do studies of gain of function in 'severe acute respiratory syndrome viruses'?

It is very likely this was lab-engineered, imo.

If there is a conspiracy, it's the one that promotes the idea that the virus jumped from bats to pangolins to humans at the Wuhan fish market.