NC Court Upholds Decision to Deny Access to COVID-19 Origins
- by Carolyn Hendler, JD
- Published
- Cultural Values
The North Carolina Court of Appeals has sided with the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill allowing the university to withhold thousands of pages of genetic engineering research pertaining to the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The three-judge panel upheld the lower court’s decision to deny the public health interest group, U.S. Right to Know access to documents related to the work of UNC epidemiologist Ralph Baric, PhD and his association with a biohazard lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is thought by many to have been the source of the mutated coronavirus associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.1 2
Since July 2020, U.S. Right to Know, a non-profit newsroom and public health research group established in 2015 to investigate and report on corporate wrongdoing and government failures that threaten public health, the environment or food system, has filed eight public health requests for data and public records from 2009 to 2021 relating to the origins of COVID. While the UNC provided more than 130,000 pages relating to these requests, they have refused to release 5,200 documents by claiming a state law exemption.3
Plaintiffs Argue UNC Violated the Public Records Act
Plaintiffs brought a lawsuit arguing that by refusing to release the remaining documents, UNC was in violation of the Public Records Act, N.C. Gen. State. § 132-1 (2023). The trial court, relying on the report of a referee as the decision-maker, granted summary judgment, in part, to both parties.
A summary judgment motion is brought when one party alleges that a trial is not necessary as the other side has no valid claims or defenses for the judge or jury to consider. The moving party argues that they are entitled to a judgment as a matter of law due to there being “no genuine issues as to any material fact.”4
In siding with the university, the lower court interpreted the phrase “of a proprietary nature” broadly to include records that are copywritten by the owner.5
Court Decision Hinges on “Proprietary Nature” Language
Plaintiffs appealed to the Appellate Court seeking interpretation of section 132-1 of Public Records Act. Plaintiffs argue that the wording, “of a proprietary nature” in section 116-43.17 pertains to the word, “information” only and not “data” or “records,” and that the trial court misinterpreted the term, “of a proprietary nature” “to include information in which the owner has a protectable interest.” The Appellate Court denied this argument.6
The Appellate Court explained that the Public Records Act should be interpreted liberally with exceptions narrowly construed, however, the documents requested by plaintiff fall under an exemption. The exemption states:
research data, records, or information of a proprietary nature, produced or collected by or for state institutions of higher learning in the conduct of commercial, scientific, or technical research where data, records, or information has not been patented, published or copyrighted are not public records as defined by G.S. 132-1.7
The Appellate Court interpreted this language taking into consideration the plain meaning of the words, legislative intent as well as looking at case law. Using the “doctrine of the last antecedent,” the court concluded that the qualifying phrase only applied to the words immediately preceding them. Accordingly, “data” and “records” were distinct protected categories from “information of a proprietary nature” which was modified by the words that followed that term.8
Using the Blacklaw definition, the Appellate court also denied plaintiff’s argument that the trial court misinterpreted the meaning of “proprietary nature” “to include information in which the owner has a protected interest” and should be instead called a trade secret.9
Plaintiff’s Highlight the Importance of the Public’s Right to Know
The brief filed by the U.S. Right to Know emphasized the importance of releasing the documents at issue because the SARS-CoV-2 virus associated with the COVID pandemic has caused a significant number of deaths in America and Dr. Baric’s research has been heavily funded by the federal government:
The subject matter of this case is of great public interest, since more than one million American lives have been lost because of COVID-19,” the plaintiff’s lawyers wrote. “This case is also of significant public interest in that the National Institutes of Health reports … that Dr. Baric has been awarded grants or other funding for projects and sub-projects in an amount exceeding $200 million since 1986.10
Former CDC Director Alleges SARS-CoV-2 Origins Can Be Traced to UNC- Chapel Hill
Former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Robert Redfield, MD asserted that the COVID pandemic began as a result of gain of function virus research that had been conducted at a laboratory at UNC. Redfield alleges that the lab at UNC played a prominent role in the creation of SARS-CoV-2 which is, in effect, a bioweapon.
Redfield said that the mutated coronavirus was, “intentionally engineered as a part of a biodefense program.” He pointed to Dr. Baric who has researched coronavirus for 30 years, as the “scientific mastermind behind the research.”11
U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky set forth:
For years, Dr. Ralph Baric, a virologist in the U.S., has been collaborating with Dr. Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virology Institute, sharing his discoveries about how to create super-viruses,” Paul said. “This gain-of-function research has been funded by the NIH [National Institutes of Health]. The implication was clear: intentionally or unwittingly, Baric was complicit in the creation of SARS-CoV-2, notwithstanding the total lack of evidence.12
Recently, President Trump issued an executive order preventing federal funds from being used for gain-of-function research in countries, such as Iran and China, that support foreign scientific genetic engineering research projects that could cause another pandemic.13
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