5 ms·

Is this as big a gotcha as people think it is? The article which he quoted in length in 2019 [0] hasn't been modified and did mention both SARS and Coronavirus

by lhnz 6y ago

Is this as big a gotcha as people think it is? The article which he quoted in length in 2019 [0] hasn't been modified and did mention both SARS and Coronavirus. He's just amending the quote he took from it. Obviously the first time he quoted it, he didn't think it was relevant to show the example, so contracted it by hand to "[An example]" [1]. In 2020, he realises that specifically mentioning SARS and Coronavirus in a blog post about the dangers of biolabs causing a global pandemic will either seem relevant or look prescient so he adds it back into the quote [2]. This implies that in 2019, he had read the article and was aware of threats like coronavirus/SARS, but didn't think it was the important aspect of what he was discussing. So his crime here is a bit like rewriting your CV for a new job -- not lying about what you know or have done, but using different words that emphasize new aspects to the new audience. [0] https://thebulletin.org/2019/02/human-error-in-high-biocontainment-labs-a-likely-pandemic-threat https://thebulletin.org/2019/02/human-error-in-high-bioconta... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccu... [2] https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-l...

ArgyleSound 6y ago
> In 2020, he realises that specifically mentioning SARS and Coronavirus in a blog post about pandemics will seem relevant or look prescient so he adds it back into the quote And that’s the problem isn’t it? He claims that he talked about the risks of Coronaviruses before the pandemic, and yet the only evidence is an article about biolab security (frankly not particularly relevant unless he’s insinuating that’s the origin of this virus too) amended well after the current pandemic began.
- lhnz 6y ago
  An untouched quote from his article: > Experiments on viruses that could cause a > global pandemic killing many millions were > halted but were recently cleared to resume > and will be conducted in these ‘top > security’ labs. He was talking about pandemics and quoting an article which does mention SARS and coronavirus. This is a tiny gotcha "oh but you didn't technically use the word SARS or coronavirus yourself when quoting the article the first time so it doesn't count".
  - pmachinery 6y ago
    So when he quoted a report on pandemic threats and specifically left out the parts about coronavirus that shows he was talking about coronavirus?
    - thu2111 6y ago
      It's pretty close. I mean, he wasn't talking about specifically coronaviruses, because that's not the only kind of virus that could escape from a biolab. But he contracted discussion of SARS and coronaviruses to "[An example]". Editing old blog posts is probably not the right way to do this. But bear in mind the whole biolab escape theory is entirely plausible. Such things have happened before. The 2007 foot and mouth epidemic in the UK was traced back to an escape from a lab at Pirbright. There were at least two outbreaks of Marburg Virus (ebola) in the USSR due to lab escapes. I don't really understand the certainty many people here seem to have, about how it couldn't possibly have come from the Wuhan lab. How could you know that? Such escapes have happened repeatedly, that was sort of the point of Cummings' blog post.
      - DanBC 6y ago
        So, the problem is being poorly reported. At his press conference Cummings said that he was definitely not in favour of herd immunity, and was not against lockdown. And he said that he could prove this because of his writing about coronavirus. To me the problem isn't that he edited the blog to include the word coronavirus (because I agree, it's pretty clear he was talking about coronaviruses and flu viruses). The problem is that his blog post says nothing about lockdown or herd immunity. It's a moderately interesting idea about increasing security at biolabs. So his blog doesn't support his claims.
- jondubois 6y ago
  The fact that he added the word 'coronavirus' does not change the fact that SARS (which he in fact did mention before) was a coronavirus. He just added the word 'coronavirus' next to SARS in an existing sentence to emphasize that SARS is a coronavirus. He updated his article but didn't really change its meaning. It's not that big a deal IMO. No need to lynch the guy over this.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    Even if all he did was correct a typo, he hid it, that's dishonest
  - pmachinery 6y ago
    > He just added the word 'coronavirus' next to SARS in an existing sentence to emphasize that SARS is a coronavirus. That isn't what happened. He copied a wall of text about Holland, the US, the UK, the CDC, influenza, H5N1, bird flu, Ebola and specifically snipped out the part about SARS/coronavirus and China. (The text he edited in just last month, in bold.) He basically did the opposite of what he lied about doing. https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccu...
chimprich 6y ago
I think this is a big "gotcha". I'm not sure from your post if you've noticed that he yesterday held a press conference with the national UK media in which he cited the fact that he predicted the threat from coronaviruses a year previously.
- lhnz 6y ago
  He was talking about pandemics and quoting an article which does mention SARS and coronavirus. This is a tiny gotcha "oh but you didn't technically use the word SARS or coronavirus yourself when quoting the article the first time so it doesn't count".
  - azernik 6y ago
    He was specifically talking about biolab incidents, which are not how this pandemic started. Using the word "coronavirus" is the only plausible connection to the current crisis, and he fabricated it after the fact for political ends.
    - lhnz 6y ago
      We do know that they were studying coronavirus in Wuhan so it is possible that somebody could have been exposed to it in Wuhan's biolab. And, my understanding is that it hasn't been ruled out. I also disagree that people that had read his blog and that article in particular didn't see them as connected. I had read that article earlier in the year, and I remember being surprised that the UK lockdown hadn't happened earlier since in 2019 he appeared to understand the dangers.
      - azernik 6y ago
        We have quite a lot of evidence for: * recent zoonotic origin (closely related to bat coronavirus samples, with likely pangolin recombination - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0092_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0092_article) * initial spread at an open-air market Whereas our evidence for spread from Wuhan is mostly wild speculation about research on the same very broad family of viruses.
DanBC 6y ago
He's using his rambling blogpost to suggest that he has always supported lockdowns, has never suppoorted herd immunity, and has been aware of the risk of pandemic for some time. The blog does mention the serious risk of pandemic, but it doesn't mention the other stuff. And it's not talking about public health measures to reduce the impact of pandemic, but using the idea of tiger teams to test biolab security. He lied about the content of the blog.

by lhnz 6y ago

ArgyleSound 6y ago

> In 2020, he realises that specifically mentioning SARS and Coronavirus in a blog post about pandemics will seem relevant or look prescient so he adds it back into the quote And that’s the problem isn’t it? He claims that he talked about the risks of Coronaviruses before the pandemic, and yet the only evidence is an article about biolab security (frankly not particularly relevant unless he’s insinuating that’s the origin of this virus too) amended well after the current pandemic began.

lhnz 6y ago
An untouched quote from his article: > Experiments on viruses that could cause a > global pandemic killing many millions were > halted but were recently cleared to resume > and will be conducted in these ‘top > security’ labs. He was talking about pandemics and quoting an article which does mention SARS and coronavirus. This is a tiny gotcha "oh but you didn't technically use the word SARS or coronavirus yourself when quoting the article the first time so it doesn't count".
- pmachinery 6y ago
  So when he quoted a report on pandemic threats and specifically left out the parts about coronavirus that shows he was talking about coronavirus?
  - thu2111 6y ago
    It's pretty close. I mean, he wasn't talking about specifically coronaviruses, because that's not the only kind of virus that could escape from a biolab. But he contracted discussion of SARS and coronaviruses to "[An example]". Editing old blog posts is probably not the right way to do this. But bear in mind the whole biolab escape theory is entirely plausible. Such things have happened before. The 2007 foot and mouth epidemic in the UK was traced back to an escape from a lab at Pirbright. There were at least two outbreaks of Marburg Virus (ebola) in the USSR due to lab escapes. I don't really understand the certainty many people here seem to have, about how it couldn't possibly have come from the Wuhan lab. How could you know that? Such escapes have happened repeatedly, that was sort of the point of Cummings' blog post.
    - DanBC 6y ago
      So, the problem is being poorly reported. At his press conference Cummings said that he was definitely not in favour of herd immunity, and was not against lockdown. And he said that he could prove this because of his writing about coronavirus. To me the problem isn't that he edited the blog to include the word coronavirus (because I agree, it's pretty clear he was talking about coronaviruses and flu viruses). The problem is that his blog post says nothing about lockdown or herd immunity. It's a moderately interesting idea about increasing security at biolabs. So his blog doesn't support his claims.
jondubois 6y ago
The fact that he added the word 'coronavirus' does not change the fact that SARS (which he in fact did mention before) was a coronavirus. He just added the word 'coronavirus' next to SARS in an existing sentence to emphasize that SARS is a coronavirus. He updated his article but didn't really change its meaning. It's not that big a deal IMO. No need to lynch the guy over this.
- iso1631 6y ago
  Even if all he did was correct a typo, he hid it, that's dishonest
- pmachinery 6y ago
  > He just added the word 'coronavirus' next to SARS in an existing sentence to emphasize that SARS is a coronavirus. That isn't what happened. He copied a wall of text about Holland, the US, the UK, the CDC, influenza, H5N1, bird flu, Ebola and specifically snipped out the part about SARS/coronavirus and China. (The text he edited in just last month, in bold.) He basically did the opposite of what he lied about doing. https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccu...

chimprich 6y ago

I think this is a big "gotcha". I'm not sure from your post if you've noticed that he yesterday held a press conference with the national UK media in which he cited the fact that he predicted the threat from coronaviruses a year previously.

lhnz 6y ago
He was talking about pandemics and quoting an article which does mention SARS and coronavirus. This is a tiny gotcha "oh but you didn't technically use the word SARS or coronavirus yourself when quoting the article the first time so it doesn't count".
- azernik 6y ago
  He was specifically talking about biolab incidents, which are not how this pandemic started. Using the word "coronavirus" is the only plausible connection to the current crisis, and he fabricated it after the fact for political ends.
  - lhnz 6y ago
    We do know that they were studying coronavirus in Wuhan so it is possible that somebody could have been exposed to it in Wuhan's biolab. And, my understanding is that it hasn't been ruled out. I also disagree that people that had read his blog and that article in particular didn't see them as connected. I had read that article earlier in the year, and I remember being surprised that the UK lockdown hadn't happened earlier since in 2019 he appeared to understand the dangers.
    - azernik 6y ago
      We have quite a lot of evidence for: * recent zoonotic origin (closely related to bat coronavirus samples, with likely pangolin recombination - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0092_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0092_article) * initial spread at an open-air market Whereas our evidence for spread from Wuhan is mostly wild speculation about research on the same very broad family of viruses.

DanBC 6y ago

He's using his rambling blogpost to suggest that he has always supported lockdowns, has never suppoorted herd immunity, and has been aware of the risk of pandemic for some time. The blog does mention the serious risk of pandemic, but it doesn't mention the other stuff. And it's not talking about public health measures to reduce the impact of pandemic, but using the idea of tiger teams to test biolab security. He lied about the content of the blog.