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This article is written by a journalist who is clearly knowledgeable about safety practices and mistakes in US labs, but does not consider the extensive knowled

by tbenst 6y ago

This article is written by a journalist who is clearly knowledgeable about safety practices and mistakes in US labs, but does not consider the extensive knowledge we have about the sequence of SARS-COV2. The preponderance of evidence supports a natural origin of the virus. This is no way exonerates the Wuhan government from possible culpability—indeed government officials did deliberately suppress information—but this investigative opinion doesn’t pass scientific muster. Misinformation. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

garmaine 6y ago
I think you are confusing “lab leak” with “lab manufactured.”
- karmasimida 6y ago
  Why would it be more feasible this virus is leaked from the lab other than some wild animals from the market itself? Either can be equally believable yet impossible to prove.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    There are cases in Wuhan which predate the wet market cluster. That appears to have been a super spreading event but not the origin. The bats this disease come from we’re not being sold in the market at this time. They’re out of season. So already the theory is assuming a multi-animal hop (some other wild animal got in contact with a bat and got infected, then captured and moved a thousand kilometers to the wet market and killed). Meanwhile the bio lab in Wuhan received a sample of infectious coronavirus just months prior to the earliest known case. Within a few weeks of the outbreak while China was still downplaying the disease, the central government passed a rushed emergency safety rules update for these labs, starts pushing back on requests for access, and using state media to throw out a bunch of crazy theories about external origin. Anyone with half a brain can connect the dots.
    - soperj 6y ago
      If it was within a few weeks of the outbreak, then it wasn't likely the cause. As seen in other countries, the # of cases takes a while to ramp up, and it wouldn't go from a release to a couple thousand deaths in such a short time span.
      - garmaine 6y ago
        It was half a year earlier iirc.
    - 8note 6y ago
      The open question is: are there cases even before those, and outside Wuhan?
      - coder4life 6y ago
        We already knew by summer there were cases going back to October 19 in Italy, from saved sewage samples Recently (3 days ago) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210318185328.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210318185328.h...
        tripletao 6y ago
        Note that when the WHO team asked for similar wastewater samples from China, they were told the samples had been discarded: > They had sought wastewater samples from central China to check if the virus could be detected in sewage from late 2019, but were told those had been discarded, per standard policy, after a month, said Dr. Koopmans. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-refuses-to-give-who-raw-data-on-early-covid-19-cases-11613150580 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-refuses-to-give-who-raw-d... So while it's very likely that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in Italy back in October, it's entirely possible (and likely, I believe) that it was circulating yet earlier in Wuhan; but the evidence to confirm or refute was destroyed.
        tripletao 6y ago
- tbenst 6y ago
  On the contrary. A leak implies that something was contained. Notwithstanding the complete lack of evidence for a leak—and one could waste a lifetime trying to disprove claims that have no evidence-if of natural origin, the virus was already infecting animals and/or people.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    The lab had samples of a disease that is remarkably close to COVID-19: https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/covid-19-first-appeared-in-chinese-miners-in-2012-scientists/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/covid-19-first-appeared-in-chi...
    - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
      No, they didn't. The ancestors of RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 diverged decades ago. RaTG13 is not the progenitor of SARS-CoV-2.
      - garmaine 6y ago
        You have no way of knowing that it diverged decades ago. That's a guess based on the number of mutations. But as we've seen with COVID-19, these viruses have more of a punctuated equilibrium behavior around mutations. "Decades" worth of mutations can happen in a single immune-compromised host in a matter of weeks. (And fwiw I'd love a source for that "decades" claim. The strains are much more closely related than that.) RaTG13 is the closest virus found in the wild to SARS-CoV-2. Samples of it were shipped to the Wuhan lab, which does so-called "gain of function research"--AKA experimenting with artificially sped up mutation rates. Not very long thereafter, SARS-CoV-2 shows up in the surrounding metropolitan area with a very, very similar genome. They're the nearest siblings on the phylogenetic tree. It's only politics which keep people from calling this the smoking gun it really is.
        DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
        It's much more than just a "guess." Calling it a "guess" is trivializing quite well established evolutionary biology. > "Decades" worth of mutations can happen in a single immune-compromised host in a matter of weeks. SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating for a year now. The number of mutations it has undergone is a tiny fraction of the number of mutations separating RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2. > fwiw I'd love a source for that "decades" claim. A paper in Nature Microbiology estimates the most recent common ancestor of RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 to be in the 1960s. The latest possible time of divergence is 2000.[1] > RaTG13 is the closest virus found in the wild to SARS-CoV-2. Samples of it were shipped to the Wuhan lab, which does so-called "gain of function research"--AKA experimenting with artificially sped up mutation rates. First of all, gain-of-function does not mean "artificially sped-up mutation rates." It normally refers to specific, targeted changes to the genome, done in order to test a particular hypothesis. What you're describing is a type of experiment never done before: passaging a virus thousands of times in order to generate a massively different virus. This would be an massively time- and labor-intensive experiment, with no apparent motivation. Second of all, RaTG13 has never been isolated. It exists as fragments of RNA in a fecal swab. Its genome has been reconstructed from sequences of RNA samples, but actually extracting a replicating virus from a fecal swab is a major undertaking. To date, the WIV has only isolated three SARS-related coronaviruses, all of them much closer to the original SARS than to SARS-CoV-2. Before 2020, nobody cared much about viruses that are 20% different from the original SARS. If you read papers from the WIV before 2020, they're all about viruses like WIV-1, which is closely related to the original SARS. 1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4
SpaceRaccoon 6y ago
You are indeed misunderstanding the point. Smallpox is also naturally originating virus. That doesn't prohibit it from leaking from a lab.
- tbenst 6y ago
  The author is irresponsibility propagating a conspiracy theory and elevating its status in the public’s mind. I’m a bioscientist. It’s frustrating to respond with evidence and in good faith, and be downvoted by those who simply disagree. But sadly it appears that the loudest voice prevails over reason. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00599-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00599-7
  - whiddershins 6y ago
    I, like many others, would truly like to be pointed to resources that can help me understand what would lead bio scientists to this conclusion. Make no mistake, I am super well aware that I lack all the grounding to understand the explanation. But can you point me in the right direction? The context surrounding what you are saying must be learnable. At least to some level.
    - tbenst 6y ago
      Your request is admirable! Here’s how I go about gathering info: Google “covid 19 origin evidence”, look for academic publications or scientific journalism that is well-cited & from reputable sources, eg [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5 [2] https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-05-09/was-the-coronavirus-made-in-a-wuhan-lab-heres-what-the-genetic-evidence-shows https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-05-09/was-the-cor... [3] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/scientists-exactly-zero-evidence-covid-19-came-lab https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/scientis... [4] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/coronavirus-origins-misinformation-yan-report-fact-check-cvd https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/coronavir... We really need to do better with scientific communication. As scientists we are evaluated too much on our communication with other scientists (ie paper publishing), while communication with the public is not weighed much for career advancement. I wish this structural problem would be discussed more so it can be addressed. But not all of this is on the scientists. The public must do better. We can’t just blindly trust what a senator says on Fox News for political expedience, or “trust our gut”.
synergy20 6y ago
I recall China passed an urgent law at lightening speed to enforce safe practice in the bio-virus-labs across the nation a few weeks after the outbreak. It might tell you something. Also it refused fiercely to let foreign experts in to investigate, which is also hard to explain other than something MUST be hidden at all costs.
- notsobig 6y ago
  "urgent law at lightning speed" is unnecessary and extreme bias. It might tell me something if you included a source. A rational actor would take the opportunity to do this regardless of whether or not the source was known at the time. If it were even a possibility, you would hope they would use the outbreak as a reminder to take containment practices as seriously as possible. Whether or not to allow foreign investigators is a political decision. Maybe they calculated it would appear as an admission of guilt or incompetence.
  - polartx 6y ago
    >A rational actor... Let’s remember this is China we’re talking about. Before you hand wave that away, consider the emphasis that China places on keeping-up-appearances at practically any cost
    - notsobig 6y ago
      Honestly this is not relevant. My comment was not "what i think happened", it was "your argument is tilted crap". The action allegedly taken is not evidence of guilt, is all I was saying.
      - synergy20 6y ago
        I read carefully last year on related news, it's said the animals used in those labs are sometimes taken out secretly and sold to the wild-animal-market, and some rubber gowns and gloves are also resold because they're so sturdy for reuse. Incidents occurred a few times already(including recurring SARS) because of similar wrongdoings before COVID-19.
tomp 6y ago
> Misinformation. from the article you linked to: > Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus. You're the one spreading FUD, intentionally misinterpreting the original article and making up a fake argument that "lab leak" hypothesis somehow contradicts "natural origin" and implies that the virus was "designed". (If I understand the article correctly, "purposefully manipulated" means "genetically manipulated", not "gain of function".) Flagged.
- tbenst 6y ago
  If you’re open hearing new information and revising your position, please consider listening to the podcast from Nature that I linked to in another comment. It’s not controversial nor misleading to say that [edit: much of] the scientific community views the “lab leak” hypothesis as a conspiracy theory. The main segment starts around 6:30. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00599-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00599-7 Edit: wanted to highlight that, while the Lancet and other publications have highlighted the mainstream views that “lab leak” is a conspiracy theory, that there is a prominent minority of scientists that disagree: https://undark.org/2021/03/17/lab-leak-science-lost-in-politics/ https://undark.org/2021/03/17/lab-leak-science-lost-in-polit...
  - hntrader 6y ago
    Well, it literally is a conspiracy theory. Whether it's a true or false conspiracy theory is what's being discussed.
throwawaysea 6y ago
The virus can be of a natural origin and still be leaked from a lab. Virology labs study copies of viruses regularly through various techniques (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gain_of_function_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gain_of_function_research). People keep conflating the possibility of an engineered virus with the possibility of a lab leak. They don't have to go together. Furthermore, the WHO's own team admitted recently that they were simply not equipped to do any kind of forensic investigation of the lab (https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/world-health-organization-chinas-denials-of-a-lab-leak-resolve-the-issue-for-us/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/world-health-organizat...): > [Dominic Dwyer, a medical virologist at New South Wales Health Pathology in Sydney, Australia, and a member of the WHO team] says that the team didn’t see anything during its visits to suggest a lab accident. “Now, whether we were shown everything? You can never know. The group wasn’t designed to go and do a forensic examination of lab practice.” Even if they were appropriately equipped for such an investigation, what's the use when China had blocked their visits until a year later, when they've had ample time to cover any evidence. The whole situation is highly suspicious, from the initial suppression of news reports of the virus, to delaying international lab visits, to the deletion of studies from that Wuhan lab (https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13701168/covid-cover-up-china-wuhan-studies-batwoman-virologist/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13701168/covid-cover-up-china-...).
tripletao 6y ago
In roughest form, Andersen is saying "SARS-CoV-2 doesn't closely resemble any existing known virus, so it wasn't produced by genetic manipulation of existing known viruses". I think that's true, but it ignores the possibility that the WIV was working with new viruses with unpublished genomes. The WIV routinely organized expeditions to remote bat caves to collect samples. There's naturally some delay between sampling, sequencing, and publishing, no conspiracy required. For example, RaTG13, the closest known animal virus to SARS-CoV-2, was collected by the WIV in 2013 but published only after the start of the pandemic. The WIV had a private database of viral genomes; but they took it offline in September 2019, they say due to hacking attempts. They haven't brought it back up, and the WHO has declined to ask for a copy. SARS-CoV-2 certainly could be a naturally-evolved virus first transmitted from an animal to a non-scientist human. It could also be a naturally-evolved virus collected and accidentally released by the WIV, or a recombinant of multiple such viruses, or the descendant of such a virus after serial passaging. Nothing in Andersen's argument distinguishes any of these possibilities. But don't trust me; check out Marc Lipsitch's Twitter feed today, or David Relman's article: > Some have argued that a deliberate engineering scenario is unlikely because one would not have had the insight a priori to design the current pandemic virus (3). This argument fails to acknowledge the possibility that two or more as yet undisclosed ancestors (i.e., more proximal ancestors than RaTG13 and RmYN02) had already been discovered and were being studied in a laboratory—for example, one with the SARS-CoV-2 backbone and spike protein receptor-binding domain, and the other with the SARS-CoV-2 polybasic furin cleavage site. It would have been a logical next step to wonder about the properties of a recombinant virus and then create it in the laboratory. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246 This isn't a conspiracy theory, and it's not even a fringe viewpoint anymore. It's just a reasonable step in investigating the yet-unknown origin of what could be the worst industrial accident in human history.
- tbenst 6y ago
  Thank you for this thoughtful post! I learned something and would like to revise my opinion. Also came across this excellent article that covers some of the scientific discussion: https://undark.org/2021/03/17/lab-leak-science-lost-in-politics/ https://undark.org/2021/03/17/lab-leak-science-lost-in-polit.... I now think the lab leak hypothesis is worth considering, and regret labeling as a conspiracy theory, although I maintain the characterization that the lab leak hypothesis is frequently found alongside other conspiracy theories. I also would maintain that the current consensus is that SARS-COV-2 came from natural spillover, and the leak hypothesis is a minority opinion, but one held by credible scientists with well-thought arguments and therefore worth considering. I wish the original article would cite this work.
tim333 6y ago
From that paper's conclusion: >However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible. The fact that covid's features are found in nature seems a weak argument to disprove lab involvement. On the other hand covid seems well adapted to humans which could have come about by serial passage in a lab. Perhaps they were doing something like in vivo characterisation of spillover risk as mentioned in Daszak's grant application for the WIV? Or something like: >We performed in vivo experiments in transgenic (human ACE2 expressing) mice and civets in 2018 and 2019 in the Institute’s biosafety laboratory. The viruses we used were bat SARSr-CoV close to SARS-CoV. (Shi Zhengli) ?

by tbenst 6y ago

garmaine 6y ago

I think you are confusing “lab leak” with “lab manufactured.”

karmasimida 6y ago
Why would it be more feasible this virus is leaked from the lab other than some wild animals from the market itself? Either can be equally believable yet impossible to prove.
- garmaine 6y ago
  There are cases in Wuhan which predate the wet market cluster. That appears to have been a super spreading event but not the origin. The bats this disease come from we’re not being sold in the market at this time. They’re out of season. So already the theory is assuming a multi-animal hop (some other wild animal got in contact with a bat and got infected, then captured and moved a thousand kilometers to the wet market and killed). Meanwhile the bio lab in Wuhan received a sample of infectious coronavirus just months prior to the earliest known case. Within a few weeks of the outbreak while China was still downplaying the disease, the central government passed a rushed emergency safety rules update for these labs, starts pushing back on requests for access, and using state media to throw out a bunch of crazy theories about external origin. Anyone with half a brain can connect the dots.
  - soperj 6y ago
    If it was within a few weeks of the outbreak, then it wasn't likely the cause. As seen in other countries, the # of cases takes a while to ramp up, and it wouldn't go from a release to a couple thousand deaths in such a short time span.
    - garmaine 6y ago
      It was half a year earlier iirc.
  - 8note 6y ago
    The open question is: are there cases even before those, and outside Wuhan?
    - coder4life 6y ago
      We already knew by summer there were cases going back to October 19 in Italy, from saved sewage samples Recently (3 days ago) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210318185328.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210318185328.h...
      - tripletao 6y ago
        Note that when the WHO team asked for similar wastewater samples from China, they were told the samples had been discarded: > They had sought wastewater samples from central China to check if the virus could be detected in sewage from late 2019, but were told those had been discarded, per standard policy, after a month, said Dr. Koopmans. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-refuses-to-give-who-raw-data-on-early-covid-19-cases-11613150580 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-refuses-to-give-who-raw-d... So while it's very likely that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in Italy back in October, it's entirely possible (and likely, I believe) that it was circulating yet earlier in Wuhan; but the evidence to confirm or refute was destroyed.
        tripletao 6y ago
tbenst 6y ago
On the contrary. A leak implies that something was contained. Notwithstanding the complete lack of evidence for a leak—and one could waste a lifetime trying to disprove claims that have no evidence-if of natural origin, the virus was already infecting animals and/or people.
- garmaine 6y ago
  The lab had samples of a disease that is remarkably close to COVID-19: https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/covid-19-first-appeared-in-chinese-miners-in-2012-scientists/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/covid-19-first-appeared-in-chi...
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    No, they didn't. The ancestors of RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 diverged decades ago. RaTG13 is not the progenitor of SARS-CoV-2.
    - garmaine 6y ago
      You have no way of knowing that it diverged decades ago. That's a guess based on the number of mutations. But as we've seen with COVID-19, these viruses have more of a punctuated equilibrium behavior around mutations. "Decades" worth of mutations can happen in a single immune-compromised host in a matter of weeks. (And fwiw I'd love a source for that "decades" claim. The strains are much more closely related than that.) RaTG13 is the closest virus found in the wild to SARS-CoV-2. Samples of it were shipped to the Wuhan lab, which does so-called "gain of function research"--AKA experimenting with artificially sped up mutation rates. Not very long thereafter, SARS-CoV-2 shows up in the surrounding metropolitan area with a very, very similar genome. They're the nearest siblings on the phylogenetic tree. It's only politics which keep people from calling this the smoking gun it really is.
      - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
        It's much more than just a "guess." Calling it a "guess" is trivializing quite well established evolutionary biology. > "Decades" worth of mutations can happen in a single immune-compromised host in a matter of weeks. SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating for a year now. The number of mutations it has undergone is a tiny fraction of the number of mutations separating RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2. > fwiw I'd love a source for that "decades" claim. A paper in Nature Microbiology estimates the most recent common ancestor of RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 to be in the 1960s. The latest possible time of divergence is 2000.[1] > RaTG13 is the closest virus found in the wild to SARS-CoV-2. Samples of it were shipped to the Wuhan lab, which does so-called "gain of function research"--AKA experimenting with artificially sped up mutation rates. First of all, gain-of-function does not mean "artificially sped-up mutation rates." It normally refers to specific, targeted changes to the genome, done in order to test a particular hypothesis. What you're describing is a type of experiment never done before: passaging a virus thousands of times in order to generate a massively different virus. This would be an massively time- and labor-intensive experiment, with no apparent motivation. Second of all, RaTG13 has never been isolated. It exists as fragments of RNA in a fecal swab. Its genome has been reconstructed from sequences of RNA samples, but actually extracting a replicating virus from a fecal swab is a major undertaking. To date, the WIV has only isolated three SARS-related coronaviruses, all of them much closer to the original SARS than to SARS-CoV-2. Before 2020, nobody cared much about viruses that are 20% different from the original SARS. If you read papers from the WIV before 2020, they're all about viruses like WIV-1, which is closely related to the original SARS. 1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4

SpaceRaccoon 6y ago

You are indeed misunderstanding the point. Smallpox is also naturally originating virus. That doesn't prohibit it from leaking from a lab.

tbenst 6y ago
The author is irresponsibility propagating a conspiracy theory and elevating its status in the public’s mind. I’m a bioscientist. It’s frustrating to respond with evidence and in good faith, and be downvoted by those who simply disagree. But sadly it appears that the loudest voice prevails over reason. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00599-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00599-7
- whiddershins 6y ago
  I, like many others, would truly like to be pointed to resources that can help me understand what would lead bio scientists to this conclusion. Make no mistake, I am super well aware that I lack all the grounding to understand the explanation. But can you point me in the right direction? The context surrounding what you are saying must be learnable. At least to some level.
  - tbenst 6y ago
    Your request is admirable! Here’s how I go about gathering info: Google “covid 19 origin evidence”, look for academic publications or scientific journalism that is well-cited & from reputable sources, eg [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5 [2] https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-05-09/was-the-coronavirus-made-in-a-wuhan-lab-heres-what-the-genetic-evidence-shows https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-05-09/was-the-cor... [3] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/scientists-exactly-zero-evidence-covid-19-came-lab https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/scientis... [4] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/coronavirus-origins-misinformation-yan-report-fact-check-cvd https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/coronavir... We really need to do better with scientific communication. As scientists we are evaluated too much on our communication with other scientists (ie paper publishing), while communication with the public is not weighed much for career advancement. I wish this structural problem would be discussed more so it can be addressed. But not all of this is on the scientists. The public must do better. We can’t just blindly trust what a senator says on Fox News for political expedience, or “trust our gut”.

synergy20 6y ago

I recall China passed an urgent law at lightening speed to enforce safe practice in the bio-virus-labs across the nation a few weeks after the outbreak. It might tell you something. Also it refused fiercely to let foreign experts in to investigate, which is also hard to explain other than something MUST be hidden at all costs.

notsobig 6y ago
"urgent law at lightning speed" is unnecessary and extreme bias. It might tell me something if you included a source. A rational actor would take the opportunity to do this regardless of whether or not the source was known at the time. If it were even a possibility, you would hope they would use the outbreak as a reminder to take containment practices as seriously as possible. Whether or not to allow foreign investigators is a political decision. Maybe they calculated it would appear as an admission of guilt or incompetence.
- polartx 6y ago
  >A rational actor... Let’s remember this is China we’re talking about. Before you hand wave that away, consider the emphasis that China places on keeping-up-appearances at practically any cost
  - notsobig 6y ago
    Honestly this is not relevant. My comment was not "what i think happened", it was "your argument is tilted crap". The action allegedly taken is not evidence of guilt, is all I was saying.
    - synergy20 6y ago
      I read carefully last year on related news, it's said the animals used in those labs are sometimes taken out secretly and sold to the wild-animal-market, and some rubber gowns and gloves are also resold because they're so sturdy for reuse. Incidents occurred a few times already(including recurring SARS) because of similar wrongdoings before COVID-19.

tomp 6y ago

> Misinformation. from the article you linked to: > Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus. You're the one spreading FUD, intentionally misinterpreting the original article and making up a fake argument that "lab leak" hypothesis somehow contradicts "natural origin" and implies that the virus was "designed". (If I understand the article correctly, "purposefully manipulated" means "genetically manipulated", not "gain of function".) Flagged.

tbenst 6y ago
If you’re open hearing new information and revising your position, please consider listening to the podcast from Nature that I linked to in another comment. It’s not controversial nor misleading to say that [edit: much of] the scientific community views the “lab leak” hypothesis as a conspiracy theory. The main segment starts around 6:30. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00599-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00599-7 Edit: wanted to highlight that, while the Lancet and other publications have highlighted the mainstream views that “lab leak” is a conspiracy theory, that there is a prominent minority of scientists that disagree: https://undark.org/2021/03/17/lab-leak-science-lost-in-politics/ https://undark.org/2021/03/17/lab-leak-science-lost-in-polit...
- hntrader 6y ago
  Well, it literally is a conspiracy theory. Whether it's a true or false conspiracy theory is what's being discussed.

throwawaysea 6y ago

The virus can be of a natural origin and still be leaked from a lab. Virology labs study copies of viruses regularly through various techniques (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gain_of_function_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gain_of_function_research). People keep conflating the possibility of an engineered virus with the possibility of a lab leak. They don't have to go together. Furthermore, the WHO's own team admitted recently that they were simply not equipped to do any kind of forensic investigation of the lab (https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/world-health-organization-chinas-denials-of-a-lab-leak-resolve-the-issue-for-us/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/world-health-organizat...): > [Dominic Dwyer, a medical virologist at New South Wales Health Pathology in Sydney, Australia, and a member of the WHO team] says that the team didn’t see anything during its visits to suggest a lab accident. “Now, whether we were shown everything? You can never know. The group wasn’t designed to go and do a forensic examination of lab practice.” Even if they were appropriately equipped for such an investigation, what's the use when China had blocked their visits until a year later, when they've had ample time to cover any evidence. The whole situation is highly suspicious, from the initial suppression of news reports of the virus, to delaying international lab visits, to the deletion of studies from that Wuhan lab (https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13701168/covid-cover-up-china-wuhan-studies-batwoman-virologist/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13701168/covid-cover-up-china-...).

tripletao 6y ago

In roughest form, Andersen is saying "SARS-CoV-2 doesn't closely resemble any existing known virus, so it wasn't produced by genetic manipulation of existing known viruses". I think that's true, but it ignores the possibility that the WIV was working with new viruses with unpublished genomes. The WIV routinely organized expeditions to remote bat caves to collect samples. There's naturally some delay between sampling, sequencing, and publishing, no conspiracy required. For example, RaTG13, the closest known animal virus to SARS-CoV-2, was collected by the WIV in 2013 but published only after the start of the pandemic. The WIV had a private database of viral genomes; but they took it offline in September 2019, they say due to hacking attempts. They haven't brought it back up, and the WHO has declined to ask for a copy. SARS-CoV-2 certainly could be a naturally-evolved virus first transmitted from an animal to a non-scientist human. It could also be a naturally-evolved virus collected and accidentally released by the WIV, or a recombinant of multiple such viruses, or the descendant of such a virus after serial passaging. Nothing in Andersen's argument distinguishes any of these possibilities. But don't trust me; check out Marc Lipsitch's Twitter feed today, or David Relman's article: > Some have argued that a deliberate engineering scenario is unlikely because one would not have had the insight a priori to design the current pandemic virus (3). This argument fails to acknowledge the possibility that two or more as yet undisclosed ancestors (i.e., more proximal ancestors than RaTG13 and RmYN02) had already been discovered and were being studied in a laboratory—for example, one with the SARS-CoV-2 backbone and spike protein receptor-binding domain, and the other with the SARS-CoV-2 polybasic furin cleavage site. It would have been a logical next step to wonder about the properties of a recombinant virus and then create it in the laboratory. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246 This isn't a conspiracy theory, and it's not even a fringe viewpoint anymore. It's just a reasonable step in investigating the yet-unknown origin of what could be the worst industrial accident in human history.

tbenst 6y ago
Thank you for this thoughtful post! I learned something and would like to revise my opinion. Also came across this excellent article that covers some of the scientific discussion: https://undark.org/2021/03/17/lab-leak-science-lost-in-politics/ https://undark.org/2021/03/17/lab-leak-science-lost-in-polit.... I now think the lab leak hypothesis is worth considering, and regret labeling as a conspiracy theory, although I maintain the characterization that the lab leak hypothesis is frequently found alongside other conspiracy theories. I also would maintain that the current consensus is that SARS-COV-2 came from natural spillover, and the leak hypothesis is a minority opinion, but one held by credible scientists with well-thought arguments and therefore worth considering. I wish the original article would cite this work.

tim333 6y ago

From that paper's conclusion: >However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible. The fact that covid's features are found in nature seems a weak argument to disprove lab involvement. On the other hand covid seems well adapted to humans which could have come about by serial passage in a lab. Perhaps they were doing something like in vivo characterisation of spillover risk as mentioned in Daszak's grant application for the WIV? Or something like: >We performed in vivo experiments in transgenic (human ACE2 expressing) mice and civets in 2018 and 2019 in the Institute’s biosafety laboratory. The viruses we used were bat SARSr-CoV close to SARS-CoV. (Shi Zhengli) ?