12 ms·

Is this proof of lab leak lies?

89 points by llimos 5y ago

tomohawk 5y ago
> ... these documents include the original proposals along with project updates, so significantly flesh out what we knew. They highlight how US funding bodies outsourced risky gain-of-function research to China, even over a three-year period between 2014 and 2017 when it was banned in their own nation
frereubu 5y ago
This really doesn't really feel like it tells the whole story. A central claim in the article quotes Rand Paul's exchange with Anthony Fauci, but read this quote from The Intercept: 'That video was edited by Paul’s staff so that it ends before Fauci responded to the senator’s harangue by saying, "I totally resent the lie that you are now propagating, senator, because if you look at the viruses that were used in the experiments... it is molecularly impossible... to result in SARS-CoV-2."' https://theintercept.com/2021/07/27/covid-anthony-fauci-rand-paul-research/ https://theintercept.com/2021/07/27/covid-anthony-fauci-rand...
- JPLeRouzic 5y ago
  > "it is molecularly impossible... to result in SARS-CoV-2." That's sound ominous, but I am curious, how could it be "molecularly" impossible? My understanding is that as there are several other Sarbecovirus (including SARS-COV-1), what could in principle ("molecularly") forbid one of them to mutate to SARS-COV-2? Yet I am not a scientist. Thanks!
  - conistonwater 5y ago
    There was an episode the TWiV podcast a few months ago where they discussed the biology-based evidence for why SARS-COV-2 wasn't made in a lab. I think it was this one: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-762/ https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-762/ One nice thing about the podcast is that because they're scientists by personality they tend to focus far more on the biology of it, which I really appreciate. I listened to it at the time, but I don't remember what they said, to be perfectly honest.
    - inciampati 5y ago
      As a biologist (sorry for the appeal to authority, but it matches the tone of this thread), the evidence against a natural origin appears absolutely staggering. You have a viral clade that completely descends from a single introduction event inside a major city. The virus does not undergo a period of host adaptation, but instead infects many millions over nearly a year before phenotypic changes are observed. This is simply fantastic. I know of no case where a virus jumped species without a period of adaptation to the new host. The fact that the entire clade has a root in October 2019 (and we can see this even because the first viruses sequenced differed by only one or two mutations from their common ancestor) indicates that there was not slow community spread before the initiation of the pandemic period. There is no weaker progenitor virus. Considering as well the focus of research labs within the exact city where the pandemic arose makes any argument against the laboratory origin of the virus seem extremely weak. How does a serious and non-conflicted scientist explain all of these ultra-improbable coincidences?
      - arbitrage 5y ago
        > sorry for the appeal to authority You don't need to apologize for your knowledge and experience. We are not engaged in a roman-style rhetoric class where the mandate is to build all arguments upon a set of rules we never agreed to. The wikipedia list of common logical fallacies is not a guideline to rational discourse in the 21st century.
        ddxxdd 5y ago
        As far as I'm concerned, apologizing for the appeal to authority signalled that he was open to being criticized and challenged by layman, rather than choosing to belittle those who disagree with him without having his knowledge and experience. In short, he demonstrated that he wasn't an "elitist".
      - michaelmrose 5y ago
        An appeal to authority is only inherently invalid insofar as the authority claimed is irrelevant authority or used to paper over weaknesses in the actual argument. Forums not entirely overrun with imaginary internet doctors and cranks can probably start with the polite presumption that you are actually a biologist and proceed with reasonable discussion from there without further ado.
  - m0llusk 5y ago
    The lab was working with chimeras instead of the virus in part because they were unable to consistently culture the virus. Neither nature nor humans make a viable viruses out of chimeras.
    - tim333 5y ago
      One of the chimeras (in the research the article is based on) reproduced up to 10,000x better than the virus it was based on and caused the mice to lose weight through illness. Sounds viable to me.
- cryptica 5y ago
  Rand Paul did not actually say that Fauci's gain of function research led to COVID19 but he didn't really need to. We cannot trust Fauci. Doesn't it seems like too much of a coincidence that: - Fauci has been director of NIH since 1984. [EDIT]. Director of NIAID (the branch of NIH which is in charge of infection diseases) - Fauci initially denied NIH funding coronavirus gain of function research in Wuhan labs. - It was discovered that NIH did in fact fund coronavirus gain of function research in Wuhan labs. - Of all the cities in the world, Wuhan happens to be where COVID19 originated. - Fauci was put in charge of the COVID19 response in the US (why not someone from the CDC? The CDC is the agency responsible for disease control and prevention, not the NIH... Why did Fauci end up getting this role when it's clearly outside of his normal duties and clearly a conflict of interest?) Put together, it seems extremely far-fetched that these facts are merely coincidental. They paint a very clear narrative with means and motives; doesn't leave much to the imagination.
  - nkozyra 5y ago
    > Rand Paul did not actually say that Fauci's gain of function research led to COVID19 but he didn't really need to. This is true. He strongly implied it did. Fauci continued to deny the funding went to GoF research even in that heated exchange, so he wasn't changing his position. Paul said it did, Fauci said it didn't. What Fauci didn't say was that GoF research wasn't happening there. It undoubtedly was. I'm assuming the coincidence with 1984 is ... the book?
    - cryptica 5y ago
      >> I'm assuming the coincidence with 1984 is ... the book? Haha, nice catch; I didn't even see that one. I only mentioned that date to point out that he's been a director for several decades so the NIH didn't fund this research under a different director; it was Fauci himself in charge. I think the date 1984 is much more likely to be a coincidence; I just don't see how that date fits into the motive. I don't think people like Fauci and his friends care much about symbolism; aside from symbols and numbers displayed in their personal bank accounts and on their trading platforms. The nail in the coffin for me is the clear motive that Fauci had in being appointed to handle the COVID19 response in the US. Combined with the fact that the US government actually funded this research and that Fauci then lied about it and later tried to fudge definitions in an effort to gaslight everyone into thinking that he did not lie when he clearly did... Rand Paul's arguments were delivered with almost Mathematical precision. Not to mention Fauci's earlier lies about masks not providing any protection against COVID19. There's a point when you just have to draw the line, enough lies, this guy is a liar and a manipulator. How many more times does he have to be caught red-handed for us to accept this?
- ddxxdd 5y ago
  Whether or not NIH funding created SARS-CoV-2 is immaterial to Rand Paul's central point, which was that the NIH illegally funded gain-of-function research.
  - frereubu 5y ago
    Whatever the truth of the matter is, what I was getting at was the tone of the article, which seems happy with innuendo and partisan talking points. I have an open mind on whether or not it was a lab leak, but not being an epidemiologist I'm left with trying to gauge the tone as a proxy for whether to trust the author, and this article doesn't pass the smell test for me.
  - tim333 5y ago
    Though it's possible Fauci may not have known.
corty 5y ago
There may be proof in there that somebody lied about something related to the lab leak. In this case, of course funding is a trail of breadcrumbs, and even if there were no relation, a coverup would be likely. Because it makes the funders look bad at least. Real proof that COVID-19 originated in one of the Wuhan labs will probably never be found, there was time enough for a coverup of those facts. But in any case, whether lab leak or not, a few things have become crystal clear imho: Research must really strongly improve its safety around possibly infectious materials. Even researchers working with the stuff consider a lab leak a real possibility. BSL-1 is practically a clean kitchen and BSL-2 is any common hospital before the current Corona measures. Even BSL-3 and -4 facilities are located in habitated urban areas. Researchers freely enter and leave without quarantine, have contact with an unsuspecting population, go to normal hospitals, infect other patients there. Viruses are much much more dangerous than radioactive or chemical materials. A tiny radiation or chemical leak will have tiny consequences. A tiny virus leak can still infect all of humanity. Also, I'm not qualified enough to comment on whether gain-of-function research is necessary and useful. But I would strongly suggest that given the possible consequences, together with the aforementioned woefully inadequate safety measures, it should be reevaluated. And confined to lonely islands at the end of the world with monthly airdropped supplies, entering or leaving only once a year after destruction of all samples and two months quarantine.
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  > Also, I'm not qualified enough to comment on whether gain-of-function research is necessary and useful. But I would strongly suggest that given the possible consequences, together with the aforementioned woefully inadequate safety measures, it should be reevaluated. But people have been saying that for at least a decade. There was a moratorium in the USA for a couple of years. The EU produced a lot of guidance. It was viewed as enough and it might have been in a world where international actors are reasonable, transparent and act in good faith. The issue is that COVID have definitely proved that it is not the world we currently live in and some actors are part of the international community in names only.
  - corty 5y ago
Causality1 5y ago
I fear the opportunity to truly get to the bottom of it has passed. Judging by the actions of the Chinese government in stomping all over foreign investigations inside China, if it was a lab leak the evidence has long since been destroyed. In the Western world the lab leak hypothesis is largely a distraction, because it's easier to focus on blame than it is to put the work into controlling the pandemic.
- listless 5y ago
  For those of us who have lost loved ones. Who have lost their business. Who weren’t allowed to see their dying father in the ICU because of COVID restrictions. For the 3M “lost children” who never logged on once for school last year. For the future generations who will have to reckon with the economic disaster we may be kicking down the road. For all of those people and more, we deserve to know the truth. That’s the very least we are owed.
  - krsrhe 5y ago
    Why? Will the truth mitigate the prevent or prevent a future one? What matters is the possibility of a leak, not if one happened. The origin leak is nothing compared to the repeated failures hat happened after and are still happening.
    - ctrlp 5y ago
      The leak is one thing, if true. The cover-up (if there was a leak) during a critical window of possible containment is another thing. But we will likely never get the truth.
    - listless 5y ago
      The truth matters a great deal to anyone who has suffered and lost. It’s not unique to the pandemic. The parent who has lost a child. The spouse who has been cheated on. The employee who has been unjustly fired. They want the truth. The not knowing makes it almost unbearable.
  - patentatt 5y ago
m0llusk 5y ago
So, posting these assertions over and over again makes them true? Let's start at the core as stated in the first paragraph: > ... the central issue of whether it began with natural spillover from animals or some kind of laboratory incident. How exactly is this a central issue? We know that similar viruses appear at a significant rate. How we respond to such inevitable new viruses is going to be the same no matter where they came from. What this is doing is superimposing ideas about storytelling and morality on a situation we have little actual information about. If anything the genesis of SARS-CoV2 is nearly irrelevant. Then it asserts that gain of function experiments were going on because chimeras were created. That is a basic misunderstanding of the subject matter. Chimeras are created when gain of function research is simply too complex or has failed outright, both of which appear to be the case here. Few think that SARS-CoV2 started with an experimental chimera because chimeras don't work that way and there is no evidence of chimeric origins in SARS-CoV2. > ... three people who fell sick at a BSL 3 lab within a week of each other. This is ridiculous. It is well established from satellite data that there was an explosion of activity at Wuhan hospitals starting in August. Researchers at the Wuhan facility got sick because everyone in Wuhan was getting sick at that time and had been for at least a month. When you have to engage in that kind of evidence hiding and drama building to make an assertion there is likely to be a problem in the reasoning. This is a really good example of how the power of storytelling tends to overwhelm even obvious truths. > ... these are small steps forward in the search for the pandemic origins. No, these are motivated lies which are incrementally burying the truth. If we are to know the origins of the virus it will probably be through ongoing analysis of gene sequencing data as usual, and whether we find the origins or not we need to be ready for the next new virus because what we can say with absolute certainty is that there will be more deadly viruses and we need to take that seriously no matter where they might come from or what stories we might like to tell about them.
- inciampati 5y ago
  I won't repeat myself, but above I assert that there are some critically unusual things about this virus that make it look extremely different from the viruses that "happen all the time." We gain this information not from inside documents or statements that can be dismissed as lies, but from the highly observable viral phylogeny and phenotypic evolution. These are highly unusual in the scope of natural viral spillover events, and any serious attempt to ground the virus in a natural introduction must develop a theory that explains them. What's your plausible story?
Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
Seems eminently plausible. Keeping an eye on this.
nojito 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
flerchin 5y ago
For crying out loud. Inductive reasoning. GTFO
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
Most of these facts have been out for awhile now but have been effectively suppressed by mainstream propaganda control.
belter 5y ago
It's still early. We will end up finding the truth. The World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020 and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. We are getting into the last quarter of 2021. I think we will end up knowing the truth for 3 reasons: - The more time passes without finding evidence of the original animal host, in China or any other country, the more likely the lab theory becomes. - Lovers quarrel, people betray people, and persons who can't talk at the moment, after a few years, decide they have more to gain by talking. - It is now known, and this has not been denied, that US Funded non profits were doing gain-of-function research in Wuhan: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/09/covid-origins-gain-of-function-research/ https://theintercept.com/2021/09/09/covid-origins-gain-of-fu...
- kasey_junk 5y ago
  That article doesn’t at all prove that the US was supporting gain-of-function research. At best it proves that gain-of-function research is not well defined and epidemiological researchers themselves disagree on what it means. The grants themselves deny access to funds for gain-of-function and provide a framework for judging what that is.
  - belter 5y ago
    >"...At best it proves that gain-of-function research is not well defined and epidemiological researchers themselves disagree on what it means..." If its not so well defined, the categorical denials from US officials, saying it was not happening, become then even more interesting. The case from the article is a bit stronger I would say: "Scientists working under a 2014 NIH grant to the EcoHealth Alliance to study bat coronaviruses combined the genetic material from a “parent” coronavirus known as WIV1 with other viruses. They twice submitted summaries of their work that showed that, when in the lungs of genetically engineered mice, three altered bat coronaviruses at times reproduced far more quickly than the original virus on which they were based. The altered viruses were also somewhat more pathogenic, with one causing the mice to lose significant weight. The researchers reported, “These results demonstrate varying pathogenicity of SARSr-CoVs with different spike proteins in humanized mice.” But the terms of the grant clearly stipulated that the funding could not be used for gain-of-function experiments. The grant conditions also required the researchers to immediately report potentially dangerous results and stop their experiments pending further NIH review. According to both the EcoHealth Alliance and NIH, the results were reported to the agency, but NIH determined that rules designed to restrict gain-of-function research did not apply. The Intercept consulted 11 scientists who are virologists or work in adjacent fields and hold a range of views on both the ethics of gain-of-function research and the Covid-19 origins search. Seven said that the work appears to meet NIH’s criteria for gain-of-function research."
oxymoran 5y ago
At the very least, it’s proof that Fauci lied to Congress that the NIH had been funding the gain of function research. Regardless of if the virus leaked from the lab or not, Fauci needs to go.
tzs 5y ago
> “There is a possibility it was influenza,” he said. “But I’m very doubtful that three people in highly protected circumstances in a level three laboratory working on coronaviruses would all get sick with influenza that put them in a hospital or in severe conditions all in the same week, and it didn’t have anything with the coronavirus. That’s highly hard to believe. From that point forward, it certainly seemed to have started to spread within their community.” People working in highly protected circumstances in a level 3 laboratory still have plenty of opportunity to pass influenza to each other. First, it is level 4 where the workers wear the full body suits. At level 3 the concern is more just with keeping whatever they are working on from getting out, not with keeping the workers from bringing stuff in. Second, even virus researchers like to socialize and so do things like have lunch together. As far as I know a biology lab lunchroom is pretty much the same as any other office lunchroom as far as biosafety goes.
- tim333 5y ago
  The 3 lab workers probably weren't the original source as it was in November and the outbreak probably started before then. I think I saw a report that they had the ground glass like lung x-rays characteristic of covid but may have caught it like everyone else rather than from lab work.
tim333 5y ago
I'm not sure the article does a very good job of explaining what 'gain of function" was done. This twitter thread from Richard Ebright is maybe better https://mobile.twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1436203624124747777 https://mobile.twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/14362036241247...

89 points by llimos 5y ago

> ... these documents include the original proposals along with project updates, so significantly flesh out what we knew. They highlight how US funding bodies outsourced risky gain-of-function research to China, even over a three-year period between 2014 and 2017 when it was banned in their own nation

frereubu 5y ago

This really doesn't really feel like it tells the whole story. A central claim in the article quotes Rand Paul's exchange with Anthony Fauci, but read this quote from The Intercept: 'That video was edited by Paul’s staff so that it ends before Fauci responded to the senator’s harangue by saying, "I totally resent the lie that you are now propagating, senator, because if you look at the viruses that were used in the experiments... it is molecularly impossible... to result in SARS-CoV-2."' https://theintercept.com/2021/07/27/covid-anthony-fauci-rand-paul-research/ https://theintercept.com/2021/07/27/covid-anthony-fauci-rand...

JPLeRouzic 5y ago
> "it is molecularly impossible... to result in SARS-CoV-2." That's sound ominous, but I am curious, how could it be "molecularly" impossible? My understanding is that as there are several other Sarbecovirus (including SARS-COV-1), what could in principle ("molecularly") forbid one of them to mutate to SARS-COV-2? Yet I am not a scientist. Thanks!
- conistonwater 5y ago
  There was an episode the TWiV podcast a few months ago where they discussed the biology-based evidence for why SARS-COV-2 wasn't made in a lab. I think it was this one: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-762/ https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-762/ One nice thing about the podcast is that because they're scientists by personality they tend to focus far more on the biology of it, which I really appreciate. I listened to it at the time, but I don't remember what they said, to be perfectly honest.
  - inciampati 5y ago
    As a biologist (sorry for the appeal to authority, but it matches the tone of this thread), the evidence against a natural origin appears absolutely staggering. You have a viral clade that completely descends from a single introduction event inside a major city. The virus does not undergo a period of host adaptation, but instead infects many millions over nearly a year before phenotypic changes are observed. This is simply fantastic. I know of no case where a virus jumped species without a period of adaptation to the new host. The fact that the entire clade has a root in October 2019 (and we can see this even because the first viruses sequenced differed by only one or two mutations from their common ancestor) indicates that there was not slow community spread before the initiation of the pandemic period. There is no weaker progenitor virus. Considering as well the focus of research labs within the exact city where the pandemic arose makes any argument against the laboratory origin of the virus seem extremely weak. How does a serious and non-conflicted scientist explain all of these ultra-improbable coincidences?
    - arbitrage 5y ago
      > sorry for the appeal to authority You don't need to apologize for your knowledge and experience. We are not engaged in a roman-style rhetoric class where the mandate is to build all arguments upon a set of rules we never agreed to. The wikipedia list of common logical fallacies is not a guideline to rational discourse in the 21st century.
      - ddxxdd 5y ago
        As far as I'm concerned, apologizing for the appeal to authority signalled that he was open to being criticized and challenged by layman, rather than choosing to belittle those who disagree with him without having his knowledge and experience. In short, he demonstrated that he wasn't an "elitist".
    - michaelmrose 5y ago
      An appeal to authority is only inherently invalid insofar as the authority claimed is irrelevant authority or used to paper over weaknesses in the actual argument. Forums not entirely overrun with imaginary internet doctors and cranks can probably start with the polite presumption that you are actually a biologist and proceed with reasonable discussion from there without further ado.
- m0llusk 5y ago
  The lab was working with chimeras instead of the virus in part because they were unable to consistently culture the virus. Neither nature nor humans make a viable viruses out of chimeras.
  - tim333 5y ago
    One of the chimeras (in the research the article is based on) reproduced up to 10,000x better than the virus it was based on and caused the mice to lose weight through illness. Sounds viable to me.
cryptica 5y ago
Rand Paul did not actually say that Fauci's gain of function research led to COVID19 but he didn't really need to. We cannot trust Fauci. Doesn't it seems like too much of a coincidence that: - Fauci has been director of NIH since 1984. [EDIT]. Director of NIAID (the branch of NIH which is in charge of infection diseases) - Fauci initially denied NIH funding coronavirus gain of function research in Wuhan labs. - It was discovered that NIH did in fact fund coronavirus gain of function research in Wuhan labs. - Of all the cities in the world, Wuhan happens to be where COVID19 originated. - Fauci was put in charge of the COVID19 response in the US (why not someone from the CDC? The CDC is the agency responsible for disease control and prevention, not the NIH... Why did Fauci end up getting this role when it's clearly outside of his normal duties and clearly a conflict of interest?) Put together, it seems extremely far-fetched that these facts are merely coincidental. They paint a very clear narrative with means and motives; doesn't leave much to the imagination.
- nkozyra 5y ago
  > Rand Paul did not actually say that Fauci's gain of function research led to COVID19 but he didn't really need to. This is true. He strongly implied it did. Fauci continued to deny the funding went to GoF research even in that heated exchange, so he wasn't changing his position. Paul said it did, Fauci said it didn't. What Fauci didn't say was that GoF research wasn't happening there. It undoubtedly was. I'm assuming the coincidence with 1984 is ... the book?
  - cryptica 5y ago
    >> I'm assuming the coincidence with 1984 is ... the book? Haha, nice catch; I didn't even see that one. I only mentioned that date to point out that he's been a director for several decades so the NIH didn't fund this research under a different director; it was Fauci himself in charge. I think the date 1984 is much more likely to be a coincidence; I just don't see how that date fits into the motive. I don't think people like Fauci and his friends care much about symbolism; aside from symbols and numbers displayed in their personal bank accounts and on their trading platforms. The nail in the coffin for me is the clear motive that Fauci had in being appointed to handle the COVID19 response in the US. Combined with the fact that the US government actually funded this research and that Fauci then lied about it and later tried to fudge definitions in an effort to gaslight everyone into thinking that he did not lie when he clearly did... Rand Paul's arguments were delivered with almost Mathematical precision. Not to mention Fauci's earlier lies about masks not providing any protection against COVID19. There's a point when you just have to draw the line, enough lies, this guy is a liar and a manipulator. How many more times does he have to be caught red-handed for us to accept this?
ddxxdd 5y ago
Whether or not NIH funding created SARS-CoV-2 is immaterial to Rand Paul's central point, which was that the NIH illegally funded gain-of-function research.
- frereubu 5y ago
  Whatever the truth of the matter is, what I was getting at was the tone of the article, which seems happy with innuendo and partisan talking points. I have an open mind on whether or not it was a lab leak, but not being an epidemiologist I'm left with trying to gauge the tone as a proxy for whether to trust the author, and this article doesn't pass the smell test for me.
- tim333 5y ago
  Though it's possible Fauci may not have known.

corty 5y ago

There may be proof in there that somebody lied about something related to the lab leak. In this case, of course funding is a trail of breadcrumbs, and even if there were no relation, a coverup would be likely. Because it makes the funders look bad at least. Real proof that COVID-19 originated in one of the Wuhan labs will probably never be found, there was time enough for a coverup of those facts. But in any case, whether lab leak or not, a few things have become crystal clear imho: Research must really strongly improve its safety around possibly infectious materials. Even researchers working with the stuff consider a lab leak a real possibility. BSL-1 is practically a clean kitchen and BSL-2 is any common hospital before the current Corona measures. Even BSL-3 and -4 facilities are located in habitated urban areas. Researchers freely enter and leave without quarantine, have contact with an unsuspecting population, go to normal hospitals, infect other patients there. Viruses are much much more dangerous than radioactive or chemical materials. A tiny radiation or chemical leak will have tiny consequences. A tiny virus leak can still infect all of humanity. Also, I'm not qualified enough to comment on whether gain-of-function research is necessary and useful. But I would strongly suggest that given the possible consequences, together with the aforementioned woefully inadequate safety measures, it should be reevaluated. And confined to lonely islands at the end of the world with monthly airdropped supplies, entering or leaving only once a year after destruction of all samples and two months quarantine.

WastingMyTime89 5y ago
> Also, I'm not qualified enough to comment on whether gain-of-function research is necessary and useful. But I would strongly suggest that given the possible consequences, together with the aforementioned woefully inadequate safety measures, it should be reevaluated. But people have been saying that for at least a decade. There was a moratorium in the USA for a couple of years. The EU produced a lot of guidance. It was viewed as enough and it might have been in a world where international actors are reasonable, transparent and act in good faith. The issue is that COVID have definitely proved that it is not the world we currently live in and some actors are part of the international community in names only.
- corty 5y ago

Causality1 5y ago

I fear the opportunity to truly get to the bottom of it has passed. Judging by the actions of the Chinese government in stomping all over foreign investigations inside China, if it was a lab leak the evidence has long since been destroyed. In the Western world the lab leak hypothesis is largely a distraction, because it's easier to focus on blame than it is to put the work into controlling the pandemic.

listless 5y ago
For those of us who have lost loved ones. Who have lost their business. Who weren’t allowed to see their dying father in the ICU because of COVID restrictions. For the 3M “lost children” who never logged on once for school last year. For the future generations who will have to reckon with the economic disaster we may be kicking down the road. For all of those people and more, we deserve to know the truth. That’s the very least we are owed.
- krsrhe 5y ago
  Why? Will the truth mitigate the prevent or prevent a future one? What matters is the possibility of a leak, not if one happened. The origin leak is nothing compared to the repeated failures hat happened after and are still happening.
  - ctrlp 5y ago
    The leak is one thing, if true. The cover-up (if there was a leak) during a critical window of possible containment is another thing. But we will likely never get the truth.
  - listless 5y ago
    The truth matters a great deal to anyone who has suffered and lost. It’s not unique to the pandemic. The parent who has lost a child. The spouse who has been cheated on. The employee who has been unjustly fired. They want the truth. The not knowing makes it almost unbearable.
- patentatt 5y ago

m0llusk 5y ago

So, posting these assertions over and over again makes them true? Let's start at the core as stated in the first paragraph: > ... the central issue of whether it began with natural spillover from animals or some kind of laboratory incident. How exactly is this a central issue? We know that similar viruses appear at a significant rate. How we respond to such inevitable new viruses is going to be the same no matter where they came from. What this is doing is superimposing ideas about storytelling and morality on a situation we have little actual information about. If anything the genesis of SARS-CoV2 is nearly irrelevant. Then it asserts that gain of function experiments were going on because chimeras were created. That is a basic misunderstanding of the subject matter. Chimeras are created when gain of function research is simply too complex or has failed outright, both of which appear to be the case here. Few think that SARS-CoV2 started with an experimental chimera because chimeras don't work that way and there is no evidence of chimeric origins in SARS-CoV2. > ... three people who fell sick at a BSL 3 lab within a week of each other. This is ridiculous. It is well established from satellite data that there was an explosion of activity at Wuhan hospitals starting in August. Researchers at the Wuhan facility got sick because everyone in Wuhan was getting sick at that time and had been for at least a month. When you have to engage in that kind of evidence hiding and drama building to make an assertion there is likely to be a problem in the reasoning. This is a really good example of how the power of storytelling tends to overwhelm even obvious truths. > ... these are small steps forward in the search for the pandemic origins. No, these are motivated lies which are incrementally burying the truth. If we are to know the origins of the virus it will probably be through ongoing analysis of gene sequencing data as usual, and whether we find the origins or not we need to be ready for the next new virus because what we can say with absolute certainty is that there will be more deadly viruses and we need to take that seriously no matter where they might come from or what stories we might like to tell about them.

inciampati 5y ago
I won't repeat myself, but above I assert that there are some critically unusual things about this virus that make it look extremely different from the viruses that "happen all the time." We gain this information not from inside documents or statements that can be dismissed as lies, but from the highly observable viral phylogeny and phenotypic evolution. These are highly unusual in the scope of natural viral spillover events, and any serious attempt to ground the virus in a natural introduction must develop a theory that explains them. What's your plausible story?

Wolfenstein98k 5y ago

Seems eminently plausible. Keeping an eye on this.

nojito 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

flerchin 5y ago

For crying out loud. Inductive reasoning. GTFO

TrispusAttucks 5y ago

Most of these facts have been out for awhile now but have been effectively suppressed by mainstream propaganda control.

belter 5y ago

It's still early. We will end up finding the truth. The World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020 and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. We are getting into the last quarter of 2021. I think we will end up knowing the truth for 3 reasons: - The more time passes without finding evidence of the original animal host, in China or any other country, the more likely the lab theory becomes. - Lovers quarrel, people betray people, and persons who can't talk at the moment, after a few years, decide they have more to gain by talking. - It is now known, and this has not been denied, that US Funded non profits were doing gain-of-function research in Wuhan: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/09/covid-origins-gain-of-function-research/ https://theintercept.com/2021/09/09/covid-origins-gain-of-fu...

kasey_junk 5y ago
That article doesn’t at all prove that the US was supporting gain-of-function research. At best it proves that gain-of-function research is not well defined and epidemiological researchers themselves disagree on what it means. The grants themselves deny access to funds for gain-of-function and provide a framework for judging what that is.
- belter 5y ago
  >"...At best it proves that gain-of-function research is not well defined and epidemiological researchers themselves disagree on what it means..." If its not so well defined, the categorical denials from US officials, saying it was not happening, become then even more interesting. The case from the article is a bit stronger I would say: "Scientists working under a 2014 NIH grant to the EcoHealth Alliance to study bat coronaviruses combined the genetic material from a “parent” coronavirus known as WIV1 with other viruses. They twice submitted summaries of their work that showed that, when in the lungs of genetically engineered mice, three altered bat coronaviruses at times reproduced far more quickly than the original virus on which they were based. The altered viruses were also somewhat more pathogenic, with one causing the mice to lose significant weight. The researchers reported, “These results demonstrate varying pathogenicity of SARSr-CoVs with different spike proteins in humanized mice.” But the terms of the grant clearly stipulated that the funding could not be used for gain-of-function experiments. The grant conditions also required the researchers to immediately report potentially dangerous results and stop their experiments pending further NIH review. According to both the EcoHealth Alliance and NIH, the results were reported to the agency, but NIH determined that rules designed to restrict gain-of-function research did not apply. The Intercept consulted 11 scientists who are virologists or work in adjacent fields and hold a range of views on both the ethics of gain-of-function research and the Covid-19 origins search. Seven said that the work appears to meet NIH’s criteria for gain-of-function research."

oxymoran 5y ago

At the very least, it’s proof that Fauci lied to Congress that the NIH had been funding the gain of function research. Regardless of if the virus leaked from the lab or not, Fauci needs to go.

tzs 5y ago

> “There is a possibility it was influenza,” he said. “But I’m very doubtful that three people in highly protected circumstances in a level three laboratory working on coronaviruses would all get sick with influenza that put them in a hospital or in severe conditions all in the same week, and it didn’t have anything with the coronavirus. That’s highly hard to believe. From that point forward, it certainly seemed to have started to spread within their community.” People working in highly protected circumstances in a level 3 laboratory still have plenty of opportunity to pass influenza to each other. First, it is level 4 where the workers wear the full body suits. At level 3 the concern is more just with keeping whatever they are working on from getting out, not with keeping the workers from bringing stuff in. Second, even virus researchers like to socialize and so do things like have lunch together. As far as I know a biology lab lunchroom is pretty much the same as any other office lunchroom as far as biosafety goes.

tim333 5y ago
The 3 lab workers probably weren't the original source as it was in November and the outbreak probably started before then. I think I saw a report that they had the ground glass like lung x-rays characteristic of covid but may have caught it like everyone else rather than from lab work.

tim333 5y ago

I'm not sure the article does a very good job of explaining what 'gain of function" was done. This twitter thread from Richard Ebright is maybe better https://mobile.twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1436203624124747777 https://mobile.twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/14362036241247...