Not sure if I'm reading this document right, but it looks like there are many things we should be investigating to see if SARS-CoV-2 has natural or lab origins. nonproliferation.org/op-49-a-guide-…
Let's apply the Investigation Methodology shown in Fig 2 to the current pandemic. A natural origin has not been confirmed; no animal samples from the market or Hubei province have tested positive despite a scattering of pangolin CoV papers from Guangdong and GuangXi province.
Despite the lack of evidence for a natural origin, many experts have come out as saying that it is clear that SARS2 has completely natural origins and that lab-based scenarios are implausible. The independent investigation of lab is led by long time funder+collaborator of WIV.
The past ~10 months have been spent investigating natural origins (blue left panel of Fig 2) with zero evidence of natural spillover; shouldn't there be some international pressure to get moving on the lab origins investigation (green right panel of Fig 2)?
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@COVIDSelect Baric said he forgot about the Defuse proposal & did not mention it at the Feb 1 call.
I believe Baric sharing Defuse would've prevented the publication of Proximal Origin and the use of it to dismiss a lab #OriginOfCovid in US gov and to the public.
@COVIDSelect Baric also could've told them at the Feb 1 meeting that novel SARS-like viruses were being used in infection experiments at BSL2 at the Wuhan Institute of Virology aka the Wild West according to Jeremy Farrar.
Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance testified he didn't know Wuhan Institute of Virology bred 🦇, studied pangolin samples, engineered viruses without leaving a trace, and continued to collect viruses after 2015.
So how does he know they didn't cause Covid?
Daszak said he didn't know if WIV had started experiments described in the Defuse proposal and 🚨had not even asked them🚨.
He only had virus sequences from samples collected up to 2015. He believed that the WIV would've shared more sequences from 2016-2019 if they had them.
Reminder: EcoHealth Alliance still has not shared the sequences for the WIV's 220 SARS-CoV-1-like viruses (2022 interview) or 180 unique SARS-like viruses in their prior work not yet characterized for spillover potential (2018 proposal).
Those dismissing a lab #OriginOfCovid have had to make numerous concessions over the past 4 years.
We now know Wuhan scientists conducted risky experiments with novel SARS-like viruses at low biosafety & planned in 2018 to create viruses with the traits of the Covid-19 virus.
We also know the data on early cases & Huanan market shared by Chinese scientists do not shed light on #OriginOfCovid
Proponents of natural origin continue to argue that it is the totality of evidence that supports their hypothesis but this could be said for lab origin as well.
The latest defense for a natural #OriginOfCovid is that, if a lab leak had occurred, the Wuhan scientists would have acted all suspicious and essentially given the game away, thereby putting themselves, their colleagues & their families in immediate and deadly peril.
Freedom of speech is important in academia & science but difficult to navigate when it comes to politicized topics.
With #OriginOfCovid, some scientists, journals & reporters have competing interests & may be blamed if research they conducted, funded or glorified caused Covid.
On Tuesday’s hearing, chief editor of Science said the scientific community contributed to politicization of Covid & it was wrong to paint 'lab leak' as a conspiracy theory.
There was widespread consensus, Democrat or Republican, that #OriginOfCovid remains unresolved.
Several representatives asked for forward-facing solutions but none were presented. Today, the media continues to hang onto mistakes & politics of the past.
When confronted, many scientists or journalists who misled their peers & the public on #OriginOfCovid make no apologies.
@BulletinAtomic The point of assembling an international task force of experts with truly different view points on #OriginOfCovid and what qualifies as risky research was so that the consensus recommendations would be robust to attacks from angry people on both sides of this issue.
Leaders of scientific funding agencies said Proximal Origin was a nice job. According to the lead author of Proximal Origin, Farrar, Fauci & Collins had advised and led them as they wrote the letter.
So why won't @NatureMedicine put these leaders in the acknowledgements?
Beyond what @Bryce_Nickels pointed out in his letter to @NatureMedicine & International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the Proximal Origin authors failed to point out that their funder(s) had been involved in the work. nature.com/nature-portfol…