Thread by @Ayjchan

Thorough article by @GMWatch about the conflict of interest and lack of accurate information coming from EcoHealth on the topic of SARS2 origins - but you forgot to mention the karaoke parties and spelunking parties...

https://twitter.com/gmwatch/status/1325713222129815552

“Right now a party in a bat cave sounds just right to me!!” - Peter Daszak

https://twitter.com/PeterDaszak/status/1325277221817356288

Please do not allow EcoHealth to visit any more bat caves. The last thing we need is SARS2 being accidentally given to bats in the wild (like the mink farms). Bats already have a great virus reservoir going on, no need to add human viruses with novel features to their inventory.

In the middle of 2020, NIAID awarded millions to Ecohealth and partners to do the same bat virus sampling and characterization in SE Asia (grant 1 U01 AI151797-01).
niaid.nih.gov/news-events/ni…

See the new EcoHealth grant awarded by the NIAID here: more virus characterization using receptor binding, cell culture, and humanized mouse models. grantome.com/grant/NIH/U01-…

I’m not saying that this work should not be conducted. I think this is important research. But can we also consider (1) who should be conducting and overseeing this work? (2) where virus research should be performed to mitigate lab escape, ie not in the middle of a populous city?

What this project entails is humans going into wild habitats in groups and deliberately collecting pathogens (when they normally wouldn’t), bringing these back into the most crowded international cities on earth, & working with concentrated replication-competent virus in the lab.

Is there protocol where live virus experiments are conducted only on unpopulated islands with a strict personnel pathogen testing process wrt traveling between cities, labs, and caves? Will data be deposited immediately on public servers, not left for years in private databases?