Thread by @Ayjchan

Also people asking me about this @nytimes article about Dr. Limeng Yan, Steve Bannon & Miles Guo.

My stance has not changed. We need a way for whistleblowers to get out of China without Bannon and Guo standing in their way and damaging their credibility.
nytimes.com/2020/11/20/bus…

My original thread response when Dr. Yan released her first preprint is here: "If there is one thing that this entire saga has made clear - it is that whistleblowers (as it pertains to SARS2) have no obvious safe route of sharing their information."

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1306393772985638913

For those who aren't too familiar with Dr. Yan's story, here is a quick summary:

In Jan 2020, Yan was helping her supervisor to investigate the new covid outbreak. She heard rumors about the dangerous new virus that the Chinese gov was playing down, and blew the whistle...

to the most trustworthy public figure she knew – Lude, a Chinese YouTube host.

On Jan 19, Lude's show claimed that the virus was from a lab, related to the then closest related Zhoushan SARS bat viruses. Why was the virus already so capable of transmitting from human to human?

The next day, Jan 20, China told the WHO that the new coronavirus could indeed transmit from human to human. The WIV also submitted their first covid paper to @nature; accepted in 9 days, claiming “the virus is becoming more transmissible between humans.”

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1320347908252831744

This is an extremely sad state of affairs. A scientist who wants to blow the whistle on a government cover-up of an outbreak has to go to a YouTube host.

Imagine if Snowden had to leak classified information to PewDiePie.

By Feb 6, a professor at Guangzhou’s South China University of Technology, Botao Xiao, posted an article suggesting that the virus “probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous (labs).”
img-prod.tgcom24.mediaset.it/images/2020/02…

I can't figure out the exact time that article was publicly shared, but according to emails unearthed by @USRightToKnow, that same day, the president of @EcoHealthNYC drafted a short letter condemning lab origin conspiracy theories ” and asked reputable scientists to co-sign.

After several of the experts agreed to co-sign the letter, Dr. Daszak @EcoHealthNYC president said “Please note that this statement will not have EcoHealth Alliance logo on it and will not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person...”

Similarly, in July, Yan was interviewed by Fox, but was told by Miles Guo: “Don’t link yourself to Bannon, don’t link yourself to Guo Wengui.. Once you mention us, those American extreme leftists will attack and say you have a political agenda.” nytimes.com/2020/11/20/bus…

At the minimum, my personal interpretation is that both sides (natural origins vs bioweapon) understood that if the message did not appear politically motivated or somehow organized, it would be less susceptible to attack.

Yan did not have a smoking gun for lab origins. Yet, her 1st Sep 14 preprint about SARS2 being an intentionally released bioweapon went viral.

The preprint, and her credibility and motivations, were rapidly decimated by reputable virologists.

vox.com/2020/9/18/2143…

The next day, Sep 15, @theLancet, which published Daszak’s anti-lab origins letter in Feb, announced that they would set up a “comprehensive investigation into the origins of the virus” led by none other than Daszak.
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…

So here we are in late November. A postdoc whistleblower in the company of Miles+Bannon saying SARS2 is an intentionally release bioweapon. A president of a highly funded research org EcoHealth that has since Feb condemned theories that SARS2 could have originated from a lab.

The former periodically releases preprints and interviews insisting that SARS-CoV-2 is a bioweapon, which are immediately trashed by journalists and scientists.

The latter is chairing @thelancet SARS2 origins investigation committee.

For my views on @thelancet investigation committee on SARS2 origins, see this tweet cluster with at least 3 threads:

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1331237087572619267