Thread by @MoNscience

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change first met in 1990, where it predicted that GHGs could fuel global warming.

Even as more evidence accumulated, efforts to sow doubt delayed action.

The “natural origins” vs “lab leak” debate around COVID-19 has entered this realm...

Doubters of climate change often called for “direct evidence” -- or irrefutable proof that carbon begets warming begets catastrophic climate/weather.

Ex. The National Academy of Sciences report on June 7, 2001 was followed four days later by these comments by Pres. Bush.

Despite years of research pointing toward anthropogenic disaster, the doubt led to a “both sides” conversation in news media.

To this day, deniers still yell “Ice Age!” as megafires and rain-packed hurricanes pummel us.

For months, I’ve watched the “lab-leak” hypothesis creep from conspiracy theory into the mainstream.

This culminated last week, when Science Magazine published a letter signed by 18 scientists equating the “natural origins” hypothesis with the idea of accidental lab leak.

Overall, the letter calls for more investigation/transparency in China, which most outside of Beijing can agree with.

But it creates a false equivalence between natural origins (supported by studies) and the lab-leak theory (no evidence).

Many in the lab-leak camp (including a signatory on the Science letter) claim that SARS-CoV-2 was possibly bioengineered (again, no evidence, and it's countered by studies).

Before we explore these flaws in the “lab-leak” hypothesis, I want to repeat these points, especially the second, because the mainstream press is overlooking them.

1. Let’s start with Nicholas Wade, a former NYT writer who once wrote a book on race and genetics that was so problematic that it was openly denounced by 143 scientists, including ones who said he misrepresented their research…
cehg.stanford.edu/letter-from-po…

Wade recently penned an op-ed in @BulletinAtomic where he made two central claims about why SARS-CoV-2 could be bioengineered or involve gain of function research.

Both are unsupported, but the second on “serial passage” is objectively incorrect...

Serial passage is a lab method of growing a germ. Take a virus, drop it into a petri dish/beaker with some cells and let the germ infect/multiply.

Wade says this could have been done to breed SARS-CoV-2 without leaving a sign—a point opposed by multiple studies of the virus.

The takeaway is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus mutates in predictable ways when you remove it from a body and put it into a petri dish.

These changes include genetic deletions that make the coronavirus less likely to infect humans.

Wade’s OpEd, along with almost every “lab-leak” article, omits this research even though these studies have existed since last summer.

These findings should surprise no one. A common thread in biology is that if you move an organism from one environment to another, it changes.

There is no way to bioengineer a virus without serial passage. The germ would need to be grown and isolated, over and over.

There is no gain of function research without this first step.

But SARS-CoV-2 is so highly adapted to being inside living mammals, that once you move it into a petri dish, it leaves a trail of evidence.

Other evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 being naturally derived after adaptation to an immune system.

But it’s fairly heady, so I’ll just mention these four studies...(again, more evidence of natural origins)...and move on...

2. The second, dubious claim involves the idea that SARS-CoV-2 is too unique to be natural.

By now, people are familiar with SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein...

The SARS-CoV-2 spike carries a feature called the furin cleavage site (FCS), which is required for the virus to infect our cells.

The lab-leak crew says this FCS is unusual...too unusual... which again is not supported.

See thread by @K_G_Andersen

https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1391507230848032772/

Or this thread by @wanderer_jasnah

https://twitter.com/wanderer_jasnah/status/1394247714024660994/

I raise these threads because again they offer just a sliver of indirect evidence that supports the natural origins of SARS-CoV-2.

Speaking of which….

3. Lab leakers say that finding SARS-CoV-2 (or a 99% identical relative) in a bat or intermediate animal host is the only suitable direct evidence for natural origins.

I get that. Scientists identified animal hosts of past emergent coronaviruses—SARS-CoV-1 and MERS—within a year

The intermediate host of the 2002 SARS was identified in four months...why didn’t the same happen this time?

I don’t know. China could have invited independent investigators after their first wave but didn’t. Maybe it was the trade war? Maybe they lost trust in westerners?

But for people who believe that this “direct evidence” is the only way to support the natural origins for SARS-CoV-2, I pose this poll about the Ebola virus.

The animal host of the Ebola virus is:

Seriously, take a moment to make a pick ☝️ before going to the next tweet...

Spoiler: The answer is B.

Despite 44 years of study, the animal reservoir for human Ebola viruses is unknown: gov.uk/government/pub…

This 2019 report is the closest we’ve come, and it’s a little shaky: sciencemag.org/news/2019/01/b…

4. People say the lab-leak theory cannot be ruled out—much in the way that climate change deniers often cite natural processes with our anthropogenic emergency as a way to use speculation to sow doubt.

Detractors will say all the evidence I listed earlier about SARS-CoV-2 is indirect.

Even if that’s true, it’s still empirical evidence that supports natural origins.

On the lab leak side, there is...

Speculation: Even if the virus wasn’t bioengineered, the lab leakers will claim some unknown scientist could have collected the germ in the wild and released it the second they got back to the lab…

Speculation: Research teams in China spend time in gross bat caves where they find viruses in guano, so you never know...

Speculation: But scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology collaborated with researchers in New York City who spoke against the lab-leak theory (given the scientific precedence of SARS-CoV-1 and MERS). It must be a coverup...

Speculation: Also, the team received NIH funding…(like other labs across the world)...Fauci is at the NIH...IT ALL CONNECTS!....MAYBE, UNICORNS EXIST, TOO?!

Or perhaps, the lab-leak crew is masking their lack of evidence by raising a bottomless pit of hypotheticals.

Proving a negative is challenging, and if an animal is harboring SARS-CoV-2 in the wild, it could be extremely difficult to find without more cooperation from China.

But the “lab-leak” hypothesis has penetrated so deeply into the public that even if researchers eventually pull SARS-CoV-2 out of a bat, pangolin or whatever, how many people will believe them?

The doubt has likely done its damage, and that’s...

@threadreaderapp unroll please