Thread by @akoz33

The first of two or more threads on the corruption of science. This time: coronavirus.

Now that the one of the greatest cases of politically driven scientific malpractice in history, which I think is a fair way to describe the great “origins of covid-19” coverup, has collapsed, it seems to be a good moment to do some stock taking.

Make no mistake about it, this affair is going to rank along with the Lysenko affair (and the still going on Climate Panic Affair) as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of science, or even the history of human (un)reason (there are indeed also some

similarities with the Great Witch Craze).
And, this is completely independent of what the actual origins of covid will eventually turn out to have been (most likely the issue will never be completely resolved, at least until the fall of communism in China).

The fact the virus leaked from a lab, that dangerous “gain of function” research, partly financed by the United States was conducted in China in insecure (level 2) labs, located right in a large city pales in significance with the fact that the very large section of the

scientific establishment, not just in one or two directly involved countries, but throughout the world engaged in systematic telling of lies, or at least incomplete truth.

Moreover, this happened not only under a totalitarian dictatorship that China is (that would make the analogy with Lysenkoism less shocking) but in what still remains of the free world.

(Only if it is discovered that China deliberately developed the virus for a military-political purpose, will the fact of the appalling behaviour of much of the West’s “scientific community” be overshadowed by something more grim).

And yet, the fact is, that even for a non-expert it was not very difficult to see what was going on. Although my daughter has a doctorate in molecular biology and works as a research scientist for one of the best known US Biotech companies, like most people,

I had never had any serious interest in this area before the pandemic. Like many others, once it started I began to learn the basics. But even with this elementary knowledge it was easy to notice that something very fishy was going on.

I think I first realised that when I read the blog and saw some interviews with Andrei Illarionov, a Russian economist living in America. I even translated some of it here:

https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1251152376217473026?s=20

At about the same time, the Russian mathematician and political scientist Andrei Piontkovsky started discussing the same issue, with similar conclusions:

https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1252921785634426880?s=20

Both of these, of course, were not microbiologists, but there was enough detailed information in what they said and wrote to make one realise that something very serious and very suspect was going on.

At the beginning, the most prominent virologist who actually suggested that the virus was partly created in a lab, was the Nobel prize winner Luc Montagnier.

The problem was that Montagnier was a very discredited scientist for completely independent reasons. The fact that he is based in Shanghai and that his views on the origins of the coronavirus (he claimed it was created as part of an attempt to make a vaccine against HIV)

were very outlandish (like most of his other views) tended to discredit the theory and was indeed used in this way (I am now inclined to believe that Montagnier has always been acting in the interest and even under instructions of his Chinese paymasters).

That was why it was significant for me when I read that support for the theory of artificial origin of the virus was expressed by the well know Russian virologist Pyotr Chumakov

(who, by the way, at the same time dismissed Montagnier’s idea, by saying that in his opinion there is no way to even try to make an HIV vaccine in this way.) Here is my translation of his interview.

https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1256178455718305792

Pyotr Chumakov’s brother, Konstantin, is actually the head of vaccine research at the FDA (the American FDA), and, like the rest of the establishment he was originally denying any possibility of the kind of thing that his brother was saying happened, actually happening.

Here is my thread on the two brothers and with some speculation about why their views were so different:

https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1348342926863118337?s=20

By the way, now Konstantin Chumakov, agrees that the virus most probably “leaked” from a lab, although the last time I listened to him he still resisted the “artificial creation” idea.
Here is another early short thread on this topic.

https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1257578600175415296?s=20

There are plenty more, but these, I think, were the main ones.
One of the particularly disheartening aspects of this issue was the way biologists, epidemiologists etc, in “minor countries” such as Poland, joined in this world wide cover up,

assuring their own compatriots that as “experts” they could confirm that that no chimera virus of this kind could be created and that everybody who asserted otherwise was a conspiracy theorists and a scientific ignoramus.

The reasons why this kind of thing happens are quite obvious: today a scientific career depends on having a paper published in “Nature” or “Science”, getting invited to conferences, etc. In all subjects these are the necessary requirements for promotion and grants.

The corruption that results affects the entire world.
This is the reason why when things become politicised, the most trustworthy voices tend to be those of distinguished but retired or otherwise independent scientists.

This is something I intend to write more about in the next instalment.
I have made a habit of listening and reading to interviews with Russian-American scientists, conducted in Russian.

One reason is that they appear to feel freer to speak their mind than when speaking in English. But only Pyotr Chumakov (who, as I explained in one of these threads, is completely independent) was quite open about what he thought. Here are some other reactions that I have heard.

Konstantin Chumakov, Associate Director of FDA for vaccines: I have seen no evidence of anything artificial about this virus. We still don’t know how to do such things. The Chinese scientists were not doing anything that the rest of us don’t do.

Mikhail Gelfand, Professor of bio-informatics at Moscow State University, when asked if it was possible to make the virus artificially: “yes, it is possible but it was not done”. The interviewer, as usual, does not follow up and doesn’t even ask why.

Konstantin Severinov, Microbiologist, professor of Rutgers University and Moscow State University, head of several labs in the US and Russia.
“It would not make sense to do such a thing, as the result would be completely unpredictable.

Of course, one it is done, we can repeat it, but at this time there is no way of knowing what the result of such manipulations could be”.
Note the logic: “there is no sense of doing this (because of unpredictability) therefore it was not done”.

Unfortunately we know the world does not work like this.

Finally again Pyotr Chumakov: “The Scientists in Wuhan were doing for decades senseless experiments. That this can be done I can demonstrate myself experimentally. They say that there are no traces; what fool would today leave traces?

Nowadays we know how to do this sort of thing without leaving traces. Only and international investigation in the Wuhan could uncover the truth but the Chinese will not allow it. We shall possibly only know the truth in the future, if someone involved in this talks.”