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Michael Lin, PhD-MD Profile picture
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3 Jun, 5 tweets, 1 min read
Pretty cool story. In a perfect world the DRASTIC group should get their own NIH grant. Except in a perfect world we wouldn't have SARSCoV2.

How amateur sleuths broke the Wuhan Lab story and embarrassed the media newsweek.com/exclusive-how-…
Interesting excerpt:
'Had the WIV been actively working on RaTG13 during the seven years since they discovered it? Peter Daszak said no: they had never used the virus because it wasn't similar enough to the original SARS...
'..."We thought it's interesting, but not high-risk," he told Wired. "So we didn't do anything about it and put it in the freezer."

Ribera disproved that account...'
'...When a new science paper on genetics is published, the authors must upload the accompanying genetic sequences to an international database. By examining some metadata tags that had been accidentally uploaded by the WIV along with its genetic sequences for RaTG13,...'
'...Ribera discovered that scientists at the lab had indeed been actively studying the virus in 2017 and 2018—they hadn't stuck it in a freezer and forgotten about it, after all.'

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Michael Lin, PhD-MD Profile picture
2 Jun
A lesson on proper trial design: Was thinking, if nAb levels at 3% of convalescent plasma (CP) prevent severe COVID (nature.com/articles/s4159…) then infusing 1U of CP (5% body volume) should prevent death.

And it does! jci.org/articles/view/…

But weren't we told CP was worthless?
Of course it was the @nytimes who wrote the obituary for convalescent plasma. Maybe nothing factually wrong in their stories, but their writers generally lack the training to dig deeper and find the signal in the noise.

nytimes.com/2021/04/17/hea…
"When a treatment fails, which is often, it can be difficult for its strongest proponents to let it go. Eventually, studies did emerge to suggest that under the right conditions, plasma might help."

Sloppy @nytimes. 1st sentence implies CP failed. 2nd says success. Which is it?
Read 10 tweets
Michael Lin, PhD-MD Profile picture
30 May
It's inactivated vaccine week, apparently. Earlier we had the publication of Phase 3 Sinopharm data. Today we have the announcement of *final* Phase 3 Covaxin data. The results are good: 78% efficacy overall. 1/4

in.news.yahoo.com/bharat-biotech…
This is essentially the same as the first and second interim looks. I discussed the first interim result in March, which came in at 81%. (2/4)

The second interim look occurred April 22 and showed 78% efficacy (3/4)

Read 4 tweets
Michael Lin, PhD-MD Profile picture
24 May
Some people are wondering, with some scientists expressing opposing views about the possiblity of a lab leak in COVID19 origins, how do they know who to trust? In this thread I describe how to recognize the rhetorical devices or fallacies used to push weakly supported views.
1/🧵
First some background. Scientists face the situation of figuring out the steps that lead to an outcome all the time. For example it’s what molecular biologists do on a daily basis to work out the molecular reactions that underlie initially mysterious biological events.
2/🧵
We start by brainstorming all the possible hypotheses that are consistent with the known outcome *the more the better* to makes sure we don't miss the right answer. Then we gather data that can help rule out one hypothesis or not.
3/🧵
Read 26 tweets
Michael Lin, PhD-MD Profile picture
23 May
Was just thinking that the CRISPR baby episode foreshadowed many of the issues were now grappling with on SARSCoV2 origins. And then because it can read my mind, my news feed told me that my colleague Hank Greeley has a book out about it this week. irishtimes.com/news/science/c…
What are the similarities?
- A controversial line of investigation because of its potential for harm
- A high-visibility topic, so some fame to those who navigate safety and ethics properly
- Chinese scientists eager to show they are as technically capable as Western scientists
Now we don't know where SARSCoV2 came from, so there could be no involvement of Chinese scientists. But in both cases, the central PR China government has squelched the release of certain records that, if everything was done properly, would have exonerated the people involved.
Read 11 tweets
Michael Lin, PhD-MD Profile picture
22 May
For those following the less-perfect vaccines (what most of the world will get), a medrxiv study from Chile this week provides some very valuable data: neutralizing antibody levels after natural infection vs 1 or 2 doses inactivated virus or RNA vax. medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
Most interesting finding: Similar nAb titers after natural infection vs. uninfected after 2 doses CoronaVac or after 1 dose BNT162b2 (Pfizer/BioNTech). These are columns 1, 6, and 8 in the below chart.

What does it mean?
Several things:
1. The data are in line with Coronavac Phase 1/2 trials. There, nAb levels after 2 doses 4 weeks apart reached ~0.6x of convalescent sera. Here the graph shows nAb levels after 2 doses > convalescent sera, but the text says a bit less (1595 vs 1860, not sure why)
Read 11 tweets
Michael Lin, PhD-MD Profile picture
22 May
Like others, I admire Fauci for being a straight and clear talker.

It's big news then that, at 13:00 below, he says we can't rule out lab involvement in COVID19 origins. That completely blows up claims by certain people that no serious scientists could consider that.

His words:
"No I’m not convinced about that [natural origin]. I think that we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out to the best of our ability exactly what happened.”
"Certainly the people who’ve investigated it say that it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals but it could have been something else, and we need to find it out."
Read 5 tweets

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