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Alexandros Marinos 🏴‍☠️ Profile picture
@alexandrosM
Jun 7, 2021 • 28 tweets • 10 min read • Read on X
The Lancet letter of Feb 18, 2020, sent a message to scientists the world over: Investigate a lab leak, and you will be tarred as conspiracy theorist. Was it a honest outpouring of support? Or astroturfing? To start, of the 27 signatories, 7 were affiliated with EcoHealth... 🧵 Image
... Alliance: Peter Daszak (President), Rita Colwell & James Hughes (BoD members), William Karesh (EVP for Health and Policy), Hume Field, Juan Lubroth, John Mackenzie (Science and Policy Advisors). The fact that a quarter of the signatories were affiliated with EHA was hidden.
3 signatories worked directly for the Wellcome Trust: Sir Jeremy Farrar (Director, also instrumental in the Feb 1 meeting between Kristian Andersen, Eddie Holmes, Anthony Fauci, and others), Josie Golding (Epidemics Lead), Mike Turner (Director of Science).
In addition Larry Madoff is the editor of ProMED, which receives "ongoing operational support" from Wellcome, Gerald Keusch reports having served in multiple committees for the Wellcome Trust.
Leo Poon is in a leadership position in Hong Kong University, and given the situation on the ground, we wouldn't expect him to be able to share any thoughts. Finally, Dennis Carroll and Jonna Mazet are in Leadership of the Global Virome Project, alongside Peter Daszak.
So far we've shown how 15 of the 27 signatories had major conflicts, considering how involved EcoHealth was with funding WIV, as was the Wellcome Trust.

To dare write "We declare no competing interests" in the letter, was a mockery of science and taxpayers everywhere.
Of the remaining 12, 4 are close collaborators of Ralph Baric, and have stayed relatively quiet, especially since he signed on to a statement asking for an independent investigation: Linda Saif, Luis Enjuanes, Alexander Gorbalenya (Sasha), Bart Haagmans.
As a reminder, Ralph Baric, one of the fathers of Gain-of-Function methods, was intending to sign, but was asked by Peter Daszak to refrain, as apparently did Linfa Wang, to prevent attention to their collaboration and "maximize an independent voice". 🤮usrtk.org/wp-content/upl…
And now for the interesting part: Of the remaining 8 who are relatively independent, 5 have modified or reversed their positions with regard to a lab leak: Considering they started by signing a statement that called it a "conspiracy theory", this is truly remarkable. We have:
First author Charles Calisher considers the use of "conspiracy theory" to have been "over the top". He now tells people he needs more information before he can opine: technologyreview.com/2021/03/18/102… Image
Christian Drosten considers a lab leak within the realm of possibility, though extremely unlikely. He now has his own hypothesis, to do with serial passage through the fur farming practice. This is the first I've heard of this one, but this is why we need an open conversation. ImageImageImage
Stanley Perlman believes that the "lab leak" is now "on the table", due to our failure to find the intermediate host thus far.

technologyreview.com/2021/03/18/102… Image
Peter Palese has gone a step further and is demanding a full investigation.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9… Image
Perhaps the longest distance of all has been crossed by Bernard Roizman. He is now convinced “that the virus was brought to a lab … and some sloppy individual brought it out”. “They can’t admit they did something so stupid.”

wsj.com/articles/wuhan… Image
Even Daszak now concedes he can't disprove the lab leak hypothesis. This may sound obvious, or mundane, but the letter sang a different tune.

modernhealthcare.com/technology/bat… Image
The only signers unaccounted are Ronald B Corley, Kanta Subbarao, and Sai Kit Lam. The latter is essentially retired and has not published since the Lancet letter. The other two work for governmental and intenrational organizations respectively, and have kept a low profile.
The remarkable fact is that out of the 8 signatories that have not been somewhat directly implicated in the research at hand, 6 have modified or completely reversed their positions, considering a lab leak anywhere from possible but unlikely to convincing.
The letter used by Facebook, Wikipedia, as well as mass media everywhere, to mark the lab leak as a conspiracy theory, and tar anyone who investigates it, was elaborate astroturfing. While we were told to "follow the science", it turns out science was following... Peter Daszak.
PS. Seems this thread is blowing up. I should note I had the help of @Iseravi1.

If you want a broader timeline of lab leak events, find it here:

If, instead you'd like to cleanse your palate and regain faith in humanity, try this:
PPS. What made me look at the letter twice was it making an impossibility claim. In the words of R. Hamming:

"If an expert says something can be done he is probably correct, but if he says it is impossible then consider getting another opinion."
P(3)S. Something pretty serious emerges, tying together many threads of this mess:
Concerning info about the long-time editor of The Lancet seems to be coming out: When contacted this January by The Paris Group to publish a pro-lab leak letter signed by 14 experts, he rejected it without review: "we have agreed to uphold our original decision to let this go" Image
The Lancet, however, didn't seem to mind picking Peter Daszak to chair its Covid-19 Origins Commission.

unherd.com/2021/06/beijin… Image
He told South China Morning Post in May 2020 it was "unfair", “not helpful”, “not scientific” to seek a patient 0 and such efforts could be “highly stigmatising and discriminatory”. We shouldn't allow "conspiracy theories to contaminate our thinking". scmp.com/news/china/sci… Image
In August 2020, he wrote in The Guardian that "This wave of anti-China feeling masks the west's own Covid-19 failures". Make of it what you will, but I would not choose this man as the referee of the COVID origins question. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Horton, in a 2017 article "Medicine and Marx", opens with a Xi Jinping quote and closes thus:

"As the centenary of his birth approaches, we might agree that medicine has a great deal to learn from Marx."

It is as even keeled as you imagine.

thelancet.com/action/showPdf…
I'm not trying to overly focus on one person here, but I am writing this part as I find things, and in the case of Horton, each thing I've been finding is more revealing and baffling than the last. I will do my best to move on to other conflicts of interest.
If you've read this far, you may be interested in my followup thread on the Wellcome trust and Jeremy Farrar

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More from @alexandrosM

Alexandros Marinos 🏴‍☠️ Profile picture
May 1
In trying to keep up with the vast pace of developments across many fronts, I have started to hypothesize something. Perhaps it is oversimplified. Perhaps it is just wrong. I am open to all eventualities, I'm sharing this to get feedback.

When Mike Johnson did his complete turnaround, I started to wonder what he could possibly have been told that changed his view so drastically. It is tempting to think it was some personal threat to his reputation or family. But that is a low-context explanation that could apply to anything, and as such is not very informative, imo.

What if, what he was told, is that what is going on is pretty much the opening moves for WW3? See the map below and think about what was recently approved with the help of Mike Johnson:

- Warrantless wiretapping
- TikTok forced sale or banning
- Funding for Ukraine
- Funding for Israel
- Funding for Taiwan
- No funding for strenghtening the border (and actually perhaps some funding to get *more* people into the US)

Basically, infowar funding for the internals of the empire, and actual war funding to support the borderlands (Taiwan, Israel, Ukraine) against the rising BRICS powers. And an entry to the US of cheap workforce that will be needed to set up a new industrial base. At best we end up with a new Cold War. If we're lucky.

Maybe I'm giving people in power more credit than they're worth. Perhaps I refuse to believe they're simply arrogant and incompetent. But for better or worse, I can't stop thinking about this map, and what it means for the world.

I may have classified some countries wrong, by the way, I'm open to suggestions on specifics. In particular, It's likely that Hungary and Serbia should be at the very least a kind of greyzone. Also, US influence in south Asia probably goes further than I marked. And of course Africa is a competition zone, with Russia and China making inroads and France/EU losing ground, but nothing yet completely settled.

Anyway, hopefully this is interesting to others as it was to me. (runs away and hides in bunker)Image
Was about to mention that the poles are about to become a zone of intense competition between the blocks.
Remember everyone, I'm a rando who has been watching way too many geopolitics podcasts recently. I could totally be hallucinating this.

THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE BUT IF IT WORKS OUT I EXPECT YOU SCOUNDRELS TO SEND ME AT LEAST A THANK YOU NOTE
Read 4 tweets
Alexandros Marinos 🏴‍☠️ Profile picture
Mar 30
A beautiful teaching moment here.

This Ben Shapiro/Dave Rubin clip is one of the most important recorded interactions for people who care about hypocrisy in the public sphere.

Thread 🧵 with some thoughts below.
First, Shapiro makes the argument that Daily Wire is a publisher (like a magazine or a newspaper) not a platform (like locals).

Interestingly, he implies that the Daily Wire was *subsidizing* Candace Owens. This would imply they were taking a financial loss to have her there.
Shapiro and Rubin, however, have also been massive critics of cancel culture. How did cancel culture get its name? From a campaign to cancel The Colbert Report over a tweet. Much of cancel culture is about inflicting professional harm for bad opinions.
newyorker.com/news/news-desk…
Read 16 tweets
Alexandros Marinos 🏴‍☠️ Profile picture
Mar 28
At this point I treat Scott Alexander's writing as an infohazzard. Unless you are willing to check his facts and citations, it is probably inadvisable to read his material, as it is constructed to build a compelling narrative.
But watch the lemmings line up and jump off a cliff, obviously taking Scott Alexander, who has already admitted to falsely accusing multiple scientists, at his word. Image
Unless and until Scott Alexander commits to adopting a robust editorial process where blatant errors that are reported to him are corrected promptly, his work should be read as fiction "based on a real story, sorta".
Read 16 tweets
Alexandros Marinos 🏴‍☠️ Profile picture
Mar 22
To coin a term, this FDA tweet was a "narrative scaffold". After the narrative solidifies, it doesn't matter if the scaffold is taken down. Nobody will remember how things started anyway.

It's a synchronization signal for the elites to line up and promote the approved narrative. Once all the relevant people are committed, opponents' reputations destroyed, the original signal can go away, and the hive mind will continue singing to the same tune.
Other examples of narrative scaffolds? Where to start.

For one, the Steele dossier that led to the years and years of Russiagate garbage.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Or the Lancet letter, which was astroturfed between deeply conflicted scientists covering their own asses.
Read 9 tweets
Alexandros Marinos 🏴‍☠️ Profile picture
Feb 21
Yes the "diverse" photos Gemini generates are fun to chuckle at but let's also notice that this thing is generating straight up medical misinformation: Image
Google Gemini: "While some studies suggest potential benefits of maintaining a healthy weight for COVID-19 outcomes, evidence on weight loss as a specific protective measure is inconclusive."
Image
Image
Google Gemini: "There's no evidence that the spike protein in COVID-19 vaccines is directly cytotoxic. These vaccines only contain the genetic instructions for making the protein, not the fully formed protein itself."
Image
Image
Read 16 tweets
Alexandros Marinos 🏴‍☠️ Profile picture
Feb 18
I would like to use the occasion of this clip to remind everyone that the TOGETHER trial has still not released the raw data as it promised to do in its journal submission.

All the big name accounts complaining about fraudulent ivm studies have said NOTHING about this scandal.

I even offered Scott Alexander $25k of my own money if he would help get it released and he didn't move a finger.

Following the ivm rabbit hole has been the fastest way to find out that practically nobody from the medical establishment cares about the actual facts on the ground. Just posturing and repeating the hive mind talking points.

Thank God for whistleblowers, I have gotten access to the interim analyses from this trial, and when I publish them, the fraudulent nature of its conduct will be clear to anyone who cares to know about it.

Receipts in replies.
Read 4 tweets

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