Thread by @alexandrosM

I want to write a few things about Dr. W. Ian Lipkin or as we call him in my household, *Dr Lynchpin*. He is the in the middle of many networks in virology, but at the same time he is somewhat of a maverick. Plays the game, but eventually finds his way to doing the right thing.🧵

Lipkin, early in the pandemic, was *everywhere*. Just between Jan 20 and Jan 30, he was quoted on 18 different articles, some times 3 articles in the same day! This continued up until March, when the infamous "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2" came out, with him as one author.

Lipkin was one of the few that George Gao, the head of the Chinese CDC, called on New Year's Eve 2020 to give him the down-low on the new virus. He also is one of only two scientists to claim he knew something was up before the last days of December 2019:

https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1409008060174008322?s=20

Having helped reboot the Chinese CDC, China is fond of him, and he paid the favor back: He flew to China in January 2020, and while he wasn't able to go to Wuhan, he spoke with many people in Beijing, perhaps the only prominent western virologist to do so.

His ties to China go way back, at least from the time he helped them deal with the original SARS. And they've rewarded him with titles and medals over the years:

https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1404374251952476163?s=20

So when he emerged as a leading voice in the "Zoonosis" camp, prominent in the media minimizing the case for a lab leak, nobody was surprised. Then, back in new york, he got COVID. And then he refused to go to the hospital, and *treated at home with HCQ*?!

https://twitter.com/megtirrell/status/1244063750665240577?s=20

He was also supposed to run a project with Zhong Nanshan using molecular tools to detect the source of the virus. Seemingly, Lipkin was a true believer in zoonosis. It doesn't seem the project moved forward. scmp.com/news/china/soc…

Not sure what happened, but after around May 2020, his statements to the media are far and few between, and he goes essentially quiet on the lab leak. He doesn't really come back to the conversation until May 2021.

In the meantime, in 2020 the two remaining RAs that joined him from Michael Katze's group left Columbia: Atsu Okumura moved on in March (and it's not clear where he works now), and Angela Rasmussen left in November.

https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1408582528596725763?s=20

In May 17 2021, after Wade's article had made the rounds, he was a changed man, citing BSL-2. He told Don McNeil: “That’s screwed up,” he said. “It shouldn’t have happened. People should not be looking at bat viruses in BSL-2 labs. My view has changed.” donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/how-i-learned-…

Weirdly, Shi's statements were made almost 10 months earlier, but much closer to the time he stopped talking about the lab leak. science.sciencemag.org/content/369/65…

More recently, he's contradicted his "Origins" co-author Bob Garry on the issue raised by @jbloom_lab around deletion of sequences early in the pandemic. He told Washington Post that "The retraction of sequence data is unprecedented and must be addressed." archive.is/AgVxF#selectio…

It should be noted that Lipkin has been instrumental in shutting down Wakefield's claims that the MMR vaccine is lined to autism, both by speaking to the press and by doing substantial research on the matter and publishing influential papers on the matter.autismspectrumnews.org/columbia-unive…

At the same time, he's been involved in a pretty salacious lawsuit with his ex-romantic partner of over a decade, Maddie Hornig. The lawsuit alleges a huge laundry list of misdeeds from personal to financial to organizational. sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/l…

In a 2018 hearing, a judge denied Hornig's request for a preliminary injunction as "Hornig has not demonstrated a clear or substantial likelihood of success on" .. any of her claims. casetext.com/case/hornig-v-…

The transcript of the hearing tells a story: to my untrained eye, it seems Lipkin's error was not sex discrimination against his ex. It was building up the carreer of Hornig, a psych undergrad, who ended up tenure-tracked in virology by working with him. sciencemag.org/sites/default/…

And I don't say this lightly: tenure-track positions are few and far between, and it looks like Lipkin demanded Hornig be given one when he moved to Columbia in 2001, even though she was not previously tenure-tracked, and subsequently failed three evaluations to advance.

Similarly to when he brought in Katze's assistants (and him as a consultant) or when he defended Gao early in the pandemic, it seems he puts a lot of weight on personal connections, some times bending the system to fit those preconceptions.

But as we see from his hunting down of Wakefield, or letting Hornig sink, or his recent turnaround on the lab leak and speaking in support of Bloom, when things go too far, Lipkin does know to cut his losses.

I may be proven wrong, and he may end up pushing the narrative again, but I hope Ian Lipkin may be key in turning the tide. After him, Ralph Baric, the other bigwig, came out strongly questioning WIV. "if that was being done at BSL-2, then there are questions you want to ask."

Incredible as it may sound, it really does seem to be that Baric, like Lipkin, may be able to let almost anything slide, except for bad scientific standards. Let's see how this all unfolds, and keep your eyes on Lipkin. He's been around forever, and he knows when to pick sides.