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Alina Chan Profile picture
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8 Jul, 4 tweets, 2 min read
This is happening next Wednesday:
@DavidRelman will be speaking to the Investigations and Oversight subcommittee of the House Science Committee on "Principles for Outbreak Investigation: COVID-19 and Future Infectious Diseases".
science.house.gov/hearings/princ…
I wish more experts were invited to give a balanced and clear-minded assessment of the existing evidence surrounding the #OriginsOfCovid
I think @DavidRelman is one of the best scientists to speak on this topic - finding the source of a pandemic that could’ve arisen naturally or involved research activity. pnas.org/content/117/47…
I favor giving more airtime to scientists who advocate for a credible investigation of both natural and lab origins as opposed to scientists who have already decided it is almost certainly natural or almost certainly from a lab - despite the absence of solid evidence for either.

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More from @Ayjchan

Alina Chan Profile picture
10 Jul
Some scientists are worried that the lab leak hypothesis, even if unproven, could lead to new regulation of research (& research orgs).

I heard that there is a petition letter being circulated asking scientists to add their names to reject these possible new changes in advance.
Needless to say, I think this is a terrible mistake and a trap that scientists are setting for themselves again.

It implies that the signatories are not taking lab origins seriously and their names will be on the line if and when a lab leak causes a future outbreak.
Why not write a letter calling for a public forum where both scientist & non-scientist stakeholders can reason with each other in a transparent way about what needs to be done to make research safer.

This cannot be an issue that is decided by just scientists in relevant fields.
Read 15 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
8 Jul
The danger in insisting on the 'natural spillover' idea with no solid evidence is that it could lead to initiatives that limit our capacity to make dangerous virus research safer and get ahead of lab escapes. The amount of risky pathogen research is rapidly expanding globally.
I understand that a lot of scientists have an unshakeable faith in the leak-proofiness of BSL4s (still not accident-proof; SARS1 escaped once from a BSL4 lab in 2003).

But the live virus SARSrCoV work at WIV was performed at BSL2!
There are cell culture hoods and good ventilation in BSL2 TC rooms. But just ask any scientist who works at BSL2 how frequently they hear about someone else touching door handles with their gloves on or cleaning up spills in the centrifuges. Or how often they get contamination.
Read 10 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
8 Jul
I'm getting requests for comment on the new preprint review on #OriginsOfCovid

This new review is slightly better than the Proximal Origin correspondence (and has a more impressive authorship list) but sticks to the same key points as Proximal Origin.

zenodo.org/record/5075888…
The first author did not disclose his 2014-present Guest Professor position in the Chinese CDC. This was also not disclosed in Proximal Origin. So my understanding is that this appointment was and still is not considered a competing interest.
api.profiles.sydney.edu.au/AcademicProfil…
The preprint ultimately urges a comprehensive investigation of the zoonotic origin of the virus, ideally through collaborative studies. 💯agreed.

But I disagree that "there is substantial body of scientific evidence supporting a zoonotic origin for SARS-CoV-2."
Read 15 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
6 Jul
“Even the headline on The Lancet article — Science, not speculation, is essential to determine how SARS-CoV-2 reached humans — seems designed to gaslight their critics, given their previous stance.”
By ⁦@ianbirrell⁩ unherd.com/thepost/why-wo…
@ianbirrell 1st Lancet letter:
"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin"

2nd Lancet letter:
"intent of our original Correspondence was to express our working view that SARS-CoV-2 most likely originated in nature"
@ianbirrell 1st L:
"Scientists.. overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife.. supported by a letter from the presidents of the US NASEM"

2nd L:
"We believe the strongest clue from new, credible, and peer-reviewed evidence.. is that the virus evolved in nature"
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
6 Jul
The #OriginsOfCovid controversy has muddled the definitions of two terms:

Conflicts of interest

Conspiracy theory

Insights from @DisInfoChron @thackerpd and @ianbirrell here:
disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/ian-birrell-…
@DisInfoChron @thackerpd @ianbirrell It is somehow ok for an expert to first fail to declare their conflicts of interest, consider taking their name off a letter they wrote, and then one year later say they have reasonably perceived competing interests but are acting in a "private capacity".
Many journalists reporting on these letters and scientific articles fail to point out the severity of the conflict of interest.

@thackerpd: "these same reporters have no problem screaming on Twitter if a politician has financial conflicts or campaign funding from corporations."
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
6 Jul
The Lancet letter 2.0 is up. This time with a declaration of interests almost as long as the letter itself.

It's more nuanced than v1.0 but still makes the mistake of not understanding that a lab leak usually involves a virus collected from nature.
thelancet.com/journals/lance…
Some again forgot to state their EcoHealth Alliance affiliation. So I would like to summarize their interests:

If it turns out Covid-19 is from a lab, several signatories affiliated with EcoHealth/PREDICT or collaborators of WIV could lose funding and/or public reputation.
For their peer-reviewed evidence for a natural origin, the letter points to 3 peer-reviewed articles all describing bat coronaviruses and 1 describing pangolins.

But actually none of them provide evidence of how SARS2 would've naturally emerged in Wuhan.
Read 10 tweets

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