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Alina Chan Profile picture
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6 Oct, 5 tweets, 5 min read
Opinion @washingtonpost by Kevin Esvelt @kesvelt @MIT inventor of #GeneDrive

"For 20 years, taxpayer-funded research programs have sought to identify or create pandemic-causing viruses, all with surprisingly little transparency."

h/t @TheSeeker268

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@washingtonpost @kesvelt @MIT @TheSeeker268 "To discover many dangerous viruses, or learn to enhance weaker ones, is to share the blueprints for an arsenal of plagues. Good people advocate for such research.. [but] misuse could be worse than if any of those pathogens spilled over naturally."
@washingtonpost @kesvelt @MIT @TheSeeker268 "Instead, health and security agencies should work together, ideally with considerably more than the $65 billion requested by the White House, to build adequate defenses against future pandemics."
"Let’s not learn to make pandemics until we can reliably defend against them." - @kesvelt @MIT
This sounds a bit like you think SARS2 plausibly came from a lab @kesvelt :)

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More from @Ayjchan

Alina Chan Profile picture
7 Oct
There are people who understand the difference between a conspiracy and a cover-up.

And there are people who are grasping at straws.
There's a big difference between calling something a conspiracy vs a cover-up.

Cover-ups happen regularly and often follow accidental mistakes.

Conspiracies have a different, nefarious meaning to many people. And a conspiracy theory has become synonymous with a crackpot theory.
This difference is so basic but some people need it to be explained to them again and again.
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
6 Oct
It's not right that information directly relevant to the #OriginsOfCovid - much of it from sources outside of China - are only being revealed close to 2 years post-outbreak.
These documents only made public in September 2021 make any scientific reviews (some would say critical reviews) or science journalism pieces prior to last month out-of-date and uninformed.

theintercept.com/2021/09/06/new…

theintercept.com/2021/09/23/cor…
If anyone is writing a new #OriginsOfCovid journalistic piece or a critical review/op-ed for publication at a scientific journal, you must include the new findings from the #Defuse DARPA proposal leaked by Drastic and the NIH EcoHealth progress reports FOIA'ed by @theintercept
Read 4 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
6 Oct
Some don’t want to investigate a lab leak because they worry the outcome of confirming a lab origin of covid might be cataclysmic.

In other words, they might be thinking it is better to risk lab-based pandemics in the future than to confront the origin of the current pandemic.
As I tweeted that, I got tagged by @joshrogin in news that virus hunting is getting a new infusion of 💰
I don’t think that scientific decisions are currently being guided by the strong possibility that this type of virus hunting and manipulation research might have led to the covid-19 pandemic.
Read 6 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
5 Oct
If you find that many scientists are unmoved by the finding that more PCR machines were purchased in Wuhan in 2019, that’s because PCR is too general to point to anything in particular.

It’s like finding that someone bought more batteries one year. It doesn’t tell us anything.
Furthermore the purchases were made by multiple different institutions over a time period of May to late 2019. Not in parallel, but in different months.

It doesn’t make sense to me how this would be the response to an emerging outbreak beginning in May 2019.
It would be a completely different matter if Wuhan purchases of PCR reagents and primers specific to coronavirus had increased at an unprecedented rate in 2019 prior to December.
Read 4 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
4 Oct
Questions to run through before deciding whether to threaten/degrade scientists:

1. Are they directly responsible for a cover-up or are they just annoying?

2. Are they deliberating spreading misinfo or are they just ignorant?

3. Will threatening scientists hurt your own cause?
I suspect if you run through these questions, most of the time you'll realize that the scientist you're super mad at is just annoying and ignorant.

And threatening or degrading them only makes your "side" look dangerous and uncivilized.
Facts:

Not all scientists know everything about every single topic, even in their field of expertise.

Not all scientists are aware they are not always right.

Scientists are human, figuring this pandemic out just like everyone else.
Read 6 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
4 Oct
Scientists on both sides of a controversial issue can talk to each other civilly while asking tough questions of each other.

Let's aim to make this the norm. Public, transparent exchange. Mutual respect. Facts-based debate. Steel-man both sides.

science.org/content/articl…
If the aim is to rebuild public trust in the functionality and integrity of the scientific community, particularly in its ability to keep its own members honest, we need to make scientific discourse more open and accessible to the public.
What doesn't build trust is scientists deciding what info to withhold in case the public cannot handle it.

What doesn't build trust is scientists silencing or even being abusive to each other.

What doesn't build trust is scientists making assertions when evidence is lacking.
Read 6 tweets

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