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Alina Chan Profile picture
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18 Oct, 8 tweets, 5 min read
Not sure whether to be surprised or not that SAGO is already following in the footsteps of the first China-WHO joint #OriginOfCovid study.

See our letter from the Paris Group published in the @WSJ this March describing limitations of the joint study:
wsj.com/articles/who-i…
@WSJ Team selection process did not adequately screen for reasonably perceived conflicts of interest.

Skills represented are predominantly focused on zoonosis. Can this team properly investigate a lab leak?

Team does not have access to records/data.
s.wsj.net/public/resourc…
@WSJ "At least one international team member had expressed a strong conviction towards the pure zoonosis hypothesis before joining the investigation - when hardly any data about the SARS-CoV-2 virus were available - and was dismissive of the lab-related origins."
One of the only two SAGO experts with a background in biosafety had called the lab leak hypothesis "a classic conspiracy theory".

I did not apply to SAGO because I believe the world needs a credible @WHO #OriginOfCovid study with a fresh start, no controversy.

Unfortunately, it looks like other controversial applicants and the SAGO selection committee didn't share that opinion.
@WHO Several people kept urging me to apply but I told them that having controversial figures on SAGO would discredit their #OriginOfCovid study and lead to a large number of people on either side of the issue rejecting these efforts and their findings.
@WHO It's disappointing to see that people making decisions on SAGO membership didn't have the common sense to avoid controversial picks.

If it's not possible to remove appointed members, you'll have to balance the team by appointing experts with opposite stances on the issue.
@WHO Unfortunately, you'll have to appoint at least another 10 experts leaning towards a lab origin to counter the existing 10+ experts on SAGO leaning towards a natural origin.

This team is going to be massive.

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More from @Ayjchan

Alina Chan Profile picture
19 Oct
Is it too much to ask for @who to please not appoint SAGO members who have called the lab leak hypothesis a conspiracy theory?

Is this very challenging for the WHO? To pick 26 non-controversial experts to track the #OriginOfCovid?
You’re telling me that out of 700 SAGO applicants, these 26 names were the least conflicted / controversial?

Did the entire EcoHealth Alliance & gain-of-function friends network apply or something?
There should be 2 qualifiers for SAGO members:

1. What are the problems they have identified in the first China-WHO joint study and its report?

2. What are their comments on the DEFUSE proposal and NIH report showing gain-of-function SARSrCoV work by WIV/EcoHealth?
Read 4 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
19 Oct
Even if you’re convinced that SARS2 emerged completely naturally, it is in your interest that a credible and balanced investigative #OriginOfCovid team is established.

If an imbalanced team is set up, it’s not going to convince people on the other side.
cbc.ca/news/health/wh…
Where I’m sitting, I see people tweeting that it’s obvious the virus came from a lab / nature. There are people on each side that are equally convinced that “everyone knows” where this virus came from.

We need a balanced #OriginOfCovid investigation that both sides can trust.
I told @markgollom @CBCNews “Most of the international experts convened on the highly criticized initial joint study with China are back on SAGO. It will now be difficult to convince people that the new SAGO will be much different from the original joint study group.”
Read 6 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
19 Oct
“Daszak.. at the center of yet another maelstrom.. a leaked grant application.. controversial experiments that could alter bat coronaviruses in a way that may have given them a “gain of function,” potentially creating human pathogens with pandemic powers.” science.org/content/articl…
Daszak who had been placed in the @WHO & @TheLancet #OriginOfCovid teams did not tell them that he and WIV had engineered chimeric SARS-like viruses with 10,000x higher viral loads in humanized mice, and by 2018 had seen novel cleavage sites they planned to insert into SARSrCoVs.
We need to see all of the communications at EcoHealth and UNC relating to the discussion of novel cleavage site detection and/or insertion into virus in the lab.
Read 4 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
18 Oct
"To chair the task force Sachs initially chose zoologist Peter Daszak, one of the world’s most experienced researchers of bat coronaviruses."

Enough said.
science.org/content/articl…
"The other 11 people on the task force refused to remove Daszak from their ranks, but agreed to make Keusch their chair instead."

Yep. Disband them.
"On 10 September, [Sachs] learned details of an NIH grant to EcoHealth.. following FOIA requests from @theintercept. Keusch and three other task force members are listed as co-investigators. “None of them reported this involvement with the EcoHealth Alliance.."
Read 9 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
17 Oct
Actually, I would use that 99 million dollars to FOIA the **** out of communications among scientists and journal editors outside of China.
Almost every major finding relating to the #OriginOfCovid has come from FOIA'ed or leaked documents, or extremely delayed scientific journal publications or data hidden in the scientific literature and online databases.
We've got the Mojiang mine medical thesis and China CDC director thesis pulled out of a Chinese thesis database by @TheSeeker268
Read 13 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
17 Oct
Starting ~27:30min mark, UK chief scientific advisor Patrick Vallance discusses the 1 Feb 2020 phone call with his US counterpart and leading experts, which he says produced the Proximal Origin @NatureMedicine correspondence by Andersen et al.
bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0…
He describes his role at this meeting as a bystander and says that’s why none of the emails can be shared- because they’re not his emails.

So the public cannot see the emails informing both US and UK scientific heads as well as the most influential #OriginOfCovid publication.
I also want to know that those emails are indeed as boring as some scientists have asserted. Let’s see them and we can all re-focus our energies on more productive venues of investigation. But for now, it looks like the scientists at that meeting don’t intend to be transparent.
Read 15 tweets

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