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Alina Chan Profile picture
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28 Oct, 7 tweets, 3 min read
Step 1 Conduct risky MERS chimera research

Step 2 fail to report results for 2 years

Step 3 when asked by journalists, tell them you didn’t actually do it

Step 4 when journalists discover you did do it, blame the spokesperson science.org/content/articl…
The chimeric SARS-like viruses also did not look enhanced in cells, but when in humanized 🐁 revealed 10,000x higher viral loads & enhanced severity of disease.

EcoHealth showed results that the chimeric MERS virus looked similar to MERS in cells, but what about in humanized 🐁?
“To put RBDs from some of the novel HKU4 viruses into MERS-CoV, already a lethal human pathogen, is “sort of crazy” and “unjustified,” says University of Montana, Missoula, virologist Jack Nunberg.” science.org/content/articl…
Given how many times Daszak has made misinformed statements on key questions about work done in Wuhan, I’d like to see the paper work proving that all of the MERS chimera work was done at BSL3.
Seeing as how Ecohealth didn’t seem particularly coherent on the question of whether the MERS research had even been done.
I think it would greatly benefit humankind and the scientific community if @aaas @sciencecohen can arrange for Daszak to be on a panel where questions can be put to him by other scientists - both friendly and not so friendly.

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More from @Ayjchan

Alina Chan Profile picture
29 Oct
Half the people on my twitter feed are talking about this DNI Updated Assessment on COVID-19 Origins.

BUT "This assessment is based on information through August 2021."

Come on. No. Come back with an assessment based on info through Oct 2021.
dni.gov/files/ODNI/doc…
Do you know what has happened in September/October 2021 alone?
h/t @fastlerner @maiahibbett @MaraHvistendahl @theintercept

theintercept.com/2021/09/09/cov…

theintercept.com/2021/09/23/cor…

theintercept.com/2021/10/01/nih…

theintercept.com/2021/10/21/vir…
I guess I'm glad that they at least clarified:

"All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident."

This will prevent some unintelligent people from claiming that the DNI ruled out lab origins.
Read 11 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
29 Oct
3 takeaways from the recently released EcoHealth grant proposals & reports:

1. By March 2018, they had a roadmap for detecting & inserting novel rare (furin) cleavage sites into novel low risk SARS-like viruses.

2. By 2019, chimeric human pathogen MERS-CoV research was ongoing.
3. Several groups of people were aware of either one or both of the points above and decided not to say anything about it for close to 2 years since SARS2 emerged in Wuhan.
2 urgent things need to be done now:

1. All EcoHealth+collaborator communications, docs, data related to SARS-like viruses must be made public/investigated by a credible team

2. A new moratorium & overhaul of framework+oversight structure on pandemic potential pathogen research
Read 4 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
29 Oct
Where would we be today without all the outsiders, independent analysts and internet sleuths who, month after month, showed that the EcoHealth/Daszak was spreading misinformation about bat coronavirus research in Wuhan? wsj.com/articles/coron…
Were any scientific leaders holding EcoHealth/Daszak accountable?

The community was largely silent even as Daszak was appointed to the @WHO and @TheLancet #OriginOfCovid teams.
Many scientists and science journalists in the public eye continued to cast the lab origin hypothesis as a conspiracy theory and take EcoHealth/Daszak’s word without question for most of 2020+2021.
Read 9 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
26 Oct
Some have interpreted this tweet to mean I didn’t think a genetically engineered #OriginOfCovid was possible last year. I did think it was possible & interesting, but not worth pursuing as a top priority.

Now I believe it has to be treated as a top priority for inquiry.
Importantly, even if SARS2 was genetically modified, it doesn’t mean that it was a bioweapon or intended as dual-use.

My reading of the Defuse proposal is that the scientists were genuinely curious and wanted to study rare cleavage sites in SARSrCoVs.
drasticresearch.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/main-d…
With literally 2020 hindsight, we now know inserting novel cleavage sites into novel SARS-like viruses is a terrible terrible idea. But back in 2018, scientists might not have grasped the risks.
Read 6 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
26 Oct
Even if you don't think that @WHO or SAGO will be effective at finding the #OriginOfCovid it is in all of our interests that SAGO at least be set up to be balanced, representative of diverse expertise, and free of conflicts of interest.
researchgate.net/publication/35…
@WHO In our letter, we note that there are far too few nominees with backgrounds in biosafety,biosecurity, or forensics (we counted only 2 out of 26) - skills that are critical for realizing SAGO’s mission.
This will fundamentally harm SAGO’s credibility, and the credibility of the WHO by extension. To function optimally, SAGO will require a team able to fairly and credibly examine all pandemic origin hypotheses, both now and in the future.
Read 7 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
25 Oct
If SARS2 came from a lab, genetic engineering is very much on the table.

This wasn’t my view 1 year ago. However, in light of grant proposals and reports released in the past 2 months, we know novel SARS-like viruses were being synthesized and engineered at unprecedented scale.
What is going to help inform us on this question “was SARS2 genetically engineered?” is getting full access to all of the communications and documents US-based scientists, editors, and funders had relating to any novel SARSrCoV work.

Not machine learning.
State-of-the-art coronavirus genome engineering has been seamless for several years. You don’t need to be nefarious to make your synthetic genomes seamless.

We can’t use the genome sequence alone to infer whether genetic engineering has occurred.
Read 13 tweets

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