Thread by @Ayjchan

Transcripts of the early 2020 exchanges on the #OriginOfCovid among leading scientists in the US & Europe show they were privately worried about a lab origin of Covid-19.

Yet, publicly they authored Proximal Origin, which dismissed lab origin hypotheses.
republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/upl…

In private, they understood that "the only people with sufficient information or access to samples to address [the #OriginOfCovid] would be the teams working in Wuhan."

In public, they wrote "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."

The day (Feb 4, 2020) that a first draft of Proximal Origin was shared with Fauci and Collins by Farrar, Farrar said Edward Holmes (one of the Proximal Origin authors) had guessed 60:40 lab and Farrar guessed 50:50.

Apparently in that first draft, "[Eddie Holmes] arguing against engineering but repeated passage is still an option"

But in the published Proximal Origin, repeated passage was dismissed because "such work has also not previously been described" (actually, it had been described).

An April 2020 email by Dr Collins makes the objective of Proximal Origin clear: to "settle" and "put down" the lab #OriginOfCovid hypothesis.

What is the "very destructive conspiracy" that Fox News had circulated at the time?

"“multiple sources” believe the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab before accidentally escaping and infecting the population."

mediaite.com/tv/foxs-bret-b…

“Not as a bio-weapon, let’s just be clear.. [sources]’re saying it occurred naturally because China was trying to show that they could be as good or better than the U.S. in handling viruses, discovering viruses, and that this was a botched effort to contain this and it got out"

In other words, a Fox News anchor raised a very plausible accidental lab #OriginOfCovid hypothesis, and this was deemed a "very destructive conspiracy" by our scientific leaders, one that they hoped would've been put down by the Proximal Origin letter.

Keep in mind their discussion was ~1.5 years before the DEFUSE proposal came to light where an international group of scientists including those in Wuhan proposed inserting novel furin cleavage sites into novel SARS-like viruses.
theintercept.com/2021/09/23/cor…

Lead author of Proximal Origin @k_g_andersen: “This describes work that is, like, ‘Let’s go out and discover new viruses,’ and do things like furin cleavage sites.”

Reporter @carolynkor: “Such work could have led directly to the creation of sars-CoV-2.”
newyorker.com/science/elemen…

Why were these emails redacted? As far as I can tell the information wasn't classified intelligence?

And it's way past time for @NatureMedicine to publish an addendum to Proximal Origin to inform readers about its true origin and history.

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1472207737140432905

Another set of FOIA'ed emails to revisit show that someone had tipped off a science journalist about how Proximal Origin had really come to be. The lead authors conferred with Fauci & Farrar how to respond. Mostly redacted.

h/t FOIA'ed by @JamesCTobias
documentcloud.org/documents/2104…

@JamesCTobias Proximal Origin failed to acknowledge the advice and leadership by Farrar, Fauci, and Collins. They also did not credit the other experts at the Feb 1 meeting that had discussed this very issue with them and led to the inception of Proximal Origin.

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1449769396457680897?s=20

The one person acknowledged at the end of Proximal Origin was the same person revealed in today's redaction transcripts to have been "bothered by the furin site and has a hard time explain that as an event outside the lab".
republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/upl…

This was actually revealed in 2021 in Farrar's own book: "Michael confessed he was struggling to figure out how the new coronavirus could have acquired its features in a natural way."

Farrar recounts, as corroborated by the redaction transcripts today, that Ron Fouchier, Marion Koopmans, and Christian Drosten were the ones that argued against a lab origin on the Feb 1 call. Yet their arguments were later reflected in Proximal Origin without acknowledgement.

By Feb 19, 2 of the Feb 1 call attendees had signed the now infamous @thelancet letter organized by Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance:

"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin."
thelancet.com/journals/lance…

@TheLancet And on Feb 16, the first public version of Proximal Origin had been posted online:

"this analysis provides evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct nor a purposefully manipulated virus"

archive.fo/cZwkG

This doesn't fall too far from what the lead author of Proximal Origin was already asserting to a different group of scientists on Feb 4, only 3 days after the call.

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1472208799008272389

A retraction of Proximal Origin might be in order unless its authors can explain precisely how they became overwhelmingly persuaded of a natural #OriginOfCovid between Feb 2 and Feb 4, 2020.

And explain why they failed to credit so many contributors and advisors to their letter.

Springer @Nature's policy is clear:
"Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data.. or have drafted the work or substantively revised it"
nature.com/nature-portfol…

Even if for some reason, the Proximal Origin authors thought their peers who contributed to the conception of Proximal Origin did not meet this standard...

"Contributors who do not meet all criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements section."

A reason for this policy is laid out by another publisher:

"anyone who has assisted with the manuscript content must be acknowledged and their source of funding declared"

Presumably this is to identify conflicts of interest.

h/t @thackerpd
authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/editorial-poli…