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Alina Chan Profile picture
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Feb 20 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Despite bipartisan+scientific pressure to release info relevant to #OriginOfCovid, @NIH refuses to be transparent.

In a rare non-redacted email from 2020, we see confirmation that pre-pandemic funding had involved samples from SE Asia sent to Wuhan.
theintercept.com/2022/02/20/nih…
Notably one email from the Laos collaborator said they had not began work there in Sep 2018 due to issues with their government. Although it is certain from the EcoHealth Alliance's own grant reports that they had sampled sites in Laos over the years.
documentcloud.org/documents/2122…
It's unclear how many samples had been sent from Southeast Asian countries into Wuhan in the years leading up to the pandemic. When @theintercept reached out to 6 of the SE Asian collaborators, only 1 replied saying they did not have the requested info.
theintercept.com/2021/12/28/cov…
I want to press the point that scientists, internationally, especially here in the US, have been very non-transparent on this issue.

It's not an issue of race or culture. They've collectively refused to share info/data on the viruses collected.

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More from @Ayjchan

Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 21
It's difficult for me to understand why it has been so difficult for the NIH to tell us what it knows about the coronavirus research that was happening in Wuhan as part of an international collaboration.
theintercept.com/2022/02/20/nih… Image
From the few non-redacted pages in this FOIA'ed document, you can see that there are also emails describing post-pandemic Covid-19 response research mixed into this batch. We don't know if there are more EcoHealth-related content under the 292 pages of redactions.
But @theintercept tells us that "The NIH still had more than 1,400 pages of relevant documents in its possession... the agency appears to have no urgency to make this critical information public."
theintercept.com/2022/02/20/nih…
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 20
Just listened to @joerogan convo with @mtosterholm
Dr Osterholm's expertise in epidemiology shines. I also appreciated how he handled #OriginOfCovid questions like a scientist - being honest when he doesn't know or is relying on the judgment of his peers.
open.spotify.com/episode/5VSukF…
@joerogan @mtosterholm Many of the problems scientists have gotten into during the pandemic have involved trying to send overly simplistic or confident messages to the public when there is still too much unknown or when data has yet to be collected.
The public needs to get used to hearing scientists say that they don't know (yet), or that particular topics are outside of their expertise, or that they have not had time to look into specific issues even if it is within their wheelhouse.
Read 16 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 15
After the first SARS-CoV-2 genome went public, at least 3 separate teams of scientists harnessed 3 different approaches to synthesizing its genome without having to put in any novel cloning or restriction sites. It took each team only a few weeks.
2 of the teams had to put in silent mutations to differentiate the synthetic virus from the natural virus that might've contaminated their lab.

Otherwise how could they know whether the strain they had synthesized was a lab-made virus or a virus from a covid sample?
“Full-genome sequencing showed that the recombinant virus retained the three engineered synonymous mutations with no other sequence changes, demonstrating the rescued virus did not result from contamination by the parental virus isolate​​.”
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32289263/
Read 15 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 14
If a suspect refuses an investigation for 2+ years and then says you should still fully trust whatever evidence they provide years later... is it unfair to say that the evidence provided years later would not be fully reliable?
Are there any investigators who believe that it is appropriate for a suspect to refuse a timely, independent investigation and then later claim that it is immoral to not trust their self-audit?
Apparently some scientists and journalists, who are supposed to have honed their investigative skills over years, believe that the above behavior is acceptable and sufficiently transparent for a matter concerning millions of deaths.
Read 4 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 14
If anyone has actual data, info, screenshots etc. about the missing Wuhan Institute of Virology pathogen sampling database, please send it to a reporter for verification and publication.

If you only have speculation or best guesses about what happened, it will not be helpful.
The archived page above shows that the number of external visits to the database, requests and downloads abruptly dropped to 0 in mid-Sep 2019 and stayed that way.

If anyone is asserting that the database was taken off the public web later than Sep 2019, please show your proof.
For example, what could be considered acceptable evidence is archived versions of the database's public interface after Sep 2019 - showing that users could still visit the database & request data.

Does anyone have this type of evidence or is it all assertions without evidence?
Read 6 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 14
This is an archived page of the Wuhan Institute of Virology 野生动物携带病毒病原特色数据库 database backend h/t @C_Small_

It lists the date, # independent IPs, # visitors, page visits, # requests, and downloads (GB). These ground to a halt in Sep 2019.
archive.md/9MNVZ
@C_Small_ Interestingly, the database interface page was visited from outside of China as well during this period:
Unfortunately, because the database's public interface page has been removed, it's not easy to tell what was originally there.

A public description of the interface had been archived:
archive.fo/jPPkB
Read 11 tweets

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