If the @USRightToKnow and others keep suing for virologist emails via the freedom of information act, we might finally get to see their honest reactions to the Defuse proposal or perhaps their transition to non-FOI’able channels of communication.
This 2020 email doesn’t make me feel particularly confident in the current membership of the NSABB advising federal policies on potential pandemic pathogen research.
Emails such as this make me wonder about science journalism. AFAIK this @nytimes journalist concerned about the risks of pathogen research did not eventually publish an article on #OriginOfCovid
Instead @nytimes kept publishing articles about how unfounded lab origin was.
At the very least, the editor at @voxdotcom put up a note one year later:
“Since this piece was originally published in April 2020, scientific consensus has shifted. Now some experts say the “lab leak” theory warrants an investigation, along with the natural origin theory”
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Yet, in recent interviews, these authors continue to assert that all sequences/viruses being worked with in the Wuhan lab must have been in the public domain.
Sometimes, they invoke a bizarre generalization that virologists are gossipy and can't keep novel viruses to themselves.
They already surmised in early 2020 that a lab performing gain of function, eg cleavage site insertion, would NOT use an existing close relative of SARS or MERS.
Looking forward to the case study on #OriginOfCovid - how a small group of scientists managed to create a mass illusion of scientific consensus via groupthink and connections with prominent science journalists/writers.
I'm not sure that #SciComm folks could've predicted that some of the worst misinformation during the pandemic would've come from experts instead of mis/disinformants.
If you're a scientist or journalist promoting the benefits of virus hunting (in natural habitats, wildlife trade etc.) and manipulation in laboratories around the world, please practice some circumspection.
Millions might've died from precisely this type of research gone wrong.
A lab-based outbreak doesn't require any fancy bioweaponry or shenanigans (e.g. serial passaging to select for cross-species airborne transmissibility) in the lab.
It can be as simple as scientists chancing on a dangerous natural pathogen in the wild and bringing it into cities.
Top experts in virology and infectious diseases understand this. They know that viruses that have spent time in laboratories don't necessarily have to look different from what we see in nature.
What are the sources that tell us what research was happening in Wuhan that could’ve plausibly led to the emergence of Covid-19?
Grants+reports submitted to US funders, FOI’ed emails from research collaborators, publications+academic theses from the Wuhan Institute of Virology..
.. interviews of the Wuhan Institute of Virology scientist, published in @ScienceMagazine and @techreview, telling us directly that their research on SARS-like viruses had been conducted at low biosafety levels (BL2/3) that cannot contain viruses like SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19)..
.. archived photos and interviews of the Wuhan scientists, their collaborators, and others showing they had not always worn appropriate protective equipment while hunting for potential pandemic pathogens..
I have not read Bill Gate’s new book. There are likely lessons in it about pandemic preparedness that should be seriously considered.
But we also need to be careful that the virus hunting to predict & prepare for pandemics does not itself cause pandemics. ecohealthalliance.org/2017/01/1-mill…
I’d like to repurpose a quote from the director of the global virome project:
“What we’re doing today is the same thing we were doing a decade ago… If we keep pursuing that approach, we will ultimately have a global catastrophe.”
Many virologists, even natural #OriginOfCovid proponents, agree it is unsafe to study new SARS-like viruses at BL2 - which was the case in Wuhan for several years.
Has new policy been put in place to restrict work on novel airborne mammal pathogens to higher biosafety levels?
The level of biosafety and containment of viruses was a key concern (privately) expressed by top experts on biosafety/virology. See email from James Le Duc, director of the Galveston National Laboratory, which collaborated with and trained WIV staff. usrtk.org/wp-content/upl…
“That’s screwed up... It shouldn’t have happened. People should not be looking at bat viruses in BSL-2 labs. My view has changed.”
- Ian Lipkin, Columbia Professor, expertise in diagnostics, microbial discovery and outbreak response. donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/how-i-learned-…