Today's @ScienceMagazine papers on the #OriginOfCovid are not game-changing - they largely say the same thing as the original preprints in February but in a much more subdued and chastised manner.
@ScienceMagazine I'm going back on break from twitter, but I have a manuscript on the evidence around a market/wildlife trade #OriginOfCovid that is under peer review.
I hope to be able to share a peer-reviewed form of it later this year #NeverGiveUp
@ScienceMagazine For people looking for a summary of the evidence on #OriginOfCovid I've written a medium post with 5-6min read time.
It explains the plausible origin scenarios and why investigators are having a hard time determining how the outbreak in Wuhan started. ayjchan.medium.com/the-evidence-f…
@ScienceMagazine I've updated my critique of Worobey & Pekar papers to
1⃣ explain how ascertainment bias led to cases unlinked to the market clustering in its vicinity
2⃣ address the virus-positive cage sample
3⃣ point out flaws in their "2 strains 2 spillover" hypothesis ayjchan.medium.com/evidence-for-a…
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Leading science organizations and journals appear to be utterly tone deaf.
Up till last month, the National Academies kept Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance as head of their forum on microbial threats. Nature journal continues to play the mouthpiece of the Proximal Origin authors & friends.
There appears to be zero introspection that they created/are part of a system that incentivizes risky research including the work in Wuhan that likely caused the pandemic.
Just this month, another top journal published 2 studies where MERS-like viruses were used in human cell infection studies at low biosafety (BSL-2) in Wuhan. The journal did not attach notices of concern to either paper.
Are we just waiting for another outbreak of ambiguous origin to occur? And will we endure more years of "it was the pangolins/bats/raccoon dogs/name your favorite intermediate host?"
@CellCellPress when you publish papers that handle animal pathogens with unclear (human) pandemic potential at low biosafety, you signal to the rest of the scientific community that this is totally fine and will be celebrated in the best scientific journals.
@CellCellPress At the very least, there should be a note of concern. For example, pointing out that the human pathogen MERS coronavirus has a ~30% fatality rate and, in the US, has to be handled at BSL-3. And that researchers should take extra precaution when handling its close relatives.
When the SARS-CoV-2 sequence was released in Jan 2020, EcoHealth could've said
1⃣They planned to put furin cleavage sites in SARS-like viruses
2⃣In 2013, the Wuhan lab discovered a new lineage of SARS-like viruses that the covid virus belongs to
3⃣Work was done at low biosafety
Instead we had to go through 5 years of the lab leak hypothesis being painted as a racist, anti-science conspiracy theory and a ton of misinformation from EcoHealth about the work being done in Wuhan.
No punches pulled piece on #OriginOfCovid by @ianbirrell
"The pandemic revealed the arrogant and contemptuous behaviour of leading scientific figures, aided by prominent academic journals, patsy journalists and weak politicians." unherd.com/2025/01/chinas…
@ianbirrell I suggest one correction @ianbirrell please replace 'despite' with 'because of':
WHO "hired Sir Jeremy Farrar, despite the former Wellcome Trust boss’s exposure as a central player in... branding any suggestions Covid could have come from a laboratory as conspiracy theory."
@ianbirrell On Feb 19, 2020, the authors of Proximal Origin realized that Jeremy Farrar - who had convened them and led their efforts - had signed the Lancet letter by Daszak condemning all lab #OriginOfCovid as conspiracy theories.
5 years ago, the authors of Proximal Origin wondered where the pandemic virus had been transmitting *intensely* so that it gained a furin cleavage site and passed it on.
One said, "No way the selection could occur in the market. Too low a density of mammals." #OriginOfCovid
Until today, there has been no reported sign of intense transmission of the virus in animals prior to the detected outbreak in Wuhan.
Investigators, including one Proximal Origin author, searched fur farms in China - no sign of any SARS-like virus. nature.com/articles/s4158…
On the other hand, a 2018 research proposal surfaced, showing Wuhan and US scientists with a plan to insert novel furin cleavage sites into novel SARS-like viruses. theintercept.com/2021/09/23/cor…
"5% chance that H5N1 starts a sustained pandemic in humans in the next year. 50% chance that H5N1 starts a sustained pandemic in humans in the next twenty years..."
@slatestarcodex In addition, under the new US gov policy on research that enhances the pandemic potential of pathogens, it will be the funding recipient (not the funder) who is responsible for flagging their own federally funded projects for review. liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.108…
Peter Daszak, who partnered with the Wuhan lab that likely caused the pandemic and is being debarred by HHS, continues to chair @NASEM_Health's forum on microbial threats.
@NASEM_Health @theNASEM The event disclaimer and website make no mention of Daszak's involvement in this event or any conflicts of interest.
@NASEM_Health @theNASEM This echoes Daszak's behind-the-scenes coordination of the infamous letter in @TheLancet casting lab #OriginOfCovid as a conspiracy theory without disclosing his conflicts of interest.