Thread by @BioSRP

1/9 with @samhusseini we did a #deepdive investigation into the origin of the #Ebola2014 outbreak in W. Africa. The text is long. It follows up #Lableak Qs originally raised by @africanistpress and others. Below are distilled some of the key points.
independentsciencenews.org/health/did-wes…

2) The orthodox origin story has negligible evidence to support it. No #Ebola was found at Meliandou, Guinea, or elsewhere in wild animals nor was it diagnosed or positively tested in 'patient zero' or his contacts. The nearest known wild source was a whopping 3,000 km away

3) The subsequent epidemiological investigation back from the first confirmed cases was also highly speculative. E.g. the father and others disagree that his family had #Ebola, even tho' the epidemiology was supposedly largely based on interviews. #Ebola2014

4) However, there is a lab not far from Meliandou, over the border in Sierra Leone. It isnt clear if the US-funded Viral Hemorrhagic Fever lab in Kenema studied #Ebola there but certainly @metabiota, who worked there, was also collecting viruses from Central Africa #Ebola2014.

5) Moreover, numerous contemporaneous on the ground accounts alleged very lax biosafety procedures at the VHFC Kenema lab both before and after the outbreak of #Ebola2014 and the VHFC credibly alleged that, amazingly, @metabiota was culturing #Ebola virus.

6)Phylogenetics does not support an outbreak in Guinea, if anything it favours Sierra Leone a) because a Guinea origin generates anomalies and b) because it clearly shows there was an undiagnosed early outbreak in Sierra Leone that predated official first appearance of #Ebola2014

7) An undiagnosed outbreak beginning much earlier than officially acknowledged in Sierra Leone concords with the assessments made at the time by no less than @WHO AND @MSF AND @CDCgov who were there at the time.

8) Such inconsistencies and anomalies were known to but ignored by the researchers who confidently stated a Guinean origin. Why did they ignore the pointers to Sierra Leone? Maybe they just simply feared African voices, like @africanistpress who pointed at the VHFC lab?

9) A big one: Many of the key players, like Eddie Holmes, Kristian Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, Bob Garry, overlap with those opposing a #lableak by #COVID19 as do their scientific and phylogenetic suppression methods and techniques. So maybe they really knew more?

Hence the implications of a #Ebola2014 lab leak are impt in their own right but also to understanding #COVID19 and #OriginOfCovid and even further to preventing future outbreaks. When epidemiologists blame an outbreak on the wildlife trade, be sceptical. To be continued...

@hash_tigre