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Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
@ban_epp_gofroc
Nov 29, 2024 • 11 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
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Just in time for Thanksgiving, Anthony Fauci and @greg_folkers are out with a new paper on the HIV and COVID pandemics—they claim that SARS-CoV-2 is very likely to have a natural origin, citing the deeply flawed work of the Proximal Origins and Friends author group. 🧵 Image
Fauci neglects to mention that Worobey et al 2022 (citation 35) has two published rebuttals in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A that detail its use of flawed statistical methods and data suffering from ascertainment bias. 2/
The flaws in the Worobey paper are glaring. 3/
Pekar et al 2022 (citation 36) had a copy/paste coding error: correcting it dropped their Bayes factor in favor of 2 spillovers dropped from 60 to 4. But they had a further error that if corrected totally demolishes their claim for 2 spillovers. 4/
Pekar 2022’s claim of 2 spillovers is based on nonsense. And so is their suggestion that lineage B probably spilled over before lineage A. 5/
Fauci also neglected to mention that George Gao (whose team took environmental samples of Huanan market and published the results in Nature) does not believe there was a zoonosis (or two) at Huanan market. 6/
Even after the Slack and email messages of the Proximal Origins authors revealed their undisclosed discussions with Fauci and their private doubts about dismissing a lab origin, Fauci continues to cite them as if they are providing independent corroboration of his conclusions. 7/
Any self respecting journal editor would not have let Folkers cite papers by Kristian Andersen after revelations that Folkers was referring to him as “Anders$n”—likely a crude attempt to evade FOIA. 8/
And to complete the circle, now Eddie Holmes is promoting Fauci and Folkers’ paper on Blue Cry. 9/ Image
Read the full paper here. 10/ academic.oup.com/cid/advance-ar…
The “Critical Review” paper (citation 37) is also a dumpster fire of nonsense. In particular, the claim that mouse passage can be ruled out for SARS2 due to the lack of N501Y—citing a paper that found N501Y arises after passage in BALB/c mice. 11/

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More from @ban_epp_gofroc

Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Dec 6, 2025
Every time, there is a disease outbreak of unknown origin, authorities quickly and without evidence assume a natural origin, even if it requires a convoluted story. A truck driver with a contaminated sandwich, eaten by a pig. 🤡 At least they’re now investigating the labs. 🧵 Image
Did anyone report seeing a truck driver? Did anyone report seeing a sandwich? When it’s zoonosis, authorities will often just throw out an outlandish scenario and assume it to be true. This is not the first time this has happened. 2/ reuters.com/business/healt…
Cholera in Haiti? Not from UN peacekeepers, said The Science. Instead, maybe it was the rain. 🤡 3/
Read 8 tweets
Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Oct 1, 2025
On Blue Cry, Kristian Andersen harshly criticized a comment in Nature discussing lab biosafety, posted by Greg Folkers. Even though the comment mentioned Andersen’s discredited papers on COVID origins, serious mention of a lab origin of COVID must have enraged him. 🧵 Image
The authors copy a favored tactic of NY Times, which is to associate a lab origin of COVID with Donald Trump, as if that makes the idea disreputable. They also fail to mention there was never a transparent lab audit of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 2/ Image
Even though the comment authors cite the International Raccoon Dog Team’s papers favorably, the fact that they don’t describe their claims as definitive probably made Andersen furious. No longer are their claims called “dispositive” or “the best evidence yet.” 3/ Image
Read 6 tweets
Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Sep 21, 2025
A favored rhetorical tactic of Peter Hotez is the strawman. He will go out and find the most ridiculous & marginal ideas and then pretend his critics all hold similarly absurd views. He then will claim that a plausible idea, like a lab origin of COVID, is just as ridiculous. 🧵 Image
Hotez pretends that a lab origin of COVID is a hoax that is as discredited as the Piltdown Man fraud. 2/
Here is Hotez again claiming that a lab origin of COVID is a conspiracy theory. 3/
Read 8 tweets
Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Sep 18, 2025
NIH & USAID used EcoHealth Alliance to transfer US taxpayer funds and US biotechnology to China in the hopes of getting an inside look at gain of function research in Wuhan. This was quite similar to the failed gunwalking scheme used in the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious. 🧵 Image
The ATF had the bright idea that they would facilitate sales of weapons to criminals and then track those weapons from person to person to learn more about illegal gun trading networks. 2/
Once the ATF learned how those networks operated and who was involved, they planned to bust them all (a devastating takedown, as the NIH might call it). Of course this harebrained scheme failed and ATF lost track of the guns they’d provided to the criminals. 3/
Read 16 tweets
Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Aug 27, 2025
The Trump administration is bringing universities to heel by hitting their weakest point: massive potential legal liabilities due to their systemic racial discrimination. Gain of function virology can be brought to heel by hitting their weakest point: the origins of COVID. 🧵
The most compelling evidence for a lab origin of COVID comes from the DEFUSE proposal submitted to DARPA in 2018, which involved EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the University of North Carolina. 2/
DEFUSE proposed to research sarbecoviruses with all of the distinguishing characteristics of SArS-CoV-2, a virus primed for rapid human spread from the moment it was detected in Wuhan, in 2019. 3/
Read 16 tweets
Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Jun 5, 2025
The authors of Pekar 2022 threw out data that was inconsistent with their model’s predictions, denying the existence of intermediate genomes and news reports of ascertained COVID cases from November 2019. But Pekar 2021 accepted these same reports as credible. What changed? 🧵 Image
Most of the time, when data from the real world contradicts your model’s predictions, you conclude that the model is wrong. The authors of Pekar 2022 did the opposite: they concluded the data was wrong and should be ignored. 2/
In Pekar 2021, the authors (many of whom were later authors on Pekar 2022) cited the South China Morning Post’s report of a COVID case dating back to Nov 17, 2019 and at least 9 COVID cases that month as evidence COVID was spreading prior to the Huanan market outbreak. 3/ Image
Read 20 tweets

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