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Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
@ban_epp_gofroc
Nov 29 • 11 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
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
Oct 12
At around minute 46 of the origins panel, Simon Wain-Hobson mentions the Sutton et al 2014 study, which serially passaged H7N1 10 times so that it was capable of airborne spread among ferrets—and found it retained high lethality. 🧵 Image
Just when you think they’re done with serial passage, there’s another! And another! And another! 2/
It keeps going until they get to 10 (actually they’ll get up to 11 by the end of the paper). 3/ Image
Read 7 tweets
Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Oct 6
The abstract of Pekar et al 2022 says it is likely that lineage A spilled to humans after lineage B. Their simulation results are nowhere close to being statistically significant. The 95% HPD covers -30 to +44 days, the Bayesian equivalent of spotlighting a p-value of 0.7. 🧵 Image
The paper says the 95% highest posterior density (HPD) for lineage B is 23-Oct to 8-Dec and for lineage A is 29-Oct to 14-Dec. When the 95% credible intervals overlap to that extent (11 out of 17 days), it would be shocking if a 95% HPD on the difference didn’t contain zero. 2/ Image
In frequentist statistics, results are described as statistically significant if p< .05. If p < .05, a 95% confidence interval around the estimated effect will not contain zero. In Bayesian statistics, you get a posterior distribution, so it is common to report… 3/
Read 13 tweets
Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Sep 21
Most phylogenetic analyses of SARS-CoV-2 found that lineage A with 1 or more ancestral mutations were likeliest candidates for MRCA. Pekar et al 2022 summarily dismisses those results in a single paragraph. Given Pekar’s documented errors, why trust they are correct on this? 🧵 Image
MRCA = most recent common ancestor. Here are citations 19-21 in Pekar et al 2022. 2/
Image
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The recent Lv et al 2024 paper did not settle upon a single most likely candidate for MRCA, but all candidates were lineage A with an ancestral mutation. The authors of Pekar et al 2022 would have us believe they are right and everyone else is wrong. 3/ Image
Read 6 tweets
Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Aug 15
Why People Don’t Trust Legacy Media: A 🧵
CNN engages in a moral panic about @elonmusk rolling out largely unconstrained image generating AI, but pretends not to notice when researchers order synthetic DNA that could recreate the 1918 pandemic flu virus.
amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/08/15…
Recreating the 1918 flu virus is a way bigger threat to humanity than creating silly AI images mocking politicians and celebrities. CNN’s reaction to the threat posed by recreating the 1918 flu? 😴 2/ thebulletin.org/2024/06/mit-re…
When respected economist Jeff Sachs tried to discuss his Lancet commission’s work looking into a potential lab origin of COVID, the CNN anchor tried as hard as she could to stop him from talking and to change the subject. 3/
Read 5 tweets
Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Jul 7
Where did China get key components used in reverse genetics systems (BsmBI, BsaI, pBeloBAC11) and training in how to properly use them? Who gave them hACE2 mice? Who suggested to them lines of research that would result in viruses with all the distinguishing features of SARS2?
Metzl deserves a lot of credit for discussing evidence for a lab origin of COVID when few would touch the subject. But he’s clearly got a foot in the political game here and this is pushing him toward an origin story of COVID that is geopolitically convenient.
Metzl hopes that uncovering the origins of COVID will not bring Fauci, US biodefense, and major U.S. scientists involved in such efforts into disrepute. That’s not possible. Fauci oversaw the exporting of key U.S. biotech to China to facilitate gain of function at WIV.
Read 6 tweets
Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Jun 26
The authors of the raccoon dog preprint and their supporters don’t understand how a correlation coefficient works. A correlation coefficient between reads of animal DNA and SARS2 RNA will not change over time even if both degrade at different rates. A 🧵 Image
A hypothesis must generate predictions that can be tested, otherwise it is non-falsifiable. Authors of the raccoon dog preprint claimed that no positive correlation could be found between SARS2 RNA and raccoon dog DNA because environmental testing was done too late… 2/
…and that because SARS2 RNA and raccoon dog DNA had degraded, a positive correlation present in November became a negative correlation by January. A simple review of the formula for a correlation coefficient reveals this to be nonsense. 3/
Read 12 tweets

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