The former head of the UK's foreign intelligence agency, MI6, told Boris Johnson in early 2020 that the Covid virus escaped from the Wuhan lab. That means that the US, UK, Chinese, & German governments all knew the truth, covered it up, and spread disinformation. Case closed. 
https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1668660948532625410
"It is now beyond reasonable doubt that Covid-19 was engineered in Wuhan Institute of Virology... [China] is now engaged in an information & influence operation (IO) to deflect responsibility....the Journal Nature was used to promulgate the narrative..."
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…
The newly released memo coauthored by the former head of MI6 is focused on how the Nature "Proximal Origin" paper was used to promote China's natural spillover narrative.
We reported in 2023 on hundreds of previously unreleased email and Slack direct messages which cover the period when Kristian Andersen and his colleagues collaborated to write “Proximal Origin."
They show that Andersen and his colleagues clearly thought it was indeed possible not only that the virus that causes Covid-19 had leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but specifically that it had been cultured in the laboratory.
The documents make clear that pressure from “higher ups” — not “additional data, analyses, learning more about coronaviruses, and discussions with colleagues and collaborators” — led Andersen, Garry, and two of their coauthors to abandon the lab leak theory as implausible.
What’s more, the messages reveal that Andersen still suspected that a lab leak was possible in mid-April, a month after Nature Medicine officially published “Proximal Origin,” and two months after the authors published a preprint.
If the paper’s authors weren’t fully convinced that no culturing was possible, why did they rule out “any type of laboratory-based scenario” in their paper?
If the consensus opinion of the scientists across dozens of their initial emails and messages had to be summarized in a single phrase, it would be the name of the Slack channel: “project-wuhan_engineering.”
The name showed just how probable they felt it was that the virus came from a lab.
Then, on February 6, something strange happened. Andersen changed the name of the Slack channel from “project-wuhan_engineering” to “project-wuhan_pangolin.”
x.com/shellenberger/…
We reported in 2023 on hundreds of previously unreleased email and Slack direct messages which cover the period when Kristian Andersen and his colleagues collaborated to write “Proximal Origin."
They show that Andersen and his colleagues clearly thought it was indeed possible not only that the virus that causes Covid-19 had leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but specifically that it had been cultured in the laboratory.
The documents make clear that pressure from “higher ups” — not “additional data, analyses, learning more about coronaviruses, and discussions with colleagues and collaborators” — led Andersen, Garry, and two of their coauthors to abandon the lab leak theory as implausible.
What’s more, the messages reveal that Andersen still suspected that a lab leak was possible in mid-April, a month after Nature Medicine officially published “Proximal Origin,” and two months after the authors published a preprint.
If the paper’s authors weren’t fully convinced that no culturing was possible, why did they rule out “any type of laboratory-based scenario” in their paper?
If the consensus opinion of the scientists across dozens of their initial emails and messages had to be summarized in a single phrase, it would be the name of the Slack channel: “project-wuhan_engineering.”
The name showed just how probable they felt it was that the virus came from a lab.
Then, on February 6, something strange happened. Andersen changed the name of the Slack channel from “project-wuhan_engineering” to “project-wuhan_pangolin.”
x.com/shellenberger/…
A well-known vaccine researcher debunked "Proximal Origin" within days of its publication in Nature, and none of the major journals including Nature or Science would publish it, giving obviously dishonest reasons for their rejection.
"Originally, the authors were engaged in analysis of the virus with the aim to create a vaccine. The discoveries that the authors claim to be relevant for determining the origin of the virus came as a by-product of this research."
minerva.no/angus-dalgleis…
"Originally, the authors were engaged in analysis of the virus with the aim to create a vaccine. The discoveries that the authors claim to be relevant for determining the origin of the virus came as a by-product of this research."
minerva.no/angus-dalgleis…
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