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Libertarian_Virologist Profile picture
Libertarian_Virologist
@ban_epp_gofroc
2 subscribers
Dec 6 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
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…
Oct 1 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
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
Sep 21 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
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/
Sep 18 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
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/
Aug 27 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
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/
Jun 5 • 20 tweets • 6 min read
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/
May 29 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
In a Feb 16, 2020 WIRED article, Peter Daszak claimed that RaTG-13 was not of interest to him on account of it being 20% different from SARS1. Daszak did not mention his DEFUSE proposal, which proposed studying viruses ~20% different from SARS1 and introducing a furin site. 🧵 Image If Daszak believed that he had predicted (rather than caused) the COVID pandemic, he would have disclosed the DEFUSE proposal in this interview. Why would he not mention it, if it was exculpatory? 2/
Apr 25 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
The announcement of Jeff Taubenberger as acting NIAID Director is the latest act of outright defiance and contempt for elected leadership by NIH. The law is clear: @SecKennedy must name a permanent NIAID Director. This is only the most recent instance of a recurring pattern.🧵 Image NIH has shown through a consistent pattern of behavior that it does not believe that elected leaders have any right to determine who runs NIAID. Jeanne Marrazzo was named as NIAID director by ACTING NIH Director Larry Tabak. This is an incredible level of defiance of the law. 2/ Image
Feb 25 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
@PeterHotez funded a paper that involved gain of function research of concern at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, specifically creating a WIV1-SHC014 chimera. Hotez implausibly claimed he didn’t, but the receipts are clearly there. Hotez cannot be impartial on COVID origins. 🧵 Image Hotez laughably claimed he could fund one part of a research project and have no responsibility for any other part of it. Despite his fervent denials, the public record makes it clear that Hotez funded the paper and the paper’s work involved gain of function research at WIV. 2/ Image
Feb 10 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
On Blue Cry, Kristian Andersen claims that people who discuss evidence of a likely lab origin of COVID are engaged in a “politicized attack on science” (which is actually a good description of Proximal Origins). Dishonest people assume everyone else is as dishonest as they are.🧵 Image Andersen has the temerity to complain about supposed “financial costs” but conveniently omits the fact that he was awarded an $8.9 million grant following his work on Proximal Origins. Andersen claims there was no connection. 2/ Image
Feb 3 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
On Blue Cry, former eLife editor Michael Eisen calls Kristian Andersen a “complete f’ing asshole” after a discussion about bioweapons agents. What happened? See below 👇 🧵 Image It starts when Eisen opens up a discussion about bioweapons research. Eisen should have said bioweapons agent research because it is undeniable that the U.S. does do research on bioweapons agents and that gain of function can result in discovery of new bioweapons agents. 2/ Image
Feb 1 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
At Fauci’s urging, @JeremyFarrar convened a conference call to discuss Kristian Andersen’s concern that SARS-CoV-2 might be engineered. It is clear from the list of invitees that Farrar did not want to give an honest hearing to Andersen’s hypothesis—he was setting up an ambush.🧵 Image One of the invitees was Ron Fouchier, a virologist responsible for an infamous gain of function experiment where potential pandemic pathogen H5N1 was adapted for respiratory spread among ferrets. Would Fouchier seriously and objectively consider the possibility of engineering? 2/ Image
Jan 29 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
When scientists discuss COVID lab origin hypotheses on X, zoonosis partisans often attempt to bully them into silence, frequently by making meritless complaints to their university or research institution. It’s why many are anon & why they make great efforts to identify anons. 🧵 Image Stu Neil recently alluded to a case of an anon account named after a “garden ornament” (gnome) and laughs about how he used to have a job. Does Neil really think people should be deprived of their living because they discuss scientific hypotheses he disagrees with? 2/
Jan 24 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
On Blue Cry, Zach Hensel demonstrates a favorite zoonosis partisan tactic: quibble about something irrelevant to the broader point. The CGG codon occurs 6.5 times as frequently in the human genome as compared to SARS-CoV-2 and in the spike protein only appears in the insert. 🧵 Image In the human genome, arginine uses the CGG codon 20.4% of the time. SARS-CoV-2 has 350 arginines and uses the CGG codon 11 times—a frequency of 3.1%. How about the spike protein? 2/ sciencedirect.com/science/articl…Image
Jan 4 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
On Blue Cry, Stu Neil and Kristian Andersen denounce anyone who would consider the possibility that the 2013 Ebola outbreak in West Africa could have a lab origin. Yet many scientists had no problems accusing a baby playing with bats, despite lacking any proof of the claim.🧵 Image As per usual, Neil mischaracterizes the views of scientists who have called for the investigation of a lab origin of COVID and have previously criticized gain of function experiments with H5N1. Image
Nov 29, 2024 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
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/
Oct 12, 2024 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
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/
Oct 6, 2024 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
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
Sep 21, 2024 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
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/
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Aug 15, 2024 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
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…
Jul 7, 2024 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
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.