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.🧵 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/

@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. 🧵 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/

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.🧵 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/

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 👇 🧵 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/

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.🧵 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/

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. 🧵 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/

https://twitter.com/ban_epp_gofroc/status/1858329025875497156

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. 🧵 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…

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.🧵 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.

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. 🧵 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/

https://x.com/ban_epp_gofroc/status/1827552804560601245?s=46

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. 🧵

https://twitter.com/stanfordhp/status/1844883497875538362

Just when you think they’re done with serial passage, there’s another! And another! And another! 2/

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. 🧵 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/

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? 🧵 MRCA = most recent common ancestor. Here are citations 19-21 in Pekar et al 2022. 2/

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…

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?

https://twitter.com/jamiemetzl/status/1809569113255162247

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.

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 🧵 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/

Fauci lied to Congress: A 🧵
- NIH staff reasonably anticipated in advance that EcoHealth’s virus experiments in Wuhan would enhance the pathogenicity or transmissibility of a SARS or MERS-like virus.
- Their experiments then did enhance the pathogenicity of a SARS-like virus. NIH staffers Jenny Greer and Erik Stemmy flagged EcoHealth’s proposed research as being subject to the 2014 gain of function moratorium, yet it was quickly allowed to go ahead under bespoke guidelines determined by EcoHealth. 2/

In 2012, Anthony Fauci anticipated almost the exact situation that very likely led to the COVID pandemic: gain of function research on potential pandemic pathogens done under low biosafety conditions. Fauci knew the risks, knew that the research had no benefits, and proceeded. 🧵 Fauci claimed pandemics were more likely to occur in nature and doing gain of function with potential pandemic pathogens could help to prepare for natural pandemics. But even after it was very clear the research didn’t help to prepare for pandemics, Fauci charged ahead. 2/

DEFUSE is virology’s equivalent of insider trading. It strains belief they predicted so many unique features of a pandemic virus that emerged one year following the proposal, in the same city as one of the proposers’ labs, a city once used as a negative control for CoV exposure. DEFUSE proposed to study viruses ~20% different from SARS1, assemble virus backbones using 6 segments with restriction sites that did not disrupt the coding sequence, and stated the intent to introduce proteolytic cleavage sites, in particular a furin site at S1/S2.

In his testimony, Ralph Baric claimed that the Wuhan Institute of Virology never developed a working infectious clone of MERS-CoV. The delayed 2019 EcoHealth grant report shows that WIV *DID* generate infectious clones of MERS and chimeras with the MERS backbone. A 🧵 Baric probably just didn’t know, given it was not his work. Putting this information together, it seems that WIV attempted to make a reverse genetics system around 2016, failed, sought Baric’s help, and succeeded around mid 2018-19 but did not inform Baric of their success. 2/

17 of 19 potential restriction sites in SARS2 that were identified by @gadboit as being removed are exact nucleotide matches to BANAL-52 in those areas. These sites already silently mutated out of SARS2’s closest relatives, so their absence in SARS2 means nothing. A 🧵

https://twitter.com/gadboit/status/1783102786831327404

Restriction enzyme recognition sequences are irrelevant to natural selection for human and animal viruses. They can appear and disappear as a result of silent mutations, with basically no effect on viral fitness. Closely related viruses may share naturally occurring sites… 2/

As @NateSilver538 said, this is why free speech is in trouble. Left and right grow increasingly hostile to any institutions that could challenge their political orthodoxies. Wherever you are politically, you will not enjoy living in a country without free speech.

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1780292454375399879

Academia cannot function as a worthwhile societal institution without free thought, free expression, and even the freedom to be wrong. Left and right insist now that the role of universities is ideological indoctrination, combined with punishment and ostracism for wrong ideas.