41 Science Professionals Decry Harms and Mistrust Caused By COVID Lab Leak Claim (yahoo.com) 303
In 1999 Los Angeles Times reporter Michael Hiltzik co-authored a Pulitzer Prize-winning story. Now a business columnist for the Times, this week he covers new pushback on the COVID lab leak claim:
Here's an indisputable fact about the theory that COVID originated in a laboratory: Most Americans believe it to be true. That's important for several reasons. One is that evidence to support the theory is nonexistent.
Another is that the claim itself has fomented a surge of attacks on science and scientists that threatens to drive promising researchers out of the crucial field of pandemic epidemiology. That concern was aired in a commentary by 41 biologists, immunologists, virologists and physicians published Aug. 1 in the Journal of Virology. The journal probably isn't in the libraries of ordinary readers, but the article's prose is commendably clear and its conclusions eye-opening. "The lab leak narrative fuels mistrust in science and public health infrastructures," the authors observe. "Scientists and public health professionals stand between us and pandemic pathogens; these individuals are essential for anticipating, discovering, and mitigating future pandemic threats. Yet, scientists and public health professionals have been harmed and their institutions have been damaged by the skewed public and political opinions stirred by continued promotion of the lab leak hypothesis in the absence of evidence...."
[O]ne can't advance the lab leak theory without positing a vast conspiracy encompassing scientists in China and the U.S., and Chinese and U.S. government officials. How else could all the evidence of a laboratory event that resulted in more than 7 million deaths worldwide be kept entirely suppressed for nearly five years... "Validating the lab leak hypothesis requires intelligence evidence that the WIV possessed or carried out work on a SARS-CoV-2 precursor virus prior to the pandemic," the Virology paper asserts. "Neither the scientific community nor multiple western intelligence agencies have found such evidence." Despite that, "the lab leak hypothesis receives persistent attention in the media, often without acknowledgment of the more solid evidence supporting zoonotic emergence," the paper says...
I've written before about the smears, physical harassment and baseless accusations of fraud and other wrongdoing that lab leak propagandists have visited upon scientists whose work has challenged their claims; similar attacks have targeted experts who have worked to debunk other anti-science narratives, including those about global warming and vaccines... What's notable about the Virology paper is that it represents a comprehensive and long-overdue pushback by the scientific community against such behavior. More to the point, it focuses on the consequences for public health and the scientific mission from the rise of anti-science propaganda... "Scientists have withdrawn from social media platforms, rejected opportunities to speak in public, and taken increased safety measures to protect themselves and their families," the authors report. "Some have even diverted their work to less controversial and less timely topics. We now see a long-term risk of having fewer experts engaged in work that may help thwart future pandemics...."
Thanks in part to social media, anti-science has become more virulent and widespread, the Virology authors write.
Another is that the claim itself has fomented a surge of attacks on science and scientists that threatens to drive promising researchers out of the crucial field of pandemic epidemiology. That concern was aired in a commentary by 41 biologists, immunologists, virologists and physicians published Aug. 1 in the Journal of Virology. The journal probably isn't in the libraries of ordinary readers, but the article's prose is commendably clear and its conclusions eye-opening. "The lab leak narrative fuels mistrust in science and public health infrastructures," the authors observe. "Scientists and public health professionals stand between us and pandemic pathogens; these individuals are essential for anticipating, discovering, and mitigating future pandemic threats. Yet, scientists and public health professionals have been harmed and their institutions have been damaged by the skewed public and political opinions stirred by continued promotion of the lab leak hypothesis in the absence of evidence...."
[O]ne can't advance the lab leak theory without positing a vast conspiracy encompassing scientists in China and the U.S., and Chinese and U.S. government officials. How else could all the evidence of a laboratory event that resulted in more than 7 million deaths worldwide be kept entirely suppressed for nearly five years... "Validating the lab leak hypothesis requires intelligence evidence that the WIV possessed or carried out work on a SARS-CoV-2 precursor virus prior to the pandemic," the Virology paper asserts. "Neither the scientific community nor multiple western intelligence agencies have found such evidence." Despite that, "the lab leak hypothesis receives persistent attention in the media, often without acknowledgment of the more solid evidence supporting zoonotic emergence," the paper says...
I've written before about the smears, physical harassment and baseless accusations of fraud and other wrongdoing that lab leak propagandists have visited upon scientists whose work has challenged their claims; similar attacks have targeted experts who have worked to debunk other anti-science narratives, including those about global warming and vaccines... What's notable about the Virology paper is that it represents a comprehensive and long-overdue pushback by the scientific community against such behavior. More to the point, it focuses on the consequences for public health and the scientific mission from the rise of anti-science propaganda... "Scientists have withdrawn from social media platforms, rejected opportunities to speak in public, and taken increased safety measures to protect themselves and their families," the authors report. "Some have even diverted their work to less controversial and less timely topics. We now see a long-term risk of having fewer experts engaged in work that may help thwart future pandemics...."
Thanks in part to social media, anti-science has become more virulent and widespread, the Virology authors write.
Proverb (Score:3, Insightful)
"Three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead"
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Not the same [Re:Proverb] (Score:4)
Re:Not the same [Re:Proverb] (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends on the bioweapon. Epidemiology can teach you how to deploy something while limiting the odds of friendly fire.
Still crazy, because you can't tailor a virus to only infect, say, Americans. And you really can't do it in a way that prevents a counter attack in ICBM form.
Not really (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like looting. In the old days looting was part of a soldiers pay package. But turns out it breaks discipline. Soldiers will break ranks to loot and leave their posts making your army weaker, so now it's a no-no.
Lots of shit in life is counter intuitive. That's why we needed science.
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Epidemiology is not biological weapons research. They are different things. Epidemiology is studying how disease epidemics spread.
Depends on the bioweapon. Epidemiology can teach you how to deploy something while limiting the odds of friendly fire. Still crazy, because you can't tailor a virus to only infect, say, Americans. And you really can't do it in a way that prevents a counter attack in ICBM form.
You just explained why epidemiology is not biological weapons research.
Re: Not the same [Re:Proverb] (Score:2, Insightful)
Bioengineering a virus so it can infect humans more easily has no purpose except as a weapon. A duck it is.
Um... that's factually untrue (Score:3)
Don't be silly (Score:4, Interesting)
When we try to do the "gain of function" stuff it doesn't last. It's not natural, so after a few generations any changes we made go away, they don't stick. And virus generations aren't exactly very long.
You'd know that if you'd bother to read anything about it besides random
But like Reagan said, if you're explaining you're losing, and look at me here explaining.
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How does this lie keep getting perpetuated? Gain-of-function is natural and can last if the trait gained is favorable for the continued existence of whatever was modified. Selective adaptation means an organism is going to keep whatever lets it continue succeeding. If we build a lab environment to "encour
No (Score:2, Insightful)
For me it's not about "mistrust", it's about accountability and safety. And oh boy I remember a lot of letters signed by multiple "experts" in the field that have turned out to be either a falsehood or an extreme exaggeration, including the latest one about "LLMs being unsafe because they would inevitably lead to AGI and our imminent demise as a species because of AI overlords" that has been thoroughly debunked [neurosciencenews.com] earlier this we
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Brandolini's law in action (Score:4, Insightful)
China and US govt wouldn't lie (Score:3, Informative)
If the lab leak is real, it doesn't need a massive conspiracy to hide it. China can and does lie and hide truth and control information on a massive scale every day of the week.
The US has a history of not being that much better. And was funding research there. France is in on it too as they helped a lot in the creation of the lab (and believed China didn't have the skills to build it).
And that lab was studying cirona viruses from bats.
And lab leaks have happened multiple times in the past.
A lab leak that caused that much deaths would have awful consequences on public trust globally, not only against China.
If it was really a lab leak, it wouldn't be surprising for governments to just close their eyes and let China continue to hide information.
What's harming trust even more imho is how some institutions and scientists are completely dismissing that hypothesis without much convincing evidence.
Sometime, "I don't know" is the best answer in science.
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Re: China and US govt wouldn't lie (Score:2)
What don't you understand in "sometimes, 'I don't know' is the best answer"?
Re: China and US govt wouldn't lie (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:China and US govt wouldn't lie (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only that, there is abundant evidence of a cover-up. The only question is whether it was a cover-up because there was something to hide, or just routine operating procedure for the authorities in that country.
If they had claimed that a lab leak was unproven, or that another explanation was more likely, then that would have been a respectable opinion. Claiming that evidence is non-existant makes them look just as unhinged as the conspiracy theorists on the other side, and does a huge disservice to honest enquiry by providing an easy target to disprove.
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B) we have a scapegoat in the FBI who says their group investigating the matter was paid off to change their minds.
What?
Lab leak shifts blame (Score:3, Insightful)
The overwhelming consensus is that it came out of the wet markets combined with the slash and burn forest policies like the epidemiologists have been warning us about for decades.
There's two problems politically with that narrative.
For the Chinese they want to keep doing the slash and burn and keep the wet markets running because that's what drives their rural economies and without those they're going to have major social problems. So they would like very much for you
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It amuses me how a lot of people on the left are so certain that the US government lies (and it probably does) but are equally certain that the chinese are only ever open and honest.
Heres some facts:
1.The virus was first seen in a city which had a lab studying these sorts of viruses.
2. One of the first people admitted to hospital with symptoms was SOMEONE WHO WORKED IN THAT LAB.
But sure, it came from a food market. Whatever.
One right, one wrong. The first known instance of coronavirus did originate, as far as we know, in Huanan where there is a lab, but the first person known to exhibit symptoms was an accountant [latimes.com] from Wuhan who did not work at the lab. Further:
Dec. 10, 2019
Various people associated with the Huanan Market become the first patients hospitalized with a mysterious disease that resembles pneumonia. They are treated at Wuhan Union Hospital.
Dec. 11, 2019
A seafood vendor in the Huanan Market develops symptoms consistent with the disease that becomes known as COVID-19. She visits a private clinic at the market and encounters other possible COVID-19 patients there.
Dec. 13, 2019
A 65-year-old deliveryman at the Huanan Market reports symptoms of COVID-19, though the records are unclear and this may have occurred two days later.
Re:This (Score:5, Informative)
Your accountant from Wuhan had non-Covid symptoms first, and is now believed [time.com] to have been a secondary case who caught it via community transmission. This is based on his own testimony [science.org]:
When interviewed, he reported that his COVID-19 symptoms started with a fever on 16 December. This is corroborated by hospital records and a scientific paper that reports his COVID-19 onset date as 16 December and date of hospitalization as 22 December (see fig. S1). This suggests that he may have been infected through community transmission after the virus had begun spreading from Huanan Market. He believed that he may have been infected in a hospital or on the subway during his commute; he had also traveled north of Huanan Market shortly before his symptoms began (12).
Re: This (Score:2)
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It's hardly surprising that there was a lab in an area where those viruses are known to occur naturally.
Re: China and US govt wouldn't lie (Score:2)
And assuming it was a natural virus that spread naturally, there is no way a genetic analysis could prove it wasn't a natural virus studied at the lab that escape from there.
Only real transparency from China about its lab operations and pandemic reasons could prove it and zero on the outtakes location. And that is the one thing we know China will never do.
Especially after they hid lots of evidence and tried to blame other countries like Italy as the zero patient.
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I'm agnostic, but it is not unbelievable (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't have an opinion one way or the other. Wet market? Lab leak? It's hard for anyone not involved to know.
However,
can't advance the lab leak theory without positing a vast conspiracy encompassing scientists"
is nonsense. There is no dispute that the lab worked with corona viruses. They will have created many different varieties, experimenting to see what they could do with the virus. If someone, somewhere, screwed up and released a sample? (a) They might have done so without even realizing it - just a
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A screw-up is not the conspiracy. The conspiracy is all the imagined lies ... and therefore the pandemic was by design.
Re: I'm agnostic, but it is not unbelievable (Score:2)
The conspiracy, if it was a leak, is hiding the real source, whether it was an accidental leak or a natural virus or a rogue scientist going twelve monkeys with an engineered super virus.
One fact that is clear is that China has been hiding information, lying, and trying to blame everyone else since the beginning of the pandemic.
But considering this is business as usual for the ccp, there's no way we can know if that was an attempt at covering a leak or just censorship to not look bad internationally for hav
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Not seeing any honesty there.
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Just to reiterate. The lab-leak POV is only posited because of a desire for a conspiracy. To make a blame game.
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And this is what keeps the conspiracy going. Yes, it is not unbelievable. Yes, it could happen. But there is no evidence it DID happen. It is basically impossible to definitely rule out a could. Aliens COULD have come down and delivered the virus. You can't rule it out and definitively prove it didn't happen unless you can 100% prove what did happen (and even then, some people will still disbelieve). But the evidence we have also also in no way shows that it is even likely that it did happen. Something bein
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And this is what keeps the conspiracy going. [...] Something being able to happen is entirely different that is actually having happened, and that is the conspiracy.
The media and others keep claiming the lab leak is the least credible of theories, but there is no smoking pangolin or bat, and yet we are expected to believe that the wet market theory is the most credible. The lab has had leaks before, but we are expected to believe that it is not credible that they have had leaks again. THOSE are the reasons why the lab leak conspiracy keeps going, they are treating the whole world like a bunch of idiots for suggesting that something which happened before because the lab
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Making any accusation without evidence is the problem.
BTW: The viral DNA traces do evidence the market. Obviously not definitively though.
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Making any accusation without evidence is the problem.
Yes, I agree that's a problem.
BTW: The viral DNA traces do evidence the market. Obviously not definitively though.
Right, the wet market remains a viable theory. But since they were experimenting with coronaviruses at the lab, and the lab has had problems in the past, it also remains a viable theory. Anyone claiming to be able to prove either theory has a steep hill to climb — and that's what it would require to disprove the other.
If China had been more forthcoming when first asked for the information that would have allowed us to evaluate the chance that the infection spread from a l
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I don't have an opinion one way or the other. Wet market? Lab leak? It's hard for anyone not involved to know.
Yep. I read a summary (by a person smarter than me) of a debate between people smarter than me about the evidence for and against the possibility of COVID being leaked by a lab (contrasted with zoonotic origins). I'm not the type to need to believe I have the one true answer, but a major takeaway is that a bunch of unlikely things would have had to happen for the popular narrative to be responsible for COVID, or for it to be a lab leak. It's not clear. In other words, if you blithely assert that the cause o
The problem is the behavior (Score:2)
The "too many cooks" argument. (Score:3)
It's valid. It's the same reason you should start with when evaluating any conspiracy. If the number of participants that have to remain silent for the theory to remain viable starts to number in the hundreds, forget it. Especially if it's a government conspiracy. The US government couldn't keep one cigar incident in the white house quiet.
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So by your logic Chernobyl never actually happened, and was never covered up by the USSR.
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So... the government failed to keep the conspiracy hidden. Despite their best efforts, somebody leaked it.
Isn't that confirming the premise?
Re:The "too many cooks" argument. (Score:4, Informative)
We only know about Chernobly because one nuclear scientist, who was being watched by the KGB, managed to sneak out the information.
Well that's a blatant lie.
The Chernobyl accident set off alarms at a Swedish nuclear power plant 1000km away. The Swedish authorities figured out that it had to be an accident at Chernobyl within a few hours and started pressuring Russia to admit it (which they gradually did).
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You don't help your case... (Score:2, Informative)
... when you push too hard, e.g. pretending that the Chinese government was fully open and honest. They absolutely were not [house.gov]. In fact, I believe they're still trying to push the nonsense conspiracy theory that COVID actually originated in the US and arrived in China through frozen seafood. This behavior is [nytimes.com] par for the course for them [politico.com]. Even after a WHO report that was largely pro-zoonosis, China still refused lab audits [apnews.com]. China is still playing fast and loose even with when the first infection cases occurred [theguardian.com]
Re:You don't help your case... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just to elaborate more on China, from the above BMJ article:
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A Chinese official last week dismissed WHO’s plan for a second phase to its Wuhan investigation. “It is impossible for us to accept such an origin tracing plan,” said Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the National Health Commission, suggesting that WHO should instead investigate the United States.
That sounds a little irresponsible, but the lab work in Wuhan was a joint project funded by the US, so it's reasonable to ask for investigating the US.
Re:You don't help your case... (Score:4, Insightful)
I fully agree with all of your statements, and would also like to add another source [nytimes.com] (non-paywalled source here [archive.is]) to back up your claims. The fact, that such opinion pieces still make it into NY Times in the year 2024, tells me, that the lab leak theory is not some QAnon type hogwash peddled by Idiotocrats.
If these "41 scientists" openly deny all serious discussions along those lines, if they also falsely portrait conclusions drawn by the intelligence community, then we're not looking at "41 scientists" but at "41 blatant liers", whos names should be noted for future reference. This piece certainly did a massive disservice to honest and serious science.
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Yeah well, pretty much right wing narrowmindedness. You find out part of what happened because your anti-China paranoia.
Ebright very explicitly blames both the US and China, you only look at the China part. It was an NIH project and 'Defuse', the program to manipulate the spike protein was theirs. They just have a practice to do all the dangerous work outside US boundaries.
Jeffrey Sachs headed the Lancet investigation and disbanded the team when he found everyone had a hidden agenda and was linked to the NI
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More accurately, Defuse was a 2018 Ecohealth proposal to Darpa, NIH funded it.
It proposed the Furin cleavage approach to sars.
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Jeffrey Sachs summarizes here:
https://www.commondreams.org/o... [commondreams.org]
Re: You don't help your case... (Score:2)
What you say doesn't contradict what the guy above said. In the contrary, the west having ties to the WIV and part of the scientific community having an interest in it not being a lab leak makes it even more plausible that the west keeps his eyes closed and doesn't protest much that China is hiding information.
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Indeed as I point out in my first sentence I am not contradicting him. I'm saying he is predictably narrowminded in what he is looking at causing him to miss out on a very large factor, US involvement. US role in the cover up is also way larger than Chinese involvement.
Not just virology (Score:2)
What a disservice to hones science! (Score:4, Insightful)
Citation: "The lab leak narrative fuels mistrust in science and public health infrastructures," the authors observe. "Scientists and public health professionals stand between us and pandemic pathogens; these individuals are essential for anticipating, discovering, and mitigating future pandemic threats. Yet, scientists and public health professionals have been harmed and their institutions have been damaged by the skewed public and political opinions stirred by continued promotion of the lab leak hypothesis in the absence of evidence...."
Read: Honest scientists did not cause a lab leak because that would be bad for their reputation. The lab leak must be an irresponsible lie.
This is along the lines of pseudoscience which claims to support equality of the sexes, diversity and all other woke wishful thinking.
Wouldn't it be more honest if we just admit that scientists are people and people screw up sometimes? And be honest about scientifically produced results instead of filtering and massaging them until they fit our desired narrative?
But that would require a solid moral fundation ...
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Okay, China (Score:2)
"Indisputable fact"... not (Score:2)
Here's an indisputable fact ... Most Americans believe it to be true.
Polls are eminently disputable. Both of the polls cited in the article are a year old, so may not reflect whatever the vogue thinking is today about the likelihood of the lab theory... and both polls had a strong political split (repubs much more likely to believe it than demos), lending both to the sway of politics in what people think, and -- more generally -- that polls get skewed by the set of people likely to pick up the phone and talk to a pollster.
In what world ... (Score:3)
... is it "anti-science" to think that "gain of function" research in a class of viruses, super close to ground zero of the brand new virus outbreak, just might be related? (In freakin' China, land of the fast and loose safety protocols, and massive government coverups, no less.)
If it is trust you want.. (Score:2)
It's the lab leak that makes us distrustful now? (Score:3)
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You have mixed up science and scientists with how science and a scientist's work get reported in popular news media.
Scientists who receive public money are usually obliged to give interviews. Having studied science rather than public relations, they're sometimes not great interview subjects. And those interviews are generally conducted by news organizations that take detailed, thoughtful answers and reduce them to a 15 second sound bite that can be understood by an adult who would struggle to pass a Grade
Why not? (Score:4, Informative)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
It. Happens. All. The. Time.
Maybe thd "concerned" scientists should learn to communicate better and make a difference between words like leak, originate, designed, etc
So what are we calling this now... (Score:2)
"RE-Bunking"?
The lab leak is the most probable scenario (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bunk.... (Score:5, Insightful)
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2211107119
"Lab leak" is winning for no reason other than people are fucking stupid, and there is plenty of disinformation out there to push that narrative from bots and asshole trolls like yourself.
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... but the furin cleavage site on covid (which doesn't happen in nature) ...
Bold claim, but wrong claim. There are multiple publications showing natural furin cleavage sites in different viruses, including other corona-viruses related to SARS-COV2. See e.g. SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site was not engineered [pnas.org] in PNAS (September 2022) and The Emergence and Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 [annualreviews.org] in Annual Review of Virology (April 2024).
Re:Bunk.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Was not engineered in a lab" is not the same thing as "did not escape from a lab". I believe the first part, I have no choice, because I do not know better than the people who did the study. What their study showed was that it wasn't engineered. We still do not know where it came from. Was it a natural virus which was being studied in the lab or did it just cross from one animal to another in the wet market? From what we know of the lab, which has been shown to have lax safety protocols, either is credible. We do not know which, and anyone claiming otherwise is lying and/or misinformed. Who knows? But a lot of people won't stop saying it didn't come from the lab because it wasn't engineered, and that isn't how logic works.
You didn't do this in your comment, so good for you, thanks for not making your statement something it wasn't. And I am writing this part of this comment to make it clear that I know you did not do that. Thanks for including your high quality citations, as well. I do not disagree with them, or the general belief that it is not proven where it came from, or even that it is plenty likely that it came from the wet market. I do not believe that it was engineered. I only also believe that it was possible that it came from the lab, because of what we know about that lab. I think we should treat that idea as reasonable, even if we don't treat it as being more likely than the wet market idea. We know that both of them are problems.
If China had been willing to "immediately" share raw data from the lab, which was first requested long after China knew about Covid and so would have had time to gin up fake results anyway if they were competent and used good enough mathematicians to create their fake data, then they would have looked a lot less like they were hiding something and the lab leak theory would be a lot weaker. A lack of transparency always creates suspicion. China created that suspicion and is now upset about it. Boo hoo hoo. They deserve it. Their unwillingness to be open promoted Sinophobia and they want to act like it came from nowhere.
Great job. (Score:2)
Your text I am replying to is one of the most well written i've seen in a while. Thoughtful, non-confrontational, and with a good explanation for your position.
Thanks.
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"without a doubt"
I do not think this phrase means what you think it means. Or you don't understand anything about the DNA analysis in question. Nobody has claimed that the virus was made up out of whole cloth.
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Well, some people have claimed that. Generally not scientists.
The most serious allegations actually coming from scientists were that it might be the result of gain-of-function research. More common is just a general lab leak of a wild-type virus. The most common scientific position is that it's a zoonosis.
People like the above author are deliberately playing on things that are almost universally rejected (e.g. "bioweapon" claims) to pretend that that near-universal rejection applies to all claims (includi
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People like the above author are deliberately playing on things
If you refer to me, I fell obliged to say I am not playing on anything.
After reading quite a few articles (including scientific ones) and talking to quite a few specialists, and spending more time than I probably should have on the subject (due to subjective reasons), the conclusion I reached was that the virus did NOT originate from a lab.
Now, that doesn't mean I'm 100% right or that this is the absolute truth, of course, but the confidence level is high enough for me to not consider being on the edge abou
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As sure as someone with my intellect can be.
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
Re: Bunk.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I won't ask about the DNA analysis in question. I will only ask how a "DNA analysis" (a remarkably vague and non-informative term) of the virus can in principle prove beyond any doubt that the virus didn't come from a lab? Do labs working on viruses leave their brands somewhere in the virus' DNA?
And do the coronaviruses even have DNA, to begin with?
You don't fight ignorance with greater ignorance.
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And do the coronaviruses even have DNA, to begin with?
No, they [scripps.edu] do not [nih.gov]. They have RNA. However, human DNA [sciencenews.org] does play a role in the chances one can get infected.
Some studies have found that versions of genes inherited from Neandertals may protect against COVID-19, while other genetic heirlooms passed down from Neandertals can up the risk of severe disease (SN: 2/17/21; SN: 10/2/20).
A massive international study examining DNA from more than 28,000 COVID-19 patients and almost 600,000 people who hadn’t been infected (to the best of their knowledge) confirmed that inheritance from Neandertals is involved in COVID-19 susceptibility.
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I apologize, I wanted to say RNA, but I had a brain fart.
But to answer your question, yes, there are signs.
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
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Source: Unusual Features of the SARS-CoV-2 Genome Suggesting Sophisticated Laboratory Modification Rather Than Natural Evolution and Delineation of Its Probable Synthetic Route [researchgate.net] Li-Meng Yan (MD, PhD), Shu Kang (PhD), Jie Guan (PhD), Shanchang Hu (PhD) Rule of Law Society & Rule of La
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Analysis of what? The original strain that China still refuses to release? Are you one of those Chinese shills covering for China? The reason I asked that is because you completely fucking just made this up. Why do I say that? Because Covid is an RNA virus not a DNA virus you fucktard. So you just made that shit up out of whole cloth.
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DNA analysis of the virus proved, without a doubt (unless you're denser than Osmium), that it did NOT come from a lab.
This is, of course, completely false.
What the DNA analysis of the virus proved is that it wasn't deliberately created in a lab. This is NOT the same thing as what you claimed.
THIS is why the conspiracy theory persists — people like you who don't understand the arguments because you are unwilling to listen to the people making them, and then mischaracterizing them. You just wind up coming off as as much of a brainwashed kook as the people insisting that it happened.
Re: Bunk.... (Score:3)
Ah. The paper Fauci commissioned (without attribution or acknowledgement) and then cited as independent backing of his assertions that it totally wasn't a leak from experiments by people who are on record having proposed the exact work in question. https://www.theatlantic.com/sc... [theatlantic.com]
Cool story bro.
Re: Of course it's true (Score:2, Informative)
And so did the FBI and CIA and various other countries intelligence agencies and people in Congress, Chinese scientists working in the lab (some who subsequently were chucked off the roof of said lab).
The whole premise for this article is that if the lab leak theory is true then that erodes public trust in China doing dangerous research. Well, wishful thinking is not a policy either.
Re: Of course it's true (Score:4, Insightful)
Paranoid government spooks with no training in immunology or biology had a *theory*. A theory with no evidence. There where multiple western researchers in that lab who have no reason to lie and have said they where not aware of any sort of research into that sort of thing. Add to this patient zero studies that found it to be quite implausible that it started in a lab and it seems like the whole theory is a bust.
Lets not perpetrate conspiracy theories hmm?
Re: Of course it's true (Score:4, Insightful)
They had evidence. You just didn't like the evidence because you would only accept a smoking gun. And that kind of argument is why lots of people think there is a conspiracy to cover things up: People like you ACT like you are part of a conspiracy to cover up facts.
Re: Of course it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
They had evidence.
When you look at the purported evidence, it really consists of little beyond the statement "well, you can't absolutely prove it wasn't a lab leak.
It's nearly impossible to disprove a conspiracy theory, of course. The conspiracy theory just changes to incorporate any contrdictions, and if that doesn't work, you simply deny anything that confronts the theory and say "that's a cover up."
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Bullshit. There was GoF research on coronaviruses at WIV. WIV researchers proposed modifying coronaviruses to have the kind of novel features that SARS-COV-2 has. WIV researchers reported pneumonia-like symptoms in November 2019, in spite of Chinese official claims of "zero infection" there. Chinese authorities ordered lots of data to be deleted. One of the WIV researchers who worked on coronavirus GoF there died from falling off the roof of the WIV. Nobody found any animals at the Huanan market with
Re: Of course it's true (Score:4, Insightful)
There are plenty of known species.
Only idiots claim the non existence of something just because the do not know about it.
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Bats and cats.
My cats catch bats.
Some bats have Covid.
My cat gets covid.
She infects me.
I do not know why idiots like you are to stupid to google a topic, and after having read a bit about it: then make up their mind.
Sorry, you know nothing about the topic that is correct.
How many more species do you need to know who can carry Covid virus and mostly are not getting sick? The cats get sick btw, and death toll is far over 50% ...
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Re: Of course it's true (Score:2)
Ah, the good shut up or you are a conspiracy theorist. How about we then cherry pick 41 scientists with connections to China that claim it is not true and ignore the thousands of other immunologists.
Re:Of course it's true (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words: "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
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Ignorance is stronger than knowledge. Knowledge can be forgotten easily, but ignorance requires hard work to remove. Ignorance is inertia.
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A quick Google search would tell you the answer. Literally none of this is hidden. It just isn't the sort of news that would attract enough clicks for our news media to bother reporting on it.
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I googled "zoonotic origins of covid-19" so you don't have to. "Presumably pangolins"* is the answer, or in other words we don't know. I'm not qualified to say whether this is obviously true to a qualified epidemiologist but with room for doubt, or is just a reasonable but unproven theory.
What I am qualified to say is that a quick Google search will not tell you the answer. GrumpySteen presumably does not actually know the answer either.
* Or it's multiple zoonotic origin, which isn't as impossible as it sou
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I've been following the scientific investigations into SARS-CoV2 since early 2020. My archive of papers just went past 3,100, and yes, I've read them all. (However, that doesn't mean I fully comprehend everything in them: I don't. I think it's fair to say I've absorbed 70-80% of the content.)
Somewhere along the way, while reading all of those, it dawned on me that not only is there no evidence for the "lab leak" paranoid conspiracy theory being spread by the scientifically illiterate, it's a REALLY bad theory on its own merits.
Wow, that's impressive, can't wait to learn how you figured it is a bad theory on its own merits.
Why? Because anybody trying to engineer an effective bioweapon wouldn't start with SARS when there are much more promising pathogens available...and there are. Consider, for example, one of the major drawbacks of SARS: it's effectively controlled with NPIs (non-pharmacological interventions) like social distancing and masking. That's not a quality you want in a bioweapon
Nobody except ardent crackpots are even talking about bioweapons.
And then there's the problem of mortality vs. propagation, and then there's...well, you get the idea. My point is that nobody working in bioweapons development would be dumb enough to waste their time trying to turn SARS into a weapon because it's too much of an uphill struggle. There are much better options available, and everyone knows it.
It is not necessary to assume it was a bioweapon that leaked from the lab.