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This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible. One thing I did not realize is that

This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible. One thing I did not realize is that US researchers who conducted gain of function research tried to downplay and discredit the possibility of the virus originating from the wuhan lab. There was an anti-lab theory Lancet statement signed by scientists, and "Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific unanimity." Plus there's all the stuff about the miners shoveling bat poop for weeks and then dying of coronaviruses, and the Wuhan institute collecting and doing gain of function research on these similar-to-SARS samples. And then several of the lab's gain of function researchers became ill in late 2019. And there's the weird renaming of samples to hide the unmatched closeness of the mine samples and covid. This is just the absolute surface of the article. There's too much to list here Edit: here's another amazement for the list: "Shi Zhengli herself had publicly acknowledged that, until the pandemic, all of her team’s coronavirus research — some involving live SARS-like viruses — had been conducted in less secure BSL-3 and even BSL-2 laboratories." And the article says "BSL-2 [is] roughly as secure as an American dentist’s office."

jMyles 5y ago
> "Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific unanimity." The interesting part of this - and I'm curious about the personal experience of others here - is that the scientists I know have been the strongest questioners of the wet market theory from the get-go. I don't think anything resembling scientific unanimity ever emerged, or even appeared to emerge. Heck, here on HN we've been talking about this consistently at least since the PNAS letter, and probably since the beginning of the pandemic.
- tacitusarc 5y ago
  There was an episode of TWIV last year where they mocked anyone taking the lab leak hypothesis seriously
  - gataca 5y ago
    There was a pretty recent one that continues to dismiss the idea this came from a lab completely.
    - aorth 5y ago
      To be fair they (on This Week in Virology) said they think it's unlikely that it leaked, but urge anyone with actual evidence to come forward. Their guest on that episode also said that, while RaTG13 is indeed a SARS-like coronavirus, the nucleotide sequence of the genome is only 96% similar to SARS-CoV-2. The guest said it's not similar enough to do gain of function research with. Bats with other similar SARS-like coronaviruses appear in (at least) Japan, Thailand, and Cambodia, and migratory bats have a range of several thousand kilometers. https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-762/ https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-762/
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  And, for this thoughtful observation, you get... DOWNVOTES. These Covid origins comment threads are so brutal! But yeah, I agree. I’m just a lowly PhD student (an older one, though) but it’s pretty clear from my limited experience that “scientific consensus” is a PR term that bears little relationship to how scientists perform their work and engage with their colleagues.
RachelF 5y ago
Take a look here for another shocking article: https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...
- dataflow 5y ago
  Btw, for anyone who read that, here's a follow-up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27388943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27388943
harryf 5y ago
It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... I can’t find sources for this right now but apparently Dr Anthony Fauci played a key role in getting the ban lifted. He’s also the head of the NIAID ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci ) which (apparently) is the ultimate source for all funding on gain of function research. So the lead guy we’ve been listening to (and still are) for scientific advice on this pandemic is entangled in a massive conflict of interest. Edit: I assume this is getting down-voted either because is sounds like conspiracy theory or just everyone has already heard it and it's not news. Fauci has already admitted having been involved in funding Wuhan - https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/fauci-admits-nih-funding-of-wuhan-lab-denies-gain-of-function/ https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/fauci-admits-nih-funding-of-wu... - that on it's own should not have been something he first admitted to in May 2021, while holding such a responsible position. Looking for more sources right now... Edit 2: In this article from December 2011 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-flu-virus-risk-worth-taking/2011/12/30/gIQAM9sNRP_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-flu-virus-risk-wor... - you have Fauci making the case for creating viruses in a lab; > "Given these uncertainties, important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory." It doesn't explicitly mention gain of function but - while raising the concerns, it's arguing for research which would include gain of function. Meanwhile listening to this panel discussion which included Fauci from Nov 2017 - https://www.c-span.org/video/?437187-1/johns-hopkins-forum-explores-pandemic-preparedness-response https://www.c-span.org/video/?437187-1/johns-hopkins-forum-e... ... again he's arguing for more aggressive types of research
- epitactic 5y ago
  > It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... The ban was actually lifted by the Obama administration, _11 days prior_ to Trump taking office. Source: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2017/01/09/recommended-policy-guidance-potential-pandemic-pathogen-care-and-oversight https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2017/01/09/recomme... JANUARY 9, 2017 AT 9:06 Recommended Policy Guidance for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight "Adoption of these recommendations will satisfy the requirements for lifting the current moratorium on certain life sciences research that could enhance a pathogen’s virulence and/or transmissibility to produce a potential pandemic pathogen (an enhanced PPP)."
tpfour 5y ago
The calculation is simple and could have been made in early 2020. What's the joint probability of occurrence given everything you know about the origins of SARS-CoV-2? There is _very_ high probability that this is just a human error.
- peter422 5y ago
  Was every other emerging virus also created in a lab? SARS? MERS? Influenza? Polio? The highest probability is this virus originated like every other virus in history.
  - yumraj 5y ago
    Did any of them originate a few miles from a pathogen research lab that handled such pathogen that caused those outbreaks?
    - flukus 5y ago
      These labs are in major cities. Epidemics are likely to be detected in Major cities. The chance of an outbreak being near a research lab aren't as long as you seem to think. If an outbreak were to happen in the United states just about everywhere would be near a CDC location: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&tbs=lf:1,lf_ui:4&tbm=lcl&q=cdc+USA+locations&rflfq=1&num=10&ved=2ahUKEwj96PD03vzwAhWyyzgGHQhdBncQtgN6BAgKEAQ#rlfi=hd:;si:;mv:[[60.57887875049525,-50.50786451874999],[7.520438055110938,-132.68559889374998],null,[38.74123953804018,-91.59673170625],4 https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&tbs=lf:1,lf...]
      - kaesar14 5y ago
        As pointed out in the article, there were exactly 3 cities in the world working on gain-of-function research related to bat-originated coronaviruses. Galveston, Texas, Chapel Hill N.C, and Wuhan. It’s way more narrow than just being near a biological laboratory.
        5y ago
peter422 5y ago
I’ve never heard of 2-3 people getting sick before in a large organization. That sounds like a smoking gun.
- JPKab 5y ago
  Several were HOSPITALIZED with a respiratory illness, in a lab studying bat viruses on humanized mice. The cognitive dissonance you are suffering is painful, I'm sure, but it's obviously clouding your judgment.
  - peter422 5y ago
    Those same people were tested for antibodies and they were negative. Or I guess that is also part of the cover up.
    - jkhdigital 5y ago
      ...yes? Listen, if you are prepared to seriously consider a lab leak, then you have to assume that any public statements from Chinese authorities are dubious. I’m pretty sure my own government makes dubious statements all the time so it’s not hard to imagine.
      - peter422 5y ago
        I’m seriously considering it and put it higher than 0%. But if you think your hypothesis is the most likely outcome (>50%), and your defense at any evidence that discounts your view is that it is a giant and incredible cover up by the Chinese government then I guess we have very different priors about how easy it is to pull off massive conspiracies. And also remember the people that leaked that 2-3 employees were hospitalized without any additional details or evidence also had an agenda.
        chrisco255 5y ago
        > I guess we have very different priors about how easy it is to pull off massive conspiracies. Is it that difficult when you manipulate the media and control the narrative? This is why the principles of free speech are as important as the law itself.
JPKab 5y ago
Prepare to have your head explode further. https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop... https://reporter.nih.gov/search/xQW6UJmWfUuOV01ntGvLwQ/project-details/9491676 https://reporter.nih.gov/search/xQW6UJmWfUuOV01ntGvLwQ/proje...
mc32 5y ago
The other astonishing things is the sudden about face by the media. I'm glad they allowed themselves the liberty of looking at alternative origins. But... they were SO adamant and complicit in any discussion about alternative theories being shut down under the guise of conspiracy, Trumpism, anti-China, etc. (These are the same people who have no qualms about attributing anything to Russia even if evidence is thin, so it's clear there is hypocrisy involved). Edit: It looks like Twitter is suspending the account of the Fauci email leaker(s). So the MoT is still on it.
- corpMaverick 5y ago
  IMHO, we were in the middle of the problem. The important part to was to figure out how to get out of it. The investigation at that point would not be helpful as it may make cooperation more difficult. Even if the result is that is natural origin and it escaped from a Wet Market. It was China's responsibility and the whole world must make sure to force China to ban wet markets. But as I said before, it will come a time for that.
  - ed25519FUUU 5y ago
    Suppressing the truth because you want to game the outcome is an extremely dangerous position to take. It never ends well for the little guy, who ends up getting neither truth nor the best outcome.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    > It was China's responsibility and the whole world must make sure to force China to ban wet markets. lol, have you ever been to a wet market? Are you sure you even know what they are? It’s a typical Asian stall market that they hose off every night. I’ve been to “dry” markets that they’re still cutting the faces off hogs and slaughtering chickens next to fruit vendors. That’s not particularly better. I’m not sure if you think “banning wet markets” is a thing, but it’s definitely not.
    - AstralStorm 5y ago
      Essentially banning all slaughtering on place and relegating it to specialty businesses which would be no better regulated than any slaughterhouse anywhere. Meaning, you'd change nothing besides forcing Chinese to use more transport and freezer cars.
lawnchair_larry 5y ago
The sad part is this is all very old news, but the left leaning media wouldn’t report it. Worse, they equated it with conspiracy theorists and Q anon. If this isn’t your media red pill, I don’t know what is.
tootie 5y ago
I don't think lab workers getting sick is really a useful data point. People get sick all the time. Could have very easily been seasonal flu or whatever. It also seems The Lancet letter doesn't actual address the question of lab leak. Only that it wasn't engineered. That was a pretty hot conspiracy theory at the time and one that remains far fetched. They didn't positively say it couldn't be a naturally occurring virus that leaked. I don't know enough to comment on gain of function leaves any hallmarks but I'm guessing it doesn't since it tries to replicate evolution.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  The lab workers didn't even get sick, it was samples the lab worked on.
- calsy 5y ago
  It's so far fetched to think a lab with known safety issues could be responsible for leaking a virus. We all know that humans are infallible and never make mistakes and accidents rarely occur in place with poor safety standards. Its just so crazy....
  - tootie 5y ago
    I'm not saying it's far-fetched. It's definitely possible. I'm debating whether or not this is any kind of smoking gun. It's circumstantial evidence.
- corty 5y ago
  Lab workers getting sick should be a starting point to begin analyzing archived blood samples for instance. Also, you don't usually visit a hospital for seasonal flu. And three people from the same lab at the same time suggests a wider outbreak in the lab. Even if it were the seasonal flu, it would have warranted a wider investigation, given what that lab was working on.
  - GavinMcG 5y ago
    Plenty of people visit hospitals for seasonal flu, fyi. They shouldn't, but they do.
deeviant 5y ago
If this is the most shocking article you have ever read in your life, I feel you haven't read many articles in your life. There is absolutely no evidence in it. Just a pile of conjecture. It is absolutely the stuff of conspiracy theories. The truly shocking thing is that world does not hold China liable for this disaster. It really doesn't matter if it started in a lab or in one of their wet markets; it was incompetence and negligence on China's part in either case. China should pay reparations to the world for turning it off for what looks to be like multiple years, and killing millions of people.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  China could - rightfully - point out that they in fact did get the situation more or less under control and that in spite of being fully aware of the seriousness of the situation the bulk of the governments in the West (those who presumably would be first in line to demand reparation) messed it up all by themselves.
- wombatpm 5y ago
  When China started welding doors on high rises to keep people in, that was the signal to take it seriously-despite what the WHO was saying
  - swader999 5y ago
    They never welded people in, it was to funnel them through common exits where they could be disinfected.
    - themacguffinman 5y ago
      It was reported that some residential unit were literally blocked from entry/exit: https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus-residents-welded-inside-their-own-home/ https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus-residents-welded-insi...
    - premium-komodo 5y ago
      That's not true. It's easy to find videos of men sealing doors shut in stairwells. That door they're sealing is the single door of the apartment.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
"This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life." Dare we inquire how long you have lived. :) But seriously, I am not sure that the scientific community, nor all national governments, have reached a clear consensus on gain of function research. It is still a developing issue. Welcome to be corrected on that. Such research could potentially help to prevent pandemics as well as accidentally start them. The idea that scientists in the US might have been working with scientists in other countries, including China, on GoF research is not shocking to me. Here is a paper from 2016 on the ethics of GoF research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4996883/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4996883/ Perhaps the old saying about mistakingly attributing malice to incompetence applies here. As for the cover-up, it is difficult to imagine that David Baltimore is wrong. I used a textbook he co-authored when I was in school; he is one of the pioneers of the biotech industry. It seems unlikely this was not created in a lab. Then again, it is probably easier to prove someone in a lab made a mistake than to prove soemthing exists in nature.
- AbrahamParangi 5y ago
  Gain of function research outside of hyper-secure settings is, frankly, idiotic. It’s massively more dangerous than criticality experiments because of the potential for exponential spread.
  - Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
    From the beginning gain of function research has been done at levels as low as BSL-2, and this article claims the Bat Lady said that all their coronavirus research prior to the pandemic was done at BSL-2 or -3 levels. The Wuhan Institute of Virology's BSL-4 lab would likely be booked up for research known to be very dangerous, and as you go up in levels it's more and more inconvenient to get anything done from the physical protections (there are also supposed to be biological ones).
    - bartart 5y ago
      Plus it appears that the lab was poorly run: She noted that a September 2019 paper in an academic journal by the director of the WIV’s BSL-4 laboratory, Yuan Zhiming, had outlined safety deficiencies in China’s labs. “Maintenance cost is generally neglected,” he had written. “Some BSL-3 laboratories run on extremely minimal operational costs or in some cases none at all.”
flatline 5y ago
The WaPo article where I first read about the theory said most of this stuff. I didn’t understand then why people were so quick to dismiss it - it is eerily plausible, and we just don’t have much other data to go on. But it’s like having an opinion one way or the other is a political dog whistle that puts you into one of two bins, neither of which I fit into comfortably. This article makes a decent point of that: now that Trump’s racism is out of the way, maybe we can more critically examine the facts. I still think the lab leak theory is less likely than evolution, but it’s at least a bit compelling.
- incrudible 5y ago
  > This article makes a decent point of that: now that Trump’s racism is out of the way, maybe we can more critically examine the facts. I highly doubt it, in most cases "Reductio ad Trumperum" will remain a useful sleight of hand. This is a different matter, being "tough on China" is a bipartisan issue, it's just about showing how the other side was "doing it wrong". For instance, you could say that Trump had "no evidence" supporting his lab leak theory.
rayiner 5y ago
We shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. Scientists are human and have human motivations and flaws. They are political, they cover their ass, they suffer from results oriented thinking. “Science” should be trusted within its domain, but it’s not a replacement for all of the processes western society has developed to address the reality that nobody can be trusted with power. Everyone needs to perform their roles. Reporters still need to be skeptical and question scientists’ motivations and investigate the story. And politicians still need to be in charge of translating scientists’ judgments as to various scenarios and probabilities into the political decisions of figuring out what to do accounting for the entire universe of economic and social considerations that are within their ambit.
- rhacker 5y ago
  I've been hearing more and more that science is moving from the model "theory holds" to a set of arrogant people backing them.
version_five 5y ago
To me, the only really horrible thing is the way that anything other than the mainstream version of events was treated. I think there are different plausible theories, and I'm not surprised they have different adherents that are mostly all motivated by something other than a pure quest for the truth. That's life. If this was e.g. a civil or criminal trial, you'd see the same thing. The only difference is, in a trial, nobody would try and brand the other side as a conspiracy theorist, racist, denier, anti-xer, whatever the most popular inflammatory term is. Nobody would try and block dissent from all mainstream communication forums. To me, that's the only thing that's new, is the institutional suppression of any suggestions outside of an orthodox version. And it's honestly way scarier than the idea that government labs are doing biological research, or that diseases can jump from animals to people.
- aahortwwy 5y ago
  > To me, that's the only thing that's new, is the institutional suppression of any suggestions outside of an orthodox version. This isn't new at all. It's been a staple of many human cultures throughout history, including US culture for much of the 20th century (and, I would say, all of the 21st century). I think what's probably a new experience for most of us is just how all-encompassing the pandemic has been as an issue of discussion.
- rayiner 5y ago
  That’s another symptom of the same disease. People have an idea that “trust the experts” can replace all the messy, gross, and often wrong processes we have developed to deal with the fact nobody can be trusted. Trusting scientists involved in gain of function research will neutrally investigate the origins of the pandemic is one manifestation of that conceit. So is trusting fact checkers and review panels to decide what’s “misinformation” and what’s factual. The marketplace of ideas is better than trusting gatekeepers of knowledge. That’s one of the huge lessons of the enlightenment that we have somehow forgot. We think “it’s different this time.”
  - starfallg 5y ago
    >The marketplace of ideas is better than trusting gatekeepers of knowledge. That's such a simplification of the real situation that it's harmful to apply as an axiom. There are many levels of the marketplace of ideas. Ideally, the gatekeepers of knowledge also create a marketplace of ideas so that expert opinion is varied and shifts as new information come in. This is in inline with what we're seeing here. The marketplace of ideas with no experts to guide discussion often results in crank ideas that seem plausible but heavily influenced by our biases bubbling to the top. That's how things like the Anti-vax movement gained a foothold.
FriendlyNormie 5y ago
All of this information has been available for over a year. All of it. ALL OF IT. You helped bury it by labeling anyone sharing it as crazy or a Trump supporter. Kill yourself you fucking retarded nigger. Kill yourself RIGHT NOW.
ramraj07 5y ago
This New York mag article [1] published eons ago already made it clear to any sane biologist that all you mentioned are important things to consider. However the issue is sane biologists or scientists in general are actually in extreme short supply, the vast majority are often under the delusion that they “understand the system” better than they actually do. They also are often knowingly and unknowingly more interested in persevering their personal agenda (for eg. Gain of function research in the general sense in this case) than the overall good of humanity or scientific rigor. Take Fauci for example, is he a good scientist? Yes. But it’s also clear that he too subconsciously has pushed for the method of approaching pandemics that coincidentally he was good at, and now we are left with this mess. I doubt him or anyone in between is going to acknowledge it even if they realize it. I was downvoted here to oblivion for pointing this out weeks back but doesn’t matter. I threw away a decade of my life’s experience because I didn’t believe in this cult of an academic system, downvotes don’t hurt nearly as much. 1. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca...
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  Trump didn't exactly follow Fauci's advice, so it's odd that you'd blame Fauci's "method of approaching pandemics" for "this mess." Was there some other, better, established method?
  - ramraj07 5y ago
    I meant Fauci at al.’s approach of proactively looking for the next pandemic via sample collection and lab engineering of new variants which predates the trump administration. By all appearances Faucis performance during the pandemic is nothing to be questioned. These are different topics.
    - GavinMcG 5y ago
      Thanks for clarifying
    - mrguyorama 5y ago
matzab 5y ago
Honestly, reading comments like these and articles like the OP has convinced me that we, as humans, will not at all be prepared for the next pandemic. And the one after that. These viruses and their potential recombinations are out there, we don't need some virologist to go out and maybe catch it. People will catch them, we'll just know even less about them when the next pandemic starts.
jb775 5y ago
Also interesting to note that (per the leaked emails) Fauci was in regular correspondence with the guy who thinks everyone should die by age 75 or else they're a waste of space[1]....Discussing strategy on the pandemic that primarily kills people over 75. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-h...
- hahaxdxd123 5y ago
  The guy has a personal preference for not wanting to live a reduced quality of life, and you're using that to insinuate he wants to genocide old people?
- toomanybeersies 5y ago
  > per the leaked emails They were released under the FOIA, not leaked. > the guy who thinks everyone should die by age 75 or else they're a waste of space You linked to an article where he expresses the opinion that he personally doesn't want to live past the age of 75. That's a far cry from advocating mass murder of the elderly. > Fauci was in regular correspondence... Discussing strategy on the pandemic Emanuel is the head of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy. It would be unusual if he wasn't in regular correspondence.
  - jb775 5y ago
    > That's a far cry from advocating mass murder of the elderly. Not what I said. But you obviously didn't read between the lines of why he feels that way, or his statements on the second order effects of a small % of people causing a large drain on the overall healthcare system. I still consider this "Interesting to note". > is the head of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy Why would an employee at a random private university be expected to have correspondence with a public official?
member492 5y ago
What is even more shocking is that the mass media and big tech have done everything to keep this covered. Most of the revelations are nothing new if you read alternative news sources where true journalism still exists. Big tech and mass media are now more like China state television, they decide what and how to tell you something based on what they want you to believe. The greatest threat of our times is not the Corona pandemic or lies about it's origins. It is the loss of true journalism from mass media and free speech on social media. Mass media journalism and big tech are so terribly corrupted that due to that billions of people around the world are being fooled all the time. They are lying to you "for the greater good". When you start reading alternative news sources you'll find out soon enough something is very wrong. From all over the world renowned scientists, doctors, politicians, lawyers, noble price winners, and many more, are being totally silenced and criminalized. It's truly horrifying.
- concordDance 5y ago
  The reason that big tech is corrupted is mass media and activists (here I mean anyone who pushes for their company to do good things rather than just neutral thinhs) within the big tech organization. The (non-rightwing) news orgs had constantly been going on about the evils of Trump and racism and fake news and virus misinformation how very bad it all was, the activists were convinced (because most people don't know how the "news" sausage is made and how it misleads) and pushed to stamp out what they saw as dangerous behaviour. The solution is probably to stop trusting the news media and bring back freedom of communication.
  - shlant 5y ago
    question: who constitutes the "mass media"?
    - concordDance 5y ago
      In the sense I meant? The vast majority of professional news outlets.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. From what I gather, Vanity Fair generally seeks to be as shocking as possible. It's part of their marketing strategy.
durovo 5y ago
"One obvious demand would have been access to the WIV’s database of some 22,000 virus samples and sequences, which had been taken offline. At an event convened by a London organization on March 10, Daszak was asked whether the group had made such a request. He said there was no need: Shi Zhengli had stated that the WIV took down the database due to hacking attempts during the pandemic. “Absolutely reasonable,” Daszak said. “And we did not ask to see the data…. As you know, a lot of this work has been conducted with EcoHealth Alliance…. We do basically know what’s in those databases. There is no evidence of viruses closer to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13 in those databases, simple as that.”" What did she mean when she said that the database is offline? It's not like the data would be gone if the service is not running?
- xyzzy123 5y ago
  According to DRASTIC it's a 61.5 MB mysql database. Oddly, it went offline 12 September 2019 shortly _before_ the pandemic was announced in December 2019. Ref: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gilles-Demaneuf/publication/349073738_An_investigation_into_the_WIV_databases_that_were_taken_offline/links/60552846299bf17367551a5f/An-investigation-into-the-WIV-databases-that-were-taken-offline.pdf?origin=publication_detail https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gilles-Demaneuf/publica... Not really clear why it hasn't been released, it would be technically trivial and save a lot of speculation. There is a bit of a pattern of DRASTIC researchers finding interesting tidbits in various science portals, followed by those portals going offline or being restricted.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
    The lesson to take from this is to always dump the database and put it on scihub/torrent before going public.
  - tim333 5y ago
    Throughout the whole thing the Chinese have been like no data for you which makes you wonder if they have something to hide.
Fomite 5y ago
Meanwhile, elsewhere, people are arguing that COVID-19 can be studied in BSL-2 facilities: https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/14/allow-bsl-2-labs-handle-novel-coronavirus/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/14/allow-bsl-2-labs-handle-... There's a lot of post-hoc engineering arguing for BSL-4 research into coronavirus when even if the lab leak theory proves true wasn't in evidence at the time.
avereveard 5y ago
good time as any to highlight how "fact checking" suppressed the "lab leak" talk for over a year [1] and how "fact checking" is just groupthink by another name and people promoting "fact checking" driven censorship are the 2020 version of the useful idiots of the olds. [1] https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2021/facebook-blocks-coronavirus-misinformation.html https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2021/... (point 7)
unionpivo 5y ago
Not really sure what is so shocking about it. This is just about what I would expect from governments to behave (both US and China). This kind of bullshit where people are more concerned about their departments future funding and prospects, and try to bury "unfortunate" incidents is happening in all the governments(and even inside larger companies) I am familiar with. It's a lot easier to bury if you can prevent investigation, than bury results of such investigation. As shocking as might sound this is pretty much businesses as usual in bureaucracy . For me that doesn't even comes close to Snowden revelations (even though, again we suspected some of it).
toshk 5y ago
The strong sentiment that it couldn't have come from the lab was suspicious from day one. It was not even allowed to be a consideration. Also, here on this forum, I was downvoted for saying it shouldn't be ruled out that the lab might be the source.
- texasbigdata 5y ago
  Maybe this is naive, but what the issue here? These people are alive, the documents exist, the physical locations are accessible. This isn’t archeology. Couldn’t we ... just... check? Like maybe the UN or the group of 7 or something similar? You shut down the globe for a year, seems like it’d be worth running down all the Rabit holes.
  - tremon 5y ago
    the physical locations are accessible China has blocked any and all independent access to the site, the only group allowed access was the WHO research group that somehow happened to include the most rabid opponents of the lab leak theory (Peter Daszak, mentioned in the article).
    - bitexploder 5y ago
      It’s all been thoroughly scrubbed physically and digitally anyway at this point.
  - toshk 5y ago
    You don't seem to understand China. Hollywood actor Cena just begged in Mandarin for forgiveness after mentioning Taiwan is a country (which it is). Local Amsterdam politicians are not allowed to go on the photo with Taiwanese politicians etc. The Communist Party is overly controlling and will not allow anything that will challenge their vision. While Europe and the US were busy with their internal quarrels the last decades, China has been making moves.
    - FridayoLeary 5y ago
gadders 5y ago
What amazes me is the BBC are still going to Daszak as an authority on whether it was a lab leak or not.
mynameishere 5y ago
Shocking? This is all very humdrum to anyone who has been paying attention. Maybe you should pay attention.
DebtDeflation 5y ago
>"Shi Zhengli herself had publicly acknowledged that, until the pandemic, all of her team’s coronavirus research — some involving live SARS-like viruses — had been conducted in less secure BSL-3 and even BSL-2 laboratories." This is important for another reason that may not be immediately obvious. The WIV (BSL-4) is ~8 miles from the Wuhan Market. There's a BSL-2 lab (the CCDC) that's literally just a few hundred yards from the market. If the lab leak theory is correct, it may have escaped from the latter rather than the former. Or a visiting worker may have inadvertently transmitted it from the former to the latter before it escaped from the latter.
- nraynaud 5y ago
  do you have a map? I tried to look for things, but it's really hard with the Chinese datum obfuscation. the best I could do was 3km, but I don't recognize anything from google pictures https://imgur.com/KxOT84W https://imgur.com/KxOT84W
  - DebtDeflation 5y ago
    277.73 meters exactly. https://img-prod.tgcom24.mediaset.it/images/2020/02/16/114720192-5eb8307f-017c-4075-a697-348628da0204.pdf https://img-prod.tgcom24.mediaset.it/images/2020/02/16/11472... And yes, I checked Google Maps and they are very much obscuring this now (they weren't several months ago when I last checked).
  - tim333 5y ago
    there this https://s.rfi.fr/media/display/2f7b52c0-87b0-11ea-b8a0-005056bff430/Xiao%20Botao%20-%20The%20possible%20origins%20of%20the%202019-nCoV%20virus.pdf https://s.rfi.fr/media/display/2f7b52c0-87b0-11ea-b8a0-00505... the Botao Xiao paper
jonplackett 5y ago
I read Biohazard by Ken Alibek years ago and the current situation reminds me of one of the anecdotes in it. He was a Soviet scientist in charge of creating bio-weapons- the book starts with him planning world war 3. In one of the anecdotes talks about a lab leak they had, caused by someone not replacing a filter and the the lab accidentally pumping out anthrax all day and killing a lot of people. The government blamed it on local meat sellers at the market and executed them all. Blaming the local market seems to be part of the bio-weapon-denial playbook. It's a great (but terrifying) book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0031RS5DI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0031RS5DI/ref=dp-kindle-redirec...
- tim333 5y ago
  There's a bit on the leak in wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak
swiley 5y ago
There are a handful of us who are completely unsurprising that both the US and CCP worked hard to cover up certain facts about the virus.
bumbada 5y ago
There is a very important thing to mention: Both the US and Europe depended on China's supplies in order to fight the virus in the first place. Guess what Chinese officials did? They called each individual country prime minister and said: Your news reporters are criticizing China, it seems like you don't want supplies. So politicians will talk with the boss of the news Media and explain the situation, the journalist will shut up. This happened in two big European countries I personally know of. I suspect the same happened in the rest. This is a beautiful reminder that you should never outsource your strategic resources like essential food, energy or medical supplies and if you do, you better don't do that from totalitarian regimes.
- rorykoehler 5y ago
  The world will reorganise after this for sure.
Tarragon 5y ago
The state department memo disclosing the sick researchers story isn't anywhere near as strong as the article implies. It's not US original reporting and there is disagreement about how strong the unnamed sources really are. I'm also going to attack the sources... This was strongly pushed by the Trump administration which was looking for this result. And originally reported by in the WSJ by Michael R. Gordon who is also one of the original reporters about the Iraq Aluminum tubes/centrifuge story that turned out to be wildly false. It took about 15 years to trace the origins of SARS [1] to a specific bat cave. We cannot be this confident this early on SARS-CoV-2. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome#cite_note-:1-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...
- _notreallyme_ 5y ago
  After reviewing most of the arguments in favor of a lab leak origin, I eventually concluded that when confronted to their counter arguments, the Occam's razor would be in favor of a natural origin for the sars-cov2. Indeed, when I heard of the report about WIV workers being sick with covid-like symptom I immediately checked who reported that, and ended up with the same conclusion as you. While a lab leak origin cannot be entirely dismissed, one should keep in mind that all this fuss is politicaly motivated.
jackfoxy 5y ago
I am not at all shocked. All this was known and reported over a year ago. Social media companies and the MSM actively censored this information then in the name of squashing fake news. It was called conspiracy theory. What is different now? The only new and shocking revelations are the release of Fauci's emails.
gentleman11 5y ago
I’m not sure the writing style promotes objectivity. It doesn’t explore certain threads enough to feel like you are reading a trustworthy and complete briefing on the story
fiftyfifty 5y ago
I found this News Week article also very interesting and it goes into more detail about the DRASTIC internet group and how they made some of their discoveries: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-how-amateur-sleuths-broke-wuhan-lab-story-embarrassed-media-1596958 https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-how-amateur-sleuths-broke... IMO the most upsetting part about this is people like Shi Zhengli and Peter Daszak being repeatedly caught in outright lies and coverup behavior. These people seemed to have the best of intentions at some point in their career but they are doing irreparable damage to their field and science in general with the public lies and coverups. One example is Shi Zhengli publicly stating the the 6 miners that died after shoveling bat guano in a mine in Mojiang died from a fungal infection while the DRASTIC group was able to dig up two papers that specifically stated the miners died from a SARS-like virus. They also dug up evidence that Zhengli's lab visited the mine multiple times since 2012 to take samples after the miners died and retrieved as many as 9 unique Coronaviruses similar to SARS-Cov-2 from the mine.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  It's a tremendously good bit of reporting, especially for a generalist outfit like Newsweek. I didn't notice anything wrong in it or the science of the Vanity Fair article this topic is based on, or contradictions between the two articles. The DRASTIC team's story is an amazing example of "open source intelligence," for that primarily focused on an anonymous Indian who goes by the handle The Seeker who dug up a bunch of papers and theses for the data scientists and others on the team to assemble into a picture that is more and more convincing about the lab leak hypothesis, although having wet lab experience I'm predisposed to suspect this over the zoonotic transfer hypothesis. But speaking of predispositions, it's exactly the sort of thing the US intelligence community could have done if most of the government and world scientific establishment hadn't already decided on the zoonotic transfer narrative, which is detailed in the Vanity Fair article. Also an example of how Silicon Valley censorship can backfire, his first posting on this to Reddit got his account permanently banned, which suggested to him he was on to something. On the other hand Twitter didn't have any problems mentioned in either of these articles hosting the discussions of the DRASTIC team.
weaksauce 5y ago
> Edit: here's another amazement for the list: "Shi Zhengli herself had publicly acknowledged that, until the pandemic, all of her team’s coronavirus research — some involving live SARS-like viruses — had been conducted in less secure BSL-3 and even BSL-2 laboratories." And the article says "BSL-2 [is] roughly as secure as an American dentist’s office." "SARS-like" could mean quite a few things and without defining what they mean by that it strikes me as fear baiting or being intentionally misleading to further their thesis.
divbzero 5y ago
Potential mistakes across different countries should put to rest the idea that investigating COVID origins is a nationalistic endeavor. The motivation should be as straightforward and objective as investigating airplane crashes.
amatecha 5y ago
Check this one out as well, from last month. Excellent post on the subject: https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...

jMyles 5y ago

> "Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific unanimity." The interesting part of this - and I'm curious about the personal experience of others here - is that the scientists I know have been the strongest questioners of the wet market theory from the get-go. I don't think anything resembling scientific unanimity ever emerged, or even appeared to emerge. Heck, here on HN we've been talking about this consistently at least since the PNAS letter, and probably since the beginning of the pandemic.

tacitusarc 5y ago
There was an episode of TWIV last year where they mocked anyone taking the lab leak hypothesis seriously
- gataca 5y ago
  There was a pretty recent one that continues to dismiss the idea this came from a lab completely.
  - aorth 5y ago
    To be fair they (on This Week in Virology) said they think it's unlikely that it leaked, but urge anyone with actual evidence to come forward. Their guest on that episode also said that, while RaTG13 is indeed a SARS-like coronavirus, the nucleotide sequence of the genome is only 96% similar to SARS-CoV-2. The guest said it's not similar enough to do gain of function research with. Bats with other similar SARS-like coronaviruses appear in (at least) Japan, Thailand, and Cambodia, and migratory bats have a range of several thousand kilometers. https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-762/ https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-762/
jkhdigital 5y ago
And, for this thoughtful observation, you get... DOWNVOTES. These Covid origins comment threads are so brutal! But yeah, I agree. I’m just a lowly PhD student (an older one, though) but it’s pretty clear from my limited experience that “scientific consensus” is a PR term that bears little relationship to how scientists perform their work and engage with their colleagues.

RachelF 5y ago

Take a look here for another shocking article: https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...

dataflow 5y ago
Btw, for anyone who read that, here's a follow-up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27388943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27388943

harryf 5y ago

It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... I can’t find sources for this right now but apparently Dr Anthony Fauci played a key role in getting the ban lifted. He’s also the head of the NIAID ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci ) which (apparently) is the ultimate source for all funding on gain of function research. So the lead guy we’ve been listening to (and still are) for scientific advice on this pandemic is entangled in a massive conflict of interest. Edit: I assume this is getting down-voted either because is sounds like conspiracy theory or just everyone has already heard it and it's not news. Fauci has already admitted having been involved in funding Wuhan - https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/fauci-admits-nih-funding-of-wuhan-lab-denies-gain-of-function/ https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/fauci-admits-nih-funding-of-wu... - that on it's own should not have been something he first admitted to in May 2021, while holding such a responsible position. Looking for more sources right now... Edit 2: In this article from December 2011 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-flu-virus-risk-worth-taking/2011/12/30/gIQAM9sNRP_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-flu-virus-risk-wor... - you have Fauci making the case for creating viruses in a lab; > "Given these uncertainties, important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory." It doesn't explicitly mention gain of function but - while raising the concerns, it's arguing for research which would include gain of function. Meanwhile listening to this panel discussion which included Fauci from Nov 2017 - https://www.c-span.org/video/?437187-1/johns-hopkins-forum-explores-pandemic-preparedness-response https://www.c-span.org/video/?437187-1/johns-hopkins-forum-e... ... again he's arguing for more aggressive types of research

epitactic 5y ago
> It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... The ban was actually lifted by the Obama administration, _11 days prior_ to Trump taking office. Source: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2017/01/09/recommended-policy-guidance-potential-pandemic-pathogen-care-and-oversight https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2017/01/09/recomme... JANUARY 9, 2017 AT 9:06 Recommended Policy Guidance for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight "Adoption of these recommendations will satisfy the requirements for lifting the current moratorium on certain life sciences research that could enhance a pathogen’s virulence and/or transmissibility to produce a potential pandemic pathogen (an enhanced PPP)."

tpfour 5y ago

The calculation is simple and could have been made in early 2020. What's the joint probability of occurrence given everything you know about the origins of SARS-CoV-2? There is _very_ high probability that this is just a human error.

peter422 5y ago
Was every other emerging virus also created in a lab? SARS? MERS? Influenza? Polio? The highest probability is this virus originated like every other virus in history.
- yumraj 5y ago
  Did any of them originate a few miles from a pathogen research lab that handled such pathogen that caused those outbreaks?
  - flukus 5y ago
    These labs are in major cities. Epidemics are likely to be detected in Major cities. The chance of an outbreak being near a research lab aren't as long as you seem to think. If an outbreak were to happen in the United states just about everywhere would be near a CDC location: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&tbs=lf:1,lf_ui:4&tbm=lcl&q=cdc+USA+locations&rflfq=1&num=10&ved=2ahUKEwj96PD03vzwAhWyyzgGHQhdBncQtgN6BAgKEAQ#rlfi=hd:;si:;mv:[[60.57887875049525,-50.50786451874999],[7.520438055110938,-132.68559889374998],null,[38.74123953804018,-91.59673170625],4 https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&tbs=lf:1,lf...]
    - kaesar14 5y ago
      As pointed out in the article, there were exactly 3 cities in the world working on gain-of-function research related to bat-originated coronaviruses. Galveston, Texas, Chapel Hill N.C, and Wuhan. It’s way more narrow than just being near a biological laboratory.
      - 5y ago

peter422 5y ago

I’ve never heard of 2-3 people getting sick before in a large organization. That sounds like a smoking gun.

JPKab 5y ago
Several were HOSPITALIZED with a respiratory illness, in a lab studying bat viruses on humanized mice. The cognitive dissonance you are suffering is painful, I'm sure, but it's obviously clouding your judgment.
- peter422 5y ago
  Those same people were tested for antibodies and they were negative. Or I guess that is also part of the cover up.
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    ...yes? Listen, if you are prepared to seriously consider a lab leak, then you have to assume that any public statements from Chinese authorities are dubious. I’m pretty sure my own government makes dubious statements all the time so it’s not hard to imagine.
    - peter422 5y ago
      I’m seriously considering it and put it higher than 0%. But if you think your hypothesis is the most likely outcome (>50%), and your defense at any evidence that discounts your view is that it is a giant and incredible cover up by the Chinese government then I guess we have very different priors about how easy it is to pull off massive conspiracies. And also remember the people that leaked that 2-3 employees were hospitalized without any additional details or evidence also had an agenda.
      - chrisco255 5y ago
        > I guess we have very different priors about how easy it is to pull off massive conspiracies. Is it that difficult when you manipulate the media and control the narrative? This is why the principles of free speech are as important as the law itself.

JPKab 5y ago

Prepare to have your head explode further. https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop... https://reporter.nih.gov/search/xQW6UJmWfUuOV01ntGvLwQ/project-details/9491676 https://reporter.nih.gov/search/xQW6UJmWfUuOV01ntGvLwQ/proje...

mc32 5y ago

The other astonishing things is the sudden about face by the media. I'm glad they allowed themselves the liberty of looking at alternative origins. But... they were SO adamant and complicit in any discussion about alternative theories being shut down under the guise of conspiracy, Trumpism, anti-China, etc. (These are the same people who have no qualms about attributing anything to Russia even if evidence is thin, so it's clear there is hypocrisy involved). Edit: It looks like Twitter is suspending the account of the Fauci email leaker(s). So the MoT is still on it.

corpMaverick 5y ago
IMHO, we were in the middle of the problem. The important part to was to figure out how to get out of it. The investigation at that point would not be helpful as it may make cooperation more difficult. Even if the result is that is natural origin and it escaped from a Wet Market. It was China's responsibility and the whole world must make sure to force China to ban wet markets. But as I said before, it will come a time for that.
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago
  Suppressing the truth because you want to game the outcome is an extremely dangerous position to take. It never ends well for the little guy, who ends up getting neither truth nor the best outcome.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  > It was China's responsibility and the whole world must make sure to force China to ban wet markets. lol, have you ever been to a wet market? Are you sure you even know what they are? It’s a typical Asian stall market that they hose off every night. I’ve been to “dry” markets that they’re still cutting the faces off hogs and slaughtering chickens next to fruit vendors. That’s not particularly better. I’m not sure if you think “banning wet markets” is a thing, but it’s definitely not.
  - AstralStorm 5y ago
    Essentially banning all slaughtering on place and relegating it to specialty businesses which would be no better regulated than any slaughterhouse anywhere. Meaning, you'd change nothing besides forcing Chinese to use more transport and freezer cars.

lawnchair_larry 5y ago

The sad part is this is all very old news, but the left leaning media wouldn’t report it. Worse, they equated it with conspiracy theorists and Q anon. If this isn’t your media red pill, I don’t know what is.

tootie 5y ago

I don't think lab workers getting sick is really a useful data point. People get sick all the time. Could have very easily been seasonal flu or whatever. It also seems The Lancet letter doesn't actual address the question of lab leak. Only that it wasn't engineered. That was a pretty hot conspiracy theory at the time and one that remains far fetched. They didn't positively say it couldn't be a naturally occurring virus that leaked. I don't know enough to comment on gain of function leaves any hallmarks but I'm guessing it doesn't since it tries to replicate evolution.

lamontcg 5y ago
The lab workers didn't even get sick, it was samples the lab worked on.
calsy 5y ago
It's so far fetched to think a lab with known safety issues could be responsible for leaking a virus. We all know that humans are infallible and never make mistakes and accidents rarely occur in place with poor safety standards. Its just so crazy....
- tootie 5y ago
  I'm not saying it's far-fetched. It's definitely possible. I'm debating whether or not this is any kind of smoking gun. It's circumstantial evidence.
corty 5y ago
Lab workers getting sick should be a starting point to begin analyzing archived blood samples for instance. Also, you don't usually visit a hospital for seasonal flu. And three people from the same lab at the same time suggests a wider outbreak in the lab. Even if it were the seasonal flu, it would have warranted a wider investigation, given what that lab was working on.
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  Plenty of people visit hospitals for seasonal flu, fyi. They shouldn't, but they do.

deeviant 5y ago

If this is the most shocking article you have ever read in your life, I feel you haven't read many articles in your life. There is absolutely no evidence in it. Just a pile of conjecture. It is absolutely the stuff of conspiracy theories. The truly shocking thing is that world does not hold China liable for this disaster. It really doesn't matter if it started in a lab or in one of their wet markets; it was incompetence and negligence on China's part in either case. China should pay reparations to the world for turning it off for what looks to be like multiple years, and killing millions of people.

jacquesm 5y ago
China could - rightfully - point out that they in fact did get the situation more or less under control and that in spite of being fully aware of the seriousness of the situation the bulk of the governments in the West (those who presumably would be first in line to demand reparation) messed it up all by themselves.
wombatpm 5y ago
When China started welding doors on high rises to keep people in, that was the signal to take it seriously-despite what the WHO was saying
- swader999 5y ago
  They never welded people in, it was to funnel them through common exits where they could be disinfected.
  - themacguffinman 5y ago
    It was reported that some residential unit were literally blocked from entry/exit: https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus-residents-welded-inside-their-own-home/ https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus-residents-welded-insi...
  - premium-komodo 5y ago
    That's not true. It's easy to find videos of men sealing doors shut in stairwells. That door they're sealing is the single door of the apartment.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

"This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life." Dare we inquire how long you have lived. :) But seriously, I am not sure that the scientific community, nor all national governments, have reached a clear consensus on gain of function research. It is still a developing issue. Welcome to be corrected on that. Such research could potentially help to prevent pandemics as well as accidentally start them. The idea that scientists in the US might have been working with scientists in other countries, including China, on GoF research is not shocking to me. Here is a paper from 2016 on the ethics of GoF research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4996883/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4996883/ Perhaps the old saying about mistakingly attributing malice to incompetence applies here. As for the cover-up, it is difficult to imagine that David Baltimore is wrong. I used a textbook he co-authored when I was in school; he is one of the pioneers of the biotech industry. It seems unlikely this was not created in a lab. Then again, it is probably easier to prove someone in a lab made a mistake than to prove soemthing exists in nature.

AbrahamParangi 5y ago
Gain of function research outside of hyper-secure settings is, frankly, idiotic. It’s massively more dangerous than criticality experiments because of the potential for exponential spread.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  From the beginning gain of function research has been done at levels as low as BSL-2, and this article claims the Bat Lady said that all their coronavirus research prior to the pandemic was done at BSL-2 or -3 levels. The Wuhan Institute of Virology's BSL-4 lab would likely be booked up for research known to be very dangerous, and as you go up in levels it's more and more inconvenient to get anything done from the physical protections (there are also supposed to be biological ones).
  - bartart 5y ago
    Plus it appears that the lab was poorly run: She noted that a September 2019 paper in an academic journal by the director of the WIV’s BSL-4 laboratory, Yuan Zhiming, had outlined safety deficiencies in China’s labs. “Maintenance cost is generally neglected,” he had written. “Some BSL-3 laboratories run on extremely minimal operational costs or in some cases none at all.”

flatline 5y ago

The WaPo article where I first read about the theory said most of this stuff. I didn’t understand then why people were so quick to dismiss it - it is eerily plausible, and we just don’t have much other data to go on. But it’s like having an opinion one way or the other is a political dog whistle that puts you into one of two bins, neither of which I fit into comfortably. This article makes a decent point of that: now that Trump’s racism is out of the way, maybe we can more critically examine the facts. I still think the lab leak theory is less likely than evolution, but it’s at least a bit compelling.

incrudible 5y ago
> This article makes a decent point of that: now that Trump’s racism is out of the way, maybe we can more critically examine the facts. I highly doubt it, in most cases "Reductio ad Trumperum" will remain a useful sleight of hand. This is a different matter, being "tough on China" is a bipartisan issue, it's just about showing how the other side was "doing it wrong". For instance, you could say that Trump had "no evidence" supporting his lab leak theory.

rayiner 5y ago

We shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. Scientists are human and have human motivations and flaws. They are political, they cover their ass, they suffer from results oriented thinking. “Science” should be trusted within its domain, but it’s not a replacement for all of the processes western society has developed to address the reality that nobody can be trusted with power. Everyone needs to perform their roles. Reporters still need to be skeptical and question scientists’ motivations and investigate the story. And politicians still need to be in charge of translating scientists’ judgments as to various scenarios and probabilities into the political decisions of figuring out what to do accounting for the entire universe of economic and social considerations that are within their ambit.

rhacker 5y ago
I've been hearing more and more that science is moving from the model "theory holds" to a set of arrogant people backing them.

version_five 5y ago

To me, the only really horrible thing is the way that anything other than the mainstream version of events was treated. I think there are different plausible theories, and I'm not surprised they have different adherents that are mostly all motivated by something other than a pure quest for the truth. That's life. If this was e.g. a civil or criminal trial, you'd see the same thing. The only difference is, in a trial, nobody would try and brand the other side as a conspiracy theorist, racist, denier, anti-xer, whatever the most popular inflammatory term is. Nobody would try and block dissent from all mainstream communication forums. To me, that's the only thing that's new, is the institutional suppression of any suggestions outside of an orthodox version. And it's honestly way scarier than the idea that government labs are doing biological research, or that diseases can jump from animals to people.

aahortwwy 5y ago
> To me, that's the only thing that's new, is the institutional suppression of any suggestions outside of an orthodox version. This isn't new at all. It's been a staple of many human cultures throughout history, including US culture for much of the 20th century (and, I would say, all of the 21st century). I think what's probably a new experience for most of us is just how all-encompassing the pandemic has been as an issue of discussion.
rayiner 5y ago
That’s another symptom of the same disease. People have an idea that “trust the experts” can replace all the messy, gross, and often wrong processes we have developed to deal with the fact nobody can be trusted. Trusting scientists involved in gain of function research will neutrally investigate the origins of the pandemic is one manifestation of that conceit. So is trusting fact checkers and review panels to decide what’s “misinformation” and what’s factual. The marketplace of ideas is better than trusting gatekeepers of knowledge. That’s one of the huge lessons of the enlightenment that we have somehow forgot. We think “it’s different this time.”
- starfallg 5y ago
  >The marketplace of ideas is better than trusting gatekeepers of knowledge. That's such a simplification of the real situation that it's harmful to apply as an axiom. There are many levels of the marketplace of ideas. Ideally, the gatekeepers of knowledge also create a marketplace of ideas so that expert opinion is varied and shifts as new information come in. This is in inline with what we're seeing here. The marketplace of ideas with no experts to guide discussion often results in crank ideas that seem plausible but heavily influenced by our biases bubbling to the top. That's how things like the Anti-vax movement gained a foothold.

FriendlyNormie 5y ago

All of this information has been available for over a year. All of it. ALL OF IT. You helped bury it by labeling anyone sharing it as crazy or a Trump supporter. Kill yourself you fucking retarded nigger. Kill yourself RIGHT NOW.

ramraj07 5y ago

This New York mag article [1] published eons ago already made it clear to any sane biologist that all you mentioned are important things to consider. However the issue is sane biologists or scientists in general are actually in extreme short supply, the vast majority are often under the delusion that they “understand the system” better than they actually do. They also are often knowingly and unknowingly more interested in persevering their personal agenda (for eg. Gain of function research in the general sense in this case) than the overall good of humanity or scientific rigor. Take Fauci for example, is he a good scientist? Yes. But it’s also clear that he too subconsciously has pushed for the method of approaching pandemics that coincidentally he was good at, and now we are left with this mess. I doubt him or anyone in between is going to acknowledge it even if they realize it. I was downvoted here to oblivion for pointing this out weeks back but doesn’t matter. I threw away a decade of my life’s experience because I didn’t believe in this cult of an academic system, downvotes don’t hurt nearly as much. 1. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca...

GavinMcG 5y ago
Trump didn't exactly follow Fauci's advice, so it's odd that you'd blame Fauci's "method of approaching pandemics" for "this mess." Was there some other, better, established method?
- ramraj07 5y ago
  I meant Fauci at al.’s approach of proactively looking for the next pandemic via sample collection and lab engineering of new variants which predates the trump administration. By all appearances Faucis performance during the pandemic is nothing to be questioned. These are different topics.
  - GavinMcG 5y ago
    Thanks for clarifying
  - mrguyorama 5y ago

matzab 5y ago

Honestly, reading comments like these and articles like the OP has convinced me that we, as humans, will not at all be prepared for the next pandemic. And the one after that. These viruses and their potential recombinations are out there, we don't need some virologist to go out and maybe catch it. People will catch them, we'll just know even less about them when the next pandemic starts.

jb775 5y ago

Also interesting to note that (per the leaked emails) Fauci was in regular correspondence with the guy who thinks everyone should die by age 75 or else they're a waste of space[1]....Discussing strategy on the pandemic that primarily kills people over 75. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-h...

hahaxdxd123 5y ago
The guy has a personal preference for not wanting to live a reduced quality of life, and you're using that to insinuate he wants to genocide old people?
toomanybeersies 5y ago
> per the leaked emails They were released under the FOIA, not leaked. > the guy who thinks everyone should die by age 75 or else they're a waste of space You linked to an article where he expresses the opinion that he personally doesn't want to live past the age of 75. That's a far cry from advocating mass murder of the elderly. > Fauci was in regular correspondence... Discussing strategy on the pandemic Emanuel is the head of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy. It would be unusual if he wasn't in regular correspondence.
- jb775 5y ago
  > That's a far cry from advocating mass murder of the elderly. Not what I said. But you obviously didn't read between the lines of why he feels that way, or his statements on the second order effects of a small % of people causing a large drain on the overall healthcare system. I still consider this "Interesting to note". > is the head of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy Why would an employee at a random private university be expected to have correspondence with a public official?

member492 5y ago

What is even more shocking is that the mass media and big tech have done everything to keep this covered. Most of the revelations are nothing new if you read alternative news sources where true journalism still exists. Big tech and mass media are now more like China state television, they decide what and how to tell you something based on what they want you to believe. The greatest threat of our times is not the Corona pandemic or lies about it's origins. It is the loss of true journalism from mass media and free speech on social media. Mass media journalism and big tech are so terribly corrupted that due to that billions of people around the world are being fooled all the time. They are lying to you "for the greater good". When you start reading alternative news sources you'll find out soon enough something is very wrong. From all over the world renowned scientists, doctors, politicians, lawyers, noble price winners, and many more, are being totally silenced and criminalized. It's truly horrifying.

concordDance 5y ago
The reason that big tech is corrupted is mass media and activists (here I mean anyone who pushes for their company to do good things rather than just neutral thinhs) within the big tech organization. The (non-rightwing) news orgs had constantly been going on about the evils of Trump and racism and fake news and virus misinformation how very bad it all was, the activists were convinced (because most people don't know how the "news" sausage is made and how it misleads) and pushed to stamp out what they saw as dangerous behaviour. The solution is probably to stop trusting the news media and bring back freedom of communication.
- shlant 5y ago
  question: who constitutes the "mass media"?
  - concordDance 5y ago
    In the sense I meant? The vast majority of professional news outlets.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. From what I gather, Vanity Fair generally seeks to be as shocking as possible. It's part of their marketing strategy.

durovo 5y ago

"One obvious demand would have been access to the WIV’s database of some 22,000 virus samples and sequences, which had been taken offline. At an event convened by a London organization on March 10, Daszak was asked whether the group had made such a request. He said there was no need: Shi Zhengli had stated that the WIV took down the database due to hacking attempts during the pandemic. “Absolutely reasonable,” Daszak said. “And we did not ask to see the data…. As you know, a lot of this work has been conducted with EcoHealth Alliance…. We do basically know what’s in those databases. There is no evidence of viruses closer to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13 in those databases, simple as that.”" What did she mean when she said that the database is offline? It's not like the data would be gone if the service is not running?

xyzzy123 5y ago
According to DRASTIC it's a 61.5 MB mysql database. Oddly, it went offline 12 September 2019 shortly _before_ the pandemic was announced in December 2019. Ref: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gilles-Demaneuf/publication/349073738_An_investigation_into_the_WIV_databases_that_were_taken_offline/links/60552846299bf17367551a5f/An-investigation-into-the-WIV-databases-that-were-taken-offline.pdf?origin=publication_detail https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gilles-Demaneuf/publica... Not really clear why it hasn't been released, it would be technically trivial and save a lot of speculation. There is a bit of a pattern of DRASTIC researchers finding interesting tidbits in various science portals, followed by those portals going offline or being restricted.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
  The lesson to take from this is to always dump the database and put it on scihub/torrent before going public.
- tim333 5y ago
  Throughout the whole thing the Chinese have been like no data for you which makes you wonder if they have something to hide.

Fomite 5y ago

Meanwhile, elsewhere, people are arguing that COVID-19 can be studied in BSL-2 facilities: https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/14/allow-bsl-2-labs-handle-novel-coronavirus/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/14/allow-bsl-2-labs-handle-... There's a lot of post-hoc engineering arguing for BSL-4 research into coronavirus when even if the lab leak theory proves true wasn't in evidence at the time.

avereveard 5y ago

good time as any to highlight how "fact checking" suppressed the "lab leak" talk for over a year [1] and how "fact checking" is just groupthink by another name and people promoting "fact checking" driven censorship are the 2020 version of the useful idiots of the olds. [1] https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2021/facebook-blocks-coronavirus-misinformation.html https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2021/... (point 7)

unionpivo 5y ago

Not really sure what is so shocking about it. This is just about what I would expect from governments to behave (both US and China). This kind of bullshit where people are more concerned about their departments future funding and prospects, and try to bury "unfortunate" incidents is happening in all the governments(and even inside larger companies) I am familiar with. It's a lot easier to bury if you can prevent investigation, than bury results of such investigation. As shocking as might sound this is pretty much businesses as usual in bureaucracy . For me that doesn't even comes close to Snowden revelations (even though, again we suspected some of it).

toshk 5y ago

The strong sentiment that it couldn't have come from the lab was suspicious from day one. It was not even allowed to be a consideration. Also, here on this forum, I was downvoted for saying it shouldn't be ruled out that the lab might be the source.

texasbigdata 5y ago
Maybe this is naive, but what the issue here? These people are alive, the documents exist, the physical locations are accessible. This isn’t archeology. Couldn’t we ... just... check? Like maybe the UN or the group of 7 or something similar? You shut down the globe for a year, seems like it’d be worth running down all the Rabit holes.
- tremon 5y ago
  the physical locations are accessible China has blocked any and all independent access to the site, the only group allowed access was the WHO research group that somehow happened to include the most rabid opponents of the lab leak theory (Peter Daszak, mentioned in the article).
  - bitexploder 5y ago
    It’s all been thoroughly scrubbed physically and digitally anyway at this point.
- toshk 5y ago
  You don't seem to understand China. Hollywood actor Cena just begged in Mandarin for forgiveness after mentioning Taiwan is a country (which it is). Local Amsterdam politicians are not allowed to go on the photo with Taiwanese politicians etc. The Communist Party is overly controlling and will not allow anything that will challenge their vision. While Europe and the US were busy with their internal quarrels the last decades, China has been making moves.
  - FridayoLeary 5y ago

gadders 5y ago

What amazes me is the BBC are still going to Daszak as an authority on whether it was a lab leak or not.

mynameishere 5y ago

Shocking? This is all very humdrum to anyone who has been paying attention. Maybe you should pay attention.

DebtDeflation 5y ago

>"Shi Zhengli herself had publicly acknowledged that, until the pandemic, all of her team’s coronavirus research — some involving live SARS-like viruses — had been conducted in less secure BSL-3 and even BSL-2 laboratories." This is important for another reason that may not be immediately obvious. The WIV (BSL-4) is ~8 miles from the Wuhan Market. There's a BSL-2 lab (the CCDC) that's literally just a few hundred yards from the market. If the lab leak theory is correct, it may have escaped from the latter rather than the former. Or a visiting worker may have inadvertently transmitted it from the former to the latter before it escaped from the latter.

nraynaud 5y ago
do you have a map? I tried to look for things, but it's really hard with the Chinese datum obfuscation. the best I could do was 3km, but I don't recognize anything from google pictures https://imgur.com/KxOT84W https://imgur.com/KxOT84W
- DebtDeflation 5y ago
  277.73 meters exactly. https://img-prod.tgcom24.mediaset.it/images/2020/02/16/114720192-5eb8307f-017c-4075-a697-348628da0204.pdf https://img-prod.tgcom24.mediaset.it/images/2020/02/16/11472... And yes, I checked Google Maps and they are very much obscuring this now (they weren't several months ago when I last checked).
- tim333 5y ago
  there this https://s.rfi.fr/media/display/2f7b52c0-87b0-11ea-b8a0-005056bff430/Xiao%20Botao%20-%20The%20possible%20origins%20of%20the%202019-nCoV%20virus.pdf https://s.rfi.fr/media/display/2f7b52c0-87b0-11ea-b8a0-00505... the Botao Xiao paper

jonplackett 5y ago

I read Biohazard by Ken Alibek years ago and the current situation reminds me of one of the anecdotes in it. He was a Soviet scientist in charge of creating bio-weapons- the book starts with him planning world war 3. In one of the anecdotes talks about a lab leak they had, caused by someone not replacing a filter and the the lab accidentally pumping out anthrax all day and killing a lot of people. The government blamed it on local meat sellers at the market and executed them all. Blaming the local market seems to be part of the bio-weapon-denial playbook. It's a great (but terrifying) book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0031RS5DI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0031RS5DI/ref=dp-kindle-redirec...

tim333 5y ago
There's a bit on the leak in wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

swiley 5y ago

There are a handful of us who are completely unsurprising that both the US and CCP worked hard to cover up certain facts about the virus.

bumbada 5y ago

There is a very important thing to mention: Both the US and Europe depended on China's supplies in order to fight the virus in the first place. Guess what Chinese officials did? They called each individual country prime minister and said: Your news reporters are criticizing China, it seems like you don't want supplies. So politicians will talk with the boss of the news Media and explain the situation, the journalist will shut up. This happened in two big European countries I personally know of. I suspect the same happened in the rest. This is a beautiful reminder that you should never outsource your strategic resources like essential food, energy or medical supplies and if you do, you better don't do that from totalitarian regimes.

rorykoehler 5y ago
The world will reorganise after this for sure.

Tarragon 5y ago

The state department memo disclosing the sick researchers story isn't anywhere near as strong as the article implies. It's not US original reporting and there is disagreement about how strong the unnamed sources really are. I'm also going to attack the sources... This was strongly pushed by the Trump administration which was looking for this result. And originally reported by in the WSJ by Michael R. Gordon who is also one of the original reporters about the Iraq Aluminum tubes/centrifuge story that turned out to be wildly false. It took about 15 years to trace the origins of SARS [1] to a specific bat cave. We cannot be this confident this early on SARS-CoV-2. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome#cite_note-:1-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...

_notreallyme_ 5y ago
After reviewing most of the arguments in favor of a lab leak origin, I eventually concluded that when confronted to their counter arguments, the Occam's razor would be in favor of a natural origin for the sars-cov2. Indeed, when I heard of the report about WIV workers being sick with covid-like symptom I immediately checked who reported that, and ended up with the same conclusion as you. While a lab leak origin cannot be entirely dismissed, one should keep in mind that all this fuss is politicaly motivated.

jackfoxy 5y ago

I am not at all shocked. All this was known and reported over a year ago. Social media companies and the MSM actively censored this information then in the name of squashing fake news. It was called conspiracy theory. What is different now? The only new and shocking revelations are the release of Fauci's emails.

gentleman11 5y ago

I’m not sure the writing style promotes objectivity. It doesn’t explore certain threads enough to feel like you are reading a trustworthy and complete briefing on the story

fiftyfifty 5y ago

I found this News Week article also very interesting and it goes into more detail about the DRASTIC internet group and how they made some of their discoveries: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-how-amateur-sleuths-broke-wuhan-lab-story-embarrassed-media-1596958 https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-how-amateur-sleuths-broke... IMO the most upsetting part about this is people like Shi Zhengli and Peter Daszak being repeatedly caught in outright lies and coverup behavior. These people seemed to have the best of intentions at some point in their career but they are doing irreparable damage to their field and science in general with the public lies and coverups. One example is Shi Zhengli publicly stating the the 6 miners that died after shoveling bat guano in a mine in Mojiang died from a fungal infection while the DRASTIC group was able to dig up two papers that specifically stated the miners died from a SARS-like virus. They also dug up evidence that Zhengli's lab visited the mine multiple times since 2012 to take samples after the miners died and retrieved as many as 9 unique Coronaviruses similar to SARS-Cov-2 from the mine.

Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
It's a tremendously good bit of reporting, especially for a generalist outfit like Newsweek. I didn't notice anything wrong in it or the science of the Vanity Fair article this topic is based on, or contradictions between the two articles. The DRASTIC team's story is an amazing example of "open source intelligence," for that primarily focused on an anonymous Indian who goes by the handle The Seeker who dug up a bunch of papers and theses for the data scientists and others on the team to assemble into a picture that is more and more convincing about the lab leak hypothesis, although having wet lab experience I'm predisposed to suspect this over the zoonotic transfer hypothesis. But speaking of predispositions, it's exactly the sort of thing the US intelligence community could have done if most of the government and world scientific establishment hadn't already decided on the zoonotic transfer narrative, which is detailed in the Vanity Fair article. Also an example of how Silicon Valley censorship can backfire, his first posting on this to Reddit got his account permanently banned, which suggested to him he was on to something. On the other hand Twitter didn't have any problems mentioned in either of these articles hosting the discussions of the DRASTIC team.

weaksauce 5y ago

> Edit: here's another amazement for the list: "Shi Zhengli herself had publicly acknowledged that, until the pandemic, all of her team’s coronavirus research — some involving live SARS-like viruses — had been conducted in less secure BSL-3 and even BSL-2 laboratories." And the article says "BSL-2 [is] roughly as secure as an American dentist’s office." "SARS-like" could mean quite a few things and without defining what they mean by that it strikes me as fear baiting or being intentionally misleading to further their thesis.

divbzero 5y ago

Potential mistakes across different countries should put to rest the idea that investigating COVID origins is a nationalistic endeavor. The motivation should be as straightforward and objective as investigating airplane crashes.

amatecha 5y ago

Check this one out as well, from last month. Excellent post on the subject: https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...