Nothing has demonstrated the political hijacking of "science" like the Wuhan virus pandemic. Take the recent letter from a group of scientists urging that investigations into the origins of the virus also consider that it could have originated in the laboratory.
Although there were no findings in clear support of either a natural spillover or a lab accident, the team assessed a zoonotic spillover from an intermediate host as “likely to very likely,” and a laboratory incident as “extremely unlikely” [(4), p. 9]. Furthermore, the two theories were not given balanced consideration. Only 4 of the 313 pages of the report and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory accident (4). Notably, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus commented that the report's consideration of evidence supporting a laboratory accident was insufficient and offered to provide additional resources to fully evaluate the possibility (5).
As scientists with relevant expertise, we agree with the WHO director-general (5), the United States and 13 other countries (6), and the European Union (7) that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data. A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest. Public health agencies and research laboratories alike need to open their records to the public. Investigators should document the veracity and provenance of data from which analyses are conducted and conclusions drawn, so that analyses are reproducible by independent experts.
Now it turns out, the scientists had been keeping mum since 2020.
Fears of being “associated with Trump” kept scientists from speaking out about a possible lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2020, according to at least one researcher now calling for a probe into the possibility.
Alina Chan, a postdoctoral associate at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, admitted to staying mum this week while speaking to NBC News about COVID-19’s origins.
“At the time, it was scarier to be associated with Trump and to become a tool for racists, so people didn’t want to publicly call for an investigation into lab origins,” she said Wednesday.
No public health considerations, not until Trump was safely out of office, and sufficient time had past. What if Trump had won re-election? Would our profiles in scientific courage have ever said what they actually thought, or would they have just gone along forever, covering for China? And doing that on the pretext of opposing racism. Are there such things as "scientific principles" when scientists seem to have no principles of their own, or refuse to stand for the ones they have? The stories keep changing — masks, hydroxychloroquine, vaccines, lockdowns — all driven by politics. Anti Trump politics.
Update: A story about a possible high level Chinese defection raises the issue of biological warfare research in Wuhan.
Wuhan Again
Without naming Dong, the pro-Trump web site Red State reported June 4 on a high-level defection from China, saying the Defense Intelligence Agency had received information from him that Beijing is covering up biological warfare research at the Wuhan lab, and advanced its story to question the integrity of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Sources say the level of confidence in the defector’s information is what has led to a sudden crisis of confidence in Dr. Anthony Fauci, adding that U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) personnel detailed to DIA have corroborated very technical details of information provided by the defector,” it said.
Is the coronavirus a result of that research?
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