Loading ...Scientists Demand Answers on Covid Origins Chance of lab escape ‘has become the theory that cannot be put to rest.’
The Wall Street Journal has Joined the FAUCI HUNT !
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The HEAT is ON ! Lets boil this Frog
Dr. Anthony Fauci can keep downplaying the possibility that the pandemic began at a Chinese lab partially funded by a grantee of his government institute. But even Dr. Fauci’s numerous media admirers cannot prevent scientists from asking appropriate questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“Top researchers are calling for a real investigation into the origin of covid-19” is the headline on a story in MIT Technology Review by Rowan Jacobsen. He writes:
A year ago, the idea that the covid-19 pandemic could have been caused by a laboratory accident was denounced as a conspiracy theory by the world’s leading journals, scientists, and news organizations.
But the origin of the virus that has killed millions remains a mystery, and the chance that it came from a lab has become the theory that cannot be put to rest.
Now, in a letter in the journal Science, 18 prominent biologists—including the world’s foremost coronavirus researcher—are lending their weight to calls for a new investigation of all possible origins of the virus, and calling on China’s laboratories and agencies to “open their records” to independent analysis.
The scientists want a real investigation because official inquiries to date have largely assumed that Covid’s origins are zoonotic, i.e., the virus moved from animals to humans. The new letter published in Science reads in part:
In May 2020, the World Health Assembly requested that the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general work closely with partners to determine the origins of SARS-CoV-2. In November, the Terms of Reference for a China–WHO joint study were released. The information, data, and samples for the study’s first phase were collected and summarized by the Chinese half of the team; the rest of the team built on this analysis. 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”. 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…
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.
The renowned scientists signing the letter include the University of North Carolina’s Ralph Baric, Harvard’s Marc Lipsitch, Yale’s Akiko Iwasaki, and Stanford’s David Relman. The MIT Technology Review account from Mr. Jacobsen notes:
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Several of those signing the letter, including Lipsitch and Relman, have in the past called for greater scrutiny of “gain of function” research, in which viruses are genetically modified to make them more infectious or virulent. Experiments to engineer pathogens were also ongoing at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, China’s leading center for studying bat viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2. Some see the fact that covid-19 first appeared in the same city in which the lab is located as circumstantial evidence that a laboratory accident could be to blame.
The Journal’s Amy Dockser Marcus and Betsy McKay report:
“I wanted this to be addressed to my fellow colleagues, the working scientists, and use a venue they respect and see as a place for scientists to talk about science and the importance of science,” said Dr. Relman said of the debate over the pandemic’s origin. “Our message here is wherever the data takes us, thou shalt go, and only go to the degree that the data allow.”
James Gorman and Carl Zimmer add in the New York Times:
Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, said he signed the new letter because “the recent W.H.O. report on the origins of the virus, and its discussion, spurred several of us to get in touch with each other and talk about our shared desire for dispassionate investigation of the origins of the virus.”
…Another signer, Sarah E. Cobey, an epidemiologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, said, “I think it is more likely than not that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from an animal reservoir rather than a lab.”
But “lab accidents do happen and can have disastrous consequences,” she added. “I am concerned about the short- and long-term consequences of failing to evaluate the possibility of laboratory escape in a rigorous way. It would be a troublesome precedent.”
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Among both scientists and non-scientists, a substantial number of people regard as troublesome the whole idea of gain-of-function research. Engineering deadly monsters to learn how to defeat them in case they ever occur naturally may seem like the stuff of science fiction, or at least intellectual hubris.
Yet over the years a number of prominent U.S. government scientists have advocated for the creation of such demons of our own design. In 2011 Dr. Fauci co-authored an op-ed in the Washington Post:
Working carefully with influenza viruses they have engineered in isolated biocontainment laboratories, scientists in Europe and the United States have identified several mechanisms by which the virus might evolve to transmit efficiently in the ferret, the best animal model for human influenza infection. This research has allowed identification of genetic pathways by which such a virus could better adapt to transmission among people. This laboratory virus does not exist in nature. There is, however, considerable concern that such a virus could evolve naturally. We cannot predict whether it or something similar will arise naturally, nor when or where it might appear.
Given these uncertainties, important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory… The scientists, journal editors and funding agencies involved are working together to ensure that access to specific information that could be used to create dangerous pathogens is limited to those with an established and legitimate need to know.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology received some funding from Dr. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases via a U.S. group called EcoHealth Alliance. Now the Fauci institute is answering a question about whether the Wuhan lab did any gain-of-function research by saying, “It is impossible for us to be aware of nor can we account for all of their activities.”
The whole world has a legitimate need to know what happened in that laboratory.
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