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since 30 Jan 2020: internet "conspiracy theorists" knew about "Wuhan virus lab leak origin theory"
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for 16 months, lab leak theory gets thoroughly deboonked by media journaloids and soyentists as a "fringe", "false", "far right", "dismissed", "debunked", "extremely unlikely", "conspiracy theory"
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media journaloid hacks, soyentists, CIA, and Media Matters, all aligned with the same anti-Trump, anti-lab-leak message, pure coincidence
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17 May 2021, 16 months later, local NYT journaloid overlord deigns to allow the plebeian masses to speculate on "coronavirus lab leak theory"
Go fuck yourselves, you dirty, dirty smear merchants.
https://archive.ph/tD365 https:// www. bbc. com/news/blogs-trending-51271037
China coronavirus: Misinformation spreads online about origin and scale
By BBC Monitoring And UGC Newsgathering 30 January 2020
'Bioweapon' conspiracies
Another baseless claim that has gone viral online suggests the virus was part of China's "covert biological weapons programme" and may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Ben SmithVerified account @benyt 17 May 2021
A good attempt to depolarize the lab leak arguments
Ben SmithVerified account @benyt
@nytimes media columnist. Fireworks enthusiast. Formerly @buzzfeednews. Beats working for a living. Send me scoops: ben. smith @nytimes. com.
Brooklyn, NY nytimes. com Joined October 2007
https://archive.ph/y5kC0 https:// donaldgmcneiljr1954. vmedium. com/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-lab-leak-theory-f4f88446b04d
17 May 2021 17:04:31 UTC
How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Lab-Leak Theory*
Donald G. McNeil Jr. 6 hours ago·19 min read
For about a year, that was the general wisdom among science writers. The “lab-leak theory” migrated back to the far right where it had started — championed by the folks who brought us Pizzagate, the Plandemic, Kung Flu, Q-Anon, Stop the Steal, and the January 6 Capitol invasion. It was tarred by the fact that everyone backing it seemed to hate not just Democrats and the Chinese Communist Party, but even the Chinese themselves. It spawned racist rumors like “Chinese labs sell their dead experimental animals in food markets.”
China retorting to Trump administration nonsense with nonsense of its own — such as suggesting that U.S. military officers planted the virus during a visit to Wuhan in October 2019 — did not help.
__
https://archive.ph/qTDCO https:// www. cnet. com/features/how-the-coronavirus-origin-story-is-being-rewritten-by-a-guerrilla-twitter-group/
How the coronavirus origin story is being rewritten by a guerrilla Twitter group
The group, known as Drastic, has investigated, corrected, uncovered and agitated in a quest to uncover the pandemic's starting point.
Jackson Ryan April 15, 2021
Minutes after reading the abstract, he posted his find to Twitter, in a long tweet thread tagging members of a loosely defined group known as Drastic, a "Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19." The master's thesis had the potential to rewrite the origin story of the pandemic.
A majority of scientists and experts agree that the coronavirus emerged after jumping from a wild animal to humans somewhere in or around Wuhan, where the first cases appeared in 2019. The pathogen is believed to have lived most of its life inside a bat, before acquiring genetic mutations, potentially through another species, and infecting humans.
But an alternative theory posits that the pandemic began after SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, potentially the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A joint study by the World Health Organization and Chinese scientists in January and February 2021 considered this scenario "extremely unlikely." From the earliest days in the pandemic, it was represented as a conspiracy theory built on misinformation and fear.
But Drastic, and an increasing number of scientists, are convinced it requires further investigation.
In searching for the complete and naked truth surrounding the origins of COVID-19, this motley group of strangers has challenged the prevailing theories of the virus' beginnings by picking apart inconsistencies and trading data in the highly polarized theater of Twitter. This unorthodox approach has seen them branded by scientists and researchers as maniacs, thugs and conspiracy theorists. They've also been accused of racism, and their scientific credentials have been questioned.
On Twitter, where access to world-renowned scientists is just a click away, members of Drastic have targeted virologists and epidemiologists who refuse to engage with the lab leak theory, and they've even falsely accused some of working for the Chinese Communist Party. As a result, some scientists have understandably dismissed Drastic's findings and investigation out of hand.
But over the past year the group's discoveries have proven too important to ignore.
Part of the problem is that the origins story has become entangled in geopolitics and conspiracy. Bad actors have seized upon the lab leak theory for political gain, sometimes attempting to shift the blame for catastrophic failures in managing the pandemic. Instead of remaining a scientific debate, the origin story morphed into a political one. For instance, in March 2020, US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began propagating the idea that SARS-CoV-2 may have leaked from a Wuhan lab. The lab leak became intertwined with Trump, foreign policy and the right. Deigin says Trump weighing in "poisoned" the discussion.
https://archive.ph/I1ZeW https:// www. mediamatters. org/martha-maccallum/fox-news-pushing-debunked-theory-origins-coronavirus
Fox News is pushing a debunked theory on the origins of the coronavirus -- again
WRITTEN BY MADELINE PELTZ PUBLISHED 02/19/20 11:24 AM EST
Two Fox News programs promoted a debunked theory about the origins of the coronavirus disease in Wuhan, China, echoing former White House adviser Steve Bannon and his billionaire benefactor Guo Wengui. The discredited speculation, which The Washington Post labeled a “fringe theory” and PolitiFact identified as “false,” posits that the coronavirus epidemic was engineered in a high-security laboratory housed in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard Ebright told the Post that “based on the virus genome and properties there is no indication whatsoever that it was an engineered virus.”
https://archive.ph/bosEd https:// www. sciencemag. org/news/2020/02/scientists-strongly-condemn-rumors-and-conspiracy-theories-about-origin-coronavirus
Scientists ‘strongly condemn’ rumors and conspiracy theories about origin of coronavirus outbreak
By Jon CohenFeb. 19, 2020 , 7:00 AM
A group of 27 prominent public health scientists from outside China is pushing back against a steady stream of stories and even a scientific paper suggesting a laboratory in Wuhan, China, may be the origin of the outbreak of COVID-19. “The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins,” the scientists, from nine countries, write in a statement published online by The Lancet yesterday.
https://archive.ph/2Byk9 https:// www. nature. com/articles/d41586-020-01452-z
27 MAY 2020
The epic battle against coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories
Analysts are tracking false rumours about COVID-19 in hopes of curbing their spread.
Philip Ball & Amy Maxmen
Politics and scams
As the pandemic shifted to the United States and Europe, false information increased, says Donovan. A sizeable part of the problem has been political. A briefing prepared for the European Parliament in April alleged that Russia and China are “driving parallel information campaigns, conveying the overall message that democratic state actors are failing and that European citizens cannot trust their health systems, whereas their authoritarian systems can save the world.” The messages of US President Donald Trump and his administration are sowing their own political chaos. This includes Trump’s insistence on referring to the ‘Chinese’ or ‘Wuhan’ coronavirus and his advocacy of unproven (and even hazardous) ‘cures’, and the allegation by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the virus originated in a laboratory, despite the lack of evidence.
“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” says The Lancet statement, which praises the work of Chinese health professionals as “remarkable” and encourages others to sign on as well.
https://archive.ph/ELNjU https:// www. scientificamerican. com/article/nine-covid-19-myths-that-just-wont-go-away/
Nine COVID-19 Myths That Just Won’t Go Away
From a human-made virus to vaccine conspiracy theories, we rounded up the most persistent false claims about the pandemic
By Tanya Lewis on August 18, 2020
Myth 1: The novel coronavirus was engineered in a lab in China. Because the pathogen first emerged and began infecting people in Wuhan, China, President Donald Trump has claimed—without evidence—that it started in a laboratory there. Some conspiracy theorists have even speculated it was engineered as a bioweapon, although U.S. intelligence agencies have categorically denied this possibility, stating that the intelligence community “concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.” No credible evidence has emerged to support an accidental lab release either. As Scientific American reported earlier this year, Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli—who studies bat coronaviruses and whose laboratory Trump and others had suggested was COVID-19’s source—compared the pathogen’s sequence against that of other coronaviruses her team had sampled from bat caves and found that it did not match any of them. Zhengli also explained in detail why her lab could not have been the source of the virus in a lengthy response in Science. In reaction to calls for an independent, international investigation into how the virus originated, China has invited researchers from the World Health Organization to discuss the scope of such a mission. But the evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was not created in a lab.
https://archive.ph/T7VYD https:// apnews. com/article/debunked-coronavirus-myths-survive-212dfb8acbf8c759e869f8b391724873
Debunked COVID-19 myths survive online, despite facts
By AMANDA SEITZ and BEATRICE DUPUY December 17, 2020
MYTH: THE VIRUS WAS MAN-MADE
It was not.
Social media users and fringe websites weaved together a conspiracy theory that the virus was leaked — either accidentally or intentionally — from a lab in Wuhan, China, before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March. The falsehood was espoused by elected officials, including Trump.
The origins of the virus are far less scandalous: It likely originated in nature. Bats are thought to be the original or intermediary hosts for several viruses that have triggered recent epidemics, including COVID-19. U.S. intelligence agencies also concluded the virus is not man-made.
Yet the conspiracy theory continues to travel online, and made a resurgence in September when a Chinese virologist repeated the claim on Fox News.
https://archive.ph/jRYIw https:// www. denverpost. com/2020/12/18/covid-19-myths-debunked/
Here are 5 debunked COVID-19 myths that just won’t die
Misinformation about the coronavirus continues to proliferate online
By AMANDA SEITZ and BEATRICE DUPUY | The Associated Press
PUBLISHED: December 18, 2020 at 3:29 p.m. | UPDATED: December 18, 2020 at 3:39 p.m.
https://archive.ph/tD365 https:// www. bbc. com/news/blogs-trending-51271037
China coronavirus: Misinformation spreads online about origin and scale
By BBC Monitoring And UGC Newsgathering
30 January 2020
'Bioweapon' conspiracies
Another baseless claim that has gone viral online suggests the virus was part of China's "covert biological weapons programme" and may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Many accounts pushing the theory cite two widely-shared Washington Times articles both of which quote a former Israeli military intelligence officer for the claim.
However, no evidence is provided for the claim in the two articles, and the Israeli source is quoted as saying that "so far there isn't evidence or indication" to suggest there was a leak.
https://archive.ph/Wc9mL https:// www. bbc. com/news/world-asia-china-55996728
9 Feb 2021 22:53:01 UTC
Covid: WHO says 'extremely unlikely' virus leaked from lab in China
3 hours ago
International experts investigating the origins of Covid-19 have all but dismissed a theory that the virus came from a laboratory in China.
Peter Ben Embarek, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) mission, said it was "extremely unlikely" that the virus leaked from a lab in the city of Wuhan.
He said more work was needed to identify the source of the virus.
https://archive.ph/sVGcQ https:// www. bbc. com/news/world-52224331
Coronavirus: US and China trade conspiracy theories
By Shayan Sardarizadeh and Olga Robinson BBC Monitoring
26 April 2020
But a number of US politicians and commentators have also made unfounded claims about the origin of the virus.
Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson cited a study raising the possibility that the coronavirus "accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan".
And Republican senators Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz have both raised the same prospect.
Jeremy Konyndyk, who led the US government's response to the Ebola outbreak, tweeted in response to reports about an accidental lab leak: "The science doesn't preclude a lab origin but does indicate it's quite unlikely."
https://archive.ph/4Ti5Y https:// www. npr. org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident
Virus Researchers Cast Doubt On Theory Of Coronavirus Lab Accident
April 23, 2020·7:08 AM ET GEOFF BRUMFIEL, EMILY KWONG
"I will tell you, more and more, we're hearing the story," Trump said on April 15 of the theory that the virus came from labs in Wuhan.
But after corresponding with 10 leading scientists who collect samples of viruses from animals in the wild, study virus genomes and understand how lab accidents can happen, NPR found that an accidental release would have required a remarkable series of coincidences and deviations from well-established experimental protocols.
"All of the evidence points to this not being a laboratory accident," says Jonna Mazet, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Davis and director of a global project to watch for emerging viruses called PREDICT.
Bro, you gotta work on formatting and presentation. That is an impenetrable wall of text.
Would you believe me that it was worse when I first posted it?
Yes. There's a lot of info you've got here.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your contributions. I just can't parse them half the time.
Yes, his contributions are almost uniformly good.
Don’t worry, the science really changed in the last two weeks.
Feel free to share this ebin thread anywhere.
This is great. Thanks for compiling it.
Hmmm yes, this coronavirus that was first found in a wet market located directly next to this level 4 biolab operating at level 2 security that was studying coronavirus must have come from the wild.
TL/DR: A combination of TDS, racial hysteria, and CCP shilling led the left to deny the possibility of a lab leak.
What a submission.
Nothing to add except the king of drastic - Billy Bostickson is a great follow and somebody we should support on twitter :
https://twitter.com/billybostickson/status/1347218191685099520?s=21
Funny thing? Heterodox leftists who were casted away from Evergreen, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heinneg were AGREEING with the lab-creation theory since the beginning of the pandemic last fucking year.
Bret Weinstein is an evolutionary biologist and he said there's too much fucking data to say otherwise. The problem, he pointed out in a podcast frmo last year (I don't remember which one, but trust me on it) is that in order for a virus to jump from only affecting animals to affecting humans requires a lot of time for the virus to evolve, but for it to not only jump from animals to humans AND THEN find a way to keep the host alive so that it can keep itself going and replicate itself and find a way to jump from humans to ANOTHER HUMAN in such an easily transmissable matter screams man made. COVID was essentially the "perfect virus".
Previous coronaviruses that were found figured out a way to jump to humans, but the viruses almost all burned themselves out because they were extremely virulent and killed the host before it got a chance to jump to another human. Not only that, but the viruses killed their hosts so quickly that there was almost no chance for the virus to "figure out" how to spread itself to another human.
The fact it took OVER 1 YEAR for the MSM to start even considering this shit, and only after we have Beijing Biden's administration and vaccines administered makes me think more and more that maybe Alex Jones was indeed right.
Yep, both Bret and Heather are hesitant about the vaccine as well, because there is no data on its long term effects. There is literally none.
From that same podcast, I think they said something along the lines of "I won't be the guinea pigs for this vaccine, but once we those folks test it for me I'll gladly get the next wave after we confirm it's safe for humans in the long term."
They're also frustrated by the left suddenly disregarding the CDC by continuing to pass these stupid mask laws. The data is right in front of them but the "Trust the Science!" fucks are now suddenly not trusting it so much anymore.
Hypocritical fucks.
https://archive.ph/WjFdr https:// www. nytimes. com/2020/02/17/business/media/coronavirus-tom-cotton-china.html
Scientists have dismissed suggestions that the Chinese government was behind the outbreak, but it’s the kind of tale that gains traction among those who see China as a threat.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas in Washington last month. On Sunday, he accused China of “duplicity and dishonesty.” Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
By Alexandra Stevenson
Published Feb. 17, 2020 Updated Feb. 18, 2020
The rumor appeared shortly after the new coronavirus struck China and spread almost as quickly: that the outbreak now afflicting people around the world had been manufactured by the Chinese government.
The conspiracy theory lacks evidence and has been dismissed by scientists. But it has gained an audience with the help of well-connected critics of the Chinese government such as Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist. And on Sunday, it got its biggest public boost yet.
Speaking on Fox News, Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, raised the possibility that the virus had originated in a high-security biochemical lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the outbreak.
https://archive.ph/rOLkH https:// www. nytimes. com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response. html
An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.
By Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman, Michael D. Shear, Mark Mazzetti and Julian E. Barnes
Published April 11, 2020 Updated April 14, 2020
During meetings and telephone calls, Mr. Pottinger asked intelligence agencies — including officers at the C.I.A. working on Asia and on weapons of mass destruction — to search for evidence that might bolster his theory.
They didn’t have any evidence. Intelligence agencies did not detect any alarm inside the Chinese government that analysts presumed would accompany the accidental leak of a deadly virus from a government laboratory. But Mr. Pottinger continued to believe the coronavirus problem was far worse than the Chinese were acknowledging. Inside the West Wing, the director of the Domestic Policy Council, Joe Grogan, also tried to sound alarms that the threat from China was growing.
https://archive.ph/EsAJr https:// www. nytimes. com/2020/11/20/business/media/steve-bannon-china. html
Increasingly allied, the American far right and members of the Chinese diaspora tapped into social media to give a Hong Kong researcher a vast audience for peddling unsubstantiated pandemic claims.
By Amy Qin, Vivian Wang and Danny Hakim
Published Nov. 20, 2020 Updated Jan. 20, 2021
By September, Dr. Yan had abandoned caution. She appeared in the United States on Fox News making the unsubstantiated claim to millions that the coronavirus was a bio-weapon manufactured by China.
Overnight, Dr. Yan became a right-wing media sensation, with top advisers to President Trump and conservative pundits hailing her as a hero. Nearly as quickly, her interview was labeled on social media as containing “false information,” while scientists rejected her research as a polemic dressed up in jargon.
Her evolution was the product of a collaboration between two separate but increasingly allied groups that peddle misinformation: a small but active corner of the Chinese diaspora and the highly influential far right in the United States.
An overwhelming body of evidence shows that the virus almost certainly originated in an animal, most likely a bat, before evolving to make the leap into humans. While U.S. intelligence agencies have not ruled out the possibility of a lab leak, they have not found any proof so far to back up that theory.
Mr. Bannon noted that unlike Dr. Yan, he did not believe the Chinese government “purposely did this.” But he has pushed the theory about an accidental leak of risky laboratory research and has been intent on creating a debate about the new coronavirus’s origins.
https://archive.ph/aAJWO https:// thespectator. info/2021/03/29/nyt-headline-since-changed-says-wuhan-lab-accident-theory-has-been-debunked-it-hasnt-been/
MARCH 29, 2021
The New York Times changed its headline from ‘Ex-CDC Director Favors Debunked Covid-19 Origin Theory’ (still visible in the top left tab) to ‘The CDC’s ex-director offers no evidence in favoring speculation that the coronavirus originated in a lab.’ (Image: NYT/CNSNews)
https://archive.ph/fr0Px https:// www. nytimes. com/2021/03/26/science/redfield-coronavirus-wuhan-lab. html
March 26, 2021, 5:22 p.m. ET March 26, 2021 By James Gorman and Julian E. Barnes
The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a CNN clip on Friday that he favored a theory, decried by many scientists and rejected as “extremely unlikely” by at least one World Health Organization international expert, that the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan. The former official, Dr. Robert Redfield, offered no evidence and emphasized that it was his opinion.
https://archive.ph/TG8zN https:// www. washingtonpost. com/politics/2020/02/16/tom-cotton-coronavirus-conspiracy/
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Sunday repeated a debunked conspiracy theory about coronavirus and Chinese bioresearch. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
By Paulina Firozi
Feb. 17, 2020 at 4:04 p.m. UTC
https://archive.ph/4rPK2 https:// edition. cnn. com/2020/03/04/health/debunking-coronavirus-myths-trnd/index. html
By Harmeet Kaur, CNN Updated 0900 GMT (1700 HKT) March 13, 2020
The rumors, which originated from unverified social media accounts and weren't supported by any credible evidence, got more elaborate as time went on.
One version popularized outside China suggested that a Chinese lab had been secretly working on a bioweapon that got leaked. Another that gained traction among nationalistic parts of the Chinese social mediasphere suggested that the virus originated in the US -- and that many Americans thought to have died of the flu this season were actually killed by COVID-19.
Scientists in both China and the West have widely dismissed these theories, though that hasn't stopped them from spreading. Experts are still trying to figure out the exact source of the virus, but research indicates that it likely originated in bats and was transmitted to an intermediate host before jumping to people -- just like its cousin that caused the 2003 SARS epidemic.
https://archive.ph/mcHTi https:// www. cnn. com/2020/10/21/politics/coronavirus-lab-theory-yan-bannon-invs/index. html
By Rob Kuznia, Scott Bronstein, Drew Griffin and Curt Devine, CNN
Updated 2200 GMT (0600 HKT) October 21, 2020
(CNN) — It was a blockbuster story. A respected Chinese virologist appeared on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News in mid-September to share the results of her just-completed report. The conclusion: The novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was likely engineered in a Chinese lab. On Carlson's show, she claimed it was intentionally released into the world.
Then, its validity began to unravel. The publication of the paper by lead author Li-Meng Yan -- an ex-patriot from China seeking asylum in the US -- was quickly linked to former White House adviser Steve Bannon, long a strident critic of China's government. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security -- a leading authority on the pandemic -- criticized the science behind the report, and pointed out that Yan and her co-authors "cite multiple papers in their reference section that have weaknesses or flaws."
https://archive.ph/bERHm https:// www. cnn. com/2021/03/31/health/lab-leak-coronavirus-theory-comic-book-scn/index. html
By Maggie Fox, CNN Updated 1856 GMT (0256 HKT) March 31, 2021
(CNN) — Theories about a laboratory leak being the source of the coronavirus pandemic sound like something out of a comic book, one virologist says.
Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane University and other virologists have been publishing studies for a year that demonstrate SARS-CoV-2 originated naturally in animals and is unlikely to have been engineered in a lab.
Genetic study shows the virus carries all the messy hallmarks of nature and none of the fingerprints that would have been left behind by laboratory manipulation.
"What are the things that argue against a lab leak? There are a whole lot of them," Garry told CNN.
Redfield, a virologist, presented no evidence to back up his assertion. And while he joins non-experts such as US Sen. Tom Cotton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, his former colleague Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, disagrees, as do a swath of other experts in infectious diseases.
And a World Health Organization report released Tuesday says the lab leak theory is the least likely of four scenarios its investigators considered. Most likely: the virus spread from its natural host, probably a bat, to another animal and then to people.
https://archive.ph/gvvmO https:// www. nbcnews. com/politics/national-security/did-coronavirus-really-escape-chinese-lab-here-s-what-we-n1199531
Experts say animal-to-human transmission is far more likely, but some circumstantial evidence suggests it's possible it was accidentally released by a lab.
May 4, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC By Ken Dilanian, Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee
Despite Trump's comment Thursday that he has seen information that gives him high confidence that the outbreak was the result of an accidental release from a Wuhan laboratory, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News that they have made no such assessment. There is no "smoking gun" evidence pointing them in that direction, they say, and there may never be.
Intelligence officials stand by the public statement put out Thursday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which said that the intelligence community has concluded that the virus was not man-made but that it had reached no conclusion about whether it emerged accidentally from a lab or was transmitted to humans through animals.
NBC News reported last week that the White House has tasked the intelligence community with investigating that and other questions about the origin of the virus, the extent to which China covered it up and whether the World Health Organization was complicit in the cover-up. Some critics have raised the concern that the White House is pushing the intelligence agencies to validate a conclusion that helps it politically, by distracting attention from the question of whether it acted soon enough. China and the WHO deny that they were less than forthcoming, and China says the virus couldn't have come from one of its labs.
https://archive.ph/3uyNN https:// www. cbsnews. com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronavirus-source-dismissal/
BY CHRISTOPHER BRITO MAY 5, 2020 / 3:32 PM / CBS NEWS
https://archive.ph/7v3j9 https:// abcnews. go. com/US/conspiracy-theorists-study-concludes-covid-19-laboratory-construct/story?id=69827832
Some have suggested the virus is actually an engineered biological attack.
By Kate Holland
March 27, 2020, 9:00 AM
Conspiracy theories claiming COVID-19 was engineered in a lab as part of a biological attack on the United States have been gaining traction online in recent weeks, but a new study on the origins of the virus has concluded that the pandemic-causing strain developed naturally.
An analysis of the evidence, according to the findings first published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine, shows that the novel coronavirus "is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus," with the researchers concluding "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."
https://archive.ph/ndCEg https:// abcnews. go. com/Health/virologists-vigorously-debunk-study-origins-coronavirus/story?id=71097846
This latest allegation is from a team of researchers from Britain and Norway.
By Dr. Nancy A. Anoruo and Dr. Ayodola Adigun
June 9, 2020, 10:03 PM
"The paper is nonsense," said Vincent Racaniello, Ph.D., professor of virology at Columbia University. "The manuscript is replete with incorrect science."
"It is absolutely 100% impossible that SARS-CoV-2 was made in a laboratory. The elements in the virus, SARS-CoV-2, all came from bat SARS-like CoVs that circulate in nature," Racaniello told ABC News.
Despite overwhelming scientific consensus that the novel coronavirus came from nature, various scientific and pseudo-scientific claims have continued to fan the flames of a conspiracy theory that the virus was engineered in a Chinese lab.
"No scientist or group of scientists created this virus in a laboratory. That would require insight into [viral] pathogenesis and protein engineering that does not exist," said Robert Garry, Ph.D., virologist at Tulane University.
Garry explained that much of the genetic material of the virus that caused COVID-19 is similar to that found in viruses sampled from animals, and was unknown to science until after the pandemic, ruling out the possibility the virus was created beforehand in a lab.
https://archive.ph/lzAVG https:// www. usatoday. com/story/news/factcheck/2020/03/21/fact-check-did-coronavirus-originate-chinese-laboratory/2881150001/
Molly Stellino USA TODAY
Published 5:55 p.m. ET Mar. 21, 2020 Updated 11:12 a.m. ET Mar. 22, 2020
There is no evidence to suggest that the virus was created in a Chinese laboratory. People who have claimed it started in a lab cite only the geographical proximity of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research lab in Wuhan, and the market where some researchers believe the virus transferred from animals to humans.
Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, said in an interview with The Washington Post: “Based on the virus genome and properties, there is no indication whatsoever that it was an engineered virus.”
The Washington Post reported most countries have abandoned their bioweapons programs after years of work did not yield satisfactory results.
https://archive.ph/GqkFl https:// www. smh. com. au/world/asia/going-viral-how-a-book-on-amazon-inspired-the-latest-covid-conspiracy-20210512-p57r6e. html
By Anthony Galloway and Eryk Bagshaw
MAY 13, 2021
It is easy to forget that Chinese researchers from Wuhan discovered the origins of the 2002 SARS outbreak. In a remote cave in the southwestern province of Yunnan, virologists identified a colony of horseshoe bats with virus strains that jumped to humans and went on to kill hundreds of people around the world. They made their discovery in 2017 – almost 15 years after the first SARS outbreak.
Indeed, the book is now one of the key references for what’s known as the Wuhan lab theory, which posits that after foreign powers manufactured SARS and introduced it to China in 2002, Beijing developed the technology as a bio-weapon that was either accidentally or deliberately released in 2019, infecting 159 million people and killing 3.3 million worldwide so far.
https://archive.ph/c1YqT https:// www. newsweek. com/chinese-virologist-twitter-coronavirus-covid19-lab-1543960
BY JASON MURDOCK ON 11/2/20 AT 7:46 AM EST
A Chinese academic spreading the conspiracy that China was responsible for releasing SARS-CoV-2 has suggested information will soon be released to explain why well-credentialed scientists across the world rejected her research.
Li-Meng Yan, a former post-doctoral fellow at Hong Kong University, has now promoted two non peer-reviewed papers which suggest the coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19 was created in a lab, describing it as being an "unrestricted bioweapon."
https://archive.ph/rfCg1 https:// www. businessinsider. com/why-coronavirus-did-not-leak-from-wuhan-lab-researcher-2020-4
Aylin Woodward
May 2, 2020, 12:11 PM
A fringe theory suggests that the new coronavirus leaked by accident from a lab in Wuhan.
Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) study infectious diseases, including coronaviruses, and did before the pandemic started. So as questions about how the pandemic started continue to go unanswered, the lab has drawn scrutiny.
Matthew Pottinger, Trump's deputy national security adviser, asked intelligence agencies in January to look into the idea of a Wuhan lab leak, The New York Times reported. But CIA officers didn't find any evidence.
There's a reason for that, according to Jonna Mazet, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Davis, who has worked with and trained WIV researchers in the past.
"I know that we worked together to develop very stringent safety protocol, and it's highly unlikely this was a lab accident," she told Business Insider. Here are four reasons why.
https://archive.ph/C6Rf5 https:// www. businessinsider. com. au/coronavirus-bioweapon-tom-cotton-conspiracy-theory-china-warfare-leak-2020-2
BILL BOSTOCK FEB 18, 2020, 1:49 AM
Sen. Tom Cotton keeps airing a long-debunked theory that the deadly coronavirus is a Chinese biological weapon that was leaked from a government lab in Wuhan.
https://archive.ph/M8SMR https:// www. forbes. com/sites/brucelee/2020/03/17/covid-19-coronavirus-did-not-come-from-a-lab-study-shows-natural-origins/
EDITORS' PICK|Mar 17, 2020, 10:03pm EDT
Bruce Y. Lee Senior Contributor Healthcare
Some folks including politicians in the U.S. and China have both suggested that the COVID-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV2) that’s causing the pandemic may actually be a bioweapon that was manufactured in a lab. The only difference between their conspiracy theories is who’s being accused of doing the manufacturing.
On the one corner are some people in the U.S. who are hinting or in some cases openly claiming that China put together this virus. For example, look at what Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) tweeted out back on January 30:
https://archive.ph/8u4uf https:// www. forbes. com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/05/10/a-timeline-of-the-covid-19-wuhan-lab-origin-theory/
Jack Brewster Forbes Staff Business I'm a news reporter for Forbes. Updated May 24, 2020, 10:59am EDT
The theory COVID-19 originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China — and not naturally in wildlife — has emerged as an explosive claim pitting scientists, who remain skeptical of the claim, against Trump administration officials, who have rallied around the theory as the White House turns to deflecting attention away from criticism it faltered in its handling of the outbreak and casting blame onto China; here’s a timeline laying out the progression of the theory:
https://archive.ph/AzmN0 https:// www. vanityfair. com/news/2020/04/inside-the-the-viral-spread-of-a-coronavirus-origin-theory
A Wuhan biosafety laboratory, bat blood, a wet market, scientists, pangolins, politicians looking for someone to blame: the perfect ingredients for a story that won’t go away.
BY JOE POMPEO APRIL 10, 2020
On Sunday, February 16, as COVID-19 was tightening its stranglehold on China and plotting a cruel blitz against the United States, Republican Senator Tom Cotton went on Fox News and floated an alternative theory about the provenance of the deadly disease. The early scientific consensus was that the never-before-seen coronavirus had most likely made a jump from bats to another form of wildlife, perhaps the type of exotic animal, like a pangolin, sold at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where it then achieved a natural zoonotic transmission to humans. Cotton wanted Fox News Channel’s viewers to hear about another possible origin story. The seafood market, he noted, was not that far from a major biosafety lab.
https://archive.ph/CJgsZ https:// www. vanityfair. com/news/2020/05/why-scientists-believe-the-wuhan-lab-coronavirus-origin-theory-is-highly-unlikely
Trump and Mike Pompeo’s favorite blame-China theory makes great propaganda—but dubious science.
BY JOE POMPEO MAY 8, 2020
The lab-accident scenario seems the stuff of Hollywood thrillers—and perfect as propaganda, which operates on principles similar to those of thrillers—but there are a few facts that give it a surface plausibility. The Wuhan lab happens to conduct bat-coronavirus research, and it also happens to be located not that far from the seafood market where an early cluster of cases first emerged in late 2019. But, appealing and useful as it is in certain kinds of narratives, the lab theory leaves many virology and epidemiology types highly skeptical. To get a sense of scientists’ reservations, I spoke with Kristian Andersen, a professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research. He was the lead author on a March 17 paper, published in the journal Nature Medicine, that is seen as the definitive research supporting a natural virus origin. “We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible,” Andersen’s team, which compared the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, concluded.
https://archive.ph/lYJWk https:// www. politifact. com/article/2020/jan/24/fact-checking-hoaxes-and-conspiracies-about-corona/
By Daniel Funke January 24, 2020
By Tom Kertscher January 24, 2020
Coronavirus was ‘created in a lab’ as a ‘bioweapon for population control’
These claims are baseless — and they conflate COVID-19 with other strains of the illness. Our friends at Factcheck.org and Health Feedback debunked similar conspiracy theories.
"Several news websites, especially alternative news and health websites, are coming under cyberattack for reporting what is a huge story about the fact that this coronavirus that is sweeping China, and which has now spread to other countries — including the United States of America — is actually a biological attack being perpetrated on the United States and other countries," he said in the video.
There is no evidence to support that claim. While its investigation is still ongoing, the CDC has said the coronavirus appears to have originated at a seafood and animal market in Wuhan, China. From there, it spread via travelers to several Asian countries, France and the United States.
https://archive.ph/T4IQt https:// www. politifact. com/article/2021/may/17/debating-origins-covid-19-virus-what-we-know-what-/
By Tom Kertscher May 17, 2021 By Noah Y. Kim May 17, 2021
"At this point in time, all scientific data related to the genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 and the epidemiology of COVID-19 are equally consistent with a natural-accident origin or a laboratory-accident origin," he told PolitiFact.
Scientists open to the lab-leak theory have cited three pieces of circumstantial evidence in support of the hypothesis:
https://archive.ph/Lpior https:// www. snopes. com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/
The coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 has deadly adaptations that make it perfect for infecting humans. But this is a testament to natural selection, not bioengineering.
ALEX KASPRAK
PUBLISHED 1 APRIL 2020
https://archive.ph/JqXRv https:// www. snopes. com/news/2020/07/13/heres-how-scientists-know-the-coronavirus-wasnt-made-in-a-lab/
The vast majority of scientists who have studied the virus agree that it evolved naturally and crossed into humans from an animal species, most likely a bat.
By The Conversation
Published 13 July 2020
https://archive.ph/zwgIV https:// www. thedailybeast. com/bill-maher-pushes-bonkers-steve-bannon-wuhan-lab-covid-conspiracy
FACT-FREE
The “Real Time” host welcomed a pair of podcast hosts to push the evidence-free conspiracy theory—originated by Steve Bannon—that COVID-19 is man-made and escaped from a lab.
Marlow Stern Senior Entertainment Editor
Updated Jan. 30, 2021 12:30AM ET / Published Jan. 30, 2021 12:02AM ET
https://archive.ph/ykpwK https:// gizmodo. com/the-truth-of-coronavirus-might-be-worse-than-the-conspi-1842492005
Ed Cara 3/25/20 6:25PM
This is perhaps the most prominent conspiracy theory to date, and the reasoning is simple enough. According to this theory, the coronavirus—officially called SARS-CoV-2—isn’t just an unlucky product of nature but a viral weapon created in the lab in order to terrorize unspecified targets.
Politicians and cranks across the world have espoused some version of this theory, though not always blaming the same perpetrator. U.S. Senator Tom Cotton blames the Chinese government. Leaders in Iran and China have argued that the origin of the virus is actually the U.S. military. This conspiracy theory has also gotten support from the usual internet-dwelling suspects, with QAnon adherents claiming the virus is a so-called false flag invented by the “deep state” (among other bizarre ideas).
https://archive.ph/leMIO https:// www. dailydot. com/irl/coronavirus-bioweapon-conspiracy-theory/
If it is one, it's not particularly effective.
Mike Rothschild
Published Feb 20, 2020 Updated Jan 27, 2021, 5:10 am CST
That lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has existed in some form since the late 1950s, and most recently has done research on bat-transmitted coronavirus—the same kind currently infecting people as COVID-19. But lab officials have strongly denied any link to the outbreak, and science writers have pointed out that coronavirus commonly jumps from animals to humans and that the virus currently spreading has too low a lethality rate and too long an incubation period to be useful as a weapon.
https://archive.ph/S6hH7 https://web.archive.org/web/20210508101925/https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/20/21187983/debunk-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-how-to-covid-19-news-science https:// www. theverge. com/2020/3/20/21187983/debunk-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-how-to-covid-19-news-science
The novel coronavirus was not created in a lab
By Justine Calma @justcalma Mar 20, 2020, 9:48am EDT
You have politicians in the US pushing the conspiracy theory that the coronavirus was bioengineered by a Chinese lab. And then you had retaliation to that. You had Chinese officials pushing the conspiracy theory that the US bioengineered the virus. We talked about this in the book, that there are tactical conspiracy theories. They’re not always just a guy with a tinfoil hat in his basement talking on his laptop. It can be actual governments intentionally constructing conspiracy theories for strategic reasons. And so when you have governments pushing out all these conspiracy theories, they’re quite distracting. It’s not what we need when we need governments all working together to address a global pandemic like this.
But also when you do address conspiracy theories, do it in a way that doesn’t reinforce or promote them. Basically, inoculation is delivering misinformation in a weakened form by explaining how it can’t be true and explaining what the facts are instead. For example, with the conspiracy theory that the novel coronavirus was created in a lab, scientists have found that it has natural origins.
https://archive.ph/VimBt https:// thebulletin. org/2020/03/why-do-politicians-keep-breathing-life-into-the-false-conspiracy-theory-that-the-coronavirus-is-a-bioweapon/
By Matt Field, John Krzyzaniak, March 13, 2020
The Covid-19 bioweapon conspiracy theory has not only failed to be debunked; it even seems to be getting a second wind, and prominent politicians from countries around the world are embracing it. “For a while, it seemed the pushback on the bioweapons narrative from the Washington Post and Foreign Policy was effective,” biodefense researcher Filippa Lentzos said. “But in recent days, the narrative seems to be coming back with a vengeance.” Current and former government officials, including former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao, and US Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas have given credence to some version of the theory in the last month.
In the United States, Cotton isn’t fully letting up on his suggestion last month that the virus was a Chinese military creation. In a Fox News interview in February, he appeared to suggest just that, before walking back the idea, sort of. (In a series of tweets, he said the bioweapon theory was just one of several hypotheses.) Bioweapon or not, Cotton still believes someone is responsible for the pandemic, someone Chinese. In a statement Thursday announcing that he’d be temporarily closing his Senate office, he called the virus the “Wuhan coronavirus” five times, vowing, “We will hold accountable those who inflicted it on the world.” In a later clarifying tweet, he said that, yes, he meant China.
The new coronavirus is thought to have jumped from animals to people, but researchers still haven’t pinned down which species to blame. The pangolin, an ant-eating animal prized for its meat and scales in China, is one candidate, according to an article in Nature. But scientists haven’t found a close-enough genetic match between viruses found in pangolins and those found in humans to reach a definitive conclusion.
https://archive.ph/tMkAo https:// www. vox. com/2020/3/4/21156607/how-did-the-coronavirus-get-started-china-wuhan-lab
2 Apr 2020 18:42:50 UTC
There’s a rumor the coronavirus started in a Chinese lab. And a scientific consensus it didn’t.
By Eliza Barclay @elizabarclay eliza. barclay @ vox. com Updated Mar 12, 2020, 12:50pm EDT
Editor’s note, April 2: There have been significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic since this story was last updated, and some details may no longer apply. For our most up-to-date coverage, visit our coronavirus hub. Click here for the CDC’s current public health guidance.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology is a real place, and the exact origin of the novel coronavirus is still a mystery, with researchers racing since the outbreak began to figure it out. But already, virologists who’ve parsed the genome and infectious disease experts who study coronaviruses say they have enough evidence the virus is brand new and came from nature. A large group of them, citing genome analyses from multiple countries, recently affirmed in The Lancet that the virus originated in wildlife.
The emergence of the virus in the same city as China’s only level 4 biosafety lab, it turns out, is pure coincidence.
More Serious Journalisming™:
https://archive.ph/4jMIJ https:// www. reuters. com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-virus-idUSKCN223180
APRIL 21, 2020 / 10:26 AM / UPDATED A YEAR AGO
By Reuters Staff
She did not respond to a request to elaborate on whether it was possible the virus may have inadvertently escaped from a lab. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has dismissed rumours both that it synthesized the virus or allowed it to escape.
https://archive.ph/Bdxln https:// www. reuters. com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-usa-idUSKBN22M0DV
MAY 10, 2020 / 11:53 AM / UPDATED 13 HOURS AGO
Yew Lun Tian
The article also cited media reports that said Americans had been infected with the virus before the first case was confirmed in Wuhan. There is no evidence to suggest that is the case.
Keen to quash U.S. suggestions that the virus was deliberately created or somehow leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the article said that all evidence shows the virus is not man-made and that the institute is not capable of synthesising a new coronavirus.
https://archive.ph/XVQbE https:// www. reuters. com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-china-idUSKBN2A309F
FEBRUARY 3, 2021 / 2:29 AM / UPDATED 20 DAYS AGO
By Martin Quin Pollard, Thomas Peter
The experts spent about 3-1/2 hours at the heavily-guarded Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been at the centre of some conspiracy theories that claim a laboratory leak caused the city’s first coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019.
https://archive.ph/NX4YV https:// www. theguardian. com/world/2021/feb/03/who-investigators-visit-wuhan-lab-at-heart-of-china-covid-19-conspiracy-claims
The team led by Peter Ben Embarek entered the heavily guarded building saying they were looking forward to a ‘productive day’
Reuters
Wed 3 Feb 2021 04.17 GMT
A team of investigators from the World Health Organization has visited a virus research laboratory in Wuhan seeking clues to the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The team, led by WHO virus expert Peter Ben Embarek, arrived at the heavily guarded Wuhan Institute of Virology at about 9.30am on Wednesday.
The institute has been at the centre of a number of conspiracy theories – some promoted by former US president Donald Trump and his secretary of state Mike Pompeo – that claim a laboratory leak caused the city’s first coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019.
Most scientists reject the hypothesis, but some speculate that a virus captured from the wild could have figured in experiments at the lab to test the risks of a human spillover and then escaped via an infected staff member.
https://archive.ph/Xt7YX https:// www. reuters. com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-china-explaine-idUKKBN2AA0QK
FEBRUARY 10, 2021 / 7:47 AM / UPDATED 3 MONTHS AGO
By David Stanway
The final scenario is that SARS-CoV-2 was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is known to have studied captive coronaviruses. Ben Embarek ruled out the possibility and said it would not be subject to further research. Accidents happen, he said, but it was “very unlikely” in this case.
https://archive.ph/bxsV9 https:// www. reuters. com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-china-factbox-idUSKBN2BL2HX
MARCH 29, 2021 / 5:47 PM / UPDATED 2 MONTHS AGO
By Reuters Staff
ON LIKELY SOURCES
• direct zoonotic (animal-to-human) spillover is considered to be a possible-to-likely pathway;
• introduction through an intermediate animal host is considered to be a likely to very likely pathway
• introduction through cold/food chain products is considered a possible pathway
• introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway
UNO REVERSE!:
https://archive.ph/jCb35 https:// www. reuters. com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/origins-covid-19-need-be-investigated-further-leading-scientists-say-2021-05-14/
May 14, 2021 10:24 AM UTC
Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals
Guy Faulconbridge
The origin of the novel coronavirus is still unclear and the theory that it was caused by a laboratory leak needs to be taken seriously until there is a rigorous data-led investigation that proves it wrong, a group of leading scientists said.
https://archive.ph/aHr8J https:// www. theguardian. com/world/2020/apr/15/trump-us-coronavirus-theory-china
The president attacked those who favored China, including the WHO, for which he previously announced a hold on funding
David Smith in Washington @smithinamerica
Wed 15 Apr 2020 20.58 EDT
The Pentagon’s top general, Mark Milley, cast doubt on the lab theory earlier this week, saying that US intelligence has looked into the possibility but that the “weight of evidence” thus far pointed towards “natural” origins.
Since the outbreak of the virus in Wuhan in December, more extreme conspiracy theories have suggested that it was engineered as a bioweapon. There is no evidence for this. The scientific journal the Lancet has stated the virus appears to have come from wildlife. An analysis by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology suggests that the virus’s genome is 96% similar to a coronavirus found in bats.
But the story running prominently on Fox News begins by stating the virus began “not as a bioweapon”, alleging incompetence rather than a malicious attack. This idea has gained more traction, especially among anti-China hardliners in Washington.
https://archive.ph/ucIBL https:// www. theguardian. com/commentisfree/2020/jun/09/conspiracies-covid-19-lab-false-pandemic
Peter Daszak
Instead of following false claims, we should be focusing our efforts on the regions where the next pandemic is likely to emerge
• Peter Daszak is president of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to analysing and preventing pandemics
Published on Tue 9 Jun 2020 06.14 EDT
Suggestions that Covid-19 is a manmade virus are the latest chapter in a tale of blame, misinformation and finger-pointing. Cue the conspiracy theorists, marching out their narrative about the high-security BSL-4 lab in Wuhan, where mysterious experiments to design “frankenviruses” led to the tragic global pandemic.
https://archive.ph/4jesI https:// www. wired. com/story/if-covid-19-did-start-with-a-lab-leak-would-we-ever-know/
ROGER PIELKE JR.
IDEAS
01.16.2021 10:40 AM
The two major investigations into the origins of the pandemic are compromised by potential conflicts of interest. Those problems need to be fixed—fast.
In the meantime, we’re left to speculate. A long essay by Nicholson Baker, published several weeks ago in New York Magazine, made the case that the pandemic began with a laboratory accident; and while the article has been tarred as an irresponsible, ill-informed and one-sided presentation, even its most ardent critics could concede that the possibility of a lab leak cannot be ruled out with certainty.
There are now two major efforts to investigate where Covid-19 came from: one set up by the World Health Organization, and the other organized by a leading medical journal, The Lancet. The investigations are expected to take months or even years to complete, and, given the many challenges involved, they may never deliver conclusive answers. It’s already clear, however, that both are compromised by a lack of clear procedures to manage conflicts of interest and questionable independence. Now it is imperative that governments and the scientific community act quickly to improve them.
For instance, both investigations include Peter Daszak, disease ecologist and president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a research nonprofit with a history of conducting research into SARS-related coronaviruses and their effects on humans, including collaborative work done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Wuhan Institute happens to be the only laboratory in China that is allowed to work with the world’s most dangerous pathogens, and it’s located at the apparent ground zero of the current outbreak.
If there were a lab leak—and, again, most experts do not believe that the available evidence points in this direction—then both the Wuhan Institute and its US partner would be on a short list of candidates to investigate. It should be obvious that no one with any connection to either organization can play a formal role in any truly independent investigation into the pandemic’s origins. (Of course their expert input could and should be solicited through other means.)
Meanwhile, on Nov. 23, 2020, the other investigation, set up by The Lancet, convened a 12-person task force to look into the pandemic’s origins, chaired by Daszak. Among the other members are five more signatories to the EcoHealth Alliance letter from last February, which means that fully half of this team had already suggested that any lab-leak hypothesis was a “conspiracy theory” months before their work began.
https://archive.ph/CVaCq https:// www. foxnews. com/media/bloomberg-noah-smith-so-what-coronavirus-lab-leak-wuhan-china
11 May 2021 11:25:16 UTC
'Just get lost, dorks,' Noah Smith wrote after critics panned his tweet
By Joseph A. Wulfsohn | Fox News
"Question: How much does anyone really care about the 'lab leak' theory?" Smith asked while sharing a Washington Post article. "If we found that the virus did escape from a lab... so what?"
He continued, "Could be a result of unsafe research practices or poor safety procedures... so be safer when doing research?
When asked why he took down the tweet, Smith replied, "Too many people shouting about it. Just get lost, dorks."
https://archive.ph/7BFtG MSNBCVerified account @MSNBC 3:35 AM - 5 May 2020
.@ChrislHayes on the theory that the coronavirus "escaped" from a lab in Wuhan, China:
“The Trump administration is so desperately grasping at straws, trying to find someone to blame, they don't even seem to understand what they themselves are saying.”
https://archive.ph/pDDJP https:// www. msnbc. com/all-in/watch/chris-hayes-on-right-wing-s-escape-from-the-lab-theory-of-coronavirus-origin-83017285850
Chris Hayes on right-wing’s 'escaped from the lab’ theory of coronavirus origin
Chris Hayes: “But the Trump administration is so desperately grasping at straws, trying to find someone to blame, that they don't even seem to understand what they're saying. They just want a convenient scapegoat.” May 5, 2020
We need a video compilation of media ridiculing the lab leak alongside current headlines.
There is no virus in Wuhan lab-Joo Dee.
every media outlet that downplays china's sole culpability in this entire debacle is on the chinese communist dole.
That's not necessarily true
Some do it for free