Lab Leak: The conspiracy theory is shaping up to look like real possibility

[Mountain Man]

First, Fauci wasn't aware that the virus was likely released from the Wuhan lab. He was aware that it was possibly released from the Wuhan lab. And he never said otherwise.

Second, there is no evidence that Fauci ever suppressed inquiries into the "lab leak" hypothesis.

I suppose that's one way to spin it.

[Stoic]

I suppose that's one way to spin it.

Yeah, the truth is my preferred "spin."

[seanD]

Yeah, the truth is my preferred "spin."

I don't normally do that, but that was just too much.

[Stoic]

I'm not trying to be redundant. I'm trying to point out that there is a conflict of interest, and that it's so obvious, it's laughable you keep trying to downplay it. It's simple. Fauci had two choices: promote the lab leak theory, or promote the evolution theory. The evolution theory cleared him and his group of any culpability. It doesn't matter whether it was gain of function or not (we'll hopefully find out the truth of that as this continues to unravel), just the fact he was involved in the Wuhan lab would have made him susceptible to unwanted inquiries and bad press. I don't know of any "consensus" stating one theory over the other. There were scientists stating the possibility of the lab theory (the ones that got censored or shunned), including Kristian Anderson, and scientists promoting the official theory, namely Andersen, who switched positions when he wrote his paper after contacting Fauci via email. And of course the Lancet "declaration" lambasting the lab theory led by Peter Daszak -- part of Fauci's group -- head of the Wuhan funding.

If the WIV was using the grant money for gain-of-function research, and Fauci knew about it, then Fauci would have a conflict of interest. Unless both of those things were true, Fauci would have no more incentive than anyone to try to suppress interest in the lab leak hypothesis. And there is currently no evidence for either of them.

[Stoic]

I don't normally do that, but that was just too much.

MM making false statements and labeling them "fact" is too much.

[seer]

Nothing to see here?


Explosive, Unearthed Video Shows Peter Daszak Describing ‘Chinese Colleagues’ Developing ‘Killer’ Coronaviruses.

Daszak made the admission at a 2016 forum discussing “emerging infectious diseases and the next pandemic,” which appears to be at odds with Fauci’s repeated denial of funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

While describing how his organization sequences deadly viruses, Daszak describes the process of “insert[ing] spike proteins” into viruses to see if they can “bind to human cells” as being carried out by his “colleagues in China”:

“Then when you get a sequence of a virus, and it looks like a relative of a known nasty pathogen, just like we did with SARS. We found other coronaviruses in bats, a whole host of them, some of them looked very similar to SARS. So we sequenced the spike protein: the protein that attaches to cells. Then we… Well I didn’t do this work, but my colleagues in China did the work. You create pseudo particles, you insert the spike proteins from those viruses, see if they bind to human cells. At each step of this you move closer and closer to this virus could really become pathogenic in people.

“You end up with a small number of viruses that really do look like killers,” he adds.

https://thenationalpulse.com/exclusi...coronaviruses/

[Stoic]

Moving on to the next couple of claims in the link MM provided,

2. Fauci was circulating articles on "gain of function" research on February 1, 2020

What the author fails to provide is a reason to think this is a bad thing.

It is well within Fauci's purview to determine whether any gain-of-function research has been reviewed and approved by NIH, and to make sure that US government funding isn't being provided for any research that hasn't.


3. Fauci tattled on Ron DeSantis but stayed silent on Cuomo

As far as I can tell, the only public criticism Fauci made of DeSantis was when he said that Florida opened up too quickly. And given how Florida has done since then, the criticism appears to be well deserved.

As for the emails, Fauci was replying to a doctor complaining about how things were being done in Florida. If someone can show that he ignored a similar email complaining about New York's nursing home policy, then maybe it will look like he was partisan.

[Sparko]

Moving on to the next couple of claims in the link MM provided,

2. Fauci was circulating articles on "gain of function" research on February 1, 2020

What the author fails to provide is a reason to think this is a bad thing.

It is well within Fauci's purview to determine whether any gain-of-function research has been reviewed and approved by NIH, and to make sure that US government funding isn't being provided for any research that hasn't.


3. Fauci tattled on Ron DeSantis but stayed silent on Cuomo

As far as I can tell, the only public criticism Fauci made of DeSantis was when he said that Florida opened up too quickly. And given how Florida has done since then, the criticism appears to be well deserved.

As for the emails, Fauci was replying to a doctor complaining about how things were being done in Florida. If someone can show that he ignored a similar email complaining about New York's nursing home policy, then maybe it will look like he was partisan.

You seem to be trying too hard.

[seanD]

You seem to be trying too hard.

Way too hard. Like... damage control hard.

[Stoic]

Nothing to see here?


Explosive, Unearthed Video Shows Peter Daszak Describing ‘Chinese Colleagues’ Developing ‘Killer’ Coronaviruses.

Daszak made the admission at a 2016 forum discussing “emerging infectious diseases and the next pandemic,” which appears to be at odds with Fauci’s repeated denial of funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

While describing how his organization sequences deadly viruses, Daszak describes the process of “insert[ing] spike proteins” into viruses to see if they can “bind to human cells” as being carried out by his “colleagues in China”:

“Then when you get a sequence of a virus, and it looks like a relative of a known nasty pathogen, just like we did with SARS. We found other coronaviruses in bats, a whole host of them, some of them looked very similar to SARS. So we sequenced the spike protein: the protein that attaches to cells. Then we… Well I didn’t do this work, but my colleagues in China did the work. You create pseudo particles, you insert the spike proteins from those viruses, see if they bind to human cells. At each step of this you move closer and closer to this virus could really become pathogenic in people.

“You end up with a small number of viruses that really do look like killers,” he adds.

https://thenationalpulse.com/exclusi...coronaviruses/

I don't think he's describing his Chinese colleagues 'developing' killer coronaviruses, so much as 'identifying' killer coronaviruses. The question he was answering (at about 1:12:20 in the C-SPAN video) was about how of the 300 million or so mammalian viruses, many are not pathogenic, so is there a way to parse that down...

His answer (1:16:32) starts out, "Some of these viruses will be killers, and some of them won't. How do we work that out from a viral sequence? It is not straightforward. First of all, we are only looking at viral families that include those that have gotten to people from animals. So we narrow it down straightaway. Then, when you get a sequence...

With that in mind, the term "pseudo particles" sounds like harmless particles that have the spike protein from the virus in question added to them to see if the spike protein will bind to human cells.

So his last sentence can best be interpreted as, "You end up with a small number of viruses (of the 300 million found in mammals) that really do look like killers."

[Stoic]

You seem to be trying too hard.

Well, I could have just said, "Hey, you idiots! Nobody has shown anything incriminating in Fauci's emails!"

But people don't seem to be satisfied with that sort of response.

[seanD]

Well, I could have just said, "Hey, you idiots! Nobody has shown anything incriminating in Fauci's emails!"

But people don't seem to be satisfied with that sort of response.

"Incriminating" is a bit of a strawman. From what it looks like, Fauci and his group funded this controversial research in china to avoid the legal limitations here in the states (which would be pretty incriminating), but even if Fauci and his group was funding gain of function research at the Wuhan lab within a legal and authorized scientific framework, we're talking about extraordinary moral implications here, and the attempted cover-up would just be the beginning of that. I think that would be pretty obvious even to a shill like yourself.

[Gondwanaland]

As far as I can tell, the only public criticism Fauci made of DeSantis was when he said that Florida opened up too quickly. And given how Florida has done since then, the criticism appears to be well deserved.

You mean the part where Florida has, since removing most restrictions, done better than NY and California and NJ and Michigan, who kept up lockdowns and.or restrictions until just recently? How in the world was the criticism 'well deserved'? Florida did extremely well with next to no restrictions since September - and that's WITH them having a much larger elderly (the most vulnerable to covid) population than other states (I think the largest in the country).

1E1xqxSNVcAEoY4j.jpg

Fauci similarly declared that Texas this March was dropping restrictions too quickly when they ended mask mandates (same for Mississippi), and Biden slandered them as 'Neanderthal thinking' yet none of the dire predictions happened, and they had much lower numbers than the still-restricted Michigan, Cali, etc.

1EyaArN8U8AAFlxt.jpg

[Mountain Man]

Yeah, the truth is my preferred "spin."

Another one of those classic moments when it's impossible to tell wherever it's sarcasm, or liberal delusion.

[Stoic]

"Incriminating" is a bit of a strawman. From what it looks like, Fauci and his group funded this controversial research in china to avoid the legal limitations here in the states (which would be pretty incriminating), but even if Fauci and his group was funding gain of function research at the Wuhan lab within a legal and authorized scientific framework, we're talking about extraordinary moral implications here, and the attempted cover-up would just be the beginning of that. I think that would be pretty obvious even to a shill like yourself.

No, there's no evidence that the US was funding any such research in China. There isn't even any evidence that the funding that was going to China for collection of samples was being diverted into gain-of-function research.

There is also no evidence of an attempted cover-up.