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

[Gondwanaland]

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.

Huh? That's not even in question anymore. We know the US directly funneled money into non-profits doing that exact research in China. That's KNOWN. This isn't something you just get to handwave away, bud.

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-o...esearch-2021-6

[seanD]

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.

Keep shilling. Maybe you'll convince a low information lurker.

[Stoic]

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).

Fauci voiced his criticism on July 9, so I'm pretty sure he was talking about the opening up that was done in June. So back up your calendar by a few months.

[Stoic]

Huh? That's not even in question anymore. We know the US directly funneled money into non-profits doing that exact research in China. That's KNOWN. This isn't something you just get to handwave away, bud.

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-o...esearch-2021-6

The article is behind a paywall. Is there any part of it that you can quote that says what you claim it says?

[Gondwanaland]

Fauci voiced his criticism on July 9, so I'm pretty sure he was talking about the opening up that was done in June. So back up your calendar by a few months.

Backing up the calendar by a few months does not change Florida doing better.

[Gondwanaland]

The article is behind a paywall. Is there any part of it that you can quote that says what you claim it says?

Here's the full text:

Is the best way to protect people from a dangerous virus to create one in a lab? That's the central question in the debate over gain-of-function research, a branch of virology that alters viruses in a controlled environment to make them more transmissible or infectious.

Proponents of this type of research say the work enables them to predict deadly pathogens that might emerge in real life and start work on vaccines or treatments ahead. But opponents think the experiments are simply too risky. A lab without proper safety protocol could accidentally release a more transmissible virus into the human population.

Competing theories about the coronavirus' origin have recently thrust this gain-of-function debate into the spotlight, since a prominent lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was conducting that kind of research on coronaviruses. What's more, the US has funded grants that supported that lab — which might have given State Department officials an incentive not to thoroughly investigate the possibility of a lab leak, according to a recent Vanity Fair investigation.

Vanity Fair reported that at a December 2020 meeting, US State Department officials were "explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology's gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to US government funding of it."

For years, the US government gave grants to a nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn funded gain-of-function research — including studies at the Wuhan institute.

In a January internal memo obtained by Vanity Fair, Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department's Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote that his colleagues had warned leaders within his bureau "not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19" because it would "open a can of worms."

Of course, the possibility that US officials may have wanted to distance themselves from any association with gain-of-function work doesn't necessarily make the lab-leak theory more credible. The leading theory is still that the virus spilled over to people from animals. That's because around 75% of all new infectious diseases come to us from animals, and the coronavirus' genetic code is very similar to that of other coronaviruses found in bats.

Still, a growing chorus of political and public-health leaders are calling for more thorough investigations into the coronavirus' origin, including the possibility that it leaked from a lab.

How the lab-leak theory reentered the conversation

The lab leak theory gained traction again at the end of March, after World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that "all hypotheses remain on the table" as to the virus' origin — even after a WHO report concluded that a lab leak was unlikely. In a May letter, a group of biologists wrote that the lab-leak theory should be taken seriously "until we have sufficient data."

Proponents of this possibility usually point to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), since scientists were studying coronaviruses there before the pandemic.

But at the start of the pandemic, scientists quickly shut down the notion that the WIV could be to blame. A February 2020 statement published by 27 scientists in the journal The Lancet said the scientific community had overwhelmingly concluded that the virus originated in wildlife.

"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin," the statement read.

However, the organizer of that statement was the president of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak.

In May 2014, EcoHealth received a roughly $3.7 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of which went toward gain-of-function experiments. By 2018, EcoHealth was receiving up to $15 million per year in grant money from federal agencies, according to Vanity Fair.

In one instance, EcoHealth Alliance helped fund research that created a new infectious pathogen using the molecular structure of the SARS virus. The aim of the study, according to the researchers, was to warn of the potential risk of a SARS-related virus re-emerging from bats.

One of the paper's authors was a prominent WIV virologist, Shi Zhengli. NIAID and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are cited as financial supporters of the research.

The Trump administration canceled EcoHealth's $3.7 million grant in April 2020. Then the NIH reinstated the grant in July but temporarily suspended its research activities.

Both NIAID director Anthony Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins have said that US agencies never funded gain-of-function research at the WIV.

"I fully agree that you should investigate where the virus came from," Fauci told Senator Rand Paul at a Senate hearing last month. "But again, we have not funded gain-of-function research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. No matter how many times you say it, it didn't happen."

He added, though, that it would have been "irresponsible" if the US hadn't investigated bat viruses that may have caused the SARS outbreak.

"Are you really saying that we are implicated because we gave a multibillion-dollar institution $120,000 a year for bat surveillance?" Fauci told the Financial Times on Friday.

The US has funded gain-of-function research before
The US currently decides whether to fund gain-of-function experiments on a case-by-case basis. A multidisciplinary board at the Department of Health and Human Services evaluates the research to determine whether the benefits outweigh the risks.

The Trump administration implemented that policy in 2017. Before that, the Obama administration had put a moratorium on new funding for gain-of-function experiments that could make influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses more transmissible — or more likely to cause disease — through respiratory droplets in mammals. But that rule, created in October 2014, still made exceptions for research that was "urgently necessary to protect the public health or national security."

An NIH official told Vanity Fair that the government's approach to gain-of-function is complicated, though.

"If you ban gain-of-function research, you ban all of virology," the official said, adding, "Ever since the moratorium, everyone's gone wink-wink and just done gain-of-function research anyway."

Aylin Woodward contributed reporting.

[Stoic]

Backing up the calendar by a few months does not change Florida doing better.

Florida did pretty poorly over the summer.

[Stoic]

Huh? That's not even in question anymore. We know the US directly funneled money into non-profits doing that exact research in China. That's KNOWN. This isn't something you just get to handwave away, bud.

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-o...esearch-2021-6

Money going to the WIV for sample collection is not the same thing as funding gain-of-function research.

[Gondwanaland]

Florida did pretty poorly over the summer.

Nope, it just had its first wave later than many states that did extreme lockdowns. Go look at the chart - their first wave is simply just shifted into the summer instead of the spring.

[rogue06]

The article is behind a paywall. Is there any part of it that you can quote that says what you claim it says?

Source: US officials may have avoided the coronavirus lab-leak theory to avoid associations with controversial gain-of-function research

• Scientists haven't ruled out the possibility that the coronavirus leaked from a lab.
• US agencies have given grants to a nonprofit that funds laboratories that alter coronaviruses.
• So US officials may have dismissed the lab leak theory to avoid association with this research.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Is the best way to protect people from a dangerous virus to create one in a lab? That's the central question in the debate over gain-of-function research, a branch of virology that alters viruses in a controlled environment to make them more transmissible or infectious.

Proponents of this type of research say the work enables them to predict deadly pathogens that might emerge in real life and start work on vaccines or treatments ahead. But opponents think the experiments are simply too risky. A lab without proper safety protocol could accidentally release a more transmissible virus into the human population.

Competing theories about the coronavirus' origin have recently thrust this gain-of-function debate into the spotlight, since a prominent lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was conducting that kind of research on coronaviruses. What's more, the US has funded grants that supported that lab — which might have given State Department officials an incentive not to thoroughly investigate the possibility of a lab leak, according to a recent Vanity Fair investigation.

Vanity Fair reported that at a December 2020 meeting, US State Department officials were "explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology's gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to US government funding of it."

For years, the US government gave grants to a nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn funded gain-of-function research — including studies at the Wuhan institute.

In a January internal memo obtained by Vanity Fair, Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department's Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote that his colleagues had warned leaders within his bureau "not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19" because it would "open a can of worms."

Of course, the possibility that US officials may have wanted to distance themselves from any association with gain-of-function work doesn't necessarily make the lab-leak theory more credible. The leading theory is still that the virus spilled over to people from animals. That's because around 75% of all new infectious diseases come to us from animals, and the coronavirus' genetic code is very similar to that of other coronaviruses found in bats.

Still, a growing chorus of political and public-health leaders are calling for more thorough investigations into the coronavirus' origin, including the possibility that it leaked from a lab.


Source

© Copyright Original Source

I'm assuming that is the article. There is one immediately beneath: How the lab-leak theory reentered the conversation

ETA: It is odd what some people tell me is behind a paywall that I can easily access and what I run into behind a paywall that others have no problem accessing

[Gondwanaland]

Money going to the WIV for sample collection is not the same thing as funding gain-of-function research.

If you don't grasp that that is a workaround/loophole for funding the gain of function research via third party, or that Fauci's 'sample collection' stuf was baloney, then I gave your intelligence more credit than it deserved. I suppose you believe we didn't actually sell arms in Iran-Contra to Iran under Khomeini either, because the government told you it was all part of an operation to free American hostages from Lebanon. Right?

And those were just TOTALLY coincidental emails about gain of function with the guy we gave the money to, whose third party nonprofit then gave to China to fund the gain of function research. Right?

[Gondwanaland]

Source: US officials may have avoided the coronavirus lab-leak theory to avoid associations with controversial gain-of-function research

• Scientists haven't ruled out the possibility that the coronavirus leaked from a lab.
• US agencies have given grants to a nonprofit that funds laboratories that alter coronaviruses.
• So US officials may have dismissed the lab leak theory to avoid association with this research.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Is the best way to protect people from a dangerous virus to create one in a lab? That's the central question in the debate over gain-of-function research, a branch of virology that alters viruses in a controlled environment to make them more transmissible or infectious.

Proponents of this type of research say the work enables them to predict deadly pathogens that might emerge in real life and start work on vaccines or treatments ahead. But opponents think the experiments are simply too risky. A lab without proper safety protocol could accidentally release a more transmissible virus into the human population.

Competing theories about the coronavirus' origin have recently thrust this gain-of-function debate into the spotlight, since a prominent lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was conducting that kind of research on coronaviruses. What's more, the US has funded grants that supported that lab — which might have given State Department officials an incentive not to thoroughly investigate the possibility of a lab leak, according to a recent Vanity Fair investigation.

Vanity Fair reported that at a December 2020 meeting, US State Department officials were "explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology's gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to US government funding of it."

For years, the US government gave grants to a nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn funded gain-of-function research — including studies at the Wuhan institute.

In a January internal memo obtained by Vanity Fair, Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department's Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote that his colleagues had warned leaders within his bureau "not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19" because it would "open a can of worms."

Of course, the possibility that US officials may have wanted to distance themselves from any association with gain-of-function work doesn't necessarily make the lab-leak theory more credible. The leading theory is still that the virus spilled over to people from animals. That's because around 75% of all new infectious diseases come to us from animals, and the coronavirus' genetic code is very similar to that of other coronaviruses found in bats.

Still, a growing chorus of political and public-health leaders are calling for more thorough investigations into the coronavirus' origin, including the possibility that it leaked from a lab.


[url=https://www.businessinsider.com/us-officials-avoided-lab-leak-theory-gain-of-function-research-2021-6]Source

© Copyright Original Source

I'm assuming that is the article. There is one immediately beneath: How the lab-leak theory reentered the conversation

ETA: It is odd what some people tell me is behind a paywall that I can easily access and what I run into behind a paywall that others have no problem accessing

Yep I didn't run into any paywall here.

[seanD]

If you don't grasp that that is a workaround/loophole for funding the gain of function research via third party, or that Fauci's 'sample collection' stuf was baloney, then I gave your intelligence more credit than it deserved. I suppose you believe we didn't actually sell arms in Iran-Contra to Iran under Khomeini either, because the government told you it was all part of an operation to free American hostages from Lebanon. Right?

And those were just TOTALLY coincidental emails about gain of function with the guy we gave the money to, whose third party nonprofit then gave to China to fund the gain of function research. Right?

Come on, Gond. Fauci's group was funneling funds to a lab in china, notorious for its gain of function research, and working with chinese researchers, one of whom had ties to the chinese military, and another who was notorious for doing gain of function research... because they were JuSt CoLlEcTiNg SaMpLeS.

Nothing to see here. Anything other than that, you're just stretching your imagination.

[Gondwanaland]

Come on, Gond. Fauci's group was funneling funds to a lab in china, notorious for its gain of function research, and working with chinese researchers, one of whom had ties to the chinese military, and another who was notorious for doing gain of function research... because they were JuSt CoLlEcTiNg SaMpLeS.

Nothing to see here. Anything other than that, you're just stretching your imagination.

Did you see that smarmy little git is now declaring that attacks on him are "attacks on science"?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b1862899.html

1E3efhM_VUAMNLeO.jpg

[rogue06]

Did you see that smarmy little git is now declaring that attacks on him are "attacks on science"?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b1862899.html

1E3efhM_VUAMNLeO.jpg

smarmy.jpg

Part of the problem is that there are far too many people nodding their heads in agreement.