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The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

vanityfair.com

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Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#51

Post by pfisch »

harryf wrote: post #6
bartart wrote: post #2

This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible. One thing I did not realize is that US researchers who conducted gain of function research tried to downplay and discredit the possibility of the virus originating from the wuhan lab. There was an anti-lab theory Lancet statement signed by scientists, and "Daszak had not only signed but organize…

It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... I can’t find sources for this right now but apparently Dr Anthony Fauci played a key role in getting the ban lifted. He’s also the head of the NIAID ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci ) which (apparently) is the ultimate source for…

So it sounds like Fauci is saying they didn't fund gain of function research in the Wuhan lab.

If they did doesn't that really mean Trump is either more responsible for Covid or equally as responsible as China?

Trump allowed the ban to be lifted after the Obama whitehouse explicitly shut down this kind of research. Fauci just worked for Trump. It was ultimately on Trump, not an employee of his.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#52

Post by DenisM »

ctoth wrote: post #7

Another pretty good article, certainly higher quality than you'd consider given the source[0]. What switch flipped to make all these come out right now? [0]: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-how-amateur-sleuths-broke...

> What switch flipped to make all these come out right now?

Vaccination rates are nearing immunity across the major US population centers. I can imagine "they" wanted to ensure orderly vaccinations and return to the normal economic activity before any possible disruption of the political order.

Far-fetched, I know. But if you had to have a theory, here is one.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#53

Post by fragileone »

Strange that this article tries to paint anyone right-wing who postulated this theory way before the mainstream finally accepted it as being racist or crazy, as if nobody had talked about this evidence back then. The journal articles published by the lab were public information, as was their prior lab leaks in 2019, poor safety practice anecdotes, etc.

Thousands of social media accounts got banned on all the major platforms during months of suppression all because this theory didn't fit Big Tech's political agenda. Will they get unbanned? Will anyone of them apologise? No, it's business as usual for our corporate overlords. If you're on the wrong side of their agenda then you'll be cancelled even with paper thin reasoning.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#54

Post by kaesar14 »

It’s crazy to me how many people on even this forum, a place purportedly of science, continue to dismiss a lab leak origin out of hand citing it as some sort of crackpot theory. The serious questions raised in this article have been around since last April but it’s only now it’s even allowed to talk about them on digital forums.

Excellent write up by Vanity Fair.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#55

Post by tpfour »

542458 wrote: post #23
tpfour wrote: post #13

Anybody who has ever worked in a wet lab, or a lab of any sort, knows that accidents happen. All the time. Things catch fire, things are dropped, labeling issues happen, anything you can think of. I worked for many years in a lab, the accidental leak hypothesis was and still is what I consider the most probable. Calculate the joint probability of everything we know about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 happening and it shou…

What makes lab leak more probable than cross species transfer, something that happens all the time?

It's the joint probability of everything we know.

p(Epidemic started in Wuhan) * p(origin in market right next to lab) * p(lab is one of 3 in the world to conduct gain-of-function research on conronaviruses) * p(lab scientists were notably sick prior to outbreak) * p(no accident ever happening in a lab) * p(et cetera) = very small number.

That's not evidence per se, but it does show you how probable a human error is.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#56

Post by peter422 »

yumraj wrote: post #29
peter422 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was every other emerging virus also created in a lab? SARS? MERS? Influenza? Polio? The highest probability is this virus originated like every other virus in history.

Did any of them originate a few miles from a pathogen research lab that handled such pathogen that caused those outbreaks?

I don’t dispute it is one point of suspicion, but Wuhan is also one of the 10 biggest cities in China. It isn’t a surprise the first US outbreak was in the biggest city. The first cases could have been anywhere.

If there were more evidence that it was lab made then the location would be another point, not to me without further evidence it doesn’t mean all that much.

And there have been 2 emerging coronavirus outbreaks in the last 20 years due to natural origin. Why is it so hard to believe there would be another one.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#57

Post by 542458 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #36
542458 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes lab leak more probable than cross species transfer, something that happens all the time?

As I understand it we haven’t identified a similar enough animal virus to be the source. China has and continues to have every incentive to find it.

It also differs from every betacoronavirus backbone that had been used for genetic modification (and there’s no clear reason somebody would want to come up with a new one), which is basically the same problem but in reverse.

We’ve never, despite years and years of trying, been able to identify an origin for Ebola. The basic reality is we don’t know anywhere near all the diseases that animals have.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#58

Post by roamerz »

seaman1921 wrote: post #42
mmcgaha wrote: post #4

If anything good can come of this, I hope some of the folks who trusted the science begins to realize that people are behind science and people often act in their own best interest. Not that it will change much but we can at least stop yelling down and shaming skeptics.

this is terrifying.. who can we even trust then :\ Such exposed dishonesty leads to more and more people completely losing faith in everything that the scientists say and turning into anti-vaccers etc.

Who can you trust? Go back a year and read some news articles. It’s pretty clear who was on the right track and ‘WHO’ wasn’t.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#59

Post by peter422 »

JPKab wrote: post #45
peter422 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never heard of 2-3 people getting sick before in a large organization. That sounds like a smoking gun.

Several were HOSPITALIZED with a respiratory illness, in a lab studying bat viruses on humanized mice. The cognitive dissonance you are suffering is painful, I'm sure, but it's obviously clouding your judgment.

Those same people were tested for antibodies and they were negative. Or I guess that is also part of the cover up.
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