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Was EcoHealth Alliance, the group referenced in the article, working in Wuhan?
Yes they were, in particular with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and Peter Daszak himself was in Wuhan in October 2019. EcoHealth just got defunded by the US Congress with bipartisan support: https://twitter.com/GReschenthaler/status/144122144752803020...
I could be missing something but this isn't exactly the smoking gun the title makes it seem. I'm sure there are proposals, plans and applications for all types of things. What I'm waiting for, perhaps naively, is strong evidence, revelated an independent investigation, that there was some foul business going on here. Until I see that, I'm more inclined to rely on the word of experts who have no connection to any of t…
I mean, even in the case that occurs, what is the endgame? Fine China? Sanction China? Demand accountability from China? Not happening, not when they make everyone's chips among other things. Can someone enlighten me about the value of this theory? It just seems like another vector of anti-establishment distrust discourse with a more intelligent veneer; easy to profit off of (clicks, book sales, etc) and doesn't requ…
Regarding what should be done: stop giving money to China for GoF research would be a great start...
I agree with the comment from justapassenger. The title has been altered from the headline into inflammatory clickbait.
Why is this being flagged? Genuinely asking.
I've flagged it. Article is ok. But the title on HN is a cheap clickbait. Someone, in USA, asking for a grant in the past doesn't point to anything about origins of SARS-CoV-2.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes they were, in particular with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and Peter Daszak himself was in Wuhan in October 2019. EcoHealth just got defunded by the US Congress with bipartisan support: https://twitter.com/GReschenthaler/status/144122144752803020...
This grant proposal, in particular, however, was to do work in North Carolina.
> We will conduct in vitro pseudovirus binding assays, using established techniques, and live virus binding assays (at WIV [Wuhan Institute of Virology] to prevent delays and unnecessary dissemination of viral cultures)
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21066966-defuse-prop...
Why is this being flagged? Genuinely asking.
I've flagged it. Article is ok. But the title on HN is a cheap clickbait. Someone, in USA, asking for a grant in the past doesn't point to anything about origins of SARS-CoV-2.
"“Some kind of threshold has been crossed,” said Alina Chan, a Boston-based scientist and co-author of the upcoming book “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” Chan has been vocal about the need to thoroughly investigate the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from a lab while remaining open to both possible theories of its development. For Chan, the revelation from the proposal was the description of the insertion of a novel furin cleavage site into bat coronaviruses — something people previously speculated, but had no evidence, may have happened.
Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University who has espoused the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in a lab, agreed. “The relevance of this is that SARS Cov-2, the pandemic virus, is the only virus in its entire genus of SARS-related coronaviruses that contains a fully functional cleavage site at the S1, S2 junction,” said Ebright, referring to the place where two subunits of the spike protein meet. “And here is a proposal from the beginning of 2018, proposing explicitly to engineer that sequence at that position in chimeric lab-generated coronaviruses.”
Martin Wikelski, a director at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, whose work tracking bats and other animals was referenced in the grant application without his knowledge, also said it made him more open to the idea that the pandemic may have its roots in a lab. “The information in the proposal certainly changes my thoughts about a possible origin of SARS-CoV-2,” Wikelski told The Intercept. “In fact, a possible transmission chain is now logically consistent — which it was not before I read the proposal.”
But others insisted that the research posed little or no threat and pointed out that the proposal called for most of the genetic engineering work to be done in North Carolina rather than China. “Given that the work wasn’t funded and wasn’t proposed to take place in Wuhan anyway it’s hard to assess any bearing on the origin of SARS-CoV-2,” Stephen Goldstein, a scientist who studies the evolution of viral genes at the University of Utah, and an author of the recent Cell article, wrote in an email to The Intercept."
if you called someone crazy at some point for suggesting this as a possibility, it is time to pause and reflect
I agree with the comment from justapassenger. The title has been altered from the headline into inflammatory clickbait.
The article has been previously submitted with and has languished without interest, I think that the Intercept's headline alone is underplaying it a little and is not suited to this forum. I think if you read the article, the HN headline above is accurate. What specifically do you think is inaccurate? Even in tone?
Past that, I offer that headlines that will lead the public we have toward thoughtful, measured, conclusions (that reflect where we actually are) - this would seem to be our best goal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article has been previously submitted with and has languished without interest, I think that the Intercept's headline alone is underplaying it a little and is not suited to this forum. I think if you read the article, the HN headline above is accurate. What specifically do you think is inaccurate? Even in tone?
That's a reasonable question. First - my understanding is that we're expected to repost headlines verbatim, even if they kind of suck. It's not some unbreakable rule but it's an objective we should commit to. Past that, I offer that headlines that will lead the public we have toward thoughtful, measured, conclusions (that reflect where we actually are) - this would seem to be our best goal.