Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#381

Post by madamelic » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

sgt101 wrote: post #375

dash2 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the grant proposal was rejected does not mean the research didn’t happen. They could have got alternative funding. This happens a lot.

They would have had to be very quick though. Submission was end of march 2018, there would have been a review process and I think it's unrealistic to put that at under six weeks. So that takes us to mid may 2018. Then they would have to have got some money and ask someone else - again that's going to take three months or so unless they had the money in their account. Then the project would have to be stood up - lab s…

> also the genetic engineering was slated to happen in North Carolina...

This is honestly the most damning part of evidence.

China has shown over and over their current strategy is to snap up resources, countries and partnerships that the West, and specifically the United States, refuse or ignore.

China would have strong motivation to have SARS related research considering SARS originates in their country.

So we have a country with strong motivation, lots of money and a repeated willingness to ignore ethical & safety concerns... I don't see how it isn't a big question mark. Especially considering how quickly and forcefully China shut down the conversation and refuse to allow in investigators.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#382

Post by avianlyric » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

rustymonday wrote: post #358

resonious wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This novel virus started spreading pretty close to a lab that studies viruses. I think that counts as "actual evidence" that it came out of a lab. Of course, evidence != proof. And even if it did come from the lab, that in itself does not imply malice.

Exactly. It likely wasn't made in a lab, but it likely did escape from the lab accidentally.

How does that follow? Where did the virus come from? Viruses don’t spontaneously come into existence in labs.

If it wasn’t made in the lab, then it was already naturally occurring. Which means it didn’t need to escape anything, on account of it existing in the wild before it ever got near a lab.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#383

Post by madamelic » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

sgt101 wrote: post #373

ramraj07 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do also note that damn near every lab today would not propose a new approach or project without already secretly having gone half the way in it with prior funds. No one proposes a potential novel idea without already being fully sure it will work.

Not true where you have to get ethics consent. You can't do this because you're lab will be shut if you are found to be doing experiments in secret. Yes - in some labs for maths, physics and so on you are right, but not medicine & biology. If you don't believe this then look at the failure rate of the projects. The other thing is that the funding agencies really, really, really don't like this - they want high risk r…

> You can't do this because you're lab will be shut if you are found to be doing experiments in secret.

It's almost like if you move your research to a country who has no regards for safety or ethical concerns, that suddenly isn't a problem.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#384

Post by avianlyric » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

AzzieElbab wrote: post #362

beowulfey wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not evidence! It is at best a coincidence. An even stronger coincidence would be that this lab had a genotypically similar virus stored prior to its detection. But even that is not evidence of release; it is just a stronger hypothesis. If I was near a bank robbery at the time of occurrence, it does not count as evidence that I did it. Not even if I have a history of robbing banks. It must be combined with oth…

But it is the only evidence, coincidental or otherwise. No other evidences have been found.

Lack of evidence usually means something didn’t happen.

We don’t imprison people for crimes on the basis we couldn’t find any strong evidence, thus what ever shitty “evidence” we did find must be an acceptable basis for punishment.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#385

Post by mberning » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #61

Some people: >> Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, was adamant that the proposal did not change his opinion that the pandemic was caused by a natural spillover from animals to humans. “There are zero data to support a lab origin ‘notion,’” Racaniello wrote in an email. There seems to be zero data to support his spillover idea too. But now we have documentation of pe…

At the very minimum we should not be funding this type of research. Just the act of going into a cave and looking for specimens is dangerous. Ideally there would be a worldwide ban on it. We should take the money and effort and redouble out efforts to create antiviral therapies.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#386

Post by acdha » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

fnord77 wrote: post #289

lamontcg wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Well, they could have altered the proposal when they pursued funding elsewhere." It isn't as simple as altering the proposal. You're speculating a very large and hidden process using sequences that were kept perfectly secret and have not been leaked, with virus backbones that would take considerable effort to create but which were never shared publicly (and kept perfectly secret before SARS-CoV-2 happened before t…

I guess all the stuff the NSA kept perfectly secret before the Snowden leaks were the hallmark of a conspiracy theory, too.

That is a good example to consider: the conspiracy theories were around things like magic crypto-breaking boxes, men in black getting crypto keys, or deeply-hidden backdoors in Windows. What they actually kept secret was that they were tapping cables covertly using the same tactics against American companies that they’d used throughout the Cold War — the secret being that they were using them domestically.

Applying Occam, I’m going to bet that the origins of the virus will turn out to be entirely zoonotic or that someone got infected doing fieldwork rather than the lab engineering claims.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#387

Post by nekt » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

avianlyric wrote: post #380

resonious wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This novel virus started spreading pretty close to a lab that studies viruses. I think that counts as "actual evidence" that it came out of a lab. Of course, evidence != proof. And even if it did come from the lab, that in itself does not imply malice.

Let me correct that for you. Novel virus start spreading near a lab setup specifically to study those viruses, in an area where they’re known to be naturally occurring, and where it was suspected they could make the jump to humans. The lab in Wuhan was studying Coronaviruses because of the threat they potentially posed to humans, and because the nearby bat populations were know to carry them. Saying that the existenc…

Why does this keep getting pushed as if its true? This is not true.

This is covid misinformation and the WHO should come and arrest you.

The bats that supposedly harbored this virus are from more than 1000 miles away from Wuhan.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#388

Post by nekt » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

tikiman163 wrote: post #348

gojomo wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why would one denial from one particularly finicky funding source (Trump-era US agencies) make researchers – who thought they were doing essential work – stop such essential work? Why wouldn't they use other funding, possibly from overhead funding or prior grants, or from other less-finicky funders? And in a jurisdiction – China – where many of the same limits or reporting-requirements might not exist? Are virolo…

Covid wasn't a brand new disease. They had most of the research necessary to create a vaccine completed two years before the outbreak. We would likely have had the Johnson and Johnson vaccine by July of 2020 if Trump hadn't shut down the pandemic response team purely because it was created by Obama. They were the ones already preparing the ground work necessary for a vaccine to existing SARS Corona virus diseases tha…

If that is the case why did Peter himself say a covid vaccine was impossible at the Nipah conference in 2019?

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#389

Post by dekhn » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

mandmandam wrote: post #359

dang wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need for sinister explanations—your comment broke the site guidelines egregiously, so users flagged it, entirely appropriately. We ban accounts that post like this, so please don't. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

... Egregiously? Really? Shit, what would a _mildly bad_ comment look like? It's also weird that you'd take issue with my comment and not the one I'm replying to. Did you read it? It's got literally 7 kinds of deliberately crafted misinformation.

there's no deliberately crafted misinformation in my comment. It's a simple and straightforward evaluation of the reliable evidence we have so far.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#390

Post by avianlyric » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:22 PM UTC

sumedh wrote: post #374

bunnie wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's the other way around. They put the lab in Wuhan because it's easy to get many samples of the zoonotic viruses of concern due to the presence of many natural reservoirs and wet markets, and you want a lab near the action because you want to be able to study the hot spots. In other words, your argument is like saying occam's razor concludes that fire extinguishers start fires because they are always found in…

> are pushing ourselves further away from science and transparency... because China was not transparent and hid (probably destroyed) evidence. Its concerning that people dont want to hold China accountable. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/how-china-blocked...

The goal should be to find the truth. Not “hold China accountable”. We can’t punish people for crimes we can’t prove they committed.