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CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

nytimes.com

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Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#151

Post by lenkite »

mrkramer wrote: post #46
chimprich wrote: post #33

The CIA is not a neutral party in this. Discrediting China may well be their goal here. A lab leak is not impossible, but there are good reasons to suspect a natural spillover event. There have been a number of studies that point in that direction; e.g. recent genetic analysis that suggests that the Wuhan wet market was the origin. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00901-2

US will keep discrediting China as long as there is no conclusive evidence of what exactly happened. The burden of proof is on China. But let's be honest if it was a lab leak of this scale and consequences in US, US wouldn't admit it as would probably no country.

There will be no major discrediting of China since the bat coronavirus research at Wuhan labs was funded by the National Institute of Health. This was firmly and unequivocally established by the hearing held by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. Refer to “Overseeing the Overseers: A Hearing with NIH Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak”.

Dr. Tabak testified in this hearing that the NIH was funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China through a grant to EcoHealth.

Of-course this was in "direct contradiction" of the earlier testimony given by Dr Fauci under sworn oath. But hey - he has already been pardoned for it.

The only thing that can be laid at China's feet is ignorance of what was going on in their labs and the useless attempt at media suppression once the virus got out. However, anyone who has studied the facts in detail would easily form the judgement that a subsection of the U.S. government had the majority share of culpability.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#152

Post by steveBK123 »

nxm wrote: post #122
steveBK123 wrote: post #62

It was never an implausible theory so the censorship over it was foolish. Of course the immediate jump to conclusion in the first few months by some who found it politically expedient was no better either. People need to be more comfortable saying I don’t know but we are looking into it.

Back then anyone who suggested the lab leak theory was immediately labeled a conspiracy theorist by main stream media.

Yes and I’m saying that was bad.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#153

Post by stvswn »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #89
frankharv wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They subbed it out to these guys because it was illegal to do Gain of Function research: https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2024/06/ecohealth-alliance...

The demonization of the Ecohealth Alliance is one of the more depressing aspects of the response to the pandemic. EHA has been warning for decades that a coronavirus pandemic is likely, and that governments should be taking steps to prepare for it and to make it less likely. Then, they're proved right, but instead of society thanking them, they're subject to a politically motivated witch hunt, with the aim of distrac…

It's begging the question to claim they were proven right. Sure, they were proven right in some respect, but if the research itself caused it (and let's be real, it did) then they were proven right in a manner that doesn't really speak well of their record. And yes, they were influential in arguing for continued grant money to study coronaviruses. They were also influential in arguing against the Obama administrations restrictions on gain of function research and seem to have sought ways around the restrictions (we know from comments on the DEFUSE paper). They didn't publicly disclose the DEFUSE paper, a whistleblower in the DoD had to leak it. It is relevant because it suggested adding a FCS to natural coronaviruses to make it more virulent to humans. It seems like as soon as a virus with FCS appeared on the scene, their first reaction should have been "oh no, did someone do that research we proposed somewhere? We have to tell someone!" -- but, alas, no. Let's keep crying that they're being demonized, though.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#154

Post by CMay »

Things that are true:

"Officials said the agency was not bending its views to a new boss, and that the new assessment had been in the works for some time."

The Department of Energy concluded with low confidence that it was a lab leak.

The FBI concluded with moderate confidence that it was a lab leak.

The CIA's new report also concludes that they have low confidence that it was a lab leak.

It's important to note that low confidence is a positive number, not a negative number.

The wet market theory loses some credibility given some data points, but the lab leak theory remains plausible.

China has had lab leak origins in the past, so this would not have been unprecedented.

China obstructed and delayed the investigation.

Whether it leaked from a lab or not, China covered it up. China covering it up is not necessarily evidence that it was a lab leak. If there was any truth to it (which they may not even know), they probably wouldn't want it reflecting poorly on the state. China is big on "social harmony", so you don't have the right to know.

Whatever happened wasn't necessarily intentional. China made some deeply embarrassing and shameful decisions around this time and they won't want to promote them, but they were also not alone in making mistakes.

If China concluded it was a lab leak internally and shared that, there wouldn't have been as much need for the world to speculate, analyze and investigate so much which only hurt China's reputation more.

Coincidences occur, serendipity occurs. Most people have experienced one. As a result, proximity to the lab is not solid proof, but it is not the only datapoint either.

If China was more transparent and cooperative, there could have been more information to make higher confidence conclusions with.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#155

Post by juliushuijnk »

Apart from directing anger for political reasons, I don't see the big importance.

It's like wondering why a single building caught fire, when the shocking thing was that the whole world caught fire. Surely the lessons to learn are with 'how to deal with a spreading fire', and not with 'how to prevent a fire'.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#156

Post by Workaccount2 »

We will probably never know what happened unless the CCP collapses and all the documents leak out.

China had a bit of a freak out when the pandemic first started and pretty much silenced everyone close to the lab and kept everyone else out. It was until months/years later that China started allowing chosen data out, and who knows the truthfulness of it.

Authoritarian regimes, especially China, are the furthest thing from transparent.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#157

Post by lenkite »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #139
pessimizer wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US will keep discrediting China as long as there is no conclusive evidence of what exactly happened. The US funded the lab and the specific fields of research. I have no idea how people can still be banging on about lab-leak origin being a racist plot against the Chinese. Covid probably leaked from US lab experiments in China. The rest of the world should be raging against the US and China both.

IIRC the US had given something like $250K to the organization that was funding the research at the lab. $250k is nothing for something this size.

This specific grant given to EcoHealth Alliance by NIH was $3.7 million. There were also other grants of $7 million later.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#158

Post by RajT88 »

CMay wrote: post #154

Things that are true: "Officials said the agency was not bending its views to a new boss, and that the new assessment had been in the works for some time." The Department of Energy concluded with low confidence that it was a lab leak. The FBI concluded with moderate confidence that it was a lab leak. The CIA's new report also concludes that they have low confidence that it was a lab leak. It's important to note that…

> "Officials said the agency was not bending its views to a new boss, and that the new assessment had been in the works for some time."

Officials are saying that, true.

I have "low confidence" it actually is true. Everyone since the election has been scrambling to kowtow to the new boss to avoid his wrath.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#159

Post by chowells »

steveBK123 wrote: post #62

It was never an implausible theory so the censorship over it was foolish. Of course the immediate jump to conclusion in the first few months by some who found it politically expedient was no better either. People need to be more comfortable saying I don’t know but we are looking into it.

[dead]

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#160

Post by secondcoming »

drewbug01 wrote: post #17

> The agency made its new assessment with “low confidence,” which means the intelligence behind it is fragmentary and incomplete. I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. --- One thing that is, however, quite certain: there are very real political reasons to favor one theory or another. For example, Sen. Tom Cotton is quoted as…

This is an event that saw a lot of the world effectively under house arrest for two years. I think that trying to finding out the underlying reason behind that is a reasonable goal.

Looking for reparations is secondary to that, but maybe not entirely unreasonable either; not that it'll ever happen.

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