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

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

#181

Post by generalizations »

vharuck wrote: post #124
anon325235 wrote: post #35

4chan figured this out as early as March 2020: google "site:4plebs.org shi zhengli"

4chan flocks to doom and gloom predictions, because that's the most "fun." When they always predict a global disaster, we shouldn't be surprised when they predicted something that actually was a global disaster. Broken clocks are right twice a day.

More like, '4chan predicted 10 of the last 1 disasters'. Still worth checking in, just in case this is the one that pans out. Definitely better than ridiculing all 10.

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

#182

Post by DudeInBasement »

vharuck wrote: post #124
anon325235 wrote: post #35

4chan figured this out as early as March 2020: google "site:4plebs.org shi zhengli"

4chan flocks to doom and gloom predictions, because that's the most "fun." When they always predict a global disaster, we shouldn't be surprised when they predicted something that actually was a global disaster. Broken clocks are right twice a day.

If 4chan is a broken clock, what are your media sources?

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

#183

Post by lamontcg »

deugo wrote: post #169
lamontcg wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They indirectly gave WIV funding to support research into Pig SARS -- Swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV). There is exactly fuckoff zero evidence that funding wound up supporting gain of function research for anything. And giving China money to study diseases in pigs happening in China that are closely related to a human disease that we were worried about it (or maybe a close relative) spilling over…

> There is exactly fuckoff zero evidence that funding wound up supporting gain of function research for anything. From the Fauci e-mails: People Fauci directly worked with seemed surprised and shocked to learn otherwise, and could not even instantly say if their funding had made it abroad. There are papers resulting from GoF research of concern at the WIV. There are grant proposals, which specify the exact modificati…

- There was GOF research done on US soil at UNC Chapel Hill which collaborated with WIV. They took a SARS-CoV-1 backbone and splied in a surface protein from another coronavirus and ran it through mice to produce a mouse coronavirus.

- There's no papers out of WIV indicating GOF research

> but you'll see through studying the records that it was the cover for military funding.

You're offering a blatant conspiracy theory now with no substantiation.

The funding to WIV had nothing to do with GoF and there's no evidence of anything else. But it HAD to be GoF research. Circular, evidence-free logic.

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

#184

Post by bostonsre »

arrosenberg wrote: post #95
harryf wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying it's shady to provide that funding. What I'm saying is it demonstrates conflict of interest. Last year in May 5 2020 Fauci dismissed the idea that the virus came from a lab that his own organisation was providing funds to - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronav... Whether or not anything shady was happening, the conflict of interest is clear.

It's not a conflict of interest because Dr. Fauci wasn't gaining anything. The agency he is head of is specifically interested in infectious disease and has a large budget for grants. $120K per year pays for a couple plate of genetic samples and tech time to run them. Maybe in China you can run a few more for that cost, I don't know. As head of that agency, it's also his job to share his professional opinion with the…

Just playing devil's advocate, not convinced fauci had any malicious intentions, but he has one of the most highly public jobs in America, he gets to keep his job/power and maintain a future in politics. But he definitely does not seem like some power hungry egomaniacal player to me. His beliefs before and after and actions after the outbreak seemed to be consistent with someone that was trying to do the right thing for our country.

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

#185

Post by lamontcg »

> Wade devoted a full section to the “furin cleavage site,” a distinctive segment of SARS-CoV-2’s genetic code that makes the virus more infectious by allowing it to efficiently enter human cells.

> Within the scientific community, one thing leapt off the page. Wade quoted one of the world’s most famous microbiologists, Dr. David Baltimore, saying that he believed the furin cleavage site “was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus.” Baltimore, a Nobel Laureate and pioneer in molecular biology, was about as far from Steve Bannon and the conspiracy theorists as it was possible to get. His judgment, that the furin cleavage site raised the prospect of gene manipulation, had to be taken seriously.

Furin cleavage sites have evolved and are present in multiple coronaviruses:

- HCoV-OC43 (infects humans)

- HCoV-HKU1 (infects humans)

- MHV-A59

- ChRCoV-HKU24

- BtCoV-ENT

- BtNeCoV-PML-PHE1

- BtCoV-HKU4

- BtCoV-HKU5

- MERS-CoV

- BtHpCoV-Zhejiang2013

- SARS-CoV-2

Phylogenetic analysis suggests that it has evolved independently at least 6 times that we know of.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612...

After that article was published a team in Thailand found furin cleavage sites in sarbecoviruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 called RacCS203 (91.5% similarity to SARS-CoV-2) and RmYN02 (93.3% similarity to SARS-CoV-2)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7873279/

Furin cleavage sites are common, nature understands how to utilize that trick very well, and continuously has re-discovered it.

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

#186

Post by wearywanderer »

warlog wrote: post #171
arrosenberg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a conflict of interest because Dr. Fauci wasn't gaining anything. The agency he is head of is specifically interested in infectious disease and has a large budget for grants. $120K per year pays for a couple plate of genetic samples and tech time to run them. Maybe in China you can run a few more for that cost, I don't know. As head of that agency, it's also his job to share his professional opinion with the…

But it could be perceived as a conflict of interest, and that of itself is the reason to at least declare it (for transparency). This is how it works in ethics.

Indeed, avoiding the perception of impropriety is second only to avoiding impropriety itself. When people perceive impropriety, even when there is none, trust in the system is undermined.

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

#187

Post by mc32 »

breakyerself wrote: post #176
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a weak and frankly shameful rationalization. Just take the L. People who dismissed this fucked up. People who were jerks about it fucked up even more. Trump Derangement Syndrome is your fault, not Trumps. None of the people who were looking into this or following it were getting their information from Trump. Most of the detractors just assumed they were.

I mean the only person in my life expressing an interest in this was my mom and she got it from the radio program coast to coast. Which is almost entirely crackpot conspiracy UFO bullshit. Still. I didn't tell her it couldn't have come from the lab. I said there isn't really enough evidence to conclude that. I think that was the mainstream opinion. Not that it couldn't have come from the lab, but that there wasn't en…

I don't doubt your account --but that's a distraction.

There were many people in bioscience, virology, etc. who said it was possible and should not be discounted, but those people were hounded and shut up.

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

#188

Post by swader999 »

wombatpm wrote: post #159
deeviant wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is the most shocking article you have ever read in your life, I feel you haven't read many articles in your life. There is absolutely no evidence in it. Just a pile of conjecture. It is absolutely the stuff of conspiracy theories. The truly shocking thing is that world does not hold China liable for this disaster. It really doesn't matter if it started in a lab or in one of their wet markets; it was incompete…

When China started welding doors on high rises to keep people in, that was the signal to take it seriously-despite what the WHO was saying

They never welded people in, it was to funnel them through common exits where they could be disinfected.

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

#189

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

fragileone wrote: post #140
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it was a Trump theory. That doesn't mean it cannot be true. It does mean that after 3 years and several thousand fully documented outright lies, the presumption of truth was no longer being granted.

Except he was proven right yet again that social media and old media orgs will censor others and lie to the public when it fits their political agenda.

> Except he was proven right yet again that social media and old media orgs will censor others and lie to the public when it fits their political agenda.

And this differs from "new media" how? You don't like what certain social media and "old media orgs" did? Fine, no problem. There's no media on the planet that doesn't do this to some extent, least of all contemporary conservative US media outlets.

Whether you consider what was done to Trump and others regarding their posts/speeches about COVID and cures for it as censorship depends a lot on how you see the world. Your mileage may vary (because mine certainly does).

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

#190

Post by gataca »

tacitusarc wrote: post #117
jMyles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific unanimity." The interesting part of this - and I'm curious about the personal experience of others here - is that the scientists I know have been the strongest questioners of the wet market theory from the get-go. I don't think anything resembling scientific…

There was an episode of TWIV last year where they mocked anyone taking the lab leak hypothesis seriously

There was a pretty recent one that continues to dismiss the idea this came from a lab completely.
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