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What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

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Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#301

Post by tomp »

mikeyouse wrote: post #237
tomp wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your explanation for the fact that Moderna patented the very specific 19-nucleotide sequence that codes Sars-COV-2 furin cleavage site in 2018?

Just think about what you're claiming here with this silly question. You honestly think Moderna patented a sequence multiple years ago, and then what, shared their research with the Chinese to unleash a virus and create demand for a vaccine they hadn't invented yet? Why in the world would they patent it before that? It's literally the dumbest nonsense. A more direct refutation though is that the authors were extremel…

Thanks for a sensible counterargument!

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#302

Post by rtkwe »

rhino369 wrote: post #125
rtkwe wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lab leak hypothesis was also pretty tightly coupled with the bioweapon/intentional release theory which is part of why it received so much push back. Also I don't recall the specific fact check messages but if they were in line with "there's no hard evidence of a lab leak" I'd say that's still pretty accurate.

It was tightly coupled to that stuff by fact checkers and other opponents to silence any questions.

A lot of what I saw were channels pushing both at the same time. An accidental leak of an attempted bioweapon or something like that was pretty popular in some circles.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#303

Post by tehjoker »

It's amazing that ppl still consider China a "bad actor" when they fairly promptly (a little delay but still months of lead time) warned the world and completely stopped the virus within their borders to this very day. The bad actors are the western governments with millions of dead on their hands trying to point the finger anywhere else.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#304

Post by bayesian_horse »

harshreality wrote: post #213
mikeyouse wrote: post #84

For those with a bit more background in the sciences, there's an increasingly massive amount of evidence to support Zoonotic origin. Philipp Markolin has a good rundown: https://protagonistfuture.substack.com/p/natures-neglected-g... Most of the "evidence" for lab leak is just weird insinuation -- it's increasingly hard to pin down what the advocates for that position are even arguing (e.g. whether it's a natural vir…

Most of the "evidence" against lab-leak is just weird insinuation. Speculation about how the virus wasn't created wholly synthetically: nobody is seriously arguing it was, or it wouldn't be SARS-family. Arguments that the spike protein binding domain wasn't synthetically engineered: it didn't have to be. It could have been serial passage in humanized mice, considering that's what Daszak and co had literally proposed…

You don't understand biology. It is possible to date the divergence of genomes using a genetic clock. So they know if those spike proteins had been recombinated.

Serial passage in mice can't be ruled out but is quite out there. Lots of theories can't be completely ruled out, but wild speculation like that is not very productive.

For the lab-leak theory to be true, a "pandemicable" zoonotic virus (a VERY rare thing) has to somehow make it into a lab undetected. Additionally and alternatively scientists have to undergo something like this "serial mice passage". Which is not proven that it could work. And then they would need to somehow let the virus escape through an accident even though they knew it could be dangerous. And it would have to accidentally be able to infect Humans extremely well (which is a tall ask still). It's just... highly improbable.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#305

Post by ssully »

epgui wrote: post #222
propagandist wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was deliberate disinformation in order to save masks for the "frontline workers". Fauci has stated that in one of the hearings.

It wasn't disinformation. It was no secret that one of the reasons masks weren't recommended for general public use was that hospitals and clinics should be supplied as a priority. If you got a different impression than this message, blame wherever you get your news from.

Seriously. I can find social media posts of friends in April of 2020 sewing cloth masks to donate to hospitals/medical clinics to help them backfill their mask shortages.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#306

Post by robonerd »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #282

Discussion of the "lab leak hypothesis" isn't helpful and has on the contrary done a lot of harm. The problem is that a "lab leak" is understood as something evil, intentional or reckless. The research into bat viruses however is vital. There is also no evidence that Sars-Cov-2 even originated in a bat, much less passed through a laboratory.

> intentional or reckless.

Yes, that would cover all lab leak possibilities, wouldn't it? If we assume the premise of a lab leak, then logically they either they did it on purpose or it was an accident. The union of intentional and reckless gives 100% coverage. You might as well say "the grain silo blew up intentionally or due to recklessness." No shit.

> The research into bat viruses however is vital.

Grain silos are vital to society, but if one blows up accidentally then wouldn't you say it's important to recognize the accident and enact measures to make similar accidents less likely in the future? The importance of grain silos to society is not an argument against investigating the role of negligence in grain silo accidents. If this research killed millions of people by accident, then figuring that out matters so new security measures can be enacted.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#307

Post by mikeyouse »

gojomo wrote: post #249
mikeyouse wrote: post #84

For those with a bit more background in the sciences, there's an increasingly massive amount of evidence to support Zoonotic origin. Philipp Markolin has a good rundown: https://protagonistfuture.substack.com/p/natures-neglected-g... Most of the "evidence" for lab leak is just weird insinuation -- it's increasingly hard to pin down what the advocates for that position are even arguing (e.g. whether it's a natural vir…

Overfocusing on the market cluster is an error. First, because viruses travel easily – so even if 100% of early cases were around the market, it could have reached the market via a lab worker. And second, early overemphasis on the market cluster caused authorities to search for every case there, and ignore cases elsewhere – just as in the US, authorities missed early community spread because they didn't even consider…

Both of your points are directly and conclusively addressed in the post..

> First, because viruses travel easily – so even if 100% of early cases were around the market, it could have reached the market via a lab worker

There were two distinct lineages at the market with a cluster of positive environmental samples in the wild animal section. I would love to hear a plausible theory on how two unrelated lineages came to be present there after human-human transmission.

> And second, early overemphasis on the market cluster caused authorities to search for every case there, and ignore cases elsewhere – just as in the US, authorities missed early community spread because they didn't even consider/test people who hadn't recently returned from China.

Not remotely true. I'd encourage you to read this paper: https://zenodo.org/record/6299600#.YjSWqDUxmUk

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#308

Post by jpeloquin »

trhway wrote: post #214
mikeyouse wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear - the NIH never financed any GoF experiments in Wuhan. There was a proposal that was never funded, and even in that proposal, the GoF work would happen in Baric's North Carolina lab.

To be clear - during 2014-2019 NIH actually paid $3.6M to EcoHealth Alliance under the grants clearly specifying the coronavirus GoF experiments in Wuhan with the "Human subjects included" checked. EcoHealth naturally kept about 75% of it as "commission/management fee/whatever" because conducting those experiments at BSL2 in Wuhan was much cheaper than the original experiments in US at BSL3+ (in those original experi…

> during 2014-2019 NIH actually paid $3.6M to EcoHealth Alliance under the grants clearly specifying the coronavirus GoF experiments in Wuhan with the "Human subjects included" checked.

Is this is the grant you're referring to? https://reporter.nih.gov/search/me9X23pZWEigATS-4XTBfA/proje...

From your comment it was unclear to me what the human subjects component was. It appears to have been population surveillance using PCR and antibody testing, with the intent to detect prior infection by previously unrecognized coronaviruses. Which is low-risk.

From the public project details, it is not clear that the scope of the work as described to the NIH included gain of function experiments. Perhaps you were referring to a different project description? And of course EcoHealth Alliance may have done gain of function experiments that were not described in their proposal.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#309

Post by jaywalk »

walls wrote: post #168
khazhoux wrote: post #3

Jon Stewart's classic lab-leak rant on Colbert's show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSfejgwbDQ8&t=178s

There's all these tornado research facilities in the same place we keep getting tornados!

Unlike a virus, you can't just grab a tornado and move it somewhere else to study it. If you want to study tornadoes, you have to be where tornadoes occur.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#310

Post by notacoward »

fguerraz wrote: post #31

It's not that the origin story is not important, it's not that people don't care, it's that it is a distraction. It doesn't help solve the crisis. The article makes the comparison with a nuclear bomb. This is a bad comparison. If we were attacked by a sentient creature, we could reason with it and mitigate further damage or escalation. In the case of a virus, it's good to know to prevent future pandemics maybe, and t…

> It doesn't help solve the crisis.

It doesn't help solve the crisis and it doesn't change attitudes toward gain-of-function research. The pandemic itself, regardless of origin, highlighted the possible consequences. Even without a connection to research - and even more so with the mere possibility - it heightened concern about lab safety, and made the risk/reward calculations around GoF research even less favorable than they already had been. The community of people capable of performing or funding such research was already on top of it - again, regardless of origin. Public finger-pointing is only likely to rile up nationalist sentiments which would interfere with establishing better procedures and protocols governing virological research.

The lawyers and diplomats have some work to do, but (especially in light of today's news) I suggest that the rest of us including the media have some higher priorities for how to spend our time/energy.

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