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Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

theintercept.com

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Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#441

Post by nradov »

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…

All 3 vaccines used in the US received funding through Operation Warp Speed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#442

Post by shadilay »

rich_sasha wrote: post #40
AlbertoGP wrote: post #17

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...

In addition there was some controversy as they were behind the Lancet open letter that first renounced the idea of a lab origin. They got a bunch of scientists associated with their organisation to sign it, without mentioning EcoHealth by name or stating competing interest. My spidey sense is certainly tingling, though of course no smoking guns. But the jigsaw pieces fit. Can’t get the funding in North Carolina? Let’…

I believe they declared "no competing interest".

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#443

Post by jollybean »

twobitshifter wrote: post #86

Daczak serves on the WHO team to investigate the virus origins, but this did not get mentioned in any reports. Instead he warns other not to discuss it. He does not include notes that research was done on modifying bat viruses to make them infectious to human cells. These behaviors look like a guilty person, do they not? The wuhan and eco-health researchers had already started work on the furin cleavage sites and why…

This 'looks guilty' thing is akin to witch hunting.

If millions of people died and you were right there when it happened, a likely suspect, you might want to deflect blame as well.

Populism and Politics have little to do with the truth. If the masses are fired up over one theory, or if the highly politicized academic community is fired up over one of their own sensitivities, it can be destructive for many involved.

Refusing legitimate investigation - now that's a bad sign because people should want to clear their names.

We don't know what the answers are but it warrants further investigation.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#444

Post by flavius29663 »

bawolff wrote: post #417
flavius29663 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occam's razor works against your argument...given everything we know so far, the simplest explanation is that a chinese lab leaked a virus and it's covering it. There is no jump in logic needed. It's actually easier to explain why the virus was so close to the Wuhan lab.

Occams razor states "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity" It doesn't seem neccesary for a chinese lab to be involved, and the only evidence so far (afaik) is that it exists and was studying something similar. Meanwhile there exists (albeit definitely not ironclad) evidence that china wasn't involved. If there is no evidence beyond circumstantial evidence that china had a lab near by, and there is a pre…

If you take it like that, the it seems like the lab leak theory is even more probable. For the lab leak to work, we have all the entities we need: the bat fever a few years ago, ongoing studies on those coronaviruses, outbreak near the lab, very suspicious lab behavior, Chinese coverup.

If you take the other hypotheses, it goes like this: some bat coronavirus -> jumps to an unnamed animal -> jumps to a human. There is an unknown entity in this equation, which is the third party animal. This is necessary for the theory to work.

If you make me chose between a theory that has all the elements and one that might or might not find a mythical animal in the future...I think Occam's razor favors the one with all known elements. Otherwise, ad-absurdum, you can win any argument stating it's Occam's razor: you just introduce a single magic black box which can substitute any number of entities.

I am not doing this to blame China. I blame China for the opacity of the response, which at times seemed like they didn't care what happens with everyone else. I can blame China regardless of how this virus appeared. I also blame our top scientists, which covered their asses instead of coming out with everything they know and work for the greater good.

What I do want is better bio-labs safety protocols, something that can be monitor by third party inspectors, say from UN, just like we have for nuclear facilities. Lab leaks happen, it's not a Chinese thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity...

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#445

Post by xyzzyz »

Justin_K wrote: post #391
lamontcg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But at the end of the day you have zero evidence of any of that actually happened. The backbone doesn't exist, the spike doesn't exist, the effort necessary to culture that completely unknown virus in the lab isn't documented anywhere. And the grant proposal very specifically is concerned with using the WIV1 and SHC014 backbones, nothing related to SARS-CoV-2. And going from sequence to live culturable virus that you…

The only evidence that exists is indirect because of China's stonewalling. When International researchers are denied access to the EpiCentre of a global pandemic, you cannot use the argument that there is no evidence.

It's even worse than that. They did actually given access to Wuhan lab to WHO investigation team tasked with studying the possibility of lab leak, back in February/March last year. The team concluded that that it could not have leaked from Wuhan lab. The name of the lead investigator of the team? Peter Daszak, the very same one. I'm not making this up.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#446

Post by noptd »

kyrra wrote: post #225
twobitshifter wrote: post #86

Daczak serves on the WHO team to investigate the virus origins, but this did not get mentioned in any reports. Instead he warns other not to discuss it. He does not include notes that research was done on modifying bat viruses to make them infectious to human cells. These behaviors look like a guilty person, do they not? The wuhan and eco-health researchers had already started work on the furin cleavage sites and why…

Peter Daszak was also one of the people organizing the letter in the lancet back in 2020 denying that it came from a lab. Original letter: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... Lancet responding to criticism: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Yeah, turns out 26 of the 27 scientists all had some conflict of interest related to the Wuhan lab:

>All but one scientist who penned a letter in The Lancet dismissing the possibility that coronavirus could have come from a lab in Wuhan were linked to its Chinese researchers, their colleagues or funders, a Telegraph investigation can reveal.

Source: https://archive.ph/dXc0n

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#447

Post by noptd »

lps41 wrote: post #347
kennywinker wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Person organizing PR statement takes actions to make that PR statement as effective as possible? Not exactly a cover up. I don’t “like” my own instagram posts for the same reason.

It’s expected that conflicts of interest be disclosed in journalism and things like this. Instead he actively worked to hide his conflict of interest.

Exactly, and it looks like almost all of them did:

>All but one scientist who penned a letter in The Lancet dismissing the possibility that coronavirus could have come from a lab in Wuhan were linked to its Chinese researchers, their colleagues or funders, a Telegraph investigation can reveal.

Source: https://archive.ph/dXc0n

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#448

Post by mandmandam »

dang wrote: post #433
mandmandam wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First "egregious violations" and now "sinister insinuations"... You are a trip. Literally that guy and you downvoted me, it's doubtful anyone else even saw the thread. And I stand by those "sinister insinuations", for the record. There is no way, none, that multiple commenters found this old dead thread, moved to the second page, and flagged my comment within minutes of its posting. Occam's razor would suggest that O…

By "sinister insinuations" I just mean that you're imagining manipulations that didn't actually happen. The flags on your comment were perfectly ordinary, from quite a few legit HN users, none of whom (other than me) have been posting in this thread. Similarly, "that guy" did not downvote you, other users did; and plenty of users have seen this thread—HN has a lot of readers. Whatever concept of HN you have that sugg…

You know, if not adhering to your interpretation of the guidelines results in rate-limiting and threats to ban, then they're not actually guidelines, they are rules. It would be nice if you were honest about that.

And no, there is absolutely no way that my second comment was flagged by multiple users within minutes. This thread was long dead by then, and this is on the second page. What you say about the first comment is highly doubtful too, considering it was flagged within one single minute, with one single downvote - and was already also on the second page.

If repeatedly removing the story of an infamous torturer who destroyed congressional evidence taking one of the most powerful technical positions in the country - against loud and polite protestations - is really not remembered by you then you have two big problems. 1, your humanity, and 2, you need more moderators here because clearly you are being stretched too thin. Ask PG for a bit more budget, for the sake of your soul and the people here creating this content.

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#449

Post by noptd »

shadilay wrote: post #442
rich_sasha wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition there was some controversy as they were behind the Lancet open letter that first renounced the idea of a lab origin. They got a bunch of scientists associated with their organisation to sign it, without mentioning EcoHealth by name or stating competing interest. My spidey sense is certainly tingling, though of course no smoking guns. But the jigsaw pieces fit. Can’t get the funding in North Carolina? Let’…

I believe they declared "no competing interest".

Right, and 26 of the 27 who signed that letter had conflicts of interest -https://archive.ph/dXc0n

Re: Leaked grant proposal details high-risk coronavirus research

#450

Post by TechBro8615 »

throaway6679 wrote: post #330

The stridency with which people attempt to shut down discussion of a lab origin points in the direction of a coverup. An example of this happening is on Wikipedia where one editor in particular seems to have declared it to be a “conspiracy theory” and scrubs every mention of it. The editor in question scrubs talk pages and their own talk page, thus effectively preventing any kind of consensus forming, which is out of…

Wikipedia Talk pages are an underrated venue for restrained flame wars. If you’re looking for your two minutes of hate today, just go to any Talk page for a controversial subject that’s been “debunked” in the last year or so.
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