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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

#981

Post by jackfoxy »

harryf wrote: post #6
bartart wrote: post #2

This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible. One thing I did not realize is that US researchers who conducted gain of function research tried to downplay and discredit the possibility of the virus originating from the wuhan lab. There was an anti-lab theory Lancet statement signed by scientists, and "Daszak had not only signed but organize…

It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... I can’t find sources for this right now but apparently Dr Anthony Fauci played a key role in getting the ban lifted. He’s also the head of the NIAID ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci ) which (apparently) is the ultimate source for…

> gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump

There's no need to politicize the discussion.

1) There's no evidence any recent president or cabinet member had a clue, or if they did have a clue it was off their radar anyway.

2) All this gain of function research was administered either in academic circles or at lower governmental circles where politicians are not involved. See for yourself. Fauci's own email from January 2020 referenced research already published in 2015. (That's during Obama's gain of function research ban, for those of you keeping score at home). Start at 5:00 into the referenced video.

EDIT: The paper was published after the ban was initiated. The research began before the ban, but apparently continued.

The whole video is well worth watching and walks trough Fauci's immediate responses as soon as it became apparent this is the real deal, and still 6 FULL WEEKS before the WHO declared a pandemic. A whole lot of CYA going on here. Fauci knew enough to reference this paper in the wee hours of the morning after a very busy day and before another hectic day he was headed for. Think he was familiar with the topic?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNxoVFZwMYw

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

#982

Post by jb775 »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #645
jb775 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also interesting to note that (per the leaked emails) Fauci was in regular correspondence with the guy who thinks everyone should die by age 75 or else they're a waste of space[1]....Discussing strategy on the pandemic that primarily kills people over 75. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-h...

> per the leaked emails They were released under the FOIA, not leaked. > the guy who thinks everyone should die by age 75 or else they're a waste of space You linked to an article where he expresses the opinion that he personally doesn't want to live past the age of 75. That's a far cry from advocating mass murder of the elderly. > Fauci was in regular correspondence... Discussing strategy on the pandemic Emanuel is…

> That's a far cry from advocating mass murder of the elderly.

Not what I said. But you obviously didn't read between the lines of why he feels that way, or his statements on the second order effects of a small % of people causing a large drain on the overall healthcare system. I still consider this "Interesting to note".

> is the head of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy

Why would an employee at a random private university be expected to have correspondence with a public official?

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

#983

Post by amatecha »

bartart wrote: post #2

This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible. One thing I did not realize is that US researchers who conducted gain of function research tried to downplay and discredit the possibility of the virus originating from the wuhan lab. There was an anti-lab theory Lancet statement signed by scientists, and "Daszak had not only signed but organize…

Check this one out as well, from last month. Excellent post on the subject: https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...

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

#984

Post by shkkmo »

shkkmo wrote: post #903
grumple wrote: post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this is that the American public discourse is broken. The Republicans (I can't tapdance around the direct call out with weasel words) and the right-wing media have lost all credibility because they often DO behave as racist, selfish, inconsistent conspiracy theorists. On those rare occasions when they are right or properly play the role of opposition rather than pushing an absurd agenda alongside the…

Unfortunate, the "left media" also faces massive credibility problems due to their willingness to uncritically publish anything they could spin as negative for Trump, regardless of veracity or verifiability. Partisanship is a disease that is destroying our democracy.

The silly thing to me is that there were plenty of factual things to criticize, they just weren't as sensational and headline grabbing.

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

#985

Post by ButtSpark69 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #690
ButtSpark69 wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one argued that it should be applied as an axiom. You're responding to an argument that wasn't made. Also, the "gatekeepers of knowledge" have a mostly.....negative past when you look at the sum of recorded human history. Are you arguing that humans today are just way better and far more trustworthy than the rest of history?

Let's be sure to use the same definition of "gatekeepers" for the past and present knowledge. What I see is, people look at the past examples of politicians and religious leaders telling people what to believe, and try to use those to dismiss opinions of present-day domain specialists. Which is a nasty case of motte-and-bailey fallacy.

I'm saying that I think past and present day "specialists" are not as different as we are inclined to think, it's the opposite of a motte-and-bailey position.

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

#986

Post by thu2111 »

geofft wrote: post #753
thu2111 wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I certainly don't see the conflict of interest - what was Fauci gaining? His continued role? Yes. Obviously you don't put an arsonist in charge of fighting fires, so if this information had come out early last year then he would have lost not only his role much sooner, but also his social status and career. If what's coming out now came out last year, Trump's replacement of him with Scott Atlas would have been mo…

> Yes. Obviously you don't put an arsonist in charge of fighting fires Sure, but to go back to my analogy, you absolutely do put the guy who hit the power button by mistake in charge of pressing it again - they know exactly where it is and they're already in the datacenter. You put the team that deployed a new service that's DoSing your infrastructure in charge of rolling it back. You don't say "You broke the system,…

I don't think anyone is claiming anyone wanted it to escape, only that it was very likely, they know it was likely, that's why it had been banned but Fauci overrode the ban then started constantly lying about it and many other things for career and financial reasons.

You make comparison to tech workers. Sure, if someone makes a genuine honest mistake then you can argue they should be retained as they won't make that mistake again. But that does require deep and total honesty. If a tech worker caused an outage and then manipulated management for a year to cover up their involvement, there would be no such leniency.

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

#987

Post by shlant »

concordDance wrote: post #929
shlant wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

question: who constitutes the "mass media"?

In the sense I meant? The vast majority of professional news outlets.

so CNN and Fox News would be a part of those outlets?

Also what is "freedom of communication"?

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

#989

Post by epitactic »

harryf wrote: post #6
bartart wrote: post #2

This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible. One thing I did not realize is that US researchers who conducted gain of function research tried to downplay and discredit the possibility of the virus originating from the wuhan lab. There was an anti-lab theory Lancet statement signed by scientists, and "Daszak had not only signed but organize…

It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... I can’t find sources for this right now but apparently Dr Anthony Fauci played a key role in getting the ban lifted. He’s also the head of the NIAID ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci ) which (apparently) is the ultimate source for…

> It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

The ban was actually lifted by the Obama administration, _11 days prior_ to Trump taking office.

Source: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2017/01/09/recomme...

JANUARY 9, 2017 AT 9:06 Recommended Policy Guidance for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight

"Adoption of these recommendations will satisfy the requirements for lifting the current moratorium on certain life sciences research that could enhance a pathogen’s virulence and/or transmissibility to produce a potential pandemic pathogen (an enhanced PPP)."

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

#990

Post by jtbayly »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #65
harryf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... I can’t find sources for this right now but apparently Dr Anthony Fauci played a key role in getting the ban lifted. He’s also the head of the NIAID ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci ) which (apparently) is the ultimate source for…

> So the lead guy we’ve been listening to (and still are) for scientific advice on this pandemic is entangled in a massive conflict of interest. How does any role he might (or might not have) played in GOF research create a conflict of interest in terms of his advice about the pandemic?

Because you can't trust him. Full stop. That's the problem with conflicts of interest.

And to get more particular, the reason you can't trust his advice about the pandemic is because you can't trust him to give advice that would be based on or would reveal information related to the conflict of interest. Pretending as if that's impossible is silly. It's obvious it could happen, whether it did or not.

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