Octopus Overlords

hepcat wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:30 am It's trying to tie two facts that may very well be coincidental into one giant conspiracy theory that we get in trouble. You need to find the fact that actually links those two things together. Otherwise you're just Trump and Rand Paul flinging their own feces at the wall.

Humans are now the dominant SARS-CoV-2 host species. The danger is that SARS-CoV-2 could spread from humans to other animal species, termed reverse zoonosis, as is suspected for white-tailed deer in the United States. The promiscuous infection of various host species by the sarbecoviruses means that future spillovers of SARSr-CoVs from wildlife are very likely, and current vaccines may not be protective against novel variants. The sampling intensity of sarbecoviruses needs to be urgently increased to gain a better understanding of this spillover risk. The recent finding of sarbecoviruses, not dissimilar to SARS-CoV-2, dispersed in Southeast Asia emphasizes the urgency of monitoring coronavirus diversity. Humanity must work together beyond country borders to amplify surveillance for coronaviruses at the human–animal interface to minimize the threat of both established and evolving variants evading vaccines and to stop future spillover events.

Findings: Molecular evidence for SARS-CoV-2 infection was found in 13 subjects. Two patients were from the pandemic period (2/12, 16·7%, March 2020-March 2021) and 11 were from the pre-pandemic period (11/44, 25%, August 2019-February 2020). Five of the positive individuals showed the simultaneous presence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. No clear evidence of infection was found in 281 samples collected between August 2018 and July 2019 from 100 patients. The first positivity for SARS-CoV-2 RNA was found in a sample collected on September 12, 2019. Mutations typical of B.1 (PANGOLIN classification) strains, previously reported to have emerged in January 2020, had already been circulating in October 2019. Hence, we estimate SARS-CoV-2 progenitor of known human infections to have emerged in late June-late August 2019.

Interpretations: We find evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in Lombardy during the late summer of 2019. This finding highlights the importance of retrospective surveillance studies to understand the early dynamics of COVID-19 spread and improve national-level preparedness.

"There is currently no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has a laboratory origin. There is no evidence that any early cases had any connection to the WIV, in contrast to the clear epidemiological links to animal markets in Wuhan"

As the pandemic drags on into a bleak and indeterminate future, so does the question of its origins. The consensus view from 2020, that SARS-CoV-2 emerged naturally, through a jump from bats to humans (maybe with another animal between), persists unchanged. But suspicions that the outbreak started from a laboratory accident remain, shall we say, endemic. For months now, a steady drip of revelations has sustained an atmosphere of profound unease.

The latest piece of evidence came out this week in the form of a set of murkily sourced PDFs, with their images a bit askew. The main one purports to be an unfunded research grant proposal from Peter Daszak, the president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a global nonprofit focused on emerging infectious diseases, that was allegedly submitted to DARPA in early 2018 (and subsequently rejected), for a $14.2 million project aimed at “defusing the threat of bat-borne coronaviruses.” Released earlier this week by a group of guerrilla lab-leak snoops called DRASTIC, the proposal includes a plan to study potentially dangerous pathogens by generating full-length, infectious bat coronaviruses in a lab and inserting genetic features that could make coronaviruses better able to infect human cells. (Daszak and EcoHealth did not respond to requests for comment on this story.)

...

Why does this matter? We’ve long known that the presence of such a site in SARS-CoV-2 increased its pathogenic power, and we also know that similar features have not been found in any other SARS-like coronavirus (though we may find them in the future). For lab-leak proponents, these facts—combined with certain details of the furin cleavage site’s structure—strongly hint at human intervention. As the science journalist Nicholas Wade argued in an influential lab-leak-theory brief last spring, this genetic insertion “lies at the heart of the puzzle of where the virus came from.” The virologist David Baltimore even told Wade that the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site was “the smoking gun for the origin of the virus.” (Baltimore later walked back his claim.)

As many scientists have since pointed out, the mere presence of the furin cleavage site is not dispositive of a Frankenstein experiment gone wrong. For example, the same genetic feature has come about, quite naturally and independently, in plenty of other, more distantly related coronaviruses, including those that cause the common cold. According to a “critical review” co-authored by 21 experts on viruses and viral evolution that was posted as a preprint in July, “simple evolutionary mechanisms can readily explain” the site’s presence in SARS-CoV-2, and “there is no logical reason” why it would look the way it does if it had been engineered inside a lab. “Further,” the authors wrote, “there is no evidence of prior research at the [Wuhan Institute of Virology] involving the artificial insertion of complete furin cleavage sites into coronaviruses.”

But the apparent DARPA grant proposal complicates these arguments, at the very least. The engineering work that it describes would indeed involve such an artificial insertion. We don’t know whether that work was ever carried out—remember, DARPA rejected this proposal. Even if it had been, several experts told us, the genetic engineering would have happened at Ralph Baric’s lab in Chapel Hill, about 8,000 miles away from where the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak started. Yet now we know that the idea of inserting these sites was very much of interest to these research groups in the lead-up to the pandemic. “This is the first time they reveal that they are looking for these sites,” said Alina Chan, a scientist in Boston and a co-author of the forthcoming book Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.

...

Like we said before, this is all a big, confusing mess. Even if it is authentic, as it appears to be, the DARPA proposal does not prove the lab-leak hypothesis, nor does it come close to changing the consensus view that the pandemic started from a natural source. Instead, what this week’s news really points to is how things got so messy in the first place—and it reminds us that things didn’t need to be this way. Why did this proposal have to be leaked by an anonymous whistleblower, in the form of a wonky PDF, to a group of amateur sleuths?

Little Raven wrote: ↑Sat Sep 25, 2021 8:40 pm Like a bad penny, this just won't go away.

As the pandemic drags on into a bleak and indeterminate future, so does the question of its origins. The consensus view from 2020, that SARS-CoV-2 emerged naturally, through a jump from bats to humans (maybe with another animal between), persists unchanged. But suspicions that the outbreak started from a laboratory accident remain, shall we say, endemic. For months now, a steady drip of revelations has sustained an atmosphere of profound unease.

The latest piece of evidence came out this week in the form of a set of murkily sourced PDFs, with their images a bit askew. The main one purports to be an unfunded research grant proposal from Peter Daszak, the president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a global nonprofit focused on emerging infectious diseases, that was allegedly submitted to DARPA in early 2018 (and subsequently rejected), for a $14.2 million project aimed at “defusing the threat of bat-borne coronaviruses.” Released earlier this week by a group of guerrilla lab-leak snoops called DRASTIC, the proposal includes a plan to study potentially dangerous pathogens by generating full-length, infectious bat coronaviruses in a lab and inserting genetic features that could make coronaviruses better able to infect human cells. (Daszak and EcoHealth did not respond to requests for comment on this story.)

...

Why does this matter? We’ve long known that the presence of such a site in SARS-CoV-2 increased its pathogenic power, and we also know that similar features have not been found in any other SARS-like coronavirus (though we may find them in the future). For lab-leak proponents, these facts—combined with certain details of the furin cleavage site’s structure—strongly hint at human intervention. As the science journalist Nicholas Wade argued in an influential lab-leak-theory brief last spring, this genetic insertion “lies at the heart of the puzzle of where the virus came from.” The virologist David Baltimore even told Wade that the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site was “the smoking gun for the origin of the virus.” (Baltimore later walked back his claim.)

As many scientists have since pointed out, the mere presence of the furin cleavage site is not dispositive of a Frankenstein experiment gone wrong. For example, the same genetic feature has come about, quite naturally and independently, in plenty of other, more distantly related coronaviruses, including those that cause the common cold. According to a “critical review” co-authored by 21 experts on viruses and viral evolution that was posted as a preprint in July, “simple evolutionary mechanisms can readily explain” the site’s presence in SARS-CoV-2, and “there is no logical reason” why it would look the way it does if it had been engineered inside a lab. “Further,” the authors wrote, “there is no evidence of prior research at the [Wuhan Institute of Virology] involving the artificial insertion of complete furin cleavage sites into coronaviruses.”

But the apparent DARPA grant proposal complicates these arguments, at the very least. The engineering work that it describes would indeed involve such an artificial insertion. We don’t know whether that work was ever carried out—remember, DARPA rejected this proposal. Even if it had been, several experts told us, the genetic engineering would have happened at Ralph Baric’s lab in Chapel Hill, about 8,000 miles away from where the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak started. Yet now we know that the idea of inserting these sites was very much of interest to these research groups in the lead-up to the pandemic. “This is the first time they reveal that they are looking for these sites,” said Alina Chan, a scientist in Boston and a co-author of the forthcoming book Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.

...

Like we said before, this is all a big, confusing mess. Even if it is authentic, as it appears to be, the DARPA proposal does not prove the lab-leak hypothesis, nor does it come close to changing the consensus view that the pandemic started from a natural source. Instead, what this week’s news really points to is how things got so messy in the first place—and it reminds us that things didn’t need to be this way. Why did this proposal have to be leaked by an anonymous whistleblower, in the form of a wonky PDF, to a group of amateur sleuths?

In May 2020, only a few months into the pandemic, EcoHealth’s Peter Daszak ridiculed discussions of the furin cleavage site and whether it might be bioengineered as the ranting of conspiracy theorists. Six months later, Daszak was involved in two major, international investigations into the pandemic’s origins, organized by the World Health Organization and the British medical journal The Lancet. Now it appears that, just a few years earlier, he’d delivered a detailed grant proposal to the U.S. government, with himself as principal investigator, that described doing exactly that bioengineering work. “It’s just shocking,” Chan said.

In the summer of 2020, half a year into the coronavirus pandemic, scientists traveled into the forests of northern Laos to catch bats that might harbor close cousins of the pathogen.

In the dead of night, they used mist nets and canvas traps to snag the animals as they emerged from nearby caves, gathered samples of saliva, urine and feces, then released them back into the darkness.

The fecal samples turned out to contain coronaviruses, which the scientists studied in high security biosafety labs, known as BSL-3, using specialized protective gear and air filters.

Three of the Laos coronaviruses were unusual: They carried a molecular hook on their surface that was very similar to the hook on the virus that causes Covid-19, called SARS-CoV-2. Like SARS-CoV-2, their hook allowed them to latch onto human cells.

“It is even better than early strains of SARS-CoV-2,” said Marc Eloit, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris who led the study, referring to how well the hook on the Laos coronaviruses binds to human cells. The study was posted online last month and has not yet been published in a scientific journal.

Virus experts are buzzing about the discovery. Some suspect that these SARS-CoV-2-like viruses may already be infecting people from time to time, causing only mild and limited outbreaks. But under the right circumstances, the pathogens could give rise to a Covid-19-like pandemic, they say.

The findings also have significant implications for the charged debate over Covid’s origins, experts say. Some people have speculated that SARS-CoV-2’s impressive ability to infect human cells could not have evolved through a natural spillover from an animal. But the new findings seem to suggest otherwise.

“That really puts to bed any notion that this virus had to have been concocted, or somehow manipulated in a lab, to be so good at infecting humans,” said Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona virologist who was not involved in the work.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Oct 14, 2021 5:34 pm Science continues:

China-linked campaign pushes claim tying Maine lobster to COVID: report

A scientist who has pored over public accounts of early Covid-19 cases in China reported on Thursday that an influential World Health Organization inquiry had likely gotten the early chronology of the pandemic wrong. The new analysis suggests that the first known patient sickened with the coronavirus was a vendor in a large Wuhan animal market, not an accountant who lived many miles from it.

Two pre-prints just dropped that clarify the origin & emergence of SARS-CoV-2. The first makes the case that lineages A & B represent independent spillovers from animals...The second one further substantiates that the Huanan “seafood market” in central Wuhan was where these spillover events occurred.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 7:15 pm I know everyone has moved on, but there were two pretty big studies that that hit pre-print that more or less demonstrate convincing evidence for natural emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in the Huanan market area:

But some outside scientists who have been hesitant to endorse the market origin hypothesis said they remained unconvinced. Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said in an interview that there remained a glaring absence of direct evidence that animals at the market had themselves been infected with the coronavirus.

"I think what they're arguing could be true," Dr. Bloom said of the new studies. "But I don't think the quality of the data is sufficient to say that any of these scenarios are true with confidence."

In their new study, Dr. Worobey and his colleagues present evidence that wild mammals that might have harbored the coronavirus were being sold in December 2019. But no wildlife was left at the market by the time Chinese researchers arrived in early 2020 to collect genetic samples.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 7:46 pm But we do have more evidence pushing the needle towards natural origins and away from lab leak.

telegraph.co.uk wrote:Biosecurity expert helping Government to prevent future pandemics claims ministers consider leak as most likely origin of Covid pandemic

A lab leak in Wuhan, China, is now considered the most likely origin of the Covid pandemic “behind closed doors” in the Government, it has been claimed, after Boris Johnson signalled that security measures would be enhanced to prevent accidental escape.

On Monday, the Prime Minister told the House of Commons that the UK biosecurity strategy would be refreshed to protect against “natural zoonosis and laboratory leaks”, in a public acknowledgement of the threat from insecure research facilities.

There is mounting suspicion that Covid-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology which had been collecting and experimenting on dangerous bat coronaviruses in the years before the virus first emerged in the city.

The Government has asked for evidence before drafting a new biosecurity strategy, which will deal with “accidental release and dual-use research of concern, where life science research is capable of being misapplied to do harm”.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, an expert on chemical and biological counter-terrorism and former British Army officer, has submitted evidence for the strategy.

He said: “I think the official view [within Government] is that it is as likely as anything else to have caused the pandemic. A lot of people like myself think it is more likely. I think attitudes have changed a little bit. The zoonotic transfer theory just didn’t make sense.

“There is a huge amount of concern about coming out publicly, but behind closed doors most people think it’s a lab leak. And they are coming round to the fact that even if they don’t agree with that, they must accept it’s likely, and they must make sure the policies are in place to stop it.”

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 7:46 pm Right, we don't have a smoking gun. But we do have more evidence pushing the needle towards natural origins and away from lab leak.

El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:15 pm Is it even possible to have smoking gun proof of natural origins? If a lab leak happened you can imagine various conceivable smoking guns (documents / memos from the lab, a whistleblower, etc.). If it's natural origin, evolution doesn't typically write up memos on viral origins.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:22 pm

El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:15 pm Is it even possible to have smoking gun proof of natural origins? If a lab leak happened you can imagine various conceivable smoking guns (documents / memos from the lab, a whistleblower, etc.). If it's natural origin, evolution doesn't typically write up memos on viral origins.

You'd need to ask geneticists, but if there's evidence of the genes in the wild and we also know these genes (or their analogs) are shuffled between species as part of previously observed natural processes, continuing to assume there's also no evidence of lab manipulation, I don't know what else there is to say.

But I'm not selling a book, nor an I an OBE so you need to take that for what it's worth.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 12:44 pm

• There's pictures of caged animals in the market capable of carrying SARS-COV-2 near the time of the outbreak.

• In those areas, SARS-COV-2 was found on market surfaces. One stall had 5 different contaminated surfaces.

• A genetic analysis estimates the time within weeks when two non-human transmissions occurred.

• Mapping the initial outbreak centers it around the market.

According to a paper published last week in the journal PLOS Genetics, those with Type A blood are more likely to get severely sick from COVID-19. In the study, scientists screened more than 3,000 blood proteins to determine which ones actually caused positive or adverse COVID-19 outcomes. "Severity" was, in this context, defined as a COVID-19 case in which a patient required hospitalization and/or respiratory assistance — or actually led to the patient's death. By the time the scientists were done, they had whittled the number of potential protein suspects down to just over a dozen — and one of them happens to be a protein that determines your blood type.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 6:06 pm Im A- so it worries me.

Unagi wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 8:03 pm

Daehawk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 6:06 pm Im A- so it worries me.

Try to B+.

So now they confirmed it. The report of possible relation between blood type A and higher risk was reported as far back as early COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 8:46 pm

Unagi wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 8:03 pm

Daehawk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 6:06 pm Im A- so it worries me.

Try to B+.

ftfy

noxiousdog wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 10:11 am More evidence for market origin.

Understanding how severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in 2019 is critical to preventing zoonotic outbreaks before they become the next pandemic. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, was identified as a likely source of cases in early reports but later this conclusion became controversial. We show the earliest known COVID-19 cases from December 2019, including those without reported direct links, were geographically centered on this market. We report that live SARS-CoV-2 susceptible mammals were sold at the market in late 2019 and, within the market, SARS-CoV-2-positive environmental samples were spatially associated with vendors selling live mammals. While there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events, and exact circumstances remain obscure, our analyses indicate that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred via the live wildlife trade in China, and show that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Emerging diseases caused by coronaviruses of likely bat origin (e.g., SARS, MERS, SADS, COVID-19) have disrupted global health and economies for two decades. Evidence suggests that some bat SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs) could infect people directly, and that their spillover is more frequent than previously recognized.

Each zoonotic spillover of a novel virus represents an opportunity for evolutionary adaptation and further spread; therefore, quantifying the extent of this spillover may help target prevention programs. We derive current range distributions for known bat SARSr-CoV hosts and quantify their overlap with human populations. We then use probabilistic risk assessment and data on human-bat contact, human viral seroprevalence, and antibody duration to estimate that a median of 66,280 people (95% CI: 65,351–67,131) are infected with SARSr-CoVs annually in Southeast Asia. These data on the geography and scale of spillover can be used to target surveillance and prevention programs for potential future bat-CoV emergence.

CurrentAffairs.org wrote:Prof. Jeffrey Sachs is the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and the President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has also served as the chair of the COVID-19 commission for leading medical journal the Lancet. Through his investigations as the head of the COVID-19 commission, Prof. Sachs has come to the conclusion that there is extremely dangerous biotechnology research being kept from public view, that the United States was supporting much of this research, and that it is very possible that SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, originated through dangerous virus research gone awry.

Prof. Sachs recently co-authored a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calling for an independent inquiry into the virus’s origins. He believes that there is clear proof that the National Institutes of Health and many members of the scientific community have been impeding a serious investigation of the origins of COVID-19 and deflecting attention away from the hypothesis that risky U.S.-supported research may have led to millions of deaths. If that hypothesis is true, the implications would be earth-shaking, because it might mean that esteemed members of the scientific community bore responsibility for a global calamity. In this interview, Prof. Sachs explains how he, as the head of the COVID-19 commission for a leading medical journal, came to the conclusion that powerful actors were preventing a real investigation from taking place. He also explains why it is so important to get to the bottom of the origins of COVID: because, he says, there is extremely dangerous research taking place with little accountability, and the public has a right to know since we are the ones whose lives are being put at risk without our consent.

- NATHAN ROBINSON:
I want to quote something that you said recently:

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs wrote:"I chaired the commission for the Lancet for 2 years on Covid. I'm pretty convinced it came out of a US lab of biotechnology [...] We don't know for sure but there is enough evidence. [However] it's not being investigated, not in the US, not anywhere."

The statement that you made there is a controversial one. Just to read a couple of quotes from the New York Times in the last year:

New York Times wrote:“In a review of recent studies and comparisons to other outbreaks, a group of virologists contends that there is more evidence to support a natural spillover from animals to humans.”

“Scientists released a pair of extensive studies over the weekend that point to a large food and live animal market in Wuhan, China, as the origin of the coronavirus pandemic.”

So I want to start by asking you just to tell us a little bit about the investigation that you were part of and what led you to think that what I just quoted is a misleading statement of the state of the evidence.

- JEFFREY SACHS:
Well, the funny thing is those scientists who are saying that said the same thing on February 4, 2020, before they had done any research at all. And they published the same statement in March 2020, before they had any facts at all. So they’re creating a narrative. And they’re denying the alternative hypothesis without looking closely at it. That’s the basic point.

Now, what is the alternative hypothesis? The alternative hypothesis is quite straightforward. And that is that there was a lot of research underway in the United States and China on taking SARS-like viruses, manipulating them in the laboratory, and creating potentially far more dangerous viruses. And the particular virus that causes COVID-19, called SARS-Cov-2, is notable because it has a piece of its genetic makeup that makes the virus more dangerous. And that piece of the genome is called the “furin cleavage site.” Now, what’s interesting, and concerning if I may say so, is that the research that was underway very actively and being promoted, was to insert furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses to see what would happen. Oops!

Well, that is what may have happened. And what has been true from the start is that that very real possibility, which a lot of scientists know, has not been looked at closely, even though it’s absolutely clear that it could have happened that way. They’re not looking. They just keep telling us, “Look at the market, look at the market, look at the market!” But they don’t address this alternative. They don’t even look at the data. They don’t even ask questions. And the truth is from the beginning, they haven’t asked the real questions.

But not quite the beginning. Because at the beginning, which we could date from the first phone call of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with a group of virologists on February 1, 2020, the virologists said “Oh my god, that is strange, that could well be a laboratory creation. What is that furin cleavage site doing in there?” Because scientists knew that was part of an active ongoing research program. And yet, by February 3, the same group is saying “No, no, it’s natural, it’s natural.” By February 4, they start to draft the papers that are telling the public, “Don’t worry, it’s natural.” By March, they write a paper—totally spurious, in my view—called the proximal origins paper that is the most cited bio paper in 2020. It said: it is absolutely natural. [Note: the paper’s conclusion is “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”] But they didn’t have any of the data that you read about in the New York Times. They didn’t have any of this. They just said the labs weren’t working on this alternative. But you know what, they don’t know what the labs were working on, because they never asked, and NIH hasn’t told us.

- ROBINSON:
Let me ask you if we can distinguish between what we know for certain and what is speculative because we just haven’t got the data. So we do know that there was—correct me if I’m wrong—research proposed that would have dealt with this category of viruses and would have modified them in ways that would have made them potentially more lethal. Do we know whether that kind of research was in fact actually ongoing somewhere?

- SACHS:
We have enormous reason to believe that it was. And clearly, we haven’t even asked that question. But we have a lot of reason to believe that it was, because the scientists that were doing that research loved that research. And they explained to us publicly why it’s so important. And they wrote editorials about why this research must continue. And they made grant proposals saying that it should continue. And for those of us in the business of writing grant proposals, the fact that a particular grant proposal that’s deeply troubling was turned down doesn’t mean that it wasn’t carried out afterwards. But where is NIH saying, “Yeah, that’s an interesting question. Why don’t we get the evidence?” It doesn’t even ask that question.

And the scientists like those that talk about the Huanan market, they don’t even discuss that research that was underway. That is just misdirection, to my mind. It’s like sleight of hand art. Don’t look over there. Look over here. But we know that there was a tremendous amount of this research underway. We have interviews by the lead scientists. We have these research proposals. I know the intention of doing this research from discussions. I’ve read so many studies of the importance of this research claimed by the scientists. And yet I see NIH with its head in the ground. “Oh, no, nothing here to look at.” And then I see the scientists. “Oh, nothing here to look at. We know it’s the market. Did we find an animal? No. Do we have an explanation of where that furin cleavage site came in? No. We don’t have an explanation of the timing, which doesn’t quite look right. Oh, but don’t look over there, because there’s nothing there,” they keep telling us. Well, that’s a little silly.

So my point is, there is a huge amount of reason to believe that that research was underway. Because there are published papers on this. There are interviews on this. There are research proposals. But NIH isn’t talking. It’s not asking. And these scientists have never asked either. From the very first day, they have kept hidden from view the alternative. And when they discuss the alternative, they don’t discuss the research program. They discuss complete straw men about the lab, not the actual kind of research that was underway, which was to stick furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses in a way that could have created SARS-Cov-2.

What I’m calling for is not the conclusion. I’m calling for the investigation. Finally, after two and a half years of this, it’s time to fess up that it might have come out of a lab and here’s the data that we need to know to find out whether it did.

the sheer number of people credulously sharing that batshit insane Sachs interview is really starting to piss me off quite a lot.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:11 pm I'll just leave this here.

the sheer number of people credulously sharing that batshit insane Sachs interview is really starting to piss me off quite a lot.

Earlier this month, Sachs appeared on a BBC panel about the Biden administration’s diplomatic outreach on climate, which has included seeking “cooperation” with China on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Naturally, this has led some China observers to ask whether such engagement is possible as long as the Chinese regime continues to perpetrate mass atrocities against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region. When the television program’s host introduced the segment, though, Sachs lambasted her framing of the issue: “I’m not sure why BBC started with listing only China’s human rights abuses,” he said. “What about America’s human rights abuses? The Iraq War, together with the U.K., completely illegal, and under false pretenses.”

Sachs then went on to list what he deemed to be other morally equivalent U.S. transgressions, including the decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, white supremacy, and mass incarceration. “I thought we were going to talk about climate change, which we should,” he continued. “But I think that the idea that ‘there is one party that is so guilty, how can we talk to them?’ is just a strange way to address the issue.”

But Teng Biao, the Chinese dissident and human-rights lawyer who appeared with Sachs on the BBC panel, found Sachs’s comments to be strange. In an interview, he told National Review that not only were Sachs’s arguments unrelated to the panel’s focus, but they could not be justified: “He’s using political whataboutism to defend the Chinese Communist Party.”