Why Did Scientists Suppress the Lab Leak Theory?
Join Reason on YouTube and Facebook Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern for a discussion with Matt Ridley of new documents that reveal how and why scientists downplayed the possibility of a COVID lab leak scenario.
A widely cited paper dismissing the COVID lab leak theory "expressed conclusions that were not based on sound science or in fact," wrote the authors of a recent House of Representatives committee report entitled "The Proximal Origin of a Cover-Up."
"The question is why," ask the authors.
For a deep exploration of that question and the wider implications of its possible answers, join Reason's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller on Reason's YouTube channel or Facebook page, where they'll discuss the lab leak theory with Matt Ridley, science writer and co-author of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, this Thursday at 1:30 pm ET.
Sources cited in this interview:
YouGov: Two-thirds of Americans believe COVID-19 originated in a lab: https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2023/03/10/americans-believe-covid-origin-lab
Early February 1 draft of Proximal Origin paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11zyWYG1OZ7z7RMZHaj2EoDeHveGnendT/view
House Oversight Committee evidence: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2023.03.05-SSCP-Memo-Re.-New-Evidence.Proximal-Origin.pdf
Nature: "Proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2": https://www.nature.com/articles/S41591-020-0820-9
Kristian Andersen's written statement to Congress: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Testimony-of-Dr.-Kristian-Andersen.pdf
Redacted vs. unredacted Fauci email: https://twitter.com/justin_hart/status/1679705254462631937/photo/1
Wall Street Journal: U.S.-funded scientist among three researchers who fell ill amid early COVID-19 outbreak: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-funded-scientist-among-three-chinese-researchers-who-fell-ill-amid-early-covid-19-outbreak-3f919567
Unredacted Fauci email: https://twitter.com/COVIDSelect/status/1679606442414809090?s=20
House Oversight Committee report on Proximal Origin paper: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Final-Report-6.pdf
Shi/Baric paper on gain-of-function research: https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985
Shi group created 8 chimeric SARS CoVs in 2017: https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698
RFK Jr. on bioweapons: https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1680205451483283456?t=CFNd8mp9HzgQPeF7jR8F_g&s=31
RFK Jr. response to New York Post reporting: https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1680227322509635595?s=20
BMC Medicine: The genetic susceptibility of populations to COVID-19 https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01673-z
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I’m just going to leave this here:
In 1940, Lysenko became director of the Institute of Genetics within the USSR’s Academy of Sciences, and he used his political influence and power to suppress dissenting opinions and discredit, marginalize, and imprison his critics, elevating his anti-Mendelian theories to state-sanctioned doctrine.
You think Fauci likes to dress up as Lysenko and jerk off?
Close. I think Fauci’s a jerkoff who acts like Lysenko.
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Who is Godwin’s Stalin-loving cousin?
Found the person still supporting Lysenko.
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Being wrong isn’t a sin, JFree.
Defending a lie is though.
I don’t know why they lied, but I know their intent was good. Also, they only lied about covid origins and nothing else. – Jfree.
Whats hilarious is that even in the last week the NYT admitted, buried in a story, that covid deaths were over counted by up to 30%
You can’t cite an alt-right publication like that!
Gosh, does Jeffy know.
Why did Reason take three years to notice when it was obvious from the outset?
You don’t go against Project Mockingbird.
Virtual lockdown cocktail parties.
… Locktail Parties?
Enh.
Cockdown parties.
The only parties sarcasmic is invited to.
Double-masking is recommended.
Mandatory.
Unless you currently have something in your mouth. You can’t catch COVID if you have something in your mouth.
Does sarcs 2 inch penis count?
Optimist.
Reason was actually good on lab leak. The only covid topic they were actually good on. They were terrible on every other aspect. Then again they seemed fine with lab leak and covid facts being censored if the government wanted it to be.
If by good you mean not batshit crazy deniers of it’s possibility and instead went for silence unless they could call Trump a racist for suggesting such a thing, then sure. Lower the bar enough and anything becomes “good”.
Nah. Good look at Robbies articles. They are even relatively early in the controversy.
That which aligns with MAGA themes is identified as a conspiracy theory, until the pronouns become “I told you so”.
“Why did Reason take three years to notice when it was obvious from the outset?”
Because the Regime supporters who fund Reason hoped the story would go away, but it did not and finally people have to fess up, slowly.
Citing RFKjr? GMAFB
Why are people incapable of thinking in probabilistic terms and updating probabilities as new information comes in?
Why are you fuckin retarded?
Why do the probabilities always align with government narratives?
The dice are loaded.
Listen, cretin, just because you’re stupid doesn’t mean the rest of us are. For example, early on I thought that the wet market was the likelier explanation – particularly given my knowledge of how Chinese markets operate – and later on I thought that the lab leak was the likelier explanation. At no point did I state definitively it was one source or the other. That other people seem to require definitive statements is their issue not mine.
But keep on missing the point and keep being a fuckwit, by all means.
Youre angry today shrike. More job cuts at Act Blue?
Is your knowledge of Chinese markets the same racism you show based on your knowledge of conservative minorities? It was never the most likely explanation.
I’m still not shrike, you lying fuckwit.
Not angry – merely energised.
My knowledge of Chinese markets is from 18 months living in HK after the handover – with the occasional article in the SCMP. as well as articles on the origin of new flu strains. Given that – as well as books like The Coming Plague, a natural origin seemed more likely to me initially. Given the way you think about the world, without any knowledge at all you would have thought lab leak and even if it had been the market – and it’s still not definitive that it’s not – you would have held to the lab leak hypothesis forever.
And unlike you I’m no racist, though being a realist always gives an opportunity for genuinely racist cunts like you to accuse us of being racist to deflect from your own racism. You’re an anti-Semite, and IIRC a defender of the Confederacy as well. It doesn’t get more racist than that, IMO.
BTW just because you won’t vote for RFKjr doesn’t mean you’re not an anti-Semite.
Nice projection, faggot.
So just more racism from you. Good backstory for your sock though shrike. When have I been racist shrike? Youre the one that hates any minority off the plantation.
Very early on scientists saw unnatural markers on the virus. They saw China censoring data and even deleting it. They saw WHO covering for them. I can find you articles from mod 2019 if you want. You probably dismissed it as conspiracy at the time.
Wet markets was never the most possible theory shrike.
See, that just proves you’re not a Real Libertarian(tm).
A Real Libertarian analyzed the situation in February 2020 and concluded that since all the Experts were saying that the virus started in a wet market, that they were wrong. Because the experts are always wrong.
Then, a Real Libertarian looks at what the government officials are saying, and if they are saying that the virus started in a wet market, then that is just additional proof that they are wrong, because the government is always wrong.
Finally, a Real Libertarian looks at the fact that the virus originated in China, which is communist, and concludes that the most sinister explanation – that the virus was deliberately a bio-engineered weapon to take down Trump – is the likeliest one.
As a final touch, the Real Libertarian does a few web searches for some scientific papers that supports the case so a patina of scientific legitimacy can be applied to the argument.
That is the correct explanation according to Real Libertarian Principles. QED.
What makes it so awesome is that the media-government complex was actually wrong about everything.
You’re like that old party official
in “Chernobyl” who said: “we must suppress misinformation “
Dumb establishment faggot is still dumb.
And Real Libertarians knew they were wrong all the way back in February 2020.
In fact Real Libertarians knew they were wrong even before the virus was synthesized!
Real libertarians always trust the government.
Kill yourself.
Real Libertarians do not need facts to make decisions, only a paranoid distrust of government and experts.
Why do you lie so much?
” Because the experts are always wrong.
Not always, but with today’s experts, that’s the way to bet.
Mmmm, taste the smearing condescension.
Which is a quite rational take. Why would someone have an immediate strong opinion about what happened in a city thousands of miles away.
Oh, yeah, the why would be partisanship.
Yeah, how could a person think about a thing that happened thousands of miles away?
Are you that disabled?
Cite?
Well, let’s see. A coronavirus originated in a small Chinese city that has a lab devoted to studying and possibly performing GoF on coronaviruses.
Then, China repressed any information about the disease while shutting down intranational travel but continuing international travel.
I wonder why someone might suspect that China developed the disease, and then when it escaped, whether purposely or not, China did its best to ensure the rest of the world suffered as much as possible.
Oh, it is absolutely a reasonable suspicion to think that the virus escaped from the lab. But it is not the only reasonable suspicion.
“For example, early on I thought that the wet market was the likelier explanation”
That’s racist as fuck, you cracker ass cracker.
> Why are you fuckin retarded?
There are only so many times an unwanted child can be dropped on its head before serious, systemic damage occurs.
Reason cites Rachel Maddow, citing RFK Jr. is practically doing the experiment in a lab and confirming the results themselves… in comparison.
“Why are people incapable of thinking in probabilistic terms and updating probabilities as new information comes in?”
Good question. Why was the idea that it might have been a lab leak so vehemently opposed (denied even) and so frantically mocked and derided from so many directions?
The SARScasmics have no sense of the sardonic.
It will be interesting to hear Matt’s take, as he’s far better at molecular bio than banking.
“Because they’re a bunch of goddamned fucking cunts, that’s why.”
I wish we could just admit that scientists are human beings and are thus influenced by all the forces that influence other people.
Like the secret desire to be a super villain?
If I had super powers, I’d spend all my time bothering cops.
The ability to make cops see dogs that aren’t there would be hysterical.
I’m envisioning lots of cop cams showing pigs unloading into random patches of grass. Now, that’s super hero behavior. The supervillains would overlay the dogs on nice little old ladies.
Vaxxers and climate cranks are influenced by statistics, thermodynamics & radiative equilibrium?
Who knew?
Learn the difference between actual science and “official science “.
Excellent advice.
What’s stopping you from following it?
Retards like you really shouldn’t try to be clever.
“”Official science” is what the doctors at the CDC believe.
“Actual science” is what the doctors on Facebook pages believe.
Keep trying to preserve the system, fuckbag.
Actual science is what the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration were doing.
It’s also the GOF research that Fauci was funding.
Not grasping that difference is Public Entelectual’s whole schtick.
It is a slave to the narrative.
They are also correct roughly the same percentage of the time that the probability that the earth is flat rises above 0.
Facebook locked a number of accounts for supporting the lab leak theory – apparently it was racist hate speech to suggest someone in another country might have done something bad. This is why Threads should and hopefully will die. They don’t deserve to be used as a communication platform.
There was also the Zerohedge incident.
What was the Zerohedge incident?
Look it up faggot,
Locked accounts or took down specific posts?
Cite?
It started with just the fact check labels.
Yes, both happened.
Caw caw!
“Why Did Scientists Suppress the Lab Leak Theory?”
Several reasons which are all connected. One is that the U.S. government was funding the bio-weapon lab through many institutions in which all the money went through Fauci. They were not supposed to be doing such research in that facility, and therefore were trying to hide that information. In addition, many of our politicians and governmental agency leaders were being supported financially by the CCP and it was against their financial interest to blame the global “pandemic” on China.
Next, and almost most importantly, the pandemic could be used to take out the President at the time by blaming him for all the harms it caused. For him to suggest it was a lab-leak (whether he said it was deliberate or accidental) could be called both racist and xenophobic which would distract the nation’s attention away from questioning exactly how this virus arrived in our nation.
But the most compelling reason for the insistence for the narrative that it was a natural phenonomen rather than a lab leak is the governmental authorities could scream, “The virus is everywhere and gone wild. You will all die unless you do exactly what we say and give up the few freedoms that we allow you to enjoy”.
Methinks the wet market narrative was just so believable that other possibilities just weren’t strongly considered.
You should read the Nature Medicine paper, and also the House Select Committee report.
From what I read, the authors of the Nature Medicine paper actually wrestled quite a bit with three possible explanations for the origins of the virus. They weren’t willing to dismiss any of them out of hand, because they really did ‘follow the science’, the scientific evidence at the time did not support dismissing any of them. It is also true, on the other hand, that they allowed some non-scientific reasoning to creep into their decision-making (and no it wasn’t about Trump). They worried that if the idea of a lab leak caught hold, that it would damage international scientific collaborations with China. Which is a meaningful concern, but maybe not one that is relevant for a scientific article.
The proper response is to share what you know, what you do not, and what you are doing with an expected timetable.
I recall the Chinese virologist that went missing after posting about a strange respiratory illness in the Wuhan area.
One set of scientists just interviewed by the House show them initially believing the lab leak theory before Fauci sent them an email and gave them a bug funding grant.
It really is as simple as scientists getting paid to lie for government.
https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1681465180553617410?t=78nUffSzk2ZupEXJ3N_v4w&s=19
The Biden administration has halted the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s access to federal funding after the lab failed to provide documents about safety and security measures
This just happened…. now???
Wouldn’t want to be overcautious…
Nothing like shutting the barn door years after the horses have escaped.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bomb-went-pfizer-plant-north-carolina-destroyed-tornado
Dramatic footage posted on Twitter shows the aftermath of a tornado that ripped through a massive Pfizer pharmaceutical plant in North Carolina on Wednesday, scattering “50,000 pallets of medicine” across the property.
Pfizer told local media outlet ABC 11 that a twister damaged its Rocky Mount manufacturing space that sits on 250 acres in Eastern North Carolina.
There is one thing made very clear by the “infamous” unscientific article and the Committee report: scientists and Congressional aides were poorly educated in grammar and vocabulary! First of all in this context it’s “proximate” (causation), not “proximal” (anatomy: closer to the center of the body); and for another: “had yet to done so by” – it’s “had yet to have done so by” or “had yet to do so by;” and finally: “which’s goal was” (wtf?!) One might expect such mistakes in a first draft, but these were still making things less clear in final versions released to the public where much more clarity might have been hoped for. Having said that, I’m glad someone – even partisan hacks – are finally way too late investigating Fauci and his hired-gun scientific hit men.
What a stupid question. As they say, “I tried to follow the Science and I couldn’t find it. Then I decided to follow the Money and I found the Science.” Fauci was funding the research at the Wuhan lab so he was desperate to cover that fact up. Since he controlled billions of dollars in grant money, including most of the money involved in virus research, it wasn’t hard to persuade scientists dependent on staying in his good graces and favor to go along with the cover-up.
Political pressure? Fear of losing government funding. In China fear of losing funding, being imprisoned and the firing squad.