Monday, June 3, 2024

Oped in Times proclaims Lab Leak theory best fit

Looks like 100 points, the most complete exposition I've seen of why lab origin seems the most likely.

No one should defend that it was American scientists, proposing the (never grant funded) Defuse project, that recommended using only BSL-2 (as in Wuhan) to save money.  This project was intended to genetically engineer viruses that would be identical in key ways to the pandemic virus, and the protocol ensured they would have maximum capability to jump species.

When dangerous research is allowed, many will seek ways to do it cheaper.  (Actually, GOF was banned in US, but special dispensation was given to fund it in China.)


I originally found this article quoted (not linked) by Dr Angela Rasmussen who simply smeared it as "factually incorrect" without refuting a single point.  (When they do respond, it seems scientists often just point to lengthy papers.  This is basically argument by intimidation, professional qualification, and obfuscation.)

Elsewhere it appears one of the arguments made against the lab leak theory is the argument that no animals tested positive for COVID at the wet market because no animals were tested at all.*  China denied there ever was a wet market where live animals were being sold and wanted to stop any reporting on this.  (However that is well established by other evidence.)  The relevant kind of bats (used by Wuhan researchers) were NOT being sold (which was why Wuhan trapped them in the wild from quite far away, and there is no evidence surrounding those sites of an earlier COVID infection, or anywhere in between).

*This argument, however, may be misleading, as in fact Chinese scientists immediately began testing animals in and around Wuhan, with their work published here.  They did not find a "proof" animal.   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35769892/

In 2023 it was suggested that Raccoon Dogs at the Wet Market were the intermediate host.  This was widely reported.  (There is still a lack of clear evidence pointing to this, only that Raccoon Dogs were being sold and could have been infected.)

Here's a scientific paper which argues against the Wet Market theory by examining the location of early cases and how they were ascertained.  (I think the Times article explores the location issue very well too.)


Here is an earlier paper, critiqued by the above one, which had proposed the Wuhan (Seafood) Market


Here is a recent scientific paper favoring the Zoonotic Origin theory, the first one linked in a discussion of the NYTimes article.  On first scanning it looks pretty good and worth reading more carefully.




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