The Lab-Leak Hypothesis Made It Harder for Scientists to Seek the Truth

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COVID disinformation has threatened research—and lives. Failure to demarcate conspiracy theories from scientific investigation results in public confusion, insufficient action from leadership, and the harassment of scientists.

Whenever scientific findings threaten people’s sense of control over their lives, conspiracy theories are never far behind. The emergence of novel viruses is no exception. New pathogens have always been accompanied by conspiracy theories about their origin. These claims are often exploited and amplified—and sometimes even created—by political actors. In the 1980s the Soviet KGB mounted a massive disinformation campaign about AIDS, claiming that the U.S.

Zoonotic Origins The ostensible lab-leak hypothesis is not a single identifiable theory but a loose constellation of diverse possibilities held together by the common theme that Chinese science institutions—be it the WIV or some other arm of the Chinese government—are to blame for the pandemic. At one end is the straightforward possibility of WIV lab personnel being infected during fieldwork or while culturing viruses in the lab.

The RBD and FCS are central to initial virological arguments by expert proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis. Such arguments are based on the supposition that neither the RBD nor the FCS “appears natural” and therefore that they can only be the product of lab-based engineering or selection. Nobel laureate David Baltimore, an early proponent of the lab-leak hypothesis, referred to the FCS as a “smoking gun” that points to a lab origin.

This research sketches a clear zoonotic path to the emergence of the RBD and FCS. Although some evolutionary gaps along this path persist, their number and size have been dwindling. A detailed analysis in late 2021 further strengthened the link to the Huanan markets as the point of origin of the virus and the initial source of community transmission. This rapidly growing body of evidence for a zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2 creates increasing difficulties for the lab-engineering hypothesis.

The e-mails were publicly misrepresented as a result of an unsolved hack, but top scientists and health officials also have seen their correspondence become public through Freedom of Information Act requests by groups with long histories of attacking scientists. The organization U.S. Right to Know honed its FOIA tactics against food scientists before turning its sights on virologists.

Being closely related to SARS-CoV-2 and being present in the lab at the WIV made RaTG13 a perfect candidate for a precursor that was engineered into SARS-CoV-2. In the short time since the pandemic took hold, however, several related viruses have been discovered that are closer in sequence to SARS-CoV-2 over much of the genome. Moreover, despite being related to SARS-CoV-2, RaTG13 has been found to occupy a separate phylogenetic branch.

 

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Scientific being scratched over and over in this American.

If the vaccine works then I’m black

Threatened research? The answer is in your first line. The greed (research dollars), arrogance, need for clout, & political bias of some scientists have done more to hurt perception of science than any conspiracy theory. And nobody is buying that this virus started naturally.

“How dare these plebs question the establishment narrative? We just advocated for the upending of their lives for the better part of two years and accused them of wanting to murder grandma if they disagreed.”

People speculating on the causes of hacker invasions never stopped companies from finding the software vulnerabilities and point of entry used.

probably from agriculture and there will be more because people gotta mass murder non-humans

At least is using 'hypothesis' instead of 'conspiracy' when writing about the lab leak origin of COVID.

Agree but that failure was largely on the side of large established orgs & groups who unscientifically dismissed and still dismiss possibilities any other than an *entirely* natural origin. Lab-leak is still not ruled out and there are more nonnatural origin options that it.

Threatened research? The answer is in your first line. The greed (for research dollars), arrogance, and political bias some scientist has done more to hurt perception of science than any conspiracy theory. And nobody is buying that this virus started naturally.

Fact: The COVID19 MRNA vaccine was created in months, not years, and was given to the public without decades of research on it.

nope. Failure to immediately let investigators in by Chinese government threatened research. Bogus post

🥴💉

MackayIM The gaslighting here is incredible

Translation 'Our propaganda is lame and no one is buying it anymore'

There are literally thousands of scientists and doctors who strongly question the 'science' of Covid. They are very easy to find with some effort, and all are HIGHLY educated people. Quit the nonsense and the agenda. Covid has been blown out of proportion. Period.

Show us evidence it wasn't a lab leak. Why were a large amount of workers sick with a 'mysterious illness' at a lab that was working on the virus in China shortly before the outbreak!?

The vaccine doesn’t work

Aha, I get it now. Virus change is completely natural and absolutely not man-made, while climate change is man-made and absolutely not natural according to this article. I always thought science was inquiry based rather than prejudice based, silly me.

What a load of 💩 … to say a hypothesis or any kind threatens lives is an absolute joke. A hypothesis is a proposal of an idea that requires further investigation, to say that coming up with a hypothesis that contradicts another is deadly!? …disgusting!

Great article but there is a problem with a link: This 'continued to increase for at least four years' points to: file:///C:/Users/Lewan/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Word/10.1088/1748-9326/9/11/111004

Russian terrorists Putin's army set fire to Europe's largest nuclear power plant in the Ukrainian city of Energodar. There are 6 power units at the nuclear power plant. The world is under the threat of a nuclear catastrophe. I ask NATO alliance to close the sky over Ukraine 🇺🇦

newzealandbirds 🙊🙉🙈

Um, yeah. Like this ad?

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The article says at the same Time that (certain versions of) the lab-leak hypothesis can't be ruled out yet and that it is a dangerous distraction. This epithet sounds extreme for a hypothesis the W mission tried to assess.

Still covering up for China I see. They own you too? 😛😂

This is silly. Please stop making absurd statements. It's resulting in the harassment of my intelligence.

Media profited hugely during the worst of times. There no money in calm and rational. There's no money in good news. If there's no scandal, one just be manufactured. Conspiracy theories are also well funded, and media wants a chunk of that as well.

The problem is social media. We all know it. We need to make sure Twitter and Facebook don't allow ignorance to go nuclear on every issue.

What is a bat picture doing there? That just reinforces the misinformation.

Yes, and it is heresy to suggest that the Earth revolves around the Sun. We need to stamp out that talk too.

The Chinese did all they could to stop a thorough investigation including stopping their own scientists from discussing it openly, I wonder why that was?. Maybe the Chinese are frightened of their own ‘Chernobyl moment’. By the way, nobody believes you.

What conspiracy theory? In Nature'2012 publication the scientists including Bat-woman wrote that, at Wuhan, they implanted Bat Corona virus SOHC-14 Protein Spike on SARS virus backbone and the resulting Chimera coronavirus affected human airways badly!

Muddying the waters for their OWN selfish & malicious interests is a core GOP tenet....

Threaten research = Threaten research funding. This is why there has been so little transparency creating legitimate questions.

You embarrass yourselves

Stop being ridiculous, it is almost certainly what happened and everyone knows it.

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