Backtracking on the lab leak – hey, Trump was right
From Legal Insurrection comes this example of many people eager to take back things they said or wrote some time ago about the lab leak theory of COVID’s origins:
Professor Robert Garry, a respected microbiologist who works at Tulane University in New Orleans, is one of five bylined on a paper in March 2020 entitled ‘The Proximal Origin of Sars-Cov-2’.
…The letter, published in the journal Nature Medicine, concluded: ‘We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.’
Now, Dr Garry has told the BBC this statement was never meant to dismiss all types of potential lab leak.
Speaking to Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s Origin, an eight-part BBC Radio 4 series, he said they were aiming to dismiss the idea the virus had been intentionally crafted as a bioweapon.
‘At that point we were still largely under the influence, when that particular sentence was written, with the notion that this may have been a bioengineered virus or maybe a weapon that just sort of accidentally released,’ he said.
That’s sounds ridiculous to me. I remember reading about the lab leak theory very early on, and although it wasn’t proven it certainly was plausible and was considered a possible accident rather than a purposeful weapon, although weapon was (and remains) another possibility.
Garry’s words in the 2020 letter were clear, but he’s trying to explain what he really meant:
Professor Garry admitted the wording was wrong.
‘Maybe we went a little too far there,’ he said.
Maybe.
Scientists are supposed to be precise. But there probably were pressures brought to bear on the group writing the letter in 2020. I could understand why they would want to be cautious. But to rule out the possibility? No.
And then there was this – and note the date of the Trump quote, May 1, 2020. But oh, what a lying stupidhead Trump is, according to CNN and virtually all of the replies at the time:
President Trump contradicts the US intel community by claiming he's seen evidence that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab https://t.co/mnUSHUyZXf pic.twitter.com/pInZ4Of18X
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) May 1, 2020
All of you who are on Twitter might want to add some new comments there.
In the late May of 2021, when the lab leak theory started gaining more traction in the MSM (now that Biden was safely president), the WaPo corrected its reporting on COVID origins from back in February and March of 2020:
The Washington Post issued a correction 15 months after alleging Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was peddling a “debunked” “conspiracy theory” about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
Much of the media last year was quick to dismiss the possibility that the virus stemmed from a leak from the Wuhan Virology Lab in China, a theory that was promoted by top Republicans including Cotton and then-President Trump and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Over the weekend, however, the Post revised the February 2020 report which had the headline, “Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked.
“Earlier versions of this story and its headline inaccurately characterized comments by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) regarding the origins of the coronavirus,” the correction read at the top of the report. “The term ‘debunked’ and The Post’s use of ‘conspiracy theory’ have been removed because, then as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus.”
The headline was changed to “Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus fringe theory that scientists have disputed.”
And now it’s really not even seriously disputed. Will they be issuing mea culpas in big headlines, or point out that Trump was right? Silly question, I know.
So the Overton Window has moved to ‘it came from a CCP lab’. When does it move to ‘it was no accident’?
Can be a weapon and an accidental leak at the same time.
Just like the two-tiered justice system, none of these a**holes will ever be held to account. Waste of time and energy anymore.
“… issuing mea culpas in big headlines, or point out that Trump was right?”
HAWHAWHAW.. A real knee slapper. You sure know how to tell ‘em, Neo”
Also what does this nitwit think ‘gain of function’ is all about, anyway?
China is a huge place.
That Covid emerged from the only city with a Biosafety Level 4 lab in the entire country, and which happened to have the Bat Lady scientist and her henchmen studying coronaviruses and which was already known to have lax security precautions, made the Lab Leak explanation a no-brainer.
Any other explanation should have been way down the list of probable causes.
The federal government, the medical establishment, the scientific community, the Democratic party and the media, not only dismissed the Lab Leak theory but did their best to censor any mention of the theory.
Horrific. I can’t think of another scientific-medical scandal which remotely compares. Scientists and doctors seem to have no idea how they are eroding their credibility backing current hard left Democrat policies.
Stories like this make it hard not to believe that the modern news cycle is a highly-managed production, complete with story boards and continuity checkers. It sure seems that way sometimes: We get the incremental release of new salient facts – one at a time. Drip-drip-drip. First the rumors, then the harvest-of-derision when the wrong person repeats them (He’s Crazy!), then the slow revelations, then the shifting basis of facts, leading to the New Story. Keep the pace controlled – can’t have too much upset at once, or the horses get restless.
Last week, for the first time, I saw rumors that Patient Zero, now identified as a Wuhan Lab worker, was actually working on gain-of-function research underwritten by the US. Will this pan out to become true in a week or two? Wouldn’t that just be a gas? Here’s an Update: ‘The US funded research it considers illegal (domestically) only to have our worst enemy produce a virus that unleashes a world-wide pandemic’.
“Scientists and doctors seem to have no idea how they are eroding their credibility backing current hard left Democrat policies.”
Maybe not. Given that maybe 30% of the population consider themselves conservative, and maybe the libs are inching towards majority, so they are not eroding any credibility. In fact maybe enhancing it with the powers that be. I really think we conservatives are an endangered species.
those non eloi who are not called to the bunkers by the klaxons, possibly,
One big take away from the COVID shutdowns is the distrust of “experts”. The trust will not return for a very very long time. I know that when I read something that cites an “expert” I now tend to not believe anything in the article.
“So the Overton Window has moved to ‘it came from a CCP lab’. When does it move to ‘it was no accident’?”
I think that the release was an accident for several reasons. Most obvious is that anywhere except for the city where the lab creating the virus is located would have been better. Even another Chinese city would have been better. But best would have been in a city in another country. Maybe right outside Fort Detrick in MD. If they were going to go with the story that it was completely natural, they should have gone with somewhere near where the virus came from, and not 1,000 km away.
Another point – the virus was probably not yet ready for prime time. The ChiComs apparently didn’t have a vaccine ready yet, nor was it probably tailored yet to be less dangerous to Han Chinese.
Once it got loose, the Chicoms treated it as if it were a weapon:
Forbade travel within China to and from Wuhan, encouraged international travel to and from Wuhan.
Its actual origin becomes irrelevant when you look at what they did with it.
One might accidentally find a grenade. That doesn’t mean that, when you pitch it into a classroom, it was an accident. See “metaphor”.
Nobody will ever admit that they are wrong, even when they say that they didn’t get it quite right. Everybody has an out that allows them to escape responsibility. Big Bad Trump is everybody’s alibi — ‘I stood up to the irresponsible populists’ — and would have to be invented if Trump didn’t exist.
“…no-brainer.”
Precisely.
Would add that ADDITIONAL PROOF (not that it’s needed) is that the Democrats and Corrupt media (but I repeat myself) were totally IN-SYNC pushing HARD—relentlessly ramming it down our throats, actually—the “INDISPUTABLE” “FACT” that the origin of COVID “HAD TO BE” from natural sources.
Yep, HAD TO BE.
NO.OTHER.FEASIBLE.EXPLANATION.POSSIBLE.
NOSSSSSIR!
(Brownie points for anyone who can, um, figure out why CLIMATE CHANGE(TM) is an identical HOAX!…
…And you can add to that the Trans Hoax as well, which one is—once again—SIMPLY NOT ALLOWED TO DISPUTE.)
physicsguy quotes huxley: “Scientists and doctors seem to have no idea how they are eroding their credibility backing current hard left Democrat policies.”
“Maybe not,” the first replies. Well, the Trans Mad and SWJ doctors have destroyed whatever cred they had with me. I refuse their drones entirely.
“It’s dead, Jim.”
And I can foresee no reversal on the horizon for decades. One reason is that by dethroning meritocracy — their ongoing project — the Evil Fascist Left removes their most powerful remaining institutionalized opponents, seizing Rule for themselves in all large organisations.
WHERE CAN ALTERNATIVE POWER ARISE? This means we are left to build parallel, rival organisations. That’s what we do.
“Well, the Trans Mad and SWJ doctors have destroyed whatever cred they had with me. I refuse their drones entirely.
“It’s dead, Jim.””
Exactly. They have destroyed their credibility with you and most conservatives. My point is that our opinion is becoming less important. They have enhanced their credibility with those in power, and all of those D voters who support the regime. Again, our opinion is becoming irrelevant to such organizations as NIH, CDC, pediatricians, psychiatrists, etc. Just wait until the surgeons jump on board.
Following up on TJ, physicsguy, huxley: “Scientists and doctors seem to have no idea how they are eroding their credibility backing current hard left Democrat policies.”
I wouldn’t assume that the people actually working as scientists and doctors are running the show. See this from a New Yorker article about the canceling of Kenneth Zucker over the trans stuff. The author is Jesse Singal. I doubt that Jesse Singal would be published in the New Yorker today. Just the same, I can’t imagine a sentence that is so simultaneously revealing and obfuscating:
“The “gender-affirmative” approach, which focuses on identifying young transgender children and helping them socially transition — that is, express their gender to others through their everyday clothes, name changes, or other means — has been on the rise in recent years, and has become the favored protocol of many activists and clinicians.”
https://www.thecut.com/2016/02/fight-over-trans-kids-got-a-researcher-fired.html
Anyway, the doctors and scientists aren’t running the show. The activists are prancing about in a “Science” skin suit harvested from the husk of our institutions. Same with COVID. I don’t think the activists give a rip about the credibility of institutions. They don’t think that will matter anymore after they consolidate their power.
…except that REALITY(TM) has this funny way of reasserting itself…in spite of the best efforts of those “full of passionate intensity”…
(The only questions, alas, are “when?” and “how?”)
BTW, that article on Zucker (from 2016) is astounding. Totally nuts. Thanks very much for posting it.
(I wonder if there’s a follow-up…)
“President Trump contradicts the Intelligence Community”
This is structurally the same as a headline saying “Company X CEO contradicts his marketing department”….which no one would write that way. Everyone understands that the marketing department has no independent existence and that the CEO can override it, fire its leadership, or simply abolish it and reassign its roles, any time he sees fit.
But the Left increasingly portrays these government executive agencies as if they had some independent constitutional existence and moral superiority.
If I saw a zebra trotting down the street, just outside the entrance to a zoo, my first suspicions would be that the zebra escaped from the zoo.
Until I found other evidence, I would operate on the premise that the zebra escaped from the zoo.
In the case of Covid, the vehement denials that Covid could possibly escaped from the Wuhan lab began immediately.
Assuming or even considering investigating the possibility of a lab escape was “conspiracy thinking.”
If there was a conspiracy, it was a conspiracy among the mainstream news media to label the lab escape theory as conspiracy thinking.
As regards credibility:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/mayo-clinic-professor-suspended-after-saying-testosterone-improves-athletic-performance/
Presuming Mayo had any to begin with, what does this do to it?
And how many times have we seen what looked like “facts” disappeared in the anger of one or another “community”?
Conspiracy?
Theorists?
Fauci, Daszak and Hotez, oh MY!…
“There were two funding cutouts between the NIH and the reckless coronavirus gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology: (1) Peter Daszak on NIH grant AI110864, and (2) Peter Hotez on NIH grant AI098775.”—
https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1670876056855756806?cxt=HHwWjIC-ifm6krAuAAAA
H/T Jeff Carlson Twitter feed.
https://twitter.com/themarketswork
See also: https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright
“NIH appears to have funded WIV to the tune of 1.4M….”
https://twitter.com/humblesci/status/1671131459699249153?cxt=HHwWgsDUxazNhrEuAAAA
+ Bonus: A bit more on the Talented Dr. Hotez:
“Hotez reportedly is denying that his NIH grant supported the project by Shi of Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“The denials are false:…”
https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1557146075084890112
hes a creepy fellow, like the doc in cannon ball run
Barry Meislin – I haven’t seen any follow-up on the Zucker matter. It’s been memory-holed. I remember when Zucker was first in the news (and I knew to look for that article) because, I remember when the scientific consensus for kids was much different than it is now. Of course now we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
update,
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/10/07/camh-reaches-settlement-with-former-head-of-gender-identity-clinic.html
“I can’t think of another scientific-medical scandal which remotely compares.” Huxley
You may want to read Stephen Kinzer’s book, Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control. It documents how instead of lighting a match to the research materials derived of Unit 731 and the Nazi experiments in Germany–we built on them.
Anyway, the doctors and scientists aren’t running the show. The activists are prancing about in a “Science” skin suit harvested from the husk of our institutions.
==
See the abusive behavior of one Carlos Mantilla, MD / PhD of the Mayo Clinic toward another physician associated with the Mayo Clinic. The activists cannot get anything done without going through characters like Mantilla. The medical profession isn’t off the hook and neither are the laymen on the boards of various institutions and guilds.
the activities of dr cameron, at mcgill university are particularly disturbing, and there were other research with virus and other pathogen on plum island
i learned about the former with gordon thomas, who had a parallel track about the iranian doctor who conducted the interrogation of willam buckley, he was soviet trained, and worked under abu nidal before he worked for hezbollah,
Thanks…
There’s also this Wikipedia entry on Zucker, FWIW….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Zucker
It seems that the holy crusade to F*** UP kids as much as possible has gone mainstream…and that anyone who fights this evil is branded a so-called ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.
(Just another one of “Biden”‘s despicable SUCCESSES…)
– – – – – – – – –
+ Bonus:
The execrable Dr. Hotez picks a fight with Sharryl Attkisson…and faceplants spectacularly….(from June 2021)
“…Dr. Peter Hotez admits he fabricated false attack against Sharyl Attkisson”—
https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/06/read-dr-peter-hotez-defamation/
From:
https://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson/status/1670983719287439360