Private channel session 1693
50 messages over 2h 56m, 2022-01-14 – 2022-01-14.
A “conversation” here is an activity session — a run of messages with under 60 minutes of silence inside it. The channel had no native conversation boundaries.
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She replied with a lot of follow up but I have asked to switch to background for now.
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Anyone have the timeline? When did we circulate a first draft to the group? She is saying 3 days after the call?
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Hmmm, not sure you want to give me information? Do you know this journalist and do you know if she's genuinely interested in understanding the science? Because if not, I wouldn't give any further details.
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shared file(s): February 4 document.pdf, February 6 document.pdf
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I was quite forceful in my response. I'm not answering any more.
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Emails out on Feb 4 and Feb 7
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(with those two documents)
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These documents will become public at some point and I think we need to figure out a way to get them released before they do. They are _great_ so there are no concerns there, but we all know what happens if DRASTIC picks these up first
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I an not going to give further information. But as background I can state some known truths - i.e. Fauci and Collins don't personally hand out grants
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They are only interested in the narrative that Tony told us to think for political reasons. I said that was total nonsense etc.
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Yup - and I'd leave it at that. Once we mention that drafts were circulated on certain dates, people would want to see those.
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It's public knowledge that a draft was circulated on Feb 4, but I'm not sure about Feb 7. What needs to be very clearis that WE wrote the paper and there were NO edits from e.g., Christian and Ron (and certainly none from Tony orFrancis - I think maybe Jeremy had a few minor edits). The paper was peer reviewed and that obviously led toseveral additional changes to the final version. The original version from Virological is here: https://t.co/nOddbnq2K5
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Oh, wow - just read through our old Nature rebuttal... Worth a read. [shared file(s): Nature rebuttal.pdf]
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Yes, very good. Reviewer #2. Who could it be.
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Hmmmm. I have a hunch.
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We really need to figure out what to do about all of this because I think we're getting to a critical point where these documents _will_ go public so it should come from us and not e.g., DRASTIC or congress. The GOP will take the house and Bob and I will be dragged in front of congress - getting this stuff out before in a way in which we 'control'the narrative will be important. I still think we should talk to Jon about it
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Sorry, but I can't agree to the release of these emails for the reasons I've given before. I think we do nothing. I don't see how DRASTIC could get hold of these. Nature will not allow release of peer review reports.
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We won't be able to control the narrative. Let's be realistic.
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The problem is, it's not a question of whether to release them or not - if congress gets involved we have to hand over _all_ these documents no matter what we or our institutions say. Either we control that release or it'll come via congress later this year.
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At that stage it's a legal process
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Not my institution
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Andrew and I are not subject to US law
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Doesn't matter - the documents were shared with US officials
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Internal emails between us are a different matter - but not when it comes to the documents that were shared and that I worked on while being supported by NIH grants.
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Apologies, but I am :100: against sharing these at the moment. I'm not giving into bullies; I will loose all institutionalsupport; and it's delusional to think that releasing them will fix anything - people will pick and choose what they wantto believe. I'd wait until it becomes a problem. I don't see that we are anywhere near that at the moment. And going through Jon won't work as he is seen as Zoonati.
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Here are the relevant documents showing the history of the paper. The 2/4 and 2/6 drafts will likely become public no matter what since the US Government will already have these. The others are all internal to us and would not become public until congress gets involved (probably towards the endof this year). Let's discuss this in a couple of weeks - nothing happens right now, but we _absolutely_ do not want Jordan/Comeror USRTK to be the first to release the drafts. [shared file(s): 2020.02.04 Draft.pdf, 2020.02.06 Draft.pdf, 2020.02.17Nature submission.pdf, 2020.02.29 Nature rebuttal manuscript.pdf, 2020.02.29 Nature rebuttal.pdf, 2020.03.05Nature Medicine submission.pdf, 2020.03.17 Nature Medicine final.pdf]
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> As background - > > As far as I know, Fauci and Collins had no ties to the lab in Wuhan. They are directors of NIH and NIAID respectively. Funding from these bodies are not decided by the directors by the funding panels which comprise academics who are seconded for the purpose (the same way that it is done by the UKRI research councils in the UK).
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My reply
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And just to be clear - when/if Bob and I are subpoenaed they may ask to see all correspondence (emails) relevant tothe paper and we would have no choice but to comply. Yes, we (especially I, since I'm not a citizen) could plead the5th, but that would be extremely unwise and my institution would very likely not support that - plus, that'd likely turn into a lawsuit, in which case everything would have to be handed over anyway. Let's hope it won't get to that! (I'm 95% certain we'll be subpoenaed, but I don't think they'll ask for all our correspondence - unless it ends up in a lawsuit, but that makes absolutely no sense since we're talking about writingg'damn scientific papers! But this is America today...)
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These are drafts of a scientific paper. They are not an official statement nor an order telling what people should believe. Let's put this in perspective.
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Agreed - I'm not the one that needs convincing, but the entire GOP (who'll soon have the House) sees this very differently.
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A paper the conclusions of which I still agree.
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We'll never ever control what the GOP thinks
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No, we can't control what the GOP thinks - however, once they take the house, Daszak, Bob, myself, and others willbe subpoenaed because they clearly want all this information.
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My feeling is that this is basically just an attack on Fauci (to a lesser extent, Collins). Once they have gone as far asthey want with that they will move on. I don't really think the GOP cares about what really happened.
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Correct - but they use us as a way to get at Fauci. "See how all these scientists are lying", "Covering up with/for Fauci", etc, etc. That's where the documents come in - because they'll do _exactly_ what they just did with Bob's emails - take it completely out of context to create a narrative. The same will happen with those two drafts.
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Reply: > Andrew - thanks. I should have been more specific: what I mean is that both Fauci and Collins were aware that NIH funds had been subawarded to the WIV in the past for certain types of research.> But you make a good point. It was not them specifically.So I will leave it there.
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How the fuck are you supposed to know that...? She might want to ask them instead... I have no way of knowing, but I highly doubt they knew - plus, it was never brought up. Not on the call, not in emails with us.
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It's sad to see the self destruction brought on by conspiracy theories - literally 99% of news on COVID-19 is either conspiracy theory or articles trying to counter conspiracy theories.
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And we won't change that. The key email is the one from Ron I think. No way he'll agree to release that.
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They have that email in full too - but obviously they only released the part where he talked about "conspiracy theories" because the rest of the email very much goes against their narrative. I _do_ hope Ron will release "Ron'snotes" at some point.
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I think we get all the emails ready but hold-off doing anything until it becomes critical. To me, this is the nuclearoption and it has serious downstream consequences (because it gives precedent for ALL other emails to bereleased) so I really don't want to do it. And by critical I don't mean DRASTIC or USRTK. They are small fry and easy to counter, and whatever we release they would pick-and-choose what they want. I honestly couldn't give afuck about DRASTIC. I don't think drafts of the paper are the issue. It's what we were told in the teleconference.
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I don't think we should ever release the emails, unless we're forced to via legal proceedings (in this case, eitherlawsuits or subpoenas).The drafts are different - they show the linear logic of how we came to our conclusions after the call and why there's absolutely nothing to hide here. I get the sense that they're mostly after those at the moment, but we'll see.I agree that we should do _nothing_ right now, but let's set up a Zoom in a couple of weeks.
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I wouldn't release the drafts until it is absolutely necessary. I'm absolutely certain this will lead to a series ofunintended consequences.
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Agreed. Don't release anything.
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Plus it's a scientific paper FFS. If people don't like they can just write a response.
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or if you are Alina just tweet you f'ing brains out....
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It's nothing to do with logic - the issue is that there's a DEMAND FOR TRANSPARENCY from the GOP, which includes things like the "Fauci Act" and other complete bullshit. It's all a conspiracy theory, but that matters little once they take over the House - that's when the subpoenas will start flying. As you may recall, I have already beensummoned - however, the GOP is currently in the minority so they can't force me and the lawyers acting on mybehalf responded to that request via a written response. But again, once they become the majority, they have full subpoena power and that changes everything - it's very important to control as much of the narrative as possible before that happens.
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I'm sorry, but I just don't agree. Releasing drafts of a paper will not control the narrative and very likely backfire.
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I agree with Eddie - keep with line that it is all laid out in the published paper itself. We were just asked to look at the data and say what we thought. We published what we thought.