Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, pp.234-235 [SLACK_000448] · slack_pm:msg:02437

Date: 2020-10-27 15:37
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Robert F. Garry, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Edward C. Holmes
Topics: Natural origin / zoonotic spillover

Recipients on this medium are inferred from channel membership, not per-message addressing.

Just emailed Lander: Dear Professor Lander, I apologise for troubling you, but I wish to raise my very strong concerns about the online behaviour of one of your employees at The Broad Institute - Dr. Alina Chan. Over the past few months Dr. Chan has used Twitter to make increasingly strong claims about the origin of SARS-CoV-2, in particular that it may be of lab rather than natural origin.Of course, Dr. Chan is absolutely entitled to make these claims even though I strongly disagree with the comments made. However, in recent weeks her tweets have come far more inflammatory and in my opinion have clearly'crossed the line' on multiple occasions. In particular, she has stated that there are serious question marks over the'research integrity' of a number of papers (and their authors) that have been published on SARS-CoV-2 origins. Sheis particularly bothered that the same authors are appearing on multiple papers with the clear implication that she has uncovered some form of conspiracy and that these papers and their authors are therefore tarnished. I am one ofthese authors. In fact, I am the main author in question as I am involved in many of these papers. I've attached anumber of these tweets below. You will see that in one she flippantly accuses people like me of mass murder.While I am all for free speech and dissenting opinion, questioning my research integrity online and implying that I aminvolved in some sort of cover-up is totally unacceptable. I've tried to let this go as much as I can, but enough is now enough. I will therefore pass all her tweets, as well as those of a variety of other people, to my lawyers here toassess if any can be classed as defamation. If they do, I will not hesitate to take legal action.To be clear, I am absolutely assure that there is nothing untoward about any of these papers. For example, she claims that the original sequence data for the bat virus RmYN02 is unavailable, which is plainly incorrect: Dr. Kristian Andersen managed to download it, reassemble the genome, and post it online. What Dr. Chan sees as conspiracyis simply collaboration, and as I've worked on emerging viruses for 30 years and very well known in this field, it is nosurprise that people ask me to be involved in these studies. To tarnish my good name and suggest that I aminvolved, even tacitly, in any conspiracy is deeply, deeply insulting. She seems to have little comprehension of the hurt she is causing good and honest scientists who just want get to the bottom of what happened and who have done nothing wrong. Again, I have no problem with Dr. Chan expressing her opinions but the accusations she is making again me are troubling and insulting. I will not stand for my reputation to be questioned like this. With best wishes,Eddie Holmes

Extracted statements

Rule-extracted, not adjudicated. The grade says what may be done with each one; read the document above before relying on any of them.

Statement	Grade	Attribution	Stance
Chan has used Twitter to make increasingly strong claims about the origin of SARS-CoV-2, in particular that it may be of lab rather than natural origin.Of course, Dr.	own voice, substantive	speaker_own	asserts

Statement

Grade

Attribution

Stance

Chan has used Twitter to make increasingly strong claims about the origin of SARS-CoV-2, in particular that it may be of lab rather than natural origin.Of course, Dr.

own voice, substantive

speaker_own

asserts

In context

A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.

2020-10-27 14:46 Kristian G. Andersen open

"TWitter Associated Triumph delusion" - aka TWAT.
2020-10-27 15:35 Andrew Rambaut open

If you look at all the replies that these people get every time they tweet - it is just a flood of validation saying how brilliant they are, thanking them for telling the truth, how brave they are. Because they are on that side of the fencethey get none of the abuse. It clearly just feeds the delusion.
2020-10-27 15:37 Edward C. Holmes

Just emailed Lander: Dear Professor Lander, I apologise for troubling you, but I wish to raise my very strong concerns about the online behaviour of one of your employees at The Broad Institute - Dr. Alina Chan. Over the past few months Dr. Chan has used Twitter to make increasingly strong claims about the origin of SARS-CoV-2, in particular that it may be of lab rather than natural origin.Of course, Dr. Chan is absolutely entitled to make these claims even though I strongly disagree with the comments made. However, in recent weeks her tweets have come far more inflammatory and in my opinion have clearly'crossed the line' on multiple occasions. In particular, she has stated that there are serious question marks over the'research integrity' of a number of papers (and their authors) that have been published on SARS-CoV-2 origins. Sheis particularly bothered that the same authors are appearing on multiple papers with the clear implication that she has uncovered some form of conspiracy and that these papers and their authors are therefore tarnished. I am one ofthese authors. In fact, I am the main author in question as I am involved in many of these papers. I've attached anumber of these tweets below. You will see that in one she flippantly accuses people like me of mass murder.While I am all for free speech and dissenting opinion, questioning my research integrity online and implying that I aminvolved in some sort of cover-up is totally unacceptable. I've tried to let this go as much as I can, but enough is now enough. I will therefore pass all her tweets, as well as those of a variety of other people, to my lawyers here toassess if any can be classed as defamation. If they do, I will not hesitate to take legal action.To be clear, I am absolutely assure that there is nothing untoward about any of these papers. For example, she claims that the original sequence data for the bat virus RmYN02 is unavailable, which is plainly incorrect: Dr. Kristian Andersen managed to download it, reassemble the genome, and post it online. What Dr. Chan sees as conspiracyis simply collaboration, and as I've worked on emerging viruses for 30 years and very well known in this field, it is nosurprise that people ask me to be involved in these studies. To tarnish my good name and suggest that I aminvolved, even tacitly, in any conspiracy is deeply, deeply insulting. She seems to have little comprehension of the hurt she is causing good and honest scientists who just want get to the bottom of what happened and who have done nothing wrong. Again, I have no problem with Dr. Chan expressing her opinions but the accusations she is making again me are troubling and insulting. I will not stand for my reputation to be questioned like this. With best wishes,Eddie Holmes
2020-10-27 15:39 Edward C. Holmes open

Quite hard to phrase, but I hope that at least shows how pissed off I am. I cc'd Pardis and included a number of the tweets.
2020-10-27 15:40 Robert F. Garry open

Very well done Eddie - the message is quite clear and appropriate..
2020-10-27 15:41 Edward C. Holmes open

Thanks! I'll let you know what happens.
2020-10-27 16:27 Kristian G. Andersen open

@Andrew Rambaut So the opposite of what Eddie and I get when we tweet?

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