Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.1065 [SLACK_001279] · slack_pm:msg:11118

Date: 2022-01-20 10:14
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Robert F. Garry, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Kristian G. Andersen
Topics: Intelligence community assessments Lab-leak / accidental release hypothesis FOIA, records and transparency

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

Here's my drafted reply - suggestions? ```I can only speak for our own investigations, however the idea that any of our investigations were influenced bypolitics or political ramifications of particular hypotheses is false and, frankly, absurd. The idea that there was a"prefered narrative" and that people like Drs. Fauci and Farrar had influence over our scientific conclusions (i.e., the idea that there is a conspiracy) is also false - which is clear from e.g., FOIA'd emails and news articles at the time. For example, it is public knowledge that the "origin question" was directly discussed at the level of the White House early in the pandemic - e.g.:https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-asks-scientists-investigate-origins-coronavirus/story?id=68807304ABCABChttps://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2020/02/national-academies-provide-rapid-response-to-white-house-on-coronavirus-data-needsAs others have stated, our conclusions - published in two peer reviewed scientific papers - have been driven strictlyby science. That was true in 2020 when the pandemic started and that is true today. Our earlier conclusions have only been further strengthened by additional scientific evidence and analyses - and the absence of evidence from the recently completed investigations by the US intelligence community. For hypotheses that have been "unduly influenced" by "political ramifications" you need look no further than the narrative around the "lab leak" theory or the many conspiracy theories currently being amplified, including the ones suggesting that scientific investigations were "unduly influenced by the political ramifications of the hypothesis". Best, Kristian```

Links shared

news https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-asks-scientists-investigate-origins-coronavirus/story?id=68807304ABCABChttps://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2020/02/national-academies-provide-rapid-response-to-white-house-on-coronavirus-data-needsAs

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
Our earlier conclusions have only been further strengthened by additional scientific evidence and analyses - and the absence of evidence from the recently completed investigations by the US intelligence community.	quoted / not their view	quoted_external inside quotation marks	asserts
For hypotheses that have been "unduly influenced" by "political ramifications" you need look no further than the narrative around the "lab leak" theory or the many conspiracy theories currently being amplified, including the ones suggesting that scientific investigations were "unduly influenced by the political ramifications of the hypothesis".	quoted / not their view	quoted_external inside quotation marks	asserts

Statement

Grade

Attribution

Stance

Our earlier conclusions have only been further strengthened by additional scientific evidence and analyses - and the absence of evidence from the recently completed investigations by the US intelligence community.

quoted / not their view

quoted_external inside quotation marks

asserts

For hypotheses that have been "unduly influenced" by "political ramifications" you need look no further than the narrative around the "lab leak" theory or the many conspiracy theories currently being amplified, including the ones suggesting that scientific investigations were "unduly influenced by the political ramifications of the hypothesis".

quoted / not their view

quoted_external inside quotation marks

asserts

In context

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

2022-01-20 10:13 Kristian G. Andersen open

Alright, I got an email from the Sunday Times reporter as well: [shared file(s): Screen Shot 2022-01-20 at 10.12.43AM.png]
2022-01-20 10:14 Kristian G. Andersen

Here's my drafted reply - suggestions? ```I can only speak for our own investigations, however the idea that any of our investigations were influenced bypolitics or political ramifications of particular hypotheses is false and, frankly, absurd. The idea that there was a"prefered narrative" and that people like Drs. Fauci and Farrar had influence over our scientific conclusions (i.e., the idea that there is a conspiracy) is also false - which is clear from e.g., FOIA'd emails and news articles at the time. For example, it is public knowledge that the "origin question" was directly discussed at the level of the White House early in the pandemic - e.g.:https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-asks-scientists-investigate-origins-coronavirus/story?id=68807304ABCABChttps://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2020/02/national-academies-provide-rapid-response-to-white-house-on-coronavirus-data-needsAs others have stated, our conclusions - published in two peer reviewed scientific papers - have been driven strictlyby science. That was true in 2020 when the pandemic started and that is true today. Our earlier conclusions have only been further strengthened by additional scientific evidence and analyses - and the absence of evidence from the recently completed investigations by the US intelligence community. For hypotheses that have been "unduly influenced" by "political ramifications" you need look no further than the narrative around the "lab leak" theory or the many conspiracy theories currently being amplified, including the ones suggesting that scientific investigations were "unduly influenced by the political ramifications of the hypothesis". Best, Kristian```
2022-01-20 10:24 Robert F. Garry open

It's good - no suggestions. I got the almost same email. My response will be shorter and perhaps not as collegial.
2022-01-20 10:24 Kristian G. Andersen open

Just updated my last paragraph - because, fuck this - time to call a spade a spade.
2022-01-20 10:25 Robert F. Garry open

Dear Professor Garry, I hope you are well. I am a reporter with The Sunday Times newspaper and I am writing an article for this weekend's paper about the scientific community's investigations into the origins of SARS-CoV-2. In this article I suggest that the scientific consensus reached around the possibility of a laboratory origin for SARS-CoV-2, driven in large part by the seminal Proximal Origin paper, may have been unduly influenced by the political ramifications of the hypothesis. Sorry to say this, but your suggestion is misinformed and completely inaccurate.I mention that the authors have maintained that the process behind the paper was strictly scientific.It was - I concur.I also mention that on a February 1 teleconference you felt a natural scenario to be implausible. Again apologies, but that's completely ridiculous. We were looking at the various SARS-CoV-2 origins scenarios -natural and lab-based - agnostically. I was simply putting the best argument forward in the moment that the FCS might have been engineered - it wasn't. Amongst all the other arguments/emails/discussion on this topic I was having it's cherry-picking and completely out-of-context. There were dozens of other contemporaneousemails/conversations where I was arguing the opposite. It's how science is done.If you would like to respond, please could you do so by my deadline at midday tomorrow? I cannot guarantee that any response will be printed in the piece. Very best,Madeleine
2022-01-20 10:27 Robert F. Garry open

This Sunday Times will be bad - I think Wade's will be much worse.

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