---
type: Conversation
title: Private channel session 577
description: "slack conversation, 16 messages, 2020-11-18."
tags:
  - conversation
  - slack
medium: slack
message_count: 16
started_at: "2020-11-18T20:09:21"
ended_at: "2020-11-18T21:46:19"
duration_seconds: 5818
sources:
  - { id: slack_pm, resource: /sources/slack-pm.md, title: Slack / Private Message Drop, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release" }
generated: { by: randpaul-corpus-pipeline/1.0, at: "2026-08-01T12:42:27Z" }
status: stable
---

A slack conversation of 16 messages spanning 1h 36m.

# Metadata

- **Started:** 2020-11-18T20:09:21
- **Ended:** 2020-11-18T21:46:19
- **Duration:** 1h 36m
- **Participants:** 2
- **Source:** [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md)
- **Pages:** 263-265

# Participants

* [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md)
* [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md)
* [Kristian G. Andersen](/people/kristian-g-andersen.md)
* [Robert F. Garry](/people/robert-f-garry.md)

# Transcript

**[2020-11-18T20:09:21] Kristian G. Andersen:** I quite like this: https://www.independentsciencenews.org/news/ecohealth-alliance-orchestrated-key-scientists-statement-on-natural-origin-of-sars-cov-2/:smiling_imp:

**[2020-11-18T20:36:01] Edward C. Holmes:** But that was bloody obvious and they never tried to hide it. I see this shit is now out: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202000240

**[2020-11-18T20:39:06] Edward C. Holmes:** Wiley are now on my banned list.

**[2020-11-18T20:45:21] Kristian G. Andersen:** Hah, that would never have made it through as a preprint... Yeah, Wiley is junk, junk, junk.

**[2020-11-18T20:45:45] Kristian G. Andersen:** Rossana is fucking nuts and just such a giant amateur.

**[2020-11-18T20:49:52] Edward C. Holmes:** Totally nuts. I can't believe they got away saying that H1N1 of 1977 was a lab escape from China!!! It was actually ashonky vaccination campaign.

**[2020-11-18T20:51:08] Kristian G. Andersen:** ... I missed that part. I thought it was the Russians - but hey, same thing, right? I can see Alina has gone full-onconspiracy with this too. Good stuff. It'll be hilarious looking back at these tweets in a couple of years.

**[2020-11-18T20:53:06] Kristian G. Andersen:** Hah! We have Joel to thank for the China emergence of H1N1 :wink: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0011184

**[2020-11-18T20:53:36] Kristian G. Andersen:** (I know he's been working on SARS-CoV-2 to look at origins - interested to see what he comes up with).

**[2020-11-18T20:57:34] Edward C. Holmes:** Somebody had some Twitter correspondence with Jon Cohen and presented all the evidence that 1977 H1N1 was a dodgy vaccine. There was a pretty convincing paper that Jon seemed to buy. I did. I'll see if I can find it.

**[2020-11-18T20:58:10] Edward C. Holmes:** Plus, that Nature Addendum makes all the miners story totally out-of-date.

**[2020-11-18T21:20:30] Kristian G. Andersen:** Yeah, 1977 is definitely an escape - and likely linked to vaccine work. I thought in Russia though.

**[2020-11-18T21:35:34] Edward C. Holmes:** This is what I was thinking of: [shared file(s): mBio-2015-Rozo-e01013-15.full.pdf]

**[2020-11-18T21:36:50] Edward C. Holmes:** Suggests is a dodgy vaccine trial NOT an escape.

**[2020-11-18T21:43:25] Kristian G. Andersen:** Yup, I read this one when we wrote our paper - it's good. And yes, likely vaccine work, although I'd argue that that's just one type of 'escape'. Never fully proven though, so given all the weirdness we see with Ebola, who knows.

**[2020-11-18T21:46:19] Edward C. Holmes:** Who knows indeed. Good, reasoned argument though.