---
type: Conversation
title: Private channel session 1353
description: "slack conversation, 18 messages, 2021-05-11."
tags:
  - conversation
  - slack
medium: slack
message_count: 18
started_at: "2021-05-11T02:45:17"
ended_at: "2021-05-11T02:56:23"
duration_seconds: 666
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 18 messages spanning 0h 11m.

# Metadata

- **Started:** 2021-05-11T02:45:17
- **Ended:** 2021-05-11T02:56:23
- **Duration:** 0h 11m
- **Participants:** 2
- **Source:** [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md)
- **Pages:** 773-775

# 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

**[2021-05-11T02:45:17] Edward C. Holmes:** Was chatting to some of WHO people about the RelBloom thing today...their reaction is :man-facepalming:

**[2021-05-11T02:45:54] Edward C. Holmes:** I also had a very interesting chat with my Deep Throat in China. Got the following:

**[2021-05-11T02:46:23] Edward C. Holmes:** "No evidence so far indicate that the WIV has the virus in storage."

**[2021-05-11T02:46:44] Edward C. Holmes:** "I think George is leading the effort and BGI is help with all the sequencing works. That's the national team, although other team are also working on similar project, but with smaller scale. There has been huge effort on environments(wet market in Wuhan) and wild-life animals (all over China, including bats and pangolines). I myself is involved inthese some of the work (one with pangoline and the other with the Gamey taste animals), but nothing relavent isfound at this stage. And I haven't heard anything interesting from others either. George previously wanted me toinvolve in the data analyses, and promised to send the hard disk, but they never arrived. So I guess he is having second…

**[2021-05-11T02:47:10] Edward C. Holmes:** Plus this awesome figure: [shared file(s): Fig 1 Hv20210510v2.pdf]

**[2021-05-11T02:48:16] Edward C. Holmes:** So, nothing found yet but great they are looking so hard. Can't see any evidence for mink or raccoon dog testing though.

**[2021-05-11T02:53:01] Robert F. Garry:** That's super interesting @Eddie Holmes Yes indeed I'm glad they are looking so hard!

**[2021-05-11T02:53:07] Robert F. Garry:** I was typing this: JC is one of a handful of science journo that could get this right. He's probably non to happy _Science_ is publishing this crap. I find it interesting they give a Editorial credit to Jennifer Sills. On further reflectionof RelBloomshit the the two things that piss me off the most are: 1. the assertion that there is "no clear evidence" for natural origin in the WHO report and 2. "Not racists, however, the Chinese scientists, authorities, and public health officials are lying." 1 is an argument from authority meant to demean a scientific conclusion they don't like andconfuse ppl, while 2 is a self-serving plea to ignore the fact that they are proposing a massive cover-up…

**[2021-05-11T02:55:17] Edward C. Holmes:** My strategy now is try and do as much with China as I can get an insight into what the fuck is going on. Totally agree with your take Bob. #2 is really, really sleazy.

**[2021-05-11T02:56:23] Edward C. Holmes:** That they are looking so bloody hard suggests to me that they clearly think it is natural. Why bother if it's engineered? SLACK_000988

**[2021-05-11T02:56:23] Robert F. Garry:** It will be interesting to see what Daszak, Koopsman and others have to say about RelBloomshit. Surely they are not going to sit still and agree about the "no clear evidence."

**[2021-05-11T02:56:23] Edward C. Holmes:** Surely not. All the WHO team have seen it.

**[2021-05-11T02:56:23] Robert F. Garry:** "My strategy now is try and do as much with China as I can get an insight into what the fuck is going on." More power to you on this!

**[2021-05-11T02:56:23] Robert F. Garry:** @Eddie Holmes It's really something - yeah Jon publish it. [shared file(s): image.png]

**[2021-05-11T02:56:23] Robert F. Garry:** @Eddie Holmes A random thought - why is eDim not a signer of RelBloomshit? Going direct at NIH OD Collins maybe too radical? Any journo that really wanted to sink in teeth would find the motherload. [shared file(s): image.png]

**[2021-05-11T02:56:23] Robert F. Garry:** "We should show the same determination in promoting a dispassionate science-based discourse on this difficult but important issue." They want a determined but dispassionate science-based discourse on the topic that WIV was doing GoF research with the CCP army on a secret progenitor of SC2. Like I said this is starting to really piss me off.I may put my scenario diagrams up on virological.

**[2021-05-11T02:56:23] Robert F. Garry:** @Eddie Holmes https:/(www.rawstory.com/rand-paul-vs-anthony-fauci-hearing-2652950727/?utm_source=push_notifications It's getting hot out there!

**[2021-05-11T02:56:23] Robert F. Garry:** Wuhan wildlife markets suggests SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin Robert F. Garry1.2 Introduction Our previous commentary on the Proximal Origins of SARS-CoV-2 (Andersen et al., 2020) concluded that, "SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus (Andersen et al., 2020)." The possibility of a laboratory release or Lab Leak was also considered, but it was determined that a natural origin ofSARS-CoV-2 is much more likely. Recently, a team of scientists under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO) reached similar conclusions (WHO Report, 2021). Other groups have speculated that SARS-CoV-2 may be the result of undisclosed research on SARS-CoV-2 or a…