---
type: Conversation
title: Private channel session 1530
description: "slack conversation, 19 messages, 2021-06-20."
tags:
  - conversation
  - slack
medium: slack
message_count: 19
started_at: "2021-06-20T16:41:04"
ended_at: "2021-06-20T17:13:23"
duration_seconds: 1939
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 19 messages spanning 0h 32m.

# Metadata

- **Started:** 2021-06-20T16:41:04
- **Ended:** 2021-06-20T17:13:23
- **Duration:** 0h 32m
- **Participants:** 3
- **Source:** [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md)
- **Pages:** 952-954

# 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

**[2021-06-20T16:41:04] Edward C. Holmes:** What happened? I'm out of town for a few days.

**[2021-06-20T16:41:59] Kristian G. Andersen:** JB being JB - King of DRASTIC.

**[2021-06-20T16:42:53] Edward C. Holmes:** He's totally lost it. His paper is clearly racist.

**[2021-06-20T16:43:07] Kristian G. Andersen:** Yup.

**[2021-06-20T16:43:59] Kristian G. Andersen:** Which was pointed out to him. Repeatedly. Yet - :man-shrugging:. In his words "I'll take the heat" (I pointed to out this wasn't about him, but :man-shrugging:)

**[2021-06-20T16:48:19] Edward C. Holmes:** Such a stupid thing to do. He could have raised these points without all the accusations.

**[2021-06-20T16:49:41] Kristian G. Andersen:** Yup. And concluded - "It'd be really helpful if the samples were still available and full genomes could be produced". But no - he finishes on how this is a failure of science because the Chinese scientists are lying bastards.

**[2021-06-20T16:50:18] Robert F. Garry:** I think some of this is about "taking the heat" or at least forcing his way into the spotlight. He'll be a hero to DRASTIC and Alina - will this be a step too far for any of the rest of the Bloomshiters. Btwn JB and AC they are pretty much making a mockery of science. We'll know for sure when he starts making the rounds on Fox and Murdoch.

**[2021-06-20T16:50:22] Kristian G. Andersen:** Tone deaf. :notes:

**[2021-06-20T16:50:22] Edward C. Holmes:** I can't believe he is really that naive

**[2021-06-20T16:51:16] Kristian G. Andersen:** After this meeting, I honestly think something might be wrong with him. But I'm not going to speculate.

**[2021-06-20T16:51:41] Kristian G. Andersen:** And it's not as much naive as it's willful ignorance.

**[2021-06-20T16:52:15] Edward C. Holmes:** I'm just disgusted that he has printed a FOIAd email in which the authors have no say

**[2021-06-20T16:52:47] Kristian G. Andersen:** Agreed. He brought up the pangolin genomes. And RaTG13. It's full on conspiracy. \

**[2021-06-20T16:54:23] Kristian G. Andersen:** "I'm just asking questions". He ended on talking about other data that had been deleted - from GISAID. My Google search above - I wonder where he got that idea from.... (stuff is being deleted on GISAID all the time - we do it,Andrew does it, everybody does it - when we realize the data aren't quite right / contaminants).

**[2021-06-20T16:59:23] Edward C. Holmes:** Amazing

**[2021-06-20T17:01:30] Kristian G. Andersen:** I'm sure Tony had to make an extra call to his security service - "Be ready, folks". Anyways - we'll see. But hugely disappointing. Archiving a version of the preprint here with my highlights. [shared file(s): Bloom Preprint.pdf]

**[2021-06-20T17:05:18] Edward C. Holmes:** Is it up yet? I'm deliberately not looking at the bioRxiv queue as I don't want to have anything to do with this is in any way. Indeed, if bioRxiv post something that includes FOIA stuff I may quit

**[2021-06-20T17:13:23] Kristian G. Andersen:** I haven't seen it in the quick queue yet.