Baric Transcribed Interview (Redacted) — page 151

> wrote: ta come from us. As you know, the White House OSTP asked for expert opinions on this question too (spurred by the HIV nonsense preprint), and Kristian was part of that panel (https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/lab-madecoronavirus-triggers-debate-34502). Our study directly addressed these rumours in a scientific way by considering that a lab escape could have occurred. We did not dismiss this possibility out of hand, but we scientifically investigated it. We strongly reject the idea that we should not have raised nor discussed the possibility of lab escape: as scientists we have to present all the data and discuss it openly. That's what we did. To not have considered or mentioned the possibility of a lab escape would have been negligent. Is the person who emailed you seriously suggesting that we should not have discussed these issues? Wouldn't that be a cover-up? Indeed, the great irony is that 99.9% of the feedback we have received on our paper - including death threats - are people accusing us of dismissing the lab escape theory too quickly. Can you imagine if we had not mentioned - or considered - it all as suggested by some "coronavirus experts"? This clearly appears to be a case of sour grapes based on half-truths and likely stimulated by your recent (great) article with quotes from us on the questions you raised with Dr. Zhengli. It's telling that the person who emailed you is anonymous. We have absolutely no problem with people knowing that our views on this issue have evolved as more data have appeared - and continues to evolve to this day, should more data become available. That's science. And it's the only way to do it well. Indeed, we have told this to many people: the way we set this up was a study of alternative hypotheses equally weighted priors, which we tested - our posterior clearly favors the hypothesis that this is a natural virus. As far as we can tell we are only 'guilty' of following the proper scientific method - but maybe we offended an ivory tower "coronavirus expert" in the process. It likely won't be the last time. Best, Eddie and Kristian ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROFESSOR EDWARD C. HOLMES FAA FRS ARC Australian Laureate Fellow THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases & Biosecurity, School of Life & Environmental Sciences and School of Medical Sciences, The University of Sydney I Sydney I NSW I 2006 I Australia T E @sydney.edu.au On 28 Jul 2020, at 4:54 pm, Jeremy Farrar < @wellcome.ac.uk> wrote: Thanks for forwarding this and the other emails. I would like to get the sequence of events absolutely right from the start. Eddie the start goes back to the calls you and I had on the 8/9th January. Can we get that sequence of events right and agreed before a substantive reply goes back to Jon? Jeremy On 28 Jul 2020, at 02:07, Kristian G. Andersen < @scripps.edu> wrote: Dear Tony,