Slack / Private Message Drop — page 1067

good suggestions [2022-01-20 11:06:24] [Robert Garry] I'm thinking she is mostly going to quote Andrew and Eddie, but we'll see.... [2022-01-20 11:27:23] [Robert Garry] So distracting - geez... [2022-01-20 11:42:49] [Kristian Andersen] Yes - however, we have a grant to write @Robert Garry with a deadline a week from now... :wink:So let's make sure we focus on that - otherwise the conspiracy theorist will actually have been successful in interfering with science! [2022-01-20 11:43:49] [Robert Garry] I'm getting there - too much preliminary data - making the hard cuts [2022-01-20 12:21:17] [Eddie Holmes] She's e-mailed me a few times. I regret replying now, but this is what I said: ---------- Hi Madeleine, Let me make this absolutely clear: the narrative that we all thought it was a lab leak and were then told by Tony Fauci to write something very different for political reasons is total and utter nonsense. Pure fantasy. Basically, a number of us had initial concerns that the virus was engineered (hence my 60/40 quote) so we arranged a teleconference with a group of experts to discuss this and listened to their opinions. As this discussion was taking place the first data from the pangolin coronavirus became available which clearly showed that the some of the unusual features found in SARS-CoV-2 were also found in nature. We also did more analysis of the genome data that pointed to a natural origin. That's it. We had an hypothesis and tested it with the data as it appeared. That's called science. Our conclusions were entirely based on the science - nothing else. We certainly discussed the wider implications of what we were doing but our conclusions were 100% drawn from the science. Tony Fauci and Francis Collins just wanted to know what the science said. As simple as that. They gave us no direction on what to think. As far I can recall there was no discussion about NIH funding. I consider their behaviour to be impeccable. This issue has also already been covered in detail in Jeremy Farrar's excellent book - 'Spike'. Take a look. Finally, there remains no convincing scientific evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is a laboratory escape. With best wishes, Eddie Holmes -------------------- Hi Madeleine, As I said, we certainly discussed the wider implications of what we were doing. So, we did think that getting something out quickly to counter conspiracy theories, but in a balanced way, was important. But - and this is the key point - we only took that stance because the science pointed toward a natural origin. Our conclusions were entirely