Slack / Private Message Drop — page 1068

drawn from the science. We would not have written what we did if the science had suggested otherwise. Also, the Proximal Origins paper is just a scientific paper in a scientific journal. It's not an order, not a directive, nor an official position. If people disagree and think the data suggested otherwise they could just write their own paper. And some did. This happens in science every day of every week. The lab leak theory is based on one central coincidence: the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in a city (Wuhan) that contains a large lab (the Wuhan Institute of Virology) that works on bat coronaviruses. The most convincing scientific evidence would be the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the pandemic started. If someone can show me that, I would certainly conclude it was a lab leak. Best wishes, Eddie [2022-01-20 12:38:18] [Robert Garry] :beer: [2022-01-20 12:48:57] [Eddie Holmes] At the end of all the day, they will write whatever they want and simply ignore what we tell them. [2022-01-20 12:49:54] [Kristian Andersen] Yup - although still important to put it on the record that all of this is complete nonsense. [2022-01-20 13:01:16] [Eddie Holmes] It is surreal to know the exact truth and yet everyone else think something different. [2022-01-20 13:17:36] [Kristian Andersen] Yeah, I keep telling people this - it's really surreal to be inside a major conspiracy theory and having all the facts so you can see exactly how crazy all of this is. It's pretty interesting - if it wasn't so fucked! [2022-01-20 13:24:08] [Robert Garry] I'm pretty sure that Madeleine is not going to quote the ABC News piece or reveal the whole national academies thing. That little bit of backstory needs not to be relegated to the trashbin of history. [2022-01-20 13:32:20] [Kristian Andersen] I updated my email to her a little... ```I can only speak for our own investigations, however the idea that any of our investigations were influenced by politics or political ramifications of particular hypotheses is false. As an expert having worked on viral origin/emergence questions for more than a decade, such conspiracy theories are, frankly, absurd and insulting. The idea that there was a "prefered narrative" and that people like Drs. Fauci and Farrar had influence over our scientific conclusions (i.e., the idea that there is a conspiracy) is also false - which is clear from e.g., FOIA'd emails and news articles at the time. For example, it is public knowledge that the "origin question" was directly discussed at the level of the White House immediately following the February 1 teleconference - e.g.: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-asks-scientists-investigate-origins-coronavirus/story?id=68807304ABC ABC https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2020/02/national-academies-provide-rapid-response-to-white-house-on-c oronavirus-data-needs