Slack / Private Message Drop — page 11

[Robert Garry] "Garry turned out to be an unexpectedly colourful character. We arranged to meet on a street corner in New Orleans, which was unusual, and he left me standing there in near-40 n heat for more than half-an-hour. Finally I returned to my hotel room to take a shower, only for him to knock on my door 5 minutes later, to say that he had been watching me from his car, and that this had been a necessary security measure. Days after my return to the UK, I phoned Garry to ask some follow-up questions, and he now claimed that some of the Western blots from Robert R. had been stolen from his lab, that this had happened around the time of my visit to New Orleans, and that he suspected me of involvement. I was flabbergasted, and quickly disavowed him of that notion." Two true statements in this revision of history. I admit to being rather colorful, and yes "someone" did break into my office and stole several old notebooks at just the time that Hooper was visting NOLa. I never met him at his hotel room - he did show up at my office a few days before the "break-in" smelling like he had spent the day and night laying in a Bourbon street gutter. Maybe that's where the 40 degree heat came in. Very strange man - I think he's confusing me with someone else - I never wrote a Science about Chimp kidneys (that article is by Andrew Hillis). He's also somewhat right about the Robert R sequences - I never published a paper on the sequences (but stand behind the western blots and the antigen capture) because 1. the sequences from the old 3 foot Sanger gels just not that good and 2. I suspected the short runs we got they might have been contaminants too. [2020-05-05 07:30:28] [Robert Garry] But - running afoul of Hooper - another great reason why I'm a big fan of Andrew and Eddie - good company to find myself in. [2020-05-05 07:34:28] [Robert Garry] And Kristian welcome to this rather exclusive "club." Hooper write; "But for Kristian Andersen to claim that the work by his colleagues and himself "rules out" the lab origin theory, and for Josie Golding to claim that it "end[s] any speculation" along such lines, is clearly premature and inaccurate. There are no such disproofs. I believe that as it stands at present, the lab origin hypothesis is at least as plausible a hypothesis as that of origin from Wuhan bushmeat." [2020-05-05 07:38:25] [Robert Garry] I am just left wondering why W. Ian Lipkin was spared in Hooper's a_d hominem_ rant. Surely he could have found something - somewhere - on Ian, if he just looked in the right place. [2020-05-05 07:51:08] [Kristian Andersen] I'm really looking forward to reading this. And Bob - I gotta say, you _are_ an unexpectedly colourful character... [2020-05-05 08:07:27] [Andrew Rambaut] Have you guys heard about this PCR positive case from December in France? [2020-05-05 08:09:53] [Kristian Andersen] Yeah, I saw the article - seems unlikely. False positive? [2020-05-05 08:15:27] [Andrew Rambaut] They have a +ve and -ve control. Label mix up? [2020-05-05 08:15:42] [Andrew Rambaut] Need a sequence or it didn't happen [2020-05-05 08:16:48] [Robert Garry]