Im-Politic: Another CCP Virus Failure by “The Science”

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Alison Young, Anthony S. Fauci, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Daily Mail, Dany Shoham, Francis Collins, Glenn Kessler, Im-Politic, Kristian Anderson, Marcia McNutt, National Academy of Science, National Institutes of Health, Peter Daszak, The Lancet, The Washington Times, Tom Cotton, USAToday, virologists, Washington Post, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wuhan lab, Wuhan virus

America’s official scientific establishment is in a huff over the CCP Virus origins theory controversy. “There’s sniping going on in all directions,” groused National Academy of Sciences president Marcia McNutt to a Washington Post reporter. “Her message to everyone,” correspondent Joel Achenbach continued, “cool it.”

Added McNutt:

“If anyone is going to come out strongly on one hypothesis or another, the scientific method says that there should be evidence to back it. I worry when some people are very willing to be firm about one origin or the other but fail to either have the evidence or the expertise to back it up.”

All of which I strongly endorse. But a recent statement of hers, co-signed by her counterparts at the National Academies of Engineering and Medicine, let off the hook the main culprits in turning this debate over whether the pandemic came directly from nature or escaped from a Chinese lab into a brawl. For the record clearly shows that the mudslingers who have sown “public confusion” and risk “undermining the public’s trust in science and scientists, including those still leading efforts to bring the pandemic under control,” first came from the national and global scientific establishments themselves.

Possibly worse, even if you ignore compelling evidence of their powerful self-interest in brushing off the lab leak theory (see, e.g., here) Washington’s own science leaders apparently put up no resistance.

Let’s use for documentation a recent lab leak-related timeline compiled by the Washington Post, which – as compiler Glenn Kessler shows – was one of many mainstream media outlets that portrayed this view as a wild and crazy notion.

According to Kessler, two of the first four presentations of lab leak claims and potentially related views (in January, 2020) came from an apparent Hong Kong democracy supporter on Twitter, and from a study by Chinese researchers published in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet and actually funded by Chinese government agencies.

This study found that, in Kessler’s words, “13 of the 41 cases [of the CCP Virus], including the first documented case, had no link to the seafood marketplace that originally was considered the origin of the outbreak.” In other words, at this admittedly early stage, the natural origin supporters had some major explaining to do.

The other two reports that linked the Chinese facility in question – the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) came in the British newspaper Daily Mail and the American newspaper The Washington Times.

The former simply noted that a 2017 article in the (also prestigious) science publication nature reported that “A laboratory in Wuhan is on the cusp of being cleared to work with the world’s most dangerous pathogens” and that “Some scientists outside China worry about pathogens escaping….”

The latter, titled “Coronavirus may have originated in lab linked to China’s biowarfare program,” was based on an interview with a former Israeli intelligence officer with a biowarfare specialty and a microbiology Ph.D. who contended that “Certain laboratories in the [WIV] have probably been engaged, in terms of research and development, in Chinese [biological weapons], at least collaterally….”

He turned out to be right – as even the Biden administration has acknowledged.

Yet this specialist, Dany Shoham, also said that “In principle, outward virus infiltration might take place either as leakage or as an indoor unnoticed infection of a person that normally went out of the concerned facility. This could have been the case with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but so far there isn’t evidence or indication for such incident.”

So no conspiracy-mongering there, either.

Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, as Kessler noted, has been widely accused of “repeating a coronavirus fringe theory that scientists have disputed.” But as already made clear, many non-fringe-y types had been making similar statements, too, by the time he spoke out in late January.

Moreover, all Cotton said at various time then and in mid-February was:

>”…Wuhan has China’s only biosafety level-four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus.”

>”…super-lab is just a few miles from that [Wuhan seafood] market. Where did it start? We don’t know.” He did add more provocatively that “China lied about virus starting in Wuhan food market.”

But he also argued that “burden of proof is on you & fellow communists” – a claim that was eminently unreasonable given the secrecy with which China had been handling virus-related issues and its outright intimidation of a Chinese researcher who had posted a paper charging that “the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan” and who (in Kessler’s words) “pointed to the previous safety mishaps and the kind of research undertaken at the lab. He withdrew the paper a few weeks later after Chinese authorities insisted no accident had taken place.”

>And on February 9, after Beijing called his remarks “absolutely crazy,” Cotton tweeted the following description of four possible virus origin scenarios:

“1. Natural (still the most likely, but almost certainly not from the Wuhan food market) 2. Good science, bad safety (e.g., they were researching things like diagnostic testing and vaccines, but an accidental breach occurred). 3. Bad science, bad safety (this is the engineered-bioweapon hypothesis, with an accidental breach). 4. Deliberate release (very unlikely, but shouldn’t rule out till the evidence is in). Again, none of these are ‘theories’ and certainly not ‘conspiracy theories.’ They are hypotheses that ought to be studied in light of the evidence.”

Sorry, but there’s no fear-mongering here, either.

But how did the scientific community respond? Twenty-seven of its members published a statement in The Lancet declaring: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that covid-19 does not have a natural origin.” Scientists, they continued “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife.”

This statement, however, suffered fatal conflict of interest flaws in that, as Kessler writes, “it was drafted and organized by Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, which funded [coronavirus] research at WIV with U.S. government grants.” That is, the statement was the product of someone who had everything to lose either if a naturally occurring virus leaked from a lab in a country whose dodgy safety procedures were no secret, or if this lab had – and possibly in cooperation with the Chinese military – created this pathogen and lost control of it (or, as indeed currently seems less likely, at least to me, let it loose).

And although the 27 signers of Daszak’s statement certainly didn’t represent the entire U.S. or global virology or bio-sciences communities, evidently no one in these larger communities’ ranks thought to point out Daszak’s thoroughly compromised position. (Unless – improbably – none of them knew anything about his relationship with the lab?). Even more damningly, neither National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins or U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony S. Fauci (who approved these grants) called out Daszak, either.

Nor were Daszak and the other signers (three of whom have now endorsed investigating the lab leak theory) the only scientists smearing all lab leakers. Last week, a USAToday probe of Fauci’s role in the early stages of the virus origins debate showed that Kristian Anderson, an infectious disease expert at California’s Scripps Research Translational Institute belongs on the list, too. And again, Fauci himself maintained a conspicuous silence.

It was Anderson who first alerted Fauci at the end of January, 2020 to the possibility that the virus might have been a human creation. He subsequently changed his mind – which is perfectly fine, except that his own explanation for the switch contains some contradictions – but for some reason, Anderson wasn’t content to set forth his own views. Just a few days later, in very early February, according to USAToday author Alison Young, he was “telling another group of scientists” that “suggestions of engineering [were] ‘fringe’ and ‘crackpot’ theories.”

Indeed, Anderson went so far as to suggest to the top career U.S. government science officials drafting a letter on the virus (including its origins) that they “be more firm on the question of engineering. The main crackpot theories going around at the moment relate to this virus being somehow engineered with intent and that is demonstrably not the case. Engineering can mean many things and could be done for either basic research or nefarious reasons, but the data conclusively show that neither was done…”

Anderson continued, “If one of the main purposes of this document is to counter those fringe theories, I think it’s very important that we do so strongly and in plain language….”

To the credit of the government scientists (and possibly Fauci, who was involved in the drafting) Anderson’s proposals were rejected. But as the controversy over the virus’ origins continued, and scornful dismissals of the lab leak theory hardened into conventional wisdom, instances of the scientific community, especially inside U.S. government, warning “Not so fast” simply can’t be found. In fact, as detailed in Kessler’s timeline, the only such examples from the professionals that appeared in public during this time came to the in the form of research outside the federal government explaining why the lab leak theory retained varying degrees of plausibility. 

As I’ve previously written, I’m fine with “following the science” when dealing with crises like the pandemic – though not with leaving policy decisions with far-reaching and gigantic ramifications outside science to this particular group of specialists.  But if “the science,” or at least the current group of government officials and advisers, wants continued major input, a much better job will need to be done in carrying out what should a priority responsibility – recognizing and encouraging legitimate scientific debates.  That is, they’ll need to “follow the science” and the actual evidence themselves, instead of simply parroting conventional wisdoms and especially narratives whose origins require thorough investigations themselves.        

Im-Politic: Big Neglected Questions About Washington and the Virus’ Origins

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Anthony S. Fauci, Biden administration, bio-weapons, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Francis Collins, gain-of-function research, Galveston National Laboratory, Im-Politic, Josh Rogin, National Institutes of Health, NIH, perjury, State Department, The Washington Post, Trump administration, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wuhan virus

There’s been lots of commotion in recent weeks about the decision by chief Biden medical adviser Anthony S. Fauci and National Institutes of Health (NIH) chief Francis Collins to use federal government moneys to fund research on dangerous coronaviruses at labs in China – and that’s good. As I wrote in January, there’s enough compelling circumstantial evidence that these resources helped create the CCP Virus to warrant detailed investigations and possibly their firings.

What’s less good is that much of the commotion is missing or obscuring other problems with the Fauci-Collins approach to scientific cooperation with China that are at least equally serious, and that could constitute comparable grounds for their dismissal.

To be sure, the current emphases on this matter aren’t exactly trivial. Clearly, if federal funding helped pay for research at one of the two major virology labs in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first virus cases have been reported, and that this research created the pathogen that has caused so much illness, death, and economic distress in America and around the world, that would represent one of the worst scandals in American history. There are also the questions of whether the feds funded what’s called gain-of-function research (which is unmistakably capable of producing such deadly pathogens) to begin with, and whether they’ve told Congress the truth about these programs in sworn testimony.

But however grave each of these potential offenses, the figurative jury is still correctly out on each. First, it’s not yet at all certain that the virus even came from either lab, as opposed to some form of natural origin. In addition, since there’s no hard-and-fast scienitific consensus on defining gain-of-function research (here’s an official federal summary of the debate), it’s not yet known whether such activity was actually financed by the federal government. It’s true that there’s a U.S. government definition that applies specifically to grants for such activity. But Washington has also given itself wiggle room in applying it.

As a result, it’s far from obvious that Fauci specifically perjured himself in telling Congress that he’s innocent of such accusations. More frustrating, because the term is so fuzzy, a fair and just conclusion may be genuinely impossible to reach. This holds in principle despite Collins’ claim (not under oath) that NIH has never “approved any grant that would have supported ‘gain-of-function’ research on coronaviruses that would have increased their transmissibility or lethality for humans” – which of course raises the question of what kind of gain-of-function work might have been approved.

Moreover, even if Fauci and Collins did actually approve gain-of-function research in China, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the particular project they subsidized produced the virus in question. And that may never be finally determined, either, because China may well have destroyed the evidence needed to provide a definitive answer.

When it comes, however, to making sure that U.S. international science cooperation policy adequately safeguards America’s health and security going forward, some crucial questions are being neglected so far.

For example, just before its term ran out, the Trump administration stated publicly that even though the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV – which received the controversial U.S. research grant) presents itself as a “civilian institution, the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military. The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.” Nor has the Biden administration disputed this allegation – even when the President’s national security adviser was asked about it directly.

Further, virus research has always had obvious links to biological weapons research, and there’s no bright line in China (or anywhere in the world these days) between civilian technologies and innovation and military technologies and innovation. No one with any credibility has explicitly charged that Beijing intended the results of its virology research to be used militarily. But no one with a lick of common sense could dismiss this prospect, either. Did either Fauci or Collins consider it? If so, neither has mentioned it yet.

Then there are the secrecy and oversight issues. Fauci has claimed that “You never know” whether grant recipients are trustworthy. But even though governments in both China and the United States (and every other country) keep lots of secrets, military and otherwise, and even though all go overboard with the secrecy too often, who can doubt that China is in a class by itself for blocking transparency, and for lacking systemic means of exposing improperly kept secrets?

In other words, even assuming that the U.S. government can never completely ensure that grantees won’t lie, did Fauci or Collins ever consider that trustworthiness in China is a special problem, and required special monitoring procedures to be in place before any money was transferred – especially given the bio-weapons angle? Not only is there, again, no reason yet to believe that either of them did, Fauci has even told Congress that the Chinese recipients are in fact “trustworthy.” (See the above-linked CNBC.com post.   .

And don’t forget safety – an issue on which the available evidence indicates that lackadaisical attitudes weren’t confined to Fauci and Collins.

A Washington Post article has reported that in 2018 – that is, during the Trump administration – concerns about the WIV’s coronavirus studies led the State Department to send some of its China-based science specialists to the facility to check on its safety conditions. They found enough subpar standards and practices to warn about the risks of a leak causing a pandemic. And here’s where the story gets especially troubling, and where many more questions need to be answered.

According to the Post report, the WIV’s own officials asked for help in this regard, and the State Department inspectors concluded that the best U.S. response was providing assistance – both because they considered the work to be valuable and because the coronavirus research was being supported by “the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and other U.S. organizations.” That is, the NIH of Fauci and Collins wasn’t the only federal government sources of funding.

It’s not clear that they also got word of the slipshod conditions at the WIV. It’s not even clear that the Galveston lab did. But is it credible to suppose that they were left in the dark? (Its head, interestingly, gave a non-denial-type denial in this April, 2020 interview. To my knowledge, Fauci hasn’t been asked the question.)

All that’s known for sure is (1) that the Post article (and a follow-up Politico piece from the same correspondent, Josh Rogin) reported that the State Department inspectors’ request for more assistance wasn’t granted; and (2) that the NIH-funded research wasn’t suspended until April, 2020.

It’s vital that responses to all these unanswered and sometimes unasked questions be forthcoming.

At this point, therefore, it’s possible that Fauci and Collins are off the hook on the safety issue – and that others who served in the State Department during the Trump years are squarely hanging from it. Otherwise, however, it looks like this pair decided to support dangerous and potentially catastrophic biological research by a regime known for its disregard for the safety of its own people – let alone foreigners – in its pursuit of power, for its eagerness to turn scientific advances into military assets, for its obsession with secrecy and impressive capability for remaining opaque, and, last but not least, for its growing determination to challenge U.S. national security interests.

Finding out why on earth this idea ever entered or stayed in their heads seems a lot more important than haggling over whether in some technical or even legal sense they were or weren’t funding gain-of-function research.