41 Comments

It's depressing to see the responses to your well-reasoned if somewhat rhetorical case. Your readers seem to include many lunatics.

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Mar 12, 2023Liked by Alex Washburne

The way Peter Daszak writes in an e-mail how he wants to feign independence remains amazing to read. Thanks for your excellent long read; very readable for laymen!

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My wife and I just reread this. Forget what I said about the prose. Excellent.

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Mar 12, 2023Liked by Alex Washburne

If it did become official that covid did come out of scientists 'fiddling with genetics', given that the world doesn't do nuance the public political reaction could be a bit of a problem for many researchers , no ? Could explain an instinctive move on the part of at least some to slap down any suggestion of a lab origin ??

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It would be good to write up the Bayesian evaluation not in a tendentious legal style but as a more neutral style. Some of your major points would go through unchanged. While I'm not an expert I can spot at least one that is pretty far off- the existence of the FCS. You forgot selection bias. By definition of a pandemic, we're not looking at a random SARS virus but one that has been post-selected to spread extremely well in humans. That has a much higher FCS probability, reducing the likelihood ratio for lab/zoonosis from the unselected one you use. This does not change the CGG factor. Even for the CGG factor, however, one should consider that this is a feature picked out post-hoc. Any random event always has some surprising peculiarities when viewed in detail, so some multiple-comparison correction should be included.

I think the posterior odds still favor lab leak, but I don't see why you chose to slant a case that already looks pretty compelling.

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Thank you for the detailed summary. Yet, no meaningful evidence has been presented that proves the release of the virus was an accident. Given this, it is just as likely that the virus was released intentionally. Additionally, anyone releasing it intentionally would likely try to make it look like an accident. This entire affair is diabolical.

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Mar 13, 2023Liked by Alex Washburne

Wow. Thanks for the effort Alex. I need to print this out and read it carefully.

I will say this much. No matter which theory is true, it is embarrassing for the Chinese regime. Either their labs are badly run and mismanaged, or they allow trade in endangered species and allow food markets to be run with a sub 3rd world level of sanitation.

Their course of action is clear. Destroy all of the evidence and provide just enough clues to get Western culture warriors to fight with each other. We can't pin anything on them and they get us to fight with each other. They are laughing at us.

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Nice summary. Listen, I would ditch the first-person narrative, attempt at brief history, and attempt to characterize human populations' reasoning skill. The effect is to evoke in reader, questions, such as "who is this narcissist?" "This guy is a tad full of himself?" Detracts from piece.

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The co-ordinated actions around the lab leak suggest intent although I suppose it's possible that it was an accident that evil brilliant powerful people exploited. Those actions included:

- worldwide lockdowns that jettisoned decades of pandemic plans, breached human rights to a degree never seen before, and ignored the lessons WHO learned from the Japanese Flu pandemic

- rapid development of a vaccine based on the spike protein

- medical coercion for mass vaccination by capturing scientific journals to slander early treatment options

If it's established that the lab leakers benefitted materially from these actions, I would go with conspiracy over cock-up

Brilliant article - thanks!

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Thank you for this. You think the corona viruses were collected in, say, Laos as opposed to within China? Any evidence of travel there by any EcoHealth Alliance folk?

I see some in the Twittersphere now arguing that the origin of SARS CoV 2 is irrelevant and we should rather be focusing on the origin of the response. (Because it’s the response that’s proven more deadly). Both seem important to me.

I don’t think we can be sure how many people have died from covid because that data seems very messy and opaque. El Gato Malo writes an interesting Substack on possible iatrogenic events in the last few years, contributing substantially to the official mortality figures.

Thanks once again. 🙏🙏🙏

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As I'm sure you know, since you worked in virology and epidemiology, there is an interesting but unspoken point about the DEFUSE proposal: yes, it was not selected and not funded in that call for proposals. As for what went on in the potential world of classified funding of similar activities, we may never know.

However, as I'm sure, you know, it is pretty common practice when writing a grant proposal to essentially "propose work you have already done". That way you know that if you get funded, you will succeed in your project's goals (since you've already done the work) and you can use the money that you receive to do the next piece of work. Rinse and repeat.

My point is it is certainly possible that they had already done the work which they proposed to do in DEFUSE. That is fairly common practice across the spectrum when writing grant proposals.

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Thank you.

The best all encompassing summary of this sordid debacle .. I have ever read..

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Mar 11, 2023·edited Mar 11, 2023

Nicely written & very interesting points. The factors, not discussed in the article, such as 1) pharmaceutical companies speedy delivery of supposedly 'novel' 'safe & effective' vaccines; 2) the demonising & denigration of Ivermectin an already proven readily available 'safe & effective' treatment; combined with 3) the censorship & blacklisting of expert medical professionals who were speaking out about existing treatments tells me there was NOTHING accidental about the lab leak.

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Nice sentiment at the end, but we won't truly be able to move on and prevent the next pandemic until Fauci and his confederates are brought to full justice and accountability.

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I agree with Tim’s comment. You are saying, concluding, with what evidence it was an accident??

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