Most of the facts supporting the Fauci coverup and the proximal origins paper have been out there for almost 3 years. Why has it taken this long for them to get traction.
There are two parallel trends that have evolved in recent decades ––– government bureaucracies have become more insular, more independent, and more controlling through funding ––– scientists have bent to funding agencies, or acted in collusion to perpetrate a social viewpoint.
In parallel, there has been an evolution of blogs, substacks and whatever, where independents keep track of the bureaucracies and scientists, sometimes analyzing their results and claims and often showing malfeasance. Perhaps equally importantly, they sometimes provide synoptic views of the big picture, which the agencies do not seem motivated to do. For example, exactly what have we learned from the Covid experience and how does it prepare us for the next viral pandemic?
Yet, those so exposed go blithely on their way, ignoring these reviews (like the Wizard of Oz saying "pay no attention to the man behind the screen"). The "climategate" emails revealed the inner workings of a cabal of climate scientists who stifled alternate views, got editors fired, and misrepresented data. This is fully documented in the Mosher and Fuller book entitled "Climategate" as well as my book "Assessing Climate Change". Several independents kept detailed track of the work done by these scientists and showed the results (the "hockey stick") to be fallacious. Yet the hockey stick continues to be shown to millions of children worldwide. There are also independents who comment on NASA plans for space exploration. NASA pretends they don't exist. Robert Zubrin was a NASA critic for forty years and widely ignored. I have also played the role of NASA critic with my book "human missions to Mars" now in its third edition, also totally ignored by NASA. A NASA middle manager (who I regard as a friend) recently referred to me as "a nuisance" ––– the highest form of praise I can imagine.
The rise of the independents is very important. The substack provides a means of supporting them.
Picking up on James Mondello's comment: Why does anyone in the US health establishment care that much whether it was an unfortunate accident or a natural occurrence? Because if the NIH funded work in Wuhan, China, and Wuhan released the virus, then it is a great embarrassment to the NIH and the NIH must be held responsible. Even if the NIH is not involved with Wuhan, the possibility that a lab could leak such a virus raises many questions regarding NIH funding for virus research in the US, and NIH control over the scientists they fund. Is the NIH funding China at all for anything, and if so, why? Why is the NIH funding research of viruses that could be dangerous? What are they hoping to learn? How does that benefit us? What level of precaution must be imposed on such research? What control over scientists in the US does the NIH exert because the scientists are funded by the NIH? (Similar question for the control that government agencies exert over climate scientists?)
Thank you for this. I was totally confused by the proximal origins paper. Were the authors insane? Was I insane? Did they know something that they were not disclosing?
Gradually it has emerged that they were lying. Those involved are a total disgrace to the scientific community and should be rebuked.
Guess Fauci et al will consider their efforts to suppress evidence of a lab leak as a Noble lie. Yes, it was a lie, but they lied in our best interests. Never forgive, lest we want another liberty killing virus unleashed.
NIH was funding through grants research for gain of function that was moved from the US to China because under Obama it was deemed to dangerous. I think that’s accurate? Further the individuals that authored the Proximity Paper were all later given NIH grants for their research, coincidence? I believe this was careless research with perhaps good motives done in a lab that was clearly not qualified to do it. The original lab workers were all victims of Covid. Then we give big pharma immunity from liability from any harm caused by the the creation of a vaccine and don’t tell the public about real side effects. The lies just pile on here. It disgusts me that our scientists can be so corrupt. I believe the answer to this problem and others is a press with intellectual curiosity that will not accept what they are told without vigorously examining the facts. Fat chance of that happening people.
Suppose that a new variant of ebola had spread worldwide, and that all of the initial cases had been found in Frederick, MD. The immediate inference would properly be that the outbreak must have had something to do with Fort Detrick. That prior belief should be overcome only by the most convincing evidence in support of some other explanation. If there had been a problem at Fort Detrick, information about it would be classified; if there had been no problem, information about it would not exist. So the absence of information about any failure of procedures inside the base would have no evidential value.
Ron Foucher's claim that "An accusation that nCoV-2019 might have been engineered and released into the environment by humans (accidental or intentional) would need to be supported by strong data, beyond reasonable doubt" and Kristian Andersen's lament that "[We have] been focused on trying to disprove any type of lab theory, but we are at a crossroad where the scientific evidence isn't conclusive enough" get the onus of proof exactly the wrong way around. The first cases were all in a city that houses a research institute associated with the Chinese military which was known to have been researching coronaviruses. So the assumption of a release from the lab should be overcome only by the most conclusive evidence of some other origin.
For me, an odd thing about the whole affair is how little self-awareness these people seemed to have. We are all prone to seeing the world in the way that benefits us, and the lab-leak explanation threatens the political acceptability of research in the field and so threatens their careers. So I can understand how they may have genuinely felt that this dangerous explanation should not be admitted without proof, and that in the absence of evidence then the natural-spillover theory is correct. But they were taking a huge gamble by issuing and promoting a paper that went beyond the evidence and presented their preferred position as unarguable fact. If strong evidence in favour of natural spillover later emerged, they would be vindicated, and no one the wiser that they had gone out on a limb. But if the gamble failed, as it has, they would not only wreck their own credibility but would give fuel to those who claim that all scientists are crooks and their evidence is fabricated. Did they believe that they were so eminent that their judgement would never be doubted and their paper never be tested against reality? Or did they just panic?
It looks like a rip-roaring science scandal, but let's keep in mind the context.
The government was looking at a plague, and they knew they were disastrously short of meds and protective equipment. Emergency conditions.
They might well have believed that tap-dancing around the origins question and pretending not to believe the lab-leak story was the unavoidable price at the time for getting a few extra shipments out of China. For that, I'd cut them some slack.
This is merely a repeat of “decision based evidence making” perfected for climate alarmism.
You can’t be a little pregnant Roger, sooner or later you have to state clearly that all aspects where science, media and government meet are hopelessly corrupt.
Dr. Pielke, do you know the end game of the Select Committee? Is this another attempt to disgrace Trump? The Watergate coverup produced prison terms for those involved, but it also provided great theater for certain Congressmen.
If the goal is some sort of justice, that's one thing. But if this is going to be yet another probe like the Durham Report which results in no action but a lot of wasted paper, why should anyone care? Some measure of justice would be a good thing for those of us who lost loved ones.
It bothers me a great deal that science has lied to us, yet again. A Select Committee on restoring faith and confidence in Science would be a more meaningful effort.
Indian researchers observe the insertion of the furin at the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein cleavage site. (Furin also appears in the virus that causes AIDS.) No other SARS like virus has furin at the spike protein site and it is furin that makes SARS-CoV-2 so much more virulent.
This research is picked up by Luc Montagnier, Nobel Prize winner, and announced in the French Press in April of 2020.
This announcement is ignored by the US mainstream media. Luc Montagnier is denounced as a fringe researcher.
At this point, anyone could have checked the federal grants for research on coronavirus. I did in April of 2020. Grants to the Ecohealth alliance came up. The grants mentioned a sub-award to the Wuhan Institute of virology.
In 2020 and 2021, anyone who discussed the Ecohealth grants on coronavirus gain of function research was written off as a conspiracy theorist. Most had their twitter accounts shadow banned. A widespread propaganda campaign was launched in 2020 (Including in statnews and Science Magazine) to dismiss questions about the lab leak and questions about gain of function research of Ecohealth.
I'm amazed that there are still people in the comment threads suggesting that this didn't happen and that scientists were doing their best to find the origin of covid. Some of these people say they are scientists. If so, then they are extraordinarily incurious "scientists".
These are the scientists we are supposed to trust when people talk about "trusting" or "believing in science". They have done irreprebile harm to the institutions and the citizens they serve. Words fail.
It's a fundamental of scientific progress that any theory has to be put to the test of fallibility. So it's not surprising at all that effort was put into marshalling the evidence against any one theory of origins.
Sixty years ago, President Eisenhower warned that "a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity," and the "danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” Roger, your summary of the events surrounding the lab-leak denial is the most concise - and worrying - that I've read so far.
Most of the facts supporting the Fauci coverup and the proximal origins paper have been out there for almost 3 years. Why has it taken this long for them to get traction.
The rise of the independents
There are two parallel trends that have evolved in recent decades ––– government bureaucracies have become more insular, more independent, and more controlling through funding ––– scientists have bent to funding agencies, or acted in collusion to perpetrate a social viewpoint.
In parallel, there has been an evolution of blogs, substacks and whatever, where independents keep track of the bureaucracies and scientists, sometimes analyzing their results and claims and often showing malfeasance. Perhaps equally importantly, they sometimes provide synoptic views of the big picture, which the agencies do not seem motivated to do. For example, exactly what have we learned from the Covid experience and how does it prepare us for the next viral pandemic?
Yet, those so exposed go blithely on their way, ignoring these reviews (like the Wizard of Oz saying "pay no attention to the man behind the screen"). The "climategate" emails revealed the inner workings of a cabal of climate scientists who stifled alternate views, got editors fired, and misrepresented data. This is fully documented in the Mosher and Fuller book entitled "Climategate" as well as my book "Assessing Climate Change". Several independents kept detailed track of the work done by these scientists and showed the results (the "hockey stick") to be fallacious. Yet the hockey stick continues to be shown to millions of children worldwide. There are also independents who comment on NASA plans for space exploration. NASA pretends they don't exist. Robert Zubrin was a NASA critic for forty years and widely ignored. I have also played the role of NASA critic with my book "human missions to Mars" now in its third edition, also totally ignored by NASA. A NASA middle manager (who I regard as a friend) recently referred to me as "a nuisance" ––– the highest form of praise I can imagine.
The rise of the independents is very important. The substack provides a means of supporting them.
A request to stay on topic here. Thanks!
Picking up on James Mondello's comment: Why does anyone in the US health establishment care that much whether it was an unfortunate accident or a natural occurrence? Because if the NIH funded work in Wuhan, China, and Wuhan released the virus, then it is a great embarrassment to the NIH and the NIH must be held responsible. Even if the NIH is not involved with Wuhan, the possibility that a lab could leak such a virus raises many questions regarding NIH funding for virus research in the US, and NIH control over the scientists they fund. Is the NIH funding China at all for anything, and if so, why? Why is the NIH funding research of viruses that could be dangerous? What are they hoping to learn? How does that benefit us? What level of precaution must be imposed on such research? What control over scientists in the US does the NIH exert because the scientists are funded by the NIH? (Similar question for the control that government agencies exert over climate scientists?)
Thank you for this. I was totally confused by the proximal origins paper. Were the authors insane? Was I insane? Did they know something that they were not disclosing?
Gradually it has emerged that they were lying. Those involved are a total disgrace to the scientific community and should be rebuked.
Guess Fauci et al will consider their efforts to suppress evidence of a lab leak as a Noble lie. Yes, it was a lie, but they lied in our best interests. Never forgive, lest we want another liberty killing virus unleashed.
NIH was funding through grants research for gain of function that was moved from the US to China because under Obama it was deemed to dangerous. I think that’s accurate? Further the individuals that authored the Proximity Paper were all later given NIH grants for their research, coincidence? I believe this was careless research with perhaps good motives done in a lab that was clearly not qualified to do it. The original lab workers were all victims of Covid. Then we give big pharma immunity from liability from any harm caused by the the creation of a vaccine and don’t tell the public about real side effects. The lies just pile on here. It disgusts me that our scientists can be so corrupt. I believe the answer to this problem and others is a press with intellectual curiosity that will not accept what they are told without vigorously examining the facts. Fat chance of that happening people.
Suppose that a new variant of ebola had spread worldwide, and that all of the initial cases had been found in Frederick, MD. The immediate inference would properly be that the outbreak must have had something to do with Fort Detrick. That prior belief should be overcome only by the most convincing evidence in support of some other explanation. If there had been a problem at Fort Detrick, information about it would be classified; if there had been no problem, information about it would not exist. So the absence of information about any failure of procedures inside the base would have no evidential value.
Ron Foucher's claim that "An accusation that nCoV-2019 might have been engineered and released into the environment by humans (accidental or intentional) would need to be supported by strong data, beyond reasonable doubt" and Kristian Andersen's lament that "[We have] been focused on trying to disprove any type of lab theory, but we are at a crossroad where the scientific evidence isn't conclusive enough" get the onus of proof exactly the wrong way around. The first cases were all in a city that houses a research institute associated with the Chinese military which was known to have been researching coronaviruses. So the assumption of a release from the lab should be overcome only by the most conclusive evidence of some other origin.
For me, an odd thing about the whole affair is how little self-awareness these people seemed to have. We are all prone to seeing the world in the way that benefits us, and the lab-leak explanation threatens the political acceptability of research in the field and so threatens their careers. So I can understand how they may have genuinely felt that this dangerous explanation should not be admitted without proof, and that in the absence of evidence then the natural-spillover theory is correct. But they were taking a huge gamble by issuing and promoting a paper that went beyond the evidence and presented their preferred position as unarguable fact. If strong evidence in favour of natural spillover later emerged, they would be vindicated, and no one the wiser that they had gone out on a limb. But if the gamble failed, as it has, they would not only wreck their own credibility but would give fuel to those who claim that all scientists are crooks and their evidence is fabricated. Did they believe that they were so eminent that their judgement would never be doubted and their paper never be tested against reality? Or did they just panic?
It looks like a rip-roaring science scandal, but let's keep in mind the context.
The government was looking at a plague, and they knew they were disastrously short of meds and protective equipment. Emergency conditions.
They might well have believed that tap-dancing around the origins question and pretending not to believe the lab-leak story was the unavoidable price at the time for getting a few extra shipments out of China. For that, I'd cut them some slack.
But then, I'm not a scientist.
This is merely a repeat of “decision based evidence making” perfected for climate alarmism.
You can’t be a little pregnant Roger, sooner or later you have to state clearly that all aspects where science, media and government meet are hopelessly corrupt.
Dr. Pielke, do you know the end game of the Select Committee? Is this another attempt to disgrace Trump? The Watergate coverup produced prison terms for those involved, but it also provided great theater for certain Congressmen.
If the goal is some sort of justice, that's one thing. But if this is going to be yet another probe like the Durham Report which results in no action but a lot of wasted paper, why should anyone care? Some measure of justice would be a good thing for those of us who lost loved ones.
It bothers me a great deal that science has lied to us, yet again. A Select Committee on restoring faith and confidence in Science would be a more meaningful effort.
In the press in France and Quebec in April of 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrBuxaqcvhQ
Indian researchers observe the insertion of the furin at the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein cleavage site. (Furin also appears in the virus that causes AIDS.) No other SARS like virus has furin at the spike protein site and it is furin that makes SARS-CoV-2 so much more virulent.
This research is picked up by Luc Montagnier, Nobel Prize winner, and announced in the French Press in April of 2020.
This announcement is ignored by the US mainstream media. Luc Montagnier is denounced as a fringe researcher.
At this point, anyone could have checked the federal grants for research on coronavirus. I did in April of 2020. Grants to the Ecohealth alliance came up. The grants mentioned a sub-award to the Wuhan Institute of virology.
In 2020 and 2021, anyone who discussed the Ecohealth grants on coronavirus gain of function research was written off as a conspiracy theorist. Most had their twitter accounts shadow banned. A widespread propaganda campaign was launched in 2020 (Including in statnews and Science Magazine) to dismiss questions about the lab leak and questions about gain of function research of Ecohealth.
I'm amazed that there are still people in the comment threads suggesting that this didn't happen and that scientists were doing their best to find the origin of covid. Some of these people say they are scientists. If so, then they are extraordinarily incurious "scientists".
What does "proximal" mean in the context of the title of the paper?
These are the scientists we are supposed to trust when people talk about "trusting" or "believing in science". They have done irreprebile harm to the institutions and the citizens they serve. Words fail.
It's a fundamental of scientific progress that any theory has to be put to the test of fallibility. So it's not surprising at all that effort was put into marshalling the evidence against any one theory of origins.
Sixty years ago, President Eisenhower warned that "a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity," and the "danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” Roger, your summary of the events surrounding the lab-leak denial is the most concise - and worrying - that I've read so far.