May 1, 2025 03:44 PM
Wuhan lab leak: Science over spectacle
https://rationaloptimistsociety.substack...-spectacle
EXCERPTS: . . . The topic deserves more serious debate: the five-year attempt to cover-up and suppress all discussion of the lab leak theory is not a Hollywood-style fable; it is a Watergate-style scandal. Fauci did not cause this scandal, but his role in making it possible cannot be avoided...
[...] Fauci defended “gain of function” experiments .... When President Obama suspended federal funding for such work in 2014, Fauci’s agency diverted large sums of money to China, via an organisation called the EcoHealth Alliance (hence, presumably, the date of his pardon). Congressional investigations allege that taxpayer money was used to facilitate dangerous gain-of-function experiments in Wuhan.
When humanity got badly snake-bitten in 2019, Fauci “prompted” the writing of a paper rubbishing the claim that there were vipers in the basket. Five scientists obediently authored the paper, arguing a position that – we know from their subpoenaed emails and messages – some of them privately disagreed with.
There is a glaring double standard here. Scientists are happy to sensationalise future risks to humanity from runaway climate change or malevolent artificial intelligence. Ten years ago, they were keen to warn about the risks of virology labs, too...
[...] However, if the Trump administration really does think a “LAB LEAK” is the “true origin of Covid-19”, as its website says, then why is it not opening the books? Since appointing strong lab leak believers to key positions, the White House has revealed few further details of what happened in early 2020 to cover up the scandal. The flood of evidence that Fauci’s elves were hiding things and frustrating freedom of information requests (by using private email addresses, strategically misspelling names and so forth) came from Congress last year, not the Executive.
Then last week, to the horror of lab leakers, Fauci’s temporary replacement was announced: Jeff Taubenberger, described by the journalist Hans Mahncke as “a gain-of-function fanatic who was knee-deep in the Covid origin cover-up”. He is the man who thought it a good idea to dig up the corpse of a woman in Alaska who died of influenza in 1918, extract that virus from her lungs and reconstruct it.
When will we see action rather than rhetoric, say those who excavated the mountain of evidence that a Wuhan lab leak almost certainly caused the pandemic? (MORE - missing details)
https://rationaloptimistsociety.substack...-spectacle
EXCERPTS: . . . The topic deserves more serious debate: the five-year attempt to cover-up and suppress all discussion of the lab leak theory is not a Hollywood-style fable; it is a Watergate-style scandal. Fauci did not cause this scandal, but his role in making it possible cannot be avoided...
[...] Fauci defended “gain of function” experiments .... When President Obama suspended federal funding for such work in 2014, Fauci’s agency diverted large sums of money to China, via an organisation called the EcoHealth Alliance (hence, presumably, the date of his pardon). Congressional investigations allege that taxpayer money was used to facilitate dangerous gain-of-function experiments in Wuhan.
When humanity got badly snake-bitten in 2019, Fauci “prompted” the writing of a paper rubbishing the claim that there were vipers in the basket. Five scientists obediently authored the paper, arguing a position that – we know from their subpoenaed emails and messages – some of them privately disagreed with.
There is a glaring double standard here. Scientists are happy to sensationalise future risks to humanity from runaway climate change or malevolent artificial intelligence. Ten years ago, they were keen to warn about the risks of virology labs, too...
[...] However, if the Trump administration really does think a “LAB LEAK” is the “true origin of Covid-19”, as its website says, then why is it not opening the books? Since appointing strong lab leak believers to key positions, the White House has revealed few further details of what happened in early 2020 to cover up the scandal. The flood of evidence that Fauci’s elves were hiding things and frustrating freedom of information requests (by using private email addresses, strategically misspelling names and so forth) came from Congress last year, not the Executive.
Then last week, to the horror of lab leakers, Fauci’s temporary replacement was announced: Jeff Taubenberger, described by the journalist Hans Mahncke as “a gain-of-function fanatic who was knee-deep in the Covid origin cover-up”. He is the man who thought it a good idea to dig up the corpse of a woman in Alaska who died of influenza in 1918, extract that virus from her lungs and reconstruct it.
When will we see action rather than rhetoric, say those who excavated the mountain of evidence that a Wuhan lab leak almost certainly caused the pandemic? (MORE - missing details)