It's a funny right-wing fiction when Dr Fauci, Dr Baric and the WHO say it should be investigated.

This 3-part series reminds me a bit of a prosecutor’s presentation to a grand jury in the sense that it is entirely one sided. Kristian Andersen and others are great expert witnesses who can help thoroughly “demolish” the science writer Nicholas Wade. But don’t we need to hear from the 18 scientists who issued a letter in the May 14, 2021 issue of Science which stated that “We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data”?

Since so many here have compared any scientist who hasn’t declared allegiance to the zoonotic theory to the paid hacks of the oil and tobacco industries, I am going to include the list with their credentials:
1. Jesse D. Bloom1,2,
2. Yujia Alina Chan3,
3. Ralph S. Baric4,
4. Pamela J. Bjorkman5,
5. Sarah Cobey6,
6. Benjamin E. Deverman3,
7. David N. Fisman7,
8. Ravindra Gupta8,
9. Akiko Iwasaki9,2,
10. Marc Lipsitch10,
11. Ruslan Medzhitov9,2,
12. Richard A. Neher11,
13. Rasmus Nielsen12,
14. Nick Patterson13,
15. Tim Stearns14,
16. Erik van Nimwegen11,
17. Michael Worobey15,
18. David A. Relman16,17,*
1. 1Basic Sciences and Computational Biology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA.
2. 2Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD 20815, USA.
3. 3Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
4. 4Department of Epidemiology and Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.
5. 5Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
6. 6Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
7. 7Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada.
8. 8Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology & Infectious Disease, Cambridge, UK.
9. 9Department of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06519, USA.
10. 10Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases and Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
11. 11Biozentrum, University of Basel and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Basel, Switzerland.
12. 12Department of Integrative Biology and Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
13. 13Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
14. 14Department of Biology and Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
15. 15Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
16. 16Department of Medicine and Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
17. 17Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

The third part of the series notes in passing that Baric “was one of the signatories calling for more investigation into the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus” without any further mention of the document he signed or acknowledgment of the implications of his signature.

And the series never acknowledges that every single scientist participating in gain of function research has a conflict of interest on the subject of C19’s origins. That doesn’t mean they are wrong, and of course they are going to be some of the people with the most knowledge on the subject, but it standard practice to acknowledge such things, and I have never seen that in any article by the WSWS.

This series also doesn’t give any indication that gain of function research is dangerous and legitimately controversial. Instead we are told, “gain-of-function experiments, another hobby horse of the “lab leak” proponents, are efforts to determine different ways that a virus can strengthen its infectiveness, in order to anticipate the future development of dangerous pathogens.”

For those who don’t know, as this exert from Wikipedia notes, there have been literally hundreds of scientists with grave concerns about this “hobby horse” well before C19:

The Cambridge Working Group was formed by Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch with fellow scientists at a meeting held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, following a "trifecta" of biosecurity incidents involving the CDC, including the accidental exposure of viable anthrax to personnel at CDC's Roybal Campus,[40][41] the discovery of six vials containing viable smallpox from the 1950s mislabeled as Variola at the FDA's White Oak campus,[42] and the accidental shipping of H9N2 vials contaminated with H5N1 from the CDC lab to a USDA lab.[43]
On July 14, 2014, the group published a Consensus Statement authored by 18 founding members, including Amir Attaran, Barry Bloom, Arturo Casadevall, Richard H. Ebright, Alison Galvani, Edward Hammond, Thomas Inglesby, Michael Osterholm, David Relman, Richard Roberts, Marcel Salathé and Silja Vöneky. Since its initial publication, over 300 scientists, academics, and physicians have added their signature.[44][45]
The statement advocates for all work involving potential pandemic pathogens to be halted until a quantitative and objective assessment of the risks has been undertaken. It then argues that alternative approaches that do not involve such risks should be used instead.[44][46][47]
The group engaged in public advocacy, influencing the US Government's decision in Dec 2015 to issue a moratorium on funding research creating certain types of novel potential pandemic pathogens.

Are we to believe that these 300 plus scientists are all members of the far right setting up in advance an attack on Dr. Shi Zhengli regarding a virus not yet in existence when the group was formed?

And where does the funding for gain of function research come from? Even the racist Wade admitted that any lab origin theory necessarily pointed back at the United States. USAID, an organization that has been characterized by the WSWS as a CIA front, gave money to Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance, which helped fund WIV, in addition to whatever it does within the United States and around the globe.

The virus may well be entirely from nature. But if it isn’t, hasn’t the WSWS just written a brief that seeks the exoneration of the US intelligence agencies? Daszak has already thanked the WSWS for its coverage, as proudly reported by the WSWS on June 3!

Also, consider this recent article:

https://fair.org/home/us-me...

1. But we have heard from the 18 and the best they could muster was an unfinished sentence “We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data”.

A) Weirdly, they neglect to specify, sufficient data to do what, or who should provide it? This sets up for an open-ended witch-hunt designed (for political expediency) to remain discontented with any amount of data demonstrating its premise is baseless. Indeed it reeks heavily of the Iraqi WMDs trap, whereby the burden of proof is reversed upon the accused who is forced under threats of war to supply endless data to prove his innocence to the Star Chamber of insatiable inquisitors, who are already furiously divvying up the soon-to-be conquered oil-fields amongst themselves.

B) They add no information of scientific value and in fact decrement from the sum of knowledge by implying that experts like Kristian Andersen have not taken the lab-leak/engineered virus hypothesis seriously, which is proven false by his subsequently published early email correspondence with Fauci.

C) At that time Andersen et al saw sufficient data to convince them the lab-leak/engineered virus hypothesis could be safely discounted and the 18 signatories have in the interim brought no evidence to alter the consensus on that. The accumulating scientific evidence uniformly points in only one direction.

D) In short, their statement reduces to a plea to give the CIA more time to confect a passable agit-prop narrative which will serve the pressing but self-evidently rotten political agenda of Yanki Imperialism, namely deflection of responsibility from itself by warmongering against the "enemy" nation which was already scheduled to be liberated destroyed in any case.

2. At least one signatory, Pamela Bjorkman, has since withdrawn her support for the letter, having belatedly recognised its politicised nature.

3. There is no special implication to Ralph Baric's signature here: it is quite possible that he succumbed to political pressure and would prefer to carry on in his career, so signing up to this carefully tailored ostensible non-statement may have seemed a small penalty to pay to keep the Neo-McCarthyites off his back.

4. "And the series never acknowledges that every single scientist participating in gain of function research has a conflict of interest on the subject of C19’s origins." -- This is utter nonsense, borne of circular logic. You assume (for no good reason & despite all evidence indicating a natural origin) that SARS-CoV-2 is the result of GoF research, therefore all those working in or near that field (namely the most qualified experts) are to be tarred with guilt by association and disbarred from discussing its origins, leaving a clear path for Pompeo, Bannon and such vile dregs to easily drown out the actual science with their blaring propaganda. Objectively, you are acting as their useful idiot in this pursuit.

5. Your tortured efforts to equate WSWS' scientifically & politically reasoned position on this subject, via the funding of EHA, to a defence of the interests of US intelligence agencies, are simply ludicrous.

6. Should Dr. Daszak not appreciate the accurate coverage of WSWS, a lonely rock of reason sticking up in a boiling sea of bourgeois lies and misinfo? You are affronted by the scent of an accused witch, eh? Get used to it is my best advice.

And here I thought the "China Virus" tale was adopted by those who are going to hate China anyway.......

From Nobel Prize winners to top virologists, there is still a very convincing case (despite this 3-part series) to be made for a helpful human hand in bringing this virus into final form.....even though it hasn't been, and never will be, publicly admitted to.

Destroyed evidence from the WIV and outright obfuscation by the Chinese authorities only heighten the suspicions about Wuhan specifically.....but it's true they aren't the only candidates.

Funny that no-one, including yourself, is bothering to make that "very convincing case" then.

Don't forget to provide the sources if you ever get around to having more than a lazy passing stab.

Ive linked this 3-part series to a number of friends, ranging from liberal democrats to dranged supporters of alex jones or qanon, in order to set forth the truth of this conspiracy. I doubt they'll read it, as believing the talking heads on TV and "trusted" sources like greenwald, dore, taibbi, stewart, etc etc is much easier than actually challenging yourself to understand the nature of coronavirus.

Kudos WSWS, once again you are a bastion of truth for the working class.

So after over a year of extensive searching, there is no known zoonotic source for this virus. Furthermore, the Wuhan lab and its coronavirus experiments aren't really all that likely either.

Maybe time to take a closer look at Fort Detrick?

The Covid Bioweapon, Made in the USA, Aimed at China; by Mike Whitney & Ron Unz

Benjamin Mateus has done an excellent job rounding up and summarizing the relevant scientific reports from the complex field of virology and distilling them into a clear summary for readers, although some scientific training definitely helps.

What strikes me is the ease with which good science can be perverted for political purposes and then amplified by a pliant media. Said another way, it is hard doing good scientific research because nature is hard to probe; but it is easy to do non-science (marketing, propaganda, etc) since there is no need to take account of stubborn facts or data.

This is happening for the Wuhan lab lie (it no longer should be called a viable hypothesis) and has happened countless times in the past whenever the ruling class wants to blame an external enemy for political purposes or to make commercial gains. This time the stakes are huge and many millions of lives are at risk. As usual, the WSWS seems to be among the very few outlets talking sense to dispel the conspiracies, which is a full time job as the US govt is on the war path.

This Lab in China is right down the road from a meat market that sells the kind of bats that are known to carry this virus.

Regardless of the Politics, or who is to blame, the best thing to do is for EVERYONE to Stop Eating Meat.

Bat meat, or any other kind. Eating meat is not good for our Environment, Human Health or the poor Animals.

Have a nice veggie burger instead.

So a lab tech from the Wuhan lab takes a bat sandwich to work and voila the Gina Virus

That really is good or good for the veggies

I'm looking forward to a nice rare venison steak come Deer season, but I don't eat either bats or veggie burgers any time of year LOL.

They are 14.2km apart, the market has been closed since Jan 2020, even when open there is no evidence it sold bats in any condition and no species of bat has as yet been identified carrying SARS-CoV-2 or a close ancestor strain.

That's 4 factual errors packed into just your first sentence.

Not what I have read.

Thanks Benjamin for your obvious hard work on this situation . A mind field of complexity that is ripe for nefarious exploitation.

Even if we put the central argument aside, other glaring factors and questions exist.

That bacterias and viruses are researched for their 'weaponising' potential by 'any' nation state is testament to only one conclusion. That the nation state system must come to an end.

So when push comes to shove, this whole debate from the point of view of the interest of the world working class boils down to only one course of action.

The ending of capitalism based on the nation state system and the political overthrow of its apologists ie Stalinism.

This series provides a powerful antidote to the purposive political poison of Wade, Bannon, et al, to whom I refer collectively as Pompeo's Creationist Clowns, or "the PCC" for short.

So much so that this course of 3 articles (administered via the optic nerve once daily) seems to have already cured our usual cohort of Wade-pushers to the extent that none have appeared in defence of their demolished hero or taken even a single pot-shot at any point presented by Dr. Mateus.

Early trials amongst the afflicted thus indicate >99% efficiency in banishing the worst symptoms, an extremely gratifying result!

It is not that people don't write critical comments it is that the WSWS censors often won't allow people to post comments that criticize their articles. They WSWS curate the comments as to not expose their audience to facts that contradict their propaganda. I know I will get hate for this comment but it is true.

1. So you'd have me believe the glittering rebuttals of Hotpumpkinman, Peter Doige, John Farmer, Plant Trees, etc., have all suddenly been censored, after airing their views on this subject freely for weeks, while you are incongruously spared? Methinks it more likely they've simply grown weary of being challenged & corrected on the fragile PCC talking points and have nothing more to add at the moment.

2. To which facts have we not been exposed?

Many months ago I personally read the abstract of the 'report' by Dr, Andersen and his team which was in the journal "Nature Medicine". More recently I looked for it again but oddly another abstract appeared! In the original Dr. Andersen cites some highly technical data on the protein spike and the virus's backbone. Then he states that "corona virus's in bats have been studied in labs all around the world for years and that it was possible that the virus had escaped from a lab!!!" Again his own words.
This seems to imply that a Covid-2 virus may have been found, probably a wild strain, isolated and stabilized in some unknown lab! My own theory is that it would be much easier and more likely that it would be purposely released than by accident!!!! Of course the Chinese would not have released it in their own country, no less near the Wuhan lab! My theory makes it look like some sort of sting operation engineered by the same people as in that unknown lab!
Who would do such a thing is, of course, the really big question!