My friends up and down the road have looked in the jar and have assured that no cookie was taken.
But there is one less in the jar?
You have no idea what you are talking about pal.
EDIT: Here is the mental gymnastics the article plays to justify it
>That makes it hard to say whether the altered virus’ ability to invade human cells was a function “gained” or was merely uncovered by WIV scientists.
It is not hard and it is quite simple. Because since "gaining" has to happen before "uncovering", either of the alternative will imply "gain of function".
What if it happened "naturally", as a result of workers infecting thousands of mice and killing the ones that stayed healthy, then reinfecting new mice from the remainder, over and over for many generations?
Or you did the same except used tissue samples instead of live mice?
Yes, you merely allowed evolution to "uncover" it, but if you paid for this work you certainly helped it along.
There have been and most likely will continue to be zero consequences for his actions. So he will continue to lie and mislead, and the media will still happily carry water for him. It's sickening.
If we continue with your analogy, then you're going to not believe it, but a squirrel came in through the kitchen window and took a cookie. It sounds unlikely, but consider:
* A raccoon took a cookie a few weeks ago, and of course you remember when the cat got onto the counter and took a cookie last year (remember SARS and MERS?)
* We have footage from the home-security camera showing the squirrel entering the window from the outside and running off with the cookie (genetics comfirms natural evolutionary rate, disconfirms gene edits to SARS-COV-2)
* There's a family of squirrels living in the tree whose branches come up to the window (SARS is prevalent in bats and key features of its virulence and provoked immune response come from known SARS viruses in bats and pangolins)
You could be right, but you need non-circumstantial evidence in order to counter our molecular genetic studies.
Edit: Downvoted in under a minute! Use your words, or forever be known as an anonymous coward.
Basically, the point and the whole point I am making is the issue being how Faucci uses appeals to authority, instead of answering or explaining how it is NOT gain of function.
I am quite surprised that he gets away with it in a public hearing.
Rand Paul: You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans. You’re saying that’s not gain of function?
Anthony Fauci: Yeah, that is correct. And Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly. And I want to say that officially, you do not know what you are talking about, okay? You get one person … can I answer?
The guy is clearly full of it. He's been at the helm of his org for 40 years. It's time for someone new.
The article you link seems to talk in circles and dwell on the question of whether covid-19 came from that lab, but I don't see where it explains what definition of 'gain-of-function' Fauci is operating under, if not,
> gain-of-function — a type of research the U.S. government generally defined in 2014 as aiming to “increase the ability of infectious agents to cause disease by enhancing its pathogenicity or by increasing its transmissibility.”
What does Fauci claim the meaning of gain-of-function is, which excludes "take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans"?
This is the 'it depends on what the meaning of the word is is' defense:
> A few of their [2017] experiments combined different elements of viruses to better understand what’s required to infect human cells. Specifically, the 2017 research used the backbone of WIV1, a bat SARS-like virus reported in 2013, and swapped in the spike protein of two newly identified bat coronaviruses to see if they, like WIV1, can use the human ACE2 receptor to enter human cells. [...]
> Is that gain-of-function? Again, there are different definitions and opinions on that. We reached out to the NIH asking for a more detailed explanation of why the 2017 paper didn’t meet its definition, and we’ll update this story if we get a response.
What I do know is that if you accept the role of expert, spokesperson, face of the crisis, whatever, your Prevarication Budget is zero. Once one thing you say is caught out as not being true, people wonder about everything else you have said.
So Fauci said the taking an animal virus and making it more infectious in humans, isn't gain of function. Is there any non-crazy definition of gain of function you'd accept, or is it just whatever Fauci needs it to mean at this moment?
It sounds like the NIH has a definition of 'gain of function' that it uses when deciding whether to fund research or not and the research that was done didn't meet that definition.
I think Fauci's testimony is misleading because when Fauci say's no gain of function research was done then his questioners think that means no one was messing with viruses in a way that could have accidentally created a more dangerous virus. But apparently that is still possible under the NIH definition. This happens very frequently when people testify in Congress. They use words in a way that is interpreted in one way by the listener and then when that interpretation is found false they claim the words were meant to mean something different. It is very difficult to work out whether they were being honest and accidentally misled their listeners or whether it was deliberate.
At this point, I don’t believe a word this man says. Everything has been turned upside down because of politics and my trust and faith in government scientist is approaching zero.
Seeing this from Europe, I don't really know or care about US politics. However, when it comes to science, I tend to trust scientists (government or otherwise) quite a bit more than, well, non-scientists. Especially in a political environment where everything gets distorted as a matter of fact.
Doesn't mean that Fauci is necessarily right. But I'm yet to see someone with verifiable scientific credentials hold an opposite point of view.
Before the past year I would have agreed with you, but since Fauci admitted that they initially lied about masks not working because they wanted to save them for healthcare workers, I don't think he has much credibility.
Experts are not infallible, as you'd like them to be. Are you infallible?
Before Covid the prevalent opinion among experts is that masks require training to handle properly, otherwise they wouldn't "work". Mind you, they are then thinking about high contagion zones, like in hospital wardens filled with sick people. In such cases, even better equipment and proper handling is paramount.
It was unknown then that regular masks could help, but the consensus shifted during the pandemic as people needed better protection. So even cloth masks were deemed helpful, if just to somewhat prevent making others sick. Later studies found masks helpful, though distancing even more so.
Someone lied to you about this being lies, and not just shifts in consensus and measures during the pandemic. "Nobody" expected a pandemic, for example US pandemic response taskforce and planning were disbanded and defunded.
Thanks, but he did not claim all of what you claimed though. I remember more reasons than that for why experts recommended masks to go to qualified personell. Which still was the best usage for those masks at that particular time.
Besides, this is from a bad-faith hearing after the fact, not concretely what was said and done at the time by who. You'd have to include the entire context for that to be fair.
He conveyed in that clip that his advice about public masking was influenced by the need to preserve PPE due to what was expected to be shortages needed for Covid care if the public was to panic purchase surgical masks. If the concern was for preservation of masks for the protection of healthcare workers, then they have some degree of efficacy and he was aware of that fact. So his conveying that they did not provide efficacy to the public to preserve the PPE was being intentionally misleading. You may agree with his decision or his logic behind the misdirection, but it was most certainly a lie by its most pure definition.
So what did he actually say when he allegedly "lied"? Or was it that explicitly Fauci, missed to say something, and why just him and not the entire medical profession? Was the environment fertile for healthy discussion, as it was in our country? With accusations like that, there better be real quotes behind it, not just statements after the fact.
In our country, we got the message that healthcare workers were prioritized first, so masks had to go to them. Maybe the media frenzy in USA forgot to tell that, or maybe that message got lost on the way to everybody. Why do you assume bad faith from medical officials, and on what grounds?
There was also consensus among doctors that you need qualifications/training for masks to be useful. I see that only as common arrogance and lack of research. This was corrected with later investigations and tests.
Do you believe consensus among experts at the time was that the public would be adequately protected with masks? They knew the virus was more infectious than that at the time. So there's little point in recommending something that will become in too short supply fast and lead to unsafe behaviour. At first, distancing would be best focal point to direct behaviour in the populace, which would be the responsibility of the administration.
Was there any signs of intention from Fauci to mislead the public? What motive would be behind doing it that way?
You might also remember Fauci was later denied making official comments, clarifications and corrections in front of the press. That decision from the top and lack of support from the top, shifts responsibility up.
There and elsewhere (specifically regarding herd immunity) Fauci has conveyed that he misled the public intentionally. I am not passing judgement on the public value of his decisions to mislead, only that it is a fact that he intentionally mislead the public.
Pretty obvious from his statements that his motivation was to manipulate the public.
The blowback to his reputation is a reasonable reaction. He made a decision to mislead and that was exposed, and the public trust in the value of his words was diminished. That was always a risk he should have been aware of.
He says no such thing though, that's a strawman. There will typically be many reason, for and against, official policies, not just one. So there's no reason to jump to conclusions. In situations such as this, mistakes are bound to happen too, as many policies had to be made up on the spot. It is human nature to fail sometimes, so the occasional mishap are excused and not taken in bad faith for the smallest of slights.
It is not obvious. It is obvious it's easy to create a strawman, and then beat down that strawman afterwards with unfounded accusations. The whole premise is false without concrete quotes or evidence. Wouldn't it be better to know for sure what was said that was so wrong, before jumping to hidden intentions behind why something was allegedly said? What would be the real difference between saying one thing or another, and why would health officials intentionally mislead (motive)? Wouldn't most people start distancing no matter what is said officially, iow follow the right mitigation. Most people are usually not that stupid.
It sounds like you've been convinced of this by someone, but you don't present compelling evidence of actual statements at the time, that Fauci used to mislead the public. Do you believe it is normal to find multiple scapegoats to deflect blame on after the fact, or do you also find that to be assisting of psychopathic behaviour? Scapegoating is just an extension of making strawmen, but it fails the moral compass, as it doesn't help anybody. It's just something someone uses to tear down the people besides them, for their own selfish gains and for everyone's detriment. Why support such behaviour at all, and not give innocent people around the benefit of doubt? What good do you think will come out of rewarding such behaviour?
The main difference may be wether the reasoning is based on reasonable facts and agreements/responsibilities, or if it is based on feelings and emotions. If the latter, it seems misplaced as finding a small fault in others do not excuse the massive strings of manipulations, lies and gaslighting from the top position in that environment. Or should we all be drinking bleach and shine light on our bodies, to be safe from an influenza-like sickness (it is not really)?
It's better to re-examine the main source of problems, what gaslighting is and how it works, rather than officials around scrambling to make the best out of a tough situation, without proper support and room to find a clear voice to the people.
If everyone around a person is hopeless, it is that person that is hopeless. Nothing good comes from supporting people tearing everyone down. The difference is between the occasional mishap, versus a long string of pathological behaviours. It's too easy to hold on to an ideology or ideas, and then excuse such behaviour, but the results will be self-evident from the bad actions themselves.
You may not condone that type of behaviour, but I think it excuses mishaps and mistakes, and should lead to questioning the premises and goals behind accusations.
The person who convinced me was Fauci himself. I can assure you, I am quite capable of listening and understanding not only words, but context, inflection, and attitude conveyed by people speaking English, especially Americans. Not sure why you care this much about the topic if you are outside the US to write a book here in the comments section trying to convince someone like me that black is really white…but suffice to say—-I feel Fauci lied because Fauci said he lied. Perhaps you need him to say “I lied” to understand this, but I am capable of understanding how a lie can exist without a literal acknowledgment from the liar saying that they are lying. Have a good day.
I just have a different perspective, than from within the country. We access news both from abroad (several sides in US) and from local. What was missing in one place, was got from somewhere else.
As far as I can tell Fauci has never provided any evidence for this claim. At this point you're simply picking the lie you want to hear.
If you can show me emails where the "health experts" unanimously agree it's necessary to keep masks away from the general public I'll gladly change my view on this but as of now it's just another lie from a discredited liar.
Fauci holds enormous power on how research money is granted or withheld. You're going to hear very few professional scientists, which desperately need grant money, speak against Fauci. That is until Fauci is removed from his position of power.
I'm not following the Fauci situation closely either. But there are scientists of the opinion that the Wuhan lab, partly funded by US money via Fauci, was playing with fire. For example, in this tread someone else posted (in support of Fauci) an article that contains this fragment:
> Paul cited Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University and a critic of gain-of-function research, who disagrees with the NIH. Ebright has said that the EcoHealth/Wuhan lab research “was — unequivocally — gain-of-function research.”
this is the biggest result of the past few years: half the nation's population implicitly trusts the government more than ever before, and the other half trusts it less than ever before. the consequences of this will not go away anytime soon
for the downvoters: the bifurcation is not down party lines
It's transparently obvious that the whole Wuhan lab-leak narrative is purely a smear, possibly even a deflection. It's extremely unlikely that the virus even originated in Wuhan.
Considering the spread of COVID since March 2020, with major epicenters in Europe and the US, on the bare face of it makes Wuhan and even China as a whole look like an extremely unlikely candidate for the place of origination. A much more likely hypothesis is that the virus has been around for a long time in both the US and Europe before it was first discovered in Wuhan. That is simply the most reasonable explanation. There was a major outbreak of lung illness in the US in early 2019, which has mostly just gone under the radar for most people during the pandemic:
Not saying that it's Covid necessarily, but drawing on both the fact that (serious) researchers are up in the air about the place of origination of the virus, and the widespread presence of lung illness outbreaks in the US, it is more likely than not that that the virus originated in the US sometime during 2019.
This is such a bizarre comment and your thesis is nowhere near being “transparently obvious”. You’re trying to link the people whose lungs were harmed by vitamin E acetate in black market vaping cartridges to COVID?
Credible genetic analysis of the virus shows nearly incontrovertibly that it originated in Wuhan.
'“The possible path from whatever original animal species all the way through to the Huanan market could have taken a very long and convoluted path involving also movements across borders,” Embarek told a nearly three-hour media briefing.
Embarek said work to identify the coronavirus’s origins points to a natural reservoir in bats, but it is unlikely that they were in Wuhan.'
- Peter Ben Embarek, who led the team of independent WHO experts in Wuhan.
You’re mixing up a debate of whether the first human cases of COVID in Wuhan came from an animal vs a lab leak. The same article you linked to contains this quote from Embarek:
“And the conclusion was we did not find evidence of large outbreaks that could be related to cases of COVID-19 prior to December 2019 in Wuhan or elsewhere.”
Not really. The lab leak theory was always dismissed by the WHO team of researches. However, I brought up the fact that the virus unlikely originated in Wuhan according to the WHO researches as an additional piece of evidence of how unlikely the Wuhan lab leak theory is.
That quote indicates precisely what I said, that researches are up in the air about the probable place of origin of Covid.
It's generally understood that due to the major overlap in symptoms, the lung illness from the vaping disease could easily have been misdiagnosed cases of Covid. This due to the fact that Covid was unknown. Misdiagnoses are extremely common during outbreaks, which is well-known. I never claimed this as evidence, only as a possible indication which is consistent with the thesis.
Besides, vaping demonstrably leads to a higher risk of serious lung illness by Covid:
No it is not generally understood, the symptoms are quite different. There is no evidence that the thousands of people who suffered from vape-related lung issues in 2019 had a concomitant coronavirus infection.
The incidence of vape-related lung issues has been in decline since the issue was first raised, and black market manufacturers stopped using vitamin E acetate.
"The paper emphasises that EVALI remains a diagnosis of exclusion, highlighting the importance of thorough history taking, especially given that symptoms and clinical manifestations overlap with those of some infectious respiratory diseases, including COVID-19."
That first link just says that the virus was unlikely to have originated in the Wuhan wet-market, which does not disagree with the lab outbreak hypothesis (whether or not that hypothesis is wrong).
Otherwise, what you've cited disagrees with the WHO timeline, which says pretty definitively that the first COVID-19 cases were in Wuhan (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...). Whatever disagreements one might have with the WHO, this timeline seems pretty well documented and supported by cross-referenced citations.
The first confirmed Covid cases were in Wuhan, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the place of origination. The lead researcher of the WHO team says himself it's unlikely to have originated in Wuhan, and indicated that it has probably originated from elsewhere, possibly in other countries.
The Fauci-hating in this thread is beyond unhelpful.
> Generally, the overlap between the genomes of the viruses in the lab and that of SARS-CoV-2 was no more than 80%.
> In evolutionary terms, that’s a chasm. In their critical review, the international group of virologists note that SARS-CoV-2 and its closest known relatives have an overlap of about 96%. That “equates to decades of evolutionary divergence,” they wrote.
That's the TLDR, which wouldn't come across from most the anti-Fauci comments.
Some questions about these statements: are they based on what was seen in the WIV database before it got taken down in September of 2019? Independent of that, how can we be sure WIV isn’t just withholding genomes that are more closely related to SARS-CoV-2?
It's worth noting too that that 4% diff is equally distributed across the genome.
Gain of function (or any other engineered pathogen) would be using CRISPR etc to change just the few vital parts like the spike protein. Not going in and making 100 other random pointless edits for no reason.
My issue with Fauci is this—why would an 80+ year old man at least a decade beyond average US retirement age, who has a microphone to literally the whole world in all of 2020 specifically choose to NOT become a whistleblower if the Trump administration was eschewing his advice (he who is the US authority on pandemics for decades) to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of dead?
Forget gain of function. Forget lab leak. Forget emails. Forget intentionally misleading mask efficacy to preserve health care supplies. All of that is nothing compared to staying silent when a single interview could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
I recall reading several articles over the course of the pandemic in the mainstream press that reported on Dr. Fauci's recommendations and reported on how the Trump Administration was not following them. I don't see how there could be a whistleblower opportunity there.
We have here a man that willing participated in a piss poor pandemic response, despite on multiple occasions offering a half hearted contrarian view but still ultimately supporting the president publicly. As soon as Trump is out, turns tail.
He is a coward, as soon as his job was safe his story changed. Could have, should have done more and didn’t. Ultimately we have an octogenarian who wanted to protect his job more than the American public. I have no respect for someone like that. It’s shameful.
Some of the comments here are eye opening on how effective the misinformation campaign has been on this issue. There is no real evidence that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a lab leak. Rand Paul is being intentionally distracting to push a false narrative.
Agreed. You do have to ask, why the misinformation campaign happened in the first place, and to what extent are we seeing the misinformation campaign still being deliberately continued (rather than the aftermath echoing) in this thread and other recent ones.
>There is no real evidence that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a lab leak. Rand Paul is being intentionally distracting to push a false narrative.
Despite that, I think lying before public should he held accountable. Particularly when the person in question is responsible for life and health for the people all over the world. (Yes, all over the world, because there are a lot of places who blindly follow US in these matters)
Some of the comments here are eye opening how effective the government propaganda has been on this issue. Rand Paul is not the person in here that is being "intentionally distracting". The science^1 has turned into a pathos that can literally do a 180 in a week because of "new evidence" and people will blindly accept it, even encourage this because "they are willing to change their opinion based on new evidence". Doomsday cults had better excuses for why their apocalypse failed than these "experts".
[1]https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/05/scientific-regre...
Fauci was accused of withholding medicine for AIDS by former NIH research scientist & whistleblower Dr. Judy Mikovits, who helped isolate HIV. Like HCQ, the antibiotic Bactrim was withheld despite being effective in early trials. The delay benefited makers of more expensive & less effective drugs which took years to go to market.
Let's say hypothetically we found out that the government was lying to us all along all while destroying our livelihoods and trying to restrict us from seeing our own families. Eventually it comes out that the virus was caused by government research in biological weapons. Do you really trust the government and media to have your backs at that point? They'll gaslight the public every chance they get... saying, it was a necessary lie to protect you and label people upset with the government as domestic terrorist threats.
I guess no one remembers our government's dark past with experiments and how they lie and then lie some more, since it was classified, until they are finally forced to face the truth and then they give a half-hearted apology pretending like it will never happen again.
Looks like you've fallen to the propaganda, comrade. It's a good job various world governments are pushing large multinationals to engage in fact-checking and anti-disinformation campaigns on their platforms. Can't risk embarrassing the officials.
FWIW, I've no stake in the lab leak discussion, except that we be allowed to have it.
Actually, yes it does sound plausible. Doesn't mean the scientists there were even aware of the intention. Do you really expect the CIA or a black budget agency to build a lab in America with giant letters that say "Biological Weapons Research"?
Arguments employed by the anti-lockdown crowd (of which Rand Paul is one) are increasingly resembling the "climate skeptics" crowd - it doesn't matter whether their various positions are consistent with each other. It only matters that each one of them, taken individually, undermines the "mainstream" narrative. Hence, coronavirus is nothing to worry about, lockdowns are unnecessary, vaccines are unnecessary, and at the same time the CDC is responsible for millions of deaths.
Doctor of ophthalmology doesn't mean anything to me unless we're talking about eyes.
Additionally, he's accredited by a board he himself created. That's like printing your own credentials.
On the topic at hand, some people on the US actually believe covid was created specifically to undermine Donald trump, despite the fact that this is a world problem. Talk about myopic.
Lab-leak was always a possibility, but remains unlikely when the pandemic virus is so unlike the lab viruses themselves.
If this research was tolerated and condoned, then what agenda is pushing for throwing good people under the bus? This regardless wether gain-of-function is a good idea or just too unsafe, which need expert record-keeping and analysis anyways.
Seems like someone is on a witch-hunt, rather than for letting the man be allowed to answer fully. Let the one who'd like to be subject to such treatment cast the first stone.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has received plenty of vitriol, some of which is at least uncharitable (even wrong-headed). However, this article did a disservice in not addressing the exchange fully either. According to the accounting of another news outlet, Paul cited a specific paper (https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...) that discusses experiments within WIV:
> In this study, we confirmed the use of human ACE2 as receptor of two novel SARSr-CoVs by using chimeric viruses with the WIV1 backbone replaced with the S gene of the newly identified SARSr-CoVs. Rs7327’s S protein varied from that of WIV1 and WIV16 at three aa residues in the receptor-binding motif, including one contact residue (aa 484) with human ACE2. This difference did not seem to affect its entry and replication efficiency in human ACE2-expressing cells. A previous study using the SARS-CoV infectious clone showed that the RsSHC014 S protein could efficiently utilize human ACE2 [33], despite being distinct from SARS-CoV and WIV1 in the RBD (S1 Fig). We examined the infectivity of Rs4231, which shared similar RBD sequence with RsSHC014 but had a distinct NTD sequence, and found the chimeric virus WIV1-Rs4231S also readily replicated in HeLa cells expressing human ACE2 molecule. The novel live SARSr-CoV we isolated in the current study (Rs4874) has an S gene almost identical to that of WIV16. As expected, it is also capable of utilizing human ACE2. These results indicate that diverse variants of SARSr-CoV S protein without deletions in their RBD are able to use human ACE2.
So, I'm not a biologist but I have read biology papers before. The way I read that is that they are doing local changes to binding sites, not simply taking spike proteins and putting them on an experimental backbone.
All the opinions and politics aside: is that the right reading of this passage from the article? Seems like that should be an objective-to-answer question, and for my own education I'd appreciate someone explaining to me.
82 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadNo
But there is one less in the jar?
My friends up and down the road have looked in the jar and have assured that no cookie was taken.
But there is one less in the jar?
You have no idea what you are talking about pal.
EDIT: Here is the mental gymnastics the article plays to justify it
>That makes it hard to say whether the altered virus’ ability to invade human cells was a function “gained” or was merely uncovered by WIV scientists.
It is not hard and it is quite simple. Because since "gaining" has to happen before "uncovering", either of the alternative will imply "gain of function".
If it happened naturally in one of the viruses collected by the lab, it wasn't because of gain of function research.
Or you did the same except used tissue samples instead of live mice?
Yes, you merely allowed evolution to "uncover" it, but if you paid for this work you certainly helped it along.
May be. But they were doing GoF (even going by your statement above), which was the question being asked.
* A raccoon took a cookie a few weeks ago, and of course you remember when the cat got onto the counter and took a cookie last year (remember SARS and MERS?)
* We have footage from the home-security camera showing the squirrel entering the window from the outside and running off with the cookie (genetics comfirms natural evolutionary rate, disconfirms gene edits to SARS-COV-2)
* There's a family of squirrels living in the tree whose branches come up to the window (SARS is prevalent in bats and key features of its virulence and provoked immune response come from known SARS viruses in bats and pangolins)
You could be right, but you need non-circumstantial evidence in order to counter our molecular genetic studies.
Edit: Downvoted in under a minute! Use your words, or forever be known as an anonymous coward.
I am quite surprised that he gets away with it in a public hearing.
So grain of salt.
> gain-of-function — a type of research the U.S. government generally defined in 2014 as aiming to “increase the ability of infectious agents to cause disease by enhancing its pathogenicity or by increasing its transmissibility.”
What does Fauci claim the meaning of gain-of-function is, which excludes "take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans"?
> A few of their [2017] experiments combined different elements of viruses to better understand what’s required to infect human cells. Specifically, the 2017 research used the backbone of WIV1, a bat SARS-like virus reported in 2013, and swapped in the spike protein of two newly identified bat coronaviruses to see if they, like WIV1, can use the human ACE2 receptor to enter human cells. [...]
> Is that gain-of-function? Again, there are different definitions and opinions on that. We reached out to the NIH asking for a more detailed explanation of why the 2017 paper didn’t meet its definition, and we’ll update this story if we get a response.
What I do know is that if you accept the role of expert, spokesperson, face of the crisis, whatever, your Prevarication Budget is zero. Once one thing you say is caught out as not being true, people wonder about everything else you have said.
I think Fauci's testimony is misleading because when Fauci say's no gain of function research was done then his questioners think that means no one was messing with viruses in a way that could have accidentally created a more dangerous virus. But apparently that is still possible under the NIH definition. This happens very frequently when people testify in Congress. They use words in a way that is interpreted in one way by the listener and then when that interpretation is found false they claim the words were meant to mean something different. It is very difficult to work out whether they were being honest and accidentally misled their listeners or whether it was deliberate.
Doesn't mean that Fauci is necessarily right. But I'm yet to see someone with verifiable scientific credentials hold an opposite point of view.
Before Covid the prevalent opinion among experts is that masks require training to handle properly, otherwise they wouldn't "work". Mind you, they are then thinking about high contagion zones, like in hospital wardens filled with sick people. In such cases, even better equipment and proper handling is paramount.
It was unknown then that regular masks could help, but the consensus shifted during the pandemic as people needed better protection. So even cloth masks were deemed helpful, if just to somewhat prevent making others sick. Later studies found masks helpful, though distancing even more so.
Someone lied to you about this being lies, and not just shifts in consensus and measures during the pandemic. "Nobody" expected a pandemic, for example US pandemic response taskforce and planning were disbanded and defunded.
Besides, this is from a bad-faith hearing after the fact, not concretely what was said and done at the time by who. You'd have to include the entire context for that to be fair.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lie
In our country, we got the message that healthcare workers were prioritized first, so masks had to go to them. Maybe the media frenzy in USA forgot to tell that, or maybe that message got lost on the way to everybody. Why do you assume bad faith from medical officials, and on what grounds?
There was also consensus among doctors that you need qualifications/training for masks to be useful. I see that only as common arrogance and lack of research. This was corrected with later investigations and tests.
Do you believe consensus among experts at the time was that the public would be adequately protected with masks? They knew the virus was more infectious than that at the time. So there's little point in recommending something that will become in too short supply fast and lead to unsafe behaviour. At first, distancing would be best focal point to direct behaviour in the populace, which would be the responsibility of the administration.
Was there any signs of intention from Fauci to mislead the public? What motive would be behind doing it that way?
You might also remember Fauci was later denied making official comments, clarifications and corrections in front of the press. That decision from the top and lack of support from the top, shifts responsibility up.
Pretty obvious from his statements that his motivation was to manipulate the public.
The blowback to his reputation is a reasonable reaction. He made a decision to mislead and that was exposed, and the public trust in the value of his words was diminished. That was always a risk he should have been aware of.
It is not obvious. It is obvious it's easy to create a strawman, and then beat down that strawman afterwards with unfounded accusations. The whole premise is false without concrete quotes or evidence. Wouldn't it be better to know for sure what was said that was so wrong, before jumping to hidden intentions behind why something was allegedly said? What would be the real difference between saying one thing or another, and why would health officials intentionally mislead (motive)? Wouldn't most people start distancing no matter what is said officially, iow follow the right mitigation. Most people are usually not that stupid.
It sounds like you've been convinced of this by someone, but you don't present compelling evidence of actual statements at the time, that Fauci used to mislead the public. Do you believe it is normal to find multiple scapegoats to deflect blame on after the fact, or do you also find that to be assisting of psychopathic behaviour? Scapegoating is just an extension of making strawmen, but it fails the moral compass, as it doesn't help anybody. It's just something someone uses to tear down the people besides them, for their own selfish gains and for everyone's detriment. Why support such behaviour at all, and not give innocent people around the benefit of doubt? What good do you think will come out of rewarding such behaviour?
The main difference may be wether the reasoning is based on reasonable facts and agreements/responsibilities, or if it is based on feelings and emotions. If the latter, it seems misplaced as finding a small fault in others do not excuse the massive strings of manipulations, lies and gaslighting from the top position in that environment. Or should we all be drinking bleach and shine light on our bodies, to be safe from an influenza-like sickness (it is not really)?
It's better to re-examine the main source of problems, what gaslighting is and how it works, rather than officials around scrambling to make the best out of a tough situation, without proper support and room to find a clear voice to the people.
If everyone around a person is hopeless, it is that person that is hopeless. Nothing good comes from supporting people tearing everyone down. The difference is between the occasional mishap, versus a long string of pathological behaviours. It's too easy to hold on to an ideology or ideas, and then excuse such behaviour, but the results will be self-evident from the bad actions themselves.
You may not condone that type of behaviour, but I think it excuses mishaps and mistakes, and should lead to questioning the premises and goals behind accusations.
Good day to you too!
I'm not following the Fauci situation closely either. But there are scientists of the opinion that the Wuhan lab, partly funded by US money via Fauci, was playing with fire. For example, in this tread someone else posted (in support of Fauci) an article that contains this fragment:
> Paul cited Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University and a critic of gain-of-function research, who disagrees with the NIH. Ebright has said that the EcoHealth/Wuhan lab research “was — unequivocally — gain-of-function research.”
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/07/scicheck-fauci-and-paul-ro...
for the downvoters: the bifurcation is not down party lines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjUd5otL-ms
https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-did-not-start-at-wuhan-...
Moreover, it has likely been present in the US around that time, perhaps sooner:
https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-united-states-december-...
Considering the spread of COVID since March 2020, with major epicenters in Europe and the US, on the bare face of it makes Wuhan and even China as a whole look like an extremely unlikely candidate for the place of origination. A much more likely hypothesis is that the virus has been around for a long time in both the US and Europe before it was first discovered in Wuhan. That is simply the most reasonable explanation. There was a major outbreak of lung illness in the US in early 2019, which has mostly just gone under the radar for most people during the pandemic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020_vaping_lung_...
Not saying that it's Covid necessarily, but drawing on both the fact that (serious) researchers are up in the air about the place of origination of the virus, and the widespread presence of lung illness outbreaks in the US, it is more likely than not that that the virus originated in the US sometime during 2019.
Credible genetic analysis of the virus shows nearly incontrovertibly that it originated in Wuhan.
What are you talking about? That's just not true. There is zero incontrovertible evidence that it originated in Wuhan.
"https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-who-china..."
'“The possible path from whatever original animal species all the way through to the Huanan market could have taken a very long and convoluted path involving also movements across borders,” Embarek told a nearly three-hour media briefing.
Embarek said work to identify the coronavirus’s origins points to a natural reservoir in bats, but it is unlikely that they were in Wuhan.'
- Peter Ben Embarek, who led the team of independent WHO experts in Wuhan.
“And the conclusion was we did not find evidence of large outbreaks that could be related to cases of COVID-19 prior to December 2019 in Wuhan or elsewhere.”
That quote indicates precisely what I said, that researches are up in the air about the probable place of origin of Covid.
Besides, vaping demonstrably leads to a higher risk of serious lung illness by Covid:
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/researchers-find-n...
Again, not evidence per se, but it is consistent with the thesis.
The incidence of vape-related lung issues has been in decline since the issue was first raised, and black market manufacturers stopped using vitamin E acetate.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2...
"The paper emphasises that EVALI remains a diagnosis of exclusion, highlighting the importance of thorough history taking, especially given that symptoms and clinical manifestations overlap with those of some infectious respiratory diseases, including COVID-19."
https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-pro...
In addition, vaping seriously increases risk of serious illness by Covid.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/08/vaping-linked...
Otherwise, what you've cited disagrees with the WHO timeline, which says pretty definitively that the first COVID-19 cases were in Wuhan (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...). Whatever disagreements one might have with the WHO, this timeline seems pretty well documented and supported by cross-referenced citations.
"https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-who-china..."
> Generally, the overlap between the genomes of the viruses in the lab and that of SARS-CoV-2 was no more than 80%.
> In evolutionary terms, that’s a chasm. In their critical review, the international group of virologists note that SARS-CoV-2 and its closest known relatives have an overlap of about 96%. That “equates to decades of evolutionary divergence,” they wrote.
That's the TLDR, which wouldn't come across from most the anti-Fauci comments.
Gain of function (or any other engineered pathogen) would be using CRISPR etc to change just the few vital parts like the spike protein. Not going in and making 100 other random pointless edits for no reason.
Forget gain of function. Forget lab leak. Forget emails. Forget intentionally misleading mask efficacy to preserve health care supplies. All of that is nothing compared to staying silent when a single interview could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Biden is president, completely different story: https://www.vox.com/2021/1/21/22243155/fauci-trump-shade-cor...
We have here a man that willing participated in a piss poor pandemic response, despite on multiple occasions offering a half hearted contrarian view but still ultimately supporting the president publicly. As soon as Trump is out, turns tail.
He is a coward, as soon as his job was safe his story changed. Could have, should have done more and didn’t. Ultimately we have an octogenarian who wanted to protect his job more than the American public. I have no respect for someone like that. It’s shameful.
Despite that, I think lying before public should he held accountable. Particularly when the person in question is responsible for life and health for the people all over the world. (Yes, all over the world, because there are a lot of places who blindly follow US in these matters)
Part of an interview: https://factcheckvaccine.com/2021/07/dr-judy-mikovits-ex-nih...
Transcript an interview with Yale Epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch: https://vaccineimpact.com/2020/scandal-anthony-fauci-has-bee...
There always needs to be an honest debate. Lives & the economy are at stake.
I guess no one remembers our government's dark past with experiments and how they lie and then lie some more, since it was classified, until they are finally forced to face the truth and then they give a half-hearted apology pretending like it will never happen again.
FWIW, I've no stake in the lab leak discussion, except that we be allowed to have it.
Let's say US funded the Chinese to develop biological weapons?
This sound plausible to you?
The black budgets are only 600k USD, which provides foreign states with a useless biological weapon that harms everyone, is that it?
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/d9utd/on_91001_da...
Additionally, he's accredited by a board he himself created. That's like printing your own credentials.
On the topic at hand, some people on the US actually believe covid was created specifically to undermine Donald trump, despite the fact that this is a world problem. Talk about myopic.
If this research was tolerated and condoned, then what agenda is pushing for throwing good people under the bus? This regardless wether gain-of-function is a good idea or just too unsafe, which need expert record-keeping and analysis anyways.
Seems like someone is on a witch-hunt, rather than for letting the man be allowed to answer fully. Let the one who'd like to be subject to such treatment cast the first stone.
> In this study, we confirmed the use of human ACE2 as receptor of two novel SARSr-CoVs by using chimeric viruses with the WIV1 backbone replaced with the S gene of the newly identified SARSr-CoVs. Rs7327’s S protein varied from that of WIV1 and WIV16 at three aa residues in the receptor-binding motif, including one contact residue (aa 484) with human ACE2. This difference did not seem to affect its entry and replication efficiency in human ACE2-expressing cells. A previous study using the SARS-CoV infectious clone showed that the RsSHC014 S protein could efficiently utilize human ACE2 [33], despite being distinct from SARS-CoV and WIV1 in the RBD (S1 Fig). We examined the infectivity of Rs4231, which shared similar RBD sequence with RsSHC014 but had a distinct NTD sequence, and found the chimeric virus WIV1-Rs4231S also readily replicated in HeLa cells expressing human ACE2 molecule. The novel live SARSr-CoV we isolated in the current study (Rs4874) has an S gene almost identical to that of WIV16. As expected, it is also capable of utilizing human ACE2. These results indicate that diverse variants of SARSr-CoV S protein without deletions in their RBD are able to use human ACE2.
So, I'm not a biologist but I have read biology papers before. The way I read that is that they are doing local changes to binding sites, not simply taking spike proteins and putting them on an experimental backbone.
All the opinions and politics aside: is that the right reading of this passage from the article? Seems like that should be an objective-to-answer question, and for my own education I'd appreciate someone explaining to me.