Dr. Anthony Fauci Appreciation Thread

[SizzleChest 8314]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Precisely why we should focus on tracing down the spillover to humans.  Whether a lab accident or fur farms or wet markets, etc. 

I know I’m stating or questioning the obvious (again), but how do we do this with a more independent group of scientists that are either scientifically unbiased - which is unrealistic - or free(er) from the kinds of political bias that is inevitable?  Maybe I missed your thoughts on this upthread, so bear with me.  

[JimmyJames 12271]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Precisely why we should focus on tracing down the spillover to humans.  Whether a lab accident or fur farms or wet markets, etc. 

Gagree. Which is why that should be the focus and not on whether or not fauci or the American government somehow funded the virus. Or even whether it was trump or Obama’s fault. It’s ridiculous this is somehow a partisan issue at all. 
 

I dismissed the lab theory initially because I attributed it to the shithole trump administration. I know realize that dismissal may have and perhaps likely was wrong. My hope, perhaps naively, is that we can move past that. But because the Chinese are a post Trump society not sure we can. 

[Anastasis 23718]

4 minutes ago, SizzleChest said:

I know I’m stating or questioning the obvious (again), but how do we do this with a more independent group of scientists that are either scientifically unbiased - which is unrealistic - or free(er) from the kinds of political bias that is inevitable?  Maybe I missed your thoughts on this upthread, so bear with me.  

I don't have an answer.  It's an uphill climb to find people with the necessary skillset and without potential conflicts of interest.  

ETA: But seems pretty easy to exclude people with actual and obvious conflicts of interest. 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Anastasis

[SizzleChest 8314]

Just now, Anastasis said:

I don't have an answer.  It's an uphill climb to find people with the necessary skillset and without potential conflicts of interest.  

That’s fair.  I think it’s not that we’ll ever have a workable answer, it’s that it will take a long ass time to get to that answer.  Scientific and political climates rarely, if ever, overlap.

[Anastasis 23718]

3 minutes ago, SizzleChest said:

That’s fair.  I think it’s not that we’ll ever have a workable answer, it’s that it will take a long ass time to get to that answer.  Scientific and political climates rarely, if ever, overlap.

Agree, like I said up thread, there will not be an smoking gun. At best a circumstantial case around the spillover, with the Chinese actively suppressing data that tilt one way or the other. 

 

The world needs to make a decision imo on how to posture wrt China. I lean towards rogue state. 

If this was a nuclear spillover that originated on their soil and not a biological one, given the same level of obfuscation and deflection, the answer would be fairly clear cut for most of us. 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Anastasis

[WhatTheBuck 28941]

50 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Why does it have to be more complicated than it appears the Chinese fucked up? Seems pretty simple to me if that can be proven, which of course the Chinese have done their best to cover up. To argue beyond that seems to be an attempt to deflect from that. 

They’re Communists and an authoritarian country. There’s a reason why we have intelligence agencies. We know how they’re going to behave. What are we going to do to stop it? Not a goddamned thing.

It’s like when our businesses bitch about them stealing our intellectual property. Don’t like it? Don’t do business there. But we want the profits so we continue to do business there. They’re not going to change and we’re not going to give up that lucrative market (nor their workers who can manufacture our products at borderline slave wages).

Also, China doesn’t pay the tariffs, we do, and Donald Trump is a socialist for paying billions of dollars to farmers to offset the damage done by his tariffs, welfare that disproportionately benefits the large corporate farms. 

[Anastasis 23718]

3 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

They’re Communists and an authoritarian country. There’s a reason why we have intelligence agencies. We know how they’re going to behave. What are we going to do to stop it? Not a goddamned thing.

It’s like when our businesses bitch about them stealing our intellectual property. Don’t like it? Don’t do business there. But we want the profits so we continue to do business there. They’re not going to change and we’re not going to give up that lucrative market (nor their workers who can manufacture our products at borderline slave wages).

Now do "Why the NIH sends them a lot of money to do research that would be under much heavier scrutiny if conducted at UT-Austin or a shit hole like OSU."

 

[TwiceHorn 32108]

34 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

They’re Communists and an authoritarian country. There’s a reason why we have intelligence agencies. We know how they’re going to behave. What are we going to do to stop it? Not a goddamned thing.

It’s like when our businesses bitch about them stealing our intellectual property. Don’t like it? Don’t do business there. But we want the profits so we continue to do business there. They’re not going to change and we’re not going to give up that lucrative market (nor their workers who can manufacture our products at borderline slave wages).

Also, China doesn’t pay the tariffs, we do, and Donald Trump is a socialist for paying billions of dollars to farmers to offset the damage done by his tariffs, welfare that disproportionately benefits the large corporate farms. 

To be fair. something around roughly half of IP is "stolen" by China as a result of western/American companies doing business there.  Approximately half is stolen via industrial espionage occurring within the US.  Stolen is really the wrong word for that that occurs in China.  That IP isn't stolen, it's merely infringed, meaning it doesn't take any surreptitious action to infringe it, just a disregard for Chinese and US patent, trademark, and copyright laws, sometimes with an assist from the Chinese government.  Chinese enforcement of Chinese IP, by domestic and foreign IP owners, is light years ahead of where it was 20 years ago.  That's partly due to WTO action, and partly due to Chinese self-interest:  they can't play western capitalism games without at least pretending to have a viable IP protection regime.

tl;dr US Inc. could completely cease contracting manufacturing in China tomorrow and we'd still have a fairly massive IP loss to China due to their various government-supported industrial espionage schemes, including the well-publicized planting of Chinese researchers in US universities and research institutions.  There's a pretty fair amount of similar type theft in private industry that gets less attention.

Edited June 10, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[elfenix 34782]

so nothing about david baltimore walking back his smoking gun claim? 

[GW Hayduke 1957]

8 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

They’re Communists and an authoritarian country. There’s a reason why we have intelligence agencies. We know how they’re going to behave. What are we going to do to stop it? Not a goddamned thing.

We use diplomacy (or the military) to get countries to do things. It works best with a lot of allies. Our relationship with allies was heavily strained under trump, but are much better now. Adopting scientific research standards or sharing data on diseases in the populations are the type of things diplomacy can accomplish.  Enforcement and ensuring use of standards is more difficult. Diplomacy isn’t 100% effective

[Anastasis 23718]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/lab-leak-trap/619150/
 

The Lab-Leak Trap

Recent coverage has ensnared readers in semantic quibbles, side points, and distractions.
 

After months of getting very little coverage, the lab-leak theory for the origins of COVID-19—which holds that the virus emerged from a research setting—is now a source of endless chatter. Vanity Fair has a new, 12,000-word investigative feature on the subject, while lab-leak op-eds continue their exponential spread across the pages of The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

A careful look at all the ways that the pandemic might have started matters for the future: It should help us figure out the safest regulations, and the most important goals, for research on emerging pathogens. But the sudden rush of coverage hasn’t always made the lab-leak theory or its implications any easier to grasp. Much has done the opposite, in fact, ensnaring readers in semantic quibbles, side points, and distractions.

[GW Hayduke 1957]

The Atlantic is bullshit.  Did they not read the emails? This is about bringing justice upon that mad psychopath Anthony Fauci.

[BabaYaga 15632]

12 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Disregard the noise and deflections.

If you really want to tip toe around the rabbit hole that Baba has fallen down, critically review the FOIA emails from Jan 31 to Feb 4. There is smoke there, largely hidden behind redactions. Hand wave if you want.  I believe there is a natural origin explanation, but also don't think that we should dig our head into the sand about the other alternatives here.  There were some people curiously highly concerned about the early indications. But a good number of posters are just reflexively repeating their acritical history at this point.

 

Of course here is Daszak in 2016 on CSPAN.  His quote seem to directly refute when he, his team, and Fauci later tried to pass off after their paper summarily dismissed the possibility of a leak

CSPAN & the next pandemic

@Anastasis, pay attention to what he says about spike proteins

While describing how his organization sequences deadly viruses, Daszak describes the process of "insert[ing] spike proteins" into viruses to see if they can "bind to human cells" as being carried out by his "colleagues in China"

So they clearly did this with other pathogens, but for THIS pathogen, they did not?  The with very clear advancements in binding to certain receptors in humans?
 

Quote

"Then when you get a sequence of a virus, and it looks like a relative of a known nasty pathogen, just like we did with SARS. We found other coronaviruses in bats, a whole host of them, some of them looked very similar to SARS. So we sequenced the spike protein: the protein that attaches to cells. 

Well I didn't do this work, but my colleagues in China did the work. You create pseudo particles, you insert the spike proteins from those viruses, see if they bind to human cells. At each step of this you move closer and closer to this virus could really become pathogenic in people.

"You end up with a small number of viruses that really do look like killers," he adds."

Human cells?  You mean like the ACE2 receptors?  Now, do we think that with their funding of this research, the ONLY data collected resided in China, or do we think a good portion was shared with those funding the project?  And why send in the very people funding the research to verify if that same research caused the problem......the same man with deep personal and financial ties to the lab

[BabaYaga 15632]

10 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Now do "Why the NIH sends them a lot of money to do research that would be under much heavier scrutiny if conducted at UT-Austin or a shit hole like OSU."

 

I'll take "Because Fauci, together with NIH Director Francis Collins, went behind the back of the Trump White House in December 2017 to overturn a 2014 Obama Administration decision to ban the use of “gain of function” tools to increase the lethality of viruses – Australian journalist Sharri Markson has revealed Fauci used a “low level” White House meeting to fly below the radar for a $600 Alex"

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

Wait until the internet pundits discover that in addition to gain of function, there is something called loss of function.

 

 

SCIENCE!

 

 

[GW Hayduke 1957]

12 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

I'll take "Because Fauci, together with NIH Director Francis Collins, went behind the back of the Trump White House in December 2017 to overturn a 2014 Obama Administration decision to ban the use of “gain of function” tools to increase the lethality of viruses – Australian journalist Sharri Markson has revealed Fauci used a “low level” White House meeting to fly below the radar for a $600 Alex"

[GW Hayduke 1957]

17 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

I'll take "Because Fauci, together with NIH Director Francis Collins, went behind the back of the Trump White House in December 2017 to overturn a 2014 Obama Administration decision to ban the use of “gain of function” tools to increase the lethality of viruses – Australian journalist Sharri Markson has revealed Fauci used a “low level” White House meeting to fly below the radar for a $600 Alex"

The NIH announced in 2017 that they were lifting the funding pause.  It wasn't a secret.  It wasn't "behind anyone's back."  They posted the announcement on their website.  I found that out in 15 seconds using google.  

https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-lifts-funding-pause-gain-function-research

Here is one idea on why you think the way you do.

https://medium.com/politicsmeanspolitics/have-you-fallen-down-a-participatory-propaganda-rabbit-hole-6f71c83f04fa

[GW Hayduke 1957]

From the medium article I linked above.  They describe a 7 step process used by propagandists.  

 

In the Digital Age, this traditional approach is evolving into a participatory propaganda model in which the target audience is no longer mere passively consuming persuasive messaging but also becoming active in producing and distributing such content. The original propaganda message triggers, reinforces, or exacerbates pre-existing sentiments associated with the message in a way that prompts the consumer to actively engage in its propagation through available social networks, both on and off-line. Even if modified through the consumer’s own interpretation, the core message remains intact, and even acquires ‘new life’. At the same time, online monitoring tools enable the original propagandist to follow and assess the spread of his or her messaging, adapting strategies in a constant feedback loop.

In this context, then, a more appropriate definition might be:

“Participatory propaganda is the deliberate, and systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, direct behaviour, co-opting grassroots movements as well as recruiting audience members to actively engage in the spread of persuasive communications, to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.”

In reviewing the Donald Trump 2016 presidential election campaign, seven steps emerged that clearly demonstrated the application of a Participatory Propaganda model:

1. Conduct hyper-target audience analysis;
2. Develop inflammatory content that erodes faith in the opponent and manipulates audience cognitive biases: Fake news; Memes; Data Leaks/Hacks;
3. Inject this content into echo chambers identified through audience analysis;
4. Manipulate Feed and Search Algorithms;
5. Mobilize followers to action;
6. Win media attention: Be a trend; Stage a Scandal; or Commune with the news; and
7. Rinse and Repeat.

[Dahobbs 18399]

 

13 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Disregard the noise and deflections.

If you really want to tip toe around the rabbit hole that Baba has fallen down, critically review the FOIA emails from Jan 31 to Feb 4. There is smoke there, largely hidden behind redactions. Hand wave if you want.  I believe there is a natural origin explanation, but also don't think that we should dig our head into the sand about the other alternatives here.  There were some people curiously highly concerned about the early indications. But a good number of posters are just reflexively repeating their acritical history at this point.

 

I agree that there are some potentially suggestive bits of information. But the reality is that you have to ignore simpler explanations and heap speculation upon speculation to get where BabaYaga is. I'm all for an investigation, but I also think it is important to separate out the mound of bullshit that has built around the grain of truth. 

46 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

While describing how his organization sequences deadly viruses, Daszak describes the process of "insert[ing] spike proteins" into viruses to see if they can "bind to human cells" as being carried out by his "colleagues in China"

* * *

 "You create pseudo particles, you insert the spike proteins from those viruses,"

Notice how you replaced the words "from those viruses" from the original quote with "into viruses" in your paraphrase? They are modifying the pseudo particles (my understanding is that this means an essentially fake virus that does not carry the genetic material to produce additional viral envelope proteins) not the original virus. That way, you can test what the original virus binds to without actually risking infections. That said, someone with more knowledge could certainly correct me if I've misunderstood. 

Article on the topic: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2020.618651/full

Edited June 10, 2021 by Dahobbs

[Genco 3058]

17 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

The NIH announced in 2017 that they were lifting the funding pause.  It wasn't a secret.  It wasn't "behind anyone's back."  They posted the announcement on their website.  I found that out in 15 seconds using google.  

https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-lifts-funding-pause-gain-function-research

Here is one idea on why you think the way you do.

https://medium.com/politicsmeanspolitics/have-you-fallen-down-a-participatory-propaganda-rabbit-hole-6f71c83f04fa

[BabaYaga 15632]

20 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

The NIH announced in 2017 that they were lifting the funding pause.  It wasn't a secret.  It wasn't "behind anyone's back."  They posted the announcement on their website.  I found that out in 15 seconds using google.  

https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-lifts-funding-pause-gain-function-research

Here is one idea on why you think the way you do.

https://medium.com/politicsmeanspolitics/have-you-fallen-down-a-participatory-propaganda-rabbit-hole-6f71c83f04fa

Yeah, no shit.  "They" lifted a ban on themselves on research previous banned by the earlier administration as being too risky.  Of course without getting any approvals or even giving notice to the new administration.  

[GW Hayduke 1957]

4 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Yeah, no shit.  "They" lifted a ban on themselves on research previous banned by the earlier administration as being too risky.  Of course without getting any approvals or even giving notice to the new administration.  

For fucks sake man.  

It wasn't a "ban."  It was a "pause."  Google is your friend.  It takes 15 seconds to use.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/10/17/doing-diligence-assess-risks-and-benefits-life-sciences-gain-function-research

Quote

Because the deliberative process launching today will aim to address key questions about the risks and benefits of gain-of-function studies, during the period of deliberation, the U.S. Government will institute a pause on funding for any new studies that include certain gain-of-function experiments involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses. Specifically, the funding pause will apply to gain-of-function research projects that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route.

During this pause, the U.S. Government will not fund any new projects involving these experiments and encourages those currently conducting this type of work – whether federally funded or not – to voluntarily pause their research while risks and benefits are being reassessed. The funding pause will not apply to the characterization or testing of naturally occurring influenza, MERS, and SARS viruses unless there is a reasonable expectation that these tests would increase transmissibility or pathogenicity. 

 

Below is from the medium article linked above about understanding the propaganda rabbit hole many are in today.  The below is about step 3 and using echo chambers to inject inflammatory content.

 

The online world is a crowded market space. It isn’t enough to simply create content that resonates with an audience; it must be delivered directly to them.  In a Digital Age, propagandists can reach you through the Facebook pages you follow, your social media feeds and networks, trending topics on Google, and traditional media. Step Three then is to inject this deliberately provocative content into echo chambers identified through audience analysis. The key here is to have a desired actionable outcome from the content – whether that be to share it, sign up for a mailing list, or troll the comments section of news sites.

An online echo chamber is a digital space where content reflecting a specific point of view reverberates, exposing those within it to only that one prevailing perspective. Digital technologies enable the creation of echo chambers or filter bubbles. In fact, it only takes a matter of days to become part of a filter bubble, as two German journalists discovered in a recent online experiment. Once inside an echo chamber, a user is fed content fitting pre-existing views and preferences, such as political party affiliation. Echo chambers are created in part by algorithms that sort information, but more so by the choices individuals make about content consumption.

 

[BabaYaga 15632]

13 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

 

I agree that there are some potentially suggestive bits of information. But the reality is that you have to ignore simpler explanations and heap speculation upon speculation to get where BabaYaga is. I'm all for an investigation, but I also think it is important to separate out the mound of bullshit that has built around the grain of truth. 

Notice how you replaced the words "from those viruses" from the original quote with "into viruses" in your paraphrase? They are modifying the pseudo particles (my understanding is that this means an essentially fake virus that does not carry the genetic material to produce additional viral envelope proteins) not the original virus. That way, you can test what the original virus binds to without actually risking infections. That said, someone with more knowledge could certainly correct me if I've misunderstood. 

Article on the topic: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2020.618651/full

That's all well and fine, except the report from one of the scientists in China (Yan) posted earlier in this thread clearly illustrates that SARS-CoV-2 was subjected to in vitro manipulation.

From the paper:

* engineering a furin cleavage site at the S1/S2 junction of the spike protein. According to the researchers, this short stretch of gene sequence can be "conveniently inserted" using a number of standard cloning techniques, such as "QuikChange Site-Directed PCR60, overlap PCR followed by restriction enzyme digestion and ligation91, or Gibson assembly."

[BabaYaga 15632]

1 minute ago, GW Hayduke said:

For fucks sake man.  

It wasn't a "ban."  It was a "pause."  Google is your friend.  It takes 15 seconds to use.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/10/17/doing-diligence-assess-risks-and-benefits-life-sciences-gain-function-research

 

Below is from the medium article linked above about understanding the propaganda rabbit hole many are in today.  The below is about step 3 and using echo chambers to inject inflammatory content.

 

The online world is a crowded market space. It isn’t enough to simply create content that resonates with an audience; it must be delivered directly to them.  In a Digital Age, propagandists can reach you through the Facebook pages you follow, your social media feeds and networks, trending topics on Google, and traditional media. Step Three then is to inject this deliberately provocative content into echo chambers identified through audience analysis. The key here is to have a desired actionable outcome from the content – whether that be to share it, sign up for a mailing list, or troll the comments section of news sites.

An online echo chamber is a digital space where content reflecting a specific point of view reverberates, exposing those within it to only that one prevailing perspective. Digital technologies enable the creation of echo chambers or filter bubbles. In fact, it only takes a matter of days to become part of a filter bubble, as two German journalists discovered in a recent online experiment. Once inside an echo chamber, a user is fed content fitting pre-existing views and preferences, such as political party affiliation. Echo chambers are created in part by algorithms that sort information, but more so by the choices individuals make about content consumption.

 

Ban

Pause

Suspension

Take your pick.  It was "suspended" because of the dangerous nature of the work, then without WH approval, re-engaged in a different country.  I will say, the irony of you crowing about echo chambers and the natural spillover theory is delightful considering the guy that published that paper dismissing the leak theory was the guy funding the very same research and had personal, financial, and professional interests in what was being done there.  

[Dahobbs 18399]

2 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

That's all well and fine, except the report from one of the scientists in China (Yan) posted earlier in this thread clearly illustrates that SARS-CoV-2 was subjected to in vitro manipulation.

From the paper:

* engineering a furin cleavage site at the S1/S2 junction of the spike protein. According to the researchers, this short stretch of gene sequence can be "conveniently inserted" using a number of standard cloning techniques, such as "QuikChange Site-Directed PCR60, overlap PCR followed by restriction enzyme digestion and ligation91, or Gibson assembly."

Sure, just blow by the part where you either completely misunderstood what Daszak said or intentionally misrepresented what he said. 

And your quote doesn't clearly "illustrates that SARS-CoV-2 was subjected to in vitro manipulation." Rather, it merely says that such a sequence could be inserted. And we've already discussed that paper, how it isn't peer reviewed, and how the scientific community in general is very critical of the quality of the work product. 

[Dahobbs 18399]

3 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Ban

Pause

Suspension

Take your pick.  It was "suspended" because of the dangerous nature of the work, then without WH approval, re-engaged in a different country.  I will say, the irony of you crowing about echo chambers and the natural spillover theory is delightful considering the guy that published that paper dismissing the leak theory was the guy funding the very same research and had personal, financial, and professional interests in what was being done there.  

Why exactly do you think it had no approval from the administration? It was announced a year into the administration under guidance released by his administration. 

[GW Hayduke 1957]

Just now, BabaYaga said:

Ban

Pause

Suspension

Take your pick.  It was "suspended" because of the dangerous nature of the work, then without WH approval, re-engaged in a different country.  I will say, the irony of you crowing about echo chambers and the natural spillover theory is delightful considering the guy that published that paper dismissing the leak theory was the guy funding the very same research and had personal, financial, and professional interests in what was being done there.  

Words have meaning dipshit.  Use them correctly.  

Your melted brain felt the NIH acted "behind the back" of trump in 2017.  I provided you a link to the NIH website that was the announcement in 2017 about lifting the funding pause. The trump administration had access to the internet. Your melted brain wants to use incorrect language like "ban" to make the lifting in funding pause sound more nefarious.  I provided a link of Obama's 2014 announcement of the pause where they specifically describe the situation as a pause in funding.  

 

 

Below is about 4th step propagandists use.  

Internet giants, such as Facebook and Google, use processes called algorithms to provide users with content they think is wanted.

Algorithms are important in the information environment. Search returns have been found to sway voter decisions. Regardless of who controls the returns, algorithms also enable echo chamber development, which polarizes the electorate.

Algorithms also had a role in the 2016 elections. Google search autocompletes and returns favoured Trump, spreading false information with a far-right bias. Fake news supporting Trump trended on Facebook through algorithms. And Trump was more searched than Clinton on Google. The more Trump was searched, the higher content about him ranked in subsequent search returns – a competitive advantage when first page search returns garner 92% of all click through traffic.

 

[jimmyjazz 47334]

8 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Why exactly do you think it had no approval from the administration? It was announced a year into the administration under guidance released by his administration. 

Even if Trump were some sort of laser-focused uber manager, the machinations of dozens of government departments would not require his personal approval.  Given the obvious, which is the clear fact that Trump had exactly zero interest in doing anything Presidential which didn't directly benefit him or his family, it's laughable that public policy shifts would get his attention.

[TwiceHorn 32108]

20 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

Regarding the Rule of Law Foundation:

These guys seem legit.

Good find.  I perused the sites and didn't see anything immediately controversial other than being anti-China.

[Captainant 28601]

Lol baby aga didn't like getting called out for his cop love in the Arkansas driver thread so he ramped up his trumpist shitposting here

[TwiceHorn 32108]

13 hours ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

I see a lot of justification that seems suspiciously like hand-waving from elite virologists like Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance regard GoF and its benefits to mankind and preventing or mitigating exactly this type of pandemic.  When I look for specifics I get some variation of "well you have to be an elite virologist to really understand any of this..."  That is bull.  Lots of complex topics are made simple and clear in terms of their benefits and risks to laypeople, many of whom in the U.S. are apparently funding this research via the Government.  I'd love to see this broken down as "we prevented X pandemic" or "our GoF research accelerated vaccine discovery and production for a virus we first created artificially in the lab and later actually emerged in the wild."  And for good measure I'd like to hear that from someone other than the scientists directly benefitting from the research grant.  Maybe those benefits actually exist; I'd love to see them!  Right now the risks seem pretty clear, the benefits murky.

 

OK?  Thank you for illustrating a real benefit to tradeoff against the risk. Dealing with horrifying pathogens involves risks and should be regulated tighter than it is today.  

It still doesn't address the question of what benefit we're getting from literally creating new, more horrifying, more transmissive pathogens.

There are a number of angles on it.

Anastasis is of the view that safety protocols to date have proven insufficient to safeguard against release.  That's not a comment on the value of the research.  Probably also applies about equally to research using unaltered human pathogens.  Or maybe implies that such research is less risky and the shit protocols don't have quite the same implications.

I can buy that.

I can also buy that this was a lab leak and/or engineered virus variant.  

But the current hysteria assumes too much and proves too little.

Also, Fauci is a lifelong bureaucrat.  That is bound to mean that he has some "blind spots" (like anyone) and probably some ways of operating within the bureaucracy that are more "expedient" than transparent or honest.  So I don't hold him up as some paragon of virtue.

But, in the context of government officials working publicly on Covid response, I think he's pretty trustworthy and provided pretty good leadership.  But, it wouldn't terribly surprise me if he made some badly wrong moves in the more distant past or even in the current context.

Again, for me, the answer is D) not enough information given.

I should also add that I am a technocrat myself.  I tend to "trust the science" and the scientists, particularly over politicians and other government officials, and certainly over politically motivated pundits.  I also realize that Fauci may be more government official than scientist, but there's my bias.

Edited June 10, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Anastasis 23718]

16 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I agree that there are some potentially suggestive bits of information.

  

30 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

@Anastasis, pay attention to what he says about spike proteins

I understand. 

It's an optimized cleavage site on the spike that sticks out when looking at the sequencing and comparing it to the closest ancestors.  That's why people like KGA immediately said it looked like it could potentially be engineered. I think that there is a reasonable natural explanation for how those particular building blocks came together in a cave in Yunnan; however, I am curious as to what is in the notes from that meeting on Feb 1, and why they were redacted. I am curious to understand the deliberations and how they were forensically assessing the data available to them at the time, and the reasoning for moving quickly from that initial reaction to the posture taken in the Nature correspondence that really anchored the discussion moving forward. 

 

 

[TwiceHorn 32108]

33 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

moving quickly from that initial reaction to the posture taken in the Nature correspondence that really anchored the discussion moving forward. 

It would not at all surprise me that perhaps the conclusion of that paper was influenced by the seemingly prevailing notion in the administration that the "blame China" bear not be poked at the time.

[Continental Op 3934]

13 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

Why does it have to be more complicated than it appears the Chinese fucked up? Seems pretty simple to me if that can be proven, which of course the Chinese have done their best to cover up. To argue beyond that seems to be an attempt to deflect from that. 

If you do that you don't get to blame everything on Fauci and absolve Trump of any responsibility. 

[BabaYaga 15632]

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

I am curious to understand the deliberations and how they were forensically assessing the data available to them at the time, and the reasoning for moving quickly from that initial reaction to the posture taken in the Nature correspondence that really anchored the discussion moving forward. 

Daszak was there from between 2-3 hours.  Period.  No samples were reviewed.  He stated as much.  Then his team quickly collaborated on THE paper that became the source material for the entire year and the basis for the complete and utter dismissal of the lab leak theory.  This is your confirmation bias source.  This right here.  

He had a clear and obvious conflict of interest in being the one to facilitate the investigation as it was his financial and professional interests under investigation.  To argue otherwise is nonsense.  Begging the obvious question as to WHY send him?  It's akin to having Robert Kardashian investigate OJ.  

[BabaYaga 15632]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, Fauci is a lifelong bureaucrat. 

He is a lifelong bureaucrat in the field of pathogen GOF research.  The nickname "godfather of GOF" is not a stretch.  Which is why I find it utterly impossible that he was unaware of the type of research being carried out at the lab that he was helping fund.  

To then have his friend Daszak to "verify" as stated above seems to be much more of a coincidence, rather deliberate, in my opinion to deflect away the notion that the man placed at the forefront of our pandemic response knew all along the possible origins of the virus and was himself funding it's research.  

 

[Captainant 28601]

11 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

He had a clear and obvious conflict of interest in being the one to facilitate the investigation as it was his financial and professional interests under investigation.  To argue otherwise is nonsense.  Begging the obvious question as to WHY send him?  It's akin to having Robert Kardashian investigate OJ.  

But the police should investigate the police amirite? Who else but them could understand the difficulties and intracicies of the job?

[BabaYaga 15632]

1 minute ago, Captainant said:

But the police should investigate the police amirite? Who else but them could understand the difficulties and intracicies of the job?

Take your giant, bleeding pussy somewhere else

[Captainant 28601]

Just now, BabaYaga said:

Take your giant, bleeding pussy somewhere else

Aw did I make baby agas fee fees fall down go boom?

[Genco 3058]

[Longhorn_Fan68 34108]

19 minutes ago, Genco said:

watched that movie again last weekend, so this hits close to home

[GW Hayduke 1957]

29 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

He is a lifelong bureaucrat in the field of pathogen GOF research.  The nickname "godfather of GOF" is not a stretch.  Which is why I find it utterly impossible that he was unaware of the type of research being carried out at the lab that he was helping fund.  

To then have his friend Daszak to "verify" as stated above seems to be much more of a coincidence, rather deliberate, in my opinion to deflect away the notion that the man placed at the forefront of our pandemic response knew all along the possible origins of the virus and was himself funding it's research.  

 

[Anastasis 23718]

1 hour ago, BabaYaga said:

Daszak was there from between 2-3 hours.  Period. 

I don't see Daszaks name on the particular meeting that I am referring to. 

[TwiceHorn 32108]

1 hour ago, BabaYaga said:

He is a lifelong bureaucrat in the field of pathogen GOF research.  The nickname "godfather of GOF" is not a stretch.  Which is why I find it utterly impossible that he was unaware of the type of research being carried out at the lab that he was helping fund.  

To then have his friend Daszak to "verify" as stated above seems to be much more of a coincidence, rather deliberate, in my opinion to deflect away the notion that the man placed at the forefront of our pandemic response knew all along the possible origins of the virus and was himself funding it's research.  

 

Daszak was one of 10 people appointed to the WHO investigation. https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus/origins-of-the-virus

It's rather a stretch to believe that Daszak, despite any conflicts of interest, influenced nine others to conspire with him to absolve wrongdoing.  Further, because under you-know-who, we abdicated leadership and influence in the WHO, I rather doubt that the appointment of Daszak was crooked, or that US parties influenced the conclusions of that report.  It is much more plausible that China did so, if anyone did.

Also, this "Godfather" thing is kind of ridiculous.

Maybe Anthony Fauci was the worlds biggest fan and promoter of gain of function research.

That gives him a motive to fund it surreptitiously, sure.  But it does not prove that he did so.  Nor does it impute knowledge of the goings on in a lab in China.

To reach your conclusions, you have to draw the worst possible inferences of the behavior of Anthony Fauci and those around or close to him.

Is it possible that this shit happened? Absolutely.  But it is far from proven.

Edited June 10, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[BabaYaga 15632]

9 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I don't see Daszaks name on the particular meeting that I am referring to. 

Roger that.  I'm talking about the initial short investigation and subsequent paper that became the basis for all the media outlets to run with the spillover theory.  The investigation the FOIA emails verify him privately thanking Fauci for repeatedly pushing it's conclusions.

 

Daszak and his COI

Quote

“One prominent member of the WHO team is zoologist Peter Daszak. Also part of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, Mr. Daszak has vowed to investigate ‘with an open mind’ and ‘not be bound by preconceived ideas.’”

But....

Quote

“Yet emails obtained by the nonprofit U.S. Right to Know show that Mr. Daszak long ago made up his mind about the lab-leak theory. In February 2020, he helped organize a statement in the Lancet condemning ‘conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.’

Now the NY Post is piling on.  Their article from yesterday in case it wasn't posted:

Those who suppressed the lab leak theory need to be investigated

 

Quote

“But the most compelling reason to favor the lab-leak hypothesis is firmly based in science,” physician Steven Quay and physicist Richard Muller wrote in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend. COVID “has a genetic footprint that has never been observed in a natural coronavirus” — but has been used repeatedly by “gain of function” researchers supercharging viruses. That it was immediately contagious, without the usual evolutionary steps, “is unprecedented” — and also suggests it was man-made.

 

Crucially, Daszak worked to suppress any lab-leak talk. He quietly organized a February 2020 statement in The Lancet, which he signed with 26 others, that declared, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”

Only when 18 prominent researchers wrote a letter to Science magazine last month criticizing the World Health Organization’s whitewashing trip to China — on which Daszak was the only American — and calling for the lab-leak hypothesis to be taken “seriously” with a “proper investigation” did the tide turn. President Joe Biden, who’d previously dismissed the theory, ordered intelligence agencies to do a 90-day investigation.

 

[BabaYaga 15632]

5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Daszak was one of 10 people appointed to the WHO investigation. https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus/origins-of-the-virus

It's rather a stretch to believe that Daszak, despite any conflicts of interest, influenced nine others to conspire with him to absolve wrongdoing.

He was the only American - see my post above and the only one from his agency that was funding the research to the tune of millions of dollars.  Further, everyone who went were friends and professional colleagues with the scientists, were there for 2-3 hours, and saw no samples or data as is had all mysteriously vanished, yet were adamant that any leaks were all but dismissed.  

 

7 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Maybe Anthony Fauci was the worlds biggest fan and promoter of gain of function research.

That gives him a motive to fund it surreptitiously, sure.  But it does not prove that he did so.  Nor does it impute knowledge of the goings on in a lab in China.

He was responsible for directly funding the research.  Are you really going to take the stance that neither he nor anyone in his circle knew what they were funding or had access to samples, reports, and progress updates?

Further, none of it has ever been cited as "proof", but rather far beyond enough of a reasonable doubt to directly investigate all the domestic actors involved in the lab.  

[TwiceHorn 32108]

4 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Now the NY Post is piling on.  Their article from yesterday in case it wasn't posted:

 

I assume that you are aware that NY Post is a Murdoch-owned, not-particularly credible right-wing propaganda paper.

That doesn't help the credibility of this one little bitty bit.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

[Bama Chick 28596]

lol at using The New York Post as an appeal to authority.

Tell me what TMZ is reporting next!

[TwiceHorn 32108]

Just now, BabaYaga said:

He was the only American - see my post above and the only one from his agency that was funding the research to the tune of millions of dollars.  Further, everyone who went were friends and professional colleagues with the scientists, were there for 2-3 hours, and saw no samples or data as is had all mysteriously vanished, yet were adamant that any leaks were all but dismissed.  

 

He was responsible for directly funding the research.  Are you really going to take the stance that neither he nor anyone in his circle knew what they were funding or had access to samples, reports, and progress updates?

Further, none of it has ever been cited as "proof", but rather far beyond enough of a reasonable doubt to directly investigate all the domestic actors involved in the lab.  

I don't think anyone thinks it shouldn't be investigated, as part of the whole post-mortem on this deal.  Certainly not me. as I have said, I think repeatedly, on this thread.

Beyond a reasonable doubt is a standard of proof.  And you can't get beyond a reasonable doubt if there are multiple inferences, that could go either way, to reach a certain conclusion.  I don't think it has been proven to be more likely than not.   Thus, my contention that it is not proven.

[TwiceHorn 32108]

2 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

lol at using The New York Post as an appeal to authority.

Tell me what TMZ is reporting next!

TMZ is a better source of factual information.