Wuhan scientists planned to release coronaviruses in cave bats in 2018 | Hacker News Reader

Wuhan scientists planned to release coronaviruses in cave bats in 2018

telegraph.co.uk

81 pointsAndrewBissell19 comments

Wow, the linked article about the Lancet letter which shutdown debate on a potential lab origin back in March of last year is pretty damning as well - https://archive.ph/dXc0n

Excerpt:

> All but one scientist who penned a letter in The Lancet dismissing the possibility that coronavirus could have come from a lab in Wuhan were linked to its Chinese researchers, their colleagues or funders, a Telegraph investigation can reveal.

If you posted any of this on Facebook a few months ago ...You would be labeled a nutter, registered on an invisible check list as a conspiracy theorist with your IP shared with other providers...A nicely dressed WHO official would ask you if you have a PhD in Immunology, and would say you cannot possibly know what you are talking about...

> "Darpa refused to fund the work, saying: 'It is clear that the proposed project led by Peter Daszak could have put local communities at risk'"

So they pitch this project to both DARPA and NIH... and DARPA says no citing community risk.

> “It is clear that the proposed project led by Peter Daszak could have put local communities at risk”

It's totally safe, trust us - we're scientists!

> “The scary part is they were making infectious chimeric Mers viruses,” the source said.

What could possibly go wrong?

14 comments in 14hrs. For comparison, a post about TikTokers trading stocks has 168 comments in the same time.

I find it incredible that this bombshell hasn't elicited more of a response. Too uncomfortable a subject to discuss perhaps?

Maybe people are past caring.

What is commenting, protesting, international sanctions or going to war actually going to achieve here?

I probably do believe an accidental lab-leak scenario, but obsessing about it isn't going to bring anyone back, or refund my family's time in lockdown, or help us treat it going forward. If anything, it's a distraction from what we need to do to to slow transmission.

We could always make sure there isn't more of this sort of research being done right now. Firing anyone who was involved (as opposed to, say, giving them regular interview slots on CNN) also seems wise.

I don't disagree, with caveats.

This is absolutely something that investigative professionals should pursue. If laws need to change, or people need to be punished on their recommendation, go for it.

But this is not the time for more "Drastic" research, scraping together odd papers and presentation slides to build a narrative. It's not the time a newspaper (that is a family friend, ex-employer and significantly Party-biased) to rile people up enough to buy the book you're about to release.

We've all seen way too much of this social-media-science in the past 2 years. Anger and anecdotes aren't enough. He should present his case to the authorities and let them deal with it, rather than trying to do the same as the rest of his Party members and cash in.

I think it's because most of us already believe that Sars-Cov-2 was made in the Wuhan lab, in a dangerous but legitimate experiment, and escaped. Last year we read about the Wuhan & University of North Carolina coronavirus gain-of-function experiments they performed before the pandemic. The red party has so much power over the people in PRC and will suppress the evidence. We will never know for sure what happened. Even if compelling evidence emerges, there is essentially zero chance for the rest of the world to hold the PRC responsible and demand damages. Nearly every country is controlled by companies in bed with PRC. The voting populace are too busy being angry about politics to even notice things that are important.

TLDR: We're burned out.

No paywall: https://archive.ph/itqJH

This is the original source material I believe: https://drasticresearch.org/2021/09/20/1583/

Also a link to the original grant (I think!) https://drasticresearch.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/main-doc...

I believe the full list of leaked documents is here: https://drasticresearch.org/2021/09/21/the-defuse-project-do...

(Your first link is to Drastic Research's editorial/analysis of the documents, not the raw documents themselves.)

https://news.yahoo.com/wuhan-scientists-planned-release-skin...

this link seems to have the actual text

> Papers, confirmed as genuine by a former member of the Trump administration

Well, they must be totally genuine then.

I'd guess that your reaction is exactly why they put that in there. Careful.

This is so well noted and it got me right on point when I was ready to complete disregard the article because of it. I remember reading a whole discussion about this kind of stuff here. If I could give you ten upvotes, I would. Thank you.

Anyone who worked under the Executive Branch (most of government) between 1-2017 and 1-2020 worked as a member of the Trump administration. Don't discount them all.

Let me guess, 12 months ago you also said you'd never take an operation warp speed vaccine.

Pay walled

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