ODESA, Ukraine—"We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible." That's the key sentence in an article published in Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020, titled "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2."
It's also a prime example of eminently credentialed and government-subsidized scientists saying the exact opposite of what they believed, in an attempt — successful at the time, but now, three years later, exposed — to deceive the public.
The article appeared, as the date indicates, just as the spread of COVID was becoming apparent. It also appeared after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said in January 2020 that the virus could have leaked from "China's only biosafety level-four super laboratory that works with the world's most deadly pathogens" in Wuhan.
Cotton was careful to say that a lab leak was not proven and that the virus could also have been transmitted through an animal, and he dismissed the possibility of an intentional leak.
A lab leak origin was quickly dismissed as a "fringe theory" by The Washington Post and a "conspiracy theory" by The New York Times. Those characterizations were attributed to government and government-financed scientists — the same bunch who would shortly produce the "Proximal Origin" paper.
The pushback against the lab leak theory has now been revealed as a fraud, thanks to the work of journalist Matt Taibbi, academic Roger Pielke Jr. and the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
The real conspiracy had roots in a February 2020 conference call led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the time, and Dr. Francis Collins, his boss as head of the National Institutes of Health, and including the four scientists who would co-author the "Proximal Origin" paper.
In February, as the House subcommittee documents reveal, all four were expressing thoughts directly contrary to what they put their names to in March.
— "I really can't think of a plausible natural scenario," wrote Dr. Robert Garry. "In the lab it would be easy."
— "The only thing here that strikes me as unusual," wrote Dr. Andrew Rambaut, "is the furin cleavage site," something much more likely to be produced by a lab than by natural transmission.
— Dr. Edward Holmes wrote he was "60-40 lab."
— The main work over the last couple of weeks, wrote Dr. Kristian Andersen, "has been focused on t(r)ying to disprove any type of lab theory, but we are at a crossroad where the scientific evidence isn't conclusive enough to say we have high confidence in any of the three main theories."
Not exactly "We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible," eh?
Why the change? As one conference call participant put it, "further debate about" a lab leak would "do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular."
Unstated, but known to every one of the scientists, was that Collins and Fauci had approved cooperation with the Wuhan lab and controlled millions in research dollars coveted by every scientist.
Their intentions were not in doubt. On April 16, Collins told Fauci he hoped "Proximal Origin" would put down "the very destructive conspiracy" of the lab leak theory, and on April 17 Fauci recommended it to reporters as the product of a "group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists," without mentioning his own role.
That same month, Andersen in emails admitted that a lab leak was possible and bragged about misleading New York Times reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr.
I found the cynicism revealed in these emails shocking, even though I have written critically, in July 2021 and March 2023, about government scientists' attempts to discredit the lab leak theory. I note that statistics guru Nate Silver, not a member of any right-wing conspiracy, is now similarly appalled.
"I'm deeply disappointed by the scientists' conduct here and how unmoored they were from any attempt at truth-seeking," he wrote last week. "The COVID origins story has also been a journalistic fiasco," he added, opining that "journalists are more prone toward being manipulated by bad apples in academia and science than they were ten or twenty years ago."
Evidence for that predilection comes from New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg, who last week tweeted that a House Republican hearing "raised thorny questions about free speech in a democratic society: Is misinformation protected by the First Amendment? When is it appropriate for the federal government to seek to tamp down the spread of falsehoods?"
Leave aside the deliciously Orwellian flavor of her verb "tamp down" and her astonishing ignorance of First Amendment law, and reflect on how "Proximal Origin" suggests that the government and government-financed credentialed experts are often better at generating misinformation and falsehoods than at detecting them.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Trudy Rubin
Philadelphia Inquirer
(TNS)
Previously:
• 07/24/23: Putin is playing a game of food blackmail. The West can't let him win
• 07/19/23: Can Ukraine win the war against Russia? I'm traveling there to find out
• 07/17/23: From hell to Harvard: One Ukrainian's escape and how you can help fulfill her dreams
• 07/11/23: At the NATO summit in Vilnius: Will Biden seize or squander the chance to end Putin's war on Ukraine?
• 04/21/23: The Pentagon documents leak will embolden Putin as he tries to outlast Ukraine
• 03/22/23: The Russian attack on a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone underlines why we must help Ukraine win
• 03/15/23: Will the White House have the courage to propel a Ukrainian victory this year?
• 02/21/23: On the first anniversary of Putin's invasion, Ukraine fights on for its independence and for the security of the West
• 02/17/23: A former Pakistani leader's death, and his wise peace plan that failed
• 02/09/23: Earthquakes killed nearly 12,000 people this week. Three men are partly to blame
• 01/24/23: As Russia murders civilians in Dnipro, why won't NATO send weapons that could end the war?
• 12/28/22: What Zelensky worried about when he addressed a cheering Congress
• 12/13/22: The US-China conflict to watch is the Chip War --- which centers on Taiwan
• 09/14/22: Ukraine scores sudden breakthrough that should energize Western support
• 09/09/22: Queen Elizabeth's death deprives Britain and the world of a rock of stability
• 09/08/22: After Gorbachev's death, Putin wants the world to know he is the 'anti-Gorbi'
• 08/26/22: 6 months after Russia's war vs. Ukraine began, the West still won't give Kiev the weapons to win
• 08/15/22: Ukraine's civilian volunteers work to give aid and rebuild, even as Russia continues to bomb them
• 08/08/22: A trip near the front lines finds Ukrainian troops ready for a battle that could decide the war
• 06/13/22: The critical battles for Ukraine and for America are being fought right here, right now
• 05/02/22: Save Odesa to save the world from hunger and high food prices
• 05/02/22: Bloodless Ukrainian War, not utopian fantasy says one-time largest foreign investor in Russia
• 04/11/22: The only way to end Putin's war crimes
• 03/28/22: Don't let Putin's nuclear and chemical threats stop us from giving Ukraine what it needs
• 03/24/22: An elegy for Mariupol, where I walked six weeks ago. Now razed by Russian bombs
• 03/18/22: Zelensky's brilliant speech should impel Biden and Congress to protect Ukrainian skies
• 03/11/22: Mariupol's bombed maternity hospital exemplifies why NATO should protect Ukraine's skies
• 03/10/22: No 'no-fly zone'? Then NATO must find another way to protect Ukraine's skies
• 03/07/22: The third World War has already started in Ukraine. Europe and the US should wake up
• 03/04/22:Putin must be stopped from turning Kiev into Aleppo
• 03/02/22:Why is Belarus helping Russia invade Ukraine? An explainer on the latest in the conflict
• 02/25/22: What the UN should finally do about Russia
• 02/24/22: Why Putin's Ukraine aggression will change the world --- an explainer on how we got here
• 02/10/22: Ukrainian civilians train for war with cardboard guns: 'We are scared but we are ready
• 01/13/22:Putin wants to reestablish the Russian empire. Can NATO stop him without war?
• 12/10/21: Can Biden and NATO prevent Putin from invading Ukraine? Summit puts it to the test
• 12/02/21: Boris Johnson stirs up new Irish Troubles for his own personal political gains
• 11/22/21: Xi Jinping thinks America is on the rocks. Is he correct?
• 08/18/21: President Biden, get our Afghan allies on evacuation planes
• 08/18/21:The horror of Afghan women abandoned by Biden's troop pullout
• 08/09/21:China is pushing a big COVID-19 lie that makes a new pandemic harder to prevent
• 05/27/21: Punish Belarus leader for Ryanair hijacking before air piracy becomes dictators' new tool
• 04/14/21: Can Beethoven temper the political tensions between US and China?
• 06/01/20: US must stand with Hong Kong against Beijing's efforts to crush its freedoms
• 05/20/20: COVID-19 offers a chance to halt Iran's hostage diplomacy
• 05/21/14: Newscycle spurs visit to country my family fled
• 04/21/14: Blind to Putin's strategy?
• 12/24/13: Obama's Syrian indifference has led to more death and destruction. Meet some real heroes
• 12/13/13: Where liberals have come to love the military
• 12/09/13: The China strategy
• 11/05/13: Return to Iraq is worth a close look
• 10/01/13: Obama's call to Iran: Who was really on the line?
• 09/11/13: How Obama got Syria so wrong
• 07/24/13: It's time for Obama to tell Putin 'nyet'
• 05/15/13: What Russia gave Kerry on Syria --- very little
Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.