Public and Racket have just published a pair of stories about a scientific cover-up and the manufacture of a major media deception, respectively, in the Covid-19 crisis. Both stories rely upon newly released documents from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which is investigating communications between the authors of the influential Nature article from March, 2020, The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2, and health officials like Drs. Anthony Fauci, Francis Collins, and Jeremy Farrar.
You can read the backstory involving these documents in the two pieces linked above. The key characters are Proximal Origin co-authors Dr. Kristian Andersen, Dr. Robert Garry, Dr. Andrew Rambaut, Dr. Edward Holmes, and Dr. Ian Lipkin. Here, I thought Racket readers might benefit from a simple list of illustrations showing key exchanges. You can draw your own conclusions:
Jeremy Farrar, now of the WHO, not only edited the Nature draft, he made a key change to its most quoted line:
Proximal Origin Co-Author Kristian Andersen makes reference to a draft being ready to “go up the chain”:
Dr. Garry mentions that some may not like an early draft because it “allows… the nCoV may have arisen during cell culture passage in a lab (their labs).”
Farrar will “push Nature” to get the article out “ASAP”:
Andersen gets rejection letter from Nature, with concern about “whether such a piece would feed or quash the conspiracy theories”:
Andersen laments that a draft doesn’t “refute a lab origin” which “must be considered as a serious scientific theory” and “not dismissed out of hand as a conspiracy theory”:
Co-author Ian Lipkin is not only “very worried about the furin cleavage site,” but “high ups are as well, inc. intel”:
“Close enough?” Co-authors propose cartoon image of EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak:
Dr. Holmes: “Good idea not to mention all the other anomalies as this will make us look like loons.”
Garry roots for Trump to “say more dumb stuff about the origins of the China virus, possibly poisoning Sino-American relations for decades,” then asks, “Does this make me a bad person?”
Holmes on news that Lipkin has contracted Covid-19: “Well, that’s made my day.”
Andersen “still leaning towards” cell culture hypothesis:
“The furin would be the first thing to add for sure.”
“Whatever has happened here, the virus has become very quickly loaded for human transition.”
Andersen: “The presence of furin moves me a posteriori slightly more towards accidental release..”
