Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began, a small group of prominent virologists has carried out a systematic campaign of public intimidation to silence other scientists, reporters, and members of the public who question them. I have never seen anything like it. 1/6

@jhas5 "elegant"

@ThomasEllstrom And not very bright, apparently. He tries to gaslight Sudworth in a crudely comical way in Episode 5 of "Fever".⬇️ bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

Interesting...according to Ebright, Fauci was criticized by Congress and nearly lost his job in 2005 and 2011. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the only lesson he seemed to have learned is: "Do what you want, double down, and never admit mistakes".

From 2018: Fauci talks about the "elegance" of Kawaoka's airborne H5N1 GOFROC experiment and how its "benefits" outweighed its risks. The man's GOFROC fixation is inexplicable. Surely he'd know better? In any case, he gaslights/lies with ease. youtube.com/clip/UgkxDiQce…

@MJnanostretch @Bryce_Nickels Andersen, unlike Worobey, knows that the only way to 'prove' zoonosis is to falsify possible lab scenarios.

@Bryce_Nickels That's a new one: "human-specific cleavage site" means "cleavage site from human CoV" according to Holmes?

@EMM_386 @Bryce_Nickels @NatureMedicine The authors look good compared to the Nature and Nat. Med. referees By a "complete lack of..." the ref means: 'There is no debate about a lab origin, to begin with. Why do you even want to talk about it? You can rule out lab leak in your upcoming pangolin paper.'

1\ I have seen a lot of really bad attempts at dismissing the Defuse proposal, with BS objections claims like: * It was all pseudovirus, no infectious virus was used or * they never said they planned to insert furin cleavage sites

The early days (for me) very well summed up here! (based on an interview) h/t @peter_berghmans #Drastic · twitter.com/tommy2t4510330…

3/ @jbloom_lab and DEFUSE co-PI Linfa Wang recently coauthored a paper on the isolation of 'potent' monoclonal antibodies from a SARS patient. I hope Jesse asked him why Wang, like Daszak and Baric, kept quiet about DEFUSE 🙂 science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

2/ Bloom: "I was somewhat flabbergasted that scientists like Peter Daszak had been involved in authoring a proposal to do this and hadn't just...told anyone about it?"

1/ @jbloom_lab on DEFUSE (from June 2023): "It was the moment for me when the possibility that the FCS was engineered went from a seemingly low possibility to a completely plausible possibility." (15:20, Ep. 5 of BBC 4's "Fever".) bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

@MonaRahalkar @tommy2t45103307 @netpoette @gdemaneuf @ydeigin @Daoyu15 @SharriMarkson @imogen_braddick @keverington @Akselfrid Yes, in our hearts we know we did the right thing and selflessly dedicated all our time and energy to researching, investigating and making public our findings. That makes me feel proud and peaceful inside, now, despite the conflict and frustration in 2020-2022.

@Bryce_Nickels To take just one example: The extremely thorough 63-page report (with a 60-page bibliography) by @BillyBostickson and Yvette Ghannam "Proposed forensic investigation of Wuhan laboratories" researchgate.net/publication/35…

😄Bryce's coffee mug obsession gets a boost! x.com/Bryce_Nickels/…

@JustinRGoodman @Bryce_Nickels 😂😂

2/ The bill also proposes an "Audit to identify diversion of DoD funding to China's research labs".

1/ The annual Defense authorization bill proposes cutting ALL Department of Defense funding for EcoHealth Alliance. congress.gov/bill/118th-con… Unfortunately, the bill is "bogged down in battles" over other contentious issues: thehill.com/homenews/senat…

@Bryce_Nickels The replies to that tweet are pretty good as well🙂

@Bryce_Nickels HR 2670:

@Bryce_Nickels Wow, this one is pretty unambiguous. There was another bill, but that would have had little effect on Ecohealth. @JustinRGoodman x.com/harishseshadri…

#FauciFlashback #VideoShorts "fall 2001" (the first of a series of short videos on Anthony Fauci's role in US biodefense research and/or gain-of-function research of concern)

@HL3133 🤣🤣I didn't anticipate that ending when I read "So cute n innocent...".

@danwalker9999 @Bryce_Nickels Valery Legasov, Chernobyl.

@Bryce_Nickels 🙂But note that it was a "a different kind of a stress", NOT one of "personally failing"!

👀Sorry, you constructed what now? To translate the scientese here, what they're saying they did was to create a bunch of actual SC2 variants with modifications in a key area that (as the paper discusses) affects virulence and neutralization. They did... biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

@gadboit @juli_bg_bs They use pseudoviruses *and* infectious chimeras. Do they explain why they need the latter?

Excellent report. Common sense recommendations that should be implemented. This is not difficult. But is there the "will" to do so? twitter.com/CSISHealth/sta…

@DrGerryParker I recall reading that the OSTP was an obstacle to sensible changes in the past (2010?) as well. I wonder why. On the other hand, White House officials were instrumental in canceling the Global Virome Project!