Health Officials Tried To Evade Public Records Laws, Lawmakers Say 184
House Republicans this week accused officials at the National Institutes of Health of orchestrating "a conspiracy at the highest levels" of the agency to hide public records related to the origins of the Covid pandemic. And the lawmakers promised to expand an investigation that has turned up emails in which senior health officials talked openly about trying to evade federal records laws. From a report: The latest accusations -- coming days before a House panel publicly questions Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a former top N.I.H. official -- represent one front of an intensifying push by lawmakers to link American research groups and the country's premier medical research agency with the beginnings of the Covid pandemic.
That push has so far yielded no evidence that American scientists or health officials had anything to do with the coronavirus outbreak. But the House panel, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, has released a series of private emails that suggest at least some N.I.H. officials deleted messages and tried to skirt public records laws in the face of scrutiny over the pandemic. Even those N.I.H. officials whose job it was to produce records under the Freedom of Information Act may have helped their colleagues avoid their obligations under that law, several emails suggest. The law, known as FOIA, gives people the right to obtain copies of federal records.
That push has so far yielded no evidence that American scientists or health officials had anything to do with the coronavirus outbreak. But the House panel, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, has released a series of private emails that suggest at least some N.I.H. officials deleted messages and tried to skirt public records laws in the face of scrutiny over the pandemic. Even those N.I.H. officials whose job it was to produce records under the Freedom of Information Act may have helped their colleagues avoid their obligations under that law, several emails suggest. The law, known as FOIA, gives people the right to obtain copies of federal records.
Make skirting public records a major crime (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a simple solution to this problem which is systemic in all branches and levels of government. Make it a minimum mandatory 10 year sentence to communicate using private communications when serving in a governmental role.
That puts pretty much every politician in jail and solves the problem.
Re:Make skirting public records a major crime (Score:4, Informative)
You solution would also not help with the bullshit from the article. Partisan displays like this will happen regardless of evidence or penalties.
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Have you actually seen exactly what they were trying to hide? Spoiler alert - it's something that happened BEFORE Covid became a pandemic and that involved Chinese partners. You might be a bit ... uncomfortable, when you read it.
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Re:Make skirting public records a major crime (Score:5, Insightful)
That would mean most of the last administration should now be in jail since we have unequivocal evidence [newsweek.com] they were using private communications to shield themselves and hide their goings on.
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18 U.S.C. 2071 (Concealment, removal, or mutilation of records) gets you up to three years in jail.
18 U.S.C. 1519 - Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations gets you up to 20 years in jail
18 U.S.C. 1001 - False statements can get you 8 years in jail
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As well the Biden, Obama, and Bush administrations.
In short, they're all doing it.
Or does that hurt your "Trump's always at fault" messaging?
Re:Make skirting public records a major crime (Score:5, Insightful)
such a law would be nice if it would be followed. It is already illegal to do government work on a non-government computer, and you see how well that works. I am not a republican, yet, when Hilary was running her own private email server, I was steamed, because if I had done that, I'd still me in jail! If I got caught with classified documents at my house, once again, I would a) already be in jail, and b) be there for a long time. it steams me no end that people of a certain level don't get punished as I would be, and yes, we all have to sign the same docs about protecting classified data.
Re:Make skirting public records a major crime (Score:5, Informative)
Having worked at the NIH 10 years before I retired, I suspect that what they're talking about was actually data protected under HIPAA - personally identifying data of those infected.
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The last time there were headlines like this, that is exactly what was happening. Republican legislators were asking for records that they knew perfectly well were HIPAA protected and then badmouthing NIH for not providing them. At that time it was data about vaccine trials, where the information needed for public evaluation had already been released and more, but the Republicans were pushing the line into data, like original patient records, that were never intended to be subject to FOIA because of HIPAA
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This is all kinds of wrong. First off, it's not "illegal to do government work on a non-government computer". An easy and recent example is a very large proportion of remote workers who had their VPNs shut off due to security concerns who were directed to make use of Citrix and/or Remote Desktop from personal machines, others are making do with webmail.
Second, it's actually pretty easy to determine if data is releasable under FOIA. The justice department has a very straightforward flow-chart and guide, o
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All depends on the type of work being done. If you were working on classified material (and had appropriate permissions to do so from home, you DID have to work on your work laptop. I was at NOAA during the Pandemic and didn't have a "work" laptop, but had requested a work desktop for home and was told to use my own personal system (computational modeling). When the VPN decided to stop playing with Linux, we played the game again, and I was denied again. So O created a work-around that exceeded security req
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You are correct. We can't even check our email on our personal devices. They issue us a Government Laptop for remote work. Citrix became mandatory a while back on all government devices.
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If Congress does not have access to information, how will they guide the country effectively and efficiently? Why do various Executive agencies feel like they can deny Congress ANY information at all? There is no single piece of information generated from a Federal Agency that Congress should be prohibited from examining. Those Federal Agencies exist at the whim of Congress.
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There is a simple solution to this problem which is systemic in all branches and levels of government. Make it a minimum mandatory 10 year sentence to communicate using private communications when serving in a governmental role.
That puts pretty much every politician in jail and solves the problem.
But ... but ... then our people would have to follow the rules too!!!! Blasphemy!
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WHere did COVID come from? (Score:5, Interesting)
Having spent a few hours of my life since 18 JAN 2020 looking at COVID-19 (the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2) and being somewhat familiar with coronaviruses, although I'll admit I know MUCH more now than I did then, it's pretty fair to assume SARS-CoV-2 originated in China, in Hubei Province. There's evidence that it was actually circulating in the US, and around the world... and certainly in China... somewhat earlier than the official date placed in early March for the US, and certainly well before the US initiated travel restrictions. Blood bank samples have found evidence of specific antigen and antibodies, and several unexplained outbreaks of non-influenza viral pneumonia were seen in 2019.
Whether the virus was under study at the Wuhan Institute of Virology we may never know due to the removal of US National Institutes of Health personnel somewhat before this outbreak. In fact early reports of the outbreak came through an Australian connection, and a Tweet from a Chinese clinician that was subsequently removed. It became pretty obvious that, once the Chinese Communist Party apparatus understood the potential magnitude of the outbreak they shut down communication, and attempted to defeat the disease internally, but too late.
But really, where the virus came from doesn't matter, as we can't put the genie back in the bottle. And China had more illnesses and deaths, proportionately, than the US did, and took more draconian measures than the US ever contemplated. And they were unsuccessful, even with a Zero-COVID policy, in stopping spread.
Most of the information held by the US regarding COVID origins has been pretty publically accessible, and openly discussed on multiple forums. For the most part, the GOP lawmakers have been responsible for attempting to hide accurate information on the disease, efficacy of masks and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, and vaccines. If there's a conspiracy, I suspect they should look in their own house.
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we may never know due to the removal of US National Institutes of Health personnel somewhat before this outbreak.
I hope this committee throws the book at the idiots that dismantled key parts of NIH's global plan. It wouldn't solve anything but it would be nice to see those idiot hitting themselves with a book.
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That would be the guy who's on trial in New York for 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents to cover up his payment to a porn star as well as election law violations. He fired most of the staff [reuters.com] in China almost as soon as he got into office [snopes.com].
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Firsthand I can confirm that this "fish virus" as we were calling it was circulating at the ski resorts in N Lake Tahoe before it had a name or any recognition in the news. What is normally a line of work where this person or that person shows up and we divvy up whatever clients paid for their service, became a pretty dismal situation where we had fewer and fewer people healthy enough to service greater and greater numbers of clients. You'd get a nosebleed, and then about a week later 50% chance you were in
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You made the statement, show your evidence.
were told it would be $5'000usd and at our expense;
Show your evidence.
there was a corporate hotline you could call and report illness... everyone we know that used the hotline was fired.
Show your evidence.
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It absolutely matters where it came from (Score:2, Insightful)
Scientists are in agreement it came out of the wet markets, the only debate is whether it got it's start because of the deforestation putting people in contact with wild animals even more.
China would like Very much for us to ignore that because the wet markets + deforestation is what's keeping their rural economies going. For their part the GOP would like to blame a lab leak because it distracts from their poor handli
Re:WHere did COVID come from? (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, I used to be a self-taught "expert" on virology but then I got bored with it & decided that I want to be a self-taught expert on machine learning & AI.
How did you learn that? I mean learning virology is easy, there's literally countless educational sources on Facebook for that, but AI?
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It's much quicker to simply make up whatever sounds right and say you googled it.
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Humanism is now dead.
Because in 2024 we have now come to the point where we disbelieve the ability of "normals" to understand any concept of science, causality, or simple facts.
We must ONLY accept facts from authorized* experts.
*to be clear, these are the ones delivering the facts that we want to hear and that confirm our biases; other people objectively experts through their experience or credentials we'll label deniers, alt-right, or figure out some circuitous way that they have some financial gain (not t
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Yeah, I used to be a self-taught "expert" on virology but then I got bored with it & decided that I want to be a self-taught expert on machine learning & AI.
Without testing yourself, how do you know that what you learned from your own research is valid?
(i know, you were just being silly)
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Most of the information held by the US regarding COVID origins has been pretty publically accessible
How do you know that? There's a really big [citation needed] there.
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Especially as Fauci had already patented a Coronavirus vaccine
> Whether the virus was under study at the Wuhan Institute of Virology we may never know due
Well spun, introduce just the right amount of doubt
Re: WHere did COVID come from? (Score:2)
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SARS was a coronavirus and much more deadly then Covid 19. It almost became a worldwide pandemic and was only defeated by forced quarantine of the infected, almost the welding them into their rooms thing. And yes in a short 16 years, most of the lessons were forgotten.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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OC43 is the only variant that has recently entered the population and the suspected event when they first entered the population (if correct) killed a lot of people.
The "flu" of 1898-1890 that did not look like flu and killed at least 1 million is suspected to be the OC43 variant entering the population. And this matches within 5 years of when the human OC43 variant DNA separated from the related wild variant. There is a lot of analysis in the wiki page for the flu of 1889, most of the "refuting" of it bei
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Covid-1 almost became a disaster and was what was feared with covid-19 (11% mortality rate) Luckily people didn't get infectious until after showing symptoms and it was defeated through quarantine, barely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Doesn't look good... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of the incriminating comments
learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after I am foia’d but before the search starts
I hope NIH can help reduce the amount that comes out
BOTH my gmail and phone calls are now safe. Text is NOT, as it can be FOIA'd, as can my govt email. So you and Peter and others should be able to email me on gmail only, with the caveat that no other govt. employee is copied at a govt address, as all govt emails are potentially FOIA'able.
PS, I forgot to say there is no worry about FOIAs. I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.
I deleted that email but I now learn that every email I ever got/sent since 1998 is captured and will be turned over, whether or not I instantly deleted it. Gmail, phone, text ... I need to scrupulously rely on those exclusively.
Examples have also surfaced of using intentional misspellings of words to make sure they wouldn't be searchable for FOIA requests [x.com].
"Why didn't you report this to our ethics office?" "I don't know... I don't even know what our ethics office does." -- Senior advisor Morens under testimony [x.com]
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Those screenshots look like someone drew them in MS paint and then took pictures with a flip phone.
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GOP has a habit of dragging in nothing-burgers that look like real meat initially, so let's not jump to conclusions.
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Some of the incriminating comments
learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after I am foia’d but before the search starts
I hope NIH can help reduce the amount that comes out
BOTH my gmail and phone calls are now safe. Text is NOT, as it can be FOIA'd, as can my govt email. So you and Peter and others should be able to email me on gmail only, with the caveat that no other govt. employee is copied at a govt address, as all govt emails are potentially FOIA'able.
PS, I forgot to say there is no worry about FOIAs. I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.
I deleted that email but I now learn that every email I ever got/sent since 1998 is captured and will be turned over, whether or not I instantly deleted it. Gmail, phone, text ... I need to scrupulously rely on those exclusively.
Examples have also surfaced of using intentional misspellings of words to make sure they wouldn't be searchable for FOIA requests [x.com].
"Why didn't you report this to our ethics office?" "I don't know... I don't even know what our ethics office does." -- Senior advisor Morens under testimony [x.com]
I'm all for investigating potential wrongdoing. But... let's keep in mind that it's entirely possible the material that might've been hidden could look like:
Tom: Jesus Christ Mark, Trump is off his fucking rocker again going on about drinking bleach. This dip-fuck needs to drown in a pool full of piranha while juggling plugged-in-toasters. I swear to God, if this moron goes off on this China-virus 'it's what I heard' bullshit again, I'm going to defect to Russia with all our nuclear codes.
Mark: Tom,
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Republicans are batting 0 for 1000 (Score:2)
You and Toto have been warned! (Score:4)
I'm going to eat the pets of the next Slashdot approver who posts links to commonly known pay/register-walled sources, like NYT, WSJ, Wash Post, etc.
claim after claim never supported by evidence (Score:2)
What's that? (Score:2)
That push has so far yielded no evidence
This seems to be a recurring theme for House GOP. Doesn't matter, as it's performance theater for their base.
Catch-Up Video (Score:3)
I see lots of commenters here haven't kept up with the evolving science.
Here's a video that will get you current, accurately, on the science and the coverup:
https://youtu.be/nfSHifSiPhY [youtu.be]
No one knows anything, it's still being covered up (Score:2, Interesting)
My take is this is obviously biological warfare research that got out of hand. Made right here in the good old USA, then shipped to China for testing. China is famous for cutting corners and being sloppy, and it got loose. Seems that level 4 pathogens aren't in fact secure when stored in level 2 facilities. Who knew? Well, I mean who knew other than the US and Chinese governments, of course they knew.
The resesrch is still going on. My guess is China is off the table as a testing partner, at least temporaril
It's all about the election, stupid (Score:2)
Death jab (Score:2)
We know the Chinese refused to cooperate (Score:2)
That's the only fact we can be certain of. Whilst it is speculation to blame a leak from the lab or to blame weapons research, the Chinese have created a climate where such ideas will flourish. If the conspiracy theorists had never been right, and the US government had never indulged in highly unethical behaviour, then it would have a reservoir of trust to draw on. As it is, there isn't.
https://www.discovermagazine.c... [discovermagazine.com]
The trolling on here is massive ;) (Score:2)
'tis but a scratch [youtube.com]
Whatabout... (Score:2)
I saw an NIH official in a clip from the hearing where Congressmen were asking him to explain emails he had sent where he explains to colleagues that he spoke with the Department's FOIA group, and they told him how to "hide" his emails from possible FOIA requests, and he encouraged everyone to start communicating 'sensitive' information via private emails. I believe he tried to claim it was a joke.
Then again, I remember Hillary, when she was Secretary of State **NEVER** logged into her secure government ema
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We are dropping the ball left and right.
Solar - china has the lead
EV cars - china has the lead
General manufacturing - china
Communicable illness - china
DO WE EVEN MAKE ANYTHING ANYMORE?
Re:NIH (Score:4, Informative)
It's still iffy if the virus came from a Chinese laboratory, or if it came from the wild. The evidence just is not there, it's too murky, and China isn't talking. BUT the conspiracy is that it happened, and that US helped, and that Fauci is a ringleader of some sort of malfeasance. Despite doing his best to help during the crisis, and despite his long record of helping in the past, he's because the poster child for conspiracy hatred.
Never mind GOP congressional members insisting on holding all sorts of pointless hearings to satisfy their need to appeal to the conspiracy theory votes. The party who whines the most about wasted tax dollars seems to do a good job of wasting money on their show trials.
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Many of our freedoms where stomped on during the COVID crisis. Avoiding that in the future is the goal of those wanting to push the narrative of the lab leak.
Sadly, people like Fauchi did actively try and stop any theory that wasn't the wet market. That isn't scientific. Allowing opposing theories to exist and letting the evidence go where it goes, should have been Fauchi's path. To many people, it really did look like he was hiding something. Worse, very bad policies were enacted due to his guidance.
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Re:NIH (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, who cares if Fauchi funded Ecohealth Alliance and worked with the Wuhan lab to create one of the worst industrial disasters in history that killed millions.
No one.
Oh you wanted a more detailed answer? Well literally no one cares who worked for whom. It doesn't change anything about the past. It doesn't change anything about how we should have handled the virus. It doesn't prove what caused it to leak or why (or "if", but given your conspiracy theory I'm sure you're beyond "if"). It could turn out that Fauchi was working for the Chinese all along. It changes nothing about anything and therefor no one cares.
Not even you. Seriously, try this: "Fauchi was a Chinese spy, that caused the COVID release". We just scape goat him. How's that impact you. Are you any different now knowing he was a traitor? Does it change in any way what you thought about his recommendations during the outbreak, and if so, why - given that it was generally recognised sound advice from the infectious disease community?
I don't care, and neither do you. You're making a show about nothing and peddling conspiracies in the process completely pointlessly. A good conspiracy shows there's someone to stand to gain something from said conspiracy. No one gains anything from this, it's a colossal waste of time and money even if it were true.
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What of accountability? By your logic, we should just let all murders go because, hey, the person is already dead, right *shrug* whacha-gonna-do. No need to punish the guilty.
Sure, if you ignore the fact that the victim has families and friends who are deeply affected then you would be completely correct.
If your hypothetical was true, it would be absolutely huge in the area of political discourse with China, criminal accountability, trust in governance, biosafety, etc.
Actually no it is nothing. The discourse with China is already off the rails politically, so this changes nothing there. And beyond the political shit flinging, it's no secret that China and the west work together on biosecurity and research, along with most other countries. Everyone collaborates there. The lab in question wasn't even built by the Chinese alone, it was colab la
Re:Um... WTF slahshdot??? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the thing with conspiracy theories - they don't need facts or evidence, it just has to push the "feels right" button.
Seeing Jon Stewart do it really pisses me off (Score:2)
I understand what happened to the guy. He thought it would be no big deal using his celebrity to get 9/11 responders access to medical care and then he out of 20-year long fight that let's not kid ourselves only end it because so m
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The celebrity curse. "OMG, people are listening to me. The more I talk the more they listen. Maybe I'm smart. Maybe I'm even smart in areas I don't know anything about! Let me start talking about how string theory interacts with spirituality!"
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And *fuck* John Steward for pushing unsubstantiated B.S. with Tucker Carlson grade "Just asking questions" nonsense. He's a bitter old man who spent 20+ years trying to get 9/11 1st responders medical benefits only to get them after most of 'em were dead. It changed him. He's gone now.
For what I wish was the last time, there are no credible scientists who think it was a lab leak.
This is part of the problem with shitting on others. It comes back to you.
Re: NIH (Score:2)
Bullshit. We make it vast quantities, it is of the finest quality, and we export ours all over the world.
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That sane, rational, sensible scientists "read the room" & try to avoid insane, baseless witch hunts is just a fact of life & perfectly understandable. I mean, would you want the stable, orange genius, who was in the white House at the time, to put you in the spotlight
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Dead and dying rabbits. I hope they used PPEs when handling them.
Re:Not this shit again (Score:5, Insightful)
there is not a single credible scientist who thinks COVID was caused by anything other then wet markets and deforestation.
Close. There is not a single credible scientist who says that they have seen credible evidence that COVID originated elsewhere then the Chinese wet markets.
Saying "haven't seen evidence it originated elsewhere" is close, but not quite identical, to saying "didn't originate elsewhere."
(Scientists tend to not make such blanket statements.)
So I see what you did there (Score:2)
Basically you're right scientists will constantly use language that leaves open virtually any possibility. That's because you can never 100% prove anything except mathematics and honestly there are people who argue
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I don't disagree with the part of your post that is statements of fact, such as
Basically you're right scientists will constantly use language that leaves open virtually any possibility. That's because you can never 100% prove anything except mathematics and honestly there are people who argue against that.
Yes, exactly.
I do disagree with the part where you go beyond what the scientists actually say and tell me what (you think) they think but don't say. When they say that they've seen no evidence, that's a statement that they've seen no evidence.
HOWEVER, the people saying "it was a leak from the Wuhan lab, and everybody's covering it up!" are making an assertion, and it's their burden of proof to support that: and they fail at thi
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Most credible scientists at this point will tell you that it did not originate at the wet markets! If they don't they are not credible. (And those that put forth the dual-spillover hypothesis definitely have no credibility).
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Most credible scientists at this point will tell you that it did not originate at the wet markets! If they don't they are not credible. (And those that put forth the dual-spillover hypothesis definitely have no credibility).
The ones I've seen say that they've seen no evidence, which, as I pointed out, is similar, but not quite the same.
If there are some who go farther and actually say confidently that it did NOT originate at the wet market, show me.
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Ralph Baric testified at the beginning of the month that he did not see the wet market as a possible spillover point. Many before him had made the same points and he is just reiterating what is considered common knowledge at this point, but his opinion obviously carries a lot of weight.
I will say, you have to disregard any publication put out by the small group of scientists that put out the "proximal origins" paper. They are known not to be credible. Their own emails and slack messages that leaked out or w
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Because there isn't (Score:2)
If China had the tech to do what you seem to think they did they wouldn't use it to prevent Donald Trump from winning reelection (which, let's face it, is what this is *r
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it's a statement of fact.
Yeah, because everything you say is "fact". No skepticism needed, eh? Is that how science works for you?
It's not man made
How convenient for you politically, then eh? No need to indict the communists or the big-government shills at the NIH, CDC, and WHO whom you seem to worship.
We don't have the tech to create viruses that hold onto their traits.
You do a poor job even as a Slashdot troll. We are now supposed to believe you're a virologist?
prevent Donald Trump from winning reelection (which, let's face it, is what this is *really* about).
Who the are you even talking to? Me? I have no love for DJT and could care less. It's people like you who are obsessed with partisan politics who want to ma
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That's a terrible argument. The lab is only 10 miles from the market, and researchers likely frequented it (and very likely lived near it). Additionally, China isn't exactly forthcoming with raw data and free information. They did whatever they could to hide or prevent investigation. If there were any reports of infected people near the lab, I'd fully expect that information never to be disclosed. The market is also far more den
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Is Ralph Baric credible? He just testified before Congress and said that he thinks it is unlikely that the virus jumped into humans at the wet market.
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there is not a single credible scientist who thinks COVID was caused by anything other then wet markets and deforestation.
Incorrect, see pg4.
https://gcrinstitute.org/paper... [gcrinstitute.org]
This is once again the Republican party trying to defect from their lousy handling of the Pandemic by trying to shift the blame to some nefarious individuals rather than the systemic problems with China's rural economy (none of which they want to address, even if they were by some miracle capable of addressing it).
Apparently there is actual evidence of intentional fuckery by public health officials.
https://oversight.house.gov/re... [house.gov]
If you let them get away with this anti-science bullshit then it's gonna be one pandemic after another because you'll never actually address the real problem of unsafe wet markets & deforestation!
Science is a process not an outcome. Contrary to your unsupported claims only 12% of the domain experts in the referenced study believe no further study is necessary and 51% say major gaps remain.
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That's not true. From the BBC, March 1, 2023:
A prominent group of scientists criticised the WHO report for not taking the lab-leak theory seriously enough - it was dismissed in a few pages of a several-hundred-page report.
"We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data," the scientists wrote in Science Magazine.
They're not the only experts who called for the laboratory leak to be looked at more closely.
Even the WHO's own director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called for a new investigation, saying: "All hypotheses remain open and require further study."
And Dr Fauci said in 2021 he was "not convinced" the virus originated naturally. That was a shift from a year earlier, when he thought it most likely Covid had spread from animals to humans.
From BBC Article: "Covid origin: Why the Wuhan lab-leak theory is so disputed" 1 March 2023 [bbc.com]
I appreciate reasons why people would want to discount, out of hand, the lab leak theory:
a. It provokes morons and racists to harass and seek to victimize East Asians here (they can't tell Chinese from Korean from Phillipino).
b. It takes pressure off wet
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It was a horrible bill and died a deserved death.
It had WAY too many holes in it...allowed basically daily quotas of 1000's of illegals in a day before any measure would kick in on closings, etc.
If you truly wanted a great start that's fairly complete on boarder security and reform....let the dems start to work with the house republicans on HR2....that has some effective measures.
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Really? Where's your EVIDENCE, and the opinion of some asshole (like you) doesn't count. Since I WORKED AT THE NIH FOR 10 YEARS, before I retired, you don't know shit.
Most probably, what they were talking about was data PROTECTED UNDER HIPAA, personally identifiers of infected people, and no, YOU DO NOT GET TO SEE THAT, asshole.
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Most probably? Have you heard the name Daszak?
Propaganda (Score:3, Informative)
Trump has said LOTS of stuff... but he NEVER told people to inject themselves with bleach. Early in COVID, he was shown a presentation by medical folks of the many things they were studying for dealing with the then-new mystery disease. Among these was the use of UV light as a disinfectant delivered by fiber optics into the lungs of victims. As many politicians do and have done in such circumstances, Trump suggested the experts look at lots of stuff and explain more etc, in layman's terms, and he was certai
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What is true? An accurate description of the shared reality, when we are describing some subject in the shared reality.
Re: Propaganda (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)
"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so itâ(TM)d be interesting to check that, so that youâ(TM)re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, weâ(TM)ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. Thatâ(TM)s pretty powerful" Seems like he was positing on the viability of bleach injection to me, dumbass.
The people who deny he said it are just doing a hackneyed parsing, like he was suddenly speaking of something else. In any normal person, each sentence is logically connected to the previous sentence, unless the speaker changes the topic in some manner.
So normal people will parse it as him asking the question if disinfectant could be injected into people and the disinfectant doing a "tremendous number" on the lungs.
Re: Propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
The beauty of Trump is the way he says everything is so fucking nonsensical that you (and he) can employ plausible deniability in service of any interpretation of his words.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump has said LOTS of stuff... but he NEVER told people to inject themselves with bleach.
When a person speaks in word salad, it can be a liuttl difficult to parse what they say. But here's the transcript:
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you're totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it. And then I said, su
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I am still trying to figure out what 'covfefe' means.
I think that was typing "coverage", but fat thumbing the f for the e, then the f again for the g.
All that said, it shows poor decision making that he didn't proofread the post. As the most knowledgable person in the world, he has to know that everything a president writes or utters will be analyzed and parsed.
Don't worry, when he debates old Sleepy Joe, who is simultaneously demented and a criminal mastermind, all will be clear.
I give about a 0 percent chance of any debate happening however. We wil
Re: (Score:2)