Proven irritant of errant biologists. Fed up with NIAID arrogance. Branded a felon by Nature for filing FOIA. Tractor driver and tree farmer.
@biosafetynow
I've spent 100s hours of my life on
#FOIA
requests sent to NIH / NIAID, many of them fruitless. I have often suspected that things were being hidden, but the optimist inside me, that smidgen of faith in the "American Way" suppresses that fear and you carry on. But I was wrong.
David Morens' email to
@PeterDaszak
:
"I learned from our
@NIH
FOIA lady how to make emails disappear after I am FOIA'd but before the search starts so I think we are all safe. Plus, I deleted most of those earlier emails..."
In ways it is painful to say this, given my personal politics, but Rand Paul is totally correct about this. Watch Blinken's vapid response. Yeah, there's a Paul word or two you can pick at, but there is no question in my mind and heart that the info he is asking for must come out
The American people need to know what the State Department is funding. Today I questioned Sec. Blinken on their involvement in COVID research. What is the State Department hiding? Why won't they give these records to the American people?
The image is from Fauci's statement tomorrow. One thing I can say about the integrity of
@MarionKoopmans
, who was on the 1 Feb 2020 call to which Fauci refers, is that she bragged to me about knowingly violating Brazilian law with "vial in pocket" virus smuggling ... Even after
Generally I don't publicly criticize journalists I disagree with - it's a hard job - but leading the Morens story by saying it's "alleged" and a "suggestion" that he evaded FOIA and improperly connived with Daszak is a misrepresentation of objective fact.
Please join me and many others in supporting Protect Our Future (), a new NGO effort to promote lab biosafety and prevent man-made disease outbreaks.
#ProtectOurFuture
#BiosafetyNow
Flo Débarre came to me a couple months ago with questions about
@cambridgeWG
. I answered them, most more than once. This weekend I asked
@flodebarre
about her understanding of why the
#GISAID
data appeared and then disappeared. She blocked me. Scientific discourse at its best.
@NassMeryl
(1/2) I'll say this.
@MarionKoopmans
told me, in the back of a taxi in Geneva, that she smuggled zika out of Brazil by vial-in-pocket, in contravention of Brazilian genetic resources and biosafety law. I said "You're seriously telling me this? You know what I do?" She said yes.
That doesn't mean I am a "conspiracy theorist" or a "lab leaker", it means that I am a person who values government transparency and the public right to know. And if you oppose the State Department releasing this information, I am very afraid of the kind of person you are.
Uh
@peterhotez
you have not been FOIAed many times. You work for a private entity not subject to
#FOIA
. Maybe emails you sent to public officials are FOIAed, but not you. Light a candle, sacrifice a chicken and do some santería every day in thanks that I cannot directly FOIA you
On COVID, there's no stopping Richard Ebright. For though he may at times be uncomfortably blunt, more importantly he's usually right, and even the stubbornest mules quake before his determination. It's a cliché, but truth to power.
US-government investment in EcoHealth Alliance:
$100+ million
Return on investment in EcoHealth Alliance
(best estimates based on available data):
1 lab-generated pandemic
20 million killed
$25 trillion lost
damage to public trust in science
damage to public trust in government
With this, I think the disingenuity of Fauci’s denials of US funding of
#gainoffunction
has become undebatable. That is a very welcome thing. Maybe now we can talk about regulation without the bullshit equivocation and evasive tactics of NIH officials opposed to safety controls.
🚨 Journalists: Over the weekend I will make available to bona fide journalists a >4 gigabyte file containing thousands of
@GISAID
-related e-mails from 2020 through early 2022. These were all obtained under the Louisiana Public Records Act. 🧵
@Laurie_Garrett
China CDC uploaded the sequences to GISAID, but they are not the kind of sequences that the *viral RNA* database usually hosts. Then they suddenly disappear. No explanation from GISAID or China CDC. As of now, I see no reason to assume they are even what they are purported to be.
@MarionKoopmans
@PeterHotez
You are oh so wrong, Marion Koopmans, and deep down in your heart you know that’s true. This is about establishing facts and, as appropriate, seeking justice for 20 million dead.
Yes. I've known Gigi Gronvall
@ggronvall
for over 20 years, and although we disagree on some things, we have treated one another with respect. But when I politely asked for her perspective on the misdeeds of Morens and Daszak, she blocked me, ditching years of civilized dialog.
Some have nothing to say about experts who misled journalists, withheld info, evaded FOIA or hid COIs
#OriginOfCovid
But will launch letters filled with ad hominem attacks when others present perfectly plausible lab origin or accurately point out scientific leadership failures.
The media yawn on yesterday's COVID hearing is disturbing. I understand, but don't condone, an inclination to dismiss the hearing as political theater, but what's incomprehensible - unpardonable? - is journalism ignoring NIH's indisputable + evidently systematic abuse of
#FOIA
If we can't have mandatory, public reporting of
#DURC
,
#GOF
, and other lab accidents because the PIs and workers can't be trusted to be honest, why do we then trust these same people with US$ millions to perform experiments that could kill millions in the event of an accident?
@ggronvall
@NateSilver538
Not a "scientific" issue, but an investigative, "forensic" one, as Richard says. As to the 'popularity contest', I think we will see Dems start to take such polling seriously. Which is good, because their grief will lessen when they support investigation rather than obstruction.
Less than one quarter of Biden voters believe that COVID did not originate in a lab. If I was a Dem in Congress, I'd be writing to Collins and Fauci excoriating them for putting the party this unenviable position. (H/T to
@Ayjchan
for the graphic from Economist and YouGov poll.)
The plot thickens.
@zeynep
deletes the tweet stating that Daszak denies funding
@PhilippMarkolin
. Why is Daszak going out of his way, and threatening Zeynep with a complaint to
@nytimes
, in order to deny denying that he paid for Philipp's Thailand junket?
#EcoHealth
funding to
Fascinating. First, Philipp won't answer the question of who paid for his trip to Thailand. Then Zeynep gets word (via her fact checker) that Daszak denies that
#RICOHealthAlliance
footed the bill. Now, if I read the tweet below correctly, Daszak denies denying he paid for the
Fascinating. First, Philipp won't answer the question of who paid for his trip to Thailand. Then Zeynep gets word (via her fact checker) that Daszak denies that
#RICOHealthAlliance
footed the bill. Now, if I read the tweet below correctly, Daszak denies denying he paid for the
🧵RESOURCE: SCREENSHOTS FOR THE BLOCKED
RICOHealth Alliance & Peter Daszak have both been recommended for debarment. There is a massive scandal emerging with Fauci/Collins/NIH. Meanwhile, "Team Lies" is focused on a twitter beef with Zeynep Tufekci.
(1/n)
.
@Biosafetynow
! blocked by Twitter. Sigh. Petty harassment is so schoolboyish and sad. Same case over which I was blocked twice. No violation of Twitter rules occurred. This is sort of like chickenshit swatting. Speaks to the maturity of
@Biosafetynow
!'s critics.
A ridiculous never-leaker tweet.
@MarionKoopmans
criticizes the declassification bill for seeking clarity on basic facts about possible illness in late 2019. If facts like these aren't established, how does she think the truth will be found? Or is she not interested in truth?
Marion Koopmans, publications: https://pure.eur.nl
Shocking to see all the questions about people that may have been ill. wasn’t this the key “evidence” for a lableak: labworkers ill in autumn? Now what actually is the nature of that evidence if all of these questions are outstanding? “ i have a hunch, i have heard….?”
(1/3) Among the sometimes overlooked Fauci & Collins crimes against biosafety was the destruction, in 2019, of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC). I wrote about the death of the RAC in mid-2020.
Indeed, the notion that virologists possess all the relevant skills, experience, and perspective to regulate themselves is plainly incorrect. Just look at the wild risks some of them are willing to take.
Flo Débarre came to me a couple months ago with questions about
@cambridgeWG
. I answered them, most more than once. This weekend I asked
@flodebarre
about her understanding of why the
#GISAID
data appeared and then disappeared. She blocked me. Scientific discourse at its best.
Almost 3 years to just say they opened the mail: HHS' crappy
#FOIA
office at work on
#gainoffunction
. P3CO request filed 25 June 2020. Request acknowledged (no records, just "acknowledged"), 11 April 2023.
@BiosafetyNow
Back again after being banned twice by Twitter in under 24 hours for posting public records released by
@LSU
under the Louisiana Public Records Act. Let's see how long it lasts.
@AGJeffLandry
@GISAID
#GISAID
Indeed. It is disingenous to continue to make thinly disguised arguments for
#gainoffunction
research with misleading, fictional claims of past
#GOF
benefit. Nobody in
#publichealth
needed Ron and Yoshi and their risky, pointless experiments to know
#H5N1
might jump species.
It seems to me that most publicly-funded US virologists working on zoonotic disease have an inherent conflict of interest on
#COVID19
origins. It is that if you speak out "wrongly", your cash & career may be over. A terrible situation created by sci-tribalism & funding systems.
It seems the longer that Proximal Origins authors hold out their conduct & publication as unassailable, the smaller the world of people granting them full credence becomes. Including some that haven't directly called their credibility into question, but read between the lines...
I don't know what will be written tomorrow, but I found that to be a frustrating shitshow. From Fauci's obvious lack of candor to the R's lack of management of details (ex Counsel), to the D's utter lack of curiosity and vapid "Fauci good, Majority bad" message.
@covidselect
Who opposes this? Rand Paul (
@RandPaul
) asks for release of publicly funded grant applications, progress reports, & ancillary oversight records for concluded US government funded research. Exactly the kind of thing the Sunshine Project did for years.
@SenRandPaul
Congratulations on at least getting the Secretary of State to utter the phrase "gain of function". So sad to say that that is actually progress.
I suppose that
@MarionKoopmans
and
@PeterHotez
et al have already concluded that this is another case of "harassment of scientists". Isn't it unthinkable that there might be modest payback for a titanically reckless research agenda fueled by unbridled arrogance and greed?
🚨BREAKING🚨
Last night, based partially on evidence uncovered in
@COVIDSelect
's recent staff report and public hearing, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services commenced individual debarment proceedings against Dr. Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance, Inc.
.
@flodebarre
you were recently pushing me with interrogatories about
@cambridgeWG
that I answered. Now it's my turn, what is going on with you and your co-authors relationship with
#GISAID
and what is your understanding of why/how the sequences appeared and then disappeared?
It's telling about these terrible times in bioscience that people like
@MarionKoopmans
make excuses for
#GISAID
dumping the precepts of its creation. It exists exactly for the reason that data access should not wait for papers. For that reason GISAID has an irrevocable license.
@alexandrosM
So you can see why NIAID/NIH don't much ever want to use their march-in rights in government-funded inventions in order to improve availability and lower price, even in extreme (pandemic) circumstances. They're so tight with industry it would be like 'stealing from themselves'.
@WashburneAlex
UNC also rejected my FOIAs for Ralph's MTAs for coronaviruses (and RNA/cDNAs/etc). And requests under other federal biosafety guidelines. UNC's actions are truly awful, disrespectful and denigrating to the public. And should have consequences, like loss of funding eligibility.
An op-ed by Keusch that was so manifestly full of “light and truth” that discussion amongst a cabal of pro-risk scientists and NIH officials … united in a conspiracy to illegally evade FOIA and destroy federal records … was needed to identify an outlet willing to publish it.
According to the attached biosafety minutes, in 2020,
@utmbhealth
#gainoffunction
researchers trained by
@Baric_Lab
inserted the COV-2 spike gene into COV-1. Possible result: Novel virus blending CoV-1 lethality with CoV-2 infectivity? No paper seems to have appeared.
#COVID19
The Shreveport guy who is too dumb to wrap his head around what "equity" means, who was totally taken by
@GISAID
's Steven Meyers, and who was on the take from BioNTech ... posts this. Bwahh! Bring 'em on
@macroliter
, I work for nobody. Are you maybe hoping to deflect attention?
@Megankstack
I spent much of a decade chasing leaks. I found them by gathering written documentation by FOIA and other means. Including unlawfully unreported leaks that were missed by CDC & FBI regulators. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I'm a researcher. Thank you for lifting the unfair onus.
@WashburneAlex
AFAIK, neither would be subject to FOIA requests since neither works for a public entity. If they went to burners at MI5's suggestion, I'd say that the intelligence agency may have wished to hide the content of their private thoughts on COVID origin from 'hostile' intel agencies
I think I've got it. The COVID "never-leakers" are forming 2 fallbacks as their core assertion continues to erode. The 1st is "it's impossible to prove" (therefore don't investigate). The 2nd is "you're distracting from preventing the next pandemic" (therefore don't investigate).
This is great. My 2020
#FOIA
for Baric-related info was rejected.
@UNC
's FOIA officer then publicly labeled me a conspiracy theorist for having asked. I did not have the resources to sue them but am delighted that
@USRightToKnow
is putting UNC's despicable position to the test
Just finished our second mediation with
@UNC
over Ralph Baric documents possibly related to the origins of Covid-19. The discussion was polite, but
@UNC
turned over no new docs. The public deserves better. It's time for a NC judge to decide whether we all can read the Baric docs.
Understanding
@GISAID
's core misdeed, and why it gets rich corporate funding, requires paying close attention. Listen to this 2021 interview of
@macroliter
on
@onthemedia
carefully. It illustrates GISAID's basic fallacy. Even a sharp reporter like Brooke Gladstone misses it. 🧵
I agree w/
@emilyakopp
, but also see the catastrophe stemming from the wider, nonsensical clusterf--k of USG agencies & NGO "biosecurity experts" "reaching out" to "engage" China BSL4s in the 2010s. Alarmed b/c they didn't anticipate the obvious, China's building boom after ours.
"Fauci oversaw…the most catastrophic policy failure in modern US history, which is the exportation of high-risk biology to an adversarial country…that did not have adequate protections"
Outstanding interview. Recommended.
May I suggest that one of the first things you examine is how
@UNC
handles freedom of information requests, particularly those related to biological research. I've FOIA'ed almost every large public US academic entity, most more than once, and UNC is nearly the worst.
@gavinyoung
We are a group of concerned alumni, faculty, and students of UNC who are fighting to keep partisanship out of the university's system. The power of decision is slowly being taken over by politicians, and we are here to defend academic freedom.
#FreeUNC
Lies are lies. In a February 2022 conversation about
@GISAID
including me,
@RickABright
, and others, Jeremy Kamil (
@macroliter
) feigned ignorance about Steven Meyers, for whom he was performing many favors at the time.
(1/3) Who is Steve? An excellent question. I promised info and will deliver. We start gently, with a
#GISAID
brief about itself. Read closely. What's juicy here may not immediately jump out to non policy wonks ... just think about the assertions.
#whoissteve
@jbkinney
An observer might think it telling that commentators that favor a COVID zoonosis theory repeatedly press for a very narrow understanding of what a lab leak is. It honestly reads like people trying to hedge bets.
@forbeshealth
Truly appalling. CDC itself calls it a lab accident, some of the quoted people made plainly moronic statements, e.g. Eckerle, but no mention of that. One sided tweet collection. I'm amazed this could get past an editor and a rudimentary fact check. Then again, maybe it didn't.
@michaelzlin
I had an exchange with a JHU researcher recently who wants to avoid calling the 1977 flu pandemic a "lab accident", even though the strain came out of a lab freezer. She argues it was a vaccine trial gone bad and, hence, a "medical disaster"... but never a "lab accident". Pshaw.
Fauci CHIEF OF STAFF
@greg_folkers
' 85 pages of testimony are a declaration of ignorance, he knows nothing of import on NIAID's handling of the origin of COVID-19. But Folkers credibility is wrecked by his participation in the
#FOIA
evasion conspiracy
@maggiekb1
@angie_rasmussen
The premise of the article, of the tweet at least, is jaw-droppingly moronic. Does it matter for preventing future pandemics if, for the second time in living memory (1977 the first), a lab may be the source of a pandemic? The author seriously thinks the answer is up for grabs?
@ggronvall
My point is that even beyond EcoHealth, there is a lot that has yet to see the light of day on how the US helped create the situation that may have birthed this pandemic.
So Jeremy Kamil is not
@GISAID
's only boy acolyte. For years
@WHO
meetings in Geneva, Bogner has brought along several more prominent scientists to be his mouthpieces at meetings. Here are three of them... 🧵
"It's no more a 'matter of science' than tobacco was."
That's an apt analogy. Of course there's a role for science in investigating COVID origins, but pretending that it's a matter of virology alone is plainly incorrect.
Each day more dubious of people that make that argument
It's no more a "matter of science" than tobacco was.
Lawyers and criminal investigators followed the money, followed the documents, to uncover tobacco's conspiracy.
Lawyers and investigators will follow the documents, follow the money, to uncover this conspiracy.
I've followed ethnicity and genes for 25+ years, and helped to stop the Human Genome Diversity Project. Wade may need to spend time in "court" for his views, but this was not that day, and the Democrats clearly used the race card to evade substantive discussion on COVID origin.
@MonaRahalkar
@thackerpd
16 million deaths and $23 trillion in economic damages...and stooges are mocking the dead by using their time to rant about irrelevancies.
@peter_berghmans
So true. I spent years demanding a public national reporting system in the US. The replies were always, in effect, "oh, heavens no, we wouldn't want to embarrass people!"
In all honesty, I wouldn't enjoy having my own every act as a young student subjected to scrutiny decades later, but I can say that I did not steal electronics, steal from primary schools, or steal anything for that matter. Nor did I get arrested, much less sentenced to jail.
@T_Inglesby
Tom forgot being respectful to the victims. I wasn't aware that scientists as a general class of people deserved more respect than people as a general class of people, but you learn something every day!
He's there for reasons w/ little to do with COVID origins & a lot to do with subverting changes to radically improve access to medicine. He will back market-based GAVI-like approaches that failed for COVID vaccine and global Orwellian genetic surveillance.
Do you live in a stovepipe,
@gregggonsalves
? Many of my friends
@BiosafetyNow
are interested in COVID origins, and a number of us also have long records working for enhanced lab safety. Almost 25 years in my case. Maybe you're just listening to the wrong people.
What’s the deep past of USG links to the Wuhan Inst. of Virology? Last time I saw Col. David Franz, ex-commander of USAMRIID, was at a United lounge at Dulles on ~30 May 2015. He was going to China to talk to them about their BSL4 lab construction binge.
#covid19
#gainoffunction
Shall I continue,
@macroliter
? Or do you want to unblock me and help shed light on how
@GISAID
#GISAID
manipulates virologists? At the end of the day, you were a footsoldier, not the svengali.
Rather doubtful that
@elonmusk
was the underlying reason for
@macroliter
deleting thousands of pro-
@GISAID
tweets made earlier in the pandemic. Perhaps profound embarrassment at how
#GISAID
's Steve Meyers had played him was the motive instead.
@coroldo1
#whoissteve
@ggronvall
Gigi, you’re a friend but you’re off-base on this one. On Dave Franz, last time I saw him was 19 or 20 April 2015 in the Dulles United lounge. He was talking a blue streak about the Chinese BSL-4 labs and the need to be involved with them, and boarding a flight to Beijing.
An odd thing about
#RICOhealthAlliance
sending 2k Asian + African samples to USAMRIID for commercial screening is that it would have somehow been less morally objectionable if they gave the samples to the US Army. But no, they *sold* the material to the US
#biodefense
program.
@gregggonsalves
Interested in COVID origins and have worked on lab safety for nearly 25 years. It was me, not the FBI or CDC, that busted
@TAMU
for multiple select agent LAIs that were not reported to CDC as required by the Bioterrorism Act. And I'm not alone. So you're just wrong, I'm afraid.
If you would like a link to these records, please reach out to me at "eh
@pricklyresearch
.com". My intent is to make the records widely available, but I reserve the right to exclude outlets as I decide. For instance, any request from Nature Magazine will be derisively rejected.
1/3 So
@TheSeeker268
has posted a fascinating thread. An aspect that is underdeveloped, and which may never be clear, is how putative PLA + WIV research decisions may have been influenced or triggered by the aggressive late 2000s - 10s US Govt effort to "engage" Chinese BSL-4s...
🧵Thread on a project undertaken by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in collaboration with Chinese military researchers and other institutes. You've probably never read it before, in detail.
This thread requires patience and time, from those who are really interested.
Asked to tell the world about his relationship with
@GISAID
's "Steven Meyers" earlier in February 2022,
@macroliter
blocked me and began a long year of denials. The crazy thing is that despite these interactions, it seems Kamil did not figure out he was a stooge until March '23.
I have fantastic
#FOIA
and would like to work with journalists on how virology's peculiar culture and self-referential value systems distort scientists’ reality, leading to bizarre, vainglorious thinking about fairness and equity in this pandemic. Email me.
#GISAID
#vaccineequity
Utterly false that NIH can "regulate based on funding". Funding contract provisions on biosafety are not "regulations", and past attempts to do this (e.g. NIH Guidelines in contracts) have been utter failures. USDA didn't bother to collect research assurances from most grantees
@emilyakopp
@SherylNYT
Yes, but while NIH and other federal agencies can regulate based on funding, it would be hard to regulate the private sector without legislation. However, any leg should not be so obtrusive that it slows innovation and scientific progress. Very tricky line to walk...
Dr. Fauci, would you please explain the circumstances during a pandemic when public health officials should not be transparent about its origin, and do those circumstances in your opinion include panicking and covering your own derriere?
(From Fauci transcribed testimony.)
China CDC uploaded the sequences to GISAID, but they are not the kind of sequences that the *viral RNA* database usually hosts. Then they suddenly disappear. No explanation from GISAID or China CDC. As of now, I see no reason to assume they are even what they are purported to be.
@ggronvall
Gigi, how about your crowd relaxes on Alina for just long enough to offer up some explanation, from your perspective, for why Fauci threw Morens and Daszak under the bus. I mean, doesn't that mean that there's more than partisan politics to
@COVIDSelect
?
My zoonoti deck is totally devoid of explanations for why Fauci tossed Morens and Daszak to the wolves if, as has been claimed, the whole
@covidselect
inquiry is just political theater. Please, oh virus experts, enlighten me!
Read this critical appraisal of Francis Collins tenure as NIH Director and the “unforced error” (an understatement) of the GOF debacle. I sympathize with the ’small science’ woes … but can we please get a replacement with a sense of public accountability?
It may yet be found, but no explicit funding path NIH --> C-19 per se needed to discern responsibilities. It is clear enough already that EcoHealth & UNC-driven agenda & techniques, with NIH backing, were key factors stimulating WIV's likely creation & leak of the pandemic virus.
I could go on. For instance, why put misogynistic in quotes? The skirt comment on Walensky was merely one of the more mild instances. And why tread lightly and say Keusch was "included" on emails... most came from BU, they were *his* emails, evidently produced under a subpoena.