Thanks for a badly needed corrective to what is already a bad situation. Some here will quibble with points but the main thrust of what you said is right and in a very important way.
I understand that this post is likely your heartfelt opinion so I also understand that the "We're paying for the cowardly silence of most scientists by handing something like truth-telling on the big question of Covid origins over to the fascists" part is an expression of your frustration. However, this statement is inaccurate: the small subset of scientists (maybe 100 or so) actively working on this question have been far from silent on this topic. For example, their dismissal of the various odds ratios you used in your probabilistic analyses have been quite actively expressed on various social media platforms and in commentaries of your publications on this topic. You are now even referred to quite regularly (and unfairly) as some variant of "that physicist guy who doesn't know how far out of his lane he has strayed."
The reality is that ~80% of the slightly bigger (but still minute) subset of scientists actually capable of contributing meaningful opinions (maybe a few thousand virologists, epidemiologists and others with appropriate skillsets) think the balance of all the evidence (not just the hard data) leans in favor of a natural origin. I'm not sure it is fair to call these scientists cowardly if this is what they actually think. Most of this larger subset talk openly about their leaning in favor of the natural origin hypothesis while at the very same time appreciating that there is still insufficient data to exclude the possibility of a lab-leak being the ultimate source of the pandemic. How is this cowardly silence? How many more publications, commentaries, podcasts, social media posts etc need they make for their opinions to be considered non-silent.
Also, despite the negative connotations of fence-sitting among the general population, fence sitting is the default stance that scientists are supposed to take when confronted with too little data to decide. It is not at all cowardly to say "I honestly don't know." How many times do undecideds need to say that they do not know for what they say to be considered non-silent.
It is genuinely brave of you to argue (very well in my opinion) against the consensus opinion of other scientists working on the origins question. I assume, however, that you appreciate that the consensus of most of the general population is that the lab-leak hypothesis is more plausible. I assume therefore that you also realize that people on the "other side" who are analyzing all the available hard data and are sticking with their conclusions that the natural origin hypothesis is more plausible are also bravely arguing against a consensus. I would argue that in most materially relevant respects the people who have come down on the natural origin side are even braver than you are in that the consensus that they are arguing against is one that wields far more power than the one you are arguing against.
It seems like a misstep on your part to describe these scientists as cowards. As irritating, wrong-headed or awful as you might think some (or all) of their arguments are, and as rude, arrogant and vicious as you might think they are as people, I think you will eventually find that they are some of the most fearless academic adversaries that you have ever encountered. Whether their fearlessness is an expression of bravery or an expression of foolhardiness is up to you to decide. Surely you can see though that it is not cowardice.
Last point: Nobody handed "truth-telling" over to anyone. Blaming scientists for what is happening seems odd to me. The vast majority of the minority of people who think they believe in the scientific method haven't a clue what it is. In their everyday lives they believe in a whole bunch of stuff that is far less plausible than either the lab leak or natural origin hypotheses. Most of the rest just believe whatever their parents and other authority figures have told them to believe. Scientists are only tolerated because the adults in charge know that they create imbalances in information that can be exploited for financial/military/nationalistic/health/production/whatever gains. All the other stuff scientists contribute in the form of dissenting opinions that run counter to the interests of powerful adults (the earth is not the center of the universe, humans evolved from ape-like creatures, we are incapable of free-will, the coral reefs are dying, smoking causes cancer, overuse of fossil fuels is changing the climate, our population is being poisoned by the food we eat) have been, and will continue to be, actively disparaged by those powerful adults.
Justifiably or not, finding yourself on the same side as the powerful adults with respect to a consenting scientific opinion (the natural origin position is in fact the dissenting opinion), shouldn't make you feel guilty if you actually believe that the consensus is correct (i.e. that the lab-leak is more probable than a natural origin). Just own it. Definitely push back on the misuses of your work by the powerful adults. Just saying that is seems really odd and misguided for you to now heap all the blame for the misuse of your work on the people who were arguing against the validity of your work. Heap the blame instead on the people misusing your work.
As always, maximum respect to you for putting in the effort to look at this issue.
I like this response a lot. However, what you haphazardly overlook is that the "frustration" people have with the scientific community is the abject hubris over declaring the lab leak hypothesis inadmissible in research publications and the public sphere; all the while proffering the zoonosis variant as the unquestioned gospel truth.
Regardless of how strongly you dislike epistemic trespassing, I must point out that the "lab leak hypothesis" primarily falls under forensic analysis; which is a specialization of FBI investigators and NOT epidemiologists/virologists. The fact that the FBI has been vocal from inception about its professional assessments should carry far more weight with a skeptical scientist than the bulwark of bullshit coming out of the NIH in opposition.
To be fair, agencies like the FBI can have political agendas. So at first glance it's hard to guess who's right. But by now there''s been a lot of time for glances and a lot of scientists have chosen not to look at pretty simple stuff.
I wish everyone could take a breath. I’m not really in this fight, but there are a few things that have disturbed me about my fellow scientists over my career.
Arrogance and bullying are two characteristics. The most brilliant people I have known are generally the most curious/open minded and humble.
Just as it seems ludicrous for any religious person to think they can understand the mind of a creator, scientists working in domains related to biology have to be ready for unexpected discoveries.
When I got into genomics, I was so fortunate to work with a chemimetrics experts and a guru in factorial analysis. They changed my world for the better. I realized how many biologists were not that quantitative. I don’t think I met more than a few people who understood the value of a technical technical replicate and certainly not the critical importance of re-randomization at every step in a complex experiment - especially for time-course analysis.
While receiving an award at George W’s White House, I spoke to his science advisor (a physicist). That was when so many companies thought they could interrogate tumor-sample libraries to find cancer biomarkers. But the first principle component was the hospital, then days the RNA was labeled. It was many PCs before you could get close to biology.
I suggested he might save years and billions of dollars by funding technology to go into every operating room. Surgeons could drop samples in immediately to the device so they would all receive identical handling and no human hands would touch the samples.
I can add that one prominent academic with highly relevant expertise wrote me of being constrained by "risk of being detained when visiting certain countries".
I've now updated that too-narrow sentence, leaving the old one in but with a strike-through so people can see what you were referring to. There's a lot to say about conformity, careerism, cowardice, noble and ignoble lies, and simple inability to use systematic reasoning, each of which can be illustrated with striking anecdotes. But that can be saved for another time.
Darren - certain evolutionary biologists who claim a very small subset of bat coronaviruses evolve primarily by horizontal gene transfer with negative pressure to adapt their receptor binding domains as they move from bat enteric viruses to pangolins to humans are quacks in my opinion.
Particularly the ones too cowardly to hang around on twitter to defend their affront to Charles Darwin.
Without asking you to evaluate my claims that the BANAL viruses are unnatural (or fraud) you should still recognize that France has been more intimately involved with WIV than anyone. They designed and helped construct the lab and engaged in a joint venture with CAS in Institut Pasteur Shanghai. They've also been engaged with the AMMS since the time of SARS.
Yet - unlike the US - there's been no enquiry of any sort, or even any FOI revelations.
It's interesting that despite those intimate ties French scientists have been more open about the probability that the virus came from a lab. Maybe the US is unusual in having every issue become dichotomously linked to politics. Maybe someday someone will have a good project sorting out the sociology of all this.
There are only a handful of western scientists from a well-established clique who strongly influenced the debate - the Oxford circle - Holmes, Worobey, Rambaut, Robertson et al. More concerning are the hundreds who were peripheral to the field, capable of understanding the issues but remained silent - perhaps out of deference to "the experts", but also to avoid being associated with the wrong political tribe.
Just to clearly respond to your emotionally left leaning post:
1. The lab leak isn’t a conspiracy.
Even the FBI and U.S. Department of Energy say it’s likely the virus came from a lab. That’s not some fringe theory—it’s backed by U.S. intelligence. (FBI via CNN, DOE via Time Magazine) independent journalists not financially constrained by pharm companies etc
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2. The media shut down legit questions.
Early on, scientists discussed the lab leak seriously—but emails show Fauci and others pushed to downplay it. That’s politics, not science. (House Oversight Committee report)
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3. Mask mandates weren’t the magic solution.
The Cochrane Review, one of the gold standards in medical research, found little to no effect of masks on stopping respiratory viruses in real-world settings.
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4. The “one spillover event” narrative is shaky.
Yes, the virus came from a single entry to humans—but that’s unusual compared to other pandemics. It actually adds weight to the lab leak argument.
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5. Wuhan was doing risky research.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology was working on gain-of-function experiments—exactly the kind that could lead to a leak. That’s not theory—that’s in their grant proposals.
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6. Natural origin theory still has no smoking gun.
No animal host has ever been found. The market data doesn’t prove anything. Even France’s National Academy of Medicine says lab leak now has more supporting evidence than zoonosis.
This post gets so much wrong, it’s unreal. Right on cue, the classic left-wing tactic of using the word “fascist” is thrown in—ironically, since fascism is more aligned with the authoritarian end of the leftist spectrum. It’s the same mindset that marginalises anyone with a differing opinion, just like the echo chambers around extreme vaccine advocacy.
Let’s not forget how real conversations and data were suppressed—why? Because Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and other pharma giants lobbied governments to control the narrative. That’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s well-documented influence. And yes, it’s a tough pill to swallow for the pro-COVID vaccine crowd: that they may have played a role—albeit unwittingly—in contributing to increased deaths, mental health crises, delayed diagnoses, collapsing small businesses, disrupted education, fractured families, lost livelihoods, and even rises in cancer and cardiac issues.
But cognitive dissonance kicks in, because the media—CNN, Hollywood, all “sponsored by Pfizer”—told them a certain story. These are the same people who genuinely believed a blue mask would protect them but you wouldn't catch COVID sitting at a restaurant table, then get up and put the mask back on, or that a rushed jab was 100%, 80%, 70%, 60%, 50% boosters yearly, “okay naturally immunity isn't a conspiracy…..anymore” effective, or even more comically, that only the unvaccinated were spreading the virus.
Please stop spreading misinformation and propaganda. Take the blue mask off—literally and metaphorically—and switch off CNN. Your life, and the lives of your family and friends, will improve drastically.
For context: I never wore a mask, never took any jabs, and neither did most of my friends. None of us experienced “long COVID,” which, by the way, has increasingly been debunked or reclassified in recent studies as either post-viral fatigue or anxiety-related symptoms, not a distinct medical condition. So shouldn’t we be asking whether your immune system was weakened by repeated vaccinations or prolonged reliance on masks?
Thanks for sharing the article—I’ve read it. And yes, I understand that pre-existing conditions like cancer can weaken the immune system. But we need to separate personal health challenges from broad public health narratives.
The review you linked actually admits that long COVID lacks a clear clinical definition, relies heavily on self-reported symptoms, and overlaps with things like post-viral fatigue and mental health issues. Even the authors acknowledge that the underlying mechanisms remain speculative.
Let’s not forget: studies like this—and many others—are often sponsored by pharmaceutical companies with a vested interest in prolonging public concern and pushing ongoing treatments or boosters. That should always be factored into how we interpret “the science.”
Meanwhile, recent independent studies have shown most long COVID symptoms resolve within months, and the prevalence is comparable to post-viral symptoms from flu and other common illnesses.
"Studies have demonstrated persistence of the virus in extrapulmonary sites, including the brain and coronary arteries, of individuals with severe COVID-19 (refs. 68,74). Studies in human and mouse brain organoids showed that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces fusion between neurons and between neurons and glial cells, which may progressively lead to formation of multicellular syncytia compromising neuronal activity75. Neuroimaging studies performed in humans 10 months after they ‘recovered’ from mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection showed significant alterations (commensurate with 7 ‘years of healthy aging’) of cerebral white matter, including widespread increases of extracellular free water and mean diffusivity (indicative of inflammation) encompassing all brain lobes76. Pre- and post-SARS-CoV-2 infection imaging studies showed structural abnormalities and accelerated aging in the brains of people with mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection74,77,78. Even in the absence of direct infection in the brain, a transient respiratory infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces prolonged neuroinflammatory responses, activation of microglial cells and impaired neurogenesis64,77. In addition to neuroinflammation, people with brain fog due to long COVID were shown to have disrupted blood–brain barriers79.
Abnormalities in the immune system have been documented in people with long COVID, including increased humoral responses directed against SARS-CoV-2; higher antibody responses against Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)66, varicella zoster virus (VZV)66 and cytomegalovirus67 (suggesting possible reactivation of herpesviruses80); exhausted T cell responses12,66; and uncoordinated cross-talk between the cellular and humoral adaptive immunity12,13. Autoimmune responses triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection may underlie long COVID symptoms81,82. Passive transfer of IgG antibodies from patients with long COVID to healthy mice recapitulated heightened pain sensation and locomotion deficits82,83.
In the heart, SARS-CoV-2 infects coronary vessels, preferentially targeting coronary artery plaque macrophages and inducing plaque inflammation68. Vascular disease in long COVID is likely triggered by complement activation, red blood cell lysis, platelet activation and thromboinflammation—leading to altered coagulation and tissue injury67,84. Dysfunctional hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal response with inappropriately low levels of cortisol may mediate some of the symptomatology observed in long COVID (including fatigue, sleep abnormalities and metabolic derangements)66, and has been seen in those with persistent respiratory symptoms of long COVID80. SARS-CoV-2 infection may lead to reduced intestinal absorption of tryptophan (a serotonin precursor) and subsequently reduced levels of circulating serotonin, which may impair cognition via reduced vagal signaling85. SARS-CoV-2 infection may also lead to mitochondrial dysfunction, systemic metabolic abnormalities and abnormal skeletal muscle response to exercise—including exercise-induced myopathy and tissue infiltration of amyloid-containing deposits and leukocytes65."
Thanks for sharing the review, but there are several important points to clarify:
1. Long COVID Is Still Poorly Defined
The paper you shared admits that long COVID symptoms are highly varied, overlap with other post-viral conditions, and lack standardized clinical markers. That alone should caution us from treating it as a distinct, settled disease. The broad symptom lists often include fatigue, brain fog, and anxiety—symptoms that can result from prolonged stress, lockdowns, or even isolation, not just COVID itself.
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2. Many COVID Deaths Were Misattributed
Excess death audits and hospital data in multiple countries have shown that many deaths classified as “COVID-related” were actually due to other causes, with the virus present but not the primary cause of death. This inflated fear and drove policy without an honest reflection of the data.
(Source: UK ONS, CDC cause-of-death guidelines)
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3. Vaccine Harms Are Downplayed, Not “Debunked”
While the review discusses viral persistence, it completely ignores growing evidence around post-vaccine complications:
• Myocarditis and pericarditis have been definitively linked to mRNA vaccines, especially in young men.
• Studies are emerging linking mRNA technology with immune dysregulation, spike protein persistence, and even potential tumour acceleration in rare cases. These findings aren’t conspiracy—they’re under active investigation.
(Sources: NIH, BMJ, peer-reviewed case studies)
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4. Pharma-Funded Research Should Be Scrutinized
The review, like many COVID-era papers, is funded or supported by pharmaceutical-aligned institutions. That doesn’t invalidate the science—but it does raise the risk of bias, especially when dissenting experts were deplatformed, censored, and excluded from the peer-review process altogether.
Your experience is unfortunate, but it doesn’t make the narrative unquestionable, or others wrong for challenging it.
Let’s be clear: The Cochrane Review (2023)—one of the most respected sources in medical research—found little to no evidence that masks, including N95s, made a significant impact on the spread of respiratory viruses in real-world settings. That’s not anecdotal—that’s high-level, peer-reviewed data. There is many other studies that prove this.
THE REAL ISSUR was credible scientists and doctors who raised valid concerns, about masks, vaccines, lockdowns, or the lab-leak theory, were censored, banned from platforms, deplatformed, and ridiculed. Experts like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, and even Nobel laureates were shut down for offering alternative views that have since proven to be reasonable, if not correct.
Science is not about “circling wagons” around a narrative. It’s about open debate and evolving with evidence, not banning dissent and calling legitimate concerns “dangerous misinformation.”
If the story was solid, it wouldn’t need to be protected by censorship. Facism tactics were used by the democrats and CNN types.
Bhattacharya was a lead author on a notorious tendentiously false study under-estimating the covid infection fatality rate. Its error in estimating the 95% confidence interval on the infection rate itself (the denominator) was literally a factor of infinity.
His high-end estimated prediction of US covid mortality was low by a factor of 30. So yes, these are "alternative views", but not ones on which I would base policy.
Let’s clear a few things up. Yes, Jay Bhattacharya’s 2020 Santa Clara seroprevalence study had methodological flaws—something even he later acknowledged. But calling it “notorious” and implying it was scientific fraud is an overreach. In fact, Andrew Gelman, the statistician you cited, clarified that while the study had issues with uncertainty modeling, it still contributed valuable data and should be seen as one part of a broader picture—not dismissed outright.
It’s also worth noting that many early COVID models were wildly inaccurate—on both sides. Pro-lockdown scientists predicted tens of millions of deaths with lockdowns, while others like Bhattacharya underestimated mortality. That’s the nature of science in a crisis: uncertainty.
What’s far more concerning is that Bhattacharya and others were censored and blacklisted not for being wrong, but for disagreeing with the political narrative—despite being Harvard- and Stanford-trained physicians and economists. And ironically, many of the points they made (like natural immunity, collateral damage of lockdowns, vaccine limits) have since been acknowledged by mainstream institutions.
You don’t have to agree with Bhattacharya to admit his views deserve space in the scientific conversation—not cancellation.
Jeffrey Sachs now believes that the virus was actually likely made by U.S. scientists, probably Ralph Baric's lab at the University of North Carolina, and then tested at the Wuhan lab.
I've read some of Haslam's stuff. Although I've forgotten the details a lot of it seemed incoherent and wrong. That doesn't mean that he must be wrong about where the SC2 sequence was first made. It seems simplest to think it was WIV, but that's not the sort of thing that's easy to investigate from the outside.
My long Bayes analysis is apolitical. I get ~300/1 odds favoring lab leak, trying to be conservative. Your extensive comments on the restriction enzyme segment pattern basically repeat analysis that's in it. Valentin and I are on pretty much the same wavelength.
With respect to the current political situation in the US, I'd say something like " that does not mean we have to feign ignorance or pretend that "we just don't know for sure."" There's a time for every season.
True. Accounts with genetic engineering are a subset of research origin accounts. You may be referring to the possibility that there was non-accidental release rather than an accidental leak. I think that is implausible. At any rate, adding that possibility to the LL hypothesis has no noticeable effect on the LL vs. ZW odds.
It goes to motivation, Stephen. If an accident happened, why expend so much time, energy, and effort to cover it up?
And the timing? Just a coincidence that it was primed for maximum interference in a campaign season involving the nation's most polarized electorate/and electable candidates?
The reason for a government to cover up an enormously destructive accident that it caused is not exactly mysterious.
As for the timing, it matches when the DEFUSE proposal submitted to DARPA anticipated starting to test infectious clones. I think your paranoid conspiracy theory is just the sort of thing that gives the rather boring and highly plausible lab leak theory a bad name.
I'm less confident about using the extreme syn mut stats because those rely on taking the published natural relatives seriously. The RE site pattern by itself is already strong evidence.
It's doable. That's essentially what Bayes analysis is. Unfortunately a careful write-up is painfully long. I should try to write a condensed version at maybe 1/3 the length but age, laziness, and long covid interfere.
Thanks for a badly needed corrective to what is already a bad situation. Some here will quibble with points but the main thrust of what you said is right and in a very important way.
I understand that this post is likely your heartfelt opinion so I also understand that the "We're paying for the cowardly silence of most scientists by handing something like truth-telling on the big question of Covid origins over to the fascists" part is an expression of your frustration. However, this statement is inaccurate: the small subset of scientists (maybe 100 or so) actively working on this question have been far from silent on this topic. For example, their dismissal of the various odds ratios you used in your probabilistic analyses have been quite actively expressed on various social media platforms and in commentaries of your publications on this topic. You are now even referred to quite regularly (and unfairly) as some variant of "that physicist guy who doesn't know how far out of his lane he has strayed."
The reality is that ~80% of the slightly bigger (but still minute) subset of scientists actually capable of contributing meaningful opinions (maybe a few thousand virologists, epidemiologists and others with appropriate skillsets) think the balance of all the evidence (not just the hard data) leans in favor of a natural origin. I'm not sure it is fair to call these scientists cowardly if this is what they actually think. Most of this larger subset talk openly about their leaning in favor of the natural origin hypothesis while at the very same time appreciating that there is still insufficient data to exclude the possibility of a lab-leak being the ultimate source of the pandemic. How is this cowardly silence? How many more publications, commentaries, podcasts, social media posts etc need they make for their opinions to be considered non-silent.
Also, despite the negative connotations of fence-sitting among the general population, fence sitting is the default stance that scientists are supposed to take when confronted with too little data to decide. It is not at all cowardly to say "I honestly don't know." How many times do undecideds need to say that they do not know for what they say to be considered non-silent.
It is genuinely brave of you to argue (very well in my opinion) against the consensus opinion of other scientists working on the origins question. I assume, however, that you appreciate that the consensus of most of the general population is that the lab-leak hypothesis is more plausible. I assume therefore that you also realize that people on the "other side" who are analyzing all the available hard data and are sticking with their conclusions that the natural origin hypothesis is more plausible are also bravely arguing against a consensus. I would argue that in most materially relevant respects the people who have come down on the natural origin side are even braver than you are in that the consensus that they are arguing against is one that wields far more power than the one you are arguing against.
It seems like a misstep on your part to describe these scientists as cowards. As irritating, wrong-headed or awful as you might think some (or all) of their arguments are, and as rude, arrogant and vicious as you might think they are as people, I think you will eventually find that they are some of the most fearless academic adversaries that you have ever encountered. Whether their fearlessness is an expression of bravery or an expression of foolhardiness is up to you to decide. Surely you can see though that it is not cowardice.
Last point: Nobody handed "truth-telling" over to anyone. Blaming scientists for what is happening seems odd to me. The vast majority of the minority of people who think they believe in the scientific method haven't a clue what it is. In their everyday lives they believe in a whole bunch of stuff that is far less plausible than either the lab leak or natural origin hypotheses. Most of the rest just believe whatever their parents and other authority figures have told them to believe. Scientists are only tolerated because the adults in charge know that they create imbalances in information that can be exploited for financial/military/nationalistic/health/production/whatever gains. All the other stuff scientists contribute in the form of dissenting opinions that run counter to the interests of powerful adults (the earth is not the center of the universe, humans evolved from ape-like creatures, we are incapable of free-will, the coral reefs are dying, smoking causes cancer, overuse of fossil fuels is changing the climate, our population is being poisoned by the food we eat) have been, and will continue to be, actively disparaged by those powerful adults.
Justifiably or not, finding yourself on the same side as the powerful adults with respect to a consenting scientific opinion (the natural origin position is in fact the dissenting opinion), shouldn't make you feel guilty if you actually believe that the consensus is correct (i.e. that the lab-leak is more probable than a natural origin). Just own it. Definitely push back on the misuses of your work by the powerful adults. Just saying that is seems really odd and misguided for you to now heap all the blame for the misuse of your work on the people who were arguing against the validity of your work. Heap the blame instead on the people misusing your work.
As always, maximum respect to you for putting in the effort to look at this issue.
Darren- Thanks for the sensitive and thoughtful comment. I'm tired now but will try to respond more tomorrow.
I like this response a lot. However, what you haphazardly overlook is that the "frustration" people have with the scientific community is the abject hubris over declaring the lab leak hypothesis inadmissible in research publications and the public sphere; all the while proffering the zoonosis variant as the unquestioned gospel truth.
Regardless of how strongly you dislike epistemic trespassing, I must point out that the "lab leak hypothesis" primarily falls under forensic analysis; which is a specialization of FBI investigators and NOT epidemiologists/virologists. The fact that the FBI has been vocal from inception about its professional assessments should carry far more weight with a skeptical scientist than the bulwark of bullshit coming out of the NIH in opposition.
To be fair, agencies like the FBI can have political agendas. So at first glance it's hard to guess who's right. But by now there''s been a lot of time for glances and a lot of scientists have chosen not to look at pretty simple stuff.
I wish everyone could take a breath. I’m not really in this fight, but there are a few things that have disturbed me about my fellow scientists over my career.
Arrogance and bullying are two characteristics. The most brilliant people I have known are generally the most curious/open minded and humble.
Just as it seems ludicrous for any religious person to think they can understand the mind of a creator, scientists working in domains related to biology have to be ready for unexpected discoveries.
When I got into genomics, I was so fortunate to work with a chemimetrics experts and a guru in factorial analysis. They changed my world for the better. I realized how many biologists were not that quantitative. I don’t think I met more than a few people who understood the value of a technical technical replicate and certainly not the critical importance of re-randomization at every step in a complex experiment - especially for time-course analysis.
While receiving an award at George W’s White House, I spoke to his science advisor (a physicist). That was when so many companies thought they could interrogate tumor-sample libraries to find cancer biomarkers. But the first principle component was the hospital, then days the RNA was labeled. It was many PCs before you could get close to biology.
I suggested he might save years and billions of dollars by funding technology to go into every operating room. Surgeons could drop samples in immediately to the device so they would all receive identical handling and no human hands would touch the samples.
I don’t think he understood what I was saying.
In any event, we are all humans in this boat.
Here's a link to a discussion that has some of the anecdotes.
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/01/15/the-terror-among-academics-on-the-covid-origins-issue-is-like-nothing-weve-ever-seen-before/
I can add that one prominent academic with highly relevant expertise wrote me of being constrained by "risk of being detained when visiting certain countries".
I've now updated that too-narrow sentence, leaving the old one in but with a strike-through so people can see what you were referring to. There's a lot to say about conformity, careerism, cowardice, noble and ignoble lies, and simple inability to use systematic reasoning, each of which can be illustrated with striking anecdotes. But that can be saved for another time.
Darren - certain evolutionary biologists who claim a very small subset of bat coronaviruses evolve primarily by horizontal gene transfer with negative pressure to adapt their receptor binding domains as they move from bat enteric viruses to pangolins to humans are quacks in my opinion.
Particularly the ones too cowardly to hang around on twitter to defend their affront to Charles Darwin.
A timely paper on mask efficacy just came out
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0301310
"Outside of France"???
Please see my substack article on that:
https://dogsbreakfast.substack.com/p/a-french-enlightenment
Thanks. I hadn't realized that links worked in comments. I don't know enough to evaluate your ideas but it's good to keep these exchanges going.
Without asking you to evaluate my claims that the BANAL viruses are unnatural (or fraud) you should still recognize that France has been more intimately involved with WIV than anyone. They designed and helped construct the lab and engaged in a joint venture with CAS in Institut Pasteur Shanghai. They've also been engaged with the AMMS since the time of SARS.
Yet - unlike the US - there's been no enquiry of any sort, or even any FOI revelations.
It's interesting that despite those intimate ties French scientists have been more open about the probability that the virus came from a lab. Maybe the US is unusual in having every issue become dichotomously linked to politics. Maybe someday someone will have a good project sorting out the sociology of all this.
Absolutely.
There are only a handful of western scientists from a well-established clique who strongly influenced the debate - the Oxford circle - Holmes, Worobey, Rambaut, Robertson et al. More concerning are the hundreds who were peripheral to the field, capable of understanding the issues but remained silent - perhaps out of deference to "the experts", but also to avoid being associated with the wrong political tribe.
Just to clearly respond to your emotionally left leaning post:
1. The lab leak isn’t a conspiracy.
Even the FBI and U.S. Department of Energy say it’s likely the virus came from a lab. That’s not some fringe theory—it’s backed by U.S. intelligence. (FBI via CNN, DOE via Time Magazine) independent journalists not financially constrained by pharm companies etc
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2. The media shut down legit questions.
Early on, scientists discussed the lab leak seriously—but emails show Fauci and others pushed to downplay it. That’s politics, not science. (House Oversight Committee report)
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3. Mask mandates weren’t the magic solution.
The Cochrane Review, one of the gold standards in medical research, found little to no effect of masks on stopping respiratory viruses in real-world settings.
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4. The “one spillover event” narrative is shaky.
Yes, the virus came from a single entry to humans—but that’s unusual compared to other pandemics. It actually adds weight to the lab leak argument.
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5. Wuhan was doing risky research.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology was working on gain-of-function experiments—exactly the kind that could lead to a leak. That’s not theory—that’s in their grant proposals.
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6. Natural origin theory still has no smoking gun.
No animal host has ever been found. The market data doesn’t prove anything. Even France’s National Academy of Medicine says lab leak now has more supporting evidence than zoonosis.
I'm not sure why you chose to repeat some of my points but in cruder less careful form.
Re the Cochrane review on masks, see Zeynep's https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/opinion/masks-work-cochrane-study.html
for a quick look at why it's tendentious bullshit. The "gold standard" way of describing those reviews is sort of a running joke among statisticians.
This post gets so much wrong, it’s unreal. Right on cue, the classic left-wing tactic of using the word “fascist” is thrown in—ironically, since fascism is more aligned with the authoritarian end of the leftist spectrum. It’s the same mindset that marginalises anyone with a differing opinion, just like the echo chambers around extreme vaccine advocacy.
Let’s not forget how real conversations and data were suppressed—why? Because Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and other pharma giants lobbied governments to control the narrative. That’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s well-documented influence. And yes, it’s a tough pill to swallow for the pro-COVID vaccine crowd: that they may have played a role—albeit unwittingly—in contributing to increased deaths, mental health crises, delayed diagnoses, collapsing small businesses, disrupted education, fractured families, lost livelihoods, and even rises in cancer and cardiac issues.
But cognitive dissonance kicks in, because the media—CNN, Hollywood, all “sponsored by Pfizer”—told them a certain story. These are the same people who genuinely believed a blue mask would protect them but you wouldn't catch COVID sitting at a restaurant table, then get up and put the mask back on, or that a rushed jab was 100%, 80%, 70%, 60%, 50% boosters yearly, “okay naturally immunity isn't a conspiracy…..anymore” effective, or even more comically, that only the unvaccinated were spreading the virus.
Please stop spreading misinformation and propaganda. Take the blue mask off—literally and metaphorically—and switch off CNN. Your life, and the lives of your family and friends, will improve drastically.
I don't watch CNN.
I did take off my good N95 at a large group dinner once. I got a mild case which turned into persistent rather debilitating long covid.
For other readers, your comment provides an illustration of why some scientists feel justified in circling the wagons around their implausible story.
For context: I never wore a mask, never took any jabs, and neither did most of my friends. None of us experienced “long COVID,” which, by the way, has increasingly been debunked or reclassified in recent studies as either post-viral fatigue or anxiety-related symptoms, not a distinct medical condition. So shouldn’t we be asking whether your immune system was weakened by repeated vaccinations or prolonged reliance on masks?
My immune system was weakened by a pre-existing cancer. The number of people with a variety of similar pre-existing conditions is very large.
You like review articles and "recent studies". Here's the most recent major review of long covid.
https://journals.lww.com/annals-of-medicine-and-surgery/fulltext/2025/04000/a_multidisciplinary_review_of_long_covid_to.44.aspx
Thanks for sharing the article—I’ve read it. And yes, I understand that pre-existing conditions like cancer can weaken the immune system. But we need to separate personal health challenges from broad public health narratives.
The review you linked actually admits that long COVID lacks a clear clinical definition, relies heavily on self-reported symptoms, and overlaps with things like post-viral fatigue and mental health issues. Even the authors acknowledge that the underlying mechanisms remain speculative.
Let’s not forget: studies like this—and many others—are often sponsored by pharmaceutical companies with a vested interest in prolonging public concern and pushing ongoing treatments or boosters. That should always be factored into how we interpret “the science.”
Meanwhile, recent independent studies have shown most long COVID symptoms resolve within months, and the prevalence is comparable to post-viral symptoms from flu and other common illnesses.
(Sources: UK ONS 2023, JAMA, NIH)
From a review by Iwasaki and others
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03173-6
"Studies have demonstrated persistence of the virus in extrapulmonary sites, including the brain and coronary arteries, of individuals with severe COVID-19 (refs. 68,74). Studies in human and mouse brain organoids showed that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces fusion between neurons and between neurons and glial cells, which may progressively lead to formation of multicellular syncytia compromising neuronal activity75. Neuroimaging studies performed in humans 10 months after they ‘recovered’ from mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection showed significant alterations (commensurate with 7 ‘years of healthy aging’) of cerebral white matter, including widespread increases of extracellular free water and mean diffusivity (indicative of inflammation) encompassing all brain lobes76. Pre- and post-SARS-CoV-2 infection imaging studies showed structural abnormalities and accelerated aging in the brains of people with mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection74,77,78. Even in the absence of direct infection in the brain, a transient respiratory infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces prolonged neuroinflammatory responses, activation of microglial cells and impaired neurogenesis64,77. In addition to neuroinflammation, people with brain fog due to long COVID were shown to have disrupted blood–brain barriers79.
Abnormalities in the immune system have been documented in people with long COVID, including increased humoral responses directed against SARS-CoV-2; higher antibody responses against Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)66, varicella zoster virus (VZV)66 and cytomegalovirus67 (suggesting possible reactivation of herpesviruses80); exhausted T cell responses12,66; and uncoordinated cross-talk between the cellular and humoral adaptive immunity12,13. Autoimmune responses triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection may underlie long COVID symptoms81,82. Passive transfer of IgG antibodies from patients with long COVID to healthy mice recapitulated heightened pain sensation and locomotion deficits82,83.
In the heart, SARS-CoV-2 infects coronary vessels, preferentially targeting coronary artery plaque macrophages and inducing plaque inflammation68. Vascular disease in long COVID is likely triggered by complement activation, red blood cell lysis, platelet activation and thromboinflammation—leading to altered coagulation and tissue injury67,84. Dysfunctional hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal response with inappropriately low levels of cortisol may mediate some of the symptomatology observed in long COVID (including fatigue, sleep abnormalities and metabolic derangements)66, and has been seen in those with persistent respiratory symptoms of long COVID80. SARS-CoV-2 infection may lead to reduced intestinal absorption of tryptophan (a serotonin precursor) and subsequently reduced levels of circulating serotonin, which may impair cognition via reduced vagal signaling85. SARS-CoV-2 infection may also lead to mitochondrial dysfunction, systemic metabolic abnormalities and abnormal skeletal muscle response to exercise—including exercise-induced myopathy and tissue infiltration of amyloid-containing deposits and leukocytes65."
Thanks for sharing the review, but there are several important points to clarify:
1. Long COVID Is Still Poorly Defined
The paper you shared admits that long COVID symptoms are highly varied, overlap with other post-viral conditions, and lack standardized clinical markers. That alone should caution us from treating it as a distinct, settled disease. The broad symptom lists often include fatigue, brain fog, and anxiety—symptoms that can result from prolonged stress, lockdowns, or even isolation, not just COVID itself.
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2. Many COVID Deaths Were Misattributed
Excess death audits and hospital data in multiple countries have shown that many deaths classified as “COVID-related” were actually due to other causes, with the virus present but not the primary cause of death. This inflated fear and drove policy without an honest reflection of the data.
(Source: UK ONS, CDC cause-of-death guidelines)
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3. Vaccine Harms Are Downplayed, Not “Debunked”
While the review discusses viral persistence, it completely ignores growing evidence around post-vaccine complications:
• Myocarditis and pericarditis have been definitively linked to mRNA vaccines, especially in young men.
• Studies are emerging linking mRNA technology with immune dysregulation, spike protein persistence, and even potential tumour acceleration in rare cases. These findings aren’t conspiracy—they’re under active investigation.
(Sources: NIH, BMJ, peer-reviewed case studies)
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4. Pharma-Funded Research Should Be Scrutinized
The review, like many COVID-era papers, is funded or supported by pharmaceutical-aligned institutions. That doesn’t invalidate the science—but it does raise the risk of bias, especially when dissenting experts were deplatformed, censored, and excluded from the peer-review process altogether.
Your experience is unfortunate, but it doesn’t make the narrative unquestionable, or others wrong for challenging it.
Let’s be clear: The Cochrane Review (2023)—one of the most respected sources in medical research—found little to no evidence that masks, including N95s, made a significant impact on the spread of respiratory viruses in real-world settings. That’s not anecdotal—that’s high-level, peer-reviewed data. There is many other studies that prove this.
THE REAL ISSUR was credible scientists and doctors who raised valid concerns, about masks, vaccines, lockdowns, or the lab-leak theory, were censored, banned from platforms, deplatformed, and ridiculed. Experts like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, and even Nobel laureates were shut down for offering alternative views that have since proven to be reasonable, if not correct.
Science is not about “circling wagons” around a narrative. It’s about open debate and evolving with evidence, not banning dissent and calling legitimate concerns “dangerous misinformation.”
If the story was solid, it wouldn’t need to be protected by censorship. Facism tactics were used by the democrats and CNN types.
Bhattacharya was a lead author on a notorious tendentiously false study under-estimating the covid infection fatality rate. Its error in estimating the 95% confidence interval on the infection rate itself (the denominator) was literally a factor of infinity.
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/12/22/stanford-medical-school-professor-misrepresents-what-i-wrote-but-i-kind-of-understand-where-hes-coming-from/
His high-end estimated prediction of US covid mortality was low by a factor of 30. So yes, these are "alternative views", but not ones on which I would base policy.
Let’s clear a few things up. Yes, Jay Bhattacharya’s 2020 Santa Clara seroprevalence study had methodological flaws—something even he later acknowledged. But calling it “notorious” and implying it was scientific fraud is an overreach. In fact, Andrew Gelman, the statistician you cited, clarified that while the study had issues with uncertainty modeling, it still contributed valuable data and should be seen as one part of a broader picture—not dismissed outright.
It’s also worth noting that many early COVID models were wildly inaccurate—on both sides. Pro-lockdown scientists predicted tens of millions of deaths with lockdowns, while others like Bhattacharya underestimated mortality. That’s the nature of science in a crisis: uncertainty.
What’s far more concerning is that Bhattacharya and others were censored and blacklisted not for being wrong, but for disagreeing with the political narrative—despite being Harvard- and Stanford-trained physicians and economists. And ironically, many of the points they made (like natural immunity, collateral damage of lockdowns, vaccine limits) have since been acknowledged by mainstream institutions.
You don’t have to agree with Bhattacharya to admit his views deserve space in the scientific conversation—not cancellation.
Jeffrey Sachs now believes that the virus was actually likely made by U.S. scientists, probably Ralph Baric's lab at the University of North Carolina, and then tested at the Wuhan lab.
I can't follow the science here, obviously, and Haslam writes unclearly, but for what it's worth: https://jimhaslam.substack.com/p/jeff-sachs-covid-was-made-in-a-us?
I've read some of Haslam's stuff. Although I've forgotten the details a lot of it seemed incoherent and wrong. That doesn't mean that he must be wrong about where the SC2 sequence was first made. It seems simplest to think it was WIV, but that's not the sort of thing that's easy to investigate from the outside.
Yes. Yikes when he got on about how scarless assembly was meant to "fool" a human's immune system.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1899928979232166103.html#google_vignette
https://zenodo.org/records/15172195
My long Bayes analysis is apolitical. I get ~300/1 odds favoring lab leak, trying to be conservative. Your extensive comments on the restriction enzyme segment pattern basically repeat analysis that's in it. Valentin and I are on pretty much the same wavelength.
With respect to the current political situation in the US, I'd say something like " that does not mean we have to feign ignorance or pretend that "we just don't know for sure."" There's a time for every season.
True. Accounts with genetic engineering are a subset of research origin accounts. You may be referring to the possibility that there was non-accidental release rather than an accidental leak. I think that is implausible. At any rate, adding that possibility to the LL hypothesis has no noticeable effect on the LL vs. ZW odds.
It goes to motivation, Stephen. If an accident happened, why expend so much time, energy, and effort to cover it up?
And the timing? Just a coincidence that it was primed for maximum interference in a campaign season involving the nation's most polarized electorate/and electable candidates?
The reason for a government to cover up an enormously destructive accident that it caused is not exactly mysterious.
As for the timing, it matches when the DEFUSE proposal submitted to DARPA anticipated starting to test infectious clones. I think your paranoid conspiracy theory is just the sort of thing that gives the rather boring and highly plausible lab leak theory a bad name.
Are you Stephen, Michael?
I think your political bootlicking is an embarrassment to your reputation, and have never thought of science as a team sport the way you do.
removed for duplication, not censorship
I'm less confident about using the extreme syn mut stats because those rely on taking the published natural relatives seriously. The RE site pattern by itself is already strong evidence.
It's doable. That's essentially what Bayes analysis is. Unfortunately a careful write-up is painfully long. I should try to write a condensed version at maybe 1/3 the length but age, laziness, and long covid interfere.