reSee.it - Tweets Saved By @WashburneAlex
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
I want to briefly apologize to all the people who only know me via Twitter. I've been using this platform to share knowledge & science about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. This topic hits me personally because I was on a DARPA PREEMPT team pre-COVID 1/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
The most important piece of evidence supporting lab origin theories is a 2018 grant - the DEFUSE grant - proposed to the DARPA PREEMPT call. The grant proposed to modify bat SARS CoVs in exactly the ways SARS-CoV-2 is modified. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21066966-defuse-proposal 2/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
DARPA rejected the proposal because DEFUSE proposed to make viruses that weren't found in nature with the knowledge that the viruses they made could be better able to bind human receptors and enter human cells, thus more transmissible & potentially pandemic. 3/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
While DARPA rejected the proposal in 2018 (consistent with my experience with DARPA as an outstanding group with strong guardrails & good risk-assessment) that doesn't mean the research didn't proceed. NIAID, for example, approved GOF research on SARS-CoVs in Wuhan in 2016 4/ https://t.co/vroJWyMBos
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
The grant in question - "Understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence" - becomes very important. Ongoing contracts for Peter Daszak through NIAID provided one means to subsidize the relatively inexpensive gain of function research of concern proposed in DEFUSE. 5/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
Outside DEFUSE, we see these specific authors linked together two other times. -Oct 2019 to discuss SARS CoVs with NIAID -Feb 2020 conspiring to organize an article calling lab-origin theories "conspiracy theories" and not author it, to "maximize an independent voice" 6/ https://t.co/2pAzAF7xXB
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
Incidentally, in another line of April 2020 communications we see Peter Daszak emphasizing, with high importance, that his wildlife virology collaborators not publish "China Genbank Sequences" that were part of his terminated NIH/NIAID grant mentioned above. 7/ https://t.co/8q7tfzNxJI
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
In the NIH grant's 2018 progress report obtained via FOIA, we see clear evidence of gain of function research of concern on bat SARS CoVs The increased viral titers reported match the effect size of DEFUSE's proposed furin cleavage site insertion. https://t.co/cNmabIC0X8 8/ https://t.co/5Q0NkfzaiV
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
It gets worse. Here's the 2018 NIAID progress report by @EcoHealthNYC and the WIV An as-of-yet-undisclosed recombinant SARS CoV produced by this team in Wuhan yielded 100-10,000x viral titers in *humanized* mice relative to the wild type strain. That's indisputable GoF. https://t.co/kWJGvtqTdD
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
I started this thread off with an apology. I feel bad because some people on here may think this is all I think about or talk about, and this topic is stressful. Maintaining my independent voice has burnt bridges with the wildlife virology community. 9/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
I've even been asked by people on my DARPA PREEMPT team to never mention my role on a DARPA PREEMPT team. I think the behavior of this community has been very disappointing. I feel a civic duty to use my science to inform people about public research activities they funded 10/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
I apologize for always coming in hard on this topic. I hate that so few people are independent on COVID origins I hate that simply following my sincere scientific beliefs from using the entirety of my interdisciplinary expertise can be cause for alienation in science. 11/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
I'm self-aware that COVID origins is contentious and that many people within science, including many with power (e.g. at NIAID, or virologists deciding who in the field will give a talk), judge me negatively because I choose to stand up and speak up on this topic. 12/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
However, if I died tomorrow, I would die with no regrets. Had I kept my insights and expertise to myself, and said nothing about the likely lab origin of a virus that killed 20 million people, I would regret it for the rest of my life. It would eat me alive. 13/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
So, I'm sorry for pushing so hard on this topic I'll shut up when I see the facts of the matter accurately represented in the public & scientific domains and I see more trustworthy, independent investigations into this matter conducted by people with the requisite expertise 14/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
P.S. to the best of my knowledge, the only other person in this small pre-COVID wildlife virology community who has spoken up has been former EHA VP @AGHuff Andrew is a scientific and morally courageous brother from another mother. He knows what he's talking about on this topic.
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
The mainstream media rely heavily on academics with key credentials to certify scientific information. The challenge with the likely lab origin of SARS-Cov-2 is the proliferation of conflicts of interests in the scientists who are supposed to certify scientific info here. 1/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
For example, virologists like @profvrr, Christian Drosten, Ron Fouchier and others have centered themselves as "the experts", but they all have a very contentious history advocating in favor of the kinds of risky research believed to have led to SARS-CoV-2. 2/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
While Andersen, Holmes, and colleagues might have seemed independent as wildlife virologists, they quickly became roped into Fauci's inner circle in a conversation with Drosten, Fouchier, Lipkin, and other proponents of GOF research. 3/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
After the extremely public Proximal Origin paper, and the follow-up scientific duds of Worobey/Pekar, people like Andersen and Holmes have become more tightly networked with Daszak (close collaborator of the WIV) and GOF proponents (e.g. see them on Racaniello's show) 4/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
Angela Rasmussen, arguably the most toxic person on this topic with many followers, a woman who asserts herself frequently and combatively as the expert on this topic, was one of Racaniello's students and a strong proponent of GOF research. 5/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
Personally, I don't have a dog in the pre-COVID gain of function research debates. I kept my head low and my positions private. As an independent entrant to this field, I immediately notice that it is GOF proponents & funders who have circled the wagon on a zoonotic origin. 6/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
People who opposed GOF research pre-COVID don't have anywhere near the kinds of reputational risk as those who proposed the research that likely led to millions of deaths. The mainstream media has completely missed this critical piece of history behind the science. 7/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
When @natashaloder covered our article on BsaI/BsmBI maps in @TheEconomist, who did she get comments from but Andersen and Holmes? The one independent scientist (not later coerced by the Zoo Crew on Twitter) thought our finding was plausible. 8/
@WashburneAlex - Alex Washburne
To tell the story of the COVID-19 pandemic on mainstream media, the press first needs to understand just how historically high the stakes are for proponents of GOF research of concern. From Fauci to Fouchier, they were aware of these stakes since January 2020. 9/9