I have to admit as someone (non-biologist but science trained PHD) who immediately suspected lab leak when I learned of the lab in Wuhan and that the bats live 1000 miles away from the initial outbreak, your show was very good and presented convincing arguments. But: Let’s forget for the moment the hypothesis that the virus might have been tinkered with and its genome modified somehow and then released. Let’s focus on another hypothetical lab connection which in my view is just as bad. I think you guys said that the virus might have come from the lab via an employee bringing it in or getting infected in the field. To me, that counts as lab connected, which leads me to question the entire purpose of the work with SARS-like viruses. From Matt Ridley’s blog, “The purpose of all these virus hunts and experiments was to predict and avert the next pandemic. At best they failed in that; at worst they might have caused it.” Maybe the better approach is to not do this work and go looking for it after the emergence should a new one happen. Richard Ebright compares the search for new viruses in the wild as looking for a gas leak with a lit match. There are a number of issues that you could have brought up; none of these involve the genome sequence controversies. 1. ShiZheng Li stated that she was initially worried that the virus might have escaped somehow from her lab. That in and of itself is worrisome. What are they doing there that would cause her this fear? 2. China’s transparency and truthfulness. Why were the databases pulled? Why did a group of internet sleuths make the mine connection before SZ Li wrote about it? Why won’t they allow access to the famous mine where the miners became sick and died? 3. Acknowledge/discuss that lab accidents and leaks are pretty common and that WIV’s had safety issues. Some of the work with SARS viruses was done in BSL2, this seems very dangerous given that both MERS and SARS1 were pretty lethal. I’d love to see you guys have guests from the side that wants a better investigation, like Ebright, Relman, Jamie Metzl, or even Bret Weinstein. Now that would make an interesting show.
It's interesting to watch this video now that we know what he really thought about the origin of the virus a few days they published that paper. This is what he said in the conference they had with Fauci and others: "Before I left the office for the ball, I aligned nCoV with the 96% bat CoV sequenced at WIV. Except for the RBD the S proteins are essentially identical at the amino acid level - well all but the perfect insertion of 12 nucleotides that adds the furin site. S2 is over its whole length essentially identical. I really can’t think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat virus or one very similar to it to nCoV where you insert exactly 4 amino acids 12 nucleotide that all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function - that and you don’t change any other amino acid in S2? I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature. Do the alignment of the spikes at the amino acid level - its stunning. Of course, in the lab it would be easy to generate the perfect 12 base insert that you wanted. Another scenario is that the progenitor of nCoV was a bat virus with the perfect furin cleavage site generated over evolutionary times. In this scenario RaTG13 the WIV virus was generated by a perfect deletion of 12 nucleotides while essentially not changing any other S2 amino acid. Even more implausible IMO." Going from this to thinking that it's virtually impossible that it came from a lab and not from nature requires quite a leap in his knowledge in such a short time.
contrary views? I doubt it but its a great idea. The problem now is that even with all of the evidence of a lab leak, no one with a PhD wants to admit they were wrong. I remember when I was in graduate school and opposed the invasion of Iraq and was the lone voice in my large circle. Years later when I asked them about the WMD, they could still not bring themselves to admit they were wrong even after two decades. Same thing here. It was a lab leak and the ONLY question is was it deliberate or an accident. I think it was deliberately leaked and the conundrum that we face in the US is that we helped fund this wackiness. Now that is cray cray
@@coahuiltejano Sounds like you've been following the story very well. I have become very disappointed in Fauci's behavior; he has downplayed his involvement with WIV and GOF & worked with virologists beholden to him to characterize the lab leak as a conspiracy theory. The "Hero of the Pandemic" is hardly a hero in my eyes.
I love TWIV but have to say in rebuttal to the comments around 1:22:30 "we have to start with the base assumption that people have good intentions": sorry but this is most definitely a political topic and has nothing to do with virology ie. you expertise. It is certainly true that China (like many other countries) have the willingness and ability to get it's people in order to lie about a lab leak. It is for example not a fake story that Dr. Lee, who was one of the first people to suspect a new virus, was put under HUGE pressure to not talk about the virus (and stopped once he was told off by the police). In the current Chinese political system it is not at all implausible that if a lab leak had happened that the government could and would put people under pressure and prevent this coming out. (This is NOT unique to China in the least. It is not at all hard to imagine a group of people lying to protect others in the group from outsiders - even easier when it is a foreign delegation. Ever heard of the blue wall of silence? ) I am not saying that the authorities in China ARE hiding things. But it is indeed naive to go with the working assumption that they are not hiding anything. If we investigated the khashoggi murder in this way then would would not have discovered the truth. On the other hand, perhaps this is the way to go. Have the virologists invetigate on the basis of good faith and have the secret services investigate assuming the worst. I have no idea if there was a lab leak or not. But it remains a completely plausible scenario. The repeated fundamental argument that there is no evidence to support the theory doesn't sit well with me at all because there was literally 1 year to destroy the evidence. If China had let international scientists in during the first days or even weeks of the pandemic to help, I might see this differently. But to go to the scene 1 year later and say there is no evidence is not in itself evidence.
You make valid points. I think if we are being honest there is no way we are going to be able to answer this question to everyone's satisfaction. Those who believe it was a lab leak will continue to do so and those who do not will continue to do so. This just highlights the need for the WHO to be given the authority to investigate outbreaks of global public health concern and to be given authority to compel countries to comply or at least be able to publicly shame them for not complying.
Where did the lab get the virus? Did they get it from bats considering 90%+ similarity to other coronavirus sequenced in bats across several decades across South Asia? If it came from the wild reservoir then wouldn’t the chance of “escape” be null considering it originated outside of the lab to begin with? Everyone wants a boogeyman to blame because at least then it’s SOMEONE’S fault and not just random chance.
@Brendan May You make a valid point that the Chinese government attempted to keep the outbreak secret and sanctioned the doctor who first reported it in the literature. But, the largest problem I see with your hypothesis is that it requires the government to keep not one but any number of people from opening their mouths, something they failed to do with even the one doctor. The search for the source of the original SARS virus took more than a decade, how well do you think they will do at keeping all of the rest quiet for a decade or more?
@@jaymt1982 Oh please have you seen the videos of Senator Rand Paul questioning Fauci about "gain of function" research. Wouldn't trust the WHO to do any investigation. It is NOT an independent body anymore and has corporate interests funding it.
Just because there is no published backbone doesn’t mean that they didn’t have a CV backbone close to SARS-CoV2. They may have not even known they had it. They collected hundred if not 1000’s of bat coronaviruses. Surely they hadn’t characterized every one. The proximity of the outbreak to WIV is problematic to me. Maybe it was a huge con incidence but I find it difficult to believe.
The virologist doth protest too much, methinks. There is far too much nervous laughter when addressing some of those points. The fact that the lab was immediately written off as a source is what made people suspicious, and several of your colleagues blatantly lied. WHO is seriously compromised. Like it or not, you're going to have to address each and every little detail, no matter how stupid, without giggling.
This conversation reveals a pressing need for better laws to regulate scientific research. As this discussion makes clear, we can’t trust scientists to regulate themselves.
I'm unconvinced by the argument that it could have been better engineered therefore it is not engineered. This is China afterall, we all saw the mess they made when trying to genetically engineer the first humans to be immune to HIV and made the wrong edits. Cov-2 matches closely to the bat coronavirus except at the part of the genome that determines host range, which matches the pangolin virus. For this to have occurred naturally, both a bat coronavirus and a pangolin coronavirus would have to infect the same cell, even though they had different receptor binding domains that infected different cell types. After this unlikely encounter in the cell, the genomes would have to experience homologous recombination only at the receptor binding domain despite the fact that these viruses do not share homology in this locus. Furthermore, these viruses do share homology at several other loci and homologous recombination did not occur in any of those loci. Then, after this miraculously unlikely chain of events, the virus would then need to transfer from the host animal to a human being. For this to have occurred in the nearby virus lab that was working on gain of function experiments with bat coronaviruses by inserting new receptor binding domains from other viruses, the scientists would simply need to patch the pangolin coronavirus receptor binding domain into one of the bat coronaviruses they were studying, then pass it through human cell cultures a few times to acclimate it to the new host. It would be an easy project for a post doc. I think you risk losing your credibility by not taking a realistic look at the evidence with an open mind, rather than dismissing the obvious answer as a conspiracy theory without actually analyzing the evidence.
I completely agree with Dixon it is time to find the intermediate host. For to the previous SARS outbreaks, the intermediate host has been identified so much faster - only months after the outbreaks. According to the previous podcast (WHO commission) first cases had been reported in Wuhan in November 2020 and had no connection to the wet market. Why is it this time so much more difficult to find the first cluster and the host?
Dr. Scott Gottlieb seems to intuitively make more sense on the issue of origin. While there is little evidence on either the side of natural or lab made. There is even less evidence as whether or not a natural virus escaped from a lab to infect humans who may have not been otherwise. We don't know. And to speak in certain terms for something is uncertain begs the question to whether or not virologists have biases. We all do.
Precisely , but they will tell you they have angelic motivations. The non scientist reporter who occupies the upper left square. He is very left of center and throughout the pandemic kept throwing in unwelcomed political statements. Under Fauci, vaccines were pushed over anti virals. HIV patients had to fight hard to have some of their drugs to see the light of day. But he is their hero. WHy? he controls the funding.
Chip Shiner, I agree that there are two hypotheses here, neither with definitive evidence. But I am spell-bound by the phenomenon of a group of people that are usually careful even-handed scientists now being so clearly biased, and blind to their bias. That bias you brought up, that is the very thing that fascinates me, that makes watching the whole 2 hours such a fascinating real world psychological theatre. It is not everyday that you can see the smug superior professor (I am one) so convinced of their superior knowledge (which this group do have), superior scientific dispassion (which this group think they have), of their objectiveness compared the rest of the world, but so blind to their own obvious bias. I really feel it is a textbook case of this quote from Jonathan Haidt. JONATHAN HAIDT: Our minds evolved not just to help us find the truth about how things work. If you're navigating through a landscape, sure, you need to know, you know, where the dangers are, where the opportunities are. But in the social world, our minds are not designed to figure out who really did what to whom. They are finely tuned navigational machines to work through a complicated social network, in which you've got to maintain your alliances, and your reputation. And as Machiavelli told us long ago, it matters far more what people think of you than what the reality is. And we are experts at manipulating our self presentation. So, we're so good at it, that we actually believe the nonsense that we say to other people.
@@CarbonIceland Precisely. The psychological breakdown of what could be going on here is fascinating. These days I find myself listening as an observer of human behavior. I find the substantive content of TWIV increasingly less credible.
@@nightowly8845 Me too. I am 100% with you. They clearly have tremendous experience in their field (virology). But I guess this shows that without that old fashioned thing called humility all the experience and knowledge in the world can become surprisingly useless. If you are blind to your own, and your groups, psychology then that can make you as blind as any other bat.... even when you really ought to be the greater expert. Fascinating world we live in.
We don't know where it came from, but we're certain of where it didn't come from. Investigated all while locked down in their Holmes. Sherlock scientists.
“I listened to Dr Shi and she seemed pretty trustworthy to me”. This is not a strong argument. Especially for somebody working under the Chinese regime who would have a big incentive to dissemble.
Very good explanations. I just wonder why did China cover the outbreak up at the beginning then if was natural and why did the WHO continue allowing flights in and out for so long. This what what caused the pandemic in the first place. It could have been contained in China like SARS 1 was. Their covering it up makes them look guilty even though they most likely are not, as you guys explained. They should just have played open cards from the start then all of this could have been avoided.
I believe the Chinese government, in the local instance, did what they do: try to keep the statistics for their area of responsibility clean. This goes through the entire government. Nobody wants to be the one who’s head is sticking up for fear of losing it. It’s a big part of why the system works / doesn’t work. SARS was an embarrassment for the Chinese government and it shouldn’t be repeated. How better to accomplish this than by suppressing the data? But yes, their cover up makes them look guilty. This isn’t really unusual behavior for governments, politicians, companies, or children though is it? Sadly 🤷☹️
SARS1 was contained because it was not as contagious as SARS-Cov-2. Outbreaks were able to be tracked and isolated before SARS-1 could spread. Thousands were infected and hundreds died. The case fatality ratio of people over 65 from SARS-1 was 50%. The Chinese probably thought, if the new virus was like SARS-1, it would be contained. They also didn't want to close down their big holiday. They were wrong.
You are assuming, and take it for granted, that the communist part of China is either innocent and guilty at the same time. If they weren't efficient in contain a viral outbreak, it doesn't implies that it's necessary natural in origin. It still could be deployed to China, or they themselves can lie about it and say ''we didn't know how to mannage it, sorry'' while doing it on purposal. Imagine an outsider attack to China. Most chinese blame the US for this. Ok. Consider the US deploying it in China and the CCP decided to take revenge not only letting it spread and letting their people be killed (collateral damage) in order to let it spread even more, to the whoe capitalistic World they hate with a passion. This is not an hypothesis, this is real facts how communists hate the ''west culture of capital''. This is a serious consideration and a extremely likely scenario. Maybe it is NOT, but looking at the geopolitical climate, is likely.
@@peterginsburg2465 your last point “They didn’t want to close down their big holiday.” Is valid and they WERE wrong. Notice though, that the US and Germany, at LEAST, did the same thing, and they had full knowledge about the dangers by then. The outcome was, surprisingly, the same.
@@VeronicaGorositoMusic my response to this must be: where is the evidence? I think the virus is of completely natural origins and that the Chinese government is incompetent, the US government(s) were incompetent, many EU member state’s governments were incompetent. Blaming “them” is as old as humanity. We used to have gods that were angry with us, now it’s a conspiracy or an attack by the clever enemy (CIA, China, Russia, ...) The biggest criticism I have of the Chinese government is that they failed to implement quarantine procedures for air travel into and out of Wuhan. That same goes for those other governments I mentioned earlier. Not a full stop of air travel but a rigid quarantine was the right answer.
Here's a quick summary: No evidence that scientists lie! I can't think of any other historical situation where that type of rhetoric led to problems for society. Can you?
I highly doubt the lab leak theory but the argument that the BSL4 lab was built in WIV in Wuhan because of SARS1 pandemic doesn't make sense. The lab project was approved before the outbreak of SARS1 and the outbreak happened in Guangzhou that is 600 miles to the South.
It makes sense to build a major research facility in a major city. Having the ability to do virus research would obviously become more important after SARS1. So it all makes sense.
What about the Italian study of blood samples taken in 2019 (for other purposes) Upon testing they found Sars. Cov 2 in a September sample. they found several other positives, not just the one. I would like to know the place of those virus in the family tree.
@@johnfarmer3506 antibodies are sufficient evidence that the virus was in the person's body... I too would like to hear more about sewage sampling. I heard that they are doing it in the UK to target people in high prevalence areas with vaccines.
@@johnfarmer3506 the specific antibodies are a smoking gun. Milan and China have very close ties. Perhaps samples from sewage could be tested to find virus particles. The first patient diagnosed is never the actual patient Zero. When those first cases showed up in China, I thought it was already out in the world. There is evidence of covid-like illnesses in January. in North America. When it first got into people it may have been mild and then changed as it adapted to being in people.
Could you please talk with Dr Chris Martenson who seized on this Furin Cleavage Site issue back in May 2020 and is still convinced by the Lab Release Theory? I am sure he is genuine and will respond to data.
If you listen to the episode and understand what Robert says, there's no need to discuss the furin cleavage site any more. It's common in many viruses. Martenson is not a virologist. He doesn't have the decades of experience in virology that the people in this episode have.
@@lordcustard-smythe-smith9153 It's also in some bat viruses. There's some 1500 bat species and 5-7 circulating viruses in each species. There's a lot of unknown bat corona viruses out there with possible pandemic potential. That's what Ralph Baric and the Wuhan Institute were trying to identify with Ralph's gain-of-function experiments in 2015, with the goal of developing anti-virals and general vaccines against the receptor binding domain epitopes of bat corona viruses, just in case there was a future pandemic. Their funding and experiments got restricted. So, no effective protective measures were developed, since the world politicians thought we'd never see a pandemic.
@@peterginsburg2465 You seem pretty knowledgeable. Has this work done by Shi and Baric led to anything useful? Is it worth the risk? What I read is frightening to me. I imagine that SARS isn't the only dangerous virus that labs around the world are working with. Does this field need oversight as Richard Ebright advocates?
@@peterginsburg2465 He explains how it might have evolved naturally. OK But it also still could have been a lab insert, which if I remember right has been done before (Baric, Shi?). Like with much about SARS2, we don't know how it got there. The question remains unanswered.
I would like for the panel to say, on video, that Taiwan is a country and I stand with Hong Kong. Only then I'll know they're not afraid to speak the truth and speak out against China.
Great question by Brianne Barker gets to the point th-cam.com/video/IxwrDSYrhjU/w-d-xo.html 14:51 so what would you say at that point were your main pieces of evidence that it didn't escape from a lab?
6 people who explain why it didn't come from a lab-- is it that hard to invite a couple of the prominent experts who can elucidate why they believe it did come from a lab, and hash it out, or does that trigger you?
Peasley C. Yes! This wonderful show really needs to air diverse views. This includes having Dr. Danniel dialog with physicians who advocate early-Covid cheap home treatments like Dr. Kory, Dr.Been--even Dr. Drew for goodness sakes.
@@jeffbrunton3291 There is such an enormous amount of compelling information on this topic - thanks for asking, and I hope the owner of this channel takes it to heart as well and brings in the counter evidence. Start with Dr. Sona Pekova, PhD. see the interview she gave March 2020 titled "Czech scientist, on news in the pandemic (English subtitles)" and go to the 10 minute mark. She discusses precisely and in detail this very subject. Also look at the work of Germany's Dr Sucharit Bhakdi MD. He was a post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, also at The Protein Laboratory in Copenhagen. He joined the Institute of Medical Microbiology at Giessen University and was appointed associate professor. He was named chair of Medical Microbiology at the University of Mainz. Dr. Bhakdi has published over three hundred articles in the fields of immunology, bacteriology, virology, and parasitology, for which he has received numerous awards and the Order of Merit of Rhineland-Palatinate. He would bring a great deal to this conversation. In addition to those two, I'd reach out to Dr Peter McCullough of Texas and ask him who he'd suggest to comment on the subject. Get familiar with his recent interview on Vimeo ="Dr. McCullough_Full_Interview_5-19-2021"
If they have no evidence then its all conjecture for the sake of conjecture. BoThSidEs-ing the argument so you have someone to agree with to ignore the points the opposition is making to make you feel better isn't the goal here, its to reject bad science. Science does not have a political view, it is either proven or not proven. I'd be fine with it if they framed literally all of it as unsubstantiated hypothesizes.
Vincent everyone of your guests is making a major error when saying the 'odds' of a zoonotic origin are higher than a lab release. Although true, these odds do NOT reflect this situation! Only the odds of a Zoonotic origin with the first observation being a few hundred meters away from a Level4 lab are relevant and would be considerably lower. I am sure this is an honest mistake and you did not intend to represent the likelihood of zoonotic origins or sars-cov2
As usual, another excellent interview. Very clarifying discussion about the origin of Sars-Cov2. Hope this kind of interview sheds some light on how scientific evidence differs from speculations. Thanks again TWIV team.
When spillovers happened last time, there’s no super lab with all sorts of bat viruses at the same location, and researchers actively working on modifying it genetically
@@rickfucci4512 And spillovers ocurred at small towns, near the forest on the Coastlines, not in urbanized places...in the Center of the country...ahem...
You may be a small voice and I'm just a layman, IT guy who learned just enough to follow what you're saying, but I'm confident enough in the science that you're reporting to convey your message to everyone I know so it's all worth it. Hell, two years ago all I cared about was if you actually rebooted the server before calling me, now I know the difference between the A & B lineages...
It's a pretty important story and everyone should be as interested as you. 3.5 million people dead and counting. It's pretty important to find the source of the virus as it affects how we respond to prevent SAR3. I support work to find the source including lab leak investigations.
@@JennySimon206 “They obviously have a plan.” Yes, but do they have a plan B? Secret, land locked breeding farms fraudulently transferred to a Church in Florida? Oh no! Florida Man! 😱
Funny how one person comments on how they were being politically agnostic for the sake of science. Then the panel immediately starts bashing the previous administration while laughing. So much for a politically unbiased panel! No professionalism or credibility after that!
Mystery number 1 origin of the virus mystery 2 why was air travel allowed out of China in the early days why did why did goverments not close off all air travel best wishes from Glasgow scotland 👍
On January 23rd less than 2 weeks after the Genome of SARS CoV 2 was sequenced and shared with the World ALL Travel out of Wuhan by All routes Was prevented by a rigorously enforced LOCKDOWN. This was a rapid response by Chinese authorities to contain virus. It is not the fault of China that the rest of the World failed to implement similar control mechanisms and restrictions on travel.
@@luiswhatshisname7667 And then the scientists they train go on to train the scientists who work for the PLA. Unless he has worked with the PLA scientists, I don't understand why he thinks they wouldn't lie and cover up things.
@@SeaMower I have worked in a lab. In fact I helped set up protocals for record keeping for quarentine and OGTR and BSL regulations in terms of how to deal with sub-samples. It was all pencil and paper and you could easilly add sheets or take away sheets. I was going to digitize it, and have a database with an audit trail and backups, but the lab head didn't want to try to convince some of the regulators that it was secure and it just wasn't what they were used to and they hadn't yet come up with regulations on standards for digital record keeping. But what I was talking about was whole labs that are off the books. There have been many nuclear, chemical and biological weapons labs around the world that have operated off the books so it certainly can be done. Some scientists work only in this shadow world and don't publish, others work in non-classified research as well so they can still publish. In this case, maybe there isn't a secret lab program in general but it is also possible that they hadn't published anything yet, from collecting samples to a published paper can take years. They haven't showed anyone lab records and have refused to, but even if they did it isn't that hard to tamper with them. Sure you could accidently leave marks of tampering, but with enough effort it is possible to leave no trace. In my current job and in my previus research I have had to mock up data for testing, validation or benchmarking. Sometimes it is really easy, but for things like reads from genetic sequencing, making good models of the variety of errors involved you can get papers published on new models of generating realistic data.
Yesterday, Dr Scott Gottlieb's change of tune in Face the Nation caught my eye. That led me to the Nicholas Wade article. I missed all of this because I was concerned with preventing the spread and not origin. I was nearly hooked into the lab-leak hypotheses until the Science-based Medicine blog yanked me out of it. They led me to this video and pod cast. You do good work here.
You shouldn't get 'hooked in' to a hypothesis. A proper investigation should dispassionately look into all viable hypotheses; something that Dr. Garry and Peter Daszak have tried to railroad from the start.
Robert Gary wants to go to Kuala Lumpur to find bats. Go to Batu Caves, so called Limestone Cave, I think that place looks like the bridge in Austin. They did find Nipah virus in Ipoh, north of KL.
That ancestral virus could be anywhere. The point of what has been published is that viruses containing bits and pieces very like what emerged as covid-19 cover a wide swathe of southeast Asia. But if one followed the logic on what they HAVE found, one wouldn't think it came from a lab, and would find such a notion as dangerous and counterproductive as it is bigoted and politically motivated.
Richard Ebright (Rutgers biology professor) compares hunting for viruses in the wild like this and bringing them back to the lab for study to searching for a gas leak with a lit match. I'm not an expert, but would like an independent assessment on the risk/benefit of this exercise.
we did not know / have not though of , how to make a virus like this , to the , we cant / have not the tools to , make a virus like this , has a huge difference .
Thanks so much for the past two TWiVs. You give some of us solace that science really is still alive and very well indeed, and some ability to counter the urge to jump to what looks like an obvious conclusion. You're a ray of light. ☺️
When we can't learn about the origin of something because the information is simply absent, the least we can do is learn as much as we can about the outcome. Keep learning all the way up until the end. That way science can advance even as we sometimes try and fail and die as we fight against the unknown.
Here's a thought, why don't they talk to people outside their YES-bubble... Someone like Brett Weinstein on the dark horse podcast, or Geert Vanden Bossch, Pierre Kory, or anyone other than the YES-monkeys that just support your own unscientific ideas without providing you with any real pushback... Jesus, you should be so much better than this!!
@@mrtaffs2112 Agreed. Have a segment where Bret critiques "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" as to why it is inadequate or insufficient to its claims that the virus reached us through animal transmission.
@@MrWebster Yeah -- i don't think thats going to happen any time soon... haha. And to think, I had such hopes for this channel... They are really let the side down!!
While the participants in the pod cast appear to agree chortle along with Dr. Barry and his support of the "zoonotic" theory, it's not clear to me who they are or precisely what are their qualifications to opine on the origin of Covid 19.
Reason why the Chinese authorities are not not co-operating with the investigation: "if a bunch of foreigners turn up at your place of work..." everyone chuckles..
All the gene based vaccines replaced two amino acid sites on the spike to prolines so that the prefusion spike trimer could remain stable without being attached to the virion
This is an excellent presentation-I’m re-reading the paper on the proximal origin of SARS-COV-2 as well as the Nature paper on evolutionary origins of SARS-COV-2. The swing flu epidemic which lead to the slaughter of pigs is of note.
Dr. Garry is so humble while he is making these amazing points. I had to listen for a second time to appreciate it, every word he says demonstrates perfect awareness of the issues and consequences, as well as concern for logic and reason. He obviously is a great scientist too with 37 years at Tulane!!! Brilliant.
Hey Peter, I got a reply from a comment that I made on this video, and scrolling through ran across your name again. Crazy stuff coming out with all of the FOIAs and congressional email reveals. Daszak doesn't look so hot now does he???? Told you.
@@melodyiscraycray8648 Since you apparently have no knowledge of virology, maybe you should take Vincent's course. As far as Daszak, the BS non-scientific conspiracy theories keep on surfacing. There's 30,000 bases for SARS-CoV-2. That's a shitload of combinations to tinker with to see if you can get a new contagious virus. Daszak is working in a toxic media environment. What would you do if you were in his position? If you've spent the past 2 years learning virology, like I have, you'd definitely have a different view of all the crap that gets thrown out by the media and politicians.
Some useful points for others looking for counterarguments to gain of function research hypothesis. 1) Missing close progenitor of the virus: 15:06 "in gain of function research [...] you have to start with a virus that's at least close" 15:26 "we still don't know the close progenitor of the virus". 15:28 "but we certainly could summarize that the Wuhan Institute of Virology didn't have a virus that was that close" 2) RaTG13 is an unlikely/impossible progenitor in gain of function research? 19:56
Do we actually know that the Wuhan lab wasn't in possession of a close progenitor? They were studying coronavirus to my understanding. If, I assume, a close progenitor existed in the natural environment of the same country as the lab, how do we know the lab wasn't in possession of that same strain? Is there a publicly available database of all the viruses studied at that lab? And if so, how would we know it was accurate? Or honest?
There are some issues with what is being suggested.... 1. It couldn't have leaked from a lab. I mean really.... impossible you say.... come now... don't suggest such stupidity. 2. It couldn't have been engineered because its too sloppy a job. I mean.... again really....? Perhaps.... just perhaps.... it's been made to appear a little more 'natural'....? On the other hand.... it is the product of in vitro mutations.... and not engineered...? The other HUGE issue the scientific community faces is...... the ENORMOUS coincidental fiscal opportunity this pandemic has offered.... which alone lends itself to sinister interpretations. I must say... you haven't a hope in hell or anywhere else in convincing anyone this virus didn't fall of a shelf in a lab or was deliberately transferred to a human host.
This speaker is obsessed with attachment capability, and has so far said nothing about intracellular replication biochemistry. Maybe that's because the answer is there and might obliterate research funding. I believe in funding, but looking at 1/4 of the Louvre isn't truth seeking behavior. That never helps funding.
It is reassuring to hear you refute the likelihood of this not arising from the lab either accidentally in looking at viruses or as some gain of function work. What is disappointing is the lack of cooperation and secrecy the Chinese adopt regarding questions and releasing records from the lab when this would vindicate them publically. When you act so as to delay and appear to cover your tracks as it did in the months leading to Jan 2020, it's hardly surprising that conspiracies arise.
I would like a bit of a mud map written for a lay person like myself detailing the arguments made here was regards the origin of the virus. It is one thing to get the gist of the arguments being made but another to be able to clearly and reasonably discuss this with lay people who have accepted the lab leak idea as being absolute fact. I am worried how this is lab leak idea is being used for political purposes by the usual suspects. Any ideas as to where I could find such a mud map would be greatly appreciated.
This expands on points made by Vincent to discount the lab leak theory. www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2021/05/20/no-science-clearly-shows-that-covid-19-wasnt-leaked-from-a-wuhan-lab
Thanks for another good one! Dr. Garry mentioned doing research in “Kenema, a small town in West Africa.” I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone in the 1990’s and know Kenema well.
Hi super cool to have Rob Garry !! waiting for bill gallagher too, he had first the best insight on this virus from wuhan dejavu to the palindromic breakpoint thing.
SARS 2 virus purportedly first appeared in the Wuhan wet Market on one side of the Yangtze River... on the other side of the Yangtze River we have.... Wuhan Institute of virology and Chinese Academy of Sciences and Institute of mechanics and engineering and Wuhan University of Science and the Wuhan Zhangto biotech and Yotai biology tech Academy and the Chinese biology tech group and of course WIV Fortunately the SARS 2 virus could not swim across the Yangtze River so it wasn't a lab leak
This is dumb because nobody believes the jump occurred at the market. The reason is that the earliest cases of SARS2 don't have any connection to the market. The market is now considered to be the first superspreader event.
@@JourneyOnFoot1 He sounds extremely reasonable and wise to me :D, but how would you know? Have you ever studied an origin of a virus before SARS2? Or have you assembled a phylogenetic tree? Are you really into molecular genetics at least? Surely you must understand clinical pathology.... What makes you so sure that you can make those claims? 😂 Its called the Dunning Kruger effect, please google it.
Amazing biology happened this month. Among these discoveries, Rig-i seems to use a non-canonical pathway for innate immune detection of sars2. But instead of talking about this, twiv are making episode after episode digging themselves into a hole because they can’t admit someone probably screwed up a lil bit. It’s tiring.
Well, if it's interesting and meaningful, TWiV will cover it in good time. Be patient. I think TWiV is being very responsible and responsive. Maybe you should send Vincent an email asking them to cover the developments. That would be constructive. ☺️
If you’d like to make your own podcast series and choose the subjects you find interesting, compelling, or just fun, go for it. If you’d like to see Vincent produce one for you, try asking (politely) for it or make a guest suggestion instead. The world is an exciting place to live in at this moment in time. Incredible new discoveries come daily in all the fields one can imagine. If you feel inclined to spread the word about some of them, please do! I’m sure there are people in this world who would be interested.
@@RonnieD1970 Without the full cooperation of the PRC, we will never know what the true origin was - for two reasons: #1) if a lab leak was the cause, they would have to admit that someone in a PRC lab made a mistake #2) they would lose face.
@@RonnieD1970 ''And their aggressive attack'' Who are they? Are you also, implying, that even considering a laboratory leak, is an ''attack''? Why asking questions is considered an attack? I can't stand for it....
Their study was super cool, they should do a Twiv on it! cst.temple.edu/about/news/temple-study-uses-novel-data-approach-trace-back-progenitor-all-sars-cov-2-genomes
Have you ever had Alina Chan (or any scientists who believe in a likely lab origin) on your podcast? She can describe the scientific reasons that many believe point to a lab origin. Instead, you just talk about 0 reasons for a lab origin and then proceed to stonewall and/or strawman opposing scientific viewpoints. I think many of the points made in this podcast have not aged well.
Wow - what a brilliant TWIV. Great understandable analysis to quosh the lab idea. Clearly reasoned that this is natural occurring. Should be essential listening / reading. Thank you off all your unstinting efforts. Note Vincent had argued months ago SARS-CoC-2 was naturally occurring.
I,m not a virologist, so may have missed something - but no previous backbone on which to build it, A/B linkage differentiation, RBD - couldn,t design on a computer, specifics of Furin site cleveage. More impressive than some counter lab based ideas being thrown around.
These are arguments against design, and ‘no backbone’ relies on the lab being open about everything they have (and so far their behavior has been the opposite of open). That still leaves a lot of possibilities that I felt were argued against very weakly in the video
The ‘backbone’ comment was about SARS-CoV-2 sequenced genome. See Vincent Racinello on TWiV who argues it could not have originated in a lab. He has a team of virologists/ immunologists and others on his vid who know their stuff. I don,t know otherwise.
This is painful how almost desperate they sound in their dismissive and unprofessional attitude/demeanor. It's almost juvenile sounding. I imagined a more seasoned and professional delivery of logical, rational "scientific" facts and information. I had more respect for the possibility of the virus existing in and coming from the wild, before listening to this group. It's like watching a Daytime talk show like "The View" or Gutfeld on Fox News, or some CNN talking head panel. Not a shining example of the professional medical communities ability to inform. I don't believe in "consparicies",I believe in possibilities. This just sounds like delivery of a "counter conspiracy theory." Very difficult to listen to what sounds like please believe me whining. I loved Vincents Virology Lecture Presentations. This is not his thing. He is an awesome Presenter if Knowledge and Information in his role as a Professor. This role he doesnt play or come across very well. Even less so with some of these other cast of characters. They throw the lingo and terminology around, but personally they are not as convincing as their knowledge of the subject should afford.
Less politics and snarky remarks. I’m following because I teach courses parallel to your viral discussions and have no interest in your politics. W.A.Taylor M.D. PhD
@William Taylor welcome. But the TWiX groups are all very conversational, not lectures. Some of us like that, others not so much. If you’d like to make a comment that gets taken seriously then an email to the addresses given in the show notes at the website is the way. Commentary here is for the amusement of those on TH-cam
Why does the guy in the bottom right sound so unconvincing about what he's talking about. Not counting the fact he says "you know," like some high school teenager making up a story using everything he can to sound convincing.
The email regarding the anti -Asian hate email is proposterous. Alina Chan is Asian ! The podcast was going pretty well till then, stop derailing the conversation ....jeez.
I love TWIVet, maybe in a small sample TWIVette I have a friend that just loves his conspiracy theories and there's no convincing otherwise and then he's a Trump supporter. He's rational otherwise but..?
I enjoy listening and learning from this podcast but I find the discussions about the SARS-CoV-2 virus to be problematic. Prof. Vincent Racaniello it is best to avoid the subject if one cannot avoid making light of the public's concern about the origins of the virus. Robert Garry's arguement for zoonotic origins are weakened by interspersing them with flippant statements. Maybe that is his speaking style but it brings listeners emotions into play - not good if one is trying to convince someone. I do hope the virus had a zoonotic origin since the other option is unthinkable to me but I will not make light of others concerns that it is not since the WHO has done a poor job of addressing their concerns to date.
I have to admit as someone (non-biologist but science trained PHD) who immediately suspected lab leak when I learned of the lab in Wuhan and that the bats live 1000 miles away from the initial outbreak, your show was very good and presented convincing arguments.
But:
Let’s forget for the moment the hypothesis that the virus might have been tinkered with and its genome modified somehow and then released. Let’s focus on another hypothetical lab connection which in my view is just as bad. I think you guys said that the virus might have come from the lab via an employee bringing it in or getting infected in the field. To me, that counts as lab connected, which leads me to question the entire purpose of the work with SARS-like viruses.
From Matt Ridley’s blog, “The purpose of all these virus hunts and experiments was to predict and avert the next pandemic. At best they failed in that; at worst they might have caused it.” Maybe the better approach is to not do this work and go looking for it after the emergence should a new one happen. Richard Ebright compares the search for new viruses in the wild as looking for a gas leak with a lit match.
There are a number of issues that you could have brought up; none of these involve the genome sequence controversies.
1. ShiZheng Li stated that she was initially worried that the virus might have escaped somehow from her lab. That in and of itself is worrisome. What are they doing there that would cause her this fear?
2. China’s transparency and truthfulness. Why were the databases pulled? Why did a group of internet sleuths make the mine connection before SZ Li wrote about it? Why won’t they allow access to the famous mine where the miners became sick and died?
3. Acknowledge/discuss that lab accidents and leaks are pretty common and that WIV’s had safety issues. Some of the work with SARS viruses was done in BSL2, this seems very dangerous given that both MERS and SARS1 were pretty lethal.
I’d love to see you guys have guests from the side that wants a better investigation, like Ebright, Relman, Jamie Metzl, or even Bret Weinstein. Now that would make an interesting show.
Melody is Cray Cray. Yes!
It's interesting to watch this video now that we know what he really thought about the origin of the virus a few days they published that paper. This is what he said in the conference they had with Fauci and others:
"Before I left the office for the ball, I aligned nCoV with the 96% bat CoV sequenced at WIV. Except for the RBD the S proteins are essentially identical at the amino acid level - well all but the perfect insertion of 12 nucleotides that adds the furin site. S2 is over its whole length essentially identical. I really can’t think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat virus or one very similar to it to nCoV where you insert exactly 4 amino acids 12 nucleotide that all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function - that and you don’t change any other amino acid in S2? I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature. Do the alignment of the spikes at the amino acid level - its stunning. Of course, in the lab it would be easy to generate the perfect 12 base insert that you wanted. Another scenario is that the progenitor of nCoV was a bat virus with the perfect furin cleavage site generated over evolutionary times. In this scenario RaTG13 the WIV virus was generated by a perfect deletion of 12 nucleotides while essentially not changing any other S2 amino acid. Even more implausible IMO."
Going from this to thinking that it's virtually impossible that it came from a lab and not from nature requires quite a leap in his knowledge in such a short time.
contrary views? I doubt it but its a great idea. The problem now is that even with all of the evidence of a lab leak, no one with a PhD wants to admit they were wrong. I remember when I was in graduate school and opposed the invasion of Iraq and was the lone voice in my large circle. Years later when I asked them about the WMD, they could still not bring themselves to admit they were wrong even after two decades. Same thing here. It was a lab leak and the ONLY question is was it deliberate or an accident. I think it was deliberately leaked and the conundrum that we face in the US is that we helped fund this wackiness. Now that is cray cray
@@coahuiltejano Sounds like you've been following the story very well. I have become very disappointed in Fauci's behavior; he has downplayed his involvement with WIV and GOF & worked with virologists beholden to him to characterize the lab leak as a conspiracy theory. The "Hero of the Pandemic" is hardly a hero in my eyes.
People deserve a right to see publicly funded research.
I love TWIV but have to say in rebuttal to the comments around 1:22:30 "we have to start with the base assumption that people have good intentions": sorry but this is most definitely a political topic and has nothing to do with virology ie. you expertise. It is certainly true that China (like many other countries) have the willingness and ability to get it's people in order to lie about a lab leak. It is for example not a fake story that Dr. Lee, who was one of the first people to suspect a new virus, was put under HUGE pressure to not talk about the virus (and stopped once he was told off by the police).
In the current Chinese political system it is not at all implausible that if a lab leak had happened that the government could and would put people under pressure and prevent this coming out. (This is NOT unique to China in the least. It is not at all hard to imagine a group of people lying to protect others in the group from outsiders - even easier when it is a foreign delegation. Ever heard of the blue wall of silence? )
I am not saying that the authorities in China ARE hiding things. But it is indeed naive to go with the working assumption that they are not hiding anything.
If we investigated the khashoggi murder in this way then would would not have discovered the truth.
On the other hand, perhaps this is the way to go. Have the virologists invetigate on the basis of good faith and have the secret services investigate assuming the worst.
I have no idea if there was a lab leak or not. But it remains a completely plausible scenario.
The repeated fundamental argument that there is no evidence to support the theory doesn't sit well with me at all because there was literally 1 year to destroy the evidence. If China had let international scientists in during the first days or even weeks of the pandemic to help, I might see this differently. But to go to the scene 1 year later and say there is no evidence is not in itself evidence.
You make valid points. I think if we are being honest there is no way we are going to be able to answer this question to everyone's satisfaction. Those who believe it was a lab leak will continue to do so and those who do not will continue to do so. This just highlights the need for the WHO to be given the authority to investigate outbreaks of global public health concern and to be given authority to compel countries to comply or at least be able to publicly shame them for not complying.
Where did the lab get the virus? Did they get it from bats considering 90%+ similarity to other coronavirus sequenced in bats across several decades across South Asia? If it came from the wild reservoir then wouldn’t the chance of “escape” be null considering it originated outside of the lab to begin with?
Everyone wants a boogeyman to blame because at least then it’s SOMEONE’S fault and not just random chance.
@Brendan May
You make a valid point that the Chinese government attempted to keep the outbreak secret and sanctioned the doctor who first reported it in the literature. But, the largest problem I see with your hypothesis is that it requires the government to keep not one but any number of people from opening their mouths, something they failed to do with even the one doctor. The search for the source of the original SARS virus took more than a decade, how well do you think they will do at keeping all of the rest quiet for a decade or more?
@@jaymt1982 Oh please have you seen the videos of Senator Rand Paul questioning Fauci about "gain of function" research. Wouldn't trust the WHO to do any investigation. It is NOT an independent body anymore and has corporate interests funding it.
Their bias is sickening!!
Just because there is no published backbone doesn’t mean that they didn’t have a CV backbone close to SARS-CoV2. They may have not even known they had it. They collected hundred if not 1000’s of bat coronaviruses. Surely they hadn’t characterized every one. The proximity of the outbreak to WIV is problematic to me. Maybe it was a huge con incidence but I find it difficult to believe.
This will end in tears
The virologist doth protest too much, methinks. There is far too much nervous laughter when addressing some of those points. The fact that the lab was immediately written off as a source is what made people suspicious, and several of your colleagues blatantly lied. WHO is seriously compromised. Like it or not, you're going to have to address each and every little detail, no matter how stupid, without giggling.
This conversation reveals a pressing need for better laws to regulate scientific research. As this discussion makes clear, we can’t trust scientists to regulate themselves.
@@rickfucci4512 wow. This is excellent.
@@rickfucci4512 Correct. Here is an example of his (Racaniello) position explained: www.pnas.org/content/113/11/2812
I'm unconvinced by the argument that it could have been better engineered therefore it is not engineered. This is China afterall, we all saw the mess they made when trying to genetically engineer the first humans to be immune to HIV and made the wrong edits.
Cov-2 matches closely to the bat coronavirus except at the part of the genome that determines host range, which matches the pangolin virus. For this to have occurred naturally, both a bat coronavirus and a pangolin coronavirus would have to infect the same cell, even though they had different receptor binding domains that infected different cell types. After this unlikely encounter in the cell, the genomes would have to experience homologous recombination only at the receptor binding domain despite the fact that these viruses do not share homology in this locus. Furthermore, these viruses do share homology at several other loci and homologous recombination did not occur in any of those loci. Then, after this miraculously unlikely chain of events, the virus would then need to transfer from the host animal to a human being.
For this to have occurred in the nearby virus lab that was working on gain of function experiments with bat coronaviruses by inserting new receptor binding domains from other viruses, the scientists would simply need to patch the pangolin coronavirus receptor binding domain into one of the bat coronaviruses they were studying, then pass it through human cell cultures a few times to acclimate it to the new host. It would be an easy project for a post doc.
I think you risk losing your credibility by not taking a realistic look at the evidence with an open mind, rather than dismissing the obvious answer as a conspiracy theory without actually analyzing the evidence.
Melissa Redwood, you should be on the TWiV panel.
They don't know where it came from, but certain it didn't come from a certain somewhere? Okay.... Makes perfect sense. Wonderful dectective skills.
I completely agree with Dixon it is time to find the intermediate host. For to the previous SARS outbreaks, the intermediate host has been identified so much faster - only months after the outbreaks. According to the previous podcast (WHO commission) first cases had been reported in Wuhan in November 2020 and had no connection to the wet market. Why is it this time so much more difficult to find the first cluster and the host?
SARS 1, 2002-03, Head of WHO: Dr Gro Harlan Brundtland, cases 8,000, deaths approximately 750 *worldwide*.
What about debating with someone with a different opinion?
Dr. Scott Gottlieb seems to intuitively make more sense on the issue of origin. While there is little evidence on either the side of natural or lab made. There is even less evidence as whether or not a natural virus escaped from a lab to infect humans who may have not been otherwise. We don't know. And to speak in certain terms for something is uncertain begs the question to whether or not virologists have biases. We all do.
Precisely , but they will tell you they have angelic motivations. The non scientist reporter who occupies the upper left square. He is very left of center and throughout the pandemic kept throwing in unwelcomed political statements. Under Fauci, vaccines were pushed over anti virals. HIV patients had to fight hard to have some of their drugs to see the light of day. But he is their hero. WHy? he controls the funding.
Chip Shiner, I agree that there are two hypotheses here, neither with definitive evidence.
But I am spell-bound by the phenomenon of a group of people that are usually careful even-handed scientists now being so clearly biased, and blind to their bias.
That bias you brought up, that is the very thing that fascinates me, that makes watching the whole 2 hours such a fascinating real world psychological theatre. It is not everyday that you can see the smug superior professor (I am one) so convinced of their superior knowledge (which this group do have), superior scientific dispassion (which this group think they have), of their objectiveness compared the rest of the world, but so blind to their own obvious bias.
I really feel it is a textbook case of this quote from Jonathan Haidt.
JONATHAN HAIDT: Our minds evolved not just to help us find the truth about how things work. If you're navigating through a landscape, sure, you need to know, you know, where the dangers are, where the opportunities are. But in the social world, our minds are not designed to figure out who really did what to whom. They are finely tuned navigational machines to work through a complicated social network, in which you've got to maintain your alliances, and your reputation.
And as Machiavelli told us long ago, it matters far more what people think of you than what the reality is. And we are experts at manipulating our self presentation.
So, we're so good at it, that we actually believe the nonsense that we say to other people.
@@CarbonIceland Precisely. The psychological breakdown of what could be going on here is fascinating. These days I find myself listening as an observer of human behavior. I find the substantive content of TWIV increasingly less credible.
@@nightowly8845 Me too. I am 100% with you. They clearly have tremendous experience in their field (virology). But I guess this shows that without that old fashioned thing called humility all the experience and knowledge in the world can become surprisingly useless. If you are blind to your own, and your groups, psychology then that can make you as blind as any other bat.... even when you really ought to be the greater expert.
Fascinating world we live in.
We don't know where it came from, but we're certain of where it didn't come from. Investigated all while locked down in their Holmes. Sherlock scientists.
“I listened to Dr Shi and she seemed pretty trustworthy to me”.
This is not a strong argument. Especially for somebody working under the Chinese regime who would have a big incentive to dissemble.
Sounds like a conspiracy theory
Very good explanations. I just wonder why did China cover the outbreak up at the beginning then if was natural and why did the WHO continue allowing flights in and out for so long. This what what caused the pandemic in the first place. It could have been contained in China like SARS 1 was. Their covering it up makes them look guilty even though they most likely are not, as you guys explained. They should just have played open cards from the start then all of this could have been avoided.
I believe the Chinese government, in the local instance, did what they do: try to keep the statistics for their area of responsibility clean. This goes through the entire government. Nobody wants to be the one who’s head is sticking up for fear of losing it. It’s a big part of why the system works / doesn’t work.
SARS was an embarrassment for the Chinese government and it shouldn’t be repeated. How better to accomplish this than by suppressing the data? But yes, their cover up makes them look guilty. This isn’t really unusual behavior for governments, politicians, companies, or children though is it? Sadly 🤷☹️
SARS1 was contained because it was not as contagious as SARS-Cov-2. Outbreaks were able to be tracked and isolated before SARS-1 could spread. Thousands were infected and hundreds died. The case fatality ratio of people over 65 from SARS-1 was 50%. The Chinese probably thought, if the new virus was like SARS-1, it would be contained. They also didn't want to close down their big holiday. They were wrong.
You are assuming, and take it for granted, that the communist part of China is either innocent and guilty at the same time.
If they weren't efficient in contain a viral outbreak, it doesn't implies that it's necessary natural in origin. It still could be deployed to China, or they themselves can lie about it and say ''we didn't know how to mannage it, sorry'' while doing it on purposal.
Imagine an outsider attack to China. Most chinese blame the US for this. Ok.
Consider the US deploying it in China and the CCP decided to take revenge not only letting it spread and letting their people be killed (collateral damage) in order to let it spread even more, to the whoe capitalistic World they hate with a passion.
This is not an hypothesis, this is real facts how communists hate the ''west culture of capital''.
This is a serious consideration and a extremely likely scenario. Maybe it is NOT, but looking at the geopolitical climate, is likely.
@@peterginsburg2465 your last point “They didn’t want to close down their big holiday.” Is valid and they WERE wrong. Notice though, that the US and Germany, at LEAST, did the same thing, and they had full knowledge about the dangers by then. The outcome was, surprisingly, the same.
@@VeronicaGorositoMusic my response to this must be: where is the evidence?
I think the virus is of completely natural origins and that the Chinese government is incompetent, the US government(s) were incompetent, many EU member state’s governments were incompetent. Blaming “them” is as old as humanity. We used to have gods that were angry with us, now it’s a conspiracy or an attack by the clever enemy (CIA, China, Russia, ...)
The biggest criticism I have of the Chinese government is that they failed to implement quarantine procedures for air travel into and out of Wuhan. That same goes for those other governments I mentioned earlier. Not a full stop of air travel but a rigid quarantine was the right answer.
How nice it would be if these guys were willing to debate with one of those experts who holds an opposing opinion, instead of this echo chamber.
Why remove comments if your unafraid of the truth?
Here's a quick summary:
No evidence that scientists lie!
I can't think of any other historical situation where that type of rhetoric led to problems for society. Can you?
I highly doubt the lab leak theory but the argument that the BSL4 lab was built in WIV in Wuhan because of SARS1 pandemic doesn't make sense. The lab project was approved before the outbreak of SARS1 and the outbreak happened in Guangzhou that is 600 miles to the South.
It makes sense to build a major research facility in a major city. Having the ability to do virus research would obviously become more important after SARS1. So it all makes sense.
@@coastwalker101 it makes sense to build the facility. But the argument was that the lab is in the proximity of the outbreak and what are the odds.
This aged well
When you get angry at ppl and call them stupid ...then you're actually emotional involved. Don't forget that.
@@TonyFisherPuzzles Oh? So you belive in übermenchen to? (I guess you are a smart person then.) What do you think about the Hippocratic Oath btw?
What about the Italian study of blood samples taken in 2019 (for other purposes) Upon testing they found Sars. Cov 2 in a September sample. they found several other positives, not just the one. I would like to know the place of those virus in the family tree.
@@johnfarmer3506 antibodies are sufficient evidence that the virus was in the person's body... I too would like to hear more about sewage sampling. I heard that they are doing it in the UK to target people in high prevalence areas with vaccines.
@@johnfarmer3506 only reporting that they found covid in those samples. You can google it yourself
@@johnfarmer3506 the specific antibodies are a smoking gun. Milan and China have very close ties. Perhaps samples from sewage could be tested to find virus particles. The first patient diagnosed is never the actual patient Zero. When those first cases showed up in China, I thought it was already out in the world. There is evidence of covid-like illnesses in January. in North America. When it first got into people it may have been mild and then changed as it adapted to being in people.
Could you please talk with Dr Chris Martenson who seized on this Furin Cleavage Site issue back in May 2020 and is still convinced by the Lab Release Theory? I am sure he is genuine and will respond to data.
If you listen to the episode and understand what Robert says, there's no need to discuss the furin cleavage site any more. It's common in many viruses. Martenson is not a virologist. He doesn't have the decades of experience in virology that the people in this episode have.
@@lordcustard-smythe-smith9153 It's also in some bat viruses. There's some 1500 bat species and 5-7 circulating viruses in each species. There's a lot of unknown bat corona viruses out there with possible pandemic potential. That's what Ralph Baric and the Wuhan Institute were trying to identify with Ralph's gain-of-function experiments in 2015, with the goal of developing anti-virals and general vaccines against the receptor binding domain epitopes of bat corona viruses, just in case there was a future pandemic. Their funding and experiments got restricted. So, no effective protective measures were developed, since the world politicians thought we'd never see a pandemic.
@@peterginsburg2465 You seem pretty knowledgeable. Has this work done by Shi and Baric led to anything useful? Is it worth the risk? What I read is frightening to me.
I imagine that SARS isn't the only dangerous virus that labs around the world are working with. Does this field need oversight as Richard Ebright advocates?
@@peterginsburg2465 He explains how it might have evolved naturally. OK But it also still could have been a lab insert, which if I remember right has been done before (Baric, Shi?). Like with much about SARS2, we don't know how it got there. The question remains unanswered.
@@melodyiscraycray8648 Could the experts put the data on the table and share it?
I would like for the panel to say, on video, that Taiwan is a country and I stand with Hong Kong. Only then I'll know they're not afraid to speak the truth and speak out against China.
You can catch Dr. Racaniello on CGTN from time to time :)
th-cam.com/video/cdKI5qOF_a8/w-d-xo.html
Great question by Brianne Barker gets to the point th-cam.com/video/IxwrDSYrhjU/w-d-xo.html
14:51 so what would you say at that point were your main pieces of evidence that it didn't escape from a lab?
@@N330AA Just like how teenage girls say "like" every 2 words, classic request for approval behaviour
@@N330AA cool
th-cam.com/video/cdKI5qOF_a8/w-d-xo.html
6 people who explain why it didn't come from a lab-- is it that hard to invite a couple of the prominent experts who can elucidate why they believe it did come from a lab, and hash it out, or does that trigger you?
Peasley C. Yes! This wonderful show really needs to air diverse views. This includes having Dr. Danniel dialog with physicians who advocate early-Covid cheap home treatments like Dr. Kory, Dr.Been--even Dr. Drew for goodness sakes.
Tony Fisher There are many highly qualified PhD in relevant sciences who provide evidence that counters these six guys.
@@goteburgigram Name 6, I’ll wait
@@jeffbrunton3291 There is such an enormous amount of compelling information on this topic - thanks for asking, and I hope the owner of this channel takes it to heart as well and brings in the counter evidence.
Start with Dr. Sona Pekova, PhD. see the interview she gave March 2020 titled "Czech scientist, on news in the pandemic (English subtitles)" and go to the 10 minute mark. She discusses precisely and in detail this very subject.
Also look at the work of Germany's Dr Sucharit Bhakdi MD. He was a post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, also at The Protein Laboratory in Copenhagen. He joined the Institute of Medical Microbiology at Giessen University and was appointed associate professor. He was named chair of Medical Microbiology at the University of Mainz. Dr. Bhakdi has published over three hundred articles in the fields of immunology, bacteriology, virology, and parasitology, for which he has received numerous awards and the Order of Merit of Rhineland-Palatinate. He would bring a great deal to this conversation.
In addition to those two, I'd reach out to Dr Peter McCullough of Texas and ask him who he'd suggest to comment on the subject. Get familiar with his recent interview on Vimeo ="Dr. McCullough_Full_Interview_5-19-2021"
If they have no evidence then its all conjecture for the sake of conjecture. BoThSidEs-ing the argument so you have someone to agree with to ignore the points the opposition is making to make you feel better isn't the goal here, its to reject bad science. Science does not have a political view, it is either proven or not proven. I'd be fine with it if they framed literally all of it as unsubstantiated hypothesizes.
Vincent everyone of your guests is making a major error when saying the 'odds' of a zoonotic origin are higher than a lab release. Although true, these odds do NOT reflect this situation! Only the odds of a Zoonotic origin with the first observation being a few hundred meters away from a Level4 lab are relevant and would be considerably lower. I am sure this is an honest mistake and you did not intend to represent the likelihood of zoonotic origins or sars-cov2
As usual, another excellent interview. Very clarifying discussion about the origin of Sars-Cov2. Hope this kind of interview sheds some light on how scientific evidence differs from speculations. Thanks again TWIV team.
When spillovers happened last time, there’s no super lab with all sorts of bat viruses at the same location, and researchers actively working on modifying it genetically
Enough said.
@@rickfucci4512 And spillovers ocurred at small towns, near the forest on the Coastlines, not in urbanized places...in the Center of the country...ahem...
You may be a small voice and I'm just a layman, IT guy who learned just enough to follow what you're saying, but I'm confident enough in the science that you're reporting to convey your message to everyone I know so it's all worth it. Hell, two years ago all I cared about was if you actually rebooted the server before calling me, now I know the difference between the A & B lineages...
It's a pretty important story and everyone should be as interested as you. 3.5 million people dead and counting. It's pretty important to find the source of the virus as it affects how we respond to prevent SAR3. I support work to find the source including lab leak investigations.
@@tuckerbugeater Spooky!
Why were Western scientists not allowed into the lab Dec 2019-February 2020?
Word salad
@@JennySimon206 “They obviously have a plan.” Yes, but do they have a plan B? Secret, land locked breeding farms fraudulently transferred to a Church in Florida? Oh no! Florida Man! 😱
Funny how one person comments on how they were being politically agnostic for the sake of science. Then the panel immediately starts bashing the previous administration while laughing. So much for a politically unbiased panel! No professionalism or credibility after that!
Mystery number 1 origin of the virus mystery 2 why was air travel allowed out of China in the early days why did why did goverments not close off all air travel best wishes from Glasgow scotland 👍
On January 23rd less than 2 weeks after the Genome of SARS CoV 2 was sequenced and shared with the World ALL Travel out of Wuhan by All routes Was prevented by a rigorously enforced LOCKDOWN. This was a rapid response by Chinese authorities to contain virus.
It is not the fault of China that the rest of the World failed to implement similar control mechanisms and restrictions on travel.
Possibly to allow American citizens back into the US from traveling to China.
Has the Chinese military shared their research with you?
@@luiswhatshisname7667 And then the scientists they train go on to train the scientists who work for the PLA. Unless he has worked with the PLA scientists, I don't understand why he thinks they wouldn't lie and cover up things.
@@SeaMower I have worked in a lab. In fact I helped set up protocals for record keeping for quarentine and OGTR and BSL regulations in terms of how to deal with sub-samples. It was all pencil and paper and you could easilly add sheets or take away sheets. I was going to digitize it, and have a database with an audit trail and backups, but the lab head didn't want to try to convince some of the regulators that it was secure and it just wasn't what they were used to and they hadn't yet come up with regulations on standards for digital record keeping.
But what I was talking about was whole labs that are off the books. There have been many nuclear, chemical and biological weapons labs around the world that have operated off the books so it certainly can be done. Some scientists work only in this shadow world and don't publish, others work in non-classified research as well so they can still publish.
In this case, maybe there isn't a secret lab program in general but it is also possible that they hadn't published anything yet, from collecting samples to a published paper can take years. They haven't showed anyone lab records and have refused to, but even if they did it isn't that hard to tamper with them. Sure you could accidently leave marks of tampering, but with enough effort it is possible to leave no trace. In my current job and in my previus research I have had to mock up data for testing, validation or benchmarking. Sometimes it is really easy, but for things like reads from genetic sequencing, making good models of the variety of errors involved you can get papers published on new models of generating realistic data.
Yesterday, Dr Scott Gottlieb's change of tune in Face the Nation caught my eye. That led me to the Nicholas Wade article. I missed all of this because I was concerned with preventing the spread and not origin. I was nearly hooked into the lab-leak hypotheses until the Science-based Medicine blog yanked me out of it. They led me to this video and pod cast. You do good work here.
You shouldn't get 'hooked in' to a hypothesis. A proper investigation should dispassionately look into all viable hypotheses; something that Dr. Garry and Peter Daszak have tried to railroad from the start.
@@caseysteele1012 AMEN Brother
Gottlieb? LOL! when did he became virologist?
@@harbinguy1 Because only virologists can engage with an event that has impacted the entire world!
Robert Gary wants to go to Kuala Lumpur to find bats. Go to Batu Caves, so called Limestone Cave, I think that place looks like the bridge in Austin. They did find Nipah virus in Ipoh, north of KL.
That ancestral virus could be anywhere. The point of what has been published is that viruses containing bits and pieces very like what emerged as covid-19 cover a wide swathe of southeast Asia. But if one followed the logic on what they HAVE found, one wouldn't think it came from a lab, and would find such a notion as dangerous and counterproductive as it is bigoted and politically motivated.
Richard Ebright (Rutgers biology professor) compares hunting for viruses in the wild like this and bringing them back to the lab for study to searching for a gas leak with a lit match. I'm not an expert, but would like an independent assessment on the risk/benefit of this exercise.
we did not know / have not though of , how to make a virus like this , to the , we cant / have not the tools to , make a virus like this , has a huge difference .
Thanks so much for the past two TWiVs. You give some of us solace that science really is still alive and very well indeed, and some ability to counter the urge to jump to what looks like an obvious conclusion. You're a ray of light. ☺️
Not very convincing.
Is it possible to organize some scientists who are critical on your hypothesis. It sounds so often as a viral bubbel. I mis the real debate!
@@Shelmerdine745 Would be interesting though! Always people who agree on almost everything including politics is not how it should be.
@@Shelmerdine745 I know more virologists who discuss, based on facts.
@@Shelmerdine745 Robert Redfield, Bruno Canard, Etienne Decroly...
Yan Li-Meng (閻麗夢)
IYKYK...
When we can't learn about the origin of something because the information is simply absent, the least we can do is learn as much as we can about the outcome. Keep learning all the way up until the end. That way science can advance even as we sometimes try and fail and die as we fight against the unknown.
Here's a thought, why don't they talk to people outside their YES-bubble... Someone like Brett Weinstein on the dark horse podcast, or Geert Vanden Bossch, Pierre Kory, or anyone other than the YES-monkeys that just support your own unscientific ideas without providing you with any real pushback... Jesus, you should be so much better than this!!
@@mrtaffs2112 I agree. I wonder if any of these so called experts take money from chy- nah
@@dannyshorvoyce4456 Yeah its a total joke!!!
@@mrtaffs2112 Agreed. Have a segment where Bret critiques "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" as to why it is inadequate or insufficient to its claims that the virus reached us through animal transmission.
@@MrWebster Yeah -- i don't think thats going to happen any time soon... haha.
And to think, I had such hopes for this channel... They are really let the side down!!
While the participants in the pod cast appear to agree chortle along with Dr. Barry and his support of the "zoonotic" theory, it's not clear to me who they are or precisely what are their qualifications to opine on the origin of Covid 19.
You seem to be hard of comprehension
Fantastic! You guys are phenomenal! That is why I have listened for the last 6+ years!!
Turn the sound off and watch it for a while, why does Robert Garry look so worried?
12,000,000 reasons to mislead. The awarded funding received a short period of time before this breakout
Pangolin was another piece of BS
David Martin woke everyone up about all the lies we were told by our fake media.
1:21:00
Reason why the Chinese authorities are not not co-operating with the investigation: "if a bunch of foreigners turn up at your place of work..." everyone chuckles..
th-cam.com/video/cdKI5qOF_a8/w-d-xo.html
Fantastic!!
57:27 the proline for stabilization....where have i heard on proline for prefusion stabilization????
All the gene based vaccines replaced two amino acid sites on the spike to prolines so that the prefusion spike trimer could remain stable without being attached to the virion
Another great one. Thank you all!
This is an excellent presentation-I’m re-reading the paper on the proximal origin of SARS-COV-2 as well as the Nature paper on evolutionary origins of SARS-COV-2. The swing flu epidemic which lead to the slaughter of pigs is of note.
Dr. Garry is so humble while he is making these amazing points. I had to listen for a second time to appreciate it, every word he says demonstrates perfect awareness of the issues and consequences, as well as concern for logic and reason. He obviously is a great scientist too with 37 years at Tulane!!! Brilliant.
48:46 www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-covid-lab-leak-hypothesis-what-scientists-do-and-do-not-know1/
Dont goddam come 'ere tellin us we are horscrappin'! - get outta 'ere! Get on the Horse ya came in on!
Another rather informative science based discussion. Thanks again to the Twivits and Robert Garry.
Hey Peter, I got a reply from a comment that I made on this video, and scrolling through ran across your name again. Crazy stuff coming out with all of the FOIAs and congressional email reveals. Daszak doesn't look so hot now does he???? Told you.
@@melodyiscraycray8648 Since you apparently have no knowledge of virology, maybe you should take Vincent's course. As far as Daszak, the BS non-scientific conspiracy theories keep on surfacing. There's 30,000 bases for SARS-CoV-2. That's a shitload of combinations to tinker with to see if you can get a new contagious virus. Daszak is working in a toxic media environment. What would you do if you were in his position? If you've spent the past 2 years learning virology, like I have, you'd definitely have a different view of all the crap that gets thrown out by the media and politicians.
Some useful points for others looking for counterarguments to gain of function research hypothesis.
1) Missing close progenitor of the virus:
15:06 "in gain of function research [...] you have to start with a virus that's at least close" 15:26 "we still don't know the close progenitor of the virus".
15:28 "but we certainly could summarize that the Wuhan Institute of Virology didn't have a virus that was that close"
2) RaTG13 is an unlikely/impossible progenitor in gain of function research? 19:56
Do we actually know that the Wuhan lab wasn't in possession of a close progenitor?
They were studying coronavirus to my understanding.
If, I assume, a close progenitor existed in the natural environment of the same country as the lab, how do we know the lab wasn't in possession of that same strain?
Is there a publicly available database of all the viruses studied at that lab? And if so, how would we know it was accurate? Or honest?
th-cam.com/video/cdKI5qOF_a8/w-d-xo.html
@@Orgotheonemancult Dr Shi took down the database and won't let anyone see it .
Thank you for sharing. Great video.
Try to get Dr. Redfield on next!
th-cam.com/video/cdKI5qOF_a8/w-d-xo.html
Are you not a Virologist Mr Racaniello??? Looks like Fort Detrick will ultimately be implicated too.
There are some issues with what is being suggested.... 1. It couldn't have leaked from a lab. I mean really.... impossible you say.... come now... don't suggest such stupidity. 2. It couldn't have been engineered because its too sloppy a job. I mean.... again really....? Perhaps.... just perhaps.... it's been made to appear a little more 'natural'....? On the other hand.... it is the product of in vitro mutations.... and not engineered...?
The other HUGE issue the scientific community faces is...... the ENORMOUS coincidental fiscal opportunity this pandemic has offered.... which alone lends itself to sinister interpretations. I must say... you haven't a hope in hell or anywhere else in convincing anyone this virus didn't fall of a shelf in a lab or was deliberately transferred to a human host.
This speaker is obsessed with attachment capability, and has so far said nothing about intracellular replication biochemistry. Maybe that's because the answer is there and might obliterate research funding. I believe in funding, but looking at 1/4 of the Louvre isn't truth seeking behavior. That never helps funding.
It is reassuring to hear you refute the likelihood of this not arising from the lab either accidentally in looking at viruses or as some gain of function work. What is disappointing is the lack of cooperation and secrecy the Chinese adopt regarding questions and releasing records from the lab when this would vindicate them publically. When you act so as to delay and appear to cover your tracks as it did in the months leading to Jan 2020, it's hardly surprising that conspiracies arise.
I would like a bit of a mud map written for a lay person like myself detailing the arguments made here was regards the origin of the virus. It is one thing to get the gist of the arguments being made but another to be able to clearly and reasonably discuss this with lay people who have accepted the lab leak idea as being absolute fact. I am worried how this is lab leak idea is being used for political purposes by the usual suspects. Any ideas as to where I could find such a mud map would be greatly appreciated.
This expands on points made by Vincent to discount the lab leak theory.
www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2021/05/20/no-science-clearly-shows-that-covid-19-wasnt-leaked-from-a-wuhan-lab
So, the only difference is two nucleotides...is that enough to stop two nuclear devices from being deployed?
Did fever stop SARS COV2 replication ?
Thanks for another good one! Dr. Garry mentioned doing research in “Kenema, a small town in West Africa.” I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone in the 1990’s and know Kenema well.
Hi super cool to have Rob Garry !! waiting for bill gallagher too, he had first the best insight on this virus from wuhan dejavu to the palindromic breakpoint thing.
Be proud! I'm proud of all of you. You have my deepest respect and gratitude.
SARS 2 virus purportedly first appeared in the Wuhan wet Market on one side of the Yangtze River... on the other side of the Yangtze River we have....
Wuhan Institute of virology and Chinese Academy of Sciences and Institute of mechanics and engineering and Wuhan University of Science and the Wuhan Zhangto biotech and Yotai biology tech Academy and the Chinese biology tech group and of course WIV
Fortunately the SARS 2 virus could not swim across the Yangtze River so it wasn't a lab leak
This is dumb because nobody believes the jump occurred at the market. The reason is that the earliest cases of SARS2 don't have any connection to the market. The market is now considered to be the first superspreader event.
No Dickson doesn't breathe noisily, not at all. How insensitive to suggest that.
Really impressed with Dr. Garry. Well done.
He seems extremely naïve to me and he allows his bias to confirm his scientific judgement.
@@JourneyOnFoot1 He sounds extremely reasonable and wise to me :D, but how would you know? Have you ever studied an origin of a virus before SARS2? Or have you assembled a phylogenetic tree? Are you really into molecular genetics at least? Surely you must understand clinical pathology.... What makes you so sure that you can make those claims? 😂 Its called the Dunning Kruger effect, please google it.
Amazing biology happened this month. Among these discoveries, Rig-i seems to use a non-canonical pathway for innate immune detection of sars2. But instead of talking about this, twiv are making episode after episode digging themselves into a hole because they can’t admit someone probably screwed up a lil bit. It’s tiring.
Well, if it's interesting and meaningful, TWiV will cover it in good time. Be patient. I think TWiV is being very responsible and responsive. Maybe you should send Vincent an email asking them to cover the developments. That would be constructive. ☺️
If you’d like to make your own podcast series and choose the subjects you find interesting, compelling, or just fun, go for it. If you’d like to see Vincent produce one for you, try asking (politely) for it or make a guest suggestion instead.
The world is an exciting place to live in at this moment in time. Incredible new discoveries come daily in all the fields one can imagine. If you feel inclined to spread the word about some of them, please do! I’m sure there are people in this world who would be interested.
@@RonnieD1970 Without the full cooperation of the PRC, we will never know what the true origin was - for two reasons: #1) if a lab leak was the cause, they would have to admit that someone in a PRC lab made a mistake #2) they would lose face.
@@RonnieD1970 ''And their aggressive attack''
Who are they?
Are you also, implying, that even considering a laboratory leak, is an ''attack''?
Why asking questions is considered an attack? I can't stand for it....
@@RonnieD1970 Hi, oh now I see the context. Not misread, just took it literally.
Maybe you were not so careful with wording, in this delicate topic?
Temple University has constructed a plausible progenitor using cancer cell mutation techniques.
Their study was super cool, they should do a Twiv on it! cst.temple.edu/about/news/temple-study-uses-novel-data-approach-trace-back-progenitor-all-sars-cov-2-genomes
Truly delusional
Now I perceive that, over enthusiastic biodefense ethics on scientific possibilities, might have caused chaos in coronavirus control.
th-cam.com/video/cdKI5qOF_a8/w-d-xo.html
Thank you
Have you ever had Alina Chan (or any scientists who believe in a likely lab origin) on your podcast? She can describe the scientific reasons that many believe point to a lab origin.
Instead, you just talk about 0 reasons for a lab origin and then proceed to stonewall and/or strawman opposing scientific viewpoints. I think many of the points made in this podcast have not aged well.
Wow - what a brilliant TWIV. Great understandable analysis to quosh the lab idea. Clearly reasoned that this is natural occurring. Should be essential listening / reading. Thank you off all your unstinting efforts. Note Vincent had argued months ago SARS-CoC-2 was naturally occurring.
Whoops typos- SARS -CoV -2! You know I meant that!
I really didn’t find this very convincing at all, which arguments seemed strongest to you?
I,m not a virologist, so may have missed something - but no previous backbone on which to build it, A/B linkage differentiation, RBD - couldn,t design on a computer, specifics of Furin site cleveage. More impressive than some counter lab based ideas being thrown around.
These are arguments against design, and ‘no backbone’ relies on the lab being open about everything they have (and so far their behavior has been the opposite of open). That still leaves a lot of possibilities that I felt were argued against very weakly in the video
The ‘backbone’ comment was about SARS-CoV-2 sequenced genome. See Vincent Racinello on TWiV who argues it could not have originated in a lab. He has a team of virologists/ immunologists and others on his vid who know their stuff. I don,t know otherwise.
This is painful how almost desperate they sound in their dismissive and unprofessional attitude/demeanor. It's almost juvenile sounding. I imagined a more seasoned and professional delivery of logical, rational "scientific" facts and information. I had more respect for the possibility of the virus existing in and coming from the wild, before listening to this group. It's like watching a Daytime talk show like "The View" or Gutfeld on Fox News, or some CNN talking head panel. Not a shining example of the professional medical communities ability to inform.
I don't believe in "consparicies",I believe in possibilities. This just sounds like delivery of a "counter conspiracy theory." Very difficult to listen to what sounds like please believe me whining. I loved Vincents Virology Lecture Presentations. This is not his thing. He is an awesome Presenter if Knowledge and Information in his role as a Professor. This role he doesnt play or come across very well.
Even less so with some of these other cast of characters. They throw the lingo and terminology around, but personally they are not as convincing as their knowledge of the subject should afford.
Less politics and snarky remarks. I’m following because I teach courses parallel to your viral discussions and have no interest in your politics.
W.A.Taylor M.D. PhD
I think you are seeing it where it isn't.
@William Taylor welcome. But the TWiX groups are all very conversational, not lectures. Some of us like that, others not so much. If you’d like to make a comment that gets taken seriously then an email to the addresses given in the show notes at the website is the way. Commentary here is for the amusement of those on TH-cam
Yes, the snickering was sad. So superior.
'I'm ready to put on my wellies and go on out there' This fella needs a better PPE list. Time for a toolbox talk.
A CYA interview by a "scientist". Does he do research on raccoon dogs too?
Why does the guy in the bottom right sound so unconvincing about what he's talking about. Not counting the fact he says "you know," like some high school teenager making up a story using everything he can to sound convincing.
Dr. Dickson Despommier, PhD, is a microbiologist, an ecologist, and emeritus professor of Public and Environmental Health at the Columbia University.
The email regarding the anti -Asian hate email is proposterous. Alina Chan is Asian !
The podcast was going pretty well till then, stop derailing the conversation ....jeez.
46 f Dillon colorado 9000feet elevation
I love TWIVet, maybe in a small sample TWIVette
I have a friend that just loves his conspiracy theories and there's no convincing otherwise and then he's a Trump supporter. He's rational otherwise but..?
DRASTIC
Nicholas Wade is in this instance a cheap hack.
JASON group members?
I enjoy listening and learning from this podcast but I find the discussions about the SARS-CoV-2 virus to be problematic. Prof. Vincent Racaniello it is best to avoid the subject if one cannot avoid making light of the public's concern about the origins of the virus.
Robert Garry's arguement for zoonotic origins are weakened by interspersing them with flippant statements. Maybe that is his speaking style but it brings listeners emotions into play - not good if one is trying to convince someone.
I do hope the virus had a zoonotic origin since the other option is unthinkable to me but I will not make light of others concerns that it is not since the WHO has done a poor job of addressing their concerns to date.
thank you