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The scientific community is emphatic: there is no evidence that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab. This WMD-style conspiracy theory has been promoted by Trump and legitimized by the @washingtonpost and liberal "Resistance". @MaxBlumenthal and I report: https://thegrayzone.com/2020/04/20/trump-media-chinese-lab-coronavirus-conspiracy/amp
A team of US, UK, and Australian scientists could not be more clear: “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible... Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
A group of 27 scientists penned an open letter “strongly condemn[ing] conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin” and stating that scientific findings “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife". https://www.thelancet.com/lancet/article/s0140-6736(20)30418-9
Despite the strong scientific consensus, neocon pundit @joshrogin tried to revive this conspiracy theory in an April 14 column in @washingtonpost. Citing US State Dept cables, Rogin claims there were safety issues with a Chinese lab studying coronaviruses https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/
. @joshrogin bases his fear-mongering about the Chinese lab on a single, vague comment in a cable written by US officials with no apparent scientific expertise. On top of this, the cable's main takeaway undermines his sensational claims, praising the lab's research as important!
.Dr Angela Rasmussen, Columbia University virologist, strongly criticized @joshrogin's inaccurate representation of the cables, pointing out that they highlight the work's importance and don't suggest safety issues with the Wuhan lab's coronavirus research https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1250485709531537408
. @joshrogin claims it was "unusual" for US officials to visit the lab in Wuhan when international exchanges are in fact extremely common. Since 2015 scientists, govt officials from over a dozen countries have visited the lab, which, itself is a Chinese-French joint collaboration!
.According to the WHO, “much investment was made in staff training”, for the lab with researchers and staff trained in the US, France, Canada, and Australia and then in house before the lab became operational. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/311625/WHO-WHE-CPI-2018.40-eng.pdf
.Chinese researchers have been forthright and transparent in their lab safety protocol, publishing, in May 2019, an overview of their training program for laboratory users in a US CDC publication on emerging infectious diseases. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/25/5/18-0220_article
.Instead of discussing the Wuhan lab with scientific experts, @joshrogin attempted to bolster his claims by relying on speculation from anonymous Trump officials and Xiao Qiang, an anti-Chinese government activist with a long history of US government backing
. @joshrogin refers to Xiao as a "research scientist" dishonestly attempting to furnish credibility for the US-backed political dissident. In fact, Xiao has no expertise in the area and teaches on "digital activism", "internet freedom" and "blogging China" https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/people/xiao-qiang
. @joshrogin also conveniently omitted that for over 20 years, "research scientist" Xiao has worked with and been funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the main arm of US government regime-change efforts in countries targeted by Washington.
.To implicate the Wuhan lab as the source of the Covid outbreak, @joshrogin smears Shi Zhengli, head of the lab's research on bat coronaviruses, claiming she was taking "unnecessary risks". As evidence he cites a Nature article which doesn't name Shi and refers to a US study!
.The 2015 article in Nature cited by @joshrogin doesn't even name Shi and instead refers to a study that took place in the US -- not Wuhan. Led by US researchers, Shi contributed to the study as one of 13 co-authors. https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-1.18787?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews
