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The Nation is a
progressive[2][4] American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis.
In early 2020, top scientists told Anthony Fauci they were concerned that SARS-CoV-2 appeared potentially "engineered." Here’s a look at what happened next.
www.thenation.com
"The documents show that in the early days of the pandemic, Fauci and Collins took part in a series of e-mail exchanges and telephone calls in which several leading virologists expressed concern that SARS-CoV-2 looked potentially “engineered.”"
"After roughly a week of debate and data collection, one of the key figures involved in the deliberations characterized the focus of the group’s work as follows: “to
disprove any type of lab theory.”"
“The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” Andersen wrote in the e-mail. “I should mention,” he added,
“that after discussions earlier today, Eddie, Bob, Mike and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory. But we have to look at this much more closely and there are still further analyses to be done, so those opinions could still change.”
"Farzan was “bothered by the furin site and has a hard time explaining that as an event outside the lab (though, there are possible ways in nature, but highly unlikely).” On the question of whether the virus had a natural origin or came from some sort of accidental lab release, Farrar reported that Farzan was “70:30” or “60:40” in favor of an “accidental-release” explanation and that “Bob”—an apparent reference to Robert Garry—was also surprised by the presence of a furin cleavage site in this virus. Farrar quoted Bob saying:
“I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature…. t’s stunning.”"
“Surely that wouldn’t be done in a BSL-2 lab?” wrote Collins, referring to Biosafety Level 2 labs, which do not have the most stringent safety protocols.
“Wild West…” was Farrar’s response, an apparent reference to lab practices in China or possibly to the Wuhan Institute of Virology itself.
Georgetown’s Lawrence Gostin, for his part, is not optimistic, noting that the Chinese government has foreclosed the possibility of a rigorous, transparent, and independent investigation into the emergence of the virus in Wuhan.
“I think it is extraordinarily sad for humankind that we probably will never know for sure,” he said. “But I lay much of that in the hands of China.”
www.documentcloud.org
