Five Years Later, NY Times Op-Ed Demands “Pandemic Amnesty” for Scientists Who Attacked Covid Lab Leak Theory
Five years ago, my son was poised to attend his final Junior ROTC ball, attend several award ceremonies honoring his achievements, and have a fun summer with friends before heading off the the US Air Force Academy.
Unfortunately, after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (now recognized to be most likely from a lab leak in Wuhan, China), President Donald Trump allowed “coronavirus advisors” Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx to run wild with “15 days to control the spread.” My son’s entire graduation season was canceled.
I shall neither forgive nor forget, especially as I was an early proponent of the “severe flu” approach to addressing the outbreak.
Unfortunately, these federal policies morphed into a multi-year lockdown extravaganza for many areas of the country. Those of us trapped in California endured nearly 3 years of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s emergency powers.
Now, 5-years later, and as new information is becoming available on how much data supporting a lab leak was the likely source of the novel coronavirus, an opinion piece from The New York Times authored by Zeynep Tufekci (a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University) attempts to promote a “pandemic amnesty” for scientists who aggressively promoted the natural origin theory.
In the piece, Tufekci critiques the initial dismissal of the lab-leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory by many public health officials and scientists, who instead favored the narrative of a natural zoonotic spillover from a seafood market in Wuhan, China. She highlights how this stance was strongly defended, exemplified by the support of 77 Nobel laureates and 31 scientific societies for EcoHealth Alliance, a group linked to risky bat virus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, despite early speculation of a lab-related origin being suppressed.
But then she blames those of us who endeavored to bring up the evidence related to the lab leak origin because she didn’t like our tone.
It’s not hard to imagine how the attempt to squelch legitimate debate might have started. Some of the loudest proponents of the lab leak theory weren’t just earnestly making inquiries; they were acting in terrible faith, using the debate over pandemic origins to attack legitimate, beneficial science, to inflame public opinion, to get attention.For scientists and public health officials, circling the wagons and vilifying anyone who dared to dissent might have seemed like a reasonable defense strategy.
Where do I even start with this inanity? “The Twitter Files” is loaded with examples of how Big Government (led by Birx and Fauci) colluded with Big Tech to drown out the voices of anyone who challenged the COVID narrative.. even well-credentialed scientists with the background and experience to do so.
The “narrative violations” on Twitter at that time included anything with the “lab leak” mention.
Then, with the same sweep of the pen, she argues that the reluctance to openly consider a lab accident as a plausible cause, due in part to fears of political fallout or professional backlash, may have obscured critical examination of lab safety practices.
The information was out there, and many fine scientists staked their reputations and careers on the line, such as the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration. Fortunately, one of the authors, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, persevered and his nomination to be the Director of the National Institutes of Health is on its way to being finalized in the Senate.
However, these scientists received little help from Big Media entities like The New York Times, who played a large role in promoting the disinformation and ignoring the facts that were being present but went against the preferred narratives.
Tufekci emphasizes that the truth about COVID’s origins remains elusive, while she fails to note Fauci’s role in crafting the “natural origin” narrative. Legal Insurrection readers may recall that Fauci both commissioned and had final approval on a scientific paper written in February 2020 designed to disprove the theory that the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab.
That paper ignored a significant smoking gun pointing to a lab leak, an email discussion that included Fauci focused on a “furin site”, unusual except in the context of a virus being genetically manipulated.
On February 2, Jeremy Farrar, an infectious disease expert and the director of Wellcome, sent around notes, including to Fauci and Collins, summarizing what some of the scientists had said on the call.Farzan, a Scripps professor who studied the spike protein on the 2003 SARS virus, “is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time explain that as an event outside the lab (though, there are possible ways in nature, but highly unlikely),” Farrar’s note reads, referring to a spike protein feature that aids interaction with furin, a common enzyme in human lung cells. Farzan didn’t think the site was the product of “directed engineering,” but found that the changes would be “highly compatible with the idea of continued passage of the virus in tissue culture.”
And, as a reminder, if I could discern all this from my San Diego “Fortress of Solitude” in San Diego in 2020, then everyone else involved in this narrative promotion could, too.
There is no “misled” here… there is only manipulation.
I do not forgive. I do not forget. I demand accountability for every scientist involved in the manipulation, not amnesty.
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