Here, I will expose a well organised and very questionable framing of the SARS2 origins.
The core of the story is the drafting in February 2020 of a commentary denying any possible man-made virus.
It is not often discussed, but is very revealing.
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/22221751.2020.1733440?scroll=top&needAccess=true
It is a story of veiled key contributors, bypassed peer-review, non-disclosures, tricks and deception, changes of mind as to a possible non-natural origin, strange timings, internal jokes as to what the 3 key authors were doing, etc.
You name it, it happened.
That piece published in Emerging Microbes & Infections (EMI) on 26 Feb 2020 was very successful.
Which reminds me of a 'vocal minority of biased scientists free to spread misinformation', as aptly described by a WHO insider.
msn.com/en-gb/news/world/wuhan-and-us-scientists-planned-to-create-new-coronaviruses-grant-application-reveals/ar-AAPa9Gw%E2%80%A6
Spoiler alert:
=============
I will first list the main findings (abbreviations to be explained later):
ππ» Ralph Baric made important contributions but preferred not to be listed as an author .
ππ» Shi Zheng Li also made some contributions (and is never mentioned).
ππ» Shan Lu at EMI (the journal that published the commentary) solicited the commentary, bypassed the peer-review and was an active but undeclared co-author (at his request).
His full role was not disclosed to co-authors Susan Weiss or Linda Saif in the available emails.
ππ» The 3 main actual authors knew of an otherwise undisclosed very recent accidental SARS2 infection in a top Beijing lab.
They also recognised how easy a SARS2 lab accident was, but none disclosed that accident publicly when it would have helped frame the origins debate.
ππ» The eventual absence of any FCS in the pangolins sequence behind some key 99% similitude claims (which had triggered high hopes of such an FCS) caused Susan Weiss to change her mind and state that a lab-origin was possible.
Still she did not revise the commentary.
ππ» Timing matters:
The 99% claims were made <just after> the OSTP request for more data.
The Chinese preprint revealing that the claims are incorrect & that there is no FCS was released <just after> Proximal Origin (17 Feb) and Daszak's Lancet letter (18 Feb) went online.
Letβs look closer to that astounding story!
First, some recap:
===============
On the 31 Jan an Indian preprint, soon withdrawn, alleges a human-construct based on some possible HIV inserts.
This will create a big stir.
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1
In particular it triggered an OSTP letter sent to NASEM on 3 Feb about data requirements to help determine SARS-CoV-2 origins.
- OSTP: Office of Science and Technology Policy (White House)
- NASEM: The 3 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
On 6 Feb, NASEM gives an initial answer to the OSTP mentioning that they consulted experts to determine the type of data needed to understand the origins of the virus.
The experts consulted include Peter Daszak and Kristian Andersen.
On 7 Feb, a Chinese team just happens to drop a data bombshell with claims of SARS-CoV-2 99% similitude to a pangolin CoV strain.
finance.ifeng.com/c/7ts2QXS6nEQ
Done with the recap. Now let's go back to the commentary published in Emerging Microbes & Infections (hereafter EMI).
The official authors are Shan-Lu Liu, Lishan Su, Linda Saif, Susan Weiss
Please stay with me to the very end of the thread..
The first draft of the commentary was sent to the publisher on 13 Feb, accepted the very same day, revised 21 Feb and published 26 Feb, one week after Daszak's Lancet letter.
It started with an invitation from the editor in chief of EMI.
The Editor In Chief of EMI is Shan Lu.
Shan Lu is a specialist of polyvalent DNA and protein combination HIV vaccines.
The invite was sent to Shan-Lu Liu of Ohio State Uni and Lishan Lu of UNC Chapel Hill (Baric's workplace).
(Note: The three should not be mixed up)
Shan-Lu Liu sent a draft of the commentary (EMI-2019-nCoV_Commentary LJS.docx) to Linda Saif (LSJ) on the 11 Feb, so work must have started a few days earlier.
Linda Saif is also from Ohio State Uni and happens to be one of Daszak's Lancet letter signatories (pub. 19 Feb).
She also happens to have a prominent position as a virologist in the National Academy of Sciences.
Remember too the request by the OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy, White House) to NASEM (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine sent on 3 Feb.
Linda Saif answered very quickly and asked if she could get Baric's feedback on the draft.
She also explains that Baric would most likely not want to be named as a co-author.
Shan-Lu Liu then agrees that Saif can share it with Baric.
Immediately after Linda tells Shan-Lu Liu that they could also try Daszak as co-author, while mentioning that she and Daszak are preparing a similar statement (the Lancet letter).
Shan-Lu Liu then asks Lishan Su and Shan Lu whether to ask Daszak.
We never hear whether Daszak answered in the released emails. No mention either from either Lishan Su or Shan Lu.
Linda's emails however show that she sent Daszak's Lancet letter to Shan-Lu Liu on the 18 Feb as soon as it went online.
By the way, Daszak's email includes a link to change.org where a petition in support of his letter was uploaded on 18 Feb.
It is worth reading for its hysterical tone.
change.org/p/support-for-the-public-health-professionals-of-china-combatting-covid-19?recruiter=1043558664&recruited_by_id=91961730-5252-11ea-8109-1d516ccba104&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=petition_dashboard
Next is Stanley Perlman, a top coronavirus researcher, is also approached to add his name as co-author.
That does not seem to have gone anywhere either:
In the meantime Shan-Lu Liu asks Susan Weiss if she wants to be added as an author of the commentary.
He does not mention that Shan Lu is an active author of the piece.
She promptly accepts.
Next to join is Ralph Baric, contacted both by Lishan Su and Linda Saif.
No mention of Shan Lu as co-author again in the message to Baric.
Baric is onboard but does not want to show up as having taken part in the drafting.
Within 2 hours he sends his edits.
Next is ... Shi Shengli of the WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology) herself!
We do not have the email showing how she was contacted, but we can see that Shan-Lu Liu is forwarding her comments on the 16 Feb.
Her minor comments are in a file called EMI-conspiracy-zlshi.pdf.
Thanks to @USRightToKnow we have the actual file.
The file was created on the 13 Feb, so Shan-Lu Liu would have contacted her around the 12 Feb:
usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/OSU-ZLS-Comments.pdf
See also usrtk.org/biohazards-blog/zhengli-shi-edits-to-widely-cited-emi-commentary/
Let's now move to the drafting itself.
During the drafting, Li-Shan Su is particularly focussing on RaTG13 and the HIV insertions rumours.
Rumours which takes us back to the Indian preprint, the event that largely triggered the OSTP request, the Fauci/Farrar call process, PO, the Lancet letter, etc.
It's a very urgent matter.
twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1533644865082339328?s=20&t=horCCfy4GaJ8-9ZZwWrN7w
In the drafting process there is an odd comment about Baric:
"We donβt want to appear that we are defending Ralph even though he did nothing wrong"
This refers to a section which explains that the GoF 'SHC014-MA15' virus of Baric is not a backbone for SARS-CoV-2.
This is likely where Baric would have made some changes.
On 14 Feb, Shan-Lu Liu discloses a recent accidental SARS-2 infection in a Chinese lab.
"Feng Gao is my εΈε
(mate/brother) in εδΊ¬ηη
ζ―ζ (Beijing Virus Institute / NIVDC). We were from the same lab where my former director has now been infected by SARS Cov 2!"
Note: he only tells Lishan Su and Shan Lu, not Linda or Susan.
That is also the Beijing institution that leaked SARS-1 four times in 2004 (with a cover up of the first two infections and no proper WHO investigation).
twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1424985168826179586?s=20&t=horCCfy4GaJ8-9ZZwWrN7w
This Beijing SARS2 accidental lab infection was NEVER made public.
Disclosing this at that precise time would have made it difficult to deny the possibility of a lab accident.
But as Shan Lu says, it's a big issue for labs and most people there would have no clue.
At least the main authors changed the title to focus purely on the man-made question, while warning about the risk of handling new viruses in labs in an added last sentence.
(This also explains why Shan-Lu Liu was mentioning Feng Gao)
But that is not the end of the story.
A few days later Susan Weiss is clearly troubled by the lab risk mention, when Shan-Liu explains to her the recent changes in the draft.
She also points to the question of unpublished viruses in relation to a possible lab infection:
Shan-Lu Liu then explains to her that a lab-accident with a natural virus is a possibility (while still not mentioning to her the Beijing SARS2 lab accident).
In doing so he drops a big one here, confirming that there are many undisclosed samples and viruses at the WIV.
To understand the importance of this, we need to go back to the argument made in Proximal Origin and repeated in the Lancet letter.
Basically, that the absence of any known potential backbone closer than RatTG13 makes it much more likely for the FCS to have evolved naturally
Here is for instance Gallaher 'Tackling Rumors of a Suspicious Origin of nCoV2019' (11 Feb) included in the FOI.
His argument relies on the absence of a close relative of SARS-CoV-2, which allows for a lot of evolutionary time and unknown intermediate steps towards an FCS.
Once you admit that there could be some close suitable backbones (not that distant RaTG13) in some Wuhan lab, the whole argument crumbles.
Still, on 16 Feb these co-authors are putting their hopes in the recent claims of 99% pangolin bat-CoV / SARS-CoV-2 similitude.
A 99% similitude means that most likely there is some form of FCS in these sequences, which would offer a very easy evolutionary path.
These pangolins 'Findings' were amplified by Andersen (of Proximal Origin) in Nature as soon as they were announced:
twitter.com/humblesci/status/1546264979535704064?s=20&t=horCCfy4GaJ8-9ZZwWrN7w
With the pangolins promptly recycled to shore up every key argument of Proximal Origin:
twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1514378026393509890?s=20&t=Vz5yt-QoNZprhZQcIzegcA
By the way, we have reasons to believe that the first thing that one of the PO authors did after hearing of the 99% claims on the 7 Feb was to send a quick email the very same day to that team asking if their pangolin sequences had a RRAR FCS as the S1/S2 protein position.
Not clear whether he got an answer.
Everybody else seems to be still waiting for the preprint - it could be the clincher!!
At that time Eddie was working on Lam et al, submitted to Nature on that very 7 Feb and sent to BioRXiv on 13 Feb but not released until 18 Feb.
Also Proximal Origin was available on virological.org on the 16 Feb in a near final version, and accessed by the Lancet letter authors the 17 Feb.
On that 16 Feb the SCAU team of the 99% claims sent Kangpeng Xiao et al to Nature.
They also sent it to BioRXiv on 17 Feb, and it is released there on 20 Feb.
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.17.951335v1.article-info
Unfortunately that SCAU preprint shows that the 99% claims were for the RBD only, otherwise these sequences are not close at all.
So no breakthrough, no FCS, no intermediate animal, no closer sequence than RaTG13. Nothing really.
Anyway, let's move on.
After EMI sends the proofs for review on 21 Feb, there is some final tuning.
In particular the authors notice that they have not included a link to Proximal Origin, recently released:
Despite the recent release of the SCAU preprint showing no FCS, the commentary is not revised.
The sentence about the data not being yet published and the link to the Nature article of 7 Feb where Andersen / Holmes discuss the SCAU 99% claims are kept
nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00364-2
Before the SCAU preprint was released on 20 Feb, Susan was rather divided.
When Shan-Lu Liu insists that the added warning about the danger of handling new virus in lab makes sense, Susan keeps thinking of the RRAR FCS but tries to rationalise while waiting for the preprint:
Once the commentary proofs are received, Susan Weiss picks up some minor issues and possible confusions about GoF or not GoF, due to the changes made by Baric.
Baric's contribution is fully detailed in the FOI of Saif emails.
See B[aric]R[alph] tracked changes:
usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Saif-OSU-Batch-1.pdf
There is an interesting comment, where Ralph correctly points out that rumours based on the the 2015 Nature paper about SHC014 started in *Chinese* social media, not Western ones.
His suggested change is accepted, removed, and back in the final version.
By now Susan (21 Feb) has read the BioRXiv preprint, and the deception is clear:
She expresses her concerns with the low probability of an FCS popping up naturally in a B-lineage coronavirus, given that the preprint pangolins have none, and asks Shan-Lu Liu for his thoughts.
20 minutes later she is back again expressing her concern about the FCS to Shan-Lu Liu:
But then it gets even better:
Shan-Lu Liu answers her by saying that the commentary deals with the rumors of an engineered FCS, hence the difficulty of an FCS having crossed over to a B-lineage is not the point here.
Basically the cross-over just happened.
What follows is amazing:
Susan doubles-down and replies very clearly that she thinks the FCS may be engineered!
So thanks, but no thanks. Oops.
Very interesting since she is now validating the proofs of a commentary she is co-authoring that loudly says just the opposite:
Side note:
Little Mountain Dog of Vision Medicals was not impressed either after reading the same BioRXiv preprint.
She wrote a great blog entry about it on the 24 Feb.
It looks like there are a few critical scientists left.
twitter.com/gdemaneuf/status/1546285514244104192?s=20&t=horCCfy4GaJ8-9ZZwWrN7w
Let's now move to a bit of cloak-and-dagger:
Starting 11 Feb Shan Lu (also Editor in Chief of EMI) mentioned that he did not want to be listed as co-author - even if it would make sense to the other co-authors.
While at the same time being indeed busy as a co-author, and making more changes in the next few days:
As requested Shan Lu, Editor in Chief of EMI, instigator of the commentary and significant contributor to it, does not show up when the piece is published.
Note that Shan Lu, using his position at EMI, pushed EMI to accept the piece submitted by Shan-Lu Liu without review (accepted the very same day).
The JEO (Journal Editorial Office) of Taylor & Francis (publisher of EMI) was a bit dubious.
Shan Lu even joked about it.
Notes:
- The unique reviewer commented back to staff at T&F to push it 'right away', due to the great reputation of the '4' listed authors.
- The Review Editor was also very emphatic.
All nicely done.
Also when discussing the waiving of publication fees with his staff at T&F/EMI (12 Feb), Shan Lu does not mention either that he is co-author.
Neither Lishan Su or Shan-Lu Liu for that matter mention anything when jumping in the conversation.
Just like Proximal Origin and the Lancet letter, a Chinese translation is prepared to go with the media communication when the piece is published:
As comparison:
The FOI shows that on the 20 Feb, Shan Lu as Editor in Chief of EMI nominated Shan-Lu Liu to review a paper by Wu Zhong from the National Engineering Research Center For the Emergence Drugs, Beijing
That paper took a much more usual time to be accepted (9 days) and then another 8 days to be published online (8 Mar).
Here is a comparison of the schedules to publication:
In the end the commentary is published on the 26 Feb, as expected when the proofs were sent back
It will become the #3 most successful piece for Taylor & Francis.
Draw your own conclusions.
@KatherineEban @emilyakopp @garyruskin @rustyrockets @NathanJRobinson @R_H_Ebright
I hope you've found this thread helpful.
A note to would-be whistleblowers:
Please see our page for securely contacting us: drasticresearch.org/whistleblowers
Many thanks to all who have investigated this story, in particular to
@USRightToKnow and @CharlesRixey who were the first to write about it.
With zero interest in the main street media.
usrtk.org/tag/shan-lu-liu/
prometheusshrugged.substack.com/p/forthechildren
usrtk.org/biohazards/chinese-linked-journal-sought-to-rebut-covid-19-lab-origin-theory/