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Scientists rebuff Coronavirus conspiracy theories; Their analysis suggests that the virus evolved in a manner that would have been difficult to reproduce in a lab
Inkstone News ^ | 02/22/2020 | Simone McCarthy

Posted on 02/22/2020 7:33:02 PM PST by SeekAndFind

A team of researchers has hit back at rumors that the coronavirus that emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year was engineered.

In a paper posted on Monday on the scientific online forum Virological, the scientists – who include top epidemiologist W. Ian Lipkin from Columbia University; Edward Holmes from the University of Sydney; and Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research – said crucial genetic clues indicate that the coronavirus was not created in a laboratory.

Despite scientists’ repeated efforts at debunking conspiracy theories, rumors about the still-unknown origins of the virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, have been rife.

Most are based on the idea that the virus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers have built one of the world’s biggest databases of bat-related viruses. The institute was the first to identify the new coronavirus as directly related to a wild strain found in bats.

The speculation prompted the institute’s lead researcher, Shi Zhengli, to say in a post on the social media platform WeChat: “I swear with my life, [the virus] has nothing to do with the lab.”

But that has not stopped the rumors, including in the United States, where Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, suggested in a Fox News television broadcast on Sunday that the virus could have come from a “biosafety level-4 super laboratory” in China.

The senator later clarified on Twitter he did not say the new coronavirus was an “engineered bioweapon,” but that there were several hypotheses about its origins that needed to be further explored.

(Excerpt) Read more at inkstonenews.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: conspiracytheory; coronavirus; covid2019
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To: Cold Heart

Doesn’t mean the virus didn’t come out of a lab.

Exactly.

The “rebuff” is BS designed to spin a meme.


21 posted on 02/22/2020 8:31:20 PM PST by samtheman (Trump TV Ad: Virginia takes guns. NY legalizes crime. Iowa steals votes. What Democrats do.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Yeah how big is that group of scientists who push the man made global warming scam.

Who pays for the research these scientist do. And how might that effect what they say.


22 posted on 02/22/2020 8:33:49 PM PST by Revel
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To: Cold Heart

RE: Doesn’t mean the virus didn’t come out of a lab.

If we believe what the scientists in this article said, then the answer is YES.


23 posted on 02/22/2020 8:35:49 PM PST by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: SeekAndFind

What disturbed me was the immediate attempt by the Chinese officials to sell the idea that the virus originated in the Wuhan wet market. They even produced PSA videos and news articles showing people eating bat heads to make their case to the world.

More complete patient tracking later showed that the virus was detected in patients that had not been to the market first and then appeared at patients from the market. When the government in charge of managing a situation starts putting out propaganda before getting the facts it makes concerned people suspicious and destroys any credibility they might have had.

Maybe its just a coincidence that the only P4 bio laboratory built in China is less than a mile from the site of the first infections but its understandable that people would speculate on this. I don’t think this is the end of the controversy.


24 posted on 02/22/2020 8:45:57 PM PST by Dave Wright
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To: Dave Wright

RE: They even produced PSA videos and news articles showing people eating bat heads to make their case to the world.

The only problem with this is the propaganda is FALSE.

SEE HERE FROM THE NEW YORK POST:

https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab/

EXCERPT:

They first blamed a seafood market not far from the Institute of Virology, even though the first documented cases of Covid-19 (the illness caused by SARS-CoV-2) involved people who had never set foot there. Then they pointed to snakes, bats and even a cute little scaly anteater called a pangolin as the source of the virus.

I don’t buy any of this. It turns out that snakes don’t carry coronaviruses and that bats aren’t sold at a seafood market. Neither are pangolins, for that matter, an endangered species valued for their scales as much as for their meat.

The evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 research being carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The virus may have been carried out of the lab by an infected worker or crossed over into humans when they unknowingly dined on a lab animal. Whatever the vector, Beijing authorities are now clearly scrambling to correct the serious problems with the way their labs handle deadly pathogens.

China has unleashed a plague on its own people. It’s too early to say how many in China and other countries will ultimately die for the failures of their country’s state-run microbiology labs, but the human cost will be high.


25 posted on 02/22/2020 8:49:18 PM PST by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: All

Says something about our corrupt media that the Washington Post called the lab origin a “discredited conspiracy theory” without asking any real questions or doing any journalism.

If the Chinese allow WHO into that lab and reveal the studies that have done on there, then that’s some level of third party confirmation. However, Chinese government promises? Sorry. Not buying that.

If it was a bioweapon that escaped, then we need all of that information to combat the spread. This a very easy weapon to spread with, say, a volunteer group of jihadis willing to cross our southern border or just fly into the country before it has become active.


26 posted on 02/22/2020 8:52:32 PM PST by TigerClaws
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To: SeekAndFind
It is unfortunate that the climate scientists ruined TRUTH because now all findings and research is suspect. /sadness 😩
27 posted on 02/22/2020 8:52:45 PM PST by ptsal ( Bust the NVIA)
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To: TigerClaws

RE: If the Chinese allow WHO into that lab and reveal the studies that have done on there, then that’s some level of third party confirmation.

Not only WHO. The US CDC also offered to help in the research on the origins of the Covid-2019 virus. They were rebuffed.


28 posted on 02/22/2020 8:55:05 PM PST by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: Cold Heart
Doesn’t mean the virus didn’t come out of a lab.

Exactly. The virus might have been harvested from a bat, then been studied, unmodified, in the lab. Then some lab worker made a little mistake.

29 posted on 02/22/2020 8:57:19 PM PST by TChad (The MSM, having nuked its own credibility, is now bombing the rubble.)
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To: SeekAndFind
W. Ian Lipkin from Columbia University; Edward Holmes from the University of Sydney; and Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research – said crucial genetic clues indicate that the coronavirus was not created in a laboratory.

And then you remember that the head of the Chemistyr Dept. from HARVARD, was arrested for getting money under the table from Red China, to help them set up a research center in Wuhan, and for placing Chinese Army Spies in his department.

So gives a rat's flying f**k WHAT any of these liberal vermin say?

Treat them as guilty, even if PROVEN innocent; after all, that's what they did to the kids at Waco, and Randy Weaver, and Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone, and the President, and every heterosexual white male in the country, right?

F 'em ALL.

30 posted on 02/22/2020 8:59:09 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change with out notice.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Yes, CDC was rejected as well.

China also tried to hide the virus and threatened those that warned of its dangers. Not exactly the behavior of an innocent victim of a random new virus.

I’ve read “conspiracy theory” was actually a phrase invented by the CIA to attack its enemies. But maybe that’s a conspiracy theory?


31 posted on 02/22/2020 9:00:07 PM PST by TigerClaws
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To: SeekAndFind

The other point being that we are in the Stone Age re biology. It’s not lack of desire. It’s lack of ability.


32 posted on 02/22/2020 9:07:35 PM PST by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: SeekAndFind

From a military standpoint, a germ isn’t a useful weapon, unless it’s controllable as an area weapon.


33 posted on 02/22/2020 9:11:36 PM PST by familyop ("Welcome to Costco. I love you." - -Costco greeter in the movie, "Idiocracy")
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To: Dave Wright
From snakes, mind you.

Reptiles passing the "flu" to human mammals.

Right

34 posted on 02/22/2020 9:14:38 PM PST by Salamander (Living On The Ledge....)
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To: Hostage
> “A team of researchers ...”


35 posted on 02/22/2020 9:16:22 PM PST by a fool in paradise (Everyone knows Hillary was corrupt, lied, destroyed documents, and influenced witnesses. Rat crime.)
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To: SeekAndFind

36 posted on 02/22/2020 9:23:35 PM PST by C210N
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To: SeekAndFind

https://youtu.be/rbHxeOQA1Mc


37 posted on 02/22/2020 9:42:19 PM PST by MarMema (Proud co-pilot for John James)
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To: Secret Agent Man

It would be interesting to find out how many of this group of scientists took grant money from China or US government...


38 posted on 02/22/2020 9:56:30 PM PST by Freedom56v2
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To: SeekAndFind
Bull 💩
39 posted on 02/22/2020 9:56:42 PM PST by Lopeover (Patriots Fight)
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To: SeekAndFind

Follow the money...


40 posted on 02/22/2020 9:58:20 PM PST by Freedom56v2
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