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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The tortuous politics around COVID origins led to Lancet publishing a competing interest statement longer than the actual letter!

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Here's the letter in Lancet by the way. Still sounds spot-on to me. It was specifically written in response to conspiracy theories originating in China, amplified by anti-China activists (e.g. Falun Gong/Epoch Times) & Right wing in US & other countries. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

thelancet.com

Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19

We are public health scientists who have closely followed the emergence of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and are deeply concerned about its impact on global health and wellbeing. We have w...

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Hate to see this snipey moanfest getting re-upped, but appreciate your comments. In the end we're left with a bucket load of evidence pointing to industrial scale wildlife trade, zero evidence (and a bunch of politics) aiming at lab scientists. Pretty much exactly as we said in The Lancet, Feb 2020

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Here's a neat thing! My mom retired after 25+ as a children's librarian at public libraries yesterday. (It was very cool! Hundreds of former Story Hour kids arrived, some as adults!) I let Ed Markey's office know in case they wanted to send a nice email back and they sent this! He's still got it!

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

Wait a minute - when they find an FCS in a wild bat or raccoon dog beta-CoV, do we then get all our grants back??

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Philipp Markolin @philippmarkolin.eurosky.social · 08/09/2026

I am sure the Coal Baron is magically gonna reverse his position on lab leak when a Sarbecovirus with a functional FCS at S1/S2 is found, right? Of course not, he will double down and claim that when nature created it, isn´t it so much more likely the lab found it secretly and used it as template?

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World One Health Congress @wohcongress.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

#WOHC2026 @peterdaszak.bsky.social “Converting a forest in Malaysia releases diseases like lepto & malaria - completely removes profit from palm oil plantation”. He presents #OneHealth Strategy for #PandemicPrevention: smart surveillance, broad acting vaccines, policies, action & awareness.

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Zach Hensel @zachhensel.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

A new contender for least accurate article on COVID-19 origins ever: arxiv.org/abs/2608.20416 Abstract pictured here. But I think Bannan still holds the crown given that his article somehow passed peer review despite being a compilation of years old conspiracy theories (plus new errors).

Abstract of Massey paper; follow link in post to read

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Flo Débarre @flodebarre.eurosky.social · 01/09/2026

First Tuesday of the month -- my (self-imposed) blog post day! Today, I am revisiting the weird story of the "other eight" (aka "clade 7896", lineage 4): eight bat coronavirus sequences from the Mojiang mine, at the center of a narrative invented by lab leakers. ▫️1/6🧵 #covidorigin 🧪

pandemonium.hypotheses.org

The saga of the “other eight”

DRASTIC and Chan & Ridley fabricated a narrative about eight virus sequences from the Mojiang mine. With the benefit of hindsight, lets reevaluate their claims. Latinne et al.'s study In late May 202...

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Zach Hensel @zachhensel.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Since Kadlec’s grabbing NIH funds, here’s a reminder that he can’t tell fact from fiction: www.the-gallop.com/bob-kadlec-i...

the-gallop.com

Bob Kadlec: "I call it virological Russian roulette"

And if you believe that, he has a half-billion-dollar air conditioner to sell you

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

He proffers 2 key questions facing the lab leak conspiracy: 1) its inability to predict the findings; & 2) the falsehood that it was censored early on & zoonosis was the preferred narrative all along. It's all backed up by data, analysis & receipts sadly lacking in gotcha garbage from Rand Paul etc

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Here @philippmarkolin.eurosky.social puts in the hard work to demolish the latest lab leak Op Ed in NYT. Just because people want a 'mad scientist' 'China=evil' narrative to be true, just saying it over & over again don't make it so. www.protagonist-science.com/p/biased-med...

protagonist-science.com

Biased media coverage and the lab leak theory

Gain-of-function fearmongering and blame gets the glitzy NYT visual treatment as Republicans weaponize the lab leak theory again in attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Timely reminder re. the truth behind these attacks. No, Dr. Fauci did not fund GoF research in Wuhan. No, the work we did in China not have caused COVID-19. Yes, as @gostin.bsky.social points out, this work is considered an important goal for pandemic prevention. www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/the-...

medpagetoday.com

Opinion | Scapegoating Fauci Won't Protect Us From the Next Pandemic

It's time to replace partisan grandstanding with evidence-based inquiry

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Seems lab leak-sympathetic Relman needs to use Signal to have a conversation with a fellow scientist. This is the exact thing the lab leakers have been attacking me and others they call zoonati about & implying some sort of cover-up. Just shows what a non-story this whole thing really is...

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Tour-de-force debunk of FBI agent Bannan’s BS on the lab leak. So easy for people to post paranoid ramblings based on the hundreds of other lab leak conspiracies, but such hard work to go through all the inaccuracies and lay them out, with receipts, as @zachhensel.bsky.social has done so well here.

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Unbelievable how erstwhile good scientists believe debunked conspiracies because they can’t get over the idea that China = bad. Relman is a true believer in this as well as the prob BS microwave/sound wave attacks. He’s prob half way there on the Jewish laser beams too after a couple of drinks!

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Come on, folks. Your chance to get you voice heard. It’s comment time! (until October 13th)

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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Actually, the fact that more media vitriol was cast onto an academic than is being cast on the rapists in the Epstein Files (many of whom are ACTIVE academics) is EGREGIOUS. No one should be driven to their death in this way—even if every accusation were true—over academic misconduct.

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Flo Débarre @flodebarre.eurosky.social · 14/08/2026

I have so . much . contempt for all the people who jumped on the Arday story, while never having heard of him until a few days ago, just to signal their opposition to EDI/DEI Such a sad story -- human beings are more than tokens

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Philipp Markolin @philippmarkolin.eurosky.social · 14/08/2026

The lab leak theory is not a strict scientific theory, but mostly a narrative of different allegations Rand Paul is not only falsely accusing Fauci of creating SARS-CoV-2, he is endorsing a very stupid version of the origin theory that has incredibly strong evidence against it. Let me illustrate:

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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

The NIH just released a proposal that will apparently hide peer reviewers’ impact scores and percentiles from the research team, their institution, and NIH program officers. All the better to obscure how funding decisions will be made primarily via political review, I’m guessing.

grants.nih.gov

NOT-OD-26-088: Request for Information (RFI) on Proposed Changes to Reporting Outcomes from NIH Peer Review

NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Request for Information (RFI) on Proposed Changes to Reporting Outcomes from NIH Peer Review NOT-OD-26-088. NIH

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Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

2 honorable choices. She can resign or resist from the inside until she’s fired. She knew she was signing up for this. We’ll see.

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Translation: “I’m full-on X because I need more engagement w/ right wing business leaders to grow my pandemic prediction company & monetize my previous govt position”..

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Count Binface @countbinface.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Okay Clacton. Let’s go.

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Philipp Markolin @philippmarkolin.eurosky.social · 11/08/2026

Honestly, @flodebarre.eurosky.social has singlehandedly done more to correct the record on the many falsehoods motivated actors and conspiracy theorists have set in the world that the world's journalists combined; who instead were often overeager to amplify, rather than verify, these stories.

Using it, Yu’s Table 3.2 could almost perfectly be reproduced. Much ado about nothing? Not quite: the story is informative because it is typical of the false claims that DRASTIC, aided by some scientists, managed to spread online and in the media.
Ulterior motives

This story is yet another example of the mindset of leakers: they have decided in advance that WIV, and Shi’s group in particular, are hiding and manipulating data, and so they search for incriminating evidence. As a result, when faced with apparent contradictions, leakers chose to accuse Shi and more generally Chinese scientists of lying and manipulating data, instead of considering the possibility that they themselves might be incorrect.

Here, even if there had been a few differences between the sequences of Ra4991 used by Yu and of RaTG13 published on Genbank, these differences were few anyway: they were not relevant to the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Highlighting the differences only served to tarnish Shi’s reputation. Just Askig Questions serves as plausible deniability, but some people explicitly wrote what the point of this kind of questioning was:
Steven Quay’s response to “reviewer” comment during an internal review at the State Department, around Jan 6, 2021 (highlighting added). While about RaTG13, this example is not about Yu’s table, which was not public yet at the time.
Source: State FOIA 2022-00062 A-00000861832 page 95.

The story also illustrates (once again) the importance of controls. Trying to reproduce the whole table instead of just the line corresponding to Ra4991 already returned different results, even with the already public sequences from other groups. This discrepancy was already the sign that the core issue was the method and likely not the data.

Finally, even though the table could successfully be reproduced in December 2021, to my knowledge, none of those who accused Shi of manipulating data – on Twitter, to Nature, or in Le Monde – have ever apologized for the false accusation

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nailbomb3 @nailbomb3.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

she truly has. stellar work!

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

While they all do this, some brave citizens stand up and fight back. This is what you do to bullies. bsky.app/profile/frit...

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Hear! Hear! The academies, universities, major law firms, & of course all the tech companies either bent the knee & kowtowed, or were already on board. So much damage done…

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Flo Débarre @flodebarre.eurosky.social · 11/08/2026

Prior to Fauci's hearing, Rand Paul released emails from 2021 that revived a conspiracy theory alleging that the genetic sequence of RaTG13 (once SARS-CoV-2's closest relative) had been altered. I wrote up what used to be a Twitter thread and updated it with new information: ⬇️ #covidorigin

pandemonium.hypotheses.org

Yu’s table 3.2

In 2021, leakers tried, and failed, to reproduce a table of identities between SARS-like coronaviruses that was presented in a 2019 MSc thesis from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. They concluded that...

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Zach Hensel @zachhensel.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

News for people keeping track of whether Steven Quay will be the next NIAID director — everything after “business plan” in his company’s latest quarterly report is newly added. Seems like something they should’ve disclosed long ago?

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Hypoautonomic, BS @hypoautonomic.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Alina Chan is a total fantasist. I cut off the rest of this screed.

august 7, 2026
@Ayjchan
Under Anthony Fauci's leadership of NIAID, US federal funding was sent via EcoHealth Alliance to Wuhan scientists to collect new bat coronaviruses, serially passage these in primate cells & genetically modify them in ways that could enhance their ability to infect animals (including humanized animals).

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Flo Débarre @flodebarre.eurosky.social · 09/08/2026

Quay was not that prominent during Covid, so people may not realize how abysmally stupid his lab leak scenarios were and how incompetent he is. In late 2024, he revived the claim that SARS-CoV-2 had been designed after HIV -- a claim fully debunked in early 2020 ▫️1/7🧵 zenodo.org/records/1455...

Published December 26, 2024 | Version v1
Preprint Open
The thrombo-inflammation and neuropathology sequence motifs of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein appear to have been engineered into the virus
Authors/Creators
Quay, Steven Carl (Researcher)1
ORCID icon

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Another example - people fundraising for blood filtration/stem cell treatment in Japan allegedly to remove COVID vaccine-induced clots. Organized by PhD scientist w/ history of offensive trolling sitting here w/ patient. Some of his 'artwork' from now-deleted tweets shown (apologies to colleagues).

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Some disturbing trends. We've seen the "pureblood" MAGA craze, now taken to a new level w/ people refusing blood from COVID vaccinees. So sad to see people end up going outside of normal medical lanes based on conspiracy theories www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/mor...

cidrap.umn.edu

More people requesting ‘unvaccinated’ blood for themselves or their children

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

For the record, I didn't actually say this in that public hearing...

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Another great video by youtube's @ProfessorDaveExplains, this time picking apart the Lab Leak BS. A real 'humdinger' of a video - emotional rollercoaster w/ highs, lows & light comedy thrown in for good measure. Features interview w/ @philippmarkolin.eurosky.social youtu.be/ra0WKNhQZ0U?...

youtu.be

COVID Origins: Debunking the Grift, Pseudoscience, and Politics of the Lab Leak Theory

YouTube video by Professor Dave Explains

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

This video is chock-full of examples of these awful posts, statements, conspiracies & memes juxtaposed against the people who posted them - now Govt officials in charge of our health, vaccine & drug approvals etc. Well worth watching.

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Another one here: Dr. Paul Alexander, HHS staffer & aide to HHS boss Michael Caputo under Trump 1 calling for hanging of COVID scientists.

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Also new to me: Apparently Bhattacharya (now NIH head) posted his support to image of Dr. Fauci on a gibbet.

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

This is heinous stuff & totally disqualifying in normal times. Kulldorff even manages to look evil when he's trying to smile for a photo!

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Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Video is an in-yer-face summary of why they're harassing Fauci. Highly recommended. H/t @atomskssanakan.bsky.social. I'm only 1/3rd way in & learning some shockers, e.g. Martin Kulldorff (now US govt vaccine advisor) posted guillotine images targeting 'experts' & HHS (see below)

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