@mbalter — investigations and commentary @mbalter Twitter profile | Pikagi

Pikagi

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

@mbalter

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Journalist/journo prof. Publisher: “The Croton Chronicle” and “Words for the Wise”

By the beautiful Hudson River.

https://t.co/kbbRKXO4Oy

Joined September 2008

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

6 days

This interview with the Senior Rabbi of our local synagogue in the Hudson Valley village of Croton-on-Hudson about Oct 7, Gaza, Israel, Hamas, etc. might be of wider interest.

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A conversation with Rabbi Jennifer Jaech of Temple Israel about October 7, Israel, Gaza, Hamas, and...

As the one-year anniversary nears of the terrible events of October 7, we sat down with the Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel of Northern Westchester for a wide-ranging discussion of the issues.

thecrotonchronicle.substack.com

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

6 years

@abbydphillip When I signed the lease for our apartment, I never promised the landlord I was going to literally pay the rent. What I meant was that an improving economy and boom in the housing market would increase the value of the building and so he would get the rent that way.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

The COVID Heart—One Year After SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Patients Have an Array of Increased Cardiovascular Risks | Cardiology | JAMA | JAMA Network

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The COVID Heart—One Year After SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Patients Have an Array of Increased Cardiova...

This Medical News article discusses increased risks for cardiovascular disease outcomes 1 year after SARS-CoV-2 infection.

jamanetwork.com

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

I’ve been a science journalist for 40+ years. One of the biggest disappointments has been to learn that scientists are often some of the most unscientific people around.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

5 months

@moorehn Some day we will live in a society where refusing to accept genocide and war crimes will be a personal brand everyone can be proud of. But the whole idea is to try to crush everyone’s spirits and make them grovel before power. Students showing the way.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

1/ This interview with Fauci is fascinating in a number of ways. First, he admits the lab leak hypothesis is possible if not plausible, which should—given the long and widespread idolization of Fauci by so many scientists and science journalists—put the kabosh on the…

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

So the mystery of Covid-19 origins can be boiled down to one question: Who put the furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2, Mother Nature or a research team? Mother Nature is so far silent on the topic, but at least we know in writing what the researchers were hoping to do.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

1/ This pandemic is the worst disaster to befall humanity since WWII. Forget about 9/11, forget about earthquakes and floods. We probably have 20 million dead. Anyone who ridicules or uses their power to try to suppress the sincere efforts of some to figure out…

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

When Fauci said his NIAID did not fund Gain of Function research at the Wuhan Inst Virology he was dead wrong (that’s where much of the research Daszak refers to was done.) Whether he lied about it is another question, but one really can’t blame some for thinking he did.

@Biorealism

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2 years

@mbalter @WashburneAlex @ThePlumLineGS @DisInfoChron "Dear Jenny, This is terrific! We are very happy to hear that our Gain of Function research funding pause has been lifted."

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

6 years

@NatashaBertrand Roger Stone is obviously tired of traveling from Florida to DC and wants a place to stay closer to the courtroom.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

7 years

@jayrosen_nyu She is terrific, and no, I've never seen those guys harnessing that much knowledge or that well prepared.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

I’ve now read this @NewYorker piece by Emma Green, focusing on the People’s C.D.C. It really is as bad as many are saying, and surprising for the NYer for a number of reasons. The bias towards mainstream institutions is manifest (calling the group a “ragtag coalition”…

@emmaogreen

Emma Green

2 years

A while ago, someone I know started sending around links to the People's CDC—a coalition that styles itself as a model of what the CDC would look like if it actually **followed the science** on pandemic restrictions. I was fascinated. (1/x)

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

The lab leak hypothesis is, and has always been, perfectly plausible. Anyone who says differently is engaging in ideology, not science.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

Some preliminary comments from me, as a science journalist. First: This is serious business. These authors are claiming to have found fingerprints left in SARS-CoV-2 left by stitching together the parts that allegedly went to making it. If true...

@WashburneAlex

Alex Washburne

2 years

Pre-print: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2 A collaborative product by @VBruttel , @tony_vandongen , and myself. Here's what we found: 1/

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

3 years

#MeToo alert: Paleontologist Leonardo Avilla of the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Numerous reports of severe sexual #harassment , #bullying , attempts to morally degrade students. #paleontology DMs with full confidentiality.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

Anatomy of a toxic lab: The Jetz lab at Yale.

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Anatomy of a toxic lab: Global Biodiversity, Ecology & Conservation at Yale University [With...

A lab run by ecologist Walter Jetz, and heavily funded by the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, has long been plagued by bullying and dysfunction. Yale has taken little serious action so far.

michaelbalter.substack.com

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

I've said before that some scientists are among the most unscientific people I've known. That's partly because argument from authority is much more embedded in the intellectual life and discourse of scientists than they realize. Just as doctors are led to think...

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

6 years

@Ocasio2018 @JDPCogginbooks True. Most European countries legally mandate at last a month of vacation. In France it’s 5 weeks. It’s called being humane.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

Last year #Fauci told Rand Paul angrily, “The NIH has not ever, and does not now, fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” But WIV has now lost its NIH funding because it refuses to report what research it did do. So how does Fauci know?

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

I've held off saying too much about this interview in @guardian with virologist Angela Rasmussen by @lfspinney , because I have great overall respect for Laura as a science journalist and she has been a good friend for a number of years.

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Angela Rasmussen on Covid-19: ‘This origins discussion is the worst thing about Twitter’

Did Sars-CoV-2 emerge from a Huanan market stall or a lab? For the American virologist, who has been abused online for defending a ‘natural’ origin, the evidence is clear

www.theguardian.com

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

This new evidence just released by the House committee on Covid origins is damning. It shows that nearly everyone involved in the pivotal Proximal Origins paper has been dishonest about how it came about and the involvement of #Fauci and Farrar.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

Yesterday I did a lengthy thread about a new study, using restriction enzyme analysis of SARS-CoV-2, which concludes that there is a very high probability the pandemic virus was created in a lab:

@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

Some preliminary comments from me, as a science journalist. First: This is serious business. These authors are claiming to have found fingerprints left in SARS-CoV-2 left by stitching together the parts that allegedly went to making it. If true...

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

6 years

@kathygriffin Kathy, let me take this opportunity to say that your joke with Trump’s severed head was in the best of taste compared to the racism and #xenophobia that he peddles every day. The severed head was not real, the #racism is.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

7 years

2/2 Let her example light the way to the world we want our own children to live in. #Dufourmantelle

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

An insurrection foretold. ⁦ @sarahkendzior ⁩

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

Your reminder that Anthony #Fauci knew full well that gain-of-function work was being done in Wuhan. Some projects involved collaborations between Wuhan University and the NIH-funded Wuhan Institute of Virology. #COVID19

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

For those who are into parsimony, ⁦ @WashburneAlex ⁩ demonstrates that the lab origins hypothesis is overwhelmingly the most parsimonious explanation for emergence of Covid-19. A truly brilliant laying out of the evidence and how it fits together.

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The Totality of the Circumstances surrounding SARS-CoV-2 emergence

We have probable cause to suspect a laboratory origin

alexwasburne.substack.com

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

5 years

@brianstelter People who have an opinion on the #Mueller report: 100%

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

@WakeRevolt @moorehn Gaza is very similar to the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw during the early 1940s and is based on the same concepts of racial superiority.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

4/ to the viruses that U.S. taxpayers did pay for. Of course, since the Wuhan lab will not tell NIH what it did with their money—for which it got its funding cut—how could Fauci know what he did and did not pay for? Of course he could not know. One is forced to imagine…

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

4 years

My wife has challenged me to name a film in which no one falls in love or no one gets killed. Still thinking.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

7/ scientists and science journalists have shamelessly tried to block and obfuscate. But this is where we are.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

4 years

@kenvogel @maggieNYT @Yankees @katierogers @noahweiland Okay, I really need to make sure I got this right. Trump invited himself to throw out the first pitch, then turned down his own invitation, then invited himself to do it later in the season. Watch this space.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

Critic of congressional probe [of Covid origins] helped fund Wuhan gain-of-function study - [⁦ @PeterHotez ⁩ has been loudly opposing a Congressional investigation of Covid origins these past months. Conflict of interest?] ⁦⁦ @emilyakopp ⁩

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Critic of congressional probe into gain-of-function research helped fund Wuhan gain-of-function...

A prominent scientist who has denounced a congressional investigation into gain-of-function research helped fund WIV gain-of-function work

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

The failure of ANY mainstream #media outlet to report that @NIH has cut funding to the Wuhan Inst of Virology for refusal to report what it did with U.S. taxpayer money now has to be considered a deliberate editorial decision not to cover relevant news. #journalism

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

3 years

BREAKING NEWS: LEAKED DOCUMENT SHOWS U.S. AND CHINESE SCIENTISTS PLANNED TO GENETICALLY ENGINEER A SARS-LIKE VIRUS BY INSERTING A SEGMENT KNOWN TO MAKE IT MORE INFECTIOUS TO HUMANS

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BREAKING NEWS: LEAKED DOCUMENT SHOWS U.S. AND CHINESE SCIENTISTS PLANNED TO GENETICALLY ENGINEER A...

There never was such a headline in mainstream media, but the news was real. Contrast with widespread coverage of studies concluding Covid-19 started at the seafood market in Wuhan.

michaelbalter.substack.com

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

The scientists who are most vigorously opposing the lab leak hypothesis have the most invested interests in it not being true. For that reason, they cannot be relied upon as the sole subject matter experts, as much as they continue to insist that they should be.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

Announcing my new hypothesis for the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 based on the new study presented in Singapore (see Nature for details) finding that the common ancestor of the pandemic virus evolved very recently. 1/ Bats from Vientiane Province, Laos, came into contact with…

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

7 years

Bullshit. The Los Angeles school shootings were not an "accident." There are responsible adults who made it possible for the girl to get hold of a handgun. #guns #NRA

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

7 years

1/2 A French philosopher who believed a full life required taking risks has died trying to save two children from drowning.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

2/ claim that it’s just a crazy “conspiracy theory.” It could be true, Fauci tells us. . 3/ But Fauci goes on to say that if it is true, he/NIAID/NIH did not pay for the pandemic virus to be created. That’s because it is not genetically related…4/

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

7 years

@themamadominus @CynthiaCozzo This is really the kind of determination we need. Too much talk about how powerful the #NRA is and not enough about how powerful we can be. #NeverAgain

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

6/ Had their own test tubes with their names on them. Facetiousness aside, the point is that the lab origins hypothesis, as Fauci now agrees, has always been a possible and even reasonable idea, and the real challenge is to search out the truth—which, sad to say, some…

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

So now we find out from Slack messages they never meant us to see that the Proximal Boys thought lab leak was very likely all along but couldn’t prove it and anyway it would make China mad so they just wrote it was a natural origin. Really. Right there in black and white.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

I had an interesting exchange with @MichaelWorobey today about the Covid-19 origins debate, in which he suggested that having a beer and talking might help to cool down passions which are clearly running high. I told him I would welcome having that beer and that…

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

I’ve been a science journalist for decades. This piece on the new Nature paper by Ben Mueller of @nytimes is such an amazing mix of laziness, incompetence, and bias that any one of the 100+ journalism students I have taught could do better.

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China Publishes Data Showing Raccoon Dog DNA at Wuhan Market (Published 2023)

Scientists from the Chinese C.D.C. confirmed that DNA from raccoon dogs and other animals susceptible to the coronavirus was found at the market in early 2020.

www.nytimes.com

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

Want to make sure folks are seeing these emails from Kristian Andersen, first author of Proximal Origin paper. At the time of submission to @nature , KA made clear a lab origin could not be dismissed, was not a "conspiracy theory," but they had badly wanted to prove that.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

1/ During my decades as a science journalist, I have talked with hundreds of researchers about the “peer review” process and how it really works. It’s not pretty, kind of like looking at a sausage factory and seeing how sausage is really made…

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

6 years

@zachheltzel @yashar Yeah, well Elizabeth Warren came to my house and did my income taxes for me.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

In making your decision about whether or not to leave #Twitter , please think about people around the world living under authoritarian and brutal governments who need social media to be able to tell others what they are experiencing and to ask for help. How many…

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

coming from any of the major discussants in the Covid origins debate, who are fellow scientists and science journalists. On the other hand, Rasmussen herself has been the single most toxic presence in this debate, as illustrated by this early Tweet (see screenshot.)

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

@JamesCTobias Reading over these docs again, it becomes crystal clear that the Proximal Origins authors took a public stand against the lab origins hypothesis before they had spent any serious time or effort analyzing the possibilities. In that sense the paper was pure propaganda.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

There is no “anti-science” attitude more insidious than the idea that the truth is represented by what the “majority” of scientists think at any given moment. Almost as bad: Stating that “most scientists” agree on something without any evidence that they do.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

5/ A row of test tubes in Shi Zhengli’s lab, one marked “NIH viruses,” another perhaps marked “Chinese Academy of Sciences viruses,” and a third maybe “Shi’s personal viruses.” (We also have to assume that there were grad students and post docs in the institute who…

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

That Rasmussen can not only get away with such a demeaning personal attack, but is actually cheered on by some other scientists and journalists, and even gets an interview in @guardian where she is allowed to play victim despite her victimizing behavior, is really rich.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

5 years

@aprilaser I suggested earlier today that SPJ ( @spj_tweets ) add properly crediting prior reporting as part of its Code of Ethics. Because this is an ethical question, not just a matter of professional courtesy, although it’s that too. #media #journalism

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

9 months

Before Covid-19, I never would have even considered the possibility that anything other than the conventional explanations for the origins of HIV were worth considering. Now I think all hypotheses have to be at least considered. The breach of trust has been momentous.

@Biorealism

Holtz

9 months

Michael Worobey dismissed the statistical link between early HIV infections and locations where the oral polio vaccine was trialed in the Congo in the 1950's based on chimp faeces he sampled 40 years later not showing a connection. In 2022, he claimed early lineage B cases linked

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

“The Civil War and the Cold War never ended, and oligarchs and plutocrats won both.” — ⁦ @sarahkendzior ⁩

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

COVID victims' families sue NYC-based EcoHealth over virus

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COVID victims' families sue NYC-based EcoHealth for 'funding,...

Families of four people killed by COVID have sued nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance and its president for “researching, funding and creating” COVID.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

A peer-reviewed paper that concludes there is no evidence for zoonotic spillover at the Huanan Seafood Market in #Wuhan has just been published @Nature . How will the #media , especially science journalists, deal with it? This is a test. #journalism

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

The Economist now wants to downplay this story by @natashaloder as much as possible without actually retracting it. It also miseducates the public about the nature of science, implying that the best papers are by “known” scientists and “unknown” ones can be ignored.

@TheEconomist

The Economist

2 years

Three unknown scientists claim SARS-CoV-2 has some genetic features that they say would appear if the virus had been stitched together by some form of engineering. It is unclear yet whether this is accurate

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

@Taniel Manslaughter charges would be in order against the police

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

8 months

It’s important to note that nearly everything we know about the research Chinese/American scientists were doing/planning on SARS-like viruses has been unearthed by independent journalists/investigators and NOT divulged by the researchers involved nor legacy #media .

@jbkinney

Justin B. Kinney

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This is a very important article.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

Green does not really cite science or describe studies in detail, but instead quotes scientists who agree with the clear bias she went into the story with. @NewYorker is renowned for in-depth reporting but there is none of that here, indeed there is nothing that…

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

6 years

@nuzpeg @zachheltzel @yashar Yes, but everything she said made perfect sense, right?

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

9/ Finally: Be especially wary of the "you should talk to a virologist" and "I'm a virologist and you're not" school of gaslighting and gatekeeping in scientific communication. That is not science, it's propaganda, and we don't need it. Let the truth be found, freely.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

The failure of “mainstream” #media to cover this email trail (have there been any articles about them, trying to remember) is not a media “fail” but a deliberate decision to deprive readers of almost all the context for the pandemic’ origins.

@BiophysicsFL

Louis R Nemzer

1 year

@emilyakopp Everything is coming out in drips. First the EcoHealth report (2 years late) is filed in 2021, showing experiments with humanized mice. The "Wild West" emails were redacted until recently And only yesterday, we find out that the State department and (Fauci?) knew the whole time

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

A bunch of scientists propose putting an infection-enhancing genetic segment into a SARS-like virus and two years later a virus with that segment causes a pandemic. It's the kind of lead some journalists live for, but alas, not our science journalists.

The Covid-19 pandemic: Failure to predict, failure to report. Part Three -- Who wants to talk about...

Among "SARS-like viruses," only SARS-CoV-2 has a short genetic segment, the FCS, that makes it particularly infectious to humans. How did it get there? Some want to talk about it, some don't.

michaelbalter.substack.com

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

The accusations of #racism coming from Rasmussen in particular are particularly ironic and hypocritical given her public treatment of @Ayjchan of the Broad Institute, who deserves huge credit for helping keep an honest debate about Covid origins alive. Here is what...

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

It’s a good day to read up on the atrocities committed by the #Pinochet regime that #Kissinger and other members of the Nixon administration helped to install, and then review the guest list for Kissinger’s recent 100th birthday party. . #Chile #Allende

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I Crashed Henry Kissinger’s 100th-Birthday Party

The elite love him but for some reason won’t say why.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

6 years

@RawStory Better check that Trump didn't sell off the Brooklyn Bridge during this prank call.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

I’m still waiting to see a major #media outlet explain to us in a major piece or series why all the tens of millions spent on programs to predict the next pandemic (USAID’s PREDICT, EcoHealth Alliance’s programs, etc.) failed to predict the next pandemic. Of course…

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

The INSTANT it was revealed that Daszak, the Wuhan lab, and Ralph Baric INTENDED to genetically engineer SARS-like viruses to be more infective in humans, every major news operation in the country should have assigned an investigative team to look into it. Instead, gaslighting.

@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

I wrote a thread yesterday about the journalistic malpractice with which so many science reporters and nearly all of the mainstream #media have treated the Covid-19 origins story. One of the best examples was the reaction after DRASTIC leaked the 2018 proposal to DARPA…

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

I am preparing a post about the flaws in mainstream media coverage of the Covid origins debate. My overall observation is that mainstream reporters tend to slobber all over any paper, observation, or report that supports the natural origins hypothesis, while going on the…

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

2/ how it all happened is guilty of disrespecting the dead, and an enemy of the truth—no matter what that truth turns out to be in the end.

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

Looks like the most toxic troll in the entire Covid origins debate is hedging her bets just a little bit...

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

I hate to say it but Jim Jordan was asking the right questions today about the Proximal Origins authors changing their minds about Covid origins over the course of about three days. The FOIA docs show clearly that science had little or nothing to do with it. #COVID19

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

⁦ @Nature ⁩ and its reporter ⁦ @amymaxmen ⁩ decline to correct a glaring error in a story that mentions findings of a study led by the former head of China’s CDC, concerning the Huanan market in Wuhan. Here are the details. ⁦ @DavidBahry ⁩

Source misrepresentation on the origin of COVID-19

A Nature news piece written by Dr. Amy Maxmen, published on 27 February, 2022 falsified its own source, claiming that a preprint by Gao et al. had said the exact opposite of what they in fact said....

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

Talk about conspiracies, here is one by Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance to hide Chinese viral sequences from outside scrutiny because they might put some people in a "bad light." What kind of bad light? What would the sequences show? h/t @Ayjchan via @USRightToKnow

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@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

@nytimes basically calling anyone who thought a lab-leak was possible a racist (see attached screenshot, a Tweet by @apoorva_nyc that she soon deleted; she has never written about Covid origins for the Times since.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

I’ve known Fauci since the mid 1990s and I cannot believe that he would lie so brazenly. He has now gone beyond the lies he told before and entered an entirely new area of dishonesty.

@jbkinney

Justin B. Kinney

2 years

Fauci: “The bat viruses that were studied have never been shown to infect humans, so by definition, for goodness’ sakes, it doesn’t fit into the definition of gain-of-function!” FFS, the research aimed to tweak bat viruses so that they could infect humans!

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

4 months

1/ A remarkable aspect of the current watershed events concerning suspension and likely debarment of EcoHealth Alliance from receiving U.S. funds is that the revelations which led up to it were uncovered almost entirely by independent journalists and investigators…

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

China pushing conspiracy theory that COVID-19 came from a US military base [This is why WHO can't get cooperation from China on Covid origins--the official line is that China had nothing to do with it]

Tweet card media

China pushing conspiracy theory that COVID-19 came from a US military base - Washington Examiner

The Chinese government renewed its conspiracy theory blaming the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in China, on the U.S. military instead, pointing the finger at Maryland’s Fort Detrick without...

www.washingtonexaminer.com

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

8 years

Rep Jackie Speier introduces SAFE Transfer Act to require notation on transcripts of students who violate sexual conduct rules @RepSpeier

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

in my view at least has provided some of the most balanced, cautious, and scientifically based analysis of the issues in the Covid origins debate, refraining from coming down on either side even as she is fully transparent about which way she leans. Who is the racist here?

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

This is from 2004 and it shows clearly how thoroughly we have been gaslighted by those who insist that the lab leak hypothesis is some kind of outlandish “conspiracy theory.” H/t @mdc_martinus #COVID19

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

3 years

BREAKING: NEWLY PUBLISHED PAPER CONCLUDES COVID VIRUS EVOLVED MANY WEEKS BEFORE PREVIOUS ESTIMATES, MAKING NATURAL ORIGINS HYPOTHESIS LESS LIKELY AND SUPPORTING IDEA THAT WUHAN MARKET WAS SITE OF A "SUPER-SPREADER" EVENT, NOT ZOONOTIC TRANSMISSION.

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TopHap: rapid inference of key phylogenetic structures from common haplotypes in large genome...

AbstractMotivation. Building reliable phylogenies from very large collections of sequences with a limited number of phylogenetically informative sites is c

academic.oup.com

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

compensated for her mediocrity by pursuing personal profit." In other words, Rasmussen, a white woman who claims to be a feminist, saw fit to launch a thoroughly dehumanizing attack against an (Asian) scientist of color who is highly trained scientifically and who...

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

The fact that @NIH felt the need to terminate the @EcoHealthNYC subgrant to #WIV due to substantial noncompliance (WIV refusing to produce records and documents, a condition of the subgrant that EcoHealth failed to enforce) is huge news, but who is reporting it?

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

Scientists need to realize that if they ridicule a hypothesis for Covid origins that is obviously plausible, and poo-poo the risk of lab accidents even though we know they happen fairly often, they can't be surprised if the public comes to distrust much of what they say.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

So it now turns out that the raccoon dog group (Florence Debarre and colleagues) apparently violated the terms of use of the database from which it got the partial data used in its analysis of samples from the Huanan seafood market, and thus engaged in unethical conduct…

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

There was once a time when I would have thought this was an inflammatory and totally unfair statement. Over the past 3.5 years, I have realized there is a lot of truth to it. We see it happening in real time.

@RealYeyoZa

Yeyo

1 year

Letting virologists investigate the origin of covid is like letting the police investigate cases of police brutality. They'll try anything to exonerate their own asses.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

@JamesCTobias 2/ Also now clear why Kristen Andersen, Eddie Holmes, Robert Garry, et al are so defensive about the role they played and so quick to attack others. They knuckled under to pressures from Fauci/Colins/Farrar to come to a natural origins conclusion for political reasons.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

I used to be naive and think that everyone admired brave people. Now I realize that many hate them.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

7 years

@politico @greenfield64 No one serious about sexual misconduct today would think about calling Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky consensual given the power differential/employer-employee relationship.

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

My hunch is that when the intel is declassified, and if there are not too many redactions, this is basically what it will say. The whistleblowers are giving us a preview and also trying to keep the intel agencies honest.

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What really went on inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid erupted

Scientists in Wuhan working alongside the Chinese military were combining the world’s most deadly coronaviruses to create a new mutant virus just as the pandemi

www.thetimes.com

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

After a serious mixup by a scientist that spread the dangerous avian flu H5N1 around CDC labs, the agency almost shipped a virus sample (50+% lethality in humans) to a famous children’s hospital. Lab accidents are not “conspiracy theories.”

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

The Proximal Origin authors “really, really” wished they could refute a lab origin, indeed that is what they set out to do. But they couldn’t, as they admitted privately. Nevertheless, publicly, they pretended that they had. That’s fraud, and scientific misconduct. #COVID19

Tweet media one

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

2 years

A pejorative characterization, is a dead giveaway of this) and even stoops to straight-out red-baiting at one point (“a key component of Marxist economic theory,” as if Green has proven with her reporting that Marxist analysis can be discounted.) Like so many reporters…

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

1/ Last summer, when NIH cancelled the subcontract (via EcoHealth Alliance) it had awarded to the Wuhan Inst Virology for work on SARS-like viruses due to failure to report its results, @sciencemagazine / @sciencecohen / @JohnTravis failed to cover it. When called out on it…

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@mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary

1 year

If any researcher at any U.S. lab knew for a fact that researchers at the Wuhan Inst Virology had inserted furin cleavage sites into SARS-like backbones, as has been reported (and repeated here), they had a solemn obligation to make that public.

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Documents Link Potential Covid Patient Zero to U.S.-Funded Research in Wuhan

New reporting identified a coronavirus researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who fell ill with Covid symptoms in November 2019.

theintercept.com

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