zlacker

>>todd8+(OP)
The 2018 US state department cables warning about this possibility can be read here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-state-depart...

Please note part (6) regarding WIV scientists studying human-disease causing SARS coronaviruses.

Also note this report with the science to back it ("The genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 does not rule out a laboratory origin"):

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bies.2020002...

>>EMM_38+rr
VERY VERY importantly, the cables were not written by or authored by scientists. It was all Trump State Department-hired businessmen and diplomats who inspected the facility and wrote that cable.

Why should we expect them to be good at determining what is a dangerous or risky lab facility?

Notably, in the same cable, they also requested more funding be sent to the facility, so they could conduct more pandemic surveillance work (and possibly prevent outbreaks like this).

>>jedueh+V41
This is just an ad hominem. You do not know who inspected the facility, their qualifications, and what research went into the cable.

>>twobit+Ky1
Actually I do.

I have A) direct relationships with the people who study viral biodefense at USAMRIID and serve on the government panels, and they were very surprised to hear about these cables. They didn't find the authors credible at all. One is an entrepreneur and the other a career diplomat.

And for all those who don't have a PhD in the subject or know the people who know people, B) it's detailed closely in this washington post article who was there and what they wrote:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/national...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-dep...

>>jedueh+Uz1
>The U.S. delegation was *led* by Jamison Fouss, the consule general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy’s counselor of environment, science, technology and health.

The first article lists the “leaders” of the delegation only. Diplomatic business always needs diplomatic leaders, so it doesn’t tell us anything of the Doctors who were with them. Reading the rest of it, there’s a very convincing case that China is hiding something. The doctors that have “disappeared” are especially troubling as well as the information lockdown they imposed.

>>twobit+tF1
It should also be noted that the cables don't say that the lab has any unsafe practices. They only say that as of the time of writing (before the lab opened), there were not yet enough trained technicians to run the lab at full capacity. They asked the US government to continue its program that trained Chinese lab technicians at a top US national lab.