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CBS story on Wuhan Institute of Virology

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-coronavirus-vaccine-researcher-covid-19-cure-60-minutes/
Trump administration cuts funding for coronavirus researcher, jeopardizing possible COVID-19 cure
An American scientist who collaborates with the Wuhan Institute of Virology had his grant terminated in the wake of unsubstantiated claims that COVID-19 is either manmade or leaked out of a Chinese government lab.
60 Minutes
Scott Pelley
May 11, 2020

Peter Daszak: The breakthrough drug, Remdesivir, that seems to have some impact on COVID-19 was actually tested against the viruses we discovered under our NIH research funding.

But his funding from the NIH, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, was killed, two weeks ago, by a political disinformation campaign targeting China's Wuhan Institute.

On April 14, Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz claimed China's Wuhan Institute had, quote, "birthed a monster."

Matt Gaetz on "Tucker Carlson Tonight": The NIH gives this $3.7 million grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, they then advertise that they need coronavirus researchers. Following that, coronavirus erupts in Wuhan.

There never was a $3.7 million U.S. grant to the Wuhan lab. But, the falsehood spread like a virus, in the White House, and without verification, in the briefing room.

Reporter in White House press briefing: There's also another report that the NIH, under the Obama administration, in 2015 gave that lab $3.7 million in a grant. Why would the U.S. give a grant like that to China?

President Trump: The Obama administration gave them a grant of $3.7 million? I've been hearing about that. And we've instructed that if any grants are going to that area – we're looking at it, literally, about an hour ago, and also early in the morning. We will end that grant very quickly.

--Nbauman (talk) 01:54, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Science magazine article on Wuhan Institute of Virology

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6491/561
NIH move to ax bat coronavirus grant draws fire
Meredith Wadman, Jon Cohen
Science 08 May 2020:
Vol. 368, Issue 6491, pp. 561-562
DOI: 10.1126/science.368.6491.561

The unusual 24 April move occurred shortly after President Donald Trump alleged—without providing evidence—that the pandemic virus had escaped from a Chinese laboratory supported by the NIH grant, and vowed to end the funding.

“This is a horrible precedent” and “the most counterproductive thing I could imagine” given the work's relevance to understanding the current pandemic and preventing futures ones, says Gerald Keusch, a former director of NIH's Fogarty International Center who is now at Boston University. Other researchers note that work done on the canceled grant allowed testing of the antiviral drug remdesivir, which is showing promise in treating COVID-19.

For 15 years, the grant's principal investigator, EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak, has collaborated with Shi Zhengli, a leading WIV virologist, to study bat coronaviruses.

--Nbauman (talk) 02:01, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

"zoonotic disease outbreaks like that of COVID-19" - contested

The article regarding Peter Daszak contains a statement that he researched on "zoonotic disease outbreaks like that of COVID-19". But this does not show the full picture: Even the WHO commission which visited Wuhan in spring 2021 could not rule out that the origin is not zoonotic (basically means a lab escape). Some scientists - I linked 2 articles - even have the opinion that a zoonotic origin is extremely unlikely considering the furin cleavage site at the S1/S2 junction in the SarS-CoV2 virus genom sequence.

Whatever the trueth is, my opinion is that it is therefore very incorrect not to mention that the zoonotic origin is contested.

This should therefore not need an escalation for a separate dispute resultion. PeterSweden (talk) 10:01, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for engaging in discussion. Per WP:BRD, I suggest you self-revert your changes until the discussion has reached a consensus.

On Misplaced Pages, article content needs to be verifiable (WP:VERIFY) through reliable sources (WP:RS). Sourcing requirements for health-related content are stricter (WP:MEDRS). A random paper on Researchgate is not sufficient.

Please supply a source that satisfies WP:MEDRS. Quoting WP:MEDRS: Ideal sources for biomedical information include: review articles (especially systematic reviews) published in reputable medical journals; academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant fields and from respected publishers; and guidelines or position statements from national or international expert bodies. Robby.is.on (talk) 11:03, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Actually, there are no doubts that COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease, even if it escaped from a lab. My very best wishes (talk) 23:14, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

The stuff with the furin cleavage site is pure nonsense. See the excellent, recent paper in Infection, Genetics and Evolution (full citation at WP:NOLABLEAK), which explicitly refutes this:

This hypothesis was mostly motivated by the fact that this furin cleavage site is unique to SARS-CoV-2 among all Sarbecoviruses (Andersen, 2020; Coutard et al., 2020). However, the supposedly engineered sequences were simply natural features (Liu et al., 2020c; Andersen, 2020; Hao, 2020; Othman et al., 2020). Furthermore, naturally occurring polybasic furin cleavage sites have been described in other lineages of coronaviruses such as MERS-CoV, HKU1, HCoV-OC43 or IBV (Andersen et al., 2002; Huang et al., 2006; Yamada and Liu, 2009) and is a common feature in viral envelope glycoproteins (Hao, 2020; Dimitrov, 2004). The natural occurrence of furin-cleavage sites in various viruses has been documented for long. We provide a list of 50 selected references as Supplementary Data. Some linked the presence of the least preferred CGG codons in the SRAS-CoV-2 furin cleavage sites as a “proof” of engineering. A codon being least preferred does not mean it should never exist and this CGG codon present in SARS-CoV-2 is for instance present at a higher rate in MERS-CoV (Chen et al., 2017; Hou, 2020).

As for the rest, the controversy and misinformation about the lab leak is UNDUE and off-topic here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:07, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Recent additions: Fauci testimony, Daszak interview

Hi everyone. I've reverted recent additions from an IP. The addition about the Fauci testimony is original research as the information is gleaned from a C-SPAN video covering a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing. The Daszak interview is sourced to a podcast on Youtube which is not a reliable source. For us to include the content, we would need reliable sources reporting this and it would need to be clearly WP:DUE. Robby.is.on (talk) 09:57, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, I see where the IP editor is going. But we must also be careful and make sure to represent all significant points of view. We certainly can quote from interviews or parliamentary hearings transmitted online. I'd be inclined to rework the quotes but still try to keep them in, because if genuine, they add to the biography in my view.

For the avoidance of doubt, personally I have no opinion about the origins of various viruses nor do I care about it. — kashmīrī  10:26, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Robby.is.on, Kashmiri. Thank you for the comments. It is my first time contributing to Misplaced Pages and I am learning the rules as I go. I found the original source of interview video with Daszak, which is published from MicrobeTV (who conducted the interview). https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-615/ Hope it is okay with everyone and I will resubmit. Please let me know. I registered an account (kenlaw2 ) on[REDACTED] so that further communication is easier.

Here is the modified text, please advise.

In Feb 2020, The Lancet published a statement by a group of scientists led by Peter Daszak condemning “conspiracy theories" suggesting that COVID-19 might be a lab accident. In May 2021, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci in his testimony to the Congress , EcoHealth Alliance received a grant from NIH, and subsequently shared a sub-grant of approximately $600,000 with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Previously in an interview with TWiV , Daszak described the possibility of manipulating coronavirus for vaccine development: "coronaviruses are pretty good ... you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily ... the spiked proteins drive a lot about what happens." In the same interview, Daszak went on to highlight the work by Dr. Ralph Baric at UNC, who collaborated with Shi Zhengli, to "insert into the backbone of another virus." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kenlaw2 (talk • contribs) 06:29, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for creating an account, Kenlaw2, you will find that that makes communication easier.

Please have another good look at WP:OR. I don't think MicrobeTV passes as any of the types of reliable sources mentioned in the "What counts as a reliable source" section. Robby.is.on (talk) 08:19, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. I realized that MicrobeTV is a podcast, which may not be a reliable source as defined in the guideline. The video is considered as an original primary source (under WP:OR), and one criteria for inclusion is "to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." My text is only a selected transcription of the interview which can be independently verified by others with access to the primary source.

Please advise.

References

1. "Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19".
2. "Exchange between Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci". 25 May 2021.
3. "TWiV 615: Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance".

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