Coronavirus week 81B: NIH fesses up about gain of function at WIV; with an opening now to fire Fauci, will Biden do so?

In terms of real science, and science NOT being aloways self-correcting? NIH has fessed up about funding gain of function research at Wuhan Institute of Virology. Sorry, #BlueAnon tribalists, but even the likes of Vanity Fair are reporting in detail.

It and other pieces note EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak, mentioned in these pages many, many, many times before, as in, Fauci's emails, general COVID tribalism, and gain of function part two (where I first called for Fauci to be fired), were behind this, and violated grant terms as much as anything.

This leads to other issues.

First, as WHO assembles a new group to look at COVID's origins, it has conflict of interest problems.

Second, this non-tribalist leftist has long said Fauci should be shit-canned, as noted above. It's much harder to do with a career civil servant of course, but we now have the smoking gun.  (And, if that's not it, sending puppies to Tunisia for research after cutting their vocal cords should be the capper. It should be noted the White Coat Waste Project was started by a Republican operative and ... is very white. At the same time, it should be noted that Snopes, for example, has been very tribalist about previous WCWP reports. Per its like to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, it should be noted that AAAS said "conservatives, liberals team up against animal research." In fact, AAAS notes that Justin Goodman, WCWP's vice president for advocacy and policy, used to work for PETA. So, Snopes is not just tribalist, it's trying to run a smear campaign. Shit like this is why I removed it from my links list long ago. It IS true that they target only government and government-funded research and that Belotti may be trying a "starve the beast" bankshot.) 

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Update: Turns out that earlier stories got some information fused and some was incorrect. Per Politifact, Fauci's NIAID had nothing to do with a study having dogs bit by sand fleas. As for the vocal cord cutting, that was actually at a US-based study. Was it necessary? 

As for the gain of function? A Forbes fact-checker (allegedly) carries BlueAnon tribalist water by claiming its only GOP Congresscritters who make this claim. As the likes of Jamie Metzl say, that's clearly wrong. Plenty of people who aren't wingnut tribalists know it's wrong.

And, White Coat has no problem exaggerating the size of the issue, as when it touts an alleged fifth installment of so-called Beaglegate. Maybe we ought to infect 130 or so QAnoners instead?

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So, WILL Status Quo Joe pull the trigger? Newsweek argues it would clean up one corner of his political workspace. In all likelihood (setting aside the Jesuitical redefining of "gain of function" in the past), Francis Collins is right, that this gain of function work had nothing to do with COVID. But, that leaves Fauci as the heavy for not coming clean. It's doubtful he'll fall on his own sword, even with prodding by Biden. Also, how do we know that WIV didn't pivot from this to do other gain of function work without even telling Daszak? After all, France told us not to trust it. And, EcoHealth sought a grant for exactly this type of work.

Next, will tribalists like Orac or the Novellas write about this? C'mon. As of 36 hours after posting this, neither of them, nor any of the others at Science-Based Medicine, had done so. Why? As John Horgan knew, they're tribalists. And, on this issue, they're #BlueAnon tribalists. Yeah, "Beaglegate" is approaching closer and closer to high politicization, but, the gain of function admission is a different deal.