Glenn Greenwald, an unhinged lab origin theory advocate

Glenn Greenwald has written one of the most twisted COVID-19 lab origin theory articles of late (https://greenwald.substack.com/p/to-deny-the-lab-leak-covid-theory).  His writing reflects an utter lack of knowledge of science and COVID-19 (and infectious diseases in general).  Greenwald is a lawyer by trade, but science is a whole different animal from law.

Greenwald’s main arguments are: 1) Peter Daszak, of the natural origin opinion, has a conflict of interest, so he can’t be trusted; 2) the media and Big Tech censured the talk of lab origin for the Trump factor and/or Daszak in 2020, but the tide turned because of new evidence or Biden in 2021; 3) the recent articles in Science about the Wuhan Huanan market (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4454), Peter Daszak (https://www.science.org/content/article/we-ve-done-nothing-wrong-ecohealth-leader-fights-charges-his-research-helped-spark-covid-19), and the related NYT and WP articles whitewashed COVID-19 lab origin, and 4) some scientists thought COIVD-19 originated from WIV before joining the natural origin camp to curry favor with Fauci for money from the NIH.

Let’s debunk 2) first, which requires no scientific background.  For a man who has railed against the deep state, NSA/CIA/FBI, etc, and the media, it is astounding that Greenwald would buy into the lab origin theory, as he can no longer hide behind the free speech curtain and claim he just asks questions previously nobody was allowed to ask.  Note that zero evidence Greenwald’s article provides that says lab origin, as nobody can produce anything truly.  For example, Greenwald wrote the media and Big Tech changed their stand “after The Wall Street Journal reported days earlier that U.S. intelligence sources claim that “three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.” ”  Since Greenwald has always professed suspicion about US intelligence, did he verify its claim?  What are the names of the three researchers?  What were they sick of, how long did they stay at the hospital, and what were the treatments?  Does Greenwald realize that November is the flu season, so is it odd for someone to get a cold during that time?  Do you know Chinese visiting hospitals is nothing unusual and 99% stay for only a couple of hours?  Perhaps Greenwald should also add right there the latest US intelligence conclusion that “three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care”, EVEN IF true, is no indication of COVID-19 at WIV.  

What is more, did the media really censure the lab origin theory in 2020, or does it depend on the definition of “media”?   US officials, exemplified by Trump, Pompeo, and Cotton, consistently claimed lab origin and received headline coverage.  FOX, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and other platforms with huge audience had tirelessly advocated lab origin, inviting guests such as Yan Limeng and like-minded individuals in the summer.  Greenwald cares to say how many natural origin guests received an invitation and good hearing at those shows, or even at CNN or MSNBC?  Yan’s views are so ludicrous that even the lab origin scientists have shunned her completely, so is there any wonder that the Big Tech acted?  If there was reduced discussion about COVID-19 origin in later 2020, that was because of more urgent matters: the 2^nd and 3^rd COVID-19 waves in the US, the election, and the fights afterwards.  Then if there is an about-face in 2021, the reversal Greenwald likes, that is only for political reasons, not for any emerging data.  The scientific consensus has been that COVID-19 was natural, since Jan 2020.  A few scientists wavering or dissenting doesn’t mean there is no consensus, just like some biologists opposing the theory of evolution.  The only thing that changes is the political consensus, media consensus, if there was even one in 2020.  NYT might react coolly in 2020 due to Trump, but now that China is public enemy No 1 according to Biden (and Trump), should Greenwald be hyper the lab theory being resurrected in 2021?  Lastly, don’t think for a second that the West had done nothing to probe lab origin in 2020, but picked up the work only in 2021.  You can bet all your mortgages that they have done all they can since Jan 2020, yet with little to show for; otherwise, there would have been front-page “smoking guns” all over.  Hence all the current lab origin arguments, including Greenwald’s, target the natural origin crowd (Daszak, Fauci, and most scientists) personally and exclusively, without putting forwarding any evidence supporting their own theory.   

Now turn to the more knowledge-oriented topics.  1) Daszak has been the most vilified Western scientist, but the attacks against him have never been on his scientific credentials or arguments.  Instead, because he has worked with WIV, he can’t be trusted, period.  In the Science profile (https://www.science.org/content/article/we-ve-done-nothing-wrong-ecohealth-leader-fights-charges-his-research-helped-spark-covid-19) he answered his critics, but Greenwald won’t take no for an answer, unless, of course, if Daszak admitted that WIV did it.  For the COI claim against Daszak in his Feb 2020 Lancet letter, Daszak explained that it was not a research paper, and the scientific community knows full well that he has worked with WIV and published papers together over many years.  Further conveniently ignored by the lab crowd are the letter’s judgments based on the human history and experience with infectious diseases, which stand till this day.  For the COI claim against Daszak at the WHO team visiting China in early 2021, again conveniently brushed aside is that Daszak is only one of the many international members of the team, and that having someone with personal contacts and knowledge in China should have been an asset, not a burden, unless, of course, you don’t like what he says. 

For additional proof, Greenwald used the Intercept uncovering CoV work by Daszak and WIV.  So what?  If the Intercept changes every title to “Documents find no evidence Daszak/WIV made COVID-19”, it still describes all their reports exactly!  The lab origin crowd and Intercept are obsessed with GOF, but it is a red herring, as if GOF of any CoVs known prior to 2019 could produce SARS-CoV-2.  It can’t: can you GOF a monkey to a human?  This is precisely why people such as Daszak, who knows CoVs and the work conducted at WIV, are so much more believable than the lab origin crowd, even the ones with a biology background, like Alina Chan, Jesse Bloom, and Richard Ebright, who have little if any experimental experience with modern virology research. 

To cover up the lasting failure of the lab origin theory, recently there has been a stealth shift in the description of lab origin by the MSM, which now says that the natural origin theory means that COVID-19 started completely in the wild, while the lab theory means that COVID-19 passed through WIV.  That includes that maybe WIV collected samples from the wild, and then someone at WIV either got infected in the field or at WIV.  If this is the case (no evidence either), isn’t it still completely natural, zoonotic, and supporting the natural origin theory?  So this sleight-of-hand maneuver can’t be allowed to stand; and besides, why still harping on GOF?  

Regarding 3), the contention outside Daszak is about the Science article on the Wuhan Huanan market (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4454).  It must be noted that it is not a research paper, but Michael Worobey’s opinion based on his analysis of early COVID-19 cases.  His main point is that the earliest patient was from the market, so COVID-19 started at the market, not WIV a distance away.  There are holes in his findings (nothing about disease origin is simple), but the critiques are beyond the scope of this blog, except to say that whether Worobey is right or wrong, his method and conclusion were at least evidence-based, which is more than the lab origin theorists can attest to in all their existence. 

For 4), Greenwald is essentially accusing certain scientists in the natural origin camp of scientific misconduct, because if you thought COVID-19 was man-made, and Fauci said no, you would say no just to get research grants from Fauci later.  This is mind-boggling absurdity at so many levels.  Changing one’s hypothesis based on new evidence is the bedrock of scientific research. If you suspect man-made, but there is no sign of human engineering in the virus, along with many other data, are you allowed to change your opinions?  The natural origin theory has gathered increasing support since Jan 2020 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.08.017).  The lab origin theory?  Nil (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.08.017).  An HIV signature, furin sites, unique protein sequence, etc?  No, nothing there.  RaTG-13 was the precursor?  Nonsense.  Lab origin is a conspiracy theory further because so much of it depends on the belief that China is hiding something.  But what is hidden?   WIV was shut down due to a leak in 2019 (https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-contractors-report-on-wuhan-lab-origins-of-coronavirus-is-bogus)?   COVID-19 surged in Wuhan in the fall 2019 based on satellite images (https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/42669767/Satellite_Images_Baidu_COVID19_manuscript_DASH.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y)?  Three people at WIV sick in Nov 2019?  Jesse Bloom recovering “lost” virus sequences, showing China is hiding what (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/claim-chinese-team-hid-early-sars-cov-2-sequences-stymie-origin-hunt-sparks-furor)?  The list of misfired “smoking guns” is long.  Greenwald wants Daszak and China to be saints: how can the MSM continue to interview Daszak for all his COI?  But it serves Greenwald much better if he first checks himself and his lab origin fellows for their countless debacles since Jan 2020: they have cried “smoking guns” so many times there are figuratively fires in their bedrooms.

Curiously, Greenwald has been hypercritical towards Fauci throughout COVID-19.  In fact, he was much more vocal against Fauci than Trump in 2020 as if Fauci was more responsible for the mess than Trump.  Maybe Greenwald favors the lab theory just to stick it to Fauci?  Fauci is far from perfect, especially if he ventures outside of science, but any arguments with him should be based on facts, good judgment, and sound reasoning.  Some debates in the medical community are valid and due to genuine differences in reading the evidence and educated guesses/predictions, but almost all of the right-wing rants are not, neither are Greenwald’s.  For example, Fauci was revisionist about why not recommending masks in Feb and March, 2020.  But consider this: no Western medical authority, including WHO, was in favor of masks at the time, the US public had no tradition of wearing masks, few in the US were dying to wear masks at the time, and Fauci’s advice in Feb 2020 unlikely prevented anybody wanting to wear a mask from doing so.  Thus, why the extreme hostility against Fauci?  Turn to another doctor in the US, s/he would have told you the same thing! 

Greenwald has no idea how research funds are rewarded: he thinks Fauci plays a deciding role in handing out money.  In fact, Fauci won't even see most of the grants his agency funds, certainly not at any significant detail at all.   Any grant proposals involving potentially dangerous materials and using mammals, the host institutions must first approve the work and submissions.  Then the independent panels at NIH will review the proposals, next the NIH program directors will decide the funding based on NIH budgets.  Fauci just signs his name: why would he overrule reviewers' opinions?  So if Greenwald has a problem with NIH grants about CoVs or dogs, he should take it up with the researchers, their host universities, NIH review panels, program directors, before writing his 1000^th tweets on Fauci.  But why ends there?  The buck stops at the Congress and Trump who gave the money to NIH!

After the orgy in the summer with the COVID-19 lab origin theory, the noise has died down considerably, not because China is no longer public enemy No 1, but because there is really nothing the US can dig up, despite its best efforts for the past 23 months.  Greenwald’s article represents a desperate attempt to keep the dying body of that theory warm.  But Greenwald can rest well, because the true target is never COVID-19 but China.   The lab origin theory boils down to two “supports”.  The first is that COVID-19 was first reported in Wuhan, which houses WIV.  Greenwald going to any court with this “evidence” would be laughed out of it.  The second is that China is evil: whatever they say, even without countering evidence, is not to be trusted.  With this mentality, why trust the COVID-19 sequences China including WIV produced, which formed the basis of all the current vaccines and PCR tests?  And why trust what China said about COVID-19 testing, symptoms, patient care, mask use, etc, which formed the basis of worldwide response to COVID-19?  And why trust any measures China has taken to fight COVID-19?  Many people in the West believe China has COVID-19 as bad as the US, if not worse, including Jake Tapper at CNN at least by the end of 2020.  These people can be so ignorant and so confident at the same time.  Wonder why?  And see the consequences?   

Greenwald doesn't have a science background.  In politics Greenwald bashes only Trump detractors while ostentatiously leaving Trump bashing to others, but in science you must weight all sides of the evidence.  Greenwald doesn’t understand scientist talks, either.  A biologist in the natural origin camp can still say we should study all possibilities, but it doesn't mean he sees the lab theory supported by any data.  Most biologists accept evolution, but who says you can’t study God?  There are a few scientists in the lab origin camp just like some in the anti-evolution camp.  Maybe they have Greenwald’s ears because of his disdain for Fauci and NYT: Greenwald has neither the science background nor the critical knowledge necessary to judge, but he automatically distrusted NYT and Fauci.  But it is funny that most of them claim to be agnostic: I am not really saying lab origin, I just want to know for sure.  Right there you know they know their case is nonexistent!   

Yet no scientific training is no excuse, especially if Greenwald has learned his lessons and followed his own advice.  Proving the lab origin theory, or keeping it alive, is in the national interest of the US as conventionally understood since day 1 of COVID-19.  If Greenwald were what he claims he is critical about supposed evidence or intelligence from the US or the media, he would be immune to Iraq WMD, COVID-19 or other anti-China nonsense.   But he had been duped before, and he is still being fooled right now, only he remains full of hot air himself, as he did in the Iraq WMD days and supported the war.  Greenwald never misses an opportunity to show off his start in media/politics in criticizing Bush/Cheney's civil right abuses, yet he rarely if ever mentions the elephant in the room: the Iraq War.  Where were you when it happened?