Former CDC chief: I didn't expect death threats from fellow scientists over lab-leak theory

[PeteS in CA]

Former CDC chief: I didn't expect death threats from fellow scientists over lab-leak theory

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2021/06/03/former-cdc-chief-i-didnt-expect-death-threats-from-fellow-scientists-over-lab-leak-theory-n394244

Alternate headline: No one expects the Woke Scientistic Inquisition! Vanity Fair does an extensive and impressive dive into the strange but pervasive attempts by the scientific, media, and government establishments to quash any discussion of the lab-leak hypothesis for COVID-19’s origin. It got so bad that former CDC director Robert Redfield got death threats for suggesting it publicly — from other scientists:

A months long Vanity Fair investigation, interviews with more than 40 people, and a review of hundreds of pages of U.S. government documents, including internal memos, meeting minutes, and email correspondence, found that conflicts of interest, stemming in part from large government grants supporting controversial virology research, hampered the U.S. investigation into COVID-19’s origin at every step. In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it.

In an internal memo obtained by Vanity Fair, Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote that staff from two bureaus, his own and the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, “warned” leaders within his bureau “not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19” because it would “‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.” …

But for most of the past year, the lab-leak scenario was treated not simply as unlikely or even inaccurate but as morally out-of-bounds. In late March, former Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield received death threats from fellow scientists after telling CNN that he believed COVID-19 had originated in a lab. “I was threatened and ostracized because I proposed another hypothesis,” Redfield told Vanity Fair. “I expected it from politicians. I didn’t expect it from science.”

It would be amazing what the MSM are "discovering" now that BogeyTrump is out of office but for the fact that it was there to discover all along!

[PeteS in CA]

BOMBSHELL: U.S. State Department Tried to Block Investigation of Lab Leak at Wuhan

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/06/03/bombshell-u-s-state-department-tried-to-block-investigation-of-lab-leak-at-wuhan-n1451851

A report in Vanity Fair details actions by some members of the U.S. State Department to block efforts to investigate the origins of the coronavirus because the inquiry could open “a can of worms.” An internal memo sent to department heads by Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, warned “not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19.”

The “can of worms” in question was the extensive funding by the U.S. government into the Wuhan Virology Lab’s “gain-of-function” virus research. It’s unclear whether DiNanno was concerned that an investigation would uncover evidence of a lab leak or the extent to which the U.S. was funding dangerous research.

Indeed, there’s a lot more going on with this gain-of-function research than has ever been revealed. There appears to be a powerful lobby within the U.S. government that is heavily invested in the dangerous research and is serious about keeping it quiet. Former CDC chairman Robert Redfield received death threats from fellow scientists after telling CNN that he believed COVID-19 had originated in a lab.

The US State Department, IMO, has not worked for US' interests in my lifetime, and probably hasn't since at least FDR's Administration. That they were anti-Trump (and previous R Presidents) is also, IMO, quite obvious.

[Sled Dog]

The real climate scientists have been getting death threats for decades by the AGW cultists.

Raw programmed emotion always trumps true science.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Someone needs to place China and the WTO on double secret probation.

[mystery-ak]

Former CDC Director Received Death Threats Over COVID-19 "Lab Leak" Theory From Other Scientists
By Brandon Morse | Jun 03, 2021 5:00 PM ET

Being a public figure will net you some nasty attention no matter who you are or what you do and from time to time, you’re going to get some death threats. These usually come from people on the internet who feel secure saying these things behind a wall of anonymity and a keyboard miles away from the intended target.

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield also received his share of death threats after he expressed his belief that the COVID-19 virus did, in fact, leak from a lab in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. Only his weren’t just from anonymous trolls, it was from the scientific community, including people he knew.

In a reveal to Vanity Fair, Redfield said that after a CNN interview where he expressed this belief, his inbox was flooded with angry responses including death threats from people he even once considered friends:

    By spring of 2021, the debate over COVID-19’s origins had become so noxious that death threats were flying in both directions.

    In a CNN interview on March 26, Dr. Redfield, the former CDC director under Trump, made a candid admission: “I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped.” Redfield added that he believed the release was an accident, not an intentional act. In his view, nothing that happened since his first calls with Dr. Gao changed a simple fact: The WIV needed to be ruled out as a source, and it hadn’t been.

    After the interview aired, death threats flooded his inbox. The vitriol came not just from strangers who thought he was being racially insensitive but also from prominent scientists, some of whom used to be his friends. One said he should just “wither and die.”

more
https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2021/06/03/former-cdc-director-received-death-threats-over-covid-19-lab-leak-theory-from-other-scientists-n390833

[Smokin Joe]

Not surprised. The truth is most unwelcome in the company of liars.

[Cyber Liberty]

I learnt a new word today, before I even got out of bed:  calumny.

cal·​um·​ny | \ ˈka-ləm-nē
also ˈkal-yəm- \
plural calumnies
Definition of calumny

1 : a misrepresentation intended to harm another's reputation
     "... denounced his opponent for his defamatory insinuations and calumny'

2 : the act of uttering false charges or misrepresentations maliciously calculated to harm another's reputation
"He was the target of calumny for his unpopular beliefs."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/calumny

If the 2020's (thus far) were a single word....

[Smokin Joe]

I learnt a new word today, before I even got out of bed:  calumny.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/calumny

If the 2020's (thus far) were a single word....

There are an easy top ten or so, but I also think perfidy and nonfeasance are in the running.