This message was self-deleted by its author

[Rstrstx]

This message was self-deleted by its author (Rstrstx) on Wed Apr 8, 2020, 07:20 AM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[TheBlackAdder]

1. That's the beauty of conspiracy theories, they can never be disproved. Working as designed.

.

Well, most can to some degree.

It's up to the holder to believe it or not, and depending on what emotional investment or wiring they have, showing them any contrary proof to the point where they change their views might be a difficult task to perform or achieve.

.

[Dennis Donovan]

2. Read this...

NYT: Why Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories Flourish. And Why It Matters.

[Blues Heron]

3. wasn't this debunked by genetic analysis

showing that it was indeed from nature via pangolin munching pinheads?

[Maeve]

4. Try these sites

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/baseless-conspiracy-theories-claim-new-coronavirus-was-bioengineered/
https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jan/24/fact-checking-hoaxes-and-conspiracies-about-corona/

[jberryhill]

6. The OP is not interested in the truth

[Maeve]

8. Maybe not, but we can hope other readers are

[jberryhill]

10. Good point

[Rstrstx]

13. Oh I am interested in the truth

I'm hoping this story doesn't have legs but the Brits did leak it to the press.

[jberryhill]

5. Why are you mischaracterizing that first link?

That’s like citing a USA Today article saying “Trump Thinks Obama Was Born In Kenya” and then saying “See, even USA Today is reporting Obama was born in Kenya.”

Just because a right wing government official has some nutty theory to discuss doesn’t make it true.

I’ll bet you know that, and what you are doing is intentional.

[Rstrstx]

16. No I'm not

Some controversy came when Scientific American published a paper on the 'Batwoman' of China who studies coronaviruses in bats. In the article she even asks herself if it could have come from "our lab" in China since the bats that had that type of corona lived hundreds of miles away in Yunnan

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/

[jberryhill]

18. You are mischaracterizing it

And your reply has nothing to do with your dishonest characterization of the article.

[Phoenix61]

7. Several points

Business Insider is referencing the Daily Mail.
The gene manipulation the paper cites was reported in an article printed in 2015.
From a different source, can’t remember where, Farmers harvest bat guano from caves and use it for fertilizer. It’s been speculated this is how the virus was initially contracted.

[Rstrstx]

17. Thanks, that helps

The bats that had what is basically this strain were from Yunnan, which is not close to Wuhan

[octoberlib]

9. It was transmitted from animals. Scientists have been predicting since 2007 that a pandemic would

occur. This was written in 2013.


Bats May Be Carrying the Next SARS Pandemic

In November 2002, a deadly new virus emerged suddenly in the south of China. In less than a year, the disease it caused, known as SARS, spread to 33 countries, sickening more than 8000 people and killing more than 700. Then it disappeared. Now, researchers say, they have for the first time isolated a closely related virus from bats in China that can infect human cells. "This shows, that right now in China, there are bats carrying a virus that can directly infect people, and cause another SARS pandemic," says Peter Daszak, one of the authors and president of EcoHealth Alliance in New York City.

Scientists have long suspected bats to be the natural reservoir for coronaviruses such as the one responsible for SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome). The animals have been identified as the source of many dangerous viruses, such as Nipah and Hendra, and have also been linked to Ebola and the new coronavirus causing a SARS-like illness, dubbed MERS. In 2005, Daszak and others found viral DNA closely resembling the SARS virus in three species of Chinese horseshoe bats. However, while the sequences of those viral genomes were 88% to 92% identical with that of the SARS coronavirus, they showed marked differences in a region coding for the so-called spike protein. In the SARS virus, this protein binds to a receptor on the surface of human cells mediating its entry. The differences meant that the bat viruses would not be able to infect human cells. And because some palm civets were found to carry a virus almost identical to the human SARS virus, most researchers have come to believe that SARS spread from bats to civets—probably in a Chinese market, where these and other animals come into close contact—and then to humans.

Now, new research suggests that civets may not be necessary to start a SARS pandemic. For more than a year, scientists from China, Australia, and the United States collected anal swabs or fecal samples from horseshoe bats at a cave in Kunming, in the south of China. They found coronavirus RNA in 27 of 117 sampled animals. Among the viruses were two new strains of coronavirus that resemble the SARS strain more closely than those previously identified in bats, especially in the part of the genome coding for the important spike protein. The scientists also managed to isolate live virus from one of the animals. In experiments, reported online today in Nature, they showed that the virus infected pig and bat kidney cells, and perhaps more important, cells lining the human lung.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/10/bats-may-be-carrying-next-sars-pandemic#

[jberryhill]

11. Don't try to confuse the issue with facts

[kentuck]

12. It would make more sense if it was released by Iran?

For the assassination.

[rooboy]

14. If you look up Michael Osterholm's interview with Joe Rogan...

he states categorically that this virus could not have been created in a lab because its characteristics are far too complex to be made by humans.

[Coleman]

15. Why create the virus?

Since it is so contageous, it is a poor biological weapon. Or was it discovered and a lab was studying it, and Ooops?

[Rstrstx]

19. HELLO!!! I'm NOT saying it was created

I'm saying there's the possibility it was being kept for study at a Wuhan lab and somehow got into the population.

[Dennis Donovan]

22. Just about everyone in this thread has debunked the points in the OP

...yet you haven't self-deleted it?

[dhol82]

20. This reminds me of the original swine flu epidemic in the 70's

It was rumored that we had been doing bioweapon research at Plum Island that somehow “escaped” and spread. The thinking was that that was why the government was so hysterical and gung ho to get out a vaccine as quickly as possible. Which is how we got to the shit show of the bad results from the shots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Island_Animal_Disease_Center

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/10/archives/claims-of-flu-shot-victims-unpaid-despite-us-pledge-delay-on.html

[Chainfire]

21. Extraordinary claims

require extraordinary proof.

This is the kind of stuff that is meant to create a diversion to cover gross government mishandling of a crisis. It is an attempt to change the focus, to search for blame somewhere other than where it really rests. It is a theory built on smoke and mirrors and unless and until any evidence arises to back up such a claim, it should be dismissed as propaganda. The virus was not created in a lab, but this story may have been.

I suppose the 1918 flu pandemic was also created in a Chinese lab? Swine flu, bird flu, common cold, ignorance and incompetence?


As Click and Clack would proclaim, BOGUS!

[jberryhill]

23. +1

[Rstrstx]

24. Thanks for the responses

I feel better after reading some of your responses (no sarcasm). I will not bring it up again.