Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is the conversation with
Jamie Metzel author specializing in
topics of genetic engineering
biotechnology and geopolitics
in the past two years he has been
outspoken about the need to investigate
and keep an open mind about the origins
of covid-19 in particular he has been
keeping an extensive up-to-date
collection of circumstantial evidence in
support of what is colloquially known as
lab leak hypothesis that covid-19 leaked
in 2019 from the Wuhan Institute of
virology
in part I wanted to explore the idea in
response to the thoughtful criticism to
parts of the Francis Collins episode
I'll have more and more difficult
conversations like this with people from
all walks of life and with all kinds of
ideas I promise to do my best to keep an
open mind and yet to ask hard questions
while together searching for the
beautiful and the inspiring in the mind
of the other person
it's a hard line to walk gracefully
especially for someone like me who's a
bit of an awkward introvert with barely
the grasp of the English language
or any language except maybe Python and
C plus plus but I hope you stick around
be patient and empathetic and maybe
learn something new together with me
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in the description and now here's my
conversation with Jamie Metzel
what is the probability in your mind
that covid-19 leaked from a lab in your
write-up I believe you said 85 percent I
know it's just a percentage we can't
really be exact with these kinds of
things but it gives us a sense where
your mind is where your intuition is so
as it stands today what would you say is
that probability I would stand by what
I've been saying since really the middle
of last year it's more likely and not in
my opinion that the pandemic stems from
an accidental lab incident in Wuhan is
it 90 is it 65 percent I mean that's
kind of arbitrary but when I stack up
all of the available evidence and all of
it on both sides is circumstantial it
weighs very significantly toward a lab
incident origin so before we dive into
the specifics at a high level what uh
types of evidence what intuition what
ideas are leading you to uh to have that
kind of estimate is it possible to kind
of condense when you when you look at
the wall of evidence before you
where's your Source the the strongest
source of your intuition yeah and I
would have to say it's just logic and
deductive reasoning so before I make the
case for why I think it's most likely a
lab incident origin let's just say why
it could be and still could be what we
natural origin all of this is a natural
origin in the sense that it's a bat
virus backbone horseshoe bat virus
backbone okay I'm Gonna Keep pausing you
yeah to find stuff so maybe it's useful
to say what do we mean by lab leak what
do we mean by natural origin what do we
mean by virus backbone okay great
questions
um so viruses come from somewhere
viruses have been around for 3.5 billion
years and we they've been around for
such a long time because they are
adaptive and they're growing and they're
always changing and they're morphing and
that's why viruses are I mean they've
been very successful and we are are
victims sometimes we're beneficiaries we
have viral DNA has morphed into our our
genomes but now certainly in the case of
covid-19 we are victims of the success
of viruses and so when we talk about a
backbone so the SARS cov2 virus
um has a it has a history and these
viruses don't come out of whole cloth
there are viruses that that morph and so
we know that at some period maybe 20
years ago or whatever
um the the the virus that is SARS cov2
existed in horseshoe bats it was a
horseshoe bat virus and it evolved
somewhere and there are some people who
say there's no evidence of this but it's
a plausible Theory based on how things
have happened in the past maybe that
virus jumped from the horseshoe bat
through some intermediate species so
it's like let's say there's a bat and
then it infects some other animal let's
say it's a pig or a raccoon dog or a
civet cat they're all Pangolin they're
all sorts of animals that have been
considered and then that virus adapts
into that new host and it changes and
grows and then according to the
quote-unquote Natural Origins hypothesis
it jumps from that animal into humans
and so what you could imagine and some
of the people who are making the case
all of the people actually who are
making the case for a natural origin of
the virus what they're saying is it went
from bat to some intermediate species
and then from that intermediate species
most likely there's some people who say
it went directly Back To Human but
through some intermediate species and
then humans interacted with that species
and then it jumped from that whatever it
is to to humans and that's a very
plausible Theory it's just that there's
no evidence for it and the nature of the
interaction is do most people kind of
suggest that the like What markets so
the interaction with the humans the
animal is in the form of it's either a
live animal that's being sold to be
eaten or uh recently live animal but
newly dead animal being sold that's
certainly one very possible possibility
a possible possibility I don't know if
that's a word but the people who believe
in the wet Market origin that's what
they're saying so they had one of these
animals they were cutting it up let's
say in a market and maybe some of the
blood got into somebody maybe had a cut
on their hand or maybe it was
aerosolized and so somebody breathed it
and then that virus found this new host
and that was the the human host but you
could also have that happen in let's say
a farm so it's happened in the past that
let's say that there are farms and
because of human encroachment into Wild
Spaces we're pushing our our farms and
our Animal Farms further and further
into what used to be the the just
natural habitats and so it's happened in
the past for example that there were
bats roosting over pig pens and the bat
droppings went into the pig pens the
viruses in those droppings infected the
pigs and then the pigs infected the the
humans and and that's why it's a
plausible Theory it's just that there's
basically no evidence for it if it was
the case that SARS cov2 comes from this
type of interaction
um as in most of the at least recent
past outbreaks we'd see evidence of that
viruses are messy they're constantly
undergoing darwinian Evolution and
they're changing and it's not that
they're just ready for Prime Time ready
to infect humans on day one normally you
can trace the viral Evolution prior to
the time when it infects humans but for
SARS cov2 it just showed up on the scene
ready to infect humans and there's no
history that anybody has found so far of
that kind of a viral Evolution with the
first SARS you could track it by the The
genome sequencing that it was
experimenting and uh SARS cov2 was very
very stable and meaning it had already
adapted to humans by the time it
interacted with us fully adapted so with
SARS
there's a rapid Evolution when it like
first kind of hooks onto a human yeah
because it's trying like a virus its
goal is to survive and replicate yeah no
it's true it's like oh we're going to
try this oh that didn't work we'll try
exactly like it like like a startup and
so we don't we don't see that and so
there are some people who say why well
one hypothesis is are you have a totally
isolated group of humans maybe in in
southern China which is more than a
thousand miles away from uh from Wuhan
and maybe they're doing their animal
farming
um right next to these uh where these
areas where there are these horseshoe
bats and maybe in this totally isolated
place that no one's ever heard of
they're not connected to any other place
one person gets infected and it doesn't
spread to anybody else because they're
so isolated they're like I don't know I
mean I can't even imagine that this is
is the case then somebody gets in a car
and drives all night more than A
Thousand Miles through crappy roads to
get to Wuhan doesn't stop for anything
doesn't infect anybody on the way no one
else in that person's village infects
anyone and then that person goes
straight to the the juanan seafood
market according to this in my mind not
very credible Theory and then unloads
his stuff and everybody gets infected
and they're only delivering those
animals to the Wuhan Market which
doesn't even sell very many of these
kinds of animals that are likely
intermediate species and not anywhere
else so that's it's a little bit of a
straw man
um but on top of that the Chinese have
sequenced more than 80 000 animal
samples and there's no evidence of this
type of a viral Evolution that we would
otherwise expect Let's uh
try to at this moment steal man the
argument for the natural origin of the
virus so just uh to clarify
so Wuhan is actually despite what it
might sound like to people is a pretty
big city there's a lot of people that
live in it 11 million so not only is
there the Wuhan Institute of virology
there's other centers that do work on
viruses yes but there's also a giant
number of markets and everything we're
talking about here is pretty close
together so when I kind of look at the
geography of this
I think when you zoom out it's all Wuhan
but when you zoom in there's just a lot
of interesting dynamics that could be
happening and where the cases are
popping up and what's being reported all
that kind of stuff
so I think the people that
argue for the natural origin and there's
a few recent papers that come out
arguing this
it's kind of fascinating to watch this
whole thing but I think what they're
arguing is that there's this Hunan
Market that's one of the major markets
uh the wet markets in Wuhan
that uh there's a bunch of cases that
were reported from there
so if I look at for example the Michael
Warby perspective the hero in science he
argues he wrote this a few days ago the
the predominance of early covet cases
linked to Hunan market and this can't be
dismissed as ascertainment bias which I
think is what people argue that you're
just kind of focusing on this region
because a lot of cases came but there
could be a huge number of other cases
so people who argue against this say
that this is a later stage already right
um
so he says no he says this is this is
the epicenter
and uh this is a clear
uh evidence that uh circumstantial
evidence but evidence nevertheless that
this is where the jump happened to
humans the big explosion maybe not k0 I
don't know if he argues that but with
the early cases so what do you make of
this whole idea Can you steal man it
yeah before yeah and my goal here isn't
to attack people on on the other side
and and if my feeling is if there is
evidence that's presented
um that that should change my view I I
hope that I'll be open-minded enough to
change my view and certainly Michael
Warby is a thoughtful person a
respectful a respected scientist and and
I think this work is is contributive
work but I just don't think
um uh that it it it that it's as
significant as has been reported in in
the press and so what his argument is is
that there is an early cluster in
December of 2019 around the the Juan on
seafood market and even though he
himself argues that the original break
through case the original case the index
case where the first person infected
happened earlier happened in October or
November so not in December his argument
is well what are the odds that you would
have this number this cluster of cases
in the huanan seafood market and if the
origin happened someplace else wouldn't
you expect other other clusters and it's
not an entirely implausible argument but
there are reasons why I think it's uh
that it's this is not nearly as
determinative as has been reported and I
certainly had a lot of I and others had
tweeted a lot about this and that is
first uh the the people who were
infected in this cluster it's not the
earliest known uh virus of the SARS cov2
it began mutating so this is it's not
the original SARS cov2 there so you it
had to have happened someplace else too
the people who were infected in the
market
um weren't infected in the part of the
market where they had these kinds of
animals that are considered to be
candidates
um for as an intermari intermediary
species and third there was a bias
actually I'll have four things uh third
there was a bias in the early assessment
in China of what what they were looking
for they were asked did you have
exposure to the market because I think
in the early days when people were
figuring things out that was one of the
questions that uh that was asked and
fourth and probably most significantly
we have so little information about
those early cases in China and that's
really unfortunate and we'll talk about
this later because the Chinese
government is preventing access to all
of that information which they have
which could easily help us get to the
bottom at least know a ton more about
how this pandemic started and so this is
it it's like grasping at straws
in the dark with gloves on that's right
but to steal man the argument we have
this evidence from this market and yes
the Chinese government has turned off
the lights essentially so we have very
little data to work with but this is the
data we have
so who's to say that this data doesn't
represent a much bigger data set that a
lot of people got infected at this
Market where it even at the parts or
especially at the parts with the the
meat the infected meat was being sold so
that could be true and it probably is
true the question is is this the source
is this the place where this began or
was did this just a place where it was
Amplified and I certainly think that
it's it's extremely likely that the Juan
on seafood market was an at point of
amplification and that's it's just
answering a different question basically
what you're saying is it's very
difficult to use the market as evidence
for anything
because
it's probably not even the starting
point so it's just a good place for it
to continue spreading that's certainly
my view what Michael warby's argument is
um is that well what are the odds of
that that we're seeing this
amplification at this particular in the
market and if we if let's let me put
this way if we had all of the
information if if the Chinese government
hadn't blocked access to all of this
because there's blood bank information
there's all sorts of information uh and
based on a full and complete
understanding we came to believe that
all of the early cases
um were at this Market I think that
would be a stronger argument than what
this is so far but everything leads to
the fact that why is it that the Chinese
government which was frankly after a
slow start the gold standard of doing
viral tracking for SARS one why have
they apparently done so little and
shared so little I think it asks it it
begs a lot of questions
okay so let's uh then talk about the
Chinese government uh let's there's
several governments right so one is the
local government of Wuhan
and not just the Chinese government
let's talk about government
uh no let's talk about human nature
it just keeps zooming out yeah let's
talk about planet Earth yeah no uh so
there's the Wuhan local government
there's the Chinese government uh led by
Xi Jinping
and uh there's governments in general
I'm trying to empathize so my father was
involved with Chernobyl I'm trying to
put myself into the mind of local
officials of people who are like oh shit
there is
there's a potential catastrophic event
happening here and uh it's my ass
because I we there's incompetence all
over the place the human nature is such
that there's incompetence all over the
place and you're always trying to cover
it up and so so given that context
I want to lay out all the possible
incompetence all the possible
malevolence all the possible
geopolitical tensions here
all right where in your sense did the
cover-up start so uh there's this
suspicious
uh fact it seems like that the Wuhan
Institute of virology
at a public database of thousands of uh
sampled bad coronavirus sequences
and that went offline in September 2019.
what was that about
so let me talk about that specific and
then I'll also follow your path zooming
out and it's really important is that a
good start it's a great starting point
yeah yeah so but there's there's a a
bigger story and but let me talk about
about that so the Wuhan Institute of
virology
um and we can go into the whole history
of the Wuhan Institute of virology
either now or later because I think it's
it's very relevant to this story but
let's focus for now on this database
they had a database of 22
000 viral samples and sequence
information about the viruses that they
had had collected some of which the
collection of some of which was
supported through funding from the NIH
not a huge NIH through the Eco Health
Alliance it's a relatively small amount
600 000 but but not nothing
um the goal of this database
um was so that we could understand viral
Evolution so that exactly for this kind
of moment where we had an unknown virus
we could say well is this like anything
that we've seen before and that would
help us both understand what we're
facing and be better able um to to
respond
so this was a an act a password
protected public access database in 2019
um it was in September 2019
um it became inaccessible and then the
whole a few months later the entire
database uh disappeared the Chinese have
said is that because there were all
kinds of computer attacks on this on
this database but why would that happen
in September 2019 before the the
pandemic at least as far as as we know
so so just to clarify yes it went down
to September 2019 just so we'll get the
year straight January 2020 is when the
virus really started getting
um the Press so we're talking about the
December 2019 a lot of early infections
happened September 2019 is when this
database goes down just to clarify
because you said it quickly the Chinese
government said
that uh their database was getting
hacked right
therefore the director of this part of
the Wuhan Institute of virology said
that oh sh oh she was the one that said
it she was the one who said oh yeah boy
I did not even know that part yeah okay
well she's an interesting character
we'll talk about her yeah uh so
so the excuse is that uh that's getting
cyber attacked a lot so we're gonna take
it down without any further explanation
which seems very suspicious and then
this virus starts to emerge in October
November December there's a lot of
argument about that but after sorry to
interrupt like but some people are
saying that the first outbreak could
have happened as early as September I'm
not I think it's more likely it's
October November but for the people who
are saying that the first outbreak uh
the first incident of a of a known
outbreak at least to somebody happened
in September they make the argument well
what if that also happened in
mid-september of of 2019 I'm not
prepared to go there but there are some
people who make that argument but I
think if again if I were to put myself
in the mind of officials whether it's
officials within the Wuhan Institute of
virology or Wuhan local officials
um I think if I notice some major
problem like somebody got sick
some sign of
uh oh shit was screwed up
that's when you kind of uh do this slow
there's like a Homer Simpson meme where
you slowly start backing out and I would
probably start
um hiding stuff cya yeah yeah and then
coming up with really shady excuses it's
like you're in a relationship and your
girlfriend wants to see your phone and
you're like I'm sorry I'm just getting
attacked by the Russians now that's that
courteous I can't yeah I wish I wish I
could I wish I could it's just I'm
unsafe right now so so would it be okay
if I give you my kind of macro view of
the whole information space and and why
I believe this has been so contentious
it's it's it's so here's here's if I had
to give my best guess and I underlined
the word guess
um of of what happened and and your
background your family background with
Chernobyl I think is highly relevant
here
so after the first SARS there was a
recognition that we needed to distribute
knowledge about virology and
epidemiology around the world that
people in China and Africa in Southeast
Asia they are were the front line
workers and they needed to be doing a
lot of the the viral monitoring and
assessment so that we could have an
early alarm system
um and that was why there was a lot of
investment in in all of those places in
building capacity and training people
and helping to build institutional
capacity and the Chinese government they
recognized that they needed to ramp uh
ramp things up and then the World Health
Organization in the world Health
assembly they had their their
International Health regulations that
were designed to create a stronger
infrastructure so that was that was the
goal there were a lot of Investments and
and I know we'll talk later about the
Wuhan Institute of virology and I won't
go into that into that right now so
there was all of this distributed
capacity
and so in the early days there's a
breakout in Wuhan we don't know is it
September October November uh maybe uh
December is when the the local
authorities start to recognize that
something's happening but at some point
in late 2019 uh local officials in Wuhan
understand that something is up and
exactly like in Chernobyl these guys
exist within a hierarchical system and
they are going to be rewarded if good
things happen and they're going to be in
big trouble if bad things happen under
their watch
so their initial instinct is to squash
it uh it's and they my guess is they
think well if we squash this information
we can most likely beat back this
outbreak because lots of outbreaks
happen all the time including of SARS
one where there was a multiple lab
incidents out of out of the lab in in
Beijing and so they start their cover-up
on day one they they start screening
social media they send nasty letters to
to different doctors and others who are
starting to speak up but then it becomes
clear that there's a bigger issue and
then the the national government of
China again this is just hypothesis
the national government gets involved
they say all right this is getting much
bigger they go in and they realize that
we have a big problem on our hands they
relatively quickly know that it's
spreading human to human and so the
right thing for them to do then is what
the South African government is doing
now is to say we have this outbreak we
don't know everything but we know it's
serious
um we need help but that's not the
Instinct of people in in most
governments and certainly not in
authoritarian governments like China
and so the the national government they
have a choice at that point they can do
option one which is what we would hear
called the right thing which is total
transparency they criticize the local
officials for having this cover up and
they say now we're going to be totally
transparent but what does that do in a
system like the former Soviet Union like
China now if local officials say wait a
second I thought my job was to cover
everything up to support this
alternative reality that authoritarian
systems need in order to to survive well
now I'm going to be held accountable for
if I'm not totally transparent like your
whole system
um would would collapse so the the
national government they have that
choice and they their only choice
according to the logic of their system
is to be all in on a cover-up and that's
why they block the World Health
Organization from sending its team to
Wuhan for over three weeks they overtly
Lie To The World Health Organization
about human to human transmission and
then they begin their cover-ups so they
begin very very quickly destroying
samples hiding records they start
imprisoning people for uh asking basic
questions soon after they establish a
gag order preventing Chinese scientists
from writing or saying anything about
pandemic Origins without prior
government approval and what that does
means that there isn't a lot of data
there's not nearly enough data coming
out of China and so lots of responsible
scientists outside of China who are data
driven say well I don't have enough
information to draw conclusions and then
into that vacuum step a relatively small
number of largely virologists but also
others respected scientists and I know
we'll talk about the I think Infamous
Peter daisak who who say well with
without any real foundation in in the
evidence they say we know pretty much
this comes from nature and anyone who's
raising the possibility of a lab
incident origin is a is a conspiracy
theorist so that message
um starts to to percolate and then in
the United States we have Donald Trump
and he's starting to get criticized for
America's failure to respond prepare for
and respond adequately to the outbreak
and so he starts saying well I know
first after praising Xi Jinping he
starts saying well I know that China did
it and the who did and he's kind of
pointing fingers at everybody uh but uh
but himself and then we have a media
here that had shifted from the from the
traditional model of he said she said
journalism so and so said X and so and
so said why and then we'll present both
of those views
but with Donald Trump he would make
outlandish starting positions so he
would say Lex is an Ax Murderer and then
in the early days they would say Lex is
an Ax Murderer you know Lex's friend
says he's not an expert and we'd have a
four-day debate is he or isn't he and
then at day four someone would say why
are we having this debate at all because
the original point is is just is
baseless and so the media just got in
the habit here's what Trump said and
here's why it's wrong it's very
complicated
to figure out what is the role of a
politician what is the role of a leader
in this kind of game of politics but
certainly in um when there's a tragedy
when there's a catastrophic event
what it takes to be a leader is to see
clearly through the fog and to make big
bold decisions and to speak to the truth
of things and even if it's unpopular
truth
to listen to the people to listen to all
sides to the opinions to the
controversial ideas and to see past all
the bullshit all the political bullshit
and just
speak to the people speak to the world
and make bold big decisions that that's
probably what was needed in terms of
leadership and I'm not so willing to
criticize whether it's Joe Biden or
Donald Trump on this I think most people
cannot be great leaders but that's why
when great leaders step up we write
books about them yeah and I and I agree
and and even though I mean I I think of
myself as a progressive person I
certainly was a Critic of a lot of of
what uh president Trump did
but on this particular case even though
he may have said it in an uncouth way
Donald Trump was actually in my view
right I mean when he said hey let's look
at this lab he said I have evidence I
can't tell you I don't think he even had
the evidence but his intuition that this
probably comes from a lab in my view was
a correct intuition and certainly I
started speaking up about pandemic
Origins early in 2019 and my friends my
Democratic friends were brutal with me
saying what are you doing you're
supporting Trump in an election year and
I said just because Donald Trump is
saying something doesn't mean that I
need to oppose it if he's if Donald
Trump says something that I think is
correct well I want to say it's correct
just as if he says something that I
don't like I'm going to speak up about
that good you walk through the fire so
that's a that's you laid out the story
here and uh
I think in many ways it's a human story
it's the story of politics it's a story
story of human nature
but let's talk about the story of the
virus and let's talk about the Wuhan
Institute of virology so maybe this is a
good time to try to talk about his
history about its Origins about what
kind of stuff it works on about
biosafety levels and about
Batwoman yeah
so what what is the honesty of our algae
when did it start yeah so it's a great
question so
um after SARS one which was in the early
2000s 2003 2004
um there was this effort to
um to enhance as I mentioned before
Global capacity including in China so
the Wuhan Institute of virology had been
around for decades before then but there
was an agreement between the French and
the Chinese governments to build a the
largest bsl4 lab so biosafety level four
so in these what are called high
containment Labs there's level four
which is the highest level and people
have seen that and on TV and elsewhere
where you have the the people in the
different in suits and all of these
protections and then there's level three
which is still very serious uh and uh
but not as much as as level four and
then level 2 is just kind of goggles and
and some gloves and maybe that and maybe
a face mask much less so the French and
the Chinese governments
agreed that France would help build the
first and and still the largest bsl4
plus some mobile bsl3 labs and they were
going to do it in Wuhan and Wuhan is
kind of like China's Chicago and I had
actually been it's a different story I'd
been in Wuhan relatively not that long
before the pandemic broke out and that
was why I knew that Wuhan is it's a it's
not some Backwater where there are a
bunch of yokels eating bats for dinner
every night this is a really
sophisticated wealthy highly educated
and and cultured City and so I I knew
that it wasn't like that even the Juan
and seafood market wasn't like some of
these seafood markets that they have in
southern China or in Cambodia where I
lived for uh for two years I mean this
it was a totally open thing I'm gonna
have to talk to you about some of the
including the Wuhan Market just some of
the wild food going on here because
you've traveled that part of the world
yeah well let's not get there yes let's
not get distracted good as I was telling
you Lex before and this is maybe an
advertisement yes um is having now
listened to to a number of your your
podcasts when I'm doing long Ultra
training runs or driving in the
mountains like the really because in the
beginning we have to talk about whatever
it is is the topic but the really good
stuff happens later so so friends if you
listen to the end I you know I I have to
say
as I was telling you before
like when I heard your long podcast with
Jeron Lanier and he talked about his
mother at the very end I mean it was
just beautiful stuffs I don't know
whether I can I can match beautiful
stuff but I'm gonna I'm gonna gonna do
my best you're gonna have to find out
exactly stay tuned um so
um so France had this agreement
um that they were going to help design
and help build uh this bsl4 lab in Wuhan
and um it was going to be with French
standards and there were going to be 50
French experts who were going to work
there and supervise the the work that
happened even after the Wuhan Institute
of virology
um uh in in the new location
um uh started started operating but then
when they started building it uh the the
French contractors the the French
overseers were increasingly appalled
um that they had less and less control
that the Chinese uh contractors were
swapping out new things they it wasn't
built up to French standards so much
um that at the end when it was finally
built uh the the the person who was the
vice chairman of the project and a
leading French industrialist named
maryah refused to sign off and he said
we we can't
um support we have no idea
um what this is whether it's safe or not
and when this this lab opened remember
we were supposed to have 50 French
experts it had one French expert and so
the the French were really disgusted and
actually when the Wuhan Institute of
virology in its new location opened in
in 2018
um two things happened one French
intelligence privately approached U.S
intelligence saying we have a lot of
concerns about the Wuhan Institute of
virology about its safety and we don't
even know who's operating there is it
being used as a dual use facility and
also in 2018 the U.S embassy in Beijing
uh sent some people down to Wuhan to go
and look at well at this laboratory and
they wrote a scathing cable that Josh
Rogan from The Washington Post later got
his his hands on saying
um this is really unsafe they're doing
work on dangerous bat coronaviruses in
conditions where a leak is is possible
and so then you mentioned shujang Li and
I'll connect that to the these
virologists who I was was was talking
about so there's a very credible thesis
that because
these pathogenic outbreaks happen in
other parts of the world having
Partnerships with experts in those parts
in those parts of the world must be a
foundation of our of our efforts we
can't just bring everything home because
we know that that viruses don't care
about borders and boundaries and so if
something happens there it's going to
come here so very correctly and we have
all kinds of Partnerships with experts
in in these labs and shujang Lee was one
of those partners and her closest
relationship was with Peter dazek who's
a British I think now American but the
the president of a thing called Eco
Health Alliance which was getting money
from NIH and basically Eco Health
Alliance was a pass-through organization
and and you know over the years it was
only about six hundred thousand dollars
so almost all of her funding came from
the Chinese government but there's a
little bit that came from the United
States and so she became their kind of
leading expert and the the point of
contact between the Wuhan Institute of
virology and certainly Peter dazick but
also uh also with with others and that
was why in the earliest days of the
outbreak I didn't mention that um I did
mention that there were these
virologists who had this fake certainty
that they knew it came from nature and
it didn't come from a lab and they
called people like me conspiracy
theorists just for raising that that
possibility but when Peter dazek was
organizing that effort in February of
2020 what he said is we need to Rally
behind our Chinese colleagues and that
the basic idea was
um these International collaborations
are under threat and I think it was
because of that because Peter dazek's
basically his his major contribution as
a scientist was just tacking his name on
work that xujang Lee had largely done
um he was defending a lot certainly for
himself and his organization so you
think equal Health Alliance and Peter is
less about money it's more about kind of
um almost like Legacy because you're so
attached to this work it's just not a
human life so I I think so I mean I've
been criticized for being actually I'm
certainly a big critic of Peter daisig
but I've been criticized by some for
being too lenient I mean it's so easy to
say oh somebody they're like an evil
ogre and just trying to do evil and and
cackling in their in their closet or
whatever but I think for most of us even
those of us who do terrible horrible
things the story that we tell ourselves
and we really believe is that we're
doing the thing that we most believe in
I mean I did my PhD dissertation on the
Khmer Rouge in Cambodia they genuinely
saw themselves as idealists they they
thought well we need to make radical
change to build a better future and what
they described as what they felt was
Radical change was was a monstrous
atrocities by us so the criticism here
of Peter is a uh
is that
uh he was uh part of an organization
that was
kind of um
well funding an effort that was an
unsafe implementation of a biosafety
level for laboratory well a few things
so what he thought he was doing
um was and and what he thought he was
doing is itself highly controversial
because there's one there that in 2011
um there were I know you've talked about
this with other guests but in in 2011 uh
there were the first
published papers on this now Infamous
gain of function uh research and and
basically what they did both in in
different labs and certainly in the
United States in in Wisconsin and in in
the Netherlands was they had a bird flu
virus that was that was very dangerous
but not massively uh transmissive and
they they had a gain a function process
through what's called serial passage
which means basically passing advice
like natural selection but forcing
natural selection by just passing a
virus through a different cell cultures
and then selecting for what it is that
you want so relatively easily they took
this deadly but not massively
transmissive virus and turned it into in
a lab a deadly and transmissive virus
and that showed that this is really
dangerous and so there were at that
point there was a huge controversy there
were some people
like Richard ebright and Mark lipsich at
Harvard who were saying that this is
really dangerous we're in the the idea
that we need to create monsters to study
monsters I think maybe even you have
said that in the past it doesn't make
sense because there's an unlimited
number of monsters and so what are we
going to do create an unlimited number
of monsters and if we do that eventually
the monsters are are going to get out
then there was the Peter daisik camp and
he got a lot of fun funding particularly
from the United States who said well and
and certainly Collins and fauci were
supportive of this and they thought well
there's a safe way to go out into the
world to collect the world's most
dangerous viruses and to poke and prod
them
um to figure out how they might mutate
how they might become more dangerous
with the goal of predicting future
pandemics and that certainly never
happened with the goal of creating
vaccines and treatments and that largely
never happened but that was so Peter
daisak kind of epitomized that that
second second approach
um and as as you've talked about in the
past in 2014 there was a funding
moratorium in the United States and then
in 2017 that was lifted it didn't affect
the funding that went to the to the Eco
Health Alliance
um so when this happened in in the
beginning and again coming back to
Peter's motivations
I don't think here's the best case
scenario for for Peter I'm going to give
you if what I imagine he was thinking
and then I'll tell you what I actually
think
so I think here's what he's thinking
um this is most likely a natural origin
outbreak it it just like SARS won and
again in Peter's hypothetical mind just
like SARS one this is most likely a
natural outbreak we need to have an
International Coalition in order to
fight it if we allow these political
attacks to undermine our Chinese
counterparts and the Trust In This
release relationships that we've built
over many years we're really screwed
because they have the most local
knowledge of these outbreaks and even
though and and this guy gets a lot more
complicated even though there are basic
questions that anybody would ask and
that shojang Li herself did ask about
the origins of this pandemic even though
Peter dazak and I'll mention this
describe this in a moment had secret
information that we didn't have that in
my mind massively increases the
possibility of a lab incident origin
I Peter daisak would like to guide the
public conversation in the direction
where I think it should go and in the in
support of the kind of international
collaboration that I think is necessary
that's a strong positive discussion
because
it's true
that there's a lot of political BS and a
lot of uh
kind of just the bickering and lies as
we've talked about and so it's very
convenient to say you know what let's
just ignore all of these quote unquote
lies and my favorite word misinformation
uh and then because the way out from
this serious pandemic is for us to work
together so let's strengthen our
Partnerships and everything else is just
like noise yeah so let's and so then now
I want to do my personal indictment of
Peter dazek because that that's my view
but I wanted to fairly because I think
that that you know we all tell ourselves
stories and and and I and and also when
you're a science Communicator
um you can't in your public
Communications give every doubt that you
have or every Nuance you kind of have to
summarize things and so I think that he
was again in this this benign
interpretation trying to summarize in
the way that he thought the the
conversations should go here's my
indictment of Peter daisak and I I I
it's I feel like uh Brutus here but I I
um I've not come here to praise um uh
Peter daisak because
um while Peter dazek was doing all of
this and making all of these statements
about well we pretty much know it's a
natural origin and then there was this
February 2020 Lancet letter where it
turns out and we only knew this later
that he was highly manipulative so he
was recruiting all of these people he
drafted the the infamous letter calling
people like me uh conspiracy theorists
he then wrote to people like Ralph
Barrick and linfa Wang who are also very
high profile virologists saying well
let's not put our names on it so it
doesn't look like we're doing it even
though they were doing it he didn't
disclose a lot of information that they
had it was a strategic move so just uh
in case people are not familiar Feb year
2020 Lance a letter
was
tldr is a lab leak hypothesis is a
conspiracy theory essentially yes so
like with the authority of science not
saying like it's highly likely saying
it's obvious duh it's uh it's natural
origin everybody else is just uh is
everything else is just misinformation
and look there's a bunch of really smart
people that sign this therefore it's
true yeah not only that so there were
um the people whose 27 people signed
that letter and then after president
Trump cut funding uh to Eco Health
Alliance then he organized 77 Nobel
laureates to to have a public letter
criticizing that but what Peter knew
then that we didn't fully know is that
in March of 2018 Eco Health Alliance in
partnership with the Wuhan Institute of
virology and others had applied for a 14
million dollar Grant um too DARPA which
is kind of like the the VC side of the
Venture Capital side of the of the
defense department they're kind of where
they do kind of Big Ideas uh by the way
as a tiny tangent I've gotten a lot of
funding from DARPA they fund a lot of
excellent robotics research and darp is
incredible and among the things that
they applied for is that we meaning
Wuhan Institute of Urology is going to
go and it's going to collect the most
dangerous bat coronaviruses in southern
China and then we as this as this group
are going to genetically engineer these
viruses to insert a furin cleavage site
so I think when when everyone's now seen
the image of the SARS cov2 virus it has
these little Spike proteins these little
things that that stick out which is why
they call it a coronavirus within that
Spike protein are these if you're on
cleavage sites which basically help with
the virus getting access into our
cells and they're going to genetically
engineer these furion cleavage sites
into these bat coronaviruses the
cervical viruses and then and so then a
year and a half later what do we see we
see a bat Coronavirus
with if you're in cleavage site unlike
anything that we've ever seen before in
that category of SARS like coronaviruses
that well yes I mean it the the DARPA
very correctly didn't support that
application well that's actually let's
like pause on that so for a lot of
people that's like the Smoking Gun yeah
okay let's talk about this 2018
proposal to DARPA so I guess who's
drafted the proposal is it yeah ego
Health but the proposal is to do so Eco
health is technically
uh a U.S funded organization primarily
and then the idea was to do work at
Wuhan Institute of virology with yeah so
it was with equal Health yes so Eco
Health basically that um the one
Institute of biology was going to go and
they were going to collect these viruses
and store them at we wanted to do but
they're also going to do the actual test
recording it's a really important Point
according to their proposal the actual
work was going to be done at the lab of
Ralph Barrick at the University of North
Carolina who's probably the world's
leading expert on uh Corona
coronaviruses and so we know that DARPA
didn't fund that work
um we know I think quite well that Ralph
Barrack's lab in part because it was not
funded by by DARPA they didn't do that
specific work what we don't know is well
what work was done at the Wuhan
Institute of virology because wiv was
part of this proposal they had access to
all of the plans they had done they had
their own capacity and they had already
done a lot of work in genetically engine
genetically altering this exact category
of viruses they had created a chimeric
mixed viruses they had done they had
mastered pretty much all of the steps in
order to achieve this thing that they
applied for funding with ecohealth to do
and so the question is did the Wuhan
Institute of virology go through with
that research anyway and in my mind
there's that's a very very real
possibility it would certainly explain
why they're giving no information and
as you know I've been a member of the
World Health Organization expert
advisory committee on human genome
editing which Dr Tedros created in the
aftermath of the announcement of the
world's first crispr babies and and it
was just basically the exact same story
so ho John Quay Chinese scientist it was
not a first-tier scientist but a
perfectly adequate second-tier scientist
came to the United States learned all of
these capacities went back to China and
said well there's a much more permissive
environment I'm gonna you know be a
world leader I'm going to establish both
myself and China so in every scientific
field we're seeing this this same thing
where you kind of learn a model and then
you do it in China so is it possible
that the Wuhan Institute of virology
with this exact game plan was doing it
anyway do we possible we have no clue
what work was being done at the Wuhan
Institute of virology it seems extremely
likely that at the Wuhan Institute of
virology and this is certainly the U.S
government position there was the work
that was being done in Dr shu's lab but
that wasn't the whole wiv we know at
least a coin in the United States
government that there was the Chinese
military the pla was doing work there
were they doing this kind of work not to
create a bio weapon but in order to
understand these viruses maybe to
develop vaccines and treatments it seems
like a very very logical possibility and
then so we know that the the one instead
of virology had all of the skills we
know that they were part of this
proposal and then you have Peter dazak
who knows all of this that at that time
in February of 2020 we didn't know but
then he comes swinging out of the gate
saying anybody who's raising this
possibility of a of a lab incident
origin is a conspiracy theorist I mean
it really makes him look in my mind very
very bad and yeah not to at least be
somewhat open-minded on this because he
knows all the details he knows that it's
not zero percent I mean there's no way
in his mind could you even argue that so
it's potential because of the bias
because of your focus I mean it could be
the
Anthony fauci masks thing whereas he
knows there's some significant
probability that this is happening but
in order to
preserve good relations with our Chinese
colleagues we want to make sure we tell
a certain kind of narrative so it's not
really lying it's doing the best
possible action at this time to help the
world not that this already happened
yeah but that's how like yeah I I think
it's quite likely that that was the
story that he was telling himself
but it's that that lack of transparency
in my mind is fraudulent
um that the word that we were struggling
to understand something that we didn't
understand and that I just think that
people who possess that kind of
information especially when
um the existence like his the entire
career of Peter daisak is based on U.S
taxpayers there's a debt that comes with
that and that debt is honesty and
transparency and for all of us and our
you talked about your girlfriend
checking your phone for all of us being
honest and and transparent in the most
difficult times is really difficult if
it were easy everybody would do it and
that's I just feel that that uh Peter
was the opposite of transparent and then
went on the offensive and then
um uh had the gall of joining I know we
can talk about this this
um highly compromised joint study
process with the the international
experts and their Chinese government
counterparts and used that as a way of
furthering this
um in my mind fraudulent narrative
um that it almost certainly came from
natural Origins and um and the lab
origin was extremely unlikely just to
stick briefly on the proposal to wrap
that up because I do think
in a in a kind of John Stewart way if
you heard that uh a bit he yeah sort of
kind of like common sense
way the 2018 proposal to DARPA from
equal Health Alliance and wuhanistan
virology
just seems like a bit of a Smoking Gun
to me like that
um so there's this excellent book that
people should read uh called viral the
search for the origin of covid-19 Matt
Ridley and Alina Chan I think Alina is
in MIT should probably look at the broad
yeah at Broad Institute yeah yeah
so she I heard her in an interview
give this analogy of unicorns yeah and
uh where
basically somebody writes a proposal to
add horns to Horses The Proposal is
rejected
and then a couple of years later a year
later a unicorn shows up
and then I was like yeah I is not your
lord yeah it's like it's possible it's
natural origin like we haven't detected
a unicorn yet and this is the first time
we've detected a unicorn or it could be
this massive organization that was
planning is fully equipped has like a
history of being able to do this stuff
as the world experts to do it has the
funding has the motivation to add horns
to horse