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This week, the Wall Street Journal released an alarming report on how the Biden administration may have suppressed dissenting views supporting the lab theory on the origin of the COVID-19 virus. Not only were the FBI and its top experts excluded from a critical briefing of President Biden, but government scientists were reportedly warned that they were “off the reservation” in supporting the lab theory.

The problem was that FBI researchers had concluded that the lab theory was the most credible explanation. But their lead researcher, Dr. Jason Bannan, was kept out of the key meeting, and their opposing research was discounted or ignored.

They were not alone. The Journal reported that Defense Department experts John Hardham, Robert Cutlip and Jean-Paul Chretien conducted a genomic analysis that found evidence of human manipulation of the virus. It also concluded that it was done using a specific technique developed by the Chinese at the Wuhan lab. They suggested that the Chinese appeared to have altered the “spike protein” that enables the virus to enter the human body in a “gain of function” operation.

They were reportedly told to stop sharing their work and warned that they had to effectively get with the team. Later, the three wrote an unclassified May 2020 paper that was prevented from being shown outside the medical intelligence center.

At the same time, letters and articles that dismissed the lab theory were organized for public consumption. The government worked with social media companies to censor those with opposing views.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    5·
    4 days ago

    They were reportedly told to stop sharing their work and warned that they had to effectively get with the team. Later, the three wrote an unclassified May 2020 paper that was prevented from being shown outside the medical intelligence center.

    This is under the orange bad’s term. Why is it being mentioned in the middle of talking about suppression by the Biden admin? The timeline in this article is jumbled.

    Some experts questioned the efficacy of surgical masks, the scientific support for the six-foot rule and the necessity of shutting down schools. The government has now admitted that many of these objections were valid and that it did not have hard science to support some of the policies. While other allies in the West did not shut down their schools, we never had any substantive debate due to the efforts of this alliance of academic, media and government figures.

    I avoided covid for three and a half years by taking all of these things very seriously during the period before the vax. Even after, each time I had to fly due to illness of a family member, I wore two masks in the airport and on planes. I finally got it immediately after the first mass-event (a concert) where I didn’t wear a mask. To me, that shows the efficacy of masking and distancing.

    Did we need to shut down schools? I don’t know. But I have zero doubt that masks and distancing were very good calls. Challenging them weakens the credibility of this article in my mind. Which sucks because I think coordinated suppression of information is bad. I hate that this article is so poorly conceived because I don’t know what to take from it.