Ahead of today's hearing in Congress: my opinion piece with the @nytimes on why Covid-19 was likely caused by a lab accident. My hope since 2020 has been for leaders, especially scientists, to lead the charge in investigating a plausible lab #OriginOfCovid - as opposed to shutting it down as a conspiracy theory or standing by while conflicted parties do so. That hope has been revived repeatedly in the past 4 years by courageous scientists, journalists and individuals who took on considerable risks to do the right thing and push for a fair investigation. In sharing this analysis of the available evidence with potentially millions of NYT readers, my aim is to undo some of the politicization of this issue - which has stood in the way of a thorough and bipartisan investigation of this global catastrophe, resulted in mis-reporting on origins for 4 years, as well as hindered the implementation of effective measures to prevent lab-based outbreaks. A wholehearted investigation by US gov has the power to unearth more compelling evidence while spurring whistleblowers to find their courage and opportunity. And, regardless of whether the pandemic came from nature or a lab, the world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics. nytimes.com/interactive/2024…

The Proximal Origin authors have lost the moral high ground. In their private discussions of a lab #OriginOfCovid they mocked virus hunters for not being able to predict outbreaks of their own making and steered journalists away from asking hard questions about a lab leak.

Impressive piece by @JamesCTobias after many months of chasing the NIH for emails among scientific leaders who advised the writing of Proximal Origin, were not acknowledged in the letter, and later cited it to the press to refute a lab #OriginOfCovid theintercept.com/2023/01/19/…