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Comment by frankharv | Hacker News Reader

They subbed it out to these guys because it was illegal to do Gain of Function research:

https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2024/06/ecohealth-alliance...

The demonization of the Ecohealth Alliance is one of the more depressing aspects of the response to the pandemic.

EHA has been warning for decades that a coronavirus pandemic is likely, and that governments should be taking steps to prepare for it and to make it less likely. Then, they're proved right, but instead of society thanking them, they're subject to a politically motivated witch hunt, with the aim of distracting from the US government's disastrous pandemic response.

Fun fact: Ecohealth terminated Daszak's job as CEO in the first week of this year

https://x.com/thackerpd/status/1880465349373751438?t=oBbkfRZ...

There's nothing fun about that. They've been pressured into taking this step.

It's begging the question to claim they were proven right. Sure, they were proven right in some respect, but if the research itself caused it (and let's be real, it did) then they were proven right in a manner that doesn't really speak well of their record. And yes, they were influential in arguing for continued grant money to study coronaviruses. They were also influential in arguing against the Obama administrations restrictions on gain of function research and seem to have sought ways around the restrictions (we know from comments on the DEFUSE paper). They didn't publicly disclose the DEFUSE paper, a whistleblower in the DoD had to leak it. It is relevant because it suggested adding a FCS to natural coronaviruses to make it more virulent to humans. It seems like as soon as a virus with FCS appeared on the scene, their first reaction should have been "oh no, did someone do that research we proposed somewhere? We have to tell someone!" -- but, alas, no. Let's keep crying that they're being demonized, though.

The research didn't cause it.

The scientific evidence that the outbreak began at the market is overwhelming at this point, and there's never been a shred of evidence for the lab leak.

If you think otherwise, then you have not been following the scientific publications on the subject for the last 5 years.

So yes, EHA has been proven right, and you're hounding the very people who dedicated themselves to warning the world about the threat of a pandemic.

This is a fascinating exhibit. To effectively summarize favorite take on Covid, “the peasants will go to their graves before they admit they were fools”.

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