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Comment by jpadkins | Hacker News Reader

Good time to remind people that right next to the town of Lyme CT is Plum Island Animal Disease Center, who happened to be researching tick based disease transmission when Lyme disease was first discovered (named after the town that had the first case). Crazy coincidence.

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019/07/did-us-invent-lym...

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Evidence of bacterium that causes Lyme disease was also found in the 5000+ year old "Iceman" mummy found in the alps. People have described the disease in the 1700s, 1800s and in the 1900s prior to the outbreak in Lyme. Ticks preserved alongside their animal hosts in 1800s biologic samples also are found to have it. Genetic sequencing of different bacteria samples suggests a much older evolutionary tree than a few decades existence.

Bioweapon researchers use existing bacteria and virus to enhance them for weapon usage (I.e. coronavius gain of function research). So the fact that the bacterium previously existed in nature does not disprove that a version engineered to be spread via ticks was released.

Not really. Isn't the best place to open a center that "researches tick based disease transmission" somewhere that's close proximity to a hot-spot for ticks that transmit diseases?

Hmm reminds me of the lab in Wuhan’s that’s doing weapons level bio research, and yet the virus came from a wet market

Yes, very similar situation. Opening a Coronavirus research lab next to an area historically active for natural virus harbors and transmission makes perfect sense. However, that situation also empowered the uninformed to come out of the woodwork and repeat the nonsense they heard from people like Bret Weinstein, using the correlation with a perfectly reasonable explanation as some kind of "gotcha".

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