Forging facts by misquoting
"On reading," by Simon Wain-Hobson, is a weekly discussion of scientific papers and news articles around gain of function research in virology.
Since January 2024, Dr. Wain-Hobson has written weekly essays for Biosafety Now discussing risky research in virology. You can read his entire series here.
On reading Why are so many scientific articles wrong about the disease I study? By Georgios Pappas, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 4, 2026
and
The Origin of COVID-19 and why it matters by David Morens and nine others, American Journal of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. 2020; 103:955-959
Dr. Pappas is a physician from Greece, whose research focuses on zoonoses. Brucellosis is a bacterial disease that causes fever, arthritis, and other symptoms. You can get it through contact with animals, drinking raw or unpasteurized dairy products, or eating undercooked meat. Because it can transmit through the air, it has been studied as a biological warfare agent in the past. Brucellosis is notoriously difficult to treat and eradicate. It’s the most common zoonotic bacterial infection in the world, with a 2023 estimate putting annual global incidence at 2.1 million cases. My country, Greece, has the highest caseload in the European Union. A good reason for not drinking raw milk.
He knows his scientific literature so well he can spot trends, notably a false claim that brucellosis is actually circulating in 170 countries. He investigated how this claim got into the literature. It took off in 2020 presumably amplified by AI programs that are increasingly used to help scientists write papers, notably from China.
He found that the 170 figure got used more often than not without being referenced.
Is the overflow of shoddy publications, many now likely written with a heavy dose of AI, innocent? Even if journals retract such articles, do AI chatbots cease to reference them? A recent study showed that ChatGPT more often than not persisted in supporting information with retracted articles or studies with other concerns. In fact, ChatGPT rated many retracted studies as being “world leading, internationally excellent, or close.”
This fascinating article, well worth reading by any scientist, ends with a blunt observation: It is up to scientists and academia to guard the truth: Everything written in an article, every scientific interaction with the public, every peer-review we perform, every editorial we publish has to be thorough and based on facts. Emphasis added.
Which bring us to virology.
The paper under the lens here hails from September 2020 and is entitled The Origin of COVID-19 and Why It Matters. It’s billed as a Perspective Piece indicating that it contains no new data, just considered thoughts. The author line up is excellent among whom are Peter Doherty, Nobel Prize for Medicine 1996 whose flu immunology papers On reading always enjoyed; Beatrice Hahn who knows the HIV origins story backwards; Jeffrey Taubenberger, notable flu researcher who went on to become acting NIAID Director and a few more. There is, however, Charles Calisher of the highly contested COVID lab leak denial paper published in The Lancet.
We’re treated to an erudite discussion of coronaviruses and where and when they have spilled over to humans (think SARS1 and MERS) and the threats they represent. All good stuff but peripheral. What about the origins of the COVID-19 virus?
In the section ‘Was COVID-19 predicted?’ we read SARS-CoV-2 emerged essentially as predicted: a natural event associated with either direct transmission of a bat coronavirus to humans or indirect transmission to humans via an intermediate host such as a Malaysian pangolin (Manis javanica) or another, yet-to-be-identified mammal.28-31.
It should be clarified that theories about a hypothetical manmade origin of SARS-CoV-2 have been thoroughly discredited by multiple coronavirus experts.21,28,29 Emphasis added.
The numbers at the ends of the sentences refer to previously published papers which is required for scientific papers, which in this context are called references. The problem is that reference 28 is the notorious ‘Proximal origin’ paper which should have been retracted years ago. Gilles Demaneuf and USRTK have highlighted the weakness in the paper while an essay, Distal truths, showed that it didn’t have any content that could help the reader form an opinion either way.
References 21 says no more than we found that SARS-CoV-2 is likely derived from a clade of viruses originating in horseshoe bats. Everyone agrees that once upon a time the virus crossed over from bats. When, how, perhaps via another mammal are the questions needing answers, yet there is nothing.
Reference 29 is another opinion piece from Eddie Holmes in the top journal Cell. Off the bat we learn that Given that SARS-CoV-2 undoubtedly has a zoonotic origin… Of course, once upon a time; like in reference 21. In addition, although sequence similarity values of 96%–97% make it sound like the available bat viruses are very closely related to SARSCoV-2, in reality this likely represents more than 20 years of sequence evolution (although the underlying molecular clock may tick at an uncertain rate if there was strong adaptive evolution of the virus in humans). It is therefore almost a certainty that more sampling will identify additional bat viruses that are even closer relatives of SARS-CoV-2. Couldn’t agree more. Basically, they didn’t know much then and things are no better today.
Reference 30? It dates from February 2020 so no data were around to resolve the origins question. 2019-nCoV is most closely related to other betacoronaviruses of bat origin, indicating that these animals are the likely reservoir hosts for this emerging viral pathogen. They can’t do be better than likely. Once upon a time for sure; hardly the high burden of scientific proof.
Finally reference 31. While the SARS- and MERS-originating strains have been found in civets and dromedary camels, respectively, so far, efforts to identify a similarly close link in the original pathway of SARSCoV-2 into humans have failed. So there is nothing definitive here too on COVID origins.
These references have not thoroughly discredited the lab-leak hypothesis. If you indulge in creative referencing, unsuspecting outsiders and journalists end up believing that references 21 etc. have done a demolition job.
Repeat enough times and the hypothesis becomes fact. Utter nonsense, of course. Spin doctoring by doctors.
Back to Morens & Co.
Engineering such a virus would have required 1) published or otherwise available scientific knowledge that did not exist until after COVID-19 recognition; 2) a failure to follow obvious engineering pathways, resulting in an imperfectly constructed virus; and 3) an ability to genetically engineer a new virus without leaving fingerprints of the engineering.
Let’s take these one by one.
1) What if a novel coronavirus genome sequenced at the WIV was not available to others for they were putting together a scientific manuscript and didn’t want the details to be known before submitting it to a scientific journal? Building up a good manuscript can take 2-3 years, sometimes more. Scientists the world over know this backwards. Then what? The authors admit this possiblity for later on they write Because we have only just begun to sample, sequence, and study bat/mammalian coronaviruses, we can be certain that what we now know is but the tip of a very large iceberg.
2) What does Engineering such a virus would have required… a failure to follow obvious engineering pathways, resulting in an imperfectly constructed virus mean? If you attempted to engineer a virus, you’d obviously follow obvious engineering principles. You engineer to succeed, not fail.
3) Ralph Baric, collaborator of WIV scientists, has developed so-called ‘seamless’ coronavirus cloning methods. Clever stuff.
China’s laboratory safety practices, policies, training, and engineering are equivalent to those of the United States and other developed countries, making viral “escape” extremely unlikely… Nope, everyone knows there were biosafety issues at the WIV.
SARS-CoV-2 shares genetic properties with many other sarbecoviruses, lies fully within their genetic cluster, and is thus a virus that emerged naturally. The first two statements are correct. However, the conclusion doesn’t follow on from them. Period. Take the Fouchier and Kawaoka H5N1 bird flu viruses. How many mutations were needed to permit ferret-to-ferret transmission? A handful. Such a small number wouldn’t shift them out of their genetic cluster. Accordingly, these novel human viruses would share genetic properties with many other related viruses and lie fully within their genetic cluster.
This is all the more surprising for we read a little further down that We now know that the viruses causing SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 are all members of enormous groups of bat coronaviruses distributed globally, and that many of these viruses are functionally preadapted to human emergence. We’ve had a look at preadaptation recently (Natural COVID crowd miss target). This preadaptation can be thought of as “accidental” because it must have occurred in nature in the absence of human infection… Wordsmithing. In the mind is of the authors.
To resume. They cite other papers to debunk the lab leak hypothesis which do nothing of the sort. The few arguments, 1 thru 3, do not hold up. Nothing new is provided in this manuscript, yet it is one of many allowed into print to discredit the lab leak hypothesis, this time with big names from outside the coronavirus field.
If this paper, Proximal origin and more contained overwhelming arguments, then how come that in 2026, nearly 6 years after this paper was published, more papers emerge that try to debunk the lab leak, or add another nail in it’s supposed coffin? (Natural COVID crowd miss target).
It ends with many feelgood sentences, not to mention yet another appeal for more funding as per Unless we reset the equation; invest more in critical and creative laboratory, field, and behavioral research; and start finding ways to prevent these emergences, we will soon see additional coronavirus pandemics, as well as global spread of other types of infectious agents not yet imagined, caused by some of the millions of viruses in the natural world, many of which we have not yet had the time and funding to identify and study.
COVID-19 was the first coronavirus pandemic in more than a century, outbeaten regularly by flu. Yet they are courageous to predict that we will soon see additional coronavirus pandemics. Where’s the data beyond some sunny day? Plus, other types of infectious agents not yet imagined so as not to be outdone by the WHO and its Disease X. Sentences without meaning.
One further point, note the expedited review: Received July 3, 2020. Accepted for publication July 13, 2020. Published online July 22, 2020. No doubt this has something to do with the late Joel Breman, then President of the American Society of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, being an author. AKA an insider job.
Let’s step back a little in time. Back to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World published in 1932; notably the line Sixty-two thousand four hundred repetitions make one truth. In contemporary virology, that number is down to low single digits.
It is frightening that some academic scientists have crossed the Rubicon into a world where making novel human viruses is normal, where writings reflect traits of authoritarianism, the farthest point from scientific method. Our modus vivendi is experimentation, thinking and discussion, iterated until things hold up, until there is a consensus, until there are no nagging details remaining.
Yet nobody speaks up.
Conclusions
• Cite the same thing a few times from high and many will fall for it, even top scientists. Dangerous.
• Not thorough. Not guarding the truth.
• Orwellian science on display (Two plus two).
Aside 1
Reference 29, Genomic Perspective on the Origin and Emergence of SARS-CoV-2, published in the top journal Cell, is by Eddie Holmes of Proximal origin infamy. Here, SARS2 is clearly a zoonosis while there is no mention of a lab leak. The publication date is April 16 while that of infamous paper is March 17. Holmes got much wrong in yet another paper in Nature Microbiology dated February 18, 2020 (What we should worry about). A hat-trick of virological commentaries in just two months. Why? Topicality. Every journal wanted their piece, even though there was nothing new. Anything was better than nothing (Cowards die many times).
Aside 2
Web browsing suggests that Orwell wrote on the idea that the truth would be censored, while Huxley described a world where the people would have the truth drowned out by trivialities. The 21st century reality is the double whammy.
Kristian Anderson is still being sought for quotes today by the traditional scicomm press.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/americas-compact-between-science-and-politics-is-broken/
1000+ comments on it among the technorati https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48568058 yet none (save mine) critically point out the article's epistemic self-immolation by centering Anderson in a plaintive article about the state of science today.
Great work Simon.
What do you think of Quay’s new book?
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tommy-cleary-b25b5796_the-code-as-witness-covid-origins-scientific-activity-7472599714794958848-60dA?utm_medium=ios_app&rcm=ACoAABR1ro0B0loTmAqQEJwLUSBzGcw5xe0O-5w&utm_source=social_share_send&utm_campaign=copy_link