The United States Congress made an unusual decision in early April. He called the directors of Nature, Science and The Lancet, three scientific journals, to testify before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, chaired by Congressman Brad Wenstrup, a Republican, podiatrist and reserve Navy officer. The session had an eloquent title: “Academic malpractice; the relationship between scientific journals, the Government and peer review.” Peer review means that manuscripts are analyzed by other researchers before publication, and is the general procedure in these professional publications. Relating scientific journals to the Government is a discovery, that must be recognized. It had never occurred to anyone.
The directors of Nature and The Lancet, two British magazines, politely declined Washington’s invitation. The one of Science, being an American, felt more motivated to appear, although he insisted on doing so voluntarily, and not urged by the legislature. His name is Holden Thorp, and he is a well-known character in the scientific world. In the last issue of Science write an editorial titled Mister Thorp goes to Washington (“Mr. Thorp Goes to Washington”), where he completely guts the content of the control session. It is to be thankful.
The reason behind all this is the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the covid pandemic, escaped from a Chinese laboratory. It cannot be said that it does not make sense, because in the Chinese city of Wuhan, not far from the food market where SARS-CoV-2 was first detected, there is indeed a laboratory dedicated to coronavirus research, the family to which the pandemic agent belongs, and works on bat coronaviruses, among other sources. Worse still, Beijing has persistently refused to provide data from that laboratory to scientists, despite two WHO missions to Wuhan aimed at obtaining that information. It is enough to raise suspicions, despite the fact that most researchers consider it more likely that the virus jumped to humans from bats through an unknown intermediary animal.
The congressional subcommittee was not actually against the editors of technical journals, but against two very important scientific pieces: the two directors of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) during the pandemic, Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci. The latter, in particular, distinguished himself by his courageous opposition to then-President Donald Trump, whose “alternative facts”—lies, in the jargon—about vaccines, masks, ingesting bleach, and I don’t know how many other quips did everything. possible by worsening an already horrible situation. Fauci is one of the heads that Steve Bannon, Trump’s top strategist, wanted to see nailed to a pike at the entrance to the White House. I guess he would say it as a joke.
Republicans on the subcommittee asked Thorp if Collins and Fauci had urged major scientific journals to publish articles suppressing the lab leak hypothesis. Thorp defended himself without difficulty, as he was able to display several items in Science where leading scientists in their field demanded exhaustive research into this possibility. If this has not been done, it is only because the Chinese Government has closed the Wuhan laboratory, its data and its viruses. Without data there is no way to confirm or refute a hypothesis. And we’ve been like this for five years. There is no conspiracy, but opacity.
A congressman asked Thorp why science changes when there is new data. I don’t know how the director would do Science so as not to burst out laughing.
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