Toxic Politics: Did American Scientists Want Trump Gone So Badly They Denied COVID-19 Reality?
https://www.science20.com/content/toxic_politics_did_american_scientists_want_trump_gone_so_badly_they_denied_covid19_reality
In March of 2020 The Lancet published an article claiming that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus variation that erupted in Wuhan in 2019 and set off the COVID-19 pandemic, could not have come from the world's largest coronavirus lab. In Wuhan. Where scientists had been working on "gain of function" experiments to create stronger coronaviruses.
Suggesting it might have come from one of only three labs in the world doing this research, near the Wuhan market, was the same as being a global warming denier, they said, which was codespeak for 'only Republicans who are racist will ask that question.'
It created an "icy chill" in the few corners of science journalism that aren't solidly partisan. No one in science journalism wants to be called racist or, worse, a conservative.
I wondered then about their motivation. While Russia had been caught funding environmental groups who were at war with American agricultural and energy science - Russia's two largest exports - China had instead been exposed buying researchers in America, giving them contracts for 10X their annual salaries, in return for grooming young American scholars to help China. A researcher in Texas got a whopping $14 million check from the Chinese government. Yet the Obama administration had given instructions to not give China any special scrutiny, only Russia.
I don't care much what people call me when the truth is on my side. The most prominent whistleblower in Wuhan had mysteriously died after being arrested by the Chinese Communist Party. I noted that was very odd. If that meant I risked transforming into a Republican, okay.
https://www.science20.com/content/toxic_politics_did_american_scientists_want_trump_gone_so_badly_they_denied_covid19_reality
In March of 2020 The Lancet published an article claiming that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus variation that erupted in Wuhan in 2019 and set off the COVID-19 pandemic, could not have come from the world's largest coronavirus lab. In Wuhan. Where scientists had been working on "gain of function" experiments to create stronger coronaviruses.
Suggesting it might have come from one of only three labs in the world doing this research, near the Wuhan market, was the same as being a global warming denier, they said, which was codespeak for 'only Republicans who are racist will ask that question.'
It created an "icy chill" in the few corners of science journalism that aren't solidly partisan. No one in science journalism wants to be called racist or, worse, a conservative.
I wondered then about their motivation. While Russia had been caught funding environmental groups who were at war with American agricultural and energy science - Russia's two largest exports - China had instead been exposed buying researchers in America, giving them contracts for 10X their annual salaries, in return for grooming young American scholars to help China. A researcher in Texas got a whopping $14 million check from the Chinese government. Yet the Obama administration had given instructions to not give China any special scrutiny, only Russia.
I don't care much what people call me when the truth is on my side. The most prominent whistleblower in Wuhan had mysteriously died after being arrested by the Chinese Communist Party. I noted that was very odd. If that meant I risked transforming into a Republican, okay.
