Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory/Archive 8

US Government involvement
In an April 2020 interview with Politico, former acting CIA director Michael Morell said that if the virus had leaked from a Wuhan lab, then the U.S. would shoulder some of the blame since it funded research at that lab through government grants from 2014-2019.

In more recent news stories, the NIH is alleged to have funded gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, through EcoHealth Alliance, which they previously denied. There have been a number of RS reporting on this ever since The Intercept broke the story on Sep 7, and Vanity Fair said yesterday that conflicts of interest resulting from U.S. government funding has hampered America’s investigation into COVID-19’s origins. There are a number of threads woven into the story, including the EHA grant report allegedly submitted two years late to NIH, also reported by The Intercept, which EHA has denied (see VA addendum).

What do we think about adding a section on possible US Government involvement in this saga? LondonIP (talk) 22:41, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * New section sounds good, this seems to be a growing subject. Might be a good place to also mention the February 1, 2020 Teleconference. 2600:1700:8660:E180:DCE6:34BB:7444:AB26 (talk) 22:52, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I would say we should not use popular press sources to discuss possible GoF research, when they have so often gotten it wrong. We should use academic sources. (or at least news sources with a good record about this stuff) — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 14:57, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I support this. I don't think academic sources will be exclusively adequate given the geopolitical elements of this issue. SmolBrane (talk) 01:31, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * And why would they not be? Academic sources usually have the advantage of being reviewed by scholars qualified in the discipline, and who are not the same as the authors of the paper, and who don't have any economic reason to rush a piece to publication (unlike newspapers editors). Additionally, this is broadly in line with WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:BESTSOURCES (and the usual guidelines about dealing with WP:FRINGE, which clearly favour scholarly sources as opposed to pieces written by non-experts like journalists). We can use the popular press to report the political aspect of the controversy, sure, but we shouldn't be making any scientific claims through it. In addition, the scholarly consensus (as opposed to whatever it is the news are rambling about) is that COVID came from nature, and was not engineered in a lab. We can of course mention that, despite this, there has been controversy about lab safety (something which is mentioned in sources, including by competent scientists), although we should of course remain aware of WP:BIAS and WP:UNDUE and not spend too much time describing whatever stuff is of importance only in the US (especially if it is not making headlines anywhere else). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:44, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Reliable journalistic sources are likely to have significance for issues of US government funding. SmolBrane (talk) 05:15, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * This would be due if we had a section on "Speculation on the aftermath of the investigations" which we don't have because there is not enough material in RS, at least not yet. So, I oppose any mention of blame or potential blame until the investigations produce confirmed results that directly imply responsabilities. Forich (talk) 04:41, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Personally disagree since the grants didn't fund this work, it funded very specific work that included sampling and cataloguing. If I give you money for a lemonade stand, and you open up an orange julius with it instead, I don't shoulder the blame. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 17:57, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * To continue with this helpful analogy... Let's say Forich uses your grant money to open up a big fruit-beverage stand, and the local population thereupon comes down sick with unfamiliar strains of E. coli attributable to substandard hygiene practices that you knew about. Cf. IAMAT, &quot;Colombia: Food & Water Safety&quot;. What does common sense tell us about "implied responsibilities" here? –Dervorguilla (talk) 04:45, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I would support adding a new section on this. Pakbelang (talk) 10:58, 27 November 2021 (UTC)