Public evidence record
Published podcast speaker
Claim ledger
8 transcript-backed records
01 / evaluation
“” I think that created a big backlash among not just the scientists, but the public, because it really did seem like deflecting the blame in many ways.”
02 / evaluation
“What I realized was they were just either silent, or parts of them had convinced themselves of really illogical things, like a mask might be harmful.”
03 / evaluation
“I think the fundamental mistake we’re making is not treating this like a biosafety crisis because we had one pandemic in 1977 that was indeed triggered because of a vaccine trial gone wrong.”
04 / evaluation
“Why didn’t the universities create their own advisory body, even if our own authorities weren’t functioning very well, partly because of Trump’s not great — I mean really negative influence.”
05 / evaluation
“” I think that really got a lot of scientists who had been just waiting and thinking this is not that big of a deal, in terms of the actual pandemic to worry about, to think, “You know what, if we do this and let this be what’s going to stand for science, it’s just going to actually damage science because letting that kind of report appear as the voice of science, and if we do find something out, or — as we do at the moment — we keep finding cover-up from the Chinese side, which is not at all reflected in what’s going on in that report, it makes science itself look bad.”
06 / evaluation
“Right now, they’re still functioning as EUA [emergency use authorization]. That is both causing people to think it’s experimental because it’s still emergency, and it is holding back some of the necessary things, like mandates, because which employer is supposed to say, “It’s an emergency thing, and it’s not fully approved, but I’m forcing you to do it”?”
07 / evaluation
“I think that’s something we don’t do enough of in the academy because we’re so siloed.”
08 / evaluation
“” Or it could have questioned the few things in the report. But the final report — written after the scientists had left the country, too — in my view was disgraceful that it was allowed to go out like that, instead of saying, “You know what, we can’t really do a great investigation.”