Talk:Shi Zhengli/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Description of gain-of-function experiments

The description of gain-of-function experiments should not be alarmist or POV. There is a long-standing debate over the risks/benefits of gain-of-function research, and "leading virologists" do not lie all on one side or the other. Any discussion of this debate in the article should be directly relevant to Shi Zhengli (i.e., she should be explicitly mentioned in the sources), or else it veers off into WP:SYNTH territory. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:06, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Agree with this, and nice tidy up job. Britishfinance (talk) 15:33, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Nature ran an article specifically about Shi Zhengli's experiments. It is absolutely relevant to her work. The fact is, these experiments WERE very alarming to a lot of people, and definitely the article in Nature needs to be included due to relevance and direct link to her work. If you read the original HIV/SARS chimera paper, it goes a little something like this: "Problem statement: SARS coronavirus cannot infect hACE2 cells. Solution: We combined SARS coronavirus with HIV to make it infect hACE2 cells" no mention of application or cure. This was some seriously controversial work. Yes, my personal opinion is that this was a "natural" virus that leaked from her group and that side needs accurate representation instead of continued dismissal into "tin foil hat" territory, because it is a serious question that needs to be answered about the origins of this virus. At the very least, people need to be aware of the facts of her work since so much information is being spinned/supressed by the CCP. The fact is, she did some very risky things and got a lot of backlash from within the scientific community and the politicians in the US funding her work. LIXIAO9987 (talk) 04:39, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Concerns over gain-of-function experiments are already mentioned, in the context of the NIH funding moratorium from 2014-2017. I think that level of discussion is sufficient, given how short this article is. We have essentially one sentence for each of Shi Zhengli's major results. Putting in a second sentence about the gain-of-function debate is undue. Discussion of the CCP, the virus supposedly leaking from her group, etc. belongs on an internet discussion forum, not on this Wikipedia page, which is guided by WP:MEDRS. -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:50, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The fact that it's being underemphasized is more concerning. She may be a controversial person at this time, but that doesn't make criticisms of her work in the past disappear. This page was practically a cheerleading article for this researcher for the past few months--that doesn't reflect reality. She was and is a controversial scientist. This isn't a "general debate" about GoF: the Nature article is specifically talking about Shi's experiments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LIXIAO9987 (talk • contribs) 19:30, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@LIXIAO9987: Describing Shi Zhengli's scientific work is not "cheerleading" her. She is not controversial in the scientific community. She has been the target of various conspiracy theorists since the CoVID-19 outbreak, ironically because of the fact that she is one of the leading researchers on SARS-like coronaviruses. But those conspiracy theorists are not WP:MEDRS. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:26, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: Current conspiracies and things surrounding COVID are completely irrelevant to the information within the Nature article. It's referencing her work, is a high quality source, and no connection is made to the COVID section of the articleLIXIAO9987 (talk) 21:04, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@LIXIAO9987: You really need to seek consensus for the changes you're trying to make, instead of repeatedly making the nearly same edits that I and a number of other editors have disagreed with. I think the description of the gain-of-function moratorium is sufficient here. It might even get too much weight right now, given that this is a broader issue in virology, and only indirectly relates to Shi Zhengli's biography. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:09, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The source is Nature, which is high quality, and directly talks about Shi's work. Removals are illegitimate and attempts at censorship. LIXIAO9987 (talk) 14:40, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Please, check the update on Nature:

Editors’ note, March 2020: We are aware that this story is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus. [1]

Using this source to suggest, in any way, veiled or explicit, that SARS-CoV-2 may be bioengineering is not acceptable. --MarioGom (talk) 15:39, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Concerns about gain-of-function experiments were already sufficiently mentioned in the article, before LIXIAO9987's addition. The point of the additions seems to be to place extra weight on the conspiracy theories about lab-engineered viruses. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:16, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

There are two issues here. The first is around Shi (and the WIV) genetically engineering a virus (and/or part of some bio-weapon agenda), which has been proven to be false, as we have lots of high-grade RS (and scientists) demonstrating that it is a naturally created virus. The second is that Shi (and the WIV) were doing experiments with bat coronaviruses and human cells (called gain-of-function), about which several high-grade RS (and scientists) have raised concerns. Post the WPO article showing that 2018 U.S. Embassy cables were concerned about Shi's research (and the quality of the safety standards in which she operated), I think this is more serious than just one sentence. The Nature article, which pre-dated the U.S. Embassy cables, is also raising concerns, one prophetic quote: "Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, points out that the researchers have created a novel virus that “grows remarkably well” in human cells. “If the virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory”. I think the RS risk/concerns over her gain-of-function experiments need more than one sentence. Who knows whether the virus originated from the WIV (versus a wet market), and we may never know. However, it is clear from quality RS that serious scientists had concerns about her experiments, and it is now a material part of her story. Britishfinance (talk) 17:55, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The Washington Post article is an opinion piece, and not a WP:RS for statements of fact. We can't take the author's description of the US State Department cables at face value. "Who knows whether the virus originated from the WIV": The Nature article explicitly states that it should not be used to support unverified theories about the virus. "However, it is clear from quality RS that serious scientists had concerns about her experiments, and it is now a material part of her story." It's not part of her story specifically. It's a general debate within virology, in which the large majority of virologists (as far as I have been able to tell) believe the experiments pose little danger. This debate has nothing to do with the current epidemic, and is already given sufficient space with one sentence. Doing more is just feeding conspiracy theories being spread by non-RS sources like the Washington Post's opinion pages. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:25, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The WPO piece is a notable journalist reporting on actual cables from the U.S. Government (e.g. it is not his opinion, he is giving the direct quotes; and the WPO does not allow any journalist, staff or opinion, present fake facts). These cables seem unambiguous to me about their concern on Shi's experiments (they mention her specifically). The Nature article is also very concerned over her research (and it is her research). It was unfortunate that Nature used the term "Engineered" in its title (which is why it issued the subsequent caveat), however, it is also unambiguous that her research was very controversial and risky. My concern is that we are now at risk of under-reporting this aspect of her research, which I myself was unaware of until I read these RS. I don't want it to be the whole focus of the BLP, but it is now a central aspect of her work and therefore needs more weight in her BLP than one sentence? Britishfinance (talk) 18:37, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

It is his opinion: he selectively quotes from the cables, and draws conclusions far beyond what the cables say. Opinion pieces can and do often contain false information. They are not under the same level of editorial scrutiny as news pieces. This is a WP:MEDRS-related page, and an opinion piece written by a political commentator does not meet our standards. "[I]t is also unambiguous that her research was very controversial and risky": That is not unambiguous at all. There are two notable scientists (only one of them is actually a virologist) who have often criticized all gain-of-function experiments. Their views are by no means widely held among virologists, and it is very "controversial" to call Shi Zhengli's research "risky." In fact, a lot of virologists think that not doing this sort of research is risky. "My concern is that we are now at risk of under-reporting this aspect of her research, which I myself was unaware of until I read these RS": This issue is interesting, but only indirectly related to Shi Zhengli. One sentence is enough to summarize it: two sentences and extensive quotes from one Nature article are undue. Shi Zhengli's research has been featured in several Nature and Science articles, none of which are given this much space in the article. Yet this one Nature article that doesn't even mention her is being given so much weight. The point of this weight is to promote conspiracy theories. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:56, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Actually, having read this article Why these scientists still doubt the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab, which includes some good reasoning from Peter Daszak (of the WHO's viruses expert panel), I agree with Thucydides411 view. It reminds me how nascent this all is, and that real scientists, to the extent they comment on this, are still very wary/doubtful, that the coronavirus came from Shi/WIV work. Might be worth using some of this article as Daszak is a notable scientist and his example of locals near bat caves with antibodies vs. the WIV experiments being on strains that are not SARS-COV-2, are very interesting. Britishfinance (talk) 20:15, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out that article. The title is a bit of an understatement: "Why these scientists still doubt the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab." The idea has been ridiculed by every virologist I've heard address the subject. My concern is that this page, about Shi Zhengli, will become dominated by discussion of the various conspiracy theories from non-MEDRS sources, rather than being focused on the scientific work that she is known for in the scientific community. She's only a "controversial" person outside of the scientific community, as a result of the conspiracy theories targeting her lab. In the scientific community, she's known as one of the world's leading researchers on SARS-like coronaviruses. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the twitter meme in the article from Angela Rasmussen says it all. I think you should work this article into the BLP (and the WIV article), given that Vox is a WP:RS/P, and it quotes several notable scientists. While the bio-weapon engineered theory was fully debunked, I think that this article adds a lot to the case that it was also not a leak from Shi/WIV, but a natural occurrence, which Shi has been warning about for years (per 'How China’s “Bat Woman” Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus in Scientific American. Britishfinance (talk) 20:32, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

This is another article that discusses scientists' views on the conspiracy theories about the virus leaking out of a lab: [2]. I'd really prefer to keep this article focused on Shi Zhengli's scientific career, rather than the various conspiracy theories floated on the internet about her and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. I'm skeptical of using the popular press (including NPR and Vox) at all as a source for information about coronavirus, because I find that the journalists who write for them often don't understand the scientific issues. This is encoded in the WP:MEDRS policy, which heavily favors scientific publications over the popular press. That's my suggestion here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:25, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Normally I would agree with you, but it has become such a big issue around her, that when we have good RS on the unlikelihood of even the “leak theory”, it could be helpful to readers (especially those who have read any of the Daily Mail articles on her)? Britishfinance (talk) 15:17, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Maybe we could add some material from the Vox and NPR interviews with virologists to the end of the last paragraph in the "Research" section. It could go after the discussion of the Rogin opinion piece. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I think that makes sense, the VOX/NPR pieces are notable virologists giving counterpoint to the Rogin piece. I think that readers (myself included) reading Rogin would begin to feel that it was a leak, however, the VOX/NPR shows that while is can't be ruled out (can't prove a negative), it still makes it very unlikely. It would be classic Wikipedia value-add imho, and helpful to show casual readers on this subject, that what they think is obvious, may not be? thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 19:15, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

The Nature article discussing her work is RELEVANT INFORMATION about her work, regardless of the current pandemic. You cannot make a Nature article disappear just because it makes her look bad. The article is in no way suggesting her previous work is connected to COVID-19, nor is it near the part of the article discussing COVID-19. For the record, I DO NOT THINK COVID IS ENGINEERED. But that is totally irrelevant, because this isn't about covid, it's about supressing a valid source and claiming I'm putting a spin that I'm clearly not. There is no reason why people shouldn't have access to one of the highest quality of academic sources discussing the content of her work LIXIAO9987 (talk) 19:20, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Nobody is suppressing the Nature article. It's being included, and everyone here supports at least one sentence about the NIH moratorium on gain-of-function experiments. I'm against over-emphasizing this one aspect of Shi Zhengli's biography versus the other, much more important parts of her biography (such as the several Nature and Science articles that actually do mention her, unlike the source you want to write two full sentences about). I think the reason why it's being over-emphasized at this moment is rather clear. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:24, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The Nature article is specifically about Shi's work. This page cannot continue to exist without mentioning her controversy without being massively dishonest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LIXIAO9987 (talk • contribs) 19:32, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@LIXIAO9987: Rather than continually ramming the same text into the article, propose your changes here. You've already done the "Bold" phase of WP:BRD, I've done the "Revert," and now it's time for "Discussion." Repeatedly re-inserting the same text into the article is a violation of Wikipedia's edit warring policies. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

+1 with T411. This is how we do things in Wikipedia (note above, T411 and myself having a discussion). We make proposals, discuss them, and can even !vote on them. Re-inserting disputed content will get you nowhere (or blocked). Britishfinance (talk) 15:17, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• Just a general comment. What really applies here is not WP:MEDRS, but WP:BLP. And in this regard, the publications in Washington Post are perfectly valid RS. As about details, yes, sure, all these details are relevant and interesting for a reader. My very best wishes (talk) 16:46, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS applies to claims of a lab origin for the virus, since that is a scientific question. Note that the opinion pages of the Washington Post are not WP:RS. Josh Rogin's piece is in the opinion section, not the news section. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:10, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

The facts of leakage of dangerous pathogens from labs (yes, that had happen many times) is not a medical or scientific question. This is a security/biomedical safety issue. WP:MEDRS is irrelevant. And no, the article in WaPO is an RS. My very best wishes (talk) 19:36, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

As about "gain-of-function experiments", yes, that was done with a different virus (article in Nature Medicine). There is no evidence that COVID-19 was manufactured in the same way to my knowledge, although I am not really an expert. My very best wishes (talk) 20:08, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

The question of leakage of dangerous pathogens from labs is largely a scientific question. It's a question that you can't really answer without a good understanding of how biosafety labs operate, how natural viruses differ from engineered viruses, and so on. Ranking publications in terms of reliability on this sort of question, I would put specialized scientific publications with peer review at the top, well respected popular science publications that interview experts next, regular newspaper articles would be only marginally reliable (if at all), and the opinion pages of newspapers (yes, even the opinion pages of the WaPo) would be completely unreliable.

About Josh Rogin's column specifically, a couple of points: 1. It is an opinion column, not a news article, so it fails Wikipedia's WP:RS policy (even for non-MEDRS claims). 2. It gives Rogin's non-expert (and potentially politically influenced) interpretation of the State Department cables. The cables are not quoted in full, and Rogin has refused to release the full cables. We're hearing a political commentator's interpretation of cables written by diplomats who talked with scientists the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That chain of indirection does not inspire confidence. There are now a whole number of interviews in the media with international scientists who have worked directly with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who dispute the idea of the virus leaking from the lab. I'll work on incorporating some of their expert opinion into the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:25, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@Britishfinance: I've followed your suggestion and added some material from the Vox and NPR interviews with virologists. The NPR piece is pretty strident: "But after corresponding with 10 leading scientists who collect samples of viruses from animals in the wild, study virus genomes and understand how lab accidents can happen, NPR found that an accidental release would have required a remarkable series of coincidences and deviations from well-established experimental protocols." I think it's fair to say that "leading virologists" dispute the idea of the virus having leaked from a lab. One thing I didn't include is Daszak's statement that the lab in Wuhan didn't even have SARS-CoV-2. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:01, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411, nice work there and looks good. I think adding that the lab didn’t even have SARS-CoV-2 would also be worth it, as it is quite a glaring fact? Thanks again. Britishfinance (talk) 11:34, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Which sources tell that the lab did not have SARS-CoV-2 (any links?), and more importantly, how exactly anyone knows that they did not have SARS-CoV-2? From what I read, this is only based on claims by a couple people who worked at the lab. I do not know if the lab or the subject have been involved in creation of biological weapons or any other unethical experimentation on the orders from the Chinese government. However, if they did, anything they say is not to be trusted, not because they are bad people, but because they want to stay alive.My very best wishes (talk) 14:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I quickly looked and can see two sources so far: and. None of them is WP:MEDRS, but this is not the point. In brief, they say "A Wuhan lab studied SARS-related viruses. But there’s no evidence it discovered or was working on the new virus.". OK, but this is not the same as definitely saying "there was no SARS-CoV-2 in the lab based on such and such evidence". Note that the sequence analysis is completely irrelevant here. It does not prove at all the virus was not in the lab. It can not prove that the virus did not undergo selection in the lab. It only proves that an ancestor version of the virus (that was different from the actual SARS-CoV-2) originated from bats. What am I missing? My very best wishes (talk) 15:12, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: You're talking about two highly respected virologists, one the head of the EcoHealth Alliance and the other the director of the PREDICT project (if you don't know what those are, then look them up - they're a big deal in the field of emerging infectious diseases). Please don't start making up conspiracy theories about these leading virologists lying to NPR and Vox under fear of death or acting under orders of the Chinese government.

Vox and NPR are not WP:MEDRS, but they are interviewing actual experts: leading virologists. This is far better than relying on opinion columns written by non-experts (e.g., political commentators).

Daszak says that SARS-CoV-2 was not present in the Wuhan Institute of Virology:

Another questionable assumption is that the mere existence of a related virus in the lab signals the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was also there.

Daszak, who collaborates with the Wuhan bat coronavirus researchers and has co-authored papers with them, says this is false. He and the researchers there were indeed looking for viruses related to the first SARS virus, also known as SARS-1, in the hope of finding ones that might be a threat to humans. He confirmed that they had collected samples of bat feces that contained viruses and brought them back to the Wuhan lab.

However, he said, the new coronavirus is only 80 percent similar to SARS-1 — again, a very big difference. “No one [in Wuhan] cultured viruses from those samples that were 20 percent different, i.e., no one had SARS-CoV-2 in culture. All of the hypotheses [of lab release] depend on them having it in culture or bats in a lab. No one’s got bats in a lab, it’s absolutely unnecessary and very difficult to do.” (Cell culture is a way of storing viruses in vitro in a lab so they can be studied over long periods.)

The Vox article also quotes Dennis Carrol, another leading figure in studying emerging infectious diseases:

Carroll, the former director of USAID’s emerging threats division who also spent years working with emerging infectious disease scientists in China, agrees that there’s no evidence the Chinese researchers were working with a novel pathogen. His reasoning? He would have heard about it.

“The reason I’m not putting a lot of weight on [the lab-escape theory] is there was no chatter prior to the emergence of this virus to a discovery that would have ended up bringing the virus into a lab,” he says. “And if nothing else, the scientific community tends to be very gossipy. If there is a novel, potentially dangerous virus which has been identified, circulating in nature, and it’s brought into a laboratory, there is chatter about that. And when you look back retrospectively, there’s no chatter whatsoever about the discovery of a new virus.”

-Thucydides411 (talk) 15:36, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• This is a selective quotation to support one position on the subject. Nevertheless, the quotations above only confirm what I said. None of them cites any evidence that there was no SARS-CoV-2 in the lab. In brief, according to these sources "A Wuhan lab studied SARS-related viruses. But there’s no evidence it discovered or was working on the new virus.". OK, but this is very far from saying "there was no SARS-CoV-2 in the lab based on such and such evidence". Yes, sure, there is no evidence of anything, and possibly will never be. Well, to be honest, what makes me more suspicious are things like that. Instead of assisting in the inquiry to get clean, the Chinese government threatens Australia by promising economic sanctions - simply for asking to do an international investigation. Sounds pretty much as a self-admission of guilt. My very best wishes (talk) 15:50, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

How is it selective? I quoted the two virologists who addressed the question of whether SARS-CoV-2 was at the institute. Both of them said that it wasn't there.

How you or I interpret Chinese government's reaction to the Australian PM's call for an investigation into China is irrelevant. You see China's rejection of the inquiry as an admission of guilt, others see the call for an inquiry as a political stunt meant to prove Australia is a good American ally. But it doesn't matter, because this isn't a political forum, and this is the wrong place to kibbitz about international politics. This is a place to discuss changes to the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Here is the bottom line: there is no any scientific or other evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was not in the lab (or evidence that it was in the lab) according to these sources. When Dr. Daszak tells about viruses cultured in Wuhan "that were 20 percent different" from SARS-CoV-2, he apparently refers to viruses described in PLOS, although this is not at all clear from such vague publication. However, if there are any other RS actually explaining why he thinks no one in Wuhan lab had SARS-CoV-2 in culture, that would be something for including on this page. As a note of order, Dr. Daszak has a conflict of interest as a collaborator of Dr. Shi Zhengli. My very best wishes (talk) 16:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

According to your quotation, "Carroll, the former director of USAID’s emerging threats division who also spent years working with emerging infectious disease scientists in China, agrees that there’s no evidence the Chinese researchers were working with a novel pathogen." What?? All SARS viruses they worked with (and published in PLOS) were potentially new pathogens. That was the entire point of working with them, as Dr. Zhengli and co-authors emphasized in their own publications. The reasoning by Carroll? "here was no chatter prior to the emergence of this virus to a discovery that would have ended up bringing the virus into a lab”. What? There was no "chatter", and that is his argument? As we know, there were cable and a lot of other actual activity with people viziting China, etc. My very best wishes (talk) 17:12, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I also like the part of your quotation where Daszak said that "He and the researchers there were indeed looking for viruses related to the first SARS virus, also known as SARS-1, in the hope of finding ones that might be a threat to humans.". "in the hope of finding ones that might be a threat to humans". Well, it is exactly what all developers of biological weapons do. I realize that he had something opposite in mind. My very best wishes (talk) 17:41, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

You're misunderstanding a lot of what you're reading, I'm sorry to say:

• "there is no any scientific or other evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was not in the lab": Read the quotes again. Leading virologists, who are also familiar with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, explain why they do not believe that SARS-CoV-2 was in the lab. If you're unconvinced by their reasoning, that's fine, but don't pretend that they don't explain their reasons. They clearly do.
• "Dr. Daszak has a conflict of interest as a collaborator of Dr. Shi Zhengli": You're going to start ruling out a large percentage of the experts in the field with this logic. The WIV collaborates with most of the leading virologists around the world who work on coronaviruses.
• "When Dr. Daszak tells about viruses cultured in Wuhan 'that were 20 percent different' from SARS-CoV-2, he apparently refers to viruses described in PLOS, although this is not at all clear from such vague publication": You've misunderstood this. He says that the lab would not have cultured large amounts of any virus that was 20% different from SARS-1 (not 20% different from SARS-CoV-2). That means that they would not have cultured a virus like SARS-CoV-2 in the lab prior to the outbreak in Wuhan.
• "All SARS viruses they worked with (and published in PLOS) were potentially new pathogens." Carroll referring to viruses that can infect humans. If researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had discovered a new virus that they believed could infect humans, Carroll thinks he would have heard of it - just like virologists knew about WIV-1.
• Well, it is exactly what all developers of biological weapons do. What are you suggesting? It's what people who study emerging infectious diseases do, because they want to know which viruses to prepare for.

I find your attempts to personally discredit leading virologists to be really unacceptable. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:09, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

+1 These are notable virologists (Danzak is on the WHO's expert virology panel, the Blueprint Group), and the source Vox is a WP:RS/P. T411 has represented both sides of the more credible allegations of an accidental leak, which is a good service for readers. Whether this did, or did not, originate in the WIV lab may never be fully known, however, aside from all the junk-RS conspiracy theories, there are some high-grade RS who have covered it. That is what we are recording. Britishfinance (talk) 18:56, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, sure, "Whether this did, or did not, originate in the WIV lab may never be fully known". But the entire purpose of the research by Drs. Danzak and Zhengli was to discover something like SARS-CoV-2 in their lab prior to the actual pandemics. According to opinions above, they did not succeed. OK. But they say they are going to succeed in the future [3]:

Despite the disturbance, Shi is determined to continue her work. “The mission must go on,” she says. “What we have uncovered is just the tip of an iceberg.” She is planning to lead a national project to systematically sample viruses in bat caves, with much wider scope and intensity than previous attempts. Daszak’s team has estimated that there are more than 5,000 coronavirus strains waiting to be discovered in bats globally. “Bat-borne coronaviruses will cause more outbreaks,” Shi says with a tone of brooding certainty. “We must find them before they find us.”

.

• So, they want to find a super-COVID-19. And what they will do when they find it? Leak to the outside world, exactly as they did with SARS? And this is funded by Chinese government. My very best wishes (talk) 12:44, 30 April 2020 (UTC) 

This probably belongs to another page, but as described here, "When Covid-19 appeared, Shi Zhengli, a virologist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, immediately compared it to the database she had compiled with the 500 new coronaviruses identified by EcoHealth Alliance. There was a hit. "The new coronavirus matched a sample taken from a horseshoe bat in a cave in Yunnan in 2013," says Daszak. "It was 96.2% identical.". OK. That means someone already had in their lab a specimen of COVID-19 ancestor with homology of 96.2% to COVID-19 when they determined the nucleotide sequence (it is named RaTG13). I wonder how that ancestor works on humans. Any publications? OK, the original specimen of the ancestor is apparently in the same Wuhan because "the Wuhan lab was doing the bulk of the on-the-ground sample collection and analysis, says EcoHealth Alliance's" according to Daszak (see ref). As described here, in Wuhan, they did infect human cells by every found specimen of the virus, and the ancestor did belong to the same species as COVID-19. No, the RaTG13 should be relatively harmless according to refs because it lacks furin cleavage site. I did not find any actual data about action of RaTG13 on human cells, only speculations based on sequence analysis. My very best wishes (talk) 20:49, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

RaTG13 is not an ancestor of SARS-CoV-2: [4]. It's the closest known relative, but still separated from SARS-CoV-2 by many years of evolution. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:38, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, sure, this is closest relative, not ancestor. Now, speaking about the comment by Dr. Daszak: "No one [in Wuhan] cultured viruses from those samples that were 20 percent different" [from SARS-1], I think we both understood this correctly. He is saying they did not work with viruses that are close to COVID-2, which would be more than 20% different from SARS-1. This is apparently a false statement by Dr. Daszak because they did have the specimen of RaTG13 which is 96% similar to COVID-19. My very best wishes (talk) 12:44, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

There is a difference between having a sample of a virus and culturing it. Before you accuse leading virologists of making false statements, you should at least understand what you're talking about. Speaking of which, I find your musings above to be completely out of place on a Wikipedia talk page. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:00, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh no. According to Kevin Olival who works with EcoHealth Alliance (this publication also linked above), "We found evidence for, in total, from all the sampling we did in China, about 400 new strains of coronaviruses." That means 400 potential candidates to spark another outbreak. ... "What we showed was that SARS-related viruses in these bat populations have the potential to go directly into human cells and do not need that extra mutational step [of] infecting another host." So, they did use human cell culture to test all the viruses they found. This is an obvious and reasonable thing to do. Did they do it for RaTG13? It would be very strange if they did not (note that RaTG13 is a "SARS-related virus", just as COVID-19). And yes, this is our responsibility to check if claims by different sources and people contradict each other or well known facts, and this is such case. Strangely, but a couple of experts (yes, they are experts) are telling something really inconsistent with facts, or maybe this is an unfortunate interpretation/citation by the journalist from Vox? Things like that do happen. This is not WP:MEDRS source. What has been cited is merely an opinion by a couple of scientists telling something like, "strangely, I did not hear any rumors about it". This is really an "opinion piece". My very best wishes (talk) 19:34, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Applying your own (I would say poor) understanding of virology to try to contradict experts like Daszak is not what you're supposed to be doing here. Vox and NPR interviewed several leading virologists. What those virologists say is certainly relevant in this article, even if you personally disagree with the virologists. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:00, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

what is YOUR background in virology? Daszak has personal/financial ties to pushing the narrative that the virus was the result of a spillover event. how do you not know that if you are so well-acquainted with these sources? do you have any scientific background at all? because when i edited the article to be scientifically accurate descriptions of shi zhengli's work, you edited it back to be inaccurate. i cannot see that you have any science background at all, and if you do, you are intentionally misleading people.LIXIAO9987 (talk) 22:08, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

None of that is my opinion or understanding. I only cross-verified claims by different sources (see my comments above in this thread). All these sources were written for general public (NPR, Vox, Scientific American, etc.) and do not require an expertise in virology. Are you saying that you are an expert in virology? BTW, we do have page Viral culture. Is that what we (and Dr. Daszak) are talking about? To my knowledge, this page provides sufficiently correct, although very basic info. Am I wrong? My very best wishes (talk) 21:37, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• During source-digging, I stumbled into this very long commentary. Based on this, the virus might indeed be lab-made, although author does NOT claim is lab-made. Although not an RS per se, it does provide a lot of useful links to more reliable sources, and frankly, whatever author tells seems to be supported and reasonable to me. But I am not an expert in virology, admitted. So, if you have a better background and can comment anything of essence here (as oppose to just saying, "Hey, this is just a blog post, not an RS"), you are welcome. My very best wishes (talk) 02:43, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411, wake up. MVBW has highlighted how Daszak has a conflict of interest AND that false, misleading claims in line with that have been made. Accept it. We have better sources, so we should rely on them unless necessary. I would be astonished if Shi wasn't aware of and significantly involved in covert military research and development. With good sources, if there are any, that'll belong in the article too. But the claims that SARS-CoV-2's origins couldn't have involved the lab, from anyone in the field, needs to be called what they are. Propaganda. We need RS for that, but IIRC, they're out there. And there's a shitload of circumstantial evidence. Prior spillover, the lab was purpose-built and existing for years before its official opening, GoF, military contracts, shenanigans (not that it belongs in this particular article). Should be covered if it isn't.--50.201.195.170 (talk) 08:36, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524054/ I've been sitting here for months. Watching and waiting for you guys to delete this to keep aligned with the narrative, since wikipedia is compromised and you guys think you run the memory hole. I know LIXIAO9987 is just trying to spoon feed people, But this is an Murican website. You try to spoon feed people with too many words and their eyes glaze over. You have to be expected to put some of your own effort forth to stay informed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:a601:a0c6:1200:35b0:ce3:7786:e5d8 (talk • contribs)

Is Zhengli Shi institute director?

I've been reading, and it doesn't look like she's director of the institute itself - but instead, she merely leads a group researching bat coronaviruses. Scientific American explicitly states that her 'boss' is the institute's director. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/. Can we find some sources that support / deny this director status, especially since the title appears on google's sidebar 'knowledge panel' for zhengli shi? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.85.239.14 (talk) 01:43, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

She's the director of Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, which is part of the Wuhan Institute of Virology: [5]. Her CV says that she's been director of the center since 2011, but I'm trying to find a better source for this information. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:47, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

BLP violation?

"Reverting these additions again, because they're a BLP violation and therefore can't be left in while user behavioral issues are addressed." Could you elaborate on how there is a BLP violation? CowHouse (talk) 14:48, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@CowHouse: I was trying to return to the version before the addition of suggestions that Shi Zhengli believed the virus could have come from her lab. I'm sorry I caught up your edit in the revert. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:27, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm not asking about the original edit. I'm talking specifically about this edit (which I believe accurately represents the source): Shi initially considered if the virus could have come from her lab. She told Scientific American that she "had not slept a wink for days" until test results came back which confirmed that none of the genetic sequences matched any viruses from bat caves that her team had sampled. At the moment, the page doesn't mentioned the reason why Shi said the virus has nothing to do with her lab. There is only her uninformative response that "my time must be spent on more important matters". How is it a BLP violation to say she asked herself whether it was possible until test results showed that it wasn't? I think it's fine to include as long as it is clear to readers that she only asked herself "could they have come from our lab?" at a time when very little was known about the virus, and before the scientific community knew enough to refute a lab origin. CowHouse (talk) 16:14, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I think the description should stay as close to her words as possible, and not make inferences based on it. I would be okay with saying that she verified that the novel coronavirus did not match any viruses her team had sampled. I agree that the statement about "more important matters" is relatively uninformative, and I think it can be cut. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:20, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Based on what the source says, I don't see what's wrong with my summary: If coronaviruses were the culprit, she remembers thinking, “Could they have come from our lab?” [...] Shi instructed her group to repeat the tests and, at the same time, sent the samples to another facility to sequence the full viral genomes. Meanwhile she frantically went through her own lab’s records from the past few years to check for any mishandling of experimental materials, especially during disposal. Shi breathed a sigh of relief when the results came back: none of the sequences matched those of the viruses her team had sampled from bat caves. “That really took a load off my mind,” she says. “I had not slept a wink for days.” If you believe it makes a substantial difference we could include the exact quote "Could they have come from our lab?" instead of "Shi initially considered if the virus could have come from her lab", but I'm not sure what inferences you're talking about. CowHouse (talk) 16:36, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Since we're discussing article content, I've replied at the article talk page. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:49, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Issues

@Thucydides411: can you explain your edits here? Particularly this one [6] which invokes both BLP and "user behavioral issues” while not seeming to address either. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:21, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

See my talk. The user in question has since been blocked for addition of conspiracy-theory material to multiple articles. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:22, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@CowHouse: does not appear to have been blocked nor does that seem to accurately describe their editing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

You're misunderstanding. Look at the edit history of the article. CowHouse reduced and rephrased the objectionable material that was put in by another user (who has since been blocked). CowHouse and I have discussed this at my talk. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:34, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes and after CowHouse reduced and rephrased the addition you reverted CowHouse. Why did you revert them when they had already corrected the BLP concerns? And if you knew you were reverting CowHouse and not the other user why invoke nonexistent BLP and user behavioral issues? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:36, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Have you looked at my talk page? -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:51, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I have. Answer the questions. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:51, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• Just a general comment here, folks. If anyone has BLP concerns about any material, it must stay out of the article until there's a consensus for its inclusion. And where there's an overlap between BLP concerns and anything even vaguely controversial about Covid-19, we need to be extra specially careful. Trying to paraphrase what someone said, for example (see section below), can be fraught with danger. And Horse Eye's Back, please drop the confrontational attitude. Boing! said Zebedee (talk)

Paraphrasing Scientific American article

@CowHouse: I don't think we should write it in any way that implies she believed it could have come from her lab. Diligence and checking of records is one thing, believing that something is plausible is another. She doesn't say the latter in the interview. I would simply write, "In an interview with Scientific American, Shi said that after learning of the outbreak in Wuhan, she verified that the coronavirus seen in patients did not match any of the viruses her team had sampled." -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:48, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I have included our discussion from your talk page below so others have context, and so I don't have to repeat myself. The source says If coronaviruses were the culprit, she remembers thinking, “Could they have come from our lab?” and Meanwhile she frantically went through her own lab’s records from the past few years to check for any mishandling of experimental materials, especially during disposal. Both the source and my edit never suggested she thought it was plausible. As I said in our discussion on your talk page, I think it's fine to include as long as it is clear to readers that she only asked herself "could they have come from our lab?" at a time when very little was known about the virus, and before the scientific community knew enough to refute a lab origin. CowHouse (talk) 16:59, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• Just a suggestion, folks, as I'd rather leave it to you to decide on the wording. But if there's any possible ambiguity, it can be safer to stick to exact quotations and not try to interpret or paraphrase. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:06, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@CowHouse: Okay, I think we broadly agree. Is my above proposed wording acceptable, or would you add something to it?

@Boing! said Zebedee: Agreed about the dangers of paraphrasing, but I think we can find a wording that is unambiguous. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:11, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

If we used the exact quotation we would still have to explain the meaning of "they" in the quote "Could they have come from our lab?", which is why I think it's better to paraphrase in this situation. I'm still unclear on what the inferences were that Thucydides411 mentioned on their talk page. My edit followed the source, it did not add any inferences. I agree that direct quotes are better than an ambiguous paraphrase, but I'm not sure what the ambiguity is in this case. We do broadly agree, but I'm unclear on why you want to omit the "Shi initially considered if the virus could have come from her lab" part even when it is contextualised. CowHouse (talk) 17:21, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

It's a common technique to expand on a quotation with something like "Could [the virus samples] have come from our lab?". Don't know if that might help. Also, I find "Shi initially considered if the virus could have come from her lab" ambiguous - "considered if" seems clumsy, for one thing. And is considering the same as asking yourself a question? Don't know really, just posing some questions that might help. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:26, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I am aware that is a common technique, but my point was that it also means we are no longer using an exact quotation. If you believe it removes ambiguity, we could say Shi initially asked herself if the virus could have come from her lab. I cannot think of a less controversial way of summarising this, considering what the source says: She remembers thinking "Could they have come from our lab?" and "frantically went through her own lab’s records from the past few years to check for any mishandling of experimental materials, especially during disposal." She said the test results "really took a load off [her] mind" and she "had not slept a wink for days". CowHouse (talk) 17:39, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Sure, I was just throwing out a few thoughts that I hoped might help. But it sounds like I'm not offering anything new ;-) I'm happy to leave it to you folks to decide, as it seems like you're getting there. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:44, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

My worry is giving the impression that she considered a leak plausible. Your text doesn't necessarily do that, though I think we should be very careful. But more generally, I don't think we should devote a lot of space to explaining this passage from the interview at all. This seems to me to be enough: "In an interview with Scientific American, Shi said that after learning of the outbreak in Wuhan, she verified that the coronavirus seen in patients did not match any of the viruses her team had sampled." -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:46, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree that we should be very careful which is why, as you seem to agree, my text doesn't give the impression she considered it plausible/probable. Regardless, along with my text, the page makes it clear that since the test results she has firmly denied the possibility. It's really not controversial or unusual for someone in Shi's position to not sleep for days after asking herself if it could have come from her lab, considering it was at a time when very little was known about the virus. It is perfectly normal for her to verify whether or not it was possible. CowHouse (talk) 18:07, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I think your text could give that impression, which is why I'm proposing a much simpler wording without any statement about Shi Zhengli "consider[ing] if ...". -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:13, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Any impression given by my text is supported by the reference, since I believe my text accurately reflects the source. My text does not contain any inference from me on whether or not she believed it was unlikely/possible/plausible/probable/likely (which only she knows, and the source and my text both don't say). If we're discussing the impressions given from my text, it does make clear that this was until the test results. I think at this point we'll have to agree to disagree and wait for input from other editors, as we seem to be at the point where we're repeating ourselves. CowHouse (talk) 18:29, 31 December 2020 (UTC)