Lancet Letter
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Lancet Letter
The ''Lancet'' letter (also referred to as ''Calisher et al. 2020'') was a statement made in support of scientists and medical professionals in China fighting the outbreak of COVID-19, and condemning theories suggesting that the virus does not have a natural origin, which it referred to as " conspiracy theories". The letter was published in ''The Lancet'' on February 19, 2020, and signed by 27 prominent scientists, gaining a further 20,000 signatures in a Change.org petition. The letter generated significant controversy over the alleged conflicts of interest of its authors, and the chilling effect it had on scientists proposing that the COVID-19 lab leak theory be investigated. Background From the early outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, rumors and speculation arose about the possible lab origins of SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of the COVID-19 disease. Different versions of the lab origin hypothesis present different scenarios in which a bat-borne progenitor of SARS-COV-2 ...
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COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 are variable but often include fever, cough, headache, fatigue, breathing difficulties, Anosmia, loss of smell, and Ageusia, loss of taste. Symptoms may begin one to fourteen days incubation period, after exposure to the virus. At least a third of people who are infected Asymptomatic, do not develop noticeable symptoms. Of those who develop symptoms noticeable enough to be classified as patients, most (81%) develop mild to moderate symptoms (up to mild pneumonia), while 14% develop severe symptoms (dyspnea, Hypoxia (medical), hypoxia, or more than 50% lung involvement on imaging), and 5% develop critical symptoms (respiratory failure ...
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Bioweapon
A biological agent (also called bio-agent, biological threat agent, biological warfare agent, biological weapon, or bioweapon) is a bacterium, virus, protozoan, parasite, fungus, or toxin that can be used purposefully as a weapon in bioterrorism or biological warfare (BW). In addition to these living or replicating pathogens, toxins and biotoxins are also included among the bio-agents. More than 1,200 different kinds of potentially weaponizable bio-agents have been described and studied to date. Biological agents have the ability to adversely affect human health in a variety of ways, ranging from relatively mild allergic reactions to serious medical conditions, including serious injury, as well as serious or permanent disability or even death. Many of these organisms are ubiquitous in the natural environment where they are found in water, soil, plants, or animals. Bio-agents may be amenable to "weaponization" to render them easier to deploy or disseminate. Genetic modification m ...
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Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists
The ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' is a nonprofit organization concerning science and global security issues resulting from accelerating technological advances that have negative consequences for humanity. The ''Bulletin'' publishes content at both a free-access website and a bi-monthly, nontechnical academic journal. The organization has been publishing continuously since 1945, when it was founded by former Manhattan Project scientists as the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of Chicago'' immediately following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The organization is also the keeper of the symbolic Doomsday Clock, the time of which is announced each January. Background One of the driving forces behind the creation of the ''Bulletin'' was the amount of public interest surrounding atomic energy and rapid technological change at the dawn of the Atomic Age. In 1945 the public interest in Nuclear warfare, atomic warfare and Nuclear weaponry, weaponry inspired cont ...
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national " newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the pa ...
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Nicholas Wade
Nicholas Michael Landon Wade (born 17 May 1942) is a British author and journalist. He is the author of numerous books, and has served as staff writer and editor for ''Nature'', ''Science'', and the science section of ''The New York Times''. His 2014 book '' A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History'' was widely denounced by the scientific community for misrepresenting research into human population genetics. In May 2021, Wade published an article in support of the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis, fueling the controversy around the origins of the virus. Wade's claims about the origin of COVID-19 are at odds with the prevailing view among scientists. Early life and education Wade was born in Aylesbury, England and educated at Eton College. He is a grandson of Lawrence Beesley, a survivor of the sinking of the ''Titanic''. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences from King's College, Cambridge in 1964, and immigrated to the United States in 1970. ...
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Vanity Fair (magazines)
''Vanity Fair'' has been the title of at least five magazines, including an 1859–1863 American publication, an unrelated 1868–1914 British publication, an unrelated 1902–1904 New York magazine, and a 1913–1936 American publication edited by Condé Nast, which was revived in 1983. Vanity Fair is notably a fictitious place ruled by Beelzebub in the book ''Pilgrim's Progress'' by John Bunyan. Later use of the name was influenced by the well-known 1847–48 novel of the same name by William Makepeace Thackeray. ''Vanity Fair'' (1859–1863), American The first magazine bearing the name ''Vanity Fair'' appeared in New York as a humorous weekly, from 1859 to 1863. The magazine was financed by Frank J. Thompson, and was edited by William Allen Stephens and Henry Louis Stephens. The magazine's stature may be indicated by its contributors, which included Thomas Bailey Aldrich, William Dean Howells, Fitz-James O'Brien and Charles Farrar Browne. ''Vanity Fair'' (1868–1914), ...
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Katherine Eban
Katherine Eban (born 1966/1967) is an American investigative journalist and author. Her investigative work has focused on public health and homeland security issues. She is a contributor at '' Fortune magazine'' and '' Vanity Fair'' and writes for a variety of other national magazines. Biography Eban is the daughter of Elinor (née Fuchs) and Michael O. Finkelstein. Her father is a corporate lawyer and her mother a professor at the Yale School of Drama. She holds degrees from Brown University, University of East Anglia and a MPhil in English Literature from the University of Oxford where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She is an Andrew Carnegie fellow. Eban has written two books. ''Dangerous Doses: How Counterfeiters are Contaminating America's Drug Supply'' was one of the Best Books of 2005 according to Kirkus Reviews. In 2019 ''Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom'' was published. She has received grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to support her bo ...
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Richard Horton (editor)
Richard Charles Horton (born 29 December 1961) is editor-in-chief of ''The Lancet'', a United Kingdom–based medical journal. He is an honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University College London, and the University of Oslo. After studying medicine at the University of Birmingham, he joined the liver unit at London's Royal Free Hospital. In 1990, he became assistant editor of ''The Lancet'' and five years later become its editor-in-chief in the UK. He has been a medical writer for ''The Observer'', ''The Times Literary Supplement'' and ''The New York Review of Books''. In 2003, he published ''Second Opinion: Doctors, Diseases and Decisions in Modern Medicine'', a book about controversies in modern medicine. In 2005 he wrote "Doctors in society: medical professionalism in a changing world", an inquiry into the future of medical professionalism, for the Royal College of Physicians. He has served in various roles with the World Health Or ...
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Jamie Metzl
Jamie Frederic Metzl (born July 1, 1968) is an American geopolitical commentator, author, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and a former partner at the global investment company Cranemere LLC,.Vail Symposium: Is the Red Dragon Breathing Fire? Rising China and the Changing Global Order with Jamie Metz/ref>Jamie F. Metzl -Director
HIAS, The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, backed up by the as of December 13, 2013. Accessed May 17, 2016.
He is the author of five books, including the science fiction novels, ...
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Filippa Lentzos
Filippa Lentzos is a Norwegian social scientist researching threats posed by biological agents. She is a senior research fellow at King's College London, holding a joint appointment in the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine and the Department of War Studies. Lentzos also holds the position of associate senior researcher at the Armament and Disarmament Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Moreover, she is the NGO Coordinator for the Biological Weapons Convention since 2017, the biosecurity columnist at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 2018, and an associate editor of the social science journal ''BioSocieties''. Career With a background in human sciences, Lentzos obtained a PhD in sociology from the University of Nottingham, England. She then spent 10 years as a researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established ...
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The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. The newspaper is published in the broadsheet format and online. The ''Journal'' has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. The ''Journal'' is regarded as a newspaper of record, particularly in terms of business and financial news. The newspaper has won 38 Pulitzer Prizes, the most recent in 2019. ''The Wall Street Journal'' is one of the largest newspapers in the United States by circulation, with a circulation of about 2.834million copies (including nearly 1,829,000 digital sales) compared with ''USA Today''s 1.7million. The ''Journal'' publishes the luxury news and lifestyle magazine ' ...
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Paul Thacker
Paul D. Thacker is an American journalist who reports on science, medicine, and the environment. He was a lead investigator of the United States Senate Committee on Finance for Senator Chuck Grassley, where he examined financial links between physicians and pharmaceutical companies. Early life Thacker was raised in California and Texas, and joined the US Army after high school, where he was deployed in Saudi Arabia and Iraq during the Gulf War. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology, with an emphasis in ecology and evolution, from the University of California, Davis in 1997. He worked as a laboratory technician at Emory University before turning to journalism, leaving Emory for an ''Audubon'' magazine internship in 2000. Career After 2000, Thacker wrote for publications such as ''The New Republic'' and ''Salon'' and was a staff writer with ''Environmental Science & Technology'', a journal of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Here he published a series of exposés ...
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