Talk:COVID-19 misinformation

Topic code	Area of conflict	Decision linked to
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=aa}}	politics, ethnic relations, and conflicts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, or both	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Armenia and Azerbaijan
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=crypto}}	blockchain and cryptocurrencies	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Blockchain and cryptocurrencies
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=kurd}}	Kurds and Kurdistan	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Kurds and Kurdistan
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=mj}}	Michael Jackson	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Michael Jackson
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=pw}}	professional wrestling	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Professional wrestling
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=rusukr}}	the Russo-Ukrainian War	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Russo-Ukrainian War
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=sasg}}	South Asian social groups	Wikipedia:General sanctions/South Asian social groups
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=syria}}	the Syrian Civil War and ISIL	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Syrian Civil War and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=uku}}	measurement units in the United Kingdom	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Units in the United Kingdom
{{COVID-19 misinformation|topic=uyghur}}	Uyghurs, Uyghur genocide, or topics that are related to Uyghurs or Uyghur genocide	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Uyghurs

The New York Times

This story from The New York Times is very informative:

• How Steve Bannon and a Chinese Billionaire Created a Right-Wing Coronavirus Media Sensation

--Guy Macon (talk) 13:21, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

• • It is an interesting article. It may be useful for documenting various financial and social connections between various individuals, and for documenting how misinformation spreads. I would just caution that as per WP:MEDRS we need to take care to only use [[WP:MEDPOP] articles like this for non-biomedical purposes. Hyperion35 (talk) 22:52, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

• Given that this is the article on misinformation, this is precisely the kind of source that would provide context on the proliferation of said misinformation. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:40, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Related discussion at Wikipedia talk:Biomedical information

Contributors to this article may be interested in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Biomedical information about the breadth of WP:MEDRS. Adoring nanny (talk) 22:21, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

The Lab leak hypothesis needs a stand-alone article

I just saw an article in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on the COVID lab leak hypothesis. This follows on scientists calling for investigation of the lab leak and analysis in a WHO report. Clearly, this is not a FRINGE theory the way that "caused by a meteor" or "caused by the Jews" is a Fringe theory. And the topic of a lab leak is clearly notable enough for stand-alone coverage, whether or not it happened. I intend to restore COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis as a stand-alone article in the near future; however I certainly will not restore the February revisions, as much of the 52KB of content there is problematic. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:03, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Sigh. This is the problem we are getting into again - any stand-alone article would be undue weight - the topic can be covered here and in Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 - and I do think that a summary of the investigations should be contained in that article. It does not merit a stand-alone article and creating a standalone article would be a POVFORK and be rampant with undue information. At most, 3-4 paragraphs of actually encyclopedic, and well sourced information could be crafted about it - and investigations into the origin of COVID-19 is the place to do so - then if and only if it gets to be too big or too long, it can be split into another article carefully for ARTICLESIZE reasons. But no, it still shouldn't be a standalone article at this time, but I have stated that it likely merits discussion of the investigations, without giving the theory any credence whatsoever, on that page. And yes, it is fringe - because though you can find scientists who are screaming about it, very few are actually saying it's credible - the vast majority are saying "we need to close the door on the theory by investigating and disproving it" - which is not saying "we think the theory is potentially viable". -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:08, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

There is an argument that instead of a stand-alone page, Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 should be the target of that redirect; there certainly should be more than 3 sentences on the topic at that page. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:10, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with "more than 3 sentences" as long as someone is crafting them to be due and not give more credence to the theory than it should have (virtually none). I think a retargeting of the redirect is a good idea, but would suggest that also the section for the "lab leak" investigations should have a hatnote to this article for further reading. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:14, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I've duplicated 3 paragraphs of content from here to Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19#Wuhan_lab_leak_story, and plan to spend the next hour or so expanding that section. If it turns out well and nobody has objected, I will then re-target COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis and some similar titles. I will need a hatnote along the lines of "this section is about scientific research into the lab leak theory. For theories based on political motivations, see COVID-19 misinformation"; any idea how to word that? User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:36, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

This is going to take far more than 1 hour. A careful observer will note that none of the sources I mentioned in my initial comment would meet WP:MEDRS for scientific evidence regarding a lab leak; apart from "people with credentials are talking about this" I will not use them. It will take some digging to get to more reliable sourcing, presuming it exists. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:58, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I have been trying to find time to do this, but I haven't had the willpower to do it after the everyday hassle of trying to stop people calling it the "truth" on here... Now that hopefully the disruption has subsided more of us can find some time to help you - but you're right that the biggest hassle is trying to find actual MEDRS for bio-med information. Obviously primary sources can be used for some of it (ex: the WHO calling it the "least likely" can certainly be sourced to them directly) but the meat of it that needs worked on needs MEDRS and they're few and far between and hard to find and digest. Regardless, your willingness to work on expanding the coverage of it in the investigations article is to be commended. I recommend trying to keep the "people with credentials are talking about this" to a minimum - maybe one or two sentences - as the more of those are included the more it makes it look like more than it is. The scientific consensus is still against it and while I agree (and haven't ever intentionally said it is) it isn't a fringe theory, it's still a theory which is against most of the scientific consensus. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 03:42, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

This is why splitting the "scientific investigations" from the "conspiracy theories" is necessary. Arguments based on a furin cleavage site may be scientifically meaningful, yet the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is just about the last place I would expect such an argument; this "Editorial" in Springer's Environmental Chemistry Letters is the other article I've found but has some bizarre co-authors and may not be peer-reviewed. Arguments based on evidence of a Chinese government coverup are not scientifically meaningful, but may be relevant for a misinformation page where it is important to describe the conspiracy theories. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 03:56, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

As the position statement of a major health body, there's reason to say that the WHO study is MEDRS. Particularly since it's in agreement with other MEDRS sources. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:50, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi User:力. It's great to see someone interested in the science of the origin of Covid-19. Here is an MD approved review article from May 2021 going through the different possible origins of SARS2, including the possibility of transmission in the laboratory from a human cell line. The review article is titled: On the Origin of SARS-CoV-2: Did Cell Culture Experiments Lead to Increased Virulence of the Progenitor Virus for Humans? --Guest2625 (talk) 12:34, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

In Vivo is the journal of the "International Institute of Anticancer Research". That would place their expertise in oncology, not virology. In addition, the paper argues for actual lab origin. Given the papers in Nature and other high quality journals which say that it definitively didn't happen, this paper cannot be treated as anything but junk. WP:REDFLAG says that exceptional claims require exceptional evidence, not unrelated journals. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:34, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm certainly not going to treat the article as "junk", on the other hand I would not use it to source certain technical claims, such as the likelihood of mutations at the furin binding site. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:15, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

See Talk:COVID-19 pandemic#Suggestion #5 for an in-progress update to the origins summary, let's not duplicate effort if we can avoid it. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:50, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

What about the potential for article about lab leaks in general? Lab leak currently redirects here, but there's been many past incidents.

• https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/21/it-was-a-total-invasion-the-virus-that-came-back-from-the-dead
• https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/20/18260669/deadly-pathogens-escape-lab-smallpox-bird-flu
• https://www.businessinsider.com/5-terrifying-times-pandemics-escaped-from-laboratories-2014-7
• https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/05/the-non-paranoid-persons-guide-to-viruses-escaping-from-labs/
• https://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Escaped-Viruses-final-2-17-14-copy.pdf (published by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation)

— Goszei (talk) 04:44, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

--Guy Macon (talk) 05:10, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

When multiple, independent strands of evidence leads to a conclusion, then in terms of truth-truth, the conclusion is likely true. If someone finds a specific near-ancestor from which zoonotis likely occurred, I give anyone permission to ping me and tell me how wrong I was. But it's unlikely. Now in terms of Wikipedia-truth, the lab leak hypo should be treated under WP:FRINGE/PS as an Alternative Theoretical Formulation, which describes it perfectly. Adoring nanny (talk) 23:06, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• This is an article about misinformation. It needs to cover what that misinformation is, who is spreading it, what their motivations and MO are, etc. Any content about a legitimate "hypothesis" or any investigation belongs at the relevant article - not here. I have reverted 力's edit as it watered-down the on-point knowledge from reliable sources and introduced weaker, irrelevant material. That user is now aware of the general sanctions in effect here. Alexbrn (talk) 05:58, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  Their edit really didn't remove any information or add any, it was primarily reorganizing it and removing duplicative information (we don't need to cover the WHO report in its entirety, really all this article should say is that they had a report considering it "extremely unlikely"). I agreed with all of their edits and I recommend you discuss specific problems with them here instead of just undoing them. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 06:18, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  In particular I object to the upgrading of "unfounded speculation" to "speculation", and the removal of the description of how the proponents operate from the Hakim source. I'm neutral on the reduction of detail about the WHO. Alexbrn (talk) 06:24, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

We have to be mindful of the difference between Wikipedia reality and actual reality. I don't think we can say in article space that the lab leak hypothesis is well supported, at least not as of today. From a look-at-the-evidence point of view, the evidence is there. From a follow-Wikipedia-policy point of view, it isn't. I've written this up as an essay at WP:LABLEAKLIKELY. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:01, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Nonsense. The evidence is not there. Click on the green box that says "Sources" above, read the sources, then come back and tell us that you now understand that you were wrong. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:29, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Improvements to article content can always be made. However, the facts remain that there is (at this time) no evidence presented in support of this theory, and authoritative sources say the same, and thus a portrayal or insinuations saying anything other than that in Wikipedia articles is a non-starter and does no service for our readers. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:05, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

On this note, I think we can be honest and say that MEDRS is mostly used as a tool to chuck out bludgeoning and sheer persistence by SPAs abusing crappy interpretations of cherry-picked news sources for POV pushing purposes. WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:BESTSOURCES apply, and we want to use our best sources for giving the authoritative consensus on the matter. MEDRS follows as an example of BESTSOURCES, but it isn't the only example; as I said earlier, if we had a renowned investigative journalist/paper doing a detailed, evidence-based exposé, then I would support that being in articles even though it may not be classed as "MEDRS". I know power to be a good editor, so I'm excited to see what they come up with. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:12, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Newspapers and journalists are not reliable for biomedical content, and especially not for anything WP:EXCEPTIONAL. Their remit is to get readers, not pursue science. If Wikipedia didn't do this, it would have amplified the bogus MMR-causes-autism "scandal" that newspapers (not just crap ones) reported in the 1990s. Renowned investigative journalists in particular are often prone to believing their own hype at some point. I am strongly in favour of following the WP:PAGs by the book. Alexbrn (talk) 13:33, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

if we had a renowned investigative journalist/paper doing a detailed, evidence-based exposé, then I would support that being in articles even though it may not be classed as "MEDRS". If it's non-science info, then that's exactly what WP:BESTSOURCES says we should do. Lots of examples where this is important on the various COVID-19 pages, nobody is saying no news sources ever.

But I'd argue this also means that a investigative journalist's expose is among the WP:BESTSOURCES to use regarding scientific information, especially if it's in disagreement with a peer-reviewed secondary research study published in a reputable journal. Why? Because the additional layers of review and the expertise of the authors makes the secondary journal article more reliable than a (arguably primary source) journalist's expose which might be WP:RSEDITORIAL. See WP:SCHOLARSHIP. It's not like the WP:MEDRS guideline comes from nowhere, it's merely a clarification of the existing WP:RS policy for a contentious area. Basically, so we don't need to have this argument against those WP:CHERRYPICKING from WP:RS. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:02, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

No. Just no. Alexbrn is correct about problems with journalism on medical topics. Even some journalists who go on to do in-depth book-level research eventually come to this conclusion as well. The problem is that journalists for the most part are simply not qualified to evaluate a lot of this, and the conventions of journalism often involve picking and quoting from experts to show different views, without actually weighing those views according to evidence.

MEDRS is not just a subsidiary of BESTSOURCES, it is in many ways a very different set of RS guidelines compared to the rest of Wikipedia, and for good reason. There are a lot of aspects of medicine where it is very easy to misunderstand or misrepresent various things. Even good-faith editing can go astray very easily. MEDRS isn't just for bludgeoning SPAs, it's an essential guide that is used on all WikiProject Medicine articles. Hyperion35 (talk) 17:03, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

MEDRS isn't about 'everything to do with medicine' or even 'all WikiProject Medicine articles'. It says so itself. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:48, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I am un-reverting; I made three mostly unrelated changes and it is unclear in the edit summary which of them Alexbrn objects to. Based on the talk page, I will restore the (in my view excessive) description of speculation as "unfounded". User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 15:17, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Changes I would like to make today:

• I would like a more recent source on the speculation that certain genetic signatures in COVID suggest it was produced through gain-of-function research. This is a fast-moving field, ideally there should be a source from 2021.
• We should discuss somewhere the research whether the outbreak started at the Huanan Wet Market (as initially reported in early 2020), or elsewhere in Wuhan.
• Claims about a "Chinese coverup" are conspiracy theories, literally: they allege that the Chinese authorities in Wuhan are conspiring to hide the origin of the virus. We absolutely cannot use primary sources to describe this, and I have not yet found any good secondary sources investigating alleged Chinese coverups. If I find a neutral secondary source that explains why people are claiming there is a cover-up, I will add a paragraph to the article.
• There are various "open letters" about this, a cursory investigation suggests they generally have both bona fide virologists as well as some people I would consider FRINGE researchers. I plan to leave "open letters" out entirely; we will have enough "some people say" without them.

There's also more cleanup needed for the split I started to do yesterday; nobody appears to have explicitly objected to the suggestion that legitimate research into lab leaks should be in a different article-section than Epoch Times politically-based speculation. I'm not 100% sure how to do that split, if you have opinions please suggest them. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 15:33, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

So long as anything in this article stays focussed on misinformation, as described in high-quality sources. In it not our job to dig out what we (editors) think is misinformation, let alone to sit in judgement of whether it is or not true. Alexbrn (talk) 15:41, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I've made a change to Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 which will hopefully fix the issues I was concerned about. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 20:35, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• May be a conspiracy theory, but it is notable enough to have a separate page about. This is mostly a political controversy. Hence it should be separated from the scientific stuff described in page Investigations into the origin of COVID-19. My very best wishes (talk) 02:30, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

  My very best wishes, that's by definition a POVFORK at this time - there's not enough independent information to form a new article about. Maybe there will be in the future (similar to Vaccines and autism), but at this point we also need to consider the fact that there's already too much disruption on this issue and that people here can't deal with the pages we have that are related to this - no need to add another. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:33, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

• I think there are enough sources: see above, and one can simply make a Gogole search for "Wuhan lab leak". Speaking about POV fork/sections, I would argue that the current way of presentation as COVID-19_misinformation#Wuhan_lab_leak_story is improperly biased because this is not just an obvious misinformation (to be included to the page), but rather something theoretically possible (even though a very low probability), which needs to be investigated just to make sure it did not happen, but the Chinese government prevented any really independent investigation and hides something. My very best wishes (talk) 02:54, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support to standalone article, because given statements by WP:MEDRS compatible experts at this time, we can consider it no longer to be misinformation, but a theory. That is the evolution of the sources, not a WP:POVFORK --Almaty (talk) 17:09, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

This article was just updated to distinguish the conspiracies and misinformation from the legitimate inquiries we have WP:RS to back up. What about the current section are you unsatisfied with, and what makes you think the solution is to split the article (which would just use the same RS as we cite here and Investigations into the origin of COVID-19, rightly pointing to it being the minority perspective)? Bakkster Man (talk) 20:03, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

• We don't want another attempted POVFORK. Community consensus was to redirect the article and delete its draft.[1] Meanwhile, the Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 article has gained traction. If people want to include more stuff about the "lab leak" notion, that'd be the place. Alexbrn (talk) 17:18, 23 May 2021 (UTC
• Ironically, the best argument for a separate page for the "lab leak" hypothesis would be as a notable failed and long-discredited hypothesis, along the lines of geocentrism or creationism. Otherwise it deserves mention in the COVID misinformation article, the origins article, and the main SARS-COV-2 article as minor mentions of due weight. We have an article on the origins of the virus, why would we need another article just for one hypothesis that our best MEDRS citations are calling "extremely unlikely"? Hyperion35 (talk) 22:16, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Experimental vaccines

I have removed this:

Claims that mRNA vaccines are still experimental

There is a claim that mRNA vaccines are still experimental. mRNA vaccines have been used by over 8 million people. At the moment there is no evidence of the development of autoimmune diseases.

because the answer depends on exactly how you define "experimental". In a scientific model, a thing stops being experimental when we know whether it works. But in a legal/regulatory framework, a vaccine stops being experimental when the government(s) say so. Most vaccines are not fully authorized, which means they're "experimental" in that sense. I think it is best for this article not to address this complex question at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

They aren't experimental even in the legal/regulatory framework - they're "unapproved". Unapproved doesn't mean experimental and this is actually the reason for the misinformation - they're authorized under emergency use authorization (though Pfizer has filed for full authorization) but that doesn't mean the same as "experimental". I agree that this sort of misinformation should be handled very carefully here if at all, but if it is covered here it should be made clear that "experimental" isn't a legal framework - and as such, calling something "experimental" has nothing to do with the authorization (emergency, full, or lack of any) whatsoever. Many experimental drugs aren't authorized at all - some are authorized fully while still clinically experimental (ex: under "fast to market" schemes for orphan drugs), and more. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 00:17, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

"Unapproved" isn't really accurate either, since they do have regulatory approval under the emergency use authorization. If you are looking for a good way to explain this using non-technical language, you might consider calling it "fast track approval", as it's somewhat similar to the way that some cancer chemotherapies get approved for use earlier than they might otherwise be used. It's important to emphasize that the use of these vaccines is explicitly authorized under law, there is no ambiguity about this, they simply applied for authorization under an expedited schedule that allowed for them to cut through some of the red tape and administrative delays. "Experimental" would imply either no FDA authorization, or that they were still going through the required HCTs. In this case they have already done the required HCTs, they're merely given emergency authorization to expedite their use until the full paperwork goes through. I can check the FDA website tomorrow for the full sources on the regulatory situation to back this up, but in the meantime, this is the best non-technical explanation I can think of. Hyperion35 (talk) 05:27, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Link: The FDA themselves calls them unapproved because "approval" refers to unconditional approval in the US. An emergency use authorization is not the same as "approval". True "fast track" approval has occurred in the EU where the Pfizer vaccine (and some others) have obtained full approval through an accelerated timeline. In the US, that doesn't exist - they are not approved, they are merely authorized for use during the emergency. If the COVID pandemic came to a halt tomorrow randomly, the vaccines would still be able to be used in the EU forever - because they have approval there. That is not the case in the US. The EUA expires when the emergency is over - unless full approval is granted. The "full paperwork" wasn't even initiated on the Pfizer vaccine until this past week - and it hasn't been initiated for any of the other vaccines with the FDA yet at all. It's a very complex and complicated situation that takes a long time to explain - but there has been a lot of misinformation where the vaccines are classified as "experimental". They aren't "experimental" - which means that it is under testing - but they also aren't fully approved and are still "emergency use only". That's where a lot of the misinformation gains traction - because of poor understanding of "anything that isn't fully approved is 'experimental' and bad". But at the same time, we must be certain not to overstate the approval of the vaccines in an attempt to clarify/combat this misinformation - they aren't approved - but they aren't experimental - they're in between. I don't think saying "until the full paperwork goes through" is a good idea - because that implies that it was "accelerated" which it wasn't. The full paperwork requires a lot more work than an emergency use authorization - but a full paperwork approval would enable it to be used even after the pandemic is no longer an emergency situation in the US. Remember that this is the misinformation article - we should focus solely on those making unfounded claims that even with an EUA they are still "experimental" - and we should only discuss regulatory framework to show that they are not experimental. We do not need to explain here the entire framework and what the different levels/terms mean. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 06:12, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

• The problem is, as WAID says, the range of meaning for "experimental". The misinformation is not about the technical truth but invokes a narrative of "they're running a giant experimenting on people!". It could be hard to unpack this without a source that does just that. Perhaps this could be useful for false claims about the nature of mRNA vaccines? Alexbrn (talk) 06:18, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Skeptic subs?

r/NoNewNormal definitely warrants a mention. Maybe r/CoronavirusCircleJerk too, and also r/FuckMasks (although the latter has been banned already). We're not going back to brunch! Skippy2520 (talk) 01:22, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

This is a reddit thing right? Does reddit misinformation get mentioned in reliable sources? Those would be needed. Alexbrn (talk) 02:41, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, those are Reddit forums (known as subReddits). Without reliable third-party discussion of them, we can't really include them in the article. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:42, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Obviously we don't need to link to the top conspiracy theory sub-reddits here. They don't support any information in the article, and probably fail the external link policy. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:16, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

The driving adverb behind this.

Nothing in the talk page nor the article mentions the important question, why. Why is misinformation spreading? Is it spreading faster, if so why? Why are once reasonable persons now believing things like the vaccines will make you autistic and prime you for mind control? I am genuinely curious about this issue, it goes beyond the article in that regard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Caustic3 (talk • contribs) 21:36, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, beyond what's already in each section, there's not a ton of scholarly information as to why - that's going to take years after this is over for people to be surveyed after the fact to ask them "why did you believe this then and why do you still or not now believe it". Many of the subsections go into who's been spreading the misinformation - and that's really all we can say at this point. It's not appropriate for us to, in an article, speculate on the "why" when reliable sources can't tell us yet - thus it's also not appropriate for us to discuss it here because we'd really just be speculating. If there's reliable sources you can provide on the "why", it'd be good to link them here so we can discuss including them. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:45, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

There's that NYT article I added recently about echo-chambers and stuff, but not much else. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:20, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

• To some extent this isn't answerable, at least not as a "why" question. We can answer "who" in some cases, where there is documented evidence of individuals and groups promoting certain claims. It is also important to emphasize that this isn't new, anti-vax hysteria has been around for decades, the most prominent example might be Andrew Wakefield's discredited and retracted Lancet paper. There has been previous evidence that belief in conspiracy theories tends to correlate with anti-vaccine beliefs, as well as broader belief in so-called "alternative medicine". And of course, hysterical conspiracy theories have often surrounded diseases. In medieval Europe it was pretty common to blame Jews for supposedly poisoning wells every time there was a cholera outbreak, for example.

  Now, finding good documented evidence from reliable sources is difficult, not the least because we're essentially looking for a reliable secondary source to report on what is by definition an jnreliabke primary source. Science Based Medicine has published a few articles examining the role of conspiracy theories in this pandemic that might be helpful. Hyperion35 (talk) 17:50, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

  Those two articles make interesting links with pre-existing conspiracy groups, but they're essentially editorials and opinion pieces. Does SBM have enough of a reputation that we could cite them (with attribution if required)? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:31, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

  This is why I closed the discussion earlier. It's an unanswerable question right now. We can point Caustic3 at our Conspiracy theory page, which has some reasoning why that kind of thing happens, or Vaccine hesitancy which goes into the history of this... but we don't have enough resources to answer why people are spreading misinformation specifically about COVID-19 yet. All we can do is speculate, which is WP:FORUM material. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 11:12, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

  Per WP:RSPSS Science-Based Medicine is considered generally reliable, as it has a credible editorial board, publishes a robust set of editorial guidelines, and has been cited by other reliable sources. Editors do not consider Science-Based Medicine a self-published source, but it is also not a peer-reviewed publication with respect to WP:MEDRS. Since it often covers fringe material, parity of sources may be relevant. Basically, we should be careful about citing actual biomedical info from them (but SBM almost always provides links to the sources for any biomedical claims, so use those sources instead), but for reporting on quackery and fringe stuff, they are a reliable source, and in some cases one of the few reliable sources that covers these topics. So for example they covered one of the most prominent researchers who promoted hydroxychloroquine as a supposed treatment for COVID-19, and so we could use them as a source for how the researcher misrepresented and promoted hydroxychloroquine. To the extent that they cover actual real treatments for COVID-19, or research that showed that hydroxychloroquine was ineffective, we'd be better off citing the peer-reviewed research that they cite. Hyperion35 (talk) 15:07, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 12 May 2021

I think it would be more appropriate to change "his or her" to "their" under in the "xenophobic attacks" part of the article. Typhlosionator (talk) 10:01, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

I've rephrased from "his or her ethnicity" to "the victim's ethnicity," to be more specific. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 11:23, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Typhlosionator (talk) 13:24, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Origins of SARS-CoV-2

Please help to reconcile the contradictory claims documented at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Origins of SARS-CoV-2. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:18, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Science Letter

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1.full

"Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable." Letter published in Science, co-signed by Ralph Baric. That officially makes lab leak hypothesis not a conspiracy theory. Should be removed from this page. --Cowrider (talk) 22:44, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Cowrider, something does not need to be a "conspiracy theory" to be misinformation. The way something is presented can cause something that is technically factual to be misinformation. As an example, if I said "voter fraud occurred in the 2020 election in the US", that's technically true - but if I spin it in a way that makes you think it was more than a couple individual cases of such, or if I try and say that it caused the election to be "stolen", that true fact becomes misinformation. Many politicians and even scientists have overstated the level of evidence for this theory - and in fact, there's a reason they said "both remain viable" - that was a carefully crafted language to imply that it's on the same level as the zoonotic origin - which it isn't. It's viable, but that's only because it takes years, if not decades, to conclusively prove one thing or another in this field - so the reason it's still "viable" is simply because more research needs done before we'll have the data to conclusively disprove it. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:49, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

It's misinformation to say virus originated from a lab leak, because there is no direct evidence to support that conclusion. It is also misinformation to say virus originated from a zootonic spillover, because again there is no direct evidence to support this conclusion. Science will eventually figure it out. Right now both hypotheses are viable. We can argue over probabilities, but it's wrong to say the lab leak hypothesis is misinformation. It's a significant development that a preeminent group of Scientists have published this letter in one of the world's top 2 Scientific journals. These are experts in the field, and they are specifically calling the an "accidental lab release" a "viable" theory.--Cowrider (talk) 02:22, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

No. It's not. Because the prevailing scientific consensus based on all information available highly suggests a zoonotic origin. As such, as long as someone doesn't say "it for sure is from animals", they're not spreading misinformation - they're in line with the scientific consensus. It's not a "preeminent group" either - it's a group that about half of them have no microbiological/epidemiological/medical background - and the other half is no more than a dozen scientists. On the other hand, we can find many dozens of actual medical/epidemiological professionals who disagree with that - as such, the scientific consensus is against them. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:40, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

It's not a fringe group of Scientists (you might be thinking of another letter.) The letter's 18 authors collectively have over 4000 publications and over 494,000 citations[2], and have expertise relevant to the field. There are huge names in virology on this list, including Ralph Baric. This is a significant development in regard to the scientific consensus on virus origin.Cowrider (talk) 08:40, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)First, we can still document the existing misinformation that is circulating surrounding the idea of a laboratory leak. Secondly, that letter that you quote represents the opinion of a small number of scientists, it cites no evidence to support a laboratory leak, and merely calls for greater investigation. Hyperion35 (talk) 22:52, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

"That officially makes lab leak hypothesis not a conspiracy theory." Unambiguous WP:SYNTH which, like the lab leak, as described by the vast majority of MEDRS, has no evidence to support it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:06, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Don't follow your reasoning. A peer-reviewed letter published in one of the world's top 2 scientific journals, signed by some preeminent Scientists, including Ralph_S_Baric, say "theories of accidental release from a lab" remain "viable".--Cowrider (talk) 01:49, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

It's not peer-reviewed. It's a letter to the editor. Those are not usually peer-reviewed AFAIK since they're more often than not statements of opinion. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:54, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

The letter was peer reviewed. Kristian Andersen (author of the Nature proximal origins paper) was one of the reviewers.--Cowrider (talk) 02:43, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Cowrider, source for this statement? It's not listed anywhere on the article that it was peer-reviewed for accuracy and scientific merit. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:49, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Reviewers are usually not listed with the publication. The source that Andersen reviewed the letter is the NYT [3]. Note he merely reviewed the letter, he is not endorsing the contents, since Andersen is one of the leading proponents of proximal origins.--Cowrider (talk) 03:50, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

"Reviewed" is used in the NYT without the qualificative "Peer". This seems to be simply "review" in its more mundane meaning (Andersen gave an opinion on the letter - and to the NYT, not to the editors of Science - this seems to be borne out by his tweet - see below). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:13, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

That's a good point. "Reviewed" may just mean just mean Andersen read the letter and gave a comment to the NYT. It's still a significant development that (1) Science published this letter, and (2) that 18 prominent Scientists with expertise in the field put their name to it. Collectively they have over 4000 publications and over 494,000 citations. This represents a major shift on the view of the virus originCowrider (talk) 08:27, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Weeelll... a letter you write does not become a reliable source by you having written for reliable sources 4000 times before. If they want their opinion to be quoted in Wikipedia articles, they should do studies that confirm it and publish those. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:52, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I see no mention of peer review anywhere, and as I said I don't think letters to editors get peer review. There's only the editor's name. Even if your statement that the letter was peer reviewed was true (I'm quite confident it isn't), peer reviewers are generally not named or known, and Andersen's tweet here seems to indicate he doesn't quite agree with the entirety of the letter. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:51, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

There are two related but separate bits of misinformation here. The first, which is implied by the phrase "lab leak", is that the virus accidentally leaked from the lab. The second, which was the original misinformation from the YouTube conspiracy theorist who started it all in January 2020, is that the virus is a genetically engineered bioweapon that was purposely released by the Chinese government. Both appear to be misinformation, but only the second starts with a conspiracy theory. The first is often combined with another conspiracy theory -- that the Chinese government and the WHO conspired to cover up the accident. Thus, any "not a conspiracy theory" claim must specifically be about the bioweapon or the coverup actually being true, because those are the conspiracy theories. Claims that the accidental leak is actually true don't count, because the lab leak theory is misinformation but not a conspiracy theory. And even if someone proves it was an accidental leak there would remain a bunch of people who continue to believe the bioweapon and/or coverup conspiracy theories. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:17, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd go farther, only some information about an accidental lab leak is misinformation. Specifically, that which misrepresents the strength of evidence in its favor. Bakkster Man (talk) 00:51, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Exactly.

I'd go farther, some information about a zoonosis hypothesis is misinformation. Specifically, that which misrepresents the strength of evidence in its favor. Including claims of consensus in the scientific community. Zero data to support this. Anyone claiming scientific consensus is guilty of making this issue political:

"That opinion was seconded by Rear Admiral Kenneth Bernard, an epidemiologist and disease detective who served as the biodefense expert in the Clinton and George W. Bush White Houses. The letter, he says, 'is balanced, well written, and exactly reflects the opinion of every smart epidemiologist and scientist I know. If asked, I would have signed it myself.”[4]

“We’re reasonable scientists with expertise in relevant areas,” Relman said, “and we don’t see the data that says this must be of natural origin.”[5]

“Most of the discussion you hear about SARS-CoV-2 origins at this point is coming from, I think, the relatively small number of people who feel very certain about their views,” Dr. Bloom said. He added: “Anybody who’s making statements with a high level of certainty about this is just outstripping what’s possible to do with the available evidence.”[6]

My previous generous attempt at consensus [7]. My personal opinion is this section needs to go 'bye bye' replaced with a link to "Investigations into the origin of COVID-19" Enough of this silliness. Dinglelingy (talk) 12:53, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

And right there is the problem, some of it is BS conspiracy theorizing. So whilst the is an argument for re-writing there is not one for outright removal.Slatersteven (talk) 12:55, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Huh? Dinglelingy (talk) 13:08, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Its simple enough, we have some (arguably) hedge bet science (As in "there might be Something we are not sure, lets look") that hardly makes a string case for the lab leak. As well as a lot of conspiracy theories about it, thus we cannot remove the section, but there might be an argument for a re-write.Slatersteven (talk) 13:24, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

If you think that those quotes somehow negate the idea of a scientific consensensus surrounding the zoonotic hypothesis, then you may not understand how a scientific consensus works. The fact that one or two people said "there is no consensus" to a newspaper reporter does not carry anywhere near the weight that you think it does. Especially compared to peer-reviewed primary and especially secondary sources, and the WHO report. Beyond that, I have to question whether you understand why this is the scientific consensus, and I mean this beyond just being able to read through various sources. Concerns over zoonotic episodes leading to lethal pandemics long predates COVID-19, public health officials have been looking into this for decades, it is why so many public health experts panicked over SARS and MERS and Bird Flu and Swine Flu. Hyperion35 (talk) 13:28, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I think there is a difference between a "conspiracy theory" and "fringe theory", they are not synonymous.Slatersteven (talk) 13:31, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

There is one fringe theory and two conspiracy theories. The fringe theory is that the virus was created in and leaked from a lab. The first conspiracy theory (the one that started this entire discussion) is that the the virus was created in the lab as a bioweapon and then deliberately released by the Chinese government, who for some inexplicable reason released it in China instead of, say New York or London. The second conspiracy theory is that the WHO and most other scientists have conspired with the Chinese government to cover up the accidental lab leak. This line of argument will be familiar to those who have run into similar "Ignore the scientists! They are all lying!" conspiracy theories associated with antivax, creationism, climate change, and holocaust denial.`Just because the fringe theory that isn't a conspiracy theory exists, that doesn't negate the clear evidence of the existence of the two related conspiracy theories. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:19, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I think we need to be careful with 'created in' when referring to the WHO-evaluated theory which we're referring to as the 'alternate theoretical formulation'. The WHO ruled out intentional engineering and release, falling into the bioweapon conspiracy. This doesn't mean the virus that a person was inadvertently exposed to was identical to the one collected from bats, but 'created in' gives the impression of intentional manipulation, rather than the virus evolving on its own in culture. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:35, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

@Dinglelingy: I'd be more apt to agree if you could provide strong WP:MEDRS sources (instead of WP:MEDPOP sources) to back up the claim that there isn't consensus that the most likely explanation is natural spillover (occurring outside a lab). Because we have multiple MEDRS reviews which make that conclusion, and need at least as strong sourcing to change the claim that it's the mainstream consensus. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:30, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Here is one: [8]

I see no 'data' in any peer reviewed MEDRS showing consensus. I see people claiming consensus, I see people assuming consensus. I am totally fine with deferring to the language of the WHO sponsored study, the Director of the WHO's remarks on the study, and the recent Science letter. But the only consensus I see is nearly everyone agreeing that both theories are valid and both need to be investigated. Claims beyond that are political.

With respect to the current page, "unfounded speculation and conspiracy theories regarding the possibility the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology have gained popularity during the pandemic.[27][28] One narrative describes the pandemic as the result of an accidental leakage of a coronavirus, another says that the virus was engineered as a bio-weapon." Does that sound like the 'unintentional lab leak hypothesis' is a valid theory? I don't think so. The goal here should be to educate readers as to the distinction, not conflate the two as a conspiracy theory. It's not unfounded anymore than zoonosis is, they both are lacking anything more than circumstantial evidence, that's why so many prestigious scientists in the field felt so compelled to make such a statement in a top journal. The section is non NPOV and needs a major re-write. I think wikipedia is just better served with a link to "Investigations into the origin of COVID-19".Dinglelingy (talk) 15:34, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

"It's not unfounded anymore than zoonosis is" - exactly why the lab leak is here as misinformation. Both hypotheses are not equally accepted by MEDRS, as evidenced by the sources presented at WP:NOLABLEAK (and those on the talk page at User_talk:Novem_Linguae/Essays/There_was_no_lab_leak#"If_they_even_mention_it"). They might both be "possible", but the fact that one is deemed "extremely unlikely" while the other is the de-facto consensus of sources (and some describe it as such) is indicative that one should be treated as an idea falling under WP:FRINGE and WP:FALSEBALANCE ("plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship."). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:10, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Dinglelingy, as a single-purpose account, your opinion is given less weight. You know that, right? Guy (help! - typo?) 16:23, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Let's back up a second. The unintentional lab leak hypothesis was already not a conspiracy theory, per the WHO's investigation including it for consideration. They concluded it was unlikely, but valid scientifically. The Science article doesn't change that, nor do they seem to be arguing for any specific final conclusion of likelihood. Instead, they just seem to be echoing the call for more investigation with specific data access to make a stronger conclusion, something the WHO themselves (both in the study and the Director General) also called for and said they plan to do.

This article isn't referring to the unintentional lab leak hypothesis itself. Only to claims made overstating the level of evidence in its favor, and the actual conspiracy theories about intentional engineering and/or release. Which again, this Nature letter doesn't address. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:21, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

We refer to conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation. That about covers it all. Alexbrn (talk) 13:25, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, sources other than the WHO report are more mitigated on the merits of the hypothesis. Some call it "massive online speculations", others say there is "no evidence" to support it, ... "Unfounded speculation" seems about a right summary of the prevailing view about the lab leak. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:37, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't believe the article as written conveys information about the lab leak hypothesis in an accurate and neutral way:

• First off, the hypothesis is listed in the "Virus origin theories" section followed by a long list of blatantly farcical conspiracy theories, which gives the false impression by association that the lab leak hypothesis is also a conspiracy theory.
• Furthermore, the first sentence discussing the lab leak theory reads: Though the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not been determined, unfounded speculation and conspiracy theories regarding the possibility the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology have gained popularity during the pandemic. "Unfounded speculation and conspiracy theories" does not accurately and neutrally convey the degree of support in the mainstream scientific community for the validity and likelihood of the lab leak hypothesis.
• The quote by Peter Daszak, "The only evidence that people have for a lab leak is that there is a lab in Wuhan", is untrue and misleading―there is a lot of circumstantial evidence for the lab leak hypothesis (a cluster of workers from the lab were hospitalized with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in late 2019, the nature of the coronavirus research at the lab, genetic makeup of the virus, etc.). Daszak also has a conflict of interest due to his relationship with the lab, which I believe would make his statement unreliable, or at the very least should be qualified by mentioning his conflict of interest.[9][10]
• "Despite much speculation on the Internet, 'lab' related theories are not supported by scientific evidence." This also give the false impression that the lab leak hypothesis is a mere internet conspiracy theory, rather than a valid hypothesis with mainstream backing in the scientific community. The article includes various sources describing how improbable the lab leak story is, but no mention of scientists affirming the validity of the theory and calling for further inquiry.[11] Stonkaments (talk) 16:19, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

  Stonkaments, it's in with all the other theories because they are the non-mainstream theories. If it becomes mainstream, then it will move, but the fact that virtually all the competing origin theories are batshit insane is no more our problem than the fact that all the competing theories for 9/11 are insane. We are here to reflect the real world, not shape it into what we want it to be, and in the real world the lab leak conjecture is a tiny minority view in science, and a super-popular racist trope, and we don't give the two any kind of parity. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:26, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

  In addition to what JzG noted, I would like to add that Daszak does not appear to have a COI. His statement is valid and deserves due weight as he was part of the WHO investigation. Speaking of which, you need to understand WP:UNDUE, a statement by 18 scientists does not make it a valid reputable hypothesis, nor does it alter the existing scientific consensus. For reference, Creationist groups routinely publish "statements" signed by many many more "scientists", but it does not affect the status of the Theory of Evolution (see the Project Steve page as an explanation for why) Hyperion35 (talk) 21:09, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

  On what basis are you claiming that Daszak does not have a conflict of interest? I have provided two reliable sources supporting the claim that he does indeed have one, and common sense also says that his long-term relationship with the Wuhan Institute of Virology[12] poses a clear COI.

  As for your other point, I agree that the statement by the 18 scientists doesn't alter the scientific consensus. But it is clearly noteworthy and DUE for inclusion in the article. Look at your example of creationism—articles such as Level of support for evolution clearly describe the dissent in the scientific community ("A 1991 Gallup poll found that about 5% of American scientists (including those with training outside biology) identified themselves as creationists.") Your argument that the letter is UNDUE doesn't hold weight IMO. WP can and should document the dissenting view within the scientific community; what we must avoid is giving UNDUE credence to its validity. Stonkaments (talk) 01:15, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

  That is not how COIs work. What we have are non-expert sources (popular media) quoting an individual scientist who claims that Daszak has a COI. But the actual explanation for that COI simply does not hold up, it is a classic conspiracy theory. Quite the opposite, his experience with the Wuhan lab was one of the strongest reasons for sending him. And regardless, he was not the only scientist on his team. As someone who works for a government healthcare agency, I actually have experience determining COIs, this would not be a COI. They sent him there for the same reason that my supervisor often says to me "you've worked with healthcare providers before, can you please talk to these people?" And his connection was not unknown, this was not an undisclosed COI, if anyone believed that a COI existed then Daszak would not have been sent there in the first place. Hyperion35 (talk) 17:14, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Given a letter in Science by renown scientists and an article on the New York Times detailing the letter and the hypothesis, this theory cannot possibly be called a ‘conspiracy theory’. The fact that users still fight to call it as such and keep it on this page, bundled up with the weapons theory is ahosultely insane. It many be a minority viewpoint, but it’s a real scientific hypothesis sustained by many experts. At this point, this really seems like censorship. At the very least, separate the paragraph into “lab leak” and “weapon”, these things are clearly not related and the former has real scientist behind it. Eccekevin (talk) 19:00, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. As it stands now, Wikipedia should be on the list for spreading misinformation. Nakerlund (talk) 19:28, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

The letter doesn't change anything as far as WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE is concerned (it's a WP:PRIMARY source for the opinion of its authors, as clearly explained). Conspiracy theory, unfounded speculation or small minority scientific hypotheses all get the same treatment, so you can call foul all you want, but without a secondary, reputable MEDRS to support the lab leak, you're wasting everyone's time. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:02, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

BUt you can't call a small minority scientific a conspiracy theory or vice versa. This is not a conspiracy theory, it's a small minority scientific viewpoint and it should be referred as such. Also, there should be two separate paragraphs, since they;re two completely different and unrelated ideas. Eccekevin (talk) 23:01, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello RandomCanadian! Policy is not the point. Two very different issues have been mixed and the text is directly misleading. You should take a break if you feel your time is wasted. I'm sure there are plenty of us here to resolve this adequately without wasting more of your time.Nakerlund (talk) 23:37, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

The text is not misleading. The lab leak can be accurately summed up as "unfounded speculation", according to most MEDRS which discuss the matter. If you're not sure, see the links I gave here - there you will find sources which, if they mention the lab leak at all (many don't mention it at all, simply stating zoonosis as the accepted hypothesis), describe it in generally unkind terms. That means that whatever one considers the lab leak to be (geopolitical blameshifting, unfounded speculation, scientific hypothesis), it cannot be put on an equal footing to mainstream science per FALSEBALANCE. An opinion letter (which is a WP:PRIMARY source and is not a MEDRS) is not sufficient to change the analysis in regards of that. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:55, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

No, the fact one is a minority point of view does not mean is it a conspiracy theory. But most importantly, the scientific hypothesis that it is of zoonotic origin and was being studied in a lab and there was an accidental leak needs to be treated separately from the bio-weapon conspiracy theory. They are not the same (one has no scientific support at all while the other has plenty of respectable scientists that consider it a possibility) and they should not be treated as such. Eccekevin (talk) 02:32, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

You seem much more familiar with the subject than me. Could you explain why the lab leak is misinformation? Do we have a recent source calling it misinformation? I don't see how the accepted hypothesis makes an alternative explanation misinformation. Even if it is highly unlikely. The letter discussed makes the lab leak seem less highly unlikely now as well. If we went by the age of the accepted hypothesis we would not have gotten very far with science Nakerlund (talk) 02:25, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

The lab leak is a possible (but extremely unlikely, and so for the very little [circumstantial] "evidence" for it essentially boils down to "there's a lab in Wuhan") idea, whose proponents engage in frequent misinformation (by cherry-picking evidence to favour their conclusions [that's not how the scientific method works], claiming it is on equal footing to the accepted alternative, ...). Claims about the origin of the virus, whether the outlandish genetic manipulation one, or the less implausible lab leak, are also frequent tropes used for political blame-shifting, or sometimes more plainly simple xenophobia. It's also been very actively promoted by a group of Twitter enthusiasts who have little if any relevant scientific competence and who have engaged in disruption here, on Wikipedia. The letter is the opinion of a few scientists, and as such cannot be used for much except saying that a few scientists said something, because it is a WP:PRIMARY source. But then that would be unduly legitimising the lab leak by giving equal weight to a minority opinion (WP:FALSEBALANCE), so we shouldn't do that. We can use the letter to support the less controversial call for further investigation, but that's about it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:52, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

From my perspective, your concerns of extremists’ cherry picking, political bias and xenophobia seem a bit backwards. Foolish or not, we have elected to do research on extremely dangerous pathogens despite knowing that accidents sometimes happen. The scientists who get up close and personal risk their lives to understand our biological enemies. Our concern should be with them and any accident should be met by condolences and an overview of the safety procedures to keep the same accident from ever happening again. When accidents do happen, it is important the scientific community can be transparent to minimize the exposure. Associating lab accidents with misinformation is wrong and disrespectful to those who have had to give up their lives for science. Nakerlund (talk) 06:14, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

By that same reasoning, accusing a lab of allowing a virus to escape should also be done only when there is sufficient evidence, else we are disrespecting those same scientists. And you have another aspect of this backwards as well, there have been two previous deadly zoonotic coronavirus events in the past two decades, SARS and MERS. The consensus is that both of those were natural zoonotic transfers occuring in the wild. There were two other deadly new zoonotic influenza strains in that same period, Bird Flu and Swine Flu. We know that these things happen, we have been worried about a zoonotic transfer resulting in a(nother) major pandemic for several decades now. As random as it may seem, there is plenty of precedent for a single hunter catching a disease while butchering a wild animal and then spreading it around the world, just look at HIV. I keep stressing this because you do not seem to understand how health experts are viewing this: zoonotic origin actually requires fewer unsupported assumptions. Hyperion35 (talk) 17:21, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Eccekevin. The placement of the minority view of a possible lab origin next to conspiracy theories, such as an intentional bioweapon release, is problematic. The way the section is currently phrased makes it seem as if the lab origin possibility is a conspiracy theory. The consensus across wiki talk pages is that the lab origin hypothesis is a fringe minority viewpoint. Therefore, it is important that the hypothesis is not conflated (as it is dramatically in this article) as a conspiracy theory. The easiest way to avoid the conflation would be to remove the lab origin possibility from this article. If there is no consensus for that simple solution, then the next best thing is to make the lab origin have its own section. The section as it stands is itself misinformation. facepalm. --Guest2625 (talk) 22:51, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. No one is saying that the zoonotic origin followed by the accidental lab spillover should be taken as the new truth, but it also should not be treated in the same realm as man-made disease bio-weapon as it is now. It should be removed from this article or have its own subparagraph that explains well the claims, the support, and the misinformation (that sure abounds too) but without conflating it with eh bio-weapon story. Eccekevin (talk) 02:41, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

There is plenty of mis-information and conspiracy theorizing regarding lab leaks that must remain in this article. There is also legitimate scientific inquiry into a possible lab leak. That scientific inquiry should be discussed at Investigations into the origin of COVID-19. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 03:16, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Lab accidents are very real and tragic. Until one has been ruled out, regardless of how improbable, it is essential that the risk is taken seriously. It must not be labeled as misinformation prematurely. Nakerlund (talk) 06:24, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

There's nothing premature about this. Until there's actually evidence of a lab leak, this is sheer speculation. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:41, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

There is actual (circumstantial) evidence; there is no direct evidence for either the lab leak or the zoonotic transfer theory, so neither should be labled as misinformation while still under investigation. The WIV was actively researching and creating novel coronaviruses[13], there were signs of an outbreak in August 2019[14], the CCP has denied interviewers access to researchers at the WIV (including those who were ill in the fall of 2019)[15], investigators have found no trace of how the virus first jumped to humans[16][17], the double codon CGG-CGG at the furin cleavage site (which hasn't been found in any other coronavirus but is routinely used in labs)[18], etc. Stonkaments (talk) 16:31, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps it's time for a reminder that this is a lot simpler than some editors are wanting to make it. We find the best sources on the topic of misinformation. We summarize them. That's it. This will, by design, result in a trailing-edge, conservative, mainstream view of the matter - in short, an encyclopedic view. If there's a desire to create something more racy, then a sister project like Wikiversity is a more suitable venue. Alexbrn (talk) 16:39, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

What you call "circumstantial evidence" isn't even that. It's WP:SYNTH, trying to tie together disparate facts into a narrative.

That said, Alexbrn is right, we're going by what reliable sources say. And the lab leak hypothesis is such a WP:FRINGE view that it's misinformation to promote it. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:19, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Yup, the promotion of the "lab leak" story, whether it be from the WIV or Fort Detrick, takes us into the realm of misinformation. Keeping it in mind as a remote possibility is however fine. But that's not what the online proponents do, they're all like #chinaliedpeopledied, invoking a conspiracy to conceal as fact. This is an article about misinformation. You'd think from some of the comments here that some editors think there is no misinformation about labs and COVID-19, which is seriously adrift not only of the sourcing, but of reality too. Alexbrn (talk) 05:14, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi Alexbrn! I agree. It's ridiculous Nakerlund (talk) 17:10, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

What you call "circumstantial evidence" isn't even that. It's WP:SYNTH, trying to tie together disparate facts into a narrative. Nope, this entire argument is laid out in-depth here[19], not synth from disparate facts. And there is nothing conservative or encyclopedic about calling the lab leak hypothesis a fringe conspiracy theory, when numerous reliable sources are now calling it a mainstream theory and explicitly denouncing its characterization as a conspiracy theory.[20][21][22][23] Stonkaments (talk) 04:38, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Well said, Stonkaments! I fear my arguments fail to convince others. The bulletin is a very good source that keep getting erroneously dismissed in this discussion. Nakerlund (talk) 08:51, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello again! Thanks all for bringing this conversation forwards. I am not yet swayed by the arguments and still have concerns about the framing of the Wuhan leak story. Maybe some concrete suggestions for changes could help us keep the conversation creative? A very very small change that I think might be a start would be to change the title “Wuhan lab leak story” to “Wuhan lab leak theory” just to indicate that the possibility of a lab leak is a real theory and not something fictional. I would prefer something more like “Chinese Biological Weapon” as a natural counterpoint to “United States biological weapon”, which is more in line with actual misinformation. What’s the minimal we can agree on? Am I way off? Please provide counter suggestions so we stay creative! Nakerlund (talk) 02:10, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

That something may be possible is not even the bare minimum required for us to pretend that it is realistic. We have sources that do not pass MEDRS that say, at best, that it is not impossible. I do understand why some non-experts might feel that a lab leak is more likely, but that is only due to a lack of familiarity with the medical literature, and how it is evaluated (and I attempted to explain this on the talk page of the main SARS-COV2 article). The title of this article is COVID-19 Misinformation, and to state anything more than that a lab leak is not technically impossible is misinformation. The MEDRS sources that we have all say that it is highly unlikely, and that a zoonotic transmission in the wild is the most likely scenario. By definition, any any attempt to pretend that a lab leak is likely is misinformation. There are also claims that HIV was manufactured in a lab, and this may not be technically impossible, but all MEDRS are very clear about why there is a broad scientific consensus that HIV1 and HIV2 resulted from two separate zoonotic events when a hunter butchered a non-human primate that carried SIV in the wild, and so this is what we report. As I mentioned on the talk page of SARS-COV2, I think that part of this isa problem with understanding MEDRS, but a larger problem is trying to explain in a non-technical manner to non-experts how to evaluate evidence like an expert. Hyperion35 (talk) 03:56, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Haha! Ouch, but yes, that would explain why I still don’t understand the issue the way you do, Hyperion35. Do you think anything can be done to improve the current writing? Could we split the text to better differentiate between lab leak misinformation and Chinese biological weapon misinformation? I think the current sources do offer such a distinction. Or maybe create a Simple English page that clarifies this very complex issue in easier steps. Nakerlund (talk) 04:50, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello again again all! Here is an article that gives further weight to the leak theory: https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/six-essential-stories-on-the-origins-of-covid-19/ . It states that "In the spring of 2020, the so-called “lab leak” hypothesis, which many scientists now say publicly needs to be interrogated further, was often characterized as something of a conspiracy theory in news articles." I think this article still portrays the "lab leak" hypothesis as something of a conspiracy theory. Portraying the "lab leak" hypothesis as a conspiracy theory is becoming more and more misinformation in itself it seems. Nakerlund (talk) 16:08, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

That article is a summary of other news stories. And yes, the best that they say about a lab leak is that it is plausible, but unproven, which is the definition of things that we don't usually cover. Some claims about a lab leak are very clearly conspiracy theories, and several of those stories mention that the claims came from politicians who have very clear non-neutral motives. It is also worth pointing out that if the scientists mentioned in these articles had more definitive evidence, they would submit it for peer review rather than talking to journalists or writing letters to editors. Hyperion35 (talk) 16:45, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi! I realize we are in the field of medicine here but misinformation is not. Are you sure we should be bridging that gap? Can we assume that these scientists have the expertise required to get articles published that deals with misinformation? Also, the section header should be the "Lab leak hypothesis" or something that indicates that the posibility of a lab leak is not necessarily misinformation by itself. Nakerlund (talk) 17:10, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

PolitiFact withdrew their fact check on this issue https://www.politifact.com/li-meng-yan-fact-check/ . Wikipedia should not follow media trends but then it should not have labeled the Wuhan Leak Theory misinformation in the first place either Nakerlund (talk) 11:46, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

"Wikipedia should not follow media trends" ← preach it! This is absolutely right and why we stick to secondary, scholarly, peer-reviewed, reputably-published, on-point sources rather than trying to track shifts in journalism. Alexbrn (talk) 11:51, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Agree with both. Do we have secondary, scholarly, peer-reviewed, reputably-published, on-point sources claiming a lab leak is a conspiracy theory? Politifact editors made the following comment: Editor’s note, May 17, 2021: When this fact-check was first published in September 2020, PolitiFact’s sources included researchers who asserted the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not have been manipulated. That assertion is now more widely disputed. For that reason, we are removing this fact-check from our database pending a more thorough review. Currently, we consider the claim to be unsupported by evidence and in dispute. The original fact-check in its entirety is preserved below for transparency and archival purposes. Read our May 2021 report for more on the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19.. Also they have a new page on the virus origin: https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/may/17/debating-origins-covid-19-virus-what-we-know-what-/ that states Scientists who have studied the coronavirus have generally concluded that it resembles naturally occurring viruses. But researchers are paying more attention to the possibility that the virus somehow leaked from the lab, though there’s still nothing conclusive. I think this is how Wikipedia should report the lab leak hypothesis. We don't know the virus origins. A lab leak is a "possibility" not a "conspiracy theory"/"Misinformation". -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 12:47, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

RS puts it in the mix with unfounded speculation and conspiracy theories, which seems reasonable (and is what Wikipedia does accordingly). The lab leak narrative goes hand-in-hand with the idea China covered it up which implies a conspiracy. The best sourcing is handily surveyed at WP:NOLABLEAK. As above we should avoid being blown by the winds of journalism. Alexbrn (talk) 12:55, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, several of the already cited sources in the section refer to specific conspiracy theories.[24][25] Most notably: the bioweapon theory, the pharma company manufacturing for profit theory, and the "it doesn't exist" conspiracy.

The tricky part is the unintentional release of a bat virus theory. By itself, the WHO found that a worthy hypothesis to investigate (published later than most of our sources on misinformation), but an unlikely one. This is mirrored in the Hakim source. The potential misinformation part is the overstating of the evidence regarding this theory: Therefore, there are discussions and unjustified theory—promoted by the US President Donald Trump—whether one of the two laboratories in Wuhan could have been the source of SARS‐CoV‐2. This section doesn't do as good a job making this distinction between plausible (but unlikely) theory and misinformation about it as it could and should. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:10, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Agree we should distinguish between the two. At the moment it seems we are grouping together ("puts it in the mix") whatever hypothesis includes the word "lab". However they are not all the same and this is incorrect. The unintentional release of a bat virus theory is not misinformation or a conspiracy theory. @Bakkster Man: the WHO found that a worthy hypothesis to investigate (published later than most of our sources on misinformation), but an unlikely one do you have an exact source for this? It could be used as a good basis to fix this. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 13:24, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

"The unintentional release of a bat virus theory is not misinformation or a conspiracy theory." ← It could be, according to RS. Or maybe just unfounded speculation. This is an article about misinformation - so we find what good RS says about that and reflect it faithfully. Not sure why some editors want to make it more complicated. If there's a desire to write about "legitimate" ideas, find a source describing them and an article suitable for their inclusion. Alexbrn (talk) 13:32, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the WHO report published in March is heavily cited on the Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 article. After citing previous research which ruled out intentional engineering of the genome, they rated an inadvertent lab leak to be "extremely unlikely". I'll take a stab at language to this effect, the theory itself isn't misinformation, but many of proponents of this (and similar) theories did propagate misinformation surrounding its likelihood and the evidence of it. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:44, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Recovered a couple of direct and relevant sources:

• WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/who-convened-global-study-of-origins-of-sars-cov-2-china-part page 118 discusses in depth the Introduction through a laboratory incident as a possible hypotheis although In view of the above, a laboratory origin of the pandemic was considered to be extremely unlikely.
• Joint Statement on the WHO-Convened COVID-19 Origins Study https://www.state.gov/joint-statement-on-the-who-convened-covid-19-origins-study/ 14 countries are basically accusing China of not collaborating with the WHO investigation properly. The conclusions of the WHO report above are based on records provided by China (for example the fact that There is no record of viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 in any laboratory before December 2019, or genomes that in combination could provide a SARS-CoV-2 genome.. This has lead the head of the WHO to state: the theory that the virus might have come from a leak in a laboratory "requires further investigation, potential with additional missions involving specialist experts," Dr Tedros said on Tuesday. "Let me say clearly that as far as WHO is concerned, all hypothesis remain on the table," he added.[26]-- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 13:46, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

• Has any scientist ever said "some hypothesis are no longer on the table" or "further investigation is not required"? Asking someone who makes a living investigating things whether things should be investigated is like asking a realtor whether this is a good time to buy a house. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:58, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Actually yes, the WHO report explicitly says that the deliberate bioengineering theory was ruled out, and thus needn't be investigated. We did not consider the hypothesis of deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome[27]. IMO, this is precisely why we should draw the misinformation line here, between the scientifically certain and uncertain. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:53, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Totally agree. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 15:20, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Break for rewrite

I updated this section to better distinguish the legitimate science (mainstream and fringe) from the misinformation and conspiracy. While I didn't include the Science open letter, I didn't feel it fit the topic (that is, discussing misinformation about the lab). There may be room for more detail that not every dispute of the mainstream analysis of the theory is misinfo/conspiracy, but I'm not sure it's necessary compared to just pointing out the clear misinformation. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:53, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

That looks fine, except the bit about "legitimate science" which seems a bit editorially free bearing WP:V in mind. Alexbrn (talk) 15:05, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

I can see that. My intention was to refer to peer-reviewed high-quality science (distinguishing it from Li-Meng Yan et al unreviewed politically-motivated essays masquerading as science), if you have a better synonym that better for neutrality and verifiability I'd be in favor of replacing it. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:19, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

I've just moved the better-verified WHO stuff up to replace it, which still makes the distinction between what they say, and what the conspiracists say. Alexbrn (talk) 15:21, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: change the initial phrase

Though the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not been determined

with

Though the animal source that caused the initial outbreak has not been determined, and the complete molecular history tracing the virus to a direct ancestor is still puzzling

. "Origin" is too vague of a word, my proposed phrasing solves the ambiguity. Otherwise, a reader will believe animal origin is disputed, and it isn't. Forich (talk) 02:25, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for rewriting. In regard to this statement:

A World Health Organization team probing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic described the lab leak theory as "extremely unlikely" given current evidence

To adhere to NPOV, propose to change to:

A WHO-China joint study team probing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic described the lab leak theory as "extremely unlikely" given current evidence

i.e. This was the conclusion of the joint study team, of whom WHO scientists only comprised half. We should also note that the report has been challenged. Either referencing the joint statement by 14 countries, or the Science letter, or Tedros' statement that a laboratory leak requires further investigation. -Unsigned comment by Cowrider

No, because it would be inventive POV wording. Alexbrn (talk) 06:04, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Mirroring Alexbrn, that's less neutral. Particularly since the report itself said more investigation is necessary (about all four theories), and singling out that one hypothesis as 'challenged' is selective quoting for POV-pushing. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:19, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man are you suggesting that we gonna select that statement from the WHO report calling for more investigation and ignore the WHO Director General’s criticisms of the assessments made in the report on one of the hypothesis? And, also, ignore the similar responses of the US and the EU governments on the reports faults? Furthermore you suggest to ignore this Science letter and all the coverage it got? --Francesco espo (talk) 22:36, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

ignore the WHO Director General’s criticisms of the assessments made in the report on one of the hypothesis? 1. I don't characterize the DG's statements as 'criticisms', at least not in terms of 'faults'. 2. The selective quoting of his statements regarding 'one of the hypothesis' is the POV problem, since he spent more time addressing areas the other three hypotheses needed more investigation as well.

But no, not ignore it. I think it's all handled very well on Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 (and there's a good reason we link it from this section). As do I think the rewrite to this page handles specifically the misinformation well. Unless the Science letter is misinformation, it doesn't belong here. What belongs here is the misinformation surrounding the theory; like sketchy preprints funded by activists, and politicians using flawed evidence to scapegoat. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:58, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

According to the report itself, the title of report is WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part. Joint WHO-China Study. Attributing the conclusion to the WHO team is factually incorrect, because it is actually the conclusion of the joint WHO-China team. It is also an omission to leave out that the report is controversial.Cowrider (talk) 11:11, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Then WP:FIXIT. Your update in quotes seems fine, it's the justification I have concerns with (and I think I conflated the two when I first read it). Bakkster Man (talk) 12:58, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

COVID-19 misinformation in India

• "The Ministry of AYUSH [Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy] has been a nuisance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps it has always been a nuisance but during the pandemic, while any other ministry might have stepped carefully, avoided panic and guided the sick and the confused through uncertainty, the Ministry of AYUSH has been doing the opposite. In fact, its decisions in this time are so far removed from the established precepts of practising medicine that it’s reasonable to wonder if its only agenda is to do the opposite of what is right. First, there was the ill-considered advisory to consume untested substances prepared according to homeopathic and purportedly Ayurvedic recipes, and which the ministry said could cure a disease that we don’t fully understand even in November 2020 but which the ministry had presumed ancient Indians had known everything about. Then there were dubious claims that Prince Charles had recovered from COVID-19 using Ayurvedic medicine, the AYUSH minister choosing to be treated the allopathic way when he got COVID-19, and a glut of other recommendations from the ministry about using herbal remedies to evade the novel coronavirus... Ayurveda and homeopathy quacks are often prone to claim their methods are 'scientific' and that they follow the scientific method. But it’s impossible for these systems of medicine to be verified by science because the way they obtain, organise and validate knowledge is entirely different." For Sick Indians, Modi Government's Ayurvedic 'Surgery' Order is the Unkindest Cut --The Wire (India)

• "The Indian health ministry has begun to recommend traditional remedies to tackle the country’s COVID-19 outbreak, dismaying many Indian doctors and scientists. On 6 October, health minister Harsh Vardhan released recommendations for preventing COVID-19 and treating mild cases based on Ayurveda, India’s millennia old system of herbal medicine, triggering sharp criticism from the Indian Medical Association (IMA), a group of more than one-quarter of a million modern medicine practitioners. In a press release, IMA demanded[28] Vardhan produce evidence of the treatments’ efficacy; if he’s unable to do so, the association wrote, Vardhan is 'inflicting a fraud on the nation and gullible patients by calling placebos as drugs.' Recommending any drug without evidence for a deadly disease that has claimed more than 100,000 Indian lives is 'a dangerous trend,' adds C. S. Pramesh, a thoracic surgeon and the director of Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Centre." "A fraud on the nation": critics blast Indian government’s promotion of traditional medicine for COVID-19 --Science

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:46, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

• In fact, its decisions in this time are so far removed from the established precepts of practising medicine that it’s reasonable to wonder if its only agenda is to do the opposite of what is right. I had simply assumed so from its name. Hyperion35 (talk) 14:43, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Lab Leak Again

See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Lab Leak Again --Guy Macon (talk) 04:07, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Inconsistent respect for citations regarding the Ivermectin section.

The opening sentence in the Ivermectin section is a paraphrase of an opinion published by the New York Times, where the part relevant to ivermectin (their opinion of the mention of ivermectin at the hearing) is based on a disagreement between the presenter on ivermectin, and the opinion of the National Institutes of Health at that time. The National Institutes of Health has since gone from recommending against the use of ivermectin in the prophylaxis and early treatment of COVID-19, to being neutral on the question, and the corresponding section of COVID-19 drug repurposing research now cites that updated guidance. It probably makes sense to reframe or remove this statement, since it is based on an opinion which is then based on an expired observation. Aaron Muir Hamilton <[email protected]> (talk) 01:54, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I see no information in the Repurposing article that says that NIH is "neutral" on the use of ivermectin. What I see are multiple citations to multiple different groups saying that it is not effective, not approved, and not recommended for the treatment of COVID-19. I am not even sure how the NIH would be "neutral" on the subject. If you have a source more recent than January 2021 that says that the NIH position is different from their statement recommending against the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19, please share it. Hyperion35 (talk) 05:27, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Here is a quote directly from the page cited by the third paragraph: “There are insufficient data for the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19.”. The lack of clarity in paraphrasing the NIH's advice there is probably part of why you didn't see where it was saying that. Aaron Muir Hamilton <[email protected]> (talk) 02:25, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

To clarify, the page at the link for that reference was last updated in February, at this point; but the recommendation in January was already “neither for nor against”. Aaron Muir Hamilton <[email protected]> (talk) 02:51, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Saying that they have no data to recommend either for or against its use is not "neutral". It means that they cannot recommend its use, period. The "against" part means they don't have enough data to determine if it is actively harmful. Hyperion35 (talk) 13:01, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• Fine as is. NIH (in common with all the WP:BESTSOURCES) didn't think this a "miracle cure" in 2020 and still don't today. This is an article about misinformation, so needs to describe it. From the sources, this American hearing seems to have been how all this nonsense started. Alexbrn (talk) 04:18, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Why quote marks around "lab"?

Why are quote marks being placed around lab in this article. Please read MOS:QUOTEPOV. I am unable to see their purpose. In the sentences use words instead to describe what is being attempted to be said with the quote marks. --Guest2625 (talk) 04:48, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

It's not to do with POV. It's known as the "lab leak" hypothesis so is just quoting the word with quotation marks to demarcate the word from wikivoice (which is more formal). Alexbrn (talk) 04:57, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

In the Wuhan lab leak story section there are currently multiple usage of this phrasing. The current examples:

disproving a "lab" related origin

theories of a "lab" origin

support the "lab" origin hypothesis

propagation of the "lab" origin theory

So in each of these cases you mean to say

disproving a "lab leak" related origin

theories of a "lab leak" origin

support the "lab leak" origin hypothesis

propagation of the "lab leak" origin theory

It's really simpler to just put this in wikivoice and say:

disproving a lab related origin

theories of a lab origin

support the lab origin hypothesis

propagation of the lab origin theory

The leak statement is self-evident in this section already. The usage of this excessive amount of quotes around a single word is clunky and goes against the spirit of MOS:QUOTEPOV. Which I've included below:

Quotation should be used, with attribution, to present emotive opinions that cannot be expressed in Wikipedia's own voice, but never to present cultural norms as simply opinional:

• Acceptable: Siskel and Ebert called the film "unforgettable".
• Unacceptable: The site is considered "sacred" by the religion's scriptures.

Concise opinions that are not overly emotive can often be reported with attribution instead of direct quotation. Use of quotation marks around simple descriptive terms can imply something doubtful regarding the material being quoted; sarcasm or weasel words such as supposedly or so-called, might be inferred.

• Permissible: Siskel and Ebert called the film interesting.
• Unnecessary and may imply doubt: Siskel and Ebert called the film "interesting".
• Should be quoted: Siskel and Ebert called the film "interesting but heart-wrenching".

I'm curious to hear what others think. I know it's just quotation marks, but currently it sounds off. --Guest2625 (talk) 09:59, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Beyond just removing the quotes, we probably need a better way to distinguish the two types of lab-related theories in some of these instances. Some refer to any contact with a laboratory prior to human infection, some refer specifically to the scientific theory the WHO evaluated as a plausible explanation, and others are specifically conspiracies or misinformation about intentional engineering of the virus for the purposes of release. Clarifying what we're referring to on each use is beneficial, especially given the arguments about this article implying the former, scientific option, is misinfo when we intend to refer only to the pseudoscientific and outright conspiratorial claims. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I completely agree. The article needs to be concise about what is being discussed, since as you say, there are a mix of implied meanings in the different phrases. First, let's get the definition of the "lab leak" hypothesis correct. In the WHO report, which is used as the citation in this article, on page 118, the "lab leak" hypothesis is defined in the section called "Introduction through a laboratory incident". The WHO defines the hypothesis as follows:[29]

"SARS-CoV-2 is introduced through a laboratory incident, reflecting an accidental infection of staff from laboratory activities involving the relevant viruses."

The key word in this lab origin hypothesis is the word "accidental". The WHO also states that it did not consider the following lab origin hypotheses:

"We did not consider the hypothesis of deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome (3)."

The key phrases from these two lab origin hypotheses are "deliberate release" and "deliberate bioengineering".--Guest2625 (talk) 11:07, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I propose this sentence in the article:

A World Health Organization team probing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic described the laboratory origin scenario as "extremely unlikely" given current evidence,[30]

is changed to

A World Health Organization team probing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic described the accidental escape of the virus from a laboratory as "extremely unlikely" given current evidence,[31]

This sentence is concise and explains which of the three lab origin hypotheses is being discussed. If there is consensus to fix this sentence, then the next '"lab" origin' phrase in the article can be discussed. --Guest2625 (talk) 11:05, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Fazze Russian misinformation?

I don't have time to dig into this right now but maybe someone else will. Daily Dot: Influencers asked to spread anti-vax comments by mysterious PR agency the agency was apparently a Russian (?) front and called itself Fazze. The Wall Street Journal covered it too. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:06, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at WikiProject COVID-19

Please join this broad discussion on how we discuss and explain COVID origins. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:52, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

naturally mutated virus or engineered virus; Lab leak or no lab leak: are these not two very different things?

I sense a frustration among some editors that two very different questions (first, is the virus origin natural or engineered; second, did it reach the human population via the laboratory or not) are conflated; so that the clear scientific consensus on the first question (that it has a natural origin) is used to close down any suggestion of credibility of the second question. I simply cannot see why we are not treating these two questions separately. With respect to all. Springnuts (talk) 23:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@Springnuts: From your mouth to God's ears ... even if what you say is true (and I largely agree with you), what specific changes to Wikipedia do you suggest be made? I note there is certainly sufficient misinformation about COVID lab leak theories to justify some presence in this article. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:27, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Well for a start, the subsection of “Origins”, which is headed “Wuhan lab leak theory” but is actually almost all about the engineered virus origin theory (and properly would be entirely so) would be called “engineered in Wuhan lab” or similar. Springnuts (talk) 00:26, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

So you're proposing the section be titled "Deliberate lab leak theory" or the like? User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 00:34, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Um, no (that would be a sub-section of disease spread - if there are RS for such a "deliberate spread" theory). Springnuts (talk) 07:05, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Splitting "Wuhan Lab Leak Story" and merging the two "Bioweapon" conspiracy theories.

It seems that it might be a good idea to split the "Wuhan Lab Leak Story" into two sections. The first being the conspiracy theory that it was a bioweapon that was accidentally or deliberately released from a lab, and the second being the theory that it was under study at the lab before being accidentally leaked. Conflating the two is likely to lead to misunderstanding and confusion on behalf of readers as to exactly what is under discussion when the "Lab Leak Hypothesis" is discussed, particularly in light of recent developments. In conjunction with these developments it might also result in some of them considering the bioweapon conspiracy theory as credible, something that would be irresponsible of us to allow.

There is also some overlap between the conspiracy theory that COVID is a Chinese bioweapon and that it is an American bioweapon. It might best to merge those two together, both to remove the overlap and because the American conspiracy theory is in part a response to the Chinese conspiracy theory.

Option One contains the split and the subsequent merge. In this option the format has changed, the content it contains is almost identical to what currently exists. The only notable change is the removal of "and Chunying continued to cite evidence on Twitter", as neither source made reference to this, and the use of the word "evidence" in regards to a conspiracy theory needs very strong verification.

Option Two contains only the split. If this option is preferred, someone will still need to go into the "United States biological weapon" section and remove the line "and Chunying continued to cite evidence on Twitter". This option contains no notable content changes, with the sections simply being drawn out depending on what they relate to.

For either option, the section on "Wuhan Lab Leak Story" will need further work once split, but that can wait till after the split, in order to avoid this discussion being derailed by that.

Option One

Extended content

Bioweapon Conspiracy Theory Conspiracy theories related to the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was developed as bio-weapon have gained popularity during the pandemic. Common conspiracy theories state that the virus was intentionally engineered, either as a bio-weapon or in order to profit from the sale of vaccines. According to the World Health Organization, intentional bio-engineering of SARS-CoV-2 has been ruled out by genomic analysis. One early source of the bio-weapon origin was former Israeli secret service officer Dany Shoham, who gave an interview to The Washington Times about the Wuhan laboratory. The Epoch Times, a newspaper affiliated with Falun Gong, refers to the SARS-CoV-2 virus as the "CCP virus", and a commentary in the newspaper posed the question, "is the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan an accident occasioned by weaponizing the virus at that [Wuhan P4 virology] lab?" One scientist from Hong Kong, Li-Meng Yan, fled China and released a preprint stating the virus was modified in a lab rather than having a natural evolution. In an ad hoc peer-review (the paper was not submitted for traditional peer review as part of the standard scientific publishing process), her claims were labelled as misleading, not scientific, and an unethical promotion of "essentially conspiracy theories that are not founded in fact". Yan's paper was funded by the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation, two non-profits linked to Steve Bannon, a former Trump strategist, and Guo Wengui, an expatriate Chinese billionaire. This misinformation was further seized on by the American far-right, whose anti-Chinese sentiment is increasingly allied with the political aims of the Chinese diaspora. In effect, this formed "a fast-growing echo chamber for misinformation". In response to propagation of the "lab" origin theory in the US, the Chinese government has promulgated its own version of the conspiracy theory, claiming that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the United States at the U.S. biological weapons lab Fort Detrick. This conspiracy theory was alleged in March 2020 by two spokesmen for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian and Geng Shuang, who claimed during a press conference that Western powers may have "bio-engineered" the coronavirus. It was later renewed by Hua Chunying. It quickly went trending on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, and Chunying asked the government of the United States to open up Fort Detrick for further investigation to determine if it is the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. According to London-based The Economist, plenty of conspiracy theories exist on China's internet about COVID-19 being the CIA's creation to keep China down. According to an investigation by ProPublica, such conspiracy theories and disinformation have been propagated under the direction of China News Service, the country's second largest government-owned media outlet controlled by the United Front Work Department. Global Times and Xinhua News Agency have similarly been implicated in propagating disinformation related to COVID-19's origins. NBC News however has noted that there have also been debunking efforts of US-related conspiracy theories posted online, with a WeChat search of "Coronavirus is from the U.S." reported to mostly yield articles explaining why such claims are unreasonable. for example the CPC-owned newspaper Global Times. Further information: Cyberwarfare by China, Propaganda in China, and Chinese information operations and information warfare On 22 February 2020, US officials alleged that Russia is behind an ongoing disinformation campaign, using thousands of social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to deliberately promote unfounded conspiracy theories, claiming the virus is a biological weapon manufactured by the CIA and the US is waging economic war on China using the virus. Further information: Cyberwarfare by Russia and Propaganda in the Russian Federation According to Washington DC-based nonprofit Middle East Media Research Institute, numerous writers in the Arabic press have promoted the conspiracy theory that COVID-19, as well as SARS and the swine flu virus, were deliberately created and spread to sell vaccines against these diseases, and it is "part of an economic and psychological war waged by the U.S. against China with the aim of weakening it and presenting it as a backward country and a source of diseases". Reza Malekzadeh, Iran's deputy health minister, rejected bioterrorism theories. The same theory has been reported via Iranian propaganda "to damage its culture and honor". Reza Malekzadeh, Iran's deputy health minister and former Minister of Health, rejected claims that the virus was a biological weapon, pointing out that the US would be suffering heavily from it. He said Iran was hard-hit because its close ties to China and reluctance to cut air ties introduced the virus, and because early cases had been mistaken for influenza. The theory has also circulated in the Philippines and Venezuela. Wuhan Lab Leak Story "CCP virus" redirects here. For the virus that the name refers to, see Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. For the disease that is caused by said virus, see COVID-19. See also: Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 Though the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not been determined, unfounded speculation related to the possibility the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology have gained popularity during the pandemic. A World Health Organization team probing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic described the laboratory origin scenario as "extremely unlikely" given current evidence, yet misinformation about the evidence and likelihood of this scenario has been widespread. Definitively proving or disproving a "lab" related origin of the virus is a difficult and lengthy process, and long investigations are required to provide a definitive proof or disproof of any theory of the virus's origin. WHO researcher Peter Daszak said "The only evidence that people have for a lab leak is that there is a lab in Wuhan". US politicians began spreading the unproven theories of a "lab" origin, including Republican Senators Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn, as well as then-President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Many scientists and authorities countered that the theories had no evidence to support the claims being made, including NIAID director Anthony Fauci and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. One popular idea used to support the "lab" origin hypothesis invokes previous gain-of-function research on coronaviruses to support the idea that the virus was of laboratory origin. Virologist Angela Rasmussen writes that this is unlikely, due to the intense scrutiny and government oversight gain-of-function research is subject to, and it is improbable that research on hard-to obtain coronaviruses could occur under the radar. References

Option Two

Extended content

Chinese Bioweapon Conspiracy Theory Conspiracy theories related to the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was developed as bio-weapon have gained popularity during the pandemic. Common conspiracy theories state that the virus was intentionally engineered, either as a bio-weapon or in order to profit from the sale of vaccines. According to the World Health Organization, intentional bio-engineering of SARS-CoV-2 has been ruled out by genomic analysis. One early source of the bio-weapon origin was former Israeli secret service officer Dany Shoham, who gave an interview to The Washington Times about the Wuhan laboratory. The Epoch Times, a newspaper affiliated with Falun Gong, refers to the SARS-CoV-2 virus as the "CCP virus", and a commentary in the newspaper posed the question, "is the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan an accident occasioned by weaponizing the virus at that [Wuhan P4 virology] lab?" One scientist from Hong Kong, Li-Meng Yan, fled China and released a preprint stating the virus was modified in a lab rather than having a natural evolution. In an ad hoc peer-review (the paper was not submitted for traditional peer review as part of the standard scientific publishing process), her claims were labelled as misleading, not scientific, and an unethical promotion of "essentially conspiracy theories that are not founded in fact". Yan's paper was funded by the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation, two non-profits linked to Steve Bannon, a former Trump strategist, and Guo Wengui, an expatriate Chinese billionaire. This misinformation was further seized on by the American far-right, whose anti-Chinese sentiment is increasingly allied with the political aims of the Chinese diaspora. In effect, this formed "a fast-growing echo chamber for misinformation". In response to propagation of the "lab" origin theory in the US, the Chinese government has promulgated its own version of the conspiracy theory, claiming that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the United States at the U.S. biological weapons lab Fort Detrick. Wuhan Lab Leak Story "CCP virus" redirects here. For the virus that the name refers to, see Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. For the disease that is caused by said virus, see COVID-19. See also: Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 Though the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not been determined, unfounded speculation related to the possibility the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology have gained popularity during the pandemic. A World Health Organization team probing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic described the laboratory origin scenario as "extremely unlikely" given current evidence, yet misinformation about the evidence and likelihood of this scenario has been widespread. Definitively proving or disproving a "lab" related origin of the virus is a difficult and lengthy process, and long investigations are required to provide a definitive proof or disproof of any theory of the virus's origin. WHO researcher Peter Daszak said "The only evidence that people have for a lab leak is that there is a lab in Wuhan". US politicians began spreading the unproven theories of a "lab" origin, including Republican Senators Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn, as well as then-President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Many scientists and authorities countered that the theories had no evidence to support the claims being made, including NIAID director Anthony Fauci and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. One popular idea used to support the "lab" origin hypothesis invokes previous gain-of-function research on coronaviruses to support the idea that the virus was of laboratory origin. Virologist Angela Rasmussen writes that this is unlikely, due to the intense scrutiny and government oversight gain-of-function research is subject to, and it is improbable that research on hard-to obtain coronaviruses could occur under the radar. References

BilledMammal (talk) 07:52, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Discussion on proposals

That is some heavy lifting and excellent suggestions. I think I'm leaning towards option 1. It is starting to become counter productive with the protection on the page as it no longer seems to be a controversial issue. It seems this was a controversial issue because there used to be different views in silly American politics. Nakerlund (talk) 08:15, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I don’t think it’s fair anymore to call the “accidental lab leak” hypothesis unfounded and a conspiracy theory. With all mainstream media, the Biden administrations and even Dr. Anthony Fauci now taking it seriously, the page should be NPOV about this hypothesis: it’s not the mainstream idea, but it’s a serious and viable hypothesis that is being considered by investigators and scientists. I like your idea of separating them, but the Text about the accidental leak need to make clear that it has been taken seriously. Eccekevin (talk) 09:42, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

When you have the President of the United States saying that U.S. intelligence considers the lab leak theory and animal transmission theory "equally plausible", it's a given that Wikipedia can't call one of those two theories a "conspiracy theory." I support removing the lab leak theory section to Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 ASAP. Ergo Sum 15:55, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Note that Biden did not say they were "equally plausible," the article author did. Let's not attribute quotes to the wrong people here. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:00, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough, Biden referred to them as the "two likely scenarios". Ergo Sum 16:12, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

There's a reason this kind of rewrite is normally placed on a sub-page. I've HATted the examples to keep us from being swamped with large amounts of article text, but I can't remember how to hide the massive section of citations below. This is going to make discussion difficult. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:58, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds: You place the {{reftalk}} in the collapsed section. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:15, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:53, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Re. "all mainstream media" - WP:SCHOLARSHIP is clear that we prefer academic sources. See also this for why intelligence reports are dubious at best and a clear exercise in political grandstanding at worst (this bears many resemblances to the claims about WMDs in Iraq - experts saying, on one side, that something is unlikely; politicians, on the other, ploughing on ahead, regardless, for political reasons). We can report the existence of calls for investigations, and the existence of the theory, based on the popular press. Any claims about it's likelihood or mainstream science should, obviously, be left to scientists publishing in acceptable literature. Hence, the text should include A) a description of the theories (based on reputable newspapers, and the limited attention this has gotten in scientific journals) and B) clear indications as to their FRINGE status and arguments why (based on academic literature). See Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Green Cheese Model of Lunar Composition for an example (we just need to cut that down to a one-section thing and not a whole article. No comment on the above, I haven't read it yet. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:23, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I created User:Bakkster Man/Misinformation Sandbox as a possible starting place to sandbox this reorganization. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:32, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I really like this line of thinking. Can I propose a minor tweak, encompassing more of our existing?

• Manufactured Origin

• Bioweapons

• WIV
• Ft. Detrick
• Jewish origin (In the Muslim world)
• Other

• Population control (vaccine profiteering, alternate Bill Gates conspiracy)

• Lab Origin Misinformation

This gets a separation between misinformation about intentional bioengineering for release, and misinformation surrounding the relative likelihood and evidence for/against the possibility of an accidental release during routine research (which, now, may include early overreaction against any mention of a lab hypothesis as anything but "conspiracy"). Whether we drill down to subsections for each bioweapon theory or not depends how many redirects there are, I suppose. Within the Manufactured Origin section we can cite WHO deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release... has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome, and put the 'see also: Investigations' in Lab Origin Misinformation.

As mentioned above, I created User:Bakkster Man/Misinformation Sandbox as a place this can be sandboxed. Please edit there as we work through options, unless someone prefers a different sandbox location. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:32, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

There’s a big issue, which is the text says that scientist dismiss the accidental leak theory because they believe in a zoonotic origin. That’s factually incorrect. It might be true for the weapon paragraph,but not for the accidental leak. An accidental leak could also have a zoonotic origin if it was a virus from the wild that was being a studied, and the sources say as much. This needs to be clarified. Eccekevin (talk) 10:15, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Both of the hypotheses, whether intentional weapon (ruled out) or accidental lab leak (extremely unlikely) are dismissed by most scientists, explicitly (the few papers which do mention it) or implicitly (the majority of papers which simply go ahead with saying that the virus is A) zoonotic, without any qualifier or B) very likely zoonotic). Anyway, this is easy. The burden of proof is on those saying there are scientific papers which support the lab leak. Find a couple, in reputable journals, and it will be absolutely non-controversial to include it as such. Otherwise, you know the answer. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:32, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

But that's the issue. The virus can be both zoonotic AND accidentally leaked, as the Science letter point out. It can have a zoonotic origin and was studied in the lab, but escaped accidentally. The scientific papers that saying the lab leak is unilely say so for a variety of reasons, but not for the reason it's zoonotic, because being zoonotic does not exclude a lab leak. The page currently, and wrongly, states that a zoonotic origin contradicts an accidental lab leak. Eccekevin (talk) 02:03, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Is this accurate? The zoonosis article doesn't appear to suggest that a lab contamination type infection would be considered zoonotic. Bakkster Man (talk) 03:00, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

A virus can originate naturally in animals before it jumps to humans. Whether that happened in the Wuhan Seafood market or in a lab is a different matter, but both the point here is that it has a natural origin, not created as a bioweapon. Identifying a zoonotic origin though sequencing doesn't mean you can pinpoint where the jump happened, or exclude that it happened in a lab. Eccekevin (talk) 03:03, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man and Eccekevin, of the 260 or so known human viruses, over two thirds originated in various animal reservoirs, and are therefore zoonotic diseases. What characterises a Zoonosis oder Zooanthroponosis is the transmission of disease between different types of natural reservoirs, and not specially the mechanism of transmission, which may or may not be natural. This is alluded to in the RFC, where I created a "Parts II and III" proposal, which another editor deleted [32]. CutePeach (talk) 09:36, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Exactly, so "likely zoonosis = likely that transmission didn't happen in a lab" is a fallacy. Eccekevin (talk) 02:45, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Except that if it's zoonotic, the weight of evidence strongly suggests that there's no need for a lab to get involved (there are much easier ways for a virus to get into humans, as happened before with many, many diseases, and will happen again no matter where COVID actually comes from, than it evading strong biosafety measures at a lab). In fact, I've already given my doubts about this, the hypothesis "a natural sample was accidentally released" is close to failing falsifiability, since to its most ardent supporters it would not be ruled out even by, say, a direct closely related ancestor of SARS-CoV-2 being found in the wild (let alone the absolute lack of evidence that the WIV had anything close enough to SARS-CoV-2). It's also not supported by any scientific paper, and scientists such as Ralph Baric are agreeing it's not really plausible. Quoted indirectly here: "The suggestion that it would have taken some Chinese science experiments to get the virus from bats in Yunnan to human beings in Wuhan seemed to leave him slightly affronted, on behalf of the natural world." RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:43, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

“It might be the US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan"

I am seeing a lot of comments in the usual places about this one:

• As U.S. calls for focus on covid origins, China repeats speculation about U.S. military base

--Guy Macon (talk) 11:30, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Ivermectin

Add a section on how one of the major proponents of the mis-information regarding Ivermectin as a treatment is now also offering a 2 million dollar reward for anybody that can prove it is not an effective treatment, reference to this mis-guided mis-information prank: https://trialsitenews.com/if-you-can-prove-that-the-nih-and-who-got-their-treatment-guidelines-right-you-could-win-2m/?utm_source=Contextly&utm_medium=ChannelEmail&utm_campaign=Ivermectin&utm_content=Popular%2BTrending Adriaandh (talk) 18:39, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Given Adriaandh's editing here, I don't see any reason to consider this a good faith attempt to improve this encyclopedia.

Unreliable, promotional source. --Hipal (talk) 18:46, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

It would be unethical to run a clinical trial in an attempt to prove that a treatment does not work. One could run a clinical trial to attempt to demonstrate that a treatment does work, but a full-up Phase III human RCT would cost several orders of magnitude more than $2 million, hence the publicity stunt. Hyperion35 (talk) 15:26, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

"Lab leak" – new source

From SBM here, offering some good coverage of the wingnuttery swirling around the "lab leak" narrative. Could be useful to help re-focus on misinformation (the actual topic of this article), which is otherwise drifting a bit too much into editorial musings about the topic at large. Alexbrn (talk) 07:34, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Contested new material

An editor wishes to add in the introduction section of the lab origin section the following material:

In the first half of 2021, press and political interest in the narratives of a "lab leak" had gained renewed interest, but the underlying evidence remained insubstantial. David Gorski, writing for Science-Based Medicine said that the "lab leak" hypothesis had become "in essence, a conspiracy theory".

This content is a non-neutral summary of the lab accident subsection and the references in that section. The sentence states that the lab accident idea is a conspiracy theory. This goes against the references in the section and current consensus among wikipedia editors not to treat the lab accident as a conspiracy theory. President Joe Biden and the president of the WHO have called for investigations of the possibility of a lab accident. They are not conspiracy theorists. --Guest2625 (talk) 10:54, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

References

By "non-neutral" you mean "it's not the POV I like!", but this is a very common misunderstanding of what NPOV means. Wikipedia reflects reliable sources, that is what NPOV means. SBM is a good source for fringe topics and so due; people are free to disagree with it if they wish. Alexbrn (talk) 11:02, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

• I do not understand the objection. The text reliably summarizes the source referenced. Gorski is very clear that the "lab leak" hypothesis, while possible, is extremely unlikely (and that the idea of engineering or gain of function research playing a role is even more unlikely), and he explains why in that linked source, where he also links to other sources. Gorski goes on to explain why many claims that are made in favor of a "lab leak" are not reliable, and in some cases are simply untrue (such as the claim about a certain amino acid sequence being impossible in nature). How is this an issue? Hyperion35 (talk) 15:18, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
• The neutral in neutral point of view means fairly reflecting the available sources, not selecting sources that voice no opinion. It's an acceptable source, and as Hyperion35 says above, the text summarizes it fairly. XOR'easter (talk) 16:36, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

• Not really sure what there is to contest here. Other than perhaps a desire to attribute both statements to the author (it does read more like an opinion piece than journalism) I don’t see what the objection could be. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:44, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
• Well, it doesn't seem to be MEDRS? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:58, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

  Having reviewed the source, content seems decent and Science-Based Medicine seems like RS, and David Gorski a credible figure. However, they don't seem to be an active researcher, the publication isn't peer-reviewed, and is not MEDRS. Given that many opinions have been removed citing MEDRS - something I note is pretty much snowing with opposes in an ongoing RfC - it's only fair to hold all such content to the same standard. It may well violate NPOV to include this, thus. I'd otherwise support including it, though. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:09, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

  I think you're a bit out of date - you'd want to remove all the now-included newspaper sources too? MEDRS applies to biomedicine; for fringe science and wingnuttery SBM is a perfect source. Alexbrn (talk) 19:12, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

  Oh Christ, this article moves fast. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:15, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

  Ah yeah, current article looks pretty NPOV to me. Then sure, support the addition. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:17, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

• For the record, per WP:RSP, Science-Based Medicine is considered generally reliable, as it has a credible editorial board, publishes a robust set of editorial guidelines, and has been cited by other reliable sources. Editors do not consider Science-Based Medicine a self-published source, but it is also not a peer-reviewed publication with respect to WP:MEDRS. Since it often covers fringe material, parity of sources may be relevant. This occasionally comes up when SBM gets mentioned. Basically, for biomed stuff, we'd want to cite whatever sources that the SBM article uses, but it's often a good NPOV secondary source for fringe claims, since they're often one of the few reputable sites that covers fringe claims neutrally. Neutral in this context meaning that SBM does not repeat fringe claims but rather examines them in comparison to the generally accepted scientific consensus. Hyperion35 (talk) 22:03, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
• What is the intention of the inclusion? Are we sourcing this comment as a/the mainstream view, or as a single description of the view? I find it interesting that, at the same time it has appeared that investigations into the lab theory have been gaining credibility (at least as an area of legitimate investigation, if not more likely to be true), that we would add a quote essentially saying "the WHO evaluated, and intends to continue evaluating, what is in essence a conspiracy theory". In other words, we should be extra careful that we're not giving this non-journal non-peer reviewed source written by a non-virologist more credence than other non-journal non-peer reviewed sources written by non-virologists, simply because we think the source aligns with our expectations of the majority. We should make sure we're reading it neutrally for WP:RS and WP:V, because it's a strong and notable source, not just because we agree with it.

At first glance, I see this source as more notably useful for identifying the lab leak itself as WP:FRINGE/ALT, and pointing to good sources debunking common WP:FRINGE/PS claims, than for the opinion of the author about whether we refer to it as a conspiracy or not. Bakkster Man (talk) 00:09, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

• Is this an RFC? It's not clear what's going on here. Nonetheless, this would be both a deeply biased and pointless inclusion. Biased because it jumps to someone's critique of the theory right after noting the renewal of interest - before even explaining what caused this renewal of interest. And pointless because it doesn't really tell us anything. What does "in essence, a conspiracy theory" mean - is that the same as a conspiracy theory? And if so, who's conspiring? And is every theory involving a conspiracy inherently false? And is David Gorski an expert on conspiracies, on viruses, on both, or neither? Korny O'Near (talk) 00:18, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

  From the byline: David H. Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS is a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery, where he also serves as the American College of Surgeons Committee on Cancer Liaison Physician as well as an Associate Professor of Surgery and member of the faculty of the Graduate Program in Cancer Biology at Wayne State University. As a quick non-policy anecdotal note on the topic, early in the year when another surgeon wrote an op-ed suggesting 'herd immunity by April', a doctor friend of mine described it as "surgeons: sometimes right, always certain". Bakkster Man (talk) 00:41, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) It's a discussion to get consensus. Gorski (and Science-Based Medicine) are considered to be a reliable source on fringe material, as per the entry at WP:RSP and the page on it. So yes, given that it's an acceptable expert-published source, and given that I'm finding an absolute dearth of papers which cover the lab leak seriously, beyond the WHO report and a few others, it would be the next best thing, especially for the newer, non-scientific developments, which are mostly not covered in scientific journals. The opening paragraph is rather less ambiguous than the given quote, if you were not sure:

If, as I have, you’ve been paying attention to these things for a number of years, you know that, whenever there is a major outbreak, epidemic, or pandemic of infectious disease, one conspiracy theory always—and I do mean always—arises. That conspiracy theory is that the causative microbe was developed in a laboratory and/or escaped a laboratory. HIV, H1N1, the original SARS, Ebola virus, every single one of them gave birth to such conspiracy theories. Unsurprisingly, given its global scope and death toll, so it was with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

• "Unsurprising" seems to capture the nature of situation quite well... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:48, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

  Well, in that case, a reasonable quote would be "David Gorski has stated that the lab leak theory is "still highly improbable" or something like that. But to quote him saying that it's "in essence, a conspiracy theory" seems out of place - it's quasi-political commentary from a medical professional. Korny O'Near (talk) 01:35, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

  How we could go from an article that basically debunks arguments for this, describes the "accidental release" hypothesis as basically a more respectable 'variant' of the "deliberate engineering" conspiracy theory, and ends by saying how this whole political fingerpointing is a needless distraction from the real, actual problem, which is dealing with the virus right here right now, and end up with only saying "the lab leak is still highly improbable"; escapes me. That would seem to be a misrepresentation of the source, or at least it would not be very helpful here, since this article deals with misinformation, and that source is full of plenty of relevant details about misinformation which we can include, beyond the simple statement that the lab leak is highly improbable (which we can cite from both there but also better sources, such as the WHO report and peer-reviewed papers). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:59, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

The question is, what makes this source (and the claim attributed to it) worthy of inclusion? Particularly relative to the Wade article oder WaPo timeline? As you point out, we have stronger WP:SCHOLARSHIP that says all but the claim this statement is being cited for (which contradicts our strongest sources), which suggests it's a claim that isn't as widespread/reliable as we'd like. We've been very consistent about holding ourselves to these high sourcing standards for a reason, we should think long and hard before making a WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim using a weak source, unless we want to open the flood gates to a lot of other claims with sources of relatively similar quality (not peer reviewed, not a virologist). Bakkster Man (talk) 02:30, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the issue is that, though David Gorski is clearly very interested in the political implications of this lab leak theory, his views on the political aspects are not that interesting - and not that relevant to this article. (And also not that persuasive, in my opinion, but that's another story.) The only truly relevant aspects of his article are his thoughts on the likelihood of the lab leak theory, since that's his expertise. All the rest is what is sometimes called Bulverism - talking about your opponents' motivations instead of the actual subject at hand. Korny O'Near (talk) 03:00, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Lab accident theory is not misinformation.

I am aware that many pro-CCP Wikipedia users prefer the status quo, but having the lab accident theory in a page about Covid-19 misinformation is heavily misleading, considering there is new evidence (from reliable sources, such as The Economist) pointing to a lab leak as a possible source of Covid-19. This article also appears to make the case of a lab accident appear as a decided/closed matter, due to the WHO investigation ruling it unlikely, and completely ignores the Chinese Government failing to provide evidence such as data on the first one hundred Covid-19 patients.

Using this article's logic, the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market theory should also be labelled as misinformation, since no evidence actually shows that the virus was first transmitted to humans there. Emperor Theodosius (talk) 10:13, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I realise that it is attractive to engage in original research. However, on Wikipedia, we follow the consensus of academic and scientific sources for matters in their area of expertise. Such sources seem to agree that 1) COVID very likely has a zoonotic origin and 2) the Huanan market was likely a spreading event, but probably not the direct origin (although there have been calls for further investigation into animals at the market, see [33]). Casting WP:ASPERSIONS is not helpful. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:01, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the original poster should not have engaged in personal attacks. However, this person is right that the wording about the lab leak theory should be rewritten. It seems that the scientific consensus remains that zoonotic origin is the more likely scenario; however, the consensus is not (and maybe never really was) that this theory is very likely, and that everything else, including a "lab leak", can thus be dismissed as misinformation, "conspiracy theories", etc. When the WHO stated in March 2021 that a lab leak was "extremely unlikely", they seemed to be in a minority on that view.

Tied in with that, the article right now does not do enough to distinguish between the three types of lab leak theory: that the virus was a bioengineered weapon; that it was engineered but accidentally released; and that it was simply caught in the wild, brought to the lab and then eventually escaped. Korny O'Near (talk) 14:55, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

The way that we prioritize sources at Wikipedia (see WP:MEDRS and WP:SCHOLARLY), the WHO report takes priority as the most authoritative source, representing the scientific consensus. If you wish to claim that the scientific consensus is not solidly in favor of a wild zoonotic event, you will need to provide sources. Note that even the version of a "lab leak" that you suggest as most likely is also the one where the lab itself is unnecessary, since it presupposes that the virus evolved in the wild, and the evidence for its introduction to Wuhan at two wet markets outweighs the evidence of originating in a lab, per the sources we have available. Hyperion35 (talk) 15:23, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

The WHO report specifically was denied access to the first 100-200 (can't remember exact number) of cases, many of which were clustered around the Huanan Seafood Market making it impossible for it to decide whether Covid-19 has a natural origin or not. This itself was clearly admitted by the WHO, who continue to rule that a non-natural origin for Covid-19 is unlikely, but clearly possible. As such it cannot be labelled as misinformation. Emperor Theodosius (talk) 16:18, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

That a lab leak is theoretically possible doesn't change the fact that most scientific sources (including many others beside the WHO) report that a zoonotic origin is most likely. Definitively ruling out a hypothesis is basically asking to prove a negative ("the virus didn't leak out of a lab"), which will, as scientists note, require years of study. All of that does not change that a lot of the discourse surrounding the lab leak is misinformation, often verging on the line between that and a conspiracy theory pure and simple. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:40, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Hyperion35 - not to get into conspiracy theorizing myself, but the credibility of the WHO specifically on the issue of COVID-19 has taken a beating, as noted here and here. Whatever you think of these conflicts of interest, it's clear that the WHO is not the only scientific source that should be cited. Also, I didn't understand your last sentence. Korny O'Near (talk) 16:09, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

The way that our source priorities work, a comprehensive report from a government agency or medical specialty society is considered to be the highest quality evidence available, on the grounds that they have almost always examined a broad range of evidence as a secondary or tertiary source. And indeed in this specific situation theirs is still the most comprehensive examination available. The issue is not just that it is the WHO, but that the investigation itself has been so comprehensive, as compared to just about all other sources. Hyperion35 (talk) 14:49, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

• The thing is, this article is about misinformation - and the lab leak section is about misinformation surrounding the "lab leak" story. Now, even the most fringe-embracing editor here has got to admit there is (or was) misinformation spread about this, perhaps most obviously in Plandemic, or the fake science splashed in the Daily Mail. So it's meaningless to assert "Lab accident theory is not misinformation". What we need to do is to find what good sources are saying about that misinformation (which all sane people admit exists), and then reflect it here. It's not so difficult. Alexbrn (talk) 16:29, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

That is not what the article implies, but perhaps that is simply because it hasn't been updated. WHO researcher Peter Daszak said "The only evidence that people have for a lab leak is that there is a lab in Wuhan". Article fails to counter this false claim. Emperor Theodosius (talk) 11:56, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Correction: article "fails" to WP:FALSEBALANCE a statement from a top scientist, quoted in a secondary, independent source. If you don't like it, we don't care. We only care for the opinions of reliable sources, not of Twitter misinformation spreaders. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:53, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

We only care for the opinions of reliable sources, not of Twitter misinformation spreaders. I already listed my source (which is considered reliable on Wikipedia). You didn't read that and then failed to assume good faith by making up this story of me using Twitter as a source. Emperor Theodosius (talk) 12:59, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Article also features this line "A World Health Organization team probing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic described the accidental release of the virus from a laboratory as "extremely unlikely" given current evidence, yet misinformation about the evidence and likelihood of this scenario has been widespread," essentially erasing/fading the line between the lab story and misinformation surrounding the lab story as you say, and indicating that people who do not believe Covid-19 has a natural origin are spreading/believing misinformation. Emperor Theodosius (talk) 13:05, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

You are using WP:MEDPOP to argue over complex scientific issues. If anything, new evidence, such as naturally-occuring furin cleavage sites in a wide variety of other CoVs, points even more towards a natural origin. AGF isn't a suicide pact, and so far all of your edits in this area have been to promote the lab leak and try to have us describe it as more prominent and likely than what it really is - which, as the article correctly contains, would be "misinformation about the likelihood of this scenario", which is indeed widespread. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:18, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Indeed the popular press is not reliable when reporting on this field, having previously labelled it as a conspiracy theory in 2020, based on two opinion pieces by scientists. I have presented the facts above, which are that a lab accident being the cause of Covid-19 remains unlikely but not impossible. Emperor Theodosius (talk) 15:10, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Correct conclusion about the press, wrong reasons. Correct conclusion about the lab accident; which is also already correctly reflected in the article (nowhere is it said that it is impossible), only that deliberate manipulation has been ruled out while an accidental release is unlikely. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:16, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Of course it's difficult. Straightforward, but still difficult. Precisely because of the contentious nature that produced so many conspiracies and a whole article on misinformation. Bakkster Man (talk) 01:48, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

• Proposal:
  Create article called Origin of Covid-19, (or simply add to Investigations into the origin of COVID-19) where a lab leak is mentioned as a possible source of Covid-19. Mention that a lab leak is an unlikely source of the outbreak, and overestimating the likeliness of a lab leak comes under Covid-19 misinformation. It should also attempt to provide more information, rather than an opinion (The only evidence that people have for a lab leak is that there is a lab in Wuhan) by a single scientist. Emperor Theodosius (talk) 15:10, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

  We already have this and Investigations into the origins of COVID-19. Another article would be a useless content fork. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:16, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Investigations into the origins of COVID-19#Investigations already spends a full paragraph describing the theory, equal weight with the other three WHO-evaluated scenarios. Is there something specific you think is missing? Bakkster Man (talk) 16:02, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Re-add calls for new investigations and doubts by Anthony Fauci and other scientists.

The article used to state that in addition to Joe Biden, also several scientists (including those who wrote the Science letter), and Anthony Fauci called for new investigaitons. In particular, Fauci has stated that while he still believes in the natural origin of the virus outbreak, he was not fully convinced of it and that the lab leak claim needed to be investigated further. Yet, this has all been removed by the same users that keep trying to call the lab leak a hoax and conspiracy theory instead of what it is, a viable (albeit minority view) scientific hypothesis that needs investigation.

The current article is misleading, since it gives the impression that no scientists consider the lab leak possible. This is inaccurate, hence for balance the comments by Fauci and the writers of the Science letter should be included. Eccekevin (talk) 02:15, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Extremely unlikely =/= impossible. And you're not correctly reading the text in the article: "Most virologists remain convinced that a zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2 is the most likely scenario." does not say either A) that all virologists think so or that B) a zoonotic origin is certain. That it doesn't paint the lab leak in a good light, though, is perfectly accurate and not misleading, per WP:NPOV. If you don't like it, you're free to present contradictory reputable sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:37, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but the fact that Fauci and many other scientists (including the Science letter) are calling the results of that investigation in question should be mentioned. Currently, Biden is mentioned, but it's important to show it's not just politicians, but scientists too. Eccekevin (talk) 02:41, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Not all scientists who signed the Science letter are "calling the results of that investigation in question". This quotes Baric saying that the investigation was deficient in, for example, it's "failure to conduct a thorough, transparent review of biosafety measures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.", but he is then described as saying that he still firmly thinks that SARS-CoV-2 is zoonotic, and that "The suggestion that it would have taken some Chinese science experiments to get the virus from bats in Yunnan to human beings in Wuhan seemed to leave him slightly affronted, on behalf of the natural world. ". In other words, scientists calling for more thorough investigations does not necessarily equate with them thinking the WHO report is wrong, only that it could be improved or done better. Which is not a unique concern to virology or any particular field: scientists always want to make more thorough studies, especially if past ones have failed to (definitively) settle the question [as is likely to be the case with SARS-CoV-2 for quite some time, considering how much time it took for SARS-CoV (1) without it causing a global pandemic...]. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:51, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Exactly, but the page as it is now is written as to suggest that that investigation is conclusive, nothing further is needed, and no scientist disagrees with the outcome or criticizes it. Which is patently not true. Inserting its finding without even mentioning that there are scientists who are skeptical or critical, or even just want more information is misdirecting the reader. In particular, given Fauci's relevance and the fact he has seemingly changed his stance, should be included Eccekevin (talk) 03:37, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

"written as to suggest that that investigation is conclusive" ← the section that starts "Though the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not been determined" you read as "conclusive"!? Alexbrn (talk) 13:11, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

That's misleading - yes, the section starts with those words, but a lot of the rest of the section seems to convey a good deal of certainty. Here's another sentence from that section: "A World Health Organization team probing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic described the accidental release of the virus from a laboratory as "extremely unlikely" given current evidence, yet misinformation about the evidence and likelihood of this scenario has been widespread." In other words, the WHO is right, and anyone who says something different is misinforming you. Korny O'Near (talk) 13:42, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

That would be correct; anybody who misrepresents the evidence and likelihood is in the misinformation realm (according to all our good sources). But we don't say anything is "conclusive", as the sources don't either. Alexbrn (talk) 13:49, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I think Korny O'Near brings up a reasonable concern in our clarity. Is any/every source which comes to a different conclusion from the WHO, including those released before and after with different levels of evidence available, misinformation? Or is there a distinction between 'disagreement with the mainstream' and 'outright misinformation' which we need to delineate more clearly? I think we do this much better in the Bio-weapon section since it was split, than in the Lab accident section. I'd suggest we should be careful not to place opinions in the misinformation section (especially when the refutation is not that they're impossible, just "extremely unlikely" according to our most credible source), and better explain what the misinformation was. Otherwise we risk the weird circumstance where we say "The WHO Director-General said this was being investigated. The investigation isn't misinformation, but anyone else advocating for the investigation are engaging in misinformation."

The last paragraph of the Lab accident section especially needs work. We cite a news article referencing Tedros instead of Tedros' actual statement, we relate it to an unsourced US official's statement in January instead of the release of the WHO-China report, and then jump to the Biden call for investigation that doesn't seem to fit either the article (more suited to Investigations than Misinformation) or the paragraph. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:41, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

That could be reasonably solved by dissociating calls for investigations from serious sources from any particular precise scenario, for example at the top of the #Virus origin theories section (under the existing paragraph) or under the #Wuhan lab origin one. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:47, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

That may be a good tactic, but the fly in the ointment is determining which calls for investigations come from "serious sources". Are politicians serious sources? If they're US President? Does the level of seriousness change president to president, and if so how do we verify that in a neutral way? We currently cite intelligence agencies as dismissing the lab leak, but that's arguably WP:CHERRYPICKING since there are other intel reports to the contrary (this being the nature of intel). Can intel agencies be both a non-serious source and a reliable source simultaneously? Because that's how the section is currently written. I see a ton of challenges with this technique.

Perhaps a less troublesome tactic is to identify some solid specific examples of misinformation spread about the lab leak option, which we can refer to instead or trying to speak in overly broad (and thus unclear) terms. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:12, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. I think the section should just start with something like "The origins of COVID-19 remain unknown; a majority of scientists believe it originated from animals and spread naturally to humans, while some scientists believe that it leaked from a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Of those who believe it was due to a lab accident, some believe the original source of the virus was bats in the Yunnan province, while others believe it was bioengineered through gain-of-function research." Maybe not that wording, but something to that effect. Then the whole rest of the section can cover theories on which there is true consensus that they are false, like that the virus was intended as a bio-weapon. There's no need to cover the general lab leak theory in any great detail, since it's not obvious misinformation; it's already covered in places like Investigations into the origin of COVID-19. Korny O'Near (talk) 16:57, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm quite sure that would be WP:FALSEBALANCE, by giving too much text to the lab leak (2 sentences out of 3, see WP:UNDUE) and unduly legitimising a minority opinion by comparing it directly to the view of the overwhelming majority. Let's look at WP:FRINGE, and derive some questions from there to soo how this should be covered:

1. Is the lab leak "an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field"? opening sentence of WP:FRINGE
2. Based on the above, how can we present the lab leak "in proportion to its representation in reliable sources"? WP:UNDUE, starting with the paragraph about "Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority is as significant as the majority view. "

I don't think that the answer to the first question is controversial. The lab leak, unambiguously, "departs significantly from the prevailing views in its particular field". That leaves question two, which is a bit trickier. The lab leak has received coverage in multiple reliable sources, but within scholarship, it is largely deemed extremely unlikely, on the few times it is even mentioned. WP:FRINGELEVEL states that "Fringe theories may be excluded from articles about scientific topics when the scientific community has ignored the ideas." Of course, the lab leak hasn't been entirely ignored - so we should base our coverage of it (from a scientific point of view) on those few quality sources that do not ignore it. And we already all know what these say, and we also know that on Wikipedia we follow, not lead, the reliable sources. Since academic, peer-reviewed literature usually takes at least a few weeks from paper acceptance, through review, to publication, it's no surprise that there is little reaction from it to recent events (even assuming that new literature would cover this hypothesis - given how that hasn't happened much so far, I'm not sure if such a WP:CRYSTAL attitude is even warranted). So, in conclusion, while we can clarify the bits about investigations and such, your suggested text would be an entirely incorrect summary of the situation. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:56, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I completely agree with the first point. Two significant details around the second item:

• This is the atypical case of the Misinformation article, not Investigations, so how we write about it must likewise change as we're now discussing misinformation.
• We're comparing the WP:FRINGE/ALT position to a WP:FRINGE/QS/WP:FRINGE/PS position.

From WP:FRINGE: Not all pseudoscience and fringe theories are alike. In addition, there is an approximate demarcation between pseudoscience and questionable science, and they merit careful treatment. We must be cautious not to unduly conflate the scientific view with either misinformation, or the conspiracies justifying themselves on the minority science. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:30, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I completely disagree. I would say that the lab leak theory unambiguously does not depart significantly from the prevailing views in its particular field. Everyone except the WHO seems to be saying that, whether or not it's likely, it's plausible. Korny O'Near (talk) 18:34, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

There are many sources besides the WHO which say that the origin is likely zoonotic and that while the lab leak is 'possible', it is also 'extremely unlikely' and 'difficult to disprove'. If your statement that this view is held only by the WHO was correct, it should be trivial for you to find peer-reviewed papers which dispute its findings. @Bakkster Man: my comment was aimed at the suggested wording, "The origins of COVID-19 remain unknown [...]". Of course, when discussing misinformation, we just need to make clear what the scientific position is before describing misinformation. Hence why the proposed statement was inaccurate in accomplishing that purpose. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:47, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't say finding a peer-reviewed paper on any specific topic is "trivial"... I don't know, but then again I'm not aware of a peer-reviewed paper arguing the other way (that a lab leak is extremely unlikely) either. There are certainly reliable sources quoting various scientists in the field as saying that a lab leak is possible, like this March 2021 Technology Review article. Korny O'Near (talk) 20:56, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

It's as easy as going on PubMed and making a decent query (example) or on sites of leading publishers (ex. Nature). I mean, it is easy enough to find recent papers which seemingly make no mention of lab leaks or anything of the like (as though there were, hold your breath, no true controversy...), such as this in Experimental & Molecular Medicine, vol. 53, p. 537–547 (2021). I would assume that if the lab leak was as widespread among scientists as some claim, finding papers which claim the reverse would be equally "easy enough". See also the comment somewhere I was making about WP:FRINGELEVEL... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:13, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Great, you found one paper. I don't think going through scientific literature and trying to do a tally is a useful way to gauge the scientific consensus anyway - that starts to get close to original research. There are a variety of reliable sources stating that the lab leak theory is gaining credibility among scientists, which seems like proof enough that it's not a fringe theory. Korny O'Near (talk) 21:32, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

There are also a variety of reliable sources (see for ex. here) stating that the consensus of scientists hasn't changed. Since newspapers can report scientific news incorrectly or give misleading and sensationalist titles (as per WP:MEDPOP - see also this comical take on the situation), it's better to go directly to the scientific sources, and give more weight to these. There are some of these which explicitly say that there is consensus (although they're a bit dated) - I'll provide a citation if you really are not convinced. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:04, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Proposal

@RandomCanadian: Thoughts on how else we can reword the intro paragraph to better differentiate the mainstream, the alternate scientific theory, and the conspiracy?

Current: [Al]though the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not been determined, unsubstantiated speculation and conspiracy theories related to the possibility the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology have gained popularity during the pandemic. Common conspiracy theories state that the virus was intentionally engineered, either as a bio-weapon or in order to profit from the sale of vaccines. According to the World Health Organization, intentional bio-engineering of SARS-CoV-2 has been ruled out by genomic analysis. Bakkster Man (talk) 23:57, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man:

Proposed Although the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not been determined, unsubstantiated speculation and conspiracy theories related to this topic have gained popularity during the pandemic. Common conspiracy theories state that the virus was intentionally engineered, either as a bio-weapon or in order to profit from the sale of vaccines. According to the World Health Organization, intentional bio-engineering of SARS-CoV-2 has been ruled out by genomic analysis. An alternative hypothesis posits that the virus may have accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, although there is no evidence to support this, and most virologists consider this to be an extremely unlikely possibility.

Correctly divides between the two main "lab origin" scenarios and describes their relative standings in academe? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:02, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

These are both bad. @RandomCanadian: - you're right that not all that much has changed since, mid-2020 in the consensus of scientists, as noted in those sources. To quote The Guardian, "the broad consensus among scientific experts remains that the most likely explanation is that Covid-19 jumped to humans from an animal host in a natural event." In other words, just as before, most scientists view zoonotic origin as more likely, but a lab leak as plausible. Again, it's really only the WHO, as far as I can tell, who have used the "extremely unlikely" wording. What seems to have mostly changed since last year, by the way, is that mainstream media no longer refer to all lab leak theories as "debunked" and "conspiracy theories". You could say that it took them a year and a half to finally understand what the scientists were saying. Korny O'Near (talk) 01:41, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

It's possible to remove "extremely" if it cause offense. Although "possibility" implies that it is not ruled out, which seems accurate, per the sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:44, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

"Unlikely" would be better than "extremely unlikely", but even better would be "less likely". By the way, that's not the only strange thing about the current text (or the proposed text, which is rather similar). It jumps around from thought to thought with no real logic. Even the first sentence is strange: "Although the origin is undetermined, there has been a lot of speculation". Shouldn't it be "Because", if anything? Korny O'Near (talk) 01:54, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

"Because" would establish too clear of a causal link between the two, so would likely be WP:SYNTH. Maybe a better wording would be "The undetermined origin of SARS-CoV-2 has allowed unsubstantiated speculation and conspiracy theories related to the topic to gain popularity during the pandemic"? "allowed" is much weaker than "because". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:05, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

There's no need to establish any kind of causality. I think the awkwardness stems from the fact that the paragraph is very meandering, jumping back and forth from information to misinformation. I still like the structure I suggested earlier: start briefly with the plausible theories, then move on to the implausible ones (which, after all, are what this article is about). Korny O'Near (talk) 02:20, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Second Proposal While the most likely origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a natural crossover from animals, the precise origin of the virus has not been identified. Unsubstantiated speculation and conspiracy theories related to this topic have gained popularity during the pandemic. Common conspiracy theories state that the virus was intentionally engineered, either as a bio-weapon or in order to profit from the sale of vaccines, although this possibility has been ruled out by genomic analysis according to the World Health Organization.

An alternative hypothesis under investigation is that the virus may have accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, although most virologists consider this to be an unlikely possibility. Some have misrepresented information regarding this possibility, including to stoke anti-China sentiments.[34]

Thoughts? Bakkster Man (talk) 15:01, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: This could go at the top of the section about origins; since it is a broad overview. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:17, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

This is better, although I think it would be better still to list all the plausible theories first, then move on to the implausible ones. The current wording is misleading, in my opinion, because it says that any theory about intentional engineering is a conspiracy theory. In fact, one theory that has not been ruled out is that the virus was intentionally engineered, via "gain of function" research, but that its escape from the lab was accidental. Korny O'Near (talk) 15:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

AFAIK that was already ruled out by Andersen et al. back in March last year, and by multiple papers since which comment on how genomic analysis shows no signs of any deliberate engineering. The only lab leak theory which is not is the one where the lab is not necessary (natural virus which was somehow not detected or recorded). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:33, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The WHO report described it this way: We did not consider the hypothesis of deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome. They cite Andersen et al. @Korny O'Near:, do you have a suggested wording to more clearly distinguish that what was ruled out was engineering related to an intentional release (weaponized or vaccine sales)? This was my intent behind putting these claims into a single sentence. Perhaps replace the sentence with Common conspiracy theories state that the virus was manufactured for use either as either a bio-weapon or in order to profit from the sale of vaccines, although these possibilities have been ruled out by genomic analysis according to the World Health Organization. And yes, I agree this would be best placed at the top of the Wuhan lab origin section, before the two subsections describing each. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:45, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, before we talk about wording, we should decide whether the gain-of-function research theory counts as misinformation or not. I haven't read any of these scientific papers, but many recent reliable sources say that an engineered virus remains a possibility (see here for one example - note that the more controversial topic is not whether gain-of-function research occurred, but whether the NIH funded it). So if there indeed is a conflict between what scientific papers from a year ago say and what recent newspaper articles say, we should go with the recent newspaper articles - I believe WP:PRIMARY applies here, as does common sense. Korny O'Near (talk) 16:00, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that recent scientific papers still say the same thing. For ex., [35]:

Other strategies, more speculative than those listed above, have been used to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 came from a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Rogin, 2020). The evidence indicates that SARS-CoV-2 was not purposefully manipulated (Andersen et al., 2020). Moreover, the notion that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic resulted from a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Rogin, 2020) is not necessary to explain the pandemic.

So basically scientists have been saying the same thing all along, while the media have gone on to both ends of the spectrum, from "conspiracy theory" to "mainstream"... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:06, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Per Investigations into the origin of COVID-19, I wouldn't consider GoFR as ruled out, nor whether it was performed at WIV (on SARS-CoV-2 or otherwise) to be a conspiracy theory. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has performed research into bat coronaviruses since 2005, and identified the RaTG13 virus which is the closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2. Research topics included investigations into the source of the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak and 2012 MERS outbreak, some of which involved conducting gain of function research on viruses. The proximity of the laboratory to the initial outbreak has led some to speculate that it may be the entry point. Deliberate bioengineering of the virus for release has been ruled out, with remaining investigations considering the possibility of a collected natural virus inadvertently infecting laboratory staff during the course of study. I see it as an orthogonal question. The 'inadvertant lab leak' could result from GoFR, serial passage, or simply direct human infection from a bat sample. Same concept with the intermediary species including pangolins, snakes, and another unidentified intermediary, we only need to distinguish if there's a compelling reason. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:21, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

My reading of the sources is that the genome is such that if it had been manipulated in any way, whether by GoFR or serial passage, this would show in the genome. Scientists seem to agree that the virus shows no such signs, due to the significant amount of synonymous substitutions (favoured because they are less likely to break stuff...) and due to the even spread of mutation throughout the genome. Hence the 'inadvertant release' essentially rests on the last scenario you list. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:38, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I guess I take a more pragmatic approach. Is this aspect something that the entire theory hinges upon, or otherwise so notable that we have to mention it one way or another? Particularly on this page relating to misinformation? If not, I'd rather leave it unaddressed on this page.

That's why I split the above proposal the way I did, clarifying that the WHO ruled out bioweapons, and leaving it out of the leak hypothesis. Perhaps this is better addressed on Investigations into the origin of COVID-19, and only mentioned here in the Lab accident section if we have good sources about misinformation relating to GoFR (CDC funding, for example?). Bakkster Man (talk) 16:48, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the gain-of-function theory really has to be mentioned, to separate it from the bioweapon theory. And I think it has to be mentioned as a theory considered plausible. It doesn't matter how many scientific papers say it's impossible (if any actually do) - reliable, current secondary sources say it's possible, and those always take precedence. Korny O'Near (talk) 17:17, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Just for clarity, since we'd want to source it wherever we make reference, could you post any secondary sources you're thinking of? Even better if they meet WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:37, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

And by the way, yes, I'm aware of WP:MEDPOP, but I don't think it applies here, because what's being discussed here isn't some actual fact of biology, but rather a gauge of current scientific consensus - and unless there's some scientific meta-study that tries to do that, I believe these secondary sources are our best indicator. Again, we're not trying to determine the origins of the virus here, just trying to determine what is considered "fringe" and what is not. Korny O'Near (talk) 17:35, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Depends what we're trying to gauge. Acceptance of the view among scientists, or reporting on it by news outlets? The latter could, in fact, be misinformation (for the reasons mentioned in WP:MEDPOP and WP:SCHOLARSHIP. For the fringe view itself, you're right that sources supporting fringe views often have less weight/reliability. But I go back to only using them (at least here, rather than Investigations) if we can't suitably distinguish the ruled out bioweapon elements otherwise. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:44, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

We're trying to gauge acceptance among scientists. As far as secondary sources, this New York Times article from last week seems to fit all the criteria - it quotes NIH director Francis Collins and two other scientists as saying that the bioengineered virus theory merits further study. This Technology Review article gives similar information. Korny O'Near (talk) 18:35, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the NYT article does not "quote NIH director Francis Collins... as saying that the bioengineered virus theory merits further study". They quote him as saying It is most likely that this is a virus that arose naturally, but we cannot exclude the possibility of some kind of a lab accident, and lab accident is not synonymous with a bioengineered virus. I was looking for sources relating the lab leak specifically to gain-of-function as you mentioned, with the only mention by NYT being to US Senators Mike Braun and Josh Hawley. Even where Technology Review mentions it relating to the Science letter only regarding two of the 18 scientists, and only as context for their past interest in the subject (rather than linking it to a belief that this was necessarily the path for a lab origin).

But yes, it does repeat the claim we've held to, that the majority (not just Francis Collins) view is that a so-called natural spillover from animal to human remains the most plausible explanation. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:50, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Collins is only quoted as saying "It is most likely that this is a virus that arose naturally, but we cannot exclude the possibility of some kind of a lab accident"; and this is prefaced by the following paragraph:

Despite the absence of new evidence, a number of scientists have lately begun speaking out about the need to remain open to the possibility that the virus had accidentally emerged from a lab, perhaps after it was collected in nature, a lab origin distinct from a creation by scientists.

"distinct from a creation by scientists". Confirms what I was saying in regards to the above (in addition to the multiple scientific papers, including the WHO, which agree that deliberate manipulation by whichever means has been ruled out). The quote by Collins is WP:PRIMARY, but appears to be in agreement with prior assessments and other papers (cited multiple times here and at other pages) that the favoured hypothesis is zoonotic origin, and that the lab leak is unlikely although not ruled out... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:56, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Okay, it looks like I misread Collins' statement. But there are several other quoted scientists who have not ruled out creation by humans. For our purposes, I think that's enough to not list an engineered virus as "misinformation". You won't find accredited scientists saying that the 5G phone network theory bears further study, for example. Korny O'Near (talk) 19:30, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Not when we have papers in quality scientific journals which explicitly describe such claims as "fictitious and pseudo-scientific"; ex. [36]

Currently, there are some fictitious and pseudoscientific claims as well as conspiracy theories associated with the Covid‐19 pandemic. Some people have alleged that SARS‐CoV‐2 is of laboratory origin and the result of deliberate genetic manipulation. According to these conspiracy theories, a novel virus is a human‐made biological weapon, not the result of natural evolution and selection.

Accidental lab leak (without manipulation) is "possible but unlikely". Deliberate manipulation? not quite possible, according to scientists... Otherwise, provide relevant quotes from the NYT or other articles: I didn't notice them, although I was going through it rather quickly so might have missed it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:44, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

@Korny O'Near: I'm afraid I don't see any scientists in either article you linked directly suggesting investigation into "an engineered virus". From NYT: Despite the absence of new evidence, a number of scientists have lately begun speaking out about the need to remain open to the possibility that the virus had accidentally emerged from a lab, perhaps after it was collected in nature, a lab origin distinct from a creation by scientists. The closest I found was this, which again falls far short of "COVID was likely the result of GoFR": Whether or not an investigation uncovers the source of covid-19, Lipsitch says, he believes there needs to be more public scrutiny of laboratory research involving viruses that have the potential to spread out of control. “It’s not all about whether a lab accident caused this particular pandemic,” he says. “I’d like to see the attention focus on the regulation of dangerous experiments, because we’ve seen what a pandemic can do to us all, and we should be extremely sure before we do anything that increases that probability even a little.” If you see something I missed, please quote it. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:48, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The issue isn't whether a gain-of-function origin is likely, just whether it's possible. As for whether anyone prominent thinks it's possible: it's not totally clear, but it appears that way. A lot of the recent press reporting seems to revolve around this May 2021 open letter in Science magazine, which talks at length about a lab leak possibility, without specifying whether that means it was engineered there or not. But there certainly are quotes, like the one you found from Marc Lipsitch (one of the signatories), that show that some people are not ruling it out. There's also this paper, which I just found, which states that "the amount of peculiar genetic features identified in SARS-CoV-2′s genome does not rule out a possible gain-of-function origin". It's published in Environmental Chemistry Letters - I don't know whether that's peer-reviewed or not. And it's a scientific paper and not a media source, but if the purpose is just to clear the low bar of whether this view should be considered fringe or not, maybe it's enough. Korny O'Near (talk) 20:43, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Not a credible journal (no relevance to the field of virology or infectious diseases or biology), likely not a peer-reviewed article (as the journal implies, it`s a "letter"), published by non-virologists and the like ('independent researchers' with no degrees...) who are members of a Twitter group which has consistently been spreading misinformation about this (some of its members have also engaged in the bullying of scientists). Also cited a grand total of zero times by other (actual) scientists, so likely not to reflect a widespread position. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:55, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Accuracy: Re-label the WHO investigation as "Joint WHO-China investigation".

The WHO-China investigation should be labeled as such, for what it is. It is how it is reported in most media, on its own official report, and on many Wikipedia pages. User RandomCanadian removed the "China" part for no reason.Eccekevin (talk) 02:15, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Are you sure it's me? I'm quite sure I've referred to it as the WHO-Chine investigation a couple of times. If it's not the first occurence, we can shorten it, though, to avoid being repetitive (though most sources seem to call it the "WHO report" or similar, including that CNN article: "World Health Organization investigation"; "the WHO investigation"; ...). In both cases I think readers will know what is being referred to, anyway. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:33, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I know you have, which is why I am confused why you removed it. But I am glad you agree. We should not assume what the reader knows. To be fair and complete, it should be shortened to "WHO-China report", which is not long.Eccekevin (talk) 02:39, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Oh, that. I simply reverted to the last definitively stable version, completely ignoring any content issue, since of course there was an edit-war ongoing and I'd much rather we have a previously stable version while we hash it out on the talk page. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:58, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Unexplained removal of content

Deepfriedokra, how long does the protection last and how do we resolve this situation with RandomCanadian? This user removes anything they don’t like, and their latest revert removed well sourced content from Guest2625 and Eccekevin and an entire section I added on Testing Misinformation. Aren’t there policies against removing well sourced content without explanation on the talk page? CutePeach (talk) 12:54, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: The WP:ONUS is on those seeking to include new content (as clearly indicated in the edit summary). There was no consensus, hence I applied WP:BRD and reverted to a version before the reverting, before noticing how much of it there had been and going to RFPP, hoping there would be further discussion here. See the preceding sections, where I've failed to notice your name so far. Also, you deliberately not pinging me cannot at this point be taken as anything even remotely ressembling AGF. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:58, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I didn't notice the section on testing, which basically went under the radar with all of the other reverting. @Deepfriedokra: You should re-add the following (with a level 2 header), right after the sentence "In an August 2020 article, Astronomy.com called the meteor origin theory "so remarkable that it makes the others look boring by comparison".":

Extended content

Testing A claim that the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health confirmed that polymerase chain reaction testing is fake became popular in the Philippines and remains a widespread belief. According to a report from AFP, research associate Joshua Miguel Danac of the University of the Philippines’ National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology countered the claim, calling PCR tests "the gold standard for diagnosis." Fake testing and perception of fake testing remains a problem in the Philipppines.

Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:01, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Specific examples of accidental lab leak misinformation?

I'm looking to improve the section COVID-19 misinformation#Lab accident, and I'm looking for specific examples of misinformation about this hypothesis. Beyond simply advocating for its investigation, possibility, or likelihood, I'd like to include concrete examples of misinformation about this hypothesis. I think this is crucial to distinguishing actual dissemination of misinformation from mere differences of opinion (per WP:NPOV).

For instance, the US politicians listed in the first sentence no longer seem to have as reliable sources pointing towards their being disinformation. Instead, we've seen some walking-back of the language used at the time by media to describe their positions.[37] So while there's sourcing to suggest some press coverage was misinformation by inaccurately and/or prematurely dismissing it as 'conspiracy theory', I expect there are also concrete examples of politicians sharing misinformation that I'd like to replace the current broad statements with.

Any other examples would be greatly appreciated as well. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:46, 2 June 2021 (UTC)