Thursday, January 30, 2020 2:39:41 AM
conix conspiracy trip confirmed: The Wuhan Virus Is Not a Lab-Made Bioweapon
Conspiracy theories are spreading faster than the coronavirus itself.
By Justin Ling | January 29, 2020, 11:27 AM
People wearing protective face masks pass in front of a thermal scanner as they enter a shopping mall in Bangkok on Jan. 29. Mladen Antonov/AFP via Getty Images
The recent outbreak of a new and potentially deadly coronavirus in China has, unsurprisingly, kicked off a deluge of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
As of Tuesday, there were more than 6,000 confirmed cases of the virus, with 132 people dead. The center of the epidemic, and still the location of around a third of the cases, is Wuhan, in the central province of Hubei. Other cases have rapidly sprung up worldwide—but the transmission of paranoia and inaccurate information has managed to keep pace.
There is still plenty unknown about the virus, but researchers say it shares similarities to Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)—two infectious diseases that have emerged in recent decades but that have been managed. While concerns inside China are serious and travel restrictions have been imposed across much of the country, public health officials stress there is no need for panic, especially not in the West where the risk of transmission remains low.
That hasn’t stopped an outbreak of nonsense and conspiracy theories. On Sunday, the Washington Times — a paper with a distinct ideological .. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2005/washington-times-editor-and-wife-promote-radical-right-agenda .. bent — published an article .. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-link-china-biowarfare-program-possible/ .. claiming that the virus’ outbreak could be linked to a military lab in Wuhan.
The article suggests a government-run lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, could have been researching military applications for the coronavirus and may have been the source of the outbreak.
The only basis for the claim is a quote from former Israeli intelligence officer Dany Shoham, who has expertise in biological warfare.
“Certain laboratories in the institute have probably been engaged, in terms of research and development, in Chinese [biological weapons], at least collaterally, yet not as a principal facility of the Chinese BW alignment,” Shoham told the Times.
While Shoham never backed up the claim made in the story that the outbreak stemmed from a biological weapon, other outlets nevertheless picked up the idea and ran with it.
The Texas radio station KPRC posted the story to its site .. https://kprcradio.iheart.com/featured/the-pursuit-of-happiness/content/2020-01-28-coronavirus-may-have-links-to-biowarfare-program-analysts/ , concluding “some intelligence experts believe the Chinese military’s biowarfare department may be responsible.” A speculation by a single former officer had become “intelligence experts.” The Toronto Sun columnist Candice Malcolm pumped the theory on her YouTube show ..
All this on the guesswork of one man—and it’s not the first time Shoham has pumped the tires on a theory without much merit. In 2017, he went on Radio Sputnik, a propaganda arm of the Russian government, to suggest .. https://sputniknews.com/military/201705251053968124-daesh-nicotine-thallium-chemical-weapons/ .. the Islamic State had likely passed on chemical weapon capabilities to its sleeper cells in the West.
GreatGameIndia, a small conspiracy website—which, among other things, has reported that British intelligence was responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014—began publishing reports .. https://greatgameindia.com/coronavirus-bioweapon/ .. last week claiming that Canadian researchers had sold this strain of coronavirus to China.
--
GreatGameIndia, a small conspiracy website—which, among other things, has reported that British
intelligence was responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014—began
publishing reports last week claiming that Canadian researchers had sold this strain of coronavirus to China.
--
The co-founder and editor of the website has also written extensively for the Centre for Research on Globalization, a Montreal-based site that has been identified .. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/nato-research-centre-sets-sights-on-canadian-website-over-pro-russian-disinformation/article37015521/ .. by NATO as a peddler of Russian and Syrian propaganda.
The website pointed blame at Xiangguo Qiu, a former researcher with the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a government-run lab that has pioneered vaccines and treatments for various infectious diseases, including Ebola. While it’s true she was escorted from the lab last year by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, there does not appear to be a national security element to the incident. Charges have not been laid, and those familiar with the case say it is likely a matter of paperwork and protocol .. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/protocol-questions-in-pathogens-transfer-513421202.html . Qiu, in fact, worked extensively with labs in China to create treatments for deadly and infectious diseases.
While the claims made on GreatGameIndia are demonstrably untrue—the supposed shipment of the coronavirus in 2018 was for, in fact, for the MERS strain, not the novel coronavirus currently seen in Wuhan—it nevertheless got picked up by fellow conspiracy site ZeroHedge, which has a massive following (about 670,000 Twitter followers and millions of visitors to its blog). Its post .. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/did-china-steal-coronavirus-canada-and-weaponize-it .. on the baseless theory has been shared more than 6,000 times on Facebook and tweeted by hundreds of accounts, including by Toronto Sun columnist Tarek Fatah ..
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/29/coronavirus-china-lab-mortality-virology-wuhan-virus-not-bioweapon/
Conspiracy theories are spreading faster than the coronavirus itself.
By Justin Ling | January 29, 2020, 11:27 AM
People wearing protective face masks pass in front of a thermal scanner as they enter a shopping mall in Bangkok on Jan. 29. Mladen Antonov/AFP via Getty Images
The recent outbreak of a new and potentially deadly coronavirus in China has, unsurprisingly, kicked off a deluge of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
As of Tuesday, there were more than 6,000 confirmed cases of the virus, with 132 people dead. The center of the epidemic, and still the location of around a third of the cases, is Wuhan, in the central province of Hubei. Other cases have rapidly sprung up worldwide—but the transmission of paranoia and inaccurate information has managed to keep pace.
There is still plenty unknown about the virus, but researchers say it shares similarities to Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)—two infectious diseases that have emerged in recent decades but that have been managed. While concerns inside China are serious and travel restrictions have been imposed across much of the country, public health officials stress there is no need for panic, especially not in the West where the risk of transmission remains low.
That hasn’t stopped an outbreak of nonsense and conspiracy theories. On Sunday, the Washington Times — a paper with a distinct ideological .. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2005/washington-times-editor-and-wife-promote-radical-right-agenda .. bent — published an article .. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-link-china-biowarfare-program-possible/ .. claiming that the virus’ outbreak could be linked to a military lab in Wuhan.
The article suggests a government-run lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, could have been researching military applications for the coronavirus and may have been the source of the outbreak.
The only basis for the claim is a quote from former Israeli intelligence officer Dany Shoham, who has expertise in biological warfare.
“Certain laboratories in the institute have probably been engaged, in terms of research and development, in Chinese [biological weapons], at least collaterally, yet not as a principal facility of the Chinese BW alignment,” Shoham told the Times.
While Shoham never backed up the claim made in the story that the outbreak stemmed from a biological weapon, other outlets nevertheless picked up the idea and ran with it.
The Texas radio station KPRC posted the story to its site .. https://kprcradio.iheart.com/featured/the-pursuit-of-happiness/content/2020-01-28-coronavirus-may-have-links-to-biowarfare-program-analysts/ , concluding “some intelligence experts believe the Chinese military’s biowarfare department may be responsible.” A speculation by a single former officer had become “intelligence experts.” The Toronto Sun columnist Candice Malcolm pumped the theory on her YouTube show ..
, asking: “Why isn’t the mainstream media talking about the origins of this deadly virus? Could it be linked to China’s biological warfare program?”
All this on the guesswork of one man—and it’s not the first time Shoham has pumped the tires on a theory without much merit. In 2017, he went on Radio Sputnik, a propaganda arm of the Russian government, to suggest .. https://sputniknews.com/military/201705251053968124-daesh-nicotine-thallium-chemical-weapons/ .. the Islamic State had likely passed on chemical weapon capabilities to its sleeper cells in the West.
GreatGameIndia, a small conspiracy website—which, among other things, has reported that British intelligence was responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014—began publishing reports .. https://greatgameindia.com/coronavirus-bioweapon/ .. last week claiming that Canadian researchers had sold this strain of coronavirus to China.
--
GreatGameIndia, a small conspiracy website—which, among other things, has reported that British
intelligence was responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014—began
publishing reports last week claiming that Canadian researchers had sold this strain of coronavirus to China.
--
The co-founder and editor of the website has also written extensively for the Centre for Research on Globalization, a Montreal-based site that has been identified .. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/nato-research-centre-sets-sights-on-canadian-website-over-pro-russian-disinformation/article37015521/ .. by NATO as a peddler of Russian and Syrian propaganda.
The website pointed blame at Xiangguo Qiu, a former researcher with the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a government-run lab that has pioneered vaccines and treatments for various infectious diseases, including Ebola. While it’s true she was escorted from the lab last year by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, there does not appear to be a national security element to the incident. Charges have not been laid, and those familiar with the case say it is likely a matter of paperwork and protocol .. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/protocol-questions-in-pathogens-transfer-513421202.html . Qiu, in fact, worked extensively with labs in China to create treatments for deadly and infectious diseases.
While the claims made on GreatGameIndia are demonstrably untrue—the supposed shipment of the coronavirus in 2018 was for, in fact, for the MERS strain, not the novel coronavirus currently seen in Wuhan—it nevertheless got picked up by fellow conspiracy site ZeroHedge, which has a massive following (about 670,000 Twitter followers and millions of visitors to its blog). Its post .. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/did-china-steal-coronavirus-canada-and-weaponize-it .. on the baseless theory has been shared more than 6,000 times on Facebook and tweeted by hundreds of accounts, including by Toronto Sun columnist Tarek Fatah ..
. The claims have since spread to a network of other less-than-reputable sites.Did China steal the #CoronaVirusCanada from Canada and Weaponize It? | Zero Hedge https://t.co/c7bQOdbJmB
— Tarek Fatah (@TarekFatah) January 26, 2020
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/29/coronavirus-china-lab-mortality-virology-wuhan-virus-not-bioweapon/
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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