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Just went through your article and appreciated how you presented this collection of evidence. Laughed along the way.

Keep up the good (information) fight.

From Switzerland, Europe.

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It would be nice if this article was written before someone swallowed a normal and a scientific thesaurus. In other words, the article is pile on of technical terminology that makes it impossible for the average reader to follow. Rewrite it in simple English you obnoxious morons.

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Great piece. One of the best summaries I've read. I had previously operated with an assumption that if subject matter experts have formed a consensus then there's no need for the lay person to research the matter. After a year of this, I realise that I was gravely mistaken.

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The volume of information is certainly overwhelming, which is part of the reason that this issue has been so easy to disregard - the learning curve is so steep [and the implications of Chinese culpability/reaction are so concerning] fuels fatalism about speaking out.

I'm sure that today's cancel culture is also a factor; the fact that Trump was an early proponent & that his opponents had a vested interest in continuing to paint him as xenophobic contributed to that reluctance.

What's scary is that the consistency of the censorship [via framing of every issue] has prevented people from realizing that the messengers don't represent the majority opinion at all, but cancel culture effectively intimidates enough opposing voices that a false impression is given.

Viewing the 'scientific consensus' of a zoonotic origin through that larger cultural prism is entirely appropriate, and explains both virologists' hubris and your reaction to perceptions of what science used to be. People like Daszak, and even Fauci, have taken full advantage of that, and partisan politicians have latched onto that trope because the public at large doesn't yet realize that science is just as infested with this bullshit as the rest of society.

I think that the medical professions are now facing the exact same phenomena

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...because the free market of treatment ideas has been suppressed, and dr.-patient relationships & personalized treatment thrive on flexibility-especially in an age of technological advancement so profound that new treatments and methods are continually improving, faster than the existing approval methods could possibly keep pace with. This phenomenon is exactly the same problem the military is now facing, and in the interest of brevity I'll save some of my late-career anecdotes for a future article, but I was actively engaged in Marine Corps symposia addressing these specific issues in 2016-2018. I was even a judge for one of the Corps-wide innovation contests.

In every case, the problem has been a lack of acceptance of outside ideas/perspective, and during the pandemic the problem has intensified. Your simple act of reading my article [and even commenting on it] shows your willingness to apply the level of due diligence our leaders in government, science and society should be exerting during this crisis. Thank you for your comments

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I'm glad you raise the parallel with the medical professions. As with the origin question I've been through the same process on the question of whether the negative correlation between 25(OH)D levels and disease severity is causal. I started off researching in order to debunk those challenging the apparent consensus and ~100 papers later I realise it very likely is causal. The health advisory bodies here in the UK continue to do nothing without a gold-plated RCT as if it's business as usual and they're evaluating some experimental cancer treatment of marginal efficacy and unknown safety.

It's been an eye-opening year, that's for sure. Cheers!

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