Vile threats to Wuhan lab, Danielle Anderson plot leak

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Dr Anderson was last in Wuhan in November 2019 when it is now believed the virus was starting to spread. She has known the lab’s Emerging Infectious Diseases section director, Shi Zhengli, since meeting at CSIRO in Geelong and in 2003. She refuted claims that scientists at the Wuhan lab got sick, saying if it had happened. was true, she would have known.

Facebook’s decision to remove large amounts of misinformation about COVID-19 and replace it with verified material, including that of Dr Anderson, has infuriated extremist conspiracy websites so much that one of them has published his email address.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is at the center of many COVID-19 conspiracy theories.Credit:PA

The man dubbed America’s “most prolific” conspiracy theorist, Texan Alex Jones, named Dr Anderson “the woman who runs projects with armed COVID” and claimed that she “led all of it. censorship for Facebook… and silences the president â€.

Dr. Anderson, born in Geelong, didn’t know she was being targeted until a friend in New York asked her, “Why am I seeing your face?”

The first email to reach her inbox simply said, “Eat a bat and die, bitch.”

When the assault became intense enough for her to call the Singapore police, they took it seriously.

“A colleague said to think about what happened to climate change scientists, we’re in them now, and that’s a very good point.”

“They said they were aware of my surroundings, and that scared me a bit,†said Dr Anderson from Melbourne, where she returned to work last month. “I’m a runner and on one of the apps I use, Strava, it shows where your running route [is], so you can watch someone and find out where they live, so I had to lock my Strava.

For Dr Anderson – now a senior researcher at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity – being drawn into the world information wars has “shaken” his confidence in the way parts of the media industry operate.

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She is particularly concerned about the Australian pound What really happened in Wuhan by journalist Sharri Markson, which is marketed in part on the basis of a “unearthed” video showing scientists with bats at the Wuhan lab.

“To my knowledge, this was a video made several years ago to promote the lab,†Dr. Anderson said.

“I didn’t know who [the author of the book] That was until I saw the video’s headline on Bats, a “Secret” Bat Colony. Many laboratories work with bats and have bat colonies in several countries.

“There are scientific meetings dedicated specifically to bat virus research and the last such meeting I attended was in Colorado, United States.”

When she saw the ‘secret video’ statement, “I thought, ‘This is just rubbish’… It’s crazy and it gives the audience a terrible scientific impression.

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“A colleague said to think about what happened to climate change scientists, we’re in them now, and that’s a very good point. I kind of want to contact the climatologists and say, “I know what you’re going through. “

Dr Anderson stands by his belief that COVID-19 has a natural origin, saying: “The reason I think the virus escaping from the lab is a less likely scenario is if we look over the course of In the past 50 years, so many diseases and epidemics that have occurred have been caused by animals. “

But it is open to reading evidence to the contrary.

“If someone comes from a lab in China and says, ‘Look, this is what we’re working on and this is how it came out of the lab,’ I wouldn’t rule out [it] and I am open to changing my mind.

“My opinion is based on the evidence in front of me and my collective research experience. Virology training is my experience and I use it to make my decisions, not a politician who says, “This is what we should be thinking.

“Science is a self-correction mechanism. If the evidence changes, I expect, as scientists, our opinions will change. We are constantly gaining new knowledge and this is how we learn and advance the field.

With Anthony Galloway

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