ausdoc . com . au 1 SEPTEMBER 2023
‘ This abuse is a
NEW
PBS LISTING 1ST FEB 2023 1 threat to science ’
Professor Eddie Holmes on facing Twitter ’ s wrath .
Carmel Sparke THREE years after publishing a famous research letter on the origins of SARS- CoV-2 , Professor Eddie Holmes remains a target for Twitter invective .
“ Somebody said I was like Robert Oppenheimer but without the security clearance or the regret ,” says the evolutionary virologist from the University of Sydney .
“ It is quite a good line . But the difference is he created an atomic bomb , and I wrote a research letter in Nature Medicine .
“ It is insane . The reaction is extraordinary .”
The most recent wave of online abuse came when Professor Holmes ’ correspondence to his scientific colleagues was published by the media last month .
The correspondence , dating back to 2020 , recently released after being subpoenaed by the US Congress , was sent shortly before their paper on the likely origins of SARS-CoV-2 was published .
The Australian claimed it showed they had privately believed a lab leak was possible even though their paper was “ designed to stifle ” the theory .
The headline referred to a ‘ COVID-19 cover-up ’.
Professor Holmes said the messages had been taken out of context in an attempt to fuel the conspiracy narrative that former US chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci had influenced them to rule out a lab leak because he indirectly funded the lab .
“ It ’ s utterly ridiculous , this accusation that we were part of some conspiracy to hide the origin of the virus ,” Professor Holmes said . “ That ’ s absolutely , completely false .” But the online harassment that it led to was “ a lot worse ” than anything published in The Australian , he said .
“ I ’ ve had death threats , I ’ ve had people trying to get onto our property , I ’ ve had to call the police once .”
The media that published the messages would go on to report some of the Twitter attacks , including that Professor Holmes was called a cretin . But while the coverage had shaken him , Professor Holmes said he remained grateful that he lived in Australia .
“ If it was in the US , it ’ d be a thousand times worse than this ,” he said .
“ There are people in the US who have guns , who could take you out . “ The level of hate is horrendous . “ But Australia is a civilised country ; people behave themselves .
“ And the support by my Australian colleagues has been great . It ’ s lifted a weight off my shoulders a bit .”
Since the earliest days of SARS-CoV-2 , Professor Holmes has been a public figure thanks to his role ensuring that the virus ’ genome was shared with the wider world .
In early January 2020 , his longtime friend and colleague , Professor
Yong-Zhen Zhang from Fudan University in Shanghai , had just sequenced the genome from samples collected from patients in Wuhan .
Without authorisation from the Chinese authorities , Professor Zhang emailed the sequence to Professor Holmes , who within minutes arranged for it to be published by a colleague in Edinburgh on the discussion forum virological . org .
Two months later , Professor Holmes and his colleagues published the research letter arguing against the lab leak theory , suggesting instead that the most likely source of the pandemic was the Wuhan wet markets .
What disturbed him about the attacks , he said , was the threat to the scientific process .
“ It ’ s awful having your personal messages that you didn ’ t intend for public viewing to be out there in the public arena ,” he said .
“ But the key point is about science being able to do its job .
“ We have to be able to assess the data and draw conclusions .
“ If you don ’ t like the conclusions , what you do is you write a paper saying why they are wrong . That is how science works .
“ I just want to get back to doing what I do as a scientist .”
‘ It ’ s utterly ridiculous , this accusation that we were part of some conspiracy to hide the origin of the virus .’
— Professor Eddie Holmes
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References : 1 . Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme ( PBS ). Available at : www . pbs . gov . au . 2 . Approved Fostair Product Information . 3 . Paggiaro P et al . BMC Pulmonary Med 2016 ; 16:180 . Chiesi Australia Pty Ltd , Hawthorn East , VIC . 3123 . Tel : + 61 3 9077 4486 ; Email : medicalaffairs . au @ chiesi . com ; Website : www . chiesi . com . au . Copyright © Chiesi 2023 . All rights reserved . Date of preparation : Jan 2023 . AU-FOS-2200025 . CHIE00042j .