A key Opinion piece in the NY Times by @zeynep Tufekci.

Poised, detailed and well argued.

It is a true credit to the DRASTIC members who have been making these very points for a year or more, and have uncovered many of the issues raised in this article.

nytimes.com/2021/06/25/opi…

@TheSeeker gets mentioned, but also the work of @MonaRahalkar, @BillyBostickson, Charles Small, myself and others within #DRASTIC.

Some of our work is referenced, or even get linked to (such as our deleted DB paper, which was the base of a key editorial in the Washington Post).

Anybody who still believes that investigating the plausible origins can be assimilated to anti-Asian bashing or conspiracy theories is fully missing the point here.

Asking for a science-based independent investigation is none of this. It is just a responsible scientific attitude

Also it leads to an important conclusion mentioned in the article: we need to be wiser and more careful, wherever we interact with pathogens - be it in nature, animal farm, or more and more often in laboratories and on field sampling trips.

Don't shoot the messenger.

Last but not least, another direct mention of a recent DRASTIC paper (by yours truly in association with Steven Quay).

All these points may seem trivial but they raise important questions.
researchgate.net/publication/35…

@threadreaderapp compile