Shame on You, New York Times! Scientists Speak Out Over Media
Disinformation on China
Our quotes are intendedly twisted casting shadows over important scientific
work. Danish epidemiologist Thea Kølsen Fischer
by Alan Macleod
February 15th, 2021
Mint Press
By Alan Macleod
ATexas teenager has been forced to use her entire college savings to prevent
her single mother from being evicted after she lost her job amid a raging
pandemic. Alondra Carmona of Houston made the appeal on crowdfunding site
GoFundMe, noting that she had been accepted into prestigious New York
university Barnard College, but that she used the money she had saved for
tuition in order to save her mother.
Some of the worlds top scientists are condemning The New York Times for
what they describe as a highly misleading hit job on their recent visit to
Wuhan, China.
New York Times Wuhan
The Times latest hit piece on China | Feb 12, 2021
On Friday, the Times published a bombshell report titled On WHO Trip, China
Refused to Hand Over Important Data. The article, subtitled, The
information could be key to determining how and when the outbreak started,
and to learning how to prevent future pandemics, claims that Chinese
authorities put up continuous resistance to the groups attempts to
understand the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic that has now killed over 2.4
million people worldwide. China, it says, stymied their progress,
refusing to hand over raw data that the Times implies would show that the
outbreak began earlier than December 2019, a finding that would leave China
open to more criticism and another example of a supposed Chinese cover up
of the outbreak. Chinas obstinance, it claimed, was so overwhelming that it
led to shouting matches between the international team and local
authorities.
Yet the report was immediately lambasted by many of the worlds leading
scientists, including some who the Times spoke to and quoted in the article.
This was NOT my experience on the WHO mission, said Peter Daszak, the
president of EcoHealth Alliance in New York. As the lead of the
animal/environmental working group, I found trust and openness with my China
counterparts. We DID get access to critical new data throughout. We DID
increase our understanding of likely spillover pathways. Daszak went on to
explain that he was given a very wide range of data and his investigation
was unvetted throughout.
Danish epidemiologist Thea Kølsen Fischer, another source on which the
Times report was based, chimed in with a similar message:
This was NOT my experience either on the epidemiological side. We DID build
up a good relationship in the Chinese/international epidemiology team!
Allowing for heated arguments reflects a deep level of engagement in the
room. Our quotes are intendedly twisted casting shadows over important
scientific work.
Hear! Hear!, replied Daszak. Its disappointing to spend time with
journalists explaining key findings of our exhausting month-long work in
China, to see our colleagues selectively misquoted to fit a narrative that
was prescribed before the work began. Shame on you, New York Times!
Dr. Hume Field, an epidemiologist and veterinarian who co-led a previous WHO
investigation into the origins of the 2002-2004 SARS pandemic, also
condemned the Times reporting. Collaboration is all about mutual trust and
respect. If you dont have that, no one is going to share data with you, he
stated, we urgently need to jettison the political crap. Hopefully there is
enough enduring personal goodwill for us to effectively proceed.
Political crap
Unfortunately, political crap has been getting in the way of an effective
COVID-19 response since the outbreak began in late 2019. While most of the
media, including The New York Times, has constantly claimed China
intentionally covered up the coronavirus for political gain, the worlds
medical and scientific community has been adamant that Beijings response
was exemplary. A statement published in The Lancet, often considered the
worlds most prestigious medical journal, commended Chinas remarkable
effort in working diligently and effectively to rapidly identify the
pathogen behind this outbreak, putting in place significant measures to
reduce its impact, and sharing their results transparently with the global
health community.
It also condemned the conspiracy theories about a possible man-made
COVID-19 origin, noting that the overwhelming evidence for this strain of
the coronavirus originates in wildlife. Dr. Michael Ryan, Executive Director
of the WHOs Health Emergencies Programme, also lauded Chinas actions,
claiming he had never seen the scale and commitment of an epidemic
response. The challenge is great, but the response has been massive and
the Chinese government deserve huge credit for that response and for the
transparency in which they have dealt with this, he added.
This is not how COVID-19 has been presented in Western media, with China
overwhelmingly presented as having failed to contain its international
spread. An October poll of 14 developed countries found that in every one,
citizens believed their own governments response was superior to that of
Chinas, even in countries with over 500 times the per capita deaths. The
upshot of the coverage has been a surge in anti-Chinese sentiment worldwide
and an increase in hate crimes against Asians. Amid growing tensions, both
the Trump and Biden administrations have pushed forward with aggressive
actions towards China, leading to what many have described as the beginning
of a second Cold War.
The New York Times has spent much of 2020 covering and condemning COVID
conspiracies and fake news. For their next article on coronavirus
misinformation, perhaps they could look a little closer to home for
inspiration.
