Top virologist says media stories on his private messages driving ‘ridiculous’ conspiracies
Professor Eddie Holmes says the front-page newspaper stories have been difficult for him.
Renowned virologist Professor Eddie Holmes says he is “so grateful” for support from the scientific community after news reports on his private messages about SARS-CoV-2’s origins provided fuel for conspiracy theories.
In March 2020, the evolutionary virologist from the University of Sydney and four of his colleagues published a paper in Nature Medicine, which concluded it was “improbable” that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a laboratory.
More than three years later, journalists have seized on messages between the researchers as evidence they doubted their own conclusion that the virus emerged from wet markets in Wuhan, China.
The messages were released after being subpoenaed by the US Congress.
