Scientists claim to find HIV virus-like insertions in the 2019-nCov [pdf]

Sorry, but it&#x27;s very easy to verify that these claims are crap by replicating their study, i.e. doing a simple blast search of the insert sequence against the virus database. Here&#x27;s the result of the first insert: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;Blast.cgi?CMD=Get&amp;RID=398N4CSR01R" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;Blast.cgi?CMD=Get&amp;RID=398N4CS...</a><p>Although, there are some hits against HIV, there are also equally matching hits against bacteriophages; viruses that only target bacterias, they are completely unrelated to any viruses that target humans and animals. Furthermore, the E value is around 170, that means that matches are statistically completely insignificant, meaning they happened by chance only. Such a high E value corresponds to a p-value of very, very close to 1 (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;BLAST&#x2F;tutorial&#x2F;Altschul-1.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;BLAST&#x2F;tutorial&#x2F;Altschul-1.html</a>).<p>These guys that published such a paper are either completely clueless or nefarious in trying to stir up conspiracy theories.

This looks like a whole lot of rubbish to me. They&#x27;re excited they managed to get blast hits for these short inserts.<p>But in the spirit of open-mindedness, what do I need to be convinced this is even interesting? First I want to see where on gp120 these inserts align to. Are they receptor&#x2F;carbohydrate binding regions? Where do they map to on the coronavirus? These structures are known, so I don&#x27;t know why this isn&#x27;t in this manuscript.<p>If somehow this is engineered, I am honestly impressed that someone could take features from one protein and estimate how to engineer those same features in another protein altogether, with little homology. It&#x27;s like engineering a monkey tail onto an elephant and somehow getting the elephant to swing through the trees.

I think the important things to know here are:<p>1. A group of scientist have submitted a manuscript for review with a number of exceptionally (and uncharacteristically) bold claims.<p>2. A huge amount of scrutiny and additional reproducibility will necessarily need to be conducted before conclusions of this nature can be drawn.<p>3. This manuscript hasn&#x27;t even passed the normal muster... a biorxiv post isn&#x27;t much different than a Medium post. Claims like these require many eyes.<p>EDIT: My sentiment echoed by someone who know more than I <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;DrEricDing&#x2F;status&#x2F;1223325141364592640?s=20" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;DrEricDing&#x2F;status&#x2F;1223325141364592640?s=...</a>

This is especially interesting since there have been reports that China was testing HIV treatments on patients with the coronavirus:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;us-china-health-abbvie-hiv&#x2F;china-testing-hiv-drug-as-treatment-for-new-coronavirus-abbvie-says-idUSKBN1ZP0QK" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;us-china-health-abbvie-hiv&#x2F;c...</a>

A thread by an epidemiologist on the new results:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;DrEricDing&#x2F;status&#x2F;1223305946723704832" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;DrEricDing&#x2F;status&#x2F;1223305946723704832</a>

Why was this submission suddenly so heavily penalized by the mod(s)?

&quot;...unlikely to be fortuitous.&quot;<p>Ignoring the odd word-choice, this ties in to the conspiracy theory that this was a Wuhan biolab containment leak.<p>I have been writing it off as a crackpot conspiracy until now, depending on peer review.

I&#x27;m not saying I believe the conspiracies, but it would be a pretty scary future if a totalitarian nation decided to quietly immunize their population (or just a selected elite) from a pathogen designed by themselves, and if push comes to shove you have a bioweapon that will do the job for you, which you know the people you care about can&#x27;t contract. It&#x27;s like a smart nuke.

So what is the probability that a lab that works with HIV normally, now working under extreme pressure, contaminated or mixed up a sample?<p>And what is the probability that this is not just a third type of major coronavirus, but in fact a secret bioweapon?<p>Knowing how commonly there are arguments about mixed up samples in the biolabs friends work in, I know where I would place my bets.

Does anyone know the extent of the symptoms of 2019-nCoV? Does the virus get fully expelled from a person when they are recovered? Or is there a secondary effect &#x2F; reemergence?

Some comments on this Biorxiv site from an epidemiologist: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;aetiology&#x2F;status&#x2F;1223328143647236097" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;aetiology&#x2F;status&#x2F;1223328143647236097</a><p>&quot;For non-scientists, if you see something posted from a site called BioRxiv, have some skepticism. It could be a fantastic paper! (I&#x27;ve used it!)--but. The site is for preprints, which means they haven&#x27;t undergone peer review yet.&quot;

That&#x27;s very, very disturbing.<p>If this is an engineered virus, why as a race do we keep doing these things to ourselves? Do we _really_ think that weapons of mass destruction won&#x27;t be turned on us? Is our hubris so high that we think no one else can replicate what we built?

to someone who doesn’t know anything about the relevant science (me) the use of the word “insertions” seems to imply this was engineered. Can someone who actually understands this explain what this document is saying?

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20200131195339&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.biorxiv.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;10.1101&#x2F;2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20200131195339&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.biorx...</a>

The amazing thing is last week someone on 4chan posted this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;Jkq8tYK.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;Jkq8tYK.png</a> Which shows that the virus had been modified. 4chan wins once again at sleuthing.

The study is probably bunk and sensational. check the comments by this redditor : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;China_Flu&#x2F;comments&#x2F;ewt9ep&#x2F;scientific_paper_uncanny_similarity_of_unique&#x2F;fg4ewbn&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;China_Flu&#x2F;comments&#x2F;ewt9ep&#x2F;scientifi...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;China_Flu&#x2F;comments&#x2F;ewuotw&#x2F;discussion_biorxiv_preprint_on_2019ncov_spike&#x2F;fg4jjrq&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;China_Flu&#x2F;comments&#x2F;ewuotw&#x2F;discussio...</a><p>The real question is: how far are we from this becoming real ?

Ignoring the political implications, how would HIV insertions change the virulence and epidemiology of the infection?

I wonder if this could happen because someone with a retrovirus got both infections at once?

This would be a really scary outcome. As has been commented elsewhere, there&#x27;s confirmed events of at least four virus leaks from labs in Beijing.<p>Evidence&#x2F;article on it here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thebulletin.org&#x2F;2014&#x2F;03&#x2F;threatened-pandemics-and-laboratory-escapes-self-fulfilling-prophecies&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thebulletin.org&#x2F;2014&#x2F;03&#x2F;threatened-pandemics-and-lab...</a><p>Not only that, but just last year there was a case of a Chinese scientist who was banished from a Canadian bio lab level 4 for stealing virus samples, as well as a Harvard Academic found to be taking money from the Chinese gov to help develop the lab in Wuhan.<p>None of this proves the lab theory, but I do believe that with enough genetic analysis the truth will come out.

How long would it take for any other scientists to confirm or deny this?

Maybe we should wait for peer review before we jump to any conclusions.

I generally agree with the folks who flagged this posting on HN (I didn&#x27;t though) because the thought of ... airborne, highly contagious HIV in an early phase pandemic ... is a really very un-HN-like thought ... the mere theoretical possibility it <i>could</i> be true is the sort of thing I&#x27;d hope might inspire a generation to make our leaders globally take a time out on heated rhetoric and the ongoing technological arms race.

This work was subsequently retracted: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statnews.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;03&#x2F;retraction-faulty-coronavirus-paper-good-moment-for-science&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statnews.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;03&#x2F;retraction-faulty-corona...</a>

My dose of speculation. So far we have strong evidence that this is a biolab virus, probably they were experimenting with this virus on animals the lab personal didn&#x27;t realize on time how easy this virus could be transmitted by air, probably they were using the public transport from home to work during the incubation period thats how it boomed all of a sudden.

It does seem like something escaped a lab or a human trial gone wrong. Here&#x27;s a better explanation: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jameslyonsweiler.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;30&#x2F;on-the-origins-of-the-2019-ncov-virus-wuhan-china&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jameslyonsweiler.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;30&#x2F;on-the-origins-of-th...</a>

2019-nCov is &quot;The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), informally known as the Wuhan coronavirus.&quot;<p>source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Novel_coronavirus_(2019-nCoV)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Novel_coronavirus_(2019-nCoV)</a>

This is all just guys stirring up trouble, conspiracy theories abound.

Have in mind that this paper is not peer reviewed.

&quot;The finding of 4 unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV, all of which have identity &#x2F;similarity to amino acid residues in key structural proteins of HIV-1 is unlikely to be fortuitous in nature.&quot;<p>Does this lend support to the theory that the coronavirus was engineered in Wuhan&#x27;s bioweapons laboratory?

If someone with deep pockets may be liable, there will be a well funded effort to debunk this.

Twitter thread by Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding on this yet-unreviewd publication: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;threadreaderapp.com&#x2F;thread&#x2F;1221990534643929089.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;threadreaderapp.com&#x2F;thread&#x2F;1221990534643929089.html</a>

As predicted in Contagion (2011).<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Contagion_(2011_film)#Scientific_response" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Contagion_(2011_film)#Scientif...</a>