Vbruttel

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Hello, Vbruttel, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions.

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{Help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Bon courage (talk) 05:18, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

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Bon courage (talk) 05:19, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello Bon courage,

thanks for your message. I have included a COI statement on my User page. Unlike many of the authors of sources quoted in the page, I do not have any COIs regarding the origin of SARS-CoV-2, and this account is used only by me.

I have a PhD in Immunology and 10+ years experience in bioengineering, I use produce drug candidates with protocols and tools similar to those used to assemble synthetic viruses almost on a daily basis.

I have been invited to give scientific talks about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 at 2 conferences.

I will send suggestions for new sections to editors in the future.

Best, Valentin

Vbruttel (talk) 07:31, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Also be aware of WP:SELFCITE. Bon courage (talk) 07:43, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

As well as wp:or wp:soap and wp:forum. Slatersteven (talk) 13:35, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi, your COI statement on your User page states "have never received any funding for virological projects, have never met any WIV virologist, have never received compensation for my investigations into the origin of SARS-CoV-2, have never received money from Chinese sources". Can you state that you have never received funding for Immunology or bioengineering research which is in anyway connected to SARS-CoV-2? If you have received funding or any other employment/contractor arrangements for services rendered in regards to your expertise in any connection to SARS-CoV-2, please advice exactly which bodies (universities, companies, etc) you may have a COI with. TarnishedPath^talk 14:16, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I updated the statement according to your suggestions. The only "compensation" I have received was a free room/free food at conferences where I was invited to give a talk on the Origin of SARS-CoV-2, which is absolutely usual at scientific conferences, I even covered travelling costs. Vbruttel (talk) 15:14, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Vbruttel, thanks for your update. In your disclosure you write "I have been invited as a speaker to talk about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 at several scientific conferences (and, as it is usual for speakers, have been given free food and in one case also a free room at the conference center by an Bavarian State associated organisation and a DFG financed research consortium running the conference)." Can you please specify the "Bavarian State associated organisation" and the "DFG financed research consortium" which were running the conference at which you accepted a free room? Can you advise who was running the other conferences where you accepted gifts of food. TarnishedPath^talk 03:16, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Also read wp:spa and wp:not, as well as wp:bludgeon, as right now you are heading for a block. Slatersteven (talk) 17:07, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

thanks, regarding wp:spa, other fields in which I know a lot just do not require editing to the same extend IMO, will try to look into this.

likely guilty of wp:bludgeon, wanted to not be impolite by not replying, wasn't aware of this. should I delete some of my redundant posts? Vbruttel (talk) 17:50, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I recommend leaving the posts you made, since many of them have been replied to. But yes, going forward, it is always good to 1) express yourself concisely and 2) speak about the same amount as others are speaking. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:25, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@Slatersteven, per the WP:CIVILITY policy, editors should always treat each other with consideration and respect. They should focus on improving the encyclopedia while maintaining a pleasant editing environment by behaving politely, calmly and reasonably, even during heated debates.

I object to the mentioning of a block to a new user who is reportedly an expert in their field and as such a valuable potential asset for Wikipedia.

Per WP:NOBITING,

New members are prospective contributors and are therefore Wikipedia's most valuable resource. We must treat newcomers with kindness and patience—nothing scares potentially valuable contributors away faster than hostility. It is very unlikely for a newcomer to be completely familiar with Wikipedia's markup language and its myriad of policies, guidelines, and community standards when they start editing.

I appreciate your attention to this matter. Thanks. Thinker78 (talk) 05:21, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

A warning that a newcomer could be heading for a block is not necessarily uncivil and in this case appears helpful. Wikipedia's fifth pillar may state there are no rules. But, there are a lot of no rules with which a newcomer is likely not aware. As for them being an expert in a field, that is mostly not relevant. (I generally avoid articles in my areas of expertise.) It may bring to the table useful knowledge of sources and/or it may bring a heavy WP:POV. But whether an IP, new user, admin, expert, or novice, what matters is the content of your edits and how they fit polices and guidelines -- not who you are. O3000, Ret. (talk) 10:57, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

As I am fairly new to this page (last other edit was years ago), I will obviously completely accept all of your rules here. I think I have come across as somewhat to dominant/boasting, so decided to be 100% transparent and added a long paragraph about my perspective on Wikipedia, Covid and the Lab Leak Hypothesis to my user page (hope long texts are accepted there ) Vbruttel (talk) 13:17, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

I understand why you wrote your User Page as you did. But please read WP:UP#POLEMIC and be careful with your User Page. The link is specifically about user pages. A UP shouldn't look like a WP:SOAPBOX. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:56, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Also odd how the user accepted them as the advice they were. Slatersteven (talk) 11:58, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

You need to stop now. You have had your say, and you did not get wp:consensus. Slatersteven (talk) 15:43, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Another welcome

Welcome to Wikipedia

Hello Vbruttel, welcome to Wikipedia! Your expertise has the potential to be a wonderful gem in Wikipedia, therefore I encourage you to help us unlock the world's knowledge. As you can see some pages have very contentious topics that attract a lot of highly passionate feelings, sometimes too much of it. For help navigating through those you can check WP:BRD, WP:CONSENSUS, WP:CIVILITY. But there are other pages that don't generate basically any contention and are even rarely edited. Although all pages need editing or maintenance. It may take a while to learn your way around with so many policies, guidelines, essays and passionate editors. But I hope you enjoy your time here. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 22:22, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Some thoughts on User:Vbruttel#My perspective on Wikipedia, backstory and interest in the lab leak hypothesis/covid origins

Hey there. I read the stuff you added to your userpage. Couple of thoughts.

I am sure this statement contains reasons to completely block me based on... You won't get blocked for what you posted on your userpage. The worst that would happen is that someone might WP:MFD it. A more likely scenario is that you might WP:BLUDGEON and WP:POVPUSH too much on talk pages and eventually get taken to WP:AE, where they might impose a topic ban. Experienced editor time is valuable and there is an upper limit of how much you can dominate talk page discussions. It sounds like that's on your radar now based on the above section, so that's good and we appreciate you being cognizant of that.

So I started digging a bit. Checked which sort of viral experiments the WIV had done recently, and noticed that they had used the exact same type of restriction enzymes (BglI, BsmBI and BsaI, of which the latter 2 are better) for constructing viruses that I was also using to construct the DNA plasmids for our therapeutics. That they had assembled their viruses from several DNA fragments, and that this left a pattern in the RNA genome which was obviously present in SARS2, but in none of the related viruses. And while the pattern was suspicious already, I later discovered something even more suspicious together with colleagues on twitter: when comparing SARS2 to related viruses, especially to RaTG13, there were just way to many synonymous mutations in exactly those restricition sites that a WIV group had used for synthetic viral assembly in 2017. Hi frequencies of silent mutations in restriction sites used for genome assembly is another halmark of synthetic viruses. Unlike a FCS, these sites do not play a role in the life cycle of viruses, so this could not be attributed to natural evolution.

The DEFUSE proposal, which is much more than what the page currently suggests. It explains - the time of the outbreak - the location - the precisely integrated human-identical FCS - the highly divergent RBD - the high affinity for both receptors (hACE2 and DC-SIGN) - of course the restriction site pattern and even mentioned the precise sequencing company from which the sequencing data came in which Csabai and Solymosi later detected the most ancestral SARS2 genome and - DNA from a specific cell line always used for synthetic genome assembly. It also proved that at least fifty scientists all over the world had known that the WIV planned to work with viruses with synthetic FCSs, and that for more than a year, not one of them admitted this. Even later synthetic plasmids with a 100% SARS2 identical spike protein in production plasmids were found in 2019 patient samples. Again, DEFUSE exactly mentions what they planned to do with such plasmids. And yes, DEFUSE was not funded, but highly similar projects were, also via the NIH.

This is extremely technical. If Shibbolethink has time, perhaps he'd be interested in responding to some of this. I suspect there are good explanations for this kind of thing, but that folks with enough expertise to give good explanations are in very short supply, and when they do respond then some folks don't believe them. So then questionable information starts to spread.

Happy editing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:43, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for all of these helpful instructions Thinker78 and Novem Linguae.

I totally agree that Shibbolethink has exactly the right background to discuss topics such as this one, although he may not have all of the relevant background informations at this time.

I've read his reddit post with great interest, and quite a few statements there are technically incorrect.

Examples:

2.2) If someone had messed around in the genome, we’d very likely be able to detect it!

Explanation: There is a method called "No See'm Cloning" with which virologists have assembled synthetic viruses that are 100% identical to their natural templates (side note: this was not done in SARS2)

2.1.1) What Shi’s group made in the paper is completely different from SARS-CoV-2.

Partly true: Shi made spike chimeric viruses back in 2017. She planned to make RBD chimeric viruses according to DEFUSE. SARS2 looks like a RBD-chimeric virus.

2.2.1) In the case of SARS-CoV-2, there are exactly the right amount of these “non-synonymous” mutations to have occurred in nature, driven by natural selection.

Explanation: Usually, one sees both synonymous (dS) and non-synonymous (dN) mutations when comparing related viruses. dS are more common, as most dN are harmful and thus sorted out through evolution, often observed ratios are between 3:1 and 10:1. (Genes under strong selective pressure like a spike that has to adapt to a new receptor can have more dN mutations, so 1:5 ratios can occur in small parts of a genome.

SARS2 has highly unusual mutation patterns, such as for example a stretch of ~80 dS mutationsthe in the S2 gene with not a single dN mutation in between when compared to RaTG13 (discussed here https://nerdhaspower.weebly.com/ratg13-is-fake.html).

Then there are way too many dS mutations in restriction sites the WIV has previously used for synthetic genome assembly (12 instead of expected 1-2, with odds below 1 in a million for this to be a product of random evolution, see https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.18.512756v1)

And there is a very unusual distribution of divergence. Most Genes or parts of the genome of RaTG13 and SARS2 are 97-99% identical on protein level. The only highly divergent parts are the RBD (34% divergent) and the FCS (~75% divergent. Those are also exactly the two parts of the genome scientists including from Wuhan wanted to manipulate in a 2018 research grant.

2.3) And if it were created in a lab, SARS-CoV-2 would have been engineered by an idiot (because the FCS is not ideal)

Explanation: partly correct. The FCS is not ideal. But according to the DEFUSE proposal, WIV virologists did not want to know what a perfect FCS would do, but what a recombination with a human FCS would do (they planned to introduce "human-identical" FCSs), as it is much more likely that such a recombination occurs in an infected patient rather than that a perfect FCS evolves. The FCS of SARS2 (RRARSVAS) is completely identical to the FCS in the human lung-expressed protein EnAC-alpha.

3.3) Couldn’t you just increase the mutation rate somehow? His Answer: no.

However, this can be done using drugs that activate hypermutation genes in host cells, such as APOBEC3 https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1002550

Molnupiravir also increases mutation frequencies.

Alternatively, nuclear radiation could be used to increase mutation rates

(this is off-topic, way more targeted methods of introducing mutations such as reverse genetics were commonly used in experiments at the WIV, just saying that it can be done)

I am really looking forward to this discussion Shibbolethink. If you want to get an overview of what I consider the most relevant evidence, please watch my talk from this timestamp. Most virologists who have seen my talk later agreed that a lab accident is indeed is a very likely scenario here. Vbruttel (talk) 08:09, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Interesting, but all of this is WP:OR which is not usable here. O3000, Ret. (talk) 10:49, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

• It's becoming increasingly clear from the above and at the Article Talk page that Vbruttel is here to advance their own FRINGE beliefs and has little interest in abiding by Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. This is now getting to be disruptive. Future contributions should be focused on reliable sources and proposals aligned with the WP:PAGs. Bon courage (talk) 15:43, 29 September 2023 (UTC); added text 00:55, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  It's becoming increasingly clear that Bon Courage is here to advance their own agenda. This is now getting disruptive. Thinker78 (talk) 00:20, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  Thinker, I suggest you self revert this. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:24, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  03000 I suggest you self revert this as you are singling me out. I simply mirrored Bon Courage. Besides, there is a larger context why I made the comment not just this isolated comment. Thanks. Thinker78 (talk) 01:24, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  Making such accusations ("Bon Courage is here to advance their own agenda") without evidence is something Arbcom has traditionally taken a very dim view of. So I assume the evidence is going to be forthcoming, I'm curious to hear what Thinker78 thinks my "agenda" is. Bon courage (talk) 01:32, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  I have plenty of diffs to prove my point, so go ahead. Thinker78 (talk) 01:40, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  So I am concerned if I'm truly WP:NOTHERE. With 15 years of editing over 1000 articles with ~60,000 edits that would be very serious. You seem to want to provide the evidence in arrears, which is irregular (arbcom: "If accusations must be made, they should be raised, with evidence, on the user-talk page of the editor they concern or in the appropriate forums."). So the ball is in your court. I watch my user Talk page with interest. Or maybe you're going to report to AN/I if the problem is chronic? Bon courage (talk) 01:48, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  I replied in your talk page. Sincerely, Thinker78 (talk) 03:14, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  You might also find reading wP:point useful. Slatersteven (talk) 12:21, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, replying to "It's becoming increasingly clear" with "It's becoming increasingly clear", and to "I suggest you self revert this" with "I suggest you self revert this" looks pretty bad. Bon courage (talk) 12:46, 30 September 2023 (UTC)