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Best source I know of to keep up with the origins issue: https://usrtk.org/biohazards/origin-of-sars-cov-2-gain-of-function-readings/. (I will write to you privately on another subject, if I can find an address.)

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Yes they have contributed quite a lot especially FOIA documents. My contact address can be found on my Website, michaelbalter.com

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Thanks for reminding me of the link with UNC. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_Thorp Thorp has extraordinarily deep links with UNC:

1. 1986: graduated from UNC.

2. 1993: Returned to UNC to teach.

3. 1999: appointed full UNC professor.

4. 2001: became director of Morehead Planetarium, part of UNC.

5. 2005: named a Kenan Professor and chair of the chemistry department of the College of Arts and Science (UNC).

6. 2008: became chancellor of UNC.

7. Announced his intention to resign as Chancellor effective from June 30, 2013, and to return to teaching in the Chemistry Department at UNC, following a scandal involving the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) (?)

8. Announced his decision to leave UNC on July 1, 2013.

Does this create the potential for the perception of conflict of interest in his editorial? If so, I cannot see that it was declared.

I submitted a letter and then another (as a potential e-letter) in response to his editorial; neither was published (see https://globalchangemusings.blogspot.com/2022/04/self-inflicted-wounds-responding-to.html)

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Strewth! Each of his parents were UNC graduates, and I forgot to note that Wikipedia also says he "resigned from the position of chancellor amid allegations of widespread academic fraud" (but I think this involving athletes, hence the mention of NCAA). So, would he be mates with Prof Ralph Baric? His academic work seems to have mostly been to do with chemistry and medicine, on its entrepreneurial side (eg "Thorp co-founded the biotechnology company Alderaan Diagnostics, later renamed Xanthon, Inc., to commercialize a technology he co-developed. The technology involved using electricity to test compounds that could later become new drugs.") I note that Wikipedia also mentions that he was a pre-med student.

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should have typed "involved" or "was involving"; sorry.

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