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Comment by Michael Weissman

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Condensed-matter physicist, emeritus professor at the University of Illinois, who argues proximity ascertainment bias undermines the Huanan clustering inference.
Since the toy model tested had never been anyone's alternative to the HSM account, the unusual reasoning was invalid, as Stoyan and Chiu pointed out.
AI Verified (Feb 3, 2025)
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Michael Weissman, University of Illinois (Substack)
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Policy proposals and claims
The clustering of early cases around the Huanan market reflects where the COVID-19 virus emerged, not just where testing looked
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AI Verified In context, this quote attacks the logic used to infer that early-case clustering near the Huanan market shows the market was the origin. The source immediately contrasts that rejected reasoning with an alternative explanation based on enhanced detection/ascertainment near the market, so the quote is directly on the statement’s core issue and gives a clear stance signal. ([michaelweissman.substack.com](https://michaelweissman.substack.com/p/big-news-on-covid-origins)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 59min ago
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AI Verified The author is against: the quote says the reasoning used to infer an Huanan-market origin from case clustering was "invalid," and the surrounding article says a real alternative was that unlinked cases clustered near HSM because of enhanced detection/ascertainment near the market, not because the virus emerged there. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 58min ago

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AI Verified The source URL is fetchable. In the Substack post "Big News on Covid Origins," authored by Michael Weissman and dated Feb. 03, 2025, line 33 contains this sentence verbatim apart from a typographic curly apostrophe in “anyone’s”: “Since the toy model tested had never been anyone’s alternative to the HSM account, the unusual reasoning was invalid, as Stoyan and Chiu pointed out.” The quote is therefore authentic and correctly attributed. ([michaelweissman.substack.com](https://michaelweissman.substack.com/p/big-news-on-covid-origins)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago
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