Emily Kopp and Karolina Corin

A team of Western virologists could face professional penalties for scooping data collected by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in their rush to call attention to their own rapid reanalysis — an analysis at odds with the Chinese team’s conclusions.

… The Western virologists have said in press reports that they “sleuthed” the data. In fact, the data was uploaded by the China CDC scientists to a genomic database as their preprint moved through peer review for consideration in the scientific journal Nature.

… The Chinese scientists had voiced concerns to GISAID that Holmes and Worobey were using their data in violation of GISAID’s terms of use, according to the statement.

Many of the same Western virologists, including Worobey and Holmes, had previously used unpublished China CDC data to advance contrary findings.