Virus genome paper published then withdrawn within a week.

On February 2, 2020, a paper by Indian authors Pradhan et al, titled “Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag” was published and then withdrawn within a week.

“The scientific paper claimed that the SARS-CoV-2 virus had four “inserts” in its spike protein that were similar to the ones found in HIV, and concluded that these are unlikely to occur naturally in a coronavirus, suggesting an “unconventional evolution” of the virus that warrants further investigation.” [1, 2]

This paper was discussed by Dr Fauci as revealed in his emails released under Freedom of Information.