In the October 12, 2021, email that the NIH now wants to censor, virologist Jesse Bloom asked the NIH’s Steve Sherry about coronavirus sequences that Kangpeng Xiao requested Rick Lapoint to remove from the NIH SRA database. Bloom pointed out that the virus sequences disappeared but then reappeared over a year later around June 16, 2021.
NIH rules state that sequences can only be restored at the submitter’s request, yet there is no evidence that Kangpeng Xiao asked the NIH to restore the sequences. Bloom then asked several questions to understand why the sequences were deleted and then restored.