Open letter about Dr. Angela Rasmussen’s public lies and slander
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In this letter we document several instances of public lies and/or slander committed by Dr. Angela Rasmussen on social media. We call upon Dr. Rasmussen to retract her false statement and apologize.
On April 9, 2021, Dr. Rasmussen has falsely claimed on Twitter of having received an email from one of Dr. Rossana Segreto’s colleagues at the University of Innsbruck, which informed her that Dr. Segreto has spent “the better part of a faculty meeting in her department attacking [Dr. Rasmussen] personally, saying [she] is incompetent, a CCP lackey, and exaggerating threats of violence and sexual assault”:
https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1380514060085551106
Dr. Rasmussen’s accusations were absolutely false. Two of Dr. Segreto’s colleagues have immediately confirmed on Twitter that it is a blatant lie. Soon after, both the former and the current heads of her department confirmed the same. After the quick and vocal reactions of Dr. Segreto’s colleagues, Dr. Rasmussen has partially retracted her false accusation by tweeting that she has been “misinformed” and “regrets the error”:
https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1380630966071222275
However, this is not good enough. We call on Dr. Rasmussen to either provide proof of having received the claimed email (a screenshot with redacted identifying information would suffice) or admit to having completely invented the accusations against Dr. Segreto.
As it stands, even in the tweet admitting to having been “misinformed”, as some sort of justification for the original attack, Dr. Rasmussen proceeded to again accuse Dr. Segreto of having “repeatedly attacked” her on social media and falsely claimed this was the reason she has blocked Dr. Segreto on Twitter. That was another lie, as Dr. Rasmussen has blocked Dr. Segreto long before she wrote the (rather mild) tweets that Dr. Rasmussen quoted as personal attacks.
In fact, Dr. Rasmussen has blocked Dr. Segreto on September 15, 2020 simply for having asked to explain the strange nucleotide codon pattern of the furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2:
https://twitter.com/Rossana38510044/status/1305937371272294402
Moreover, Dr. Segreto actually wrote the 2021 tweets that Dr. Rasmussen later claimed to be personal attacks partially in response to Dr. Rasmussen’s repeated false accusations of Yuri Deigin. In particular, in January 2021, Dr. Rasmussen has publicly slandered Mr. Deigin by equating his Medium article on SARS-CoV-2 origins to a Neo Nazi book:
https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1346232208206381058
Then on February 4, 2021 Dr. Rasmussen repeated her slander by claiming that Mr. Deigin’s article is ‘rife with sinophobia’:
https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1357338838440448003
In the above tweet Dr. Rasmussen also falsely claimed Mr. Deigin has “disparaged her appearance”, while in actuality he has never mentioned her appearance.
Anyone who has actually read Mr. Deigin’s article will attest that there is no racism or sinophobia in it whatsoever:
Which means that Dr. Rasmussen’s claims to the contrary amount to slander.
Finally, in yet another lie, in an April 10th tweet, Dr. Rasmussen has falsely claimed that Mr. Deigin has previously tagged her employer “to complain about the fact that [her] opinion of his article was that it was scientifically unsound”:
https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1380639611559501825
In actuality, Mr. Deigin has tagged Columbia, of which he is an alumnus, to make them aware of Dr. Rasmussen slanderous accusations of racism:
https://twitter.com/ydeigin/status/1347419990446792707
In conclusion, we call upon Dr. Rasmussen to:
- Provide proof of having received the claimed email (a screenshot with redacted identifying information would suffice) or admit to having completely invented the accusations against Dr. Segreto.
- Provide proof or claimed racism/sinophobia in Mr. Deigin’s Medium article or publicly retract the accusations of such and apologize.
- Provide proof of Mr. Deigin disparaging her appearance or publicly retract the accusations of such and apologize.
- Provide proof of Mr. Deigin tagging her employer “to complain about the fact that [her] opinion of his article was that it was scientifically unsound” or publicly retract the accusations of such and apologize.
We also call on anyone who agrees that Dr. Rasmussen’s public conduct is reprehensible and unbecoming of a member of academia, and who concurs that Dr. Rasmussen must publicly retract her lies and apologize, to co-sign this letter by leaving a comment below. Please also feel free to disseminate this open letter on social media.
Signed,
Yuri Deigin,
Rossana Segreto