Open letter (22 signatories, led by Bryce Nickels) submitted to Cell’s editors the day S-35 - Crits-Christoph et al. — Genetic tracing of market wildlife and viruses at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic (Cell) was published online, demanding retraction. Core argument: independent phylogenomic/molecular-clock evidence (the signers cite Pekar et al.’s two-introduction analysis and related dating work — slice C territory) puts the plausible index-case window in Jul–Nov 2019, before the market samples (all collected Jan–Mar 2020, after the market’s Jan 1 closure and disinfection) were taken; therefore, in the signers’ view, the market-sample data structurally cannot speak to the original spillover event regardless of what it shows, making the paper’s origin-supportive framing invalid on its face. Also alleges several co-authors previously advanced conclusions (e.g. on the market’s centrality) they knew to be weakly supported. relevance_note: the sharpest, most formal contemporaneous challenge to this slice’s flagship paper’s inferential validity — bears directly on how much weight step 2/3 should put on the Crits-Christoph result.