Much to the chagrin of major media figures and scientific bureaucrats, a group of epidemiological experts is calling for a thorough investigation into the lab-leak theory, or the hypothesis that COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In a letter published in Science magazine last week, 18 scientists said the lab-leak theory has more merit than many in the scientific world are willing to admit. Indeed, dozens of researchers dismissed the theory as a deranged conspiracy theory as soon as it popped up last year, and they’ve done their best to discredit it ever since. But as more evidence about COVID-19 and how it spreads has emerged, it has become clear that the lab-leak theory is not just viable but likely.
The researchers, including Dr. Ralph Baric, a leading coronavirus expert who trained the WIV’s Dr. Shi Zhengli, Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, and Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki, argued the lab-leak theory must be given the same consideration as the hypothesis that COVID-19 originated and spread naturally from an animal host.
A point the scientists dance around, but do not make directly, is that China has made an investigation into either theory extremely difficult by limiting access to the WIV’s records and making it impossible for investigators to speak with Wuhan’s scientists freely. And global experts, such as the World Health Organization, haven’t exactly tried to push China on that, instead accepting as fact the Chinese Communist Party’s half-hearted explanations.
China’s continued lack of transparency stinks of a cover-up, and Baric, Lipsitch, Iwasaki, and the rest understand just how disastrous a cover-up could be for the future of epidemiological research.
“We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data. A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest,” they wrote.
“Public health agencies and research laboratories alike need to open their records to the public,” the researchers added. “Investigators should document the veracity and provenance of data from which analyses are conducted and conclusions drawn, so that analyses are reproducible by independent experts.”
Their concerns were echoed by Donald McNeil, a longtime science writer who most recently worked for the New York Times. McNeil made the point, a bit unintentionally, it seems, that right now, the natural origin theory hinges on just one thing: China’s word.
“The hardest evidence that it was an animal is still what it was early last year: On January 1, right after the market was closed down, and then again on January 12, Huazhong Agricultural University and Dr. Shi’s Institute gathered almost 600 samples from the block-long warren of shuttered stalls,” he writes. “Of those swabs, about six percent were positive for the virus, according to Xinhua, China’s state news agency. Most came from the western end, where the wildlife was sold. And most, Dr. Shi said, were from spots near or below floor level — the handles of roll down steel shutters and the drains over the floor gutters.’”
Note McNeil’s attributions: All of this evidence comes from a Chinese state news agency, from Dr. Shi, or from other WIV researchers. We know only what China wants us to know.
The fact that it has taken us this long to put two and two together and recognize that the WIV’s dangerous coronavirus research, coupled with its well-known sub-par safety practices, posed a legitimate threat to public health is ridiculous. The circumstantial evidence has always been there. But for some reason, a lot of global and U.S.-based “experts” wanted us to look away.
And why is that? Why, if the natural origin explanation is as rock-solid as many scientists seem to think, is there just as little evidence supporting it as the lab-leak theory? And why, if China is so confident that the WIV had nothing to do with the outbreak, does the CCP continue to deny global access to the lab?
A lot of people have been asking these questions for months now, and it’s nice to see Science magazine give them some backbone. But unless these questions are followed by a serious push for accountability, starting with China, we might never get the answers.
