Nine months ago, the scientific establishment’s determined efforts to stifle debate on the origins of the pandemic began to crumble with the revelation that Peter Daszak, a British scientist with long-standing links to Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), had secretly orchestrated a landmark statement in The Lancet. Published last February, this influential missive, signed by 27 leading public health experts, infamously attacked “conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin”, saying they only spread “fear, rumours, and prejudice.” Incredibly, it also praised Beijing’s “rapid, open and transparent” sharing of data.
The clandestine involvement of Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance charity, was exposed in a batch of emails obtained by US Right To Know. This tenacious body has played an important role in opening up global debate on the pandemic's origins, chipping away with freedom of information requests to draw out crumbs of evidence exposing attempts by leading scientific figures to shut down talk of any lab-related incident. And the more we discover from such efforts, the murkier the events early last year seem to appear.
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The investigative body’s most recent cache of documents — published this week — involve emails obtained from Ohio State University virologist Shan-Lu Liu. They reveal a senior Chinese researcher was infected with Covid-19 in a leading Beijing virology laboratory soon after the Wuhan outbreak, highlighting the risks of inadvertent laboratory transmission. They also suggest that, according to Prof Liu, WIV “has many bat samples not yet worked out or results published”.
Yet perhaps most significantly, the emails from early last year expose yet again how key science journals, supposed to promote unfettered debate among experts, instead pushed the idea that anyone questioning the notion of natural transmission from animals was a wild-eyed conspiracy nut. There has been alarm over The Lancet, along with the likes of Nature and Scientific American, for their roles in inflaming such myopic viewpoints, sparking concern over the Chinese ties of their corporate owners. Such fears are heightened when even Peter Ben Embarek, head of the World Health Organisation’s patsy study into the origins, suddenly turns round — as he did yesterday — and says Patient Zero in the pandemic may be a worker at a Wuhan laboratory after all.
[su_unherd_suggested_articles_post fttitle="More from this author" author="Ian Birrell"]https://staging.unherd.com/thepost/why-wont-the-lancet-admit-it-was-wrong/[/su_unherd_suggested_articles_post]
But these latest emails provoke serious questions over another influential journal, Emerging Microbes & Infections, which is printed by Taylor & Francis, the blue-chip British publisher with roots stretching back to the eighteenth century.
Last February, this journal published a widely-cited commentary by four US-based scientists under the title: “No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of Sars-CoV-2.” The newly obtained emails show the article was “invited” by Shan Lu, a professor in Massachusetts who co-edits the journal. Later, Prof Liu mentions comments and changes suggested by Shi Zhengli, the WIV virologist nicknamed “Batwoman” whose research was backed by Daszak. The pair found scores of Sars-like viruses in the bat caves of southern China, hundreds of miles from Wuhan.
The commentary appears to be carefully crafted to skirt around vexatious issues that might raise concerns over possible laboratory links. For instance, the emails show that the title was changed from “Sars-CoV-2: no evidence of laboratory origin”. This was suggested by Prof Liu since “we cannot rule out the possibility that it comes from a bat virus leaked out of a lab”. Later, he acknowledged rumours that the “furin cleavage site” — which allows the spike protein to bind efficiently to cells in human tissues — “may be engineered”. Similarly, another author admitted this could be “a marker for where the virus came from — frightening to think it may have been engineered”. Strangely, despite these emails, there was no mention of this furin site in the final statement, although it is one of the most striking aspects of the new virus and not found in similar coronaviruses.
The correspondence also shows a trio of US-based experts discussing whether to mention the risks of working with contagious coronaviruses in the statement. One suggested they should emphasise that “although Sars-CoV-2 shows no evidence of laboratory origins, viruses with such great public health threats must be handled properly in the laboratory and properly regulated”. This appeared in the final version.)
[su_unherd_related fttitle="Suggested reading" author="Ashley Rindsberg"]https://staging.unherd.com/2021/08/did-the-new-york-times-stifle-lab-leak-debate/[/su_unherd_related]
The journal’s Shanghai-based editorial office accepted the article within 12 hours. Such alacrity does not suggest the most rigorous peer review process, although one peer reviewer still hailed the “timely commentary” with a suggestion it must be published “right away”. Indeed, it’s curious that the newly obtained email chain shows editor Shan Lu telling two of the authors he would share a “secret” with them — that Taylor & Francis could become “very suspicious” when he pushed “a super fast review and accept (basically no review)”.
Their correspondence does not stop there. Linda Saif, another Ohio State University virologist, was asked to sign the commentary “to dispute some rumors”. She agreed by saying “I too feel strongly about denouncing this” — so strongly, in fact, that she also signed The Lancet commentary.
Another signatory was Lishan Su, a Chinese-born virologist then working at the same University of North Carolina as a prominent epidemiologist called Ralph Baric, who carried out hugely controversial research with Shi Zhengli that spliced a pair of coronaviruses to create a powerful chimeric version with potential to infect human airways.
Apologies for this blizzard of names, but bear with me. For the emails indicate that Baric was also consulted to review the Emerging Microbes & Infections statement before publication. Editor Shan Lu said, however, that they did not want to “appear that we are defending Ralph even though he did nothing wrong.” (Baric, incidentally, went on to sign a significant letter with 17 other prominent figures to Science three months ago, which helped change the dominant narrative by insisting “theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable”.)
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But let’s return to that cutting-edge research by Baric and “Batwoman”. For another set of emails obtained by Buzzfeed have revealed that a copy of their paper — published in 2015 — was sent to Anthony Fauci, the leading US infectious diseases expert, at the end of January last year with a magazine article on how researchers were trying to unravel the pandemic origins that mentioned Shi’s work with Daszak. Fauci instantly circulated them around top US officials. He also contacted Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, who agreed to host a conference call the next day with eleven other experts. Lo and behold, within days some of these key figures had discounted previous strongly-held concerns about possible laboratory link — and then started attacking such “conspiracy theories” in journals, debates and on social media.
The dates of these events are intriguing. Five days after that conference call, Daszak started circulating the draft of the proposed Lancet statement — which was signed also by Farrar and two Wellcome Trust colleagues. This was published on February 19. One week later, Emerging Microbes and Infections printed its own commentary adopting a similar standpoint. The following month, four of the five participants on the conference call published another important commentary in Nature — which Farrar later admitted he convened — stating firmly that they did not believe “any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible”.
Why might a reputable British publisher act in such a manner? Well, it is worth noting that Emerging Microbes & Infections is published with a Chinese firm. It may not be the world’s best-known journal, but this commentary has been viewed 81,000 times and was the third most downloaded article last year for Taylor & Francis, a firm that publishes more than 2,500 academic journals. It’s also striking that members of the Emerging Microbes & Infections editorial board include a scientist who is a colonel in the People’s Liberation Army and was second in command of the military team sent into Wuhan to respond to the crisis, as well as two scientists who sought to change the name of the new virus to distance it from China and a top public health official in Beijing involved in the World Health Organisation’s inquiries into the origins.
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Taylor & Francis did not respond to any of my queries on these issues. But on its website, it talks boldly of “enabling the latest academic thinking and discovery to be shared and built on”. Certainly it has pushed hard into the Chinese market — alongside its owner, the British-based exhibitions giant Informa — since opening an office in Shanghai in 2005. Indeed, the publisher has been criticised in the past for dropping dozens of journals from its offerings to Chinese libraries at the Communist regime’s request. The firm has denied bowing to censorship.
But it is hard to disagree with the conclusion of of Gary Ruskin, executive director of US Right To Know, on this latest twist in the origins saga: “The fact that Emerging Microbes & Infections solicited the commentary denying lab engineering of Sars-CoV-2, and expedited it with cursory review, suggests its editors may have intended to make a political point that was highly valuable to the Chinese government.”
So whose interests have the academic publishing sector and scientific establishment really been serving in this crisis? Sadly, it does not seem to have been always the noble ideal of furthering the global quest for scientific knowledge, let alone pushing our understanding of the origins of this cruel pandemic.
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SubscribeOnce again kudos to Ian Birrell and fellow journalists for doggedly pursuing this story. You are doing a public good even if you do not receive the recognition you deserve.
There is something funny and surreal in this article. The author is forced to document every little step in the chain of evidence even when the weight of evidence clearly points in one direction.
How much more proof do we need that there was an attempt to cover up even the possibility of a leak from the Wuhan virus lab? I guess it depends on who the ‘we’ is in that question. For people at the highest reaches of US and Chinese (and UK) science who want to cover their own tracks, I suppose the answer is there can never be enough proof.
Thank you for this article and the hard work put in. I am sure that many of us who were called ‘conspiracy theorists’ for being sceptical of the accounts of governments, global organisations like the WHO, aligned ‘interested’ scientists working for many large organisations, big tech and corporate media, big pharmaceuticals and the like – now feel almost proud to be ‘conspiracy theorists’.
I would rather be labelled a “conspiracy theorist” and keep my integrity rather than give in and follow the delusional “naive realists” down the easy road of “the science”, that’s for sure. The problem is that the majority of people, including (in fact, in particular) highly formally educated people, sadly don’t seem to be able or willing to do that. We are facing a crisis of truth and meaning, and it is not going well.
Well said. I’m in much the same mind.
Birrell is full on establishment. Ex speech writer to Cameron, the guy who gave us Libya. Ex deputy editor of the left wing independent.
What he wants you to believe is what the establishment wants you to believe.
How do you square that with his pernicious attitude in digging out the truth of an establishment cover-up over the last couple of years?
Unless you’re contending that it was all an establishment plot to lay an establishment plot that was designed to be uncovered?
I am responding to the article written and not the personal history of the author….
This is what journalism should be.
Fantastic article, proper journalism in action. I pity anyone who clings to the naive belief that whatever is said in a peer reviewed journal is beyond question and necessarily above board. The Drosten protocol, infection fatality rates, effectiveness of lockdown measures, and much more have all been the subject of lies and misinformation published in previously respectable journals. The Lancet, in particular, has been dreadful.
But this how the CCP works – it gets its people into places of influence, it bullies, it intimidates, and it lies, lies, and lies again, through whatever means are its disposal. It has no ethical limits, and absolutely no respect for the truth. It’s ultimately very cowardly – it won’t ever defend its cheating in public, it won’t tolerate dissent, and it knows that its power rests on maintaining deceit.
The sooner more people in the west realise that they – and some in their governments – have been systemically manipulated by this vile, corrupt, despicable regime and its corporate and political allies, the better. The realisation that we have been attacked and tricked in this way will be unpleasant for many – some people just won’t able to process it. But it is now the responsibility of those in leadership positions across our society to put their big boy and girl pants on and start to get grips with this to help us fight this disease of misinformation and reclaim our enlightenment.
It’s worth quoting further paragraphs from Eisenhower’s farewell address, the same one warning of the military-industrial complex:
“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
It is this process that has rendered science-as-it-is-done completely corruptible. Not to mention subject to the pernicious vagaries of social science and various postmodernisms.
Eisenhower was clearly very prescient. His farewell address should be obligatory reading for every high school and university student, for every academic scientist, for every employee of government science funding agencies, and lastly for every politician. Perhaps that would put a stop to the “follow the science” sheep which sin’t science but scientism (a fanatical religious belief), and restore open scientific/medical debate within academia and medicine.
I became aware of this sometime ago. He said this in 1961, long before the massive explosion in technology. I wonder what he would say if he could see what has happened.
Yet again it is clear that academia are utterly servile to those who fund their research and entirely feckless about who funds their research.
Why do we give these “experts” such credence without first invalidating any who have received payment from an actor in the issue at hand?
That’s right. Follow the money. Applies also to climate research.
Absolutely great article. I agree with every word. Really what needs to happen is that a number of these so-called top scientists should be arrested and charged with treason. Perhaps a little bit overboard but it would certainly provide a lesson and example to others that using letters and esteemed academic/government positions of authority after one’s name does not give one license to knowingly disseminate propaganda at the behest of an aggressive foreign power.
Great article, hope there’s more to come on this issue.
However, I’ve long had great scepticism about the moral compass of science. I’d go so far as to say ethics fly out of the window when scientists think they are doing work ‘at the edge’.
In what mad world would a scientist deliberately take bat viruses from a habitat (where they coexist with the population) and remove them to a lab, then grow and engineer them to be more dangerous? Oh yes, the mad world of science.
It’s no surprise that scientists can be motivated by money, power and ego. Have we, however, by our deification of science enabled this to happen?
We have Covid to thank for showing us the spectacle of UK members of SAGE and NERVTAG fighting with each other publicly like rats in a sack. Sorry, that’s disrespectful to rats. But it shows that scientists are human, not gods.
If I was being pessimistic, I’d say that science will be the death of us. Anybody who has read Justin Cronin’s The Passage will surely agree.
I really want to disagree with you, science should not have to cleave to morals (morals beings fragile and changeable). But science is conducted by people and people are always partisan and easily corrupted, sad to say. Corruptis optimi pessima.
I just get my membership because of article like that! This is journalism, research, professionalism and base on the facts! Well done!
The WHO investigator says a Chinese scientist may have started the pandemic after being infected with coronavirus while collecting bat samples in the field. Whether they will count this as zoonotic transmission or a lab leak is unclear?
What is all this building up to mean in a court of civil law?
Will I be able to join some class action lawsuit in getting my losses paid back by China? Is the 10 Trillion, or whatever it ends up being, wasted by the USA on covid response going to be paid back? My guess is no –
Affirmation of the presentation by Nicholas Wade that tore aside a tight curtain. Clearly much more evidence of the attempts to counter the leak hypothesis. Wade was the first to note dangerous research done at lowered safety levels. The research may or may not be critical to mankind, but if done at all, it must be done responsibly.
One item that seems critical is the fact that this research often results in patents with potential financial gain involved. Given how money corrupts, we might need to alter the patent system for discoveries vital to heath. Some research relates to patents that if public funds are involved should be public property. Scientists employed by the public should be allowed no interest in those public patents.
Thanks for your report. We’ll keep an eye on it. Obviously, vigilance in thorough reporting on these events/issues will not recede until many more questions are sufficiently answered in a manner that is beyond dispute.
Thank you. I an a conspiracy theorist of course. Who else would read such journalism?