The British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported on May 28 that it had learned that British intelligence agencies were helping the United States investigate the possibility that the New Crown virus (a Chinese Communist virus) had been leaked from a laboratory in China.
Wuhan Institute of Virus Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences
U.S. President Joe Biden said through a statement on May 26 that he has asked the U.S. intelligence community to redouble its efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring closer to a definitive conclusion on the source of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and report back to him within 90 days. The move comes after Biden ordered the effort to begin. The report said British intelligence officials have conducted their own investigation into the traceability of the virus after the new coronavirus lab leak theory emerged.
Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of Britain’s MI6, commented Friday night that the situation was becoming an “intelligence problem” and that if China did not open up traceability research, British security services might need to “incentivize ” Chinese defectors to get to the truth. The UK’s official position is that claims that the new crown virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, where the outbreak began, should not be ignored. A senior British government security source confirmed that British intelligence officials are working with a new U.S. investigative operation to try to establish the truth about the New Crown outbreak, the report said.
“We are contributing the intelligence we have on Wuhan, as well as offering to help the Americans confirm and analyze any intelligence they have that we can assist with,” the source said. It added that “what is needed to determine the truth behind the new coronavirus outbreak is well-sourced intelligence, not informed analysis, and that is hard to come by.” The U.S. and Britain have been heavily critical of previous World Health Organization investigations into the origins of the outbreak, saying China “deliberately refused to provide data and samples” during the WHO team’s visit in January.
On Friday night, leading scientific journals, including the internationally renowned academic journal Nature Medicine, refused to publish evidence showing that the new coronavirus may have been engineered in a laboratory. According to the letter seen by the newspaper, vaccine experts contacted several journals last April because they were concerned that details of what appeared to be man-made structures in the virus were being overlooked, while also pointing out flaws in previously published papers that suggested the virus was of natural origin.
Although no errors were found in the analysis, the journal Nature Medicine declined to publish the work, telling the authors that there were many other “pressing issues of public health and clinical interest” that needed to be prioritized, according to the report. The Journal of Virology and BioRxiv, a biology preprint server, also rejected the work, but one prominent professor quietly told the Daily Telegraph that “the paper looks good to me and the conclusions, although surprising, seem valid.”
Dearlove believes that the escape of an engineered virus in the lab is a possible scenario for a new coronavirus outbreak. He said it was “outrageous” that the journal did not publish a report by leading scientists challenging the standard view. He said, “In my opinion, there was absolutely no scientific debate.” Dilov said, “The Chinese side made an assertion without any explanation, and most of the scientific community seems to accept that assertion for what it’s worth. It is clear that they have run an information operation to try to suppress any other viewpoint.”
Dilov said, “Some scientific journals absolutely refuse to publish anything that differs from the Chinese point of view. I would put Nature at the top of the list, and Nature is absolutely outrageous in the way it works with the Chinese narrative.” He said, “This is the biggest global subversion since World War II. It is huge. We sit there and take what the Chinese say at face value, and what I’m arguing for is absolutely clear debate and proper discussion, not total suppression.” Nature said that night that its publication was based on the weight of evidence, which still points to the natural origin of the new coronavirus.
Madelena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature, said, “We make decisions based on the strength of the conclusions. Of course, we want to understand how the virus evolved and where it came from.” She says, “But we are very much in the middle of a pandemic. I would say the real issue now is dealing with pandemics, infections, deaths, rolling out vaccinations.”
Scarpel said, “As far as I know, the theory that it’s a man-made virus is not being discussed. We’re not asking to shut down the debate. No one is claiming that this is a closed case, so we wrote on our Web page that we should continue to study the origin of the virus.” She said, “A breakthrough that makes a strong case for the origin of the virus would be something that every journal would want to publish.”
Lawrence Young, a professor of molecular oncology at the University of Warwick, said the same day that there were still unanswered questions about the laboratory leak and that scientists were “very concerned” that the WHO investigation was not detailed enough. They were not given access to any major data from the lab,” Young told BBC4. This feels like too much of a coincidence, doesn’t it? The original case was found in Wuhan, where you have a very large coronavirus research center.”
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