After a multinational panel of experts issued an open letter in early March calling on the WHO to conduct an independent and complete scientific investigation into the possibility of a laboratory leak of the virus, WHO Director General Ted Tam has recently echoed such claims. But on Wednesday, China criticized and rebutted Tandezai. Richard Ebright, a U.S. molecular biologist who co-sponsored the open letter, said the more China refutes the rejection, the more it justifies outside suspicions.
“There is no evidence and no factual basis to say that the new coronavirus is a ‘man-made biochemical weapon’; however, has anyone ever had a pandemic caused by an accidental infection in a laboratory while doing research? A completely independent and open scientific investigation is necessary to figure out what the problem is and where it originated.” Ebright told the station by phone.
Ebright is a professor of molecular biology at Rutgers University (USA) and one of the 26 multinational scientists, mainly French, who signed a joint open letter on March 4.
He told Radio Free Asia that accidents involving laboratory leaks of viruses are not unprecedented in biological research. After the SARS pandemic, accidents involving laboratory leaks occurred in various countries, including China itself, Singapore and Taiwan, in order to study the SARS virus.
He was involved in signing the letter titled “A Call for a Comprehensive and Unrestricted International Forensic Investigation into the Origin of the New Coronavirus”. These international experts wrote to the WHO long before the WHO published its study on the traceability of the outbreak because it was not scientific to deny the possibility of a laboratory leak when they saw that the WHO team of experts had visited Wuhan earlier this year to investigate and could only obtain limited information and that there was every indication that China had not been open and transparent and had not done enough to convince the international community of the investigation.
Why is China so sensitive to investigating whether the virus was accidentally leaked from the Wuhan Virus Institute lab? He said, “China’s reaction and behavior are not the actions of a country that wants to clear its name, but rather like a country that is hiding some kind of unspeakable information.”
WHO Gathers Courage to Put Pressure on China Amid Foreign Concerns
Due to the concerns of some international experts and the pressure of China’s wrestling with various countries, Tandse told a press conference at the end of March when WHO released its report on the traceability of the outbreak, “The WHO expert team told me that they had difficulties in obtaining the raw data; and while the report made the assessment that a ‘laboratory leak was highly unlikely ‘ assessment, but the relevant investigation is not sufficient, further research is needed, and all assumptions are open to question.”
In Ebright’s view, Tandse’s statement is the most basic attitude as scientists and experts should have, not at all excessive.
After the WHO report was released, 14 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, Israel, Denmark, Lithuania and Latvia, issued a joint statement “expressing concern” about the WHO team’s findings and calling on China to give international experts “full access “.
The statement cited concerns that the research by the team of traceability experts had been “severely delayed” and that they were “unable to obtain complete and original data and samples.
WHO apparently failed to please both sides, and made China unhappy.
A few days ago, China, through an unnamed Chinese member of the WHO panel, expressed “surprise and dissatisfaction” with Tan Desai’s statement. Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin insisted at a regular press conference on Wednesday that “laboratory leaks are highly unlikely” and that “there is no difficulty in obtaining the original data”; he also said that WHO in particular should lead by example in respecting the opinions and conclusions of scientists. .
Wuhan Institute of Virus laboratory without investigation where to speak?
It is said that “without investigation, there is no right to speak”. It is because of the respect for the opinions of scientists that WHO has to respond to the pressure of the international community on the possibility of a pandemic due to the accidental leakage of the laboratory, and Tandse also pointed out at the press conference that WHO is ready to send experts in relevant fields to China, including the investigation of laboratory safety.
Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University who is also an advisor to the WHO committee, told the station that if the pandemic has taught the world a lesson, he believes it should consider an international health treaty with “teeth,” that is, one that is enforceable and that allows the WHO to be a member of the WHO committee. If the pandemic has taught the world a lesson, he believes it should consider an international health treaty with “teeth,” a mandatory treaty that would give WHO the right to demand raw or independent data from member countries in the event of a pandemic.
“According to the current international norms, WHO only has the right to make recommendations and cannot compel member countries to do anything, and the investigation of an epidemic can only depend on the cooperation of the country concerned. I think that this time, the Chinese officials are still hesitant to give independent expert groups uninterrupted access to information and unrestricted access to China in the investigation of the traceability of the new crown epidemic.” Gosden told the station.
Virus research around the world walking on steel?
Ebright even said that there should be more global concerted action to set higher standards on the norms for different levels of experiments in biological laboratories.
He said that before the New Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, experiments on coronaviruses were conducted in laboratories of P2 level. It was not until the new coronavirus outbreak that scientists learned how infectious SARS-like coronaviruses can be, and only then did they upgrade the research to a higher level of P3 laboratories.
He believes that the possibility of virus transmission to humans through animals and intermediate hosts, as well as accidental leakage from the laboratory, exists. In order to avoid similar outbreaks, what humans can do is to reduce exposure to high-risk animal populations, and the world must also reduce the risk of laboratory leaks. After any catastrophe, a detailed investigation of the cause is necessary to avoid the risk of a repeat of future catastrophes and to reduce the impact.
“This is the biggest disaster humanity has faced since World War II, and the causes of the disaster must be investigated so that science can help update and improve all relevant policies.” Ebright said.
Without complete, independent and unrestricted traceability research, not only will there be no answers for the 3 million souls who died in this epidemic that can be laid to rest, but China will not be safe if history unfortunately repeats itself.
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