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 Tan Desai has recently echoed such claims. But on Wednesday (April 21), the Chinese Communist Party criticized and rebutted Tandezai. Richard Ebright, a U.S. molecular biologist who co-sponsored the open letter, said the more the Chinese Communist Party refuted and discredited it, the more it justified outside suspicions.
“There is no evidence and no factual basis to say that the CCP virus is a ‘man-made biochemical weapon’; however, has anyone ever had an accident and contracted the virus while doing research in a lab that led to a pandemic? To figure out what the problem is and where it originated, there must be a completely independent and open scientific investigation.”
Ebright, a professor of molecular biology at Rutgers University, is one of 26 multinational scientists who signed the French-dominated open letter on March 4.
He said that the accident of laboratory leakage of virus is not unprecedented in biological research. After the SARS pandemic in the year, countries, including China itself, Singapore and Taiwan, had accidents of laboratory leakage in order to study SARS virus.
The letter he co-signed was entitled “A Call for a Comprehensive and Unrestricted International Forensic Investigation into the Origin of the Chinese Communist Virus”. These international experts wrote to the WHO long before the WHO published its study on the traceability of the outbreak because it was unscientific to deny the possibility of a laboratory leak when they saw that the WHO team of experts had visited Wuhan earlier this year and could only obtain limited information and that there was every indication that the CCP had not been open and transparent and had not done enough to convince the international community of the investigation.
Why is the Chinese Communist Party so sensitive to investigating whether the virus was accidentally leaked from the Wuhan Virus Institute lab? Ebright said, “The CCP’s reaction and behavior is not that of a country that wants to clear its name, but rather that of a country that is hiding some kind of unspeakable information.”
WHO Gathers Courage to Press Communist China Amidst External Concerns
Due to the concerns of some international experts and the pressure of the Chinese Communist Party’s wrangling 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 makes the assessment that ‘a laboratory leak is highly unlikely,’ the relevant investigation has been conducted. ‘ 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 release of the WHO report, 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 the Chinese Communist Party to give international experts “full access “.
The statement mentioned that they were concerned that the study by the team of traceability experts had been “seriously delayed” and that “complete and original data and samples were not available”.
WHO has apparently failed to please both sides, and has upset the Chinese Communist Party.
A few days ago, the Chinese Communist Party, 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 Wednesday that “laboratory leaks are highly unlikely” and that “there is no difficulty in obtaining the original data,” adding that the WHO in particular should lead by example in respecting the opinions and conclusions of scientists. .
The Wuhan Institute of Virus laboratory did not investigate how to speak?
Because of the need to respect the opinions of scientists, WHO needs to respond to the pressure of the international community on the possibility of an accidental leak from the laboratory leading to a pandemic, and it was only at the press conference that Tan Desai pointed out that WHO is ready to send experts in relevant fields to China that include investigation of the safety of the laboratory.
Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University who is also an advisor to the WHO committee, told Radio Free Asia that if the pandemic has taught the world a lesson, he believes it is to consider an international health treaty with “teeth. If the pandemic has taught the world a lesson, he believes it is to consider an “international health treaty with teeth,” that is, a mandatory treaty that would give the WHO the power to demand raw or independent data from member countries in the event of a pandemic.
“According to current international norms, the WHO has only the right to make recommendations and cannot force member countries to do anything. I think the Chinese Communist Party is still hesitant to grant independent expert groups uninterrupted access to information and unrestricted access to China in this investigation into the traceability of the new epidemic.” Gosden said.
Virus research around the world walking on steel?
Ebright said there should be more global concerted action to set higher standards for experimental norms at different levels of biological laboratories.
He said that before the CCP pneumonia epidemic in 2020, experiments on CCP viruses were all possible in P2 level laboratories. It was not until the outbreak of the CCP pneumonia epidemic that scientists understood how infectious a SARS-like coronavirus could be, and only then did they elevate the relevant research to a P3 laboratory, which is one level higher.
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 the recurrence of similar outbreaks, what humans can do is not only to reduce exposure to high-risk animal populations, the world must also reduce the risk of laboratory leaks; after any catastrophe, a detailed investigation of the causes can avoid the risk of future catastrophes and 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 the epidemic that can be laid to rest, China will not be safe if history unfortunately repeats itself.
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