China's Frankenstein

May 31, 2021

Donald Trump bungled the COVID-19 crisis which cost lives, but his accusation that the virus came out of a lab in China was true and based on preliminary U.S. intelligence. But, as usual, Trump conflated the info into a full-blown conspiracy claim that China was developing a secret bio-weapon. China, in turn, accused him of spreading lies and said the virus spread to humans from bats sold as food in a wet market in Wuhan near the lab.

But Trump was right for the wrong reasons. A bio-weapon conspiracy remains unproven thus far, but the natural cause alternative theory was thoroughly discredited on May 5 in a seminal article in an obscure journal. The piece written by former New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade debunked the wet market theory and eventually percolated into the mainstream media and became headlines. As a result, on May 26, President Joe Biden asked U.S. intelligence to reboot its investigation into COVID’s Chinese origin, the Chinese lab, and China’s unprecedented cover-up.

China’s Covid Flag. Knowyourmeme

Wade’s story appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists with the headline “Did people or nature open Pandora’s Box at Wuhan?” If you have the time, I suggest you read it. It’s long, but beautifully written, and explains to any layperson why the dangerous virus could not have leaped from animals to humans naturally. He unpacks the science, and COVID-19’s genetic code and characteristics, and elucidates why this scourge could only have been created through bio-engineering and risky research. He says several Wuhan lab workers became infected in November 2019 because the lab’s safety procedures were inadequate.

He builds the case that this accidental lab leak was covered up by China, and some scientists around the world. If he’s right, then this is the biotech version of  “Frankenstein”, the novel about a young scientist whose unorthodox scientific experiment accidentally creates a sentient creature that becomes a monster.

The cover-up also extends to the World Health Organization (WHO) that exonerated China in its report in 2020 by claiming the virus evolved naturally. It was a whitewash. The probe was headed by 17 Chinese scientists and all investigators were refused access to Chinese lab data or its samples. Worse, at the outset of the infection in late 2019, WHO’s director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus ignored warnings by Taiwan (which were picked up by U.S. intelligence) that China was trying to contain an outbreak of a global hazard.

Taiwannews.com — WHO’s Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus

Wade’s piece explains the COVID-19 virus was the result of a series of  “gain-of-function” experiments. This process changed the original virus, likely the original SARs pathogen, by supercharging it then injecting it into mice or human cell samples to find antidotes. Such work is funded by governments and universities and conducted in highly secure, secret labs like the one in Wuhan and undertaken to create bio-defenses against super viruses. But it is a risky business. In recent years, leaks of Ebola, Small Pox, and other dangerous germs have infected then killed, scientists and lab technicians.

Wade blames the media and scientific community for swallowing the wet market explanation. “From early on, public and media perceptions were shaped in favor of the natural emergence scenario by strong statements from two scientific groups. These statements were not at first examined as critically as they should have been,” wrote Wade.

Wade further explains what amounts to a scientific cover-up: “Virologists had much at stake in the assigning of blame for the pandemic. For 20 years, mostly beneath the public’s attention, they had been playing a dangerous game. In their laboratories, they routinely created viruses more dangerous than those that exist in nature. They argued that they could do so safely and that by getting ahead of nature they could predict and prevent natural `spillovers,’ the cross-over of viruses from an animal host to people.” 

Illustration of gain-of-function experiments involving genetic engineering - Freethink

Wade believes the lab accident was also the result of negligence on the part of China because the Wuhan Institute of Virology was poorly protected and did not meet safeguard requirements despite past complaints. Thus three of its workers became infected, then hospitalized, which spread contagion throughout the city of 11 million and ultimately the world at large. If he’s right, we’re dealing with the “Frankenstein” scenario. If he’s wrong, and the virus was created intentionally in the lab to become a bio-weapon as Trump asserted, then we’re dealing with an attempt to create biological weapons of mass destruction potentially capable of destroying all members of the human race who do not have access to a vaccine. That is unlikely given that a vaccine did not exist anywhere at the time, not even in China. But the Wuhan lab worked closely with the Chinese military on this and other experiments, just as does the Pentagon through its network of scientists and labs.

The World Health Organization also ignored an open letter from a dozen international senior medical researchers calling for a reliable investigation to rule out the possibility of a “research-related accident”. And when Australia questioned the WHO report and called for an international probe into the virus’s origins, Beijing threatened major sanctions on its grain imports and the relationship between the two countries has deteriorated ever since.

Ground Zero Covid in Wuhan

Whatever the outcome of Biden’s investigation, the world must realize that the pandemic is the consequence of the merger of digital technology and biology — or synthetic biology — and presents a bigger existential threat to humanity than does the world’s nuclear arsenals. Clearly, the scientific community, universities, and governments or militaries cannot be allowed to fool around anymore by genetically engineering incurable pathogens or conducting questionable experiments, unless justified, internationally supervised, and conducted under bullet-proof safeguards.

Other issues lurk behind the origin story: Unspeakably hazardous research involving pathogens and human tissue still continues all over the world without sufficient oversight or ethical constraints; many labs, like Wuhan, do not meet specifications to do such dangerous work; and American grants from the CDC Centers for Disease Control (run by Anthony Fauci), other government agencies, various universities, and corporations around the world are financing dangerous science and should not.

Wade blames the scientific community and the media. For instance, he wrote that a letter in February 2020 was signed by some of the world’s most prominent virologists in the prestigious Lancet medical journal and stated un-categorically that a lab leak was impossible. “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” they wrote.

They were wrong. As Wade pointed out, it was far too soon for anyone to be sure of what had happened and besides some of those who signed were funding research at the Wuhan Institute of virology and did not disclose that conflict in their letter.

Wuhan chief scientist in 2017. Getty

Now China is in full cover-up mode, calling Biden’s investigation a “smear”. All the records and data from the lab experiments have been squirreled away and are under lock and key. And it’s little wonder. Millions of people have died from COVID-19 and untold trillions in economic losses have been racked up. Wuhan was ground zero for this scourge and yet the Chinese hid this for weeks or months, then facilitated its spread throughout the world by allowing thousands of international flights to come and go out of Wuhan’s international airport for weeks. Even if the virus escaped accidentally, China is guilty of regulatory negligence, a cover-up, and will face litigation, crippling sanctions, and demands for restitution.

China’s reputation has also been tarnished, and its trading relationships sullied. The World Health Organization must be gutted and Taiwan must be reinstated as a member. It was booted out by China years ago, but Taipei’s warnings about COVID were correct and would have prevented much of the catastrophe, but were ignored in December 2019.

In light of the global implications, the American political theater over this issue is irrelevant. What’s important is that the world’s scientific community must be bridled and forced to adhere to ethical constraints. As Wade writes, science and its funding model are also to blame: “There are many people who have a reason not to talk about it. The list is led, of course, by the Chinese authorities. But virologists in the United States and Europe have no great interest in igniting a public debate about the gain-of-function experiments that their community has been pursuing for years. Nor have other scientists stepped forward to raise the issue. Government research funds are distributed on the advice of committees of scientific experts drawn from universities. Anyone who rocks the boat by raising awkward political issues runs the risk that their grant will not be renewed and their research career will be ended.”

Of all the stories speculating how COVID-19 will change the world, this is the most far-reaching. The creation of a pandemic was caused, intentionally or accidentally, by scientists or entities playing God and represents the greatest threat to the world, bar none. Like Hiroshima, it must lead to international regulatory architecture and non-proliferation agreements among all nations.