Lab Leak Confusion

On February 26, 2023, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) concluded that “the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak.” No details were provided.

Two days later, on February 28, Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, said that “the FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident.” Again, no details.

The following day, on March 1, 2023, Dr. Marty Makary, a pancreatic surgeon and public health expert, testifying before of a House Select Subcommittee, declared that SARS-CoV-2’s origin in a Chinese laboratory was a “no brainer.” Makary explained that “the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic is five miles from one of the only high-level virology labs in China, [the Wuhan Institute of Virology]. The doctors initially were arrested and forced to sign non-disclosure gag documents. The lab reports have been destroyed; they’ve not been turned over.” Makary provided no direct evidence for a leak—only conjecture and innuendo.

If you believe Carl Sagan’s statement that “extraordinary claims should be backed by extraordinary evidence,” this was an extraordinary claim backed by no direct evidence.

On the other hand, SARS-CoV-2’s spillover from animals to people in a wet market in Wuhan is supported by an abundance of evidence:

• Photographs taken of the western section of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market showed raccoon dogs and a red fox, both of which are known to be infected with SARS-CoV-2. A customer at the market, knowing it was illegal to sell certain wild animals, took these photos on December 3, 2019, and posted them on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging website. The photos were immediately deleted, but not before a CNN reporter was able to pass them on to scientists in the United States.

• In that same area of the market, SARS-CoV-2 virus was detected in carts, drains, a feather-and-hair remover, a metal cage, and machines that process animals after they’ve been slaughtered.

• The first known human case of COVID occurred on December 10, 2019, in a female vendor at the Huanan Market; two of the first three cases had direct contact with the western section of the market. Indeed, more than half of the early cases had direct or indirect exposure to the Huanan market. Wuhan is a city of 11 million people. There are probably 10,000 places where a new virus could have arisen. Nonetheless, the first cluster of cases were restricted to the western section of a market that was selling live animals susceptible to the virus, exactly where you would have expected a spillover event to occur. The estimated chance that this pattern had occurred randomly, and not as a direct result of animals infecting people, is about 1 in 10 million. 

• The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market is located north of the Yangtze River, about 9 miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is south of the river. If the pandemic virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute, it would have had to have leapt across the river without infecting anyone in between.

• The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 virus bears a striking resemblance to SARS-1 spillover events from animals to humans that occurred in Foshan Guangdong province in China in 2002 and again in Guangzhou, Guangdong in 2003. 

• Finally, on March 17, 2023, a discovery by three prominent researchers, Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, Kristian Anderson, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in California, and Eddie Holmes, a biologist at the University of Sydney, should have ended the controversy. Examining samples from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market first taken in January 2020, the international research team found genetic evidence for SARS-CoV-2 virus in raccoon dogs that had been sold illegally, further proving the origin of the virus.

In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been surprising that a new deadly virus gave birth to conspiracy theories. When human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS, was first identified in 1981, many wondered whether the virus had been created in a laboratory. Another theory was that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had created HIV as a weapon, later testing it in unsuspecting populations in Haiti and Africa, where the experiment had gotten out of control.

Despite overwhelming evidence that SARS-CoV-2 virus jumped from animals to humans, it is unlikely that the “lab leak theory” will die anytime soon. Which is unfortunate. The lab leak diversion will only make it harder to understand the origin of this pandemic virus, allowing us a better chance of preventing the next one. And there will be a next one.

---

Beyond the Noise is written by Paul Offit, MD, an infectious diseases physician, author, FDA advisor, new grandfather, and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine.

Author Website Link

---

Addendum:

A few have asked for references, so here they are:

Lab Leak References:

1. Anderson, K.G., A. Rambaut, W.I. Lipkin, et al., “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” NatureMedicine (2020) 26: 450-455.

2. Engber, D., “The Lab-Leak Theory Meets Its Perfect Match,” The Atlantic, November 24, 2021.

3. Gale, J., “Bats in Laos Caves Harbor Closest Relatives to Covid-19 Virus,” Bloomberg, September18, 2021.

4. Holmes, E.C., S.A. Goldstein, A.L. Rasmussen, et al., “The Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review,” Cell (2021) 184: 4848-4856.  

5. Hu, B., L.-P. Zeng, X.-L. Yang, et al., “Discovery of a Rich Gene Pool of Bat SARS-RelatedCoronaviruses Provides New Insights into the Origin of SARS Coronavirus,” PLoS Pathogenesis (2017) doi: 10/1371/journal.ppat.1006698.

6. Lewis, T., “New Evidence Supports Animal Origin of COVID Through Raccoon Dogs,” ScientificAmerican, March 17, 2023.

7. Madhusoodanan, J., “Animal Reservoirs—Where the Next SARS-CoV-2 Variant Could Arise,”Journal of the American Medical Association (2022) 328: 696-698.

8. Menachery, V.D., B.L. Yount, Jr., K. Debbink, et al., “A SARS-Like Cluster of Circulating BatCoronaviruses Show Potential for Human Emergence,” Nature Medicine (2015) 21:1508-1513.

9. Mueller, B., “New Data Links Pandemic’s Origins to Raccoon Dogs at Wuhan Market,” New York Times, March 16, 2023.

10. Worobey, M., “Dissecting the Early COVID-19 Cases in Wuhan,” Science (2021) 374: 1202-1204.

11. Worobey, M., J.I. Levy, L.M. Serrano, et al., “The Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan Was the Early Epicenter of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Science (2022) 377: 951-959.

12. Worobey, M., “I Called for More Research on the COVID ‘Lab Leak Theory.’ Here’s What I Found,” Los Angeles Times, March 8, 2023.

13. Wu, K., “The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic,” The Atlantic, March 17, 2023.

14. Zeng, H.B., L-P Zeng, X-L Hu, et al. (2017) “Discovery of a Rich Gene Pool of Bat SARS-Related Coronaviruses Provides New Insights into the Origin of SARS Coronavirus,” PLoS Pathogenesis 13(11): e1006698. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698.

15. Zimmer, C., “Newly Discovered Bat Viruses Give Hints to Covid’s Origins,” New York Times, October 14, 2021.