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Anton van der Merwe's avatar

One thing too often left unsaid here is the fact that virologists have been at the forefront of dismissing the lab-leak as a conspiracy theory, despite the fact that they have an enormous conflict of interest. This conflict arises from the fact that they want to perform the sorts of experiments which make a lab leak much more likely. These include, most notably, gain of function experiments where they take a related virus isolated from animals and investigate whether they can make it able to infect human cells (or humanised mice). These were exactly the sorts of experiments being performed in Wuhan and they are performed all over the world. The rational for them is that they might help us recognize a potentially dangerous pathogen. This is highly unlikely - and it has never actually happened. What is vastly more likely is that these organisms will infect those doing the experiments and then spread in the community.

There is no justification for doing these types of experiments other than scientific vanity and prestige. They are NOT needed to protect us and they are certainly not needed to make vaccines. THEY SHOULD BE BANNED except under truelly exceptional circumstances.

The main reason virologists dismiss the lab leak hypothesis is that they fear they will be stopped from doing this useless and dangerous research.

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Phillip B Flexom's avatar

As an MD and also having an advanced degree in population genetics and evolutionary biology,I think your positions are mistaken. This virus almost certainly underwent modificatins in a lab prior to its emergence as a worldwide pathogen. One can call it "gain of function". I for one do not feel gain of function research is all bad; in fact under its broad definition we are foolish to let politicians define what research can and can not be done as I see no other way we can keep one step ahead of epidemics. Having said this, it must be done with great caution. Was this some sort of intentional leak; i feel not likely. But you appear foolish to hold on to the theory this jumped from bats to humans in the Wuhan wet market. The Covid spike protien's super strong affinity to the human ACE-2 receptor as well as the furin cleavage site show almost certain modification. This ia a case where epidemiologists need to defer to geneticists and evolutionary biologists. The mere fact that the laboratory records from Wuhan appear to have been purged is pretty incriminating. And to date, no matching Covid virus has yet to have been found in any bat in the world. Similar DNA to other bat coronviruses does not cut it. I would remind you we share over 96% of of our human genome with a chimpanzees but we are an entirely distinct species. Covid -19 most likely emerged from an unfortunate lab leak.

P. Flexon MD

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