There’s been a lot of buzz about former NYT journalist Nicholas Wade’s article on the origin of the Covid-19 virus. Much of the discussion revolves around his claim that the virus was probably created in a Chinese lab, and then accidentally infected several researchers who worked there. In fact, the article contains a far more explosive accusation.
Wade suggests that the global community of virologists has knowingly and recklessly engaged in highly dangerous research that threatens the lives of millions (if not billions), and then covered up an accident to avoid scrutiny. To be clear, he does not make that accusation in so many words, but I see no other way to interpret his claims:
1. Wade claims the virus was probably created in a lab in China, and then accidentally escaped.
2. Wade claims that “gain-of-function” research is an accepted practice among virologists, and indeed the Wuhan research was actively encouraged and even financed by western scientific institutes.
3. Wade claims that Western virologists denied that Covid-19 could have been created in a lab, even though in fact it clearly could have been created in a lab.
The Wade article presents a picture of scientific research creating a sort of Frankenstein’s monster, the worst nightmare of any Hollywood film.
Just to be clear, I have no idea if any of his accusations are true. The WSJ says:
There seems to be some debate about whether the Wuhan coronavirus work really did involve “gain-of-function” research—genetically engineering viruses to attack people under the premise that such research assists in learning how to counter future threats. In February the website PolitiFact reported, “All parties involved in the grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology have denied that it involved gain-of-function research.” PolitiFact attributed a quotation to the National Institutes of Health, the parent agency of Dr. Fauci’s organization:
The NIH told us: “The research supported under the grant to EcoHealth Alliance Inc. characterized the function of newly discovered bat spike proteins and naturally occurring pathogens and did not involve the enhancement of the pathogenicity or transmissibility of the viruses studied.””
But PolitiFact also stated:
MIT biologist Kevin Esvelt reviewed a paper that appears to have been published with financial assistance from the grant. According to Esvelt, certain techniques that the researchers used seemed to meet the definition of gain-of-function research.
This column contacted the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases this afternoon on this issue and a spokesperson says, “We’ll get back to you.”
One thing that makes me skeptical of Wade’s account is that he doesn’t seem to understand the implications of the facts that he presents. Here’s Wade:
Here are the players who seem most likely to deserve blame.
1. Chinese virologists. First and foremost, Chinese virologists are to blame for performing gain-of-function experiments in mostly BSL2-level safety conditions which were far too lax to contain a virus of unexpected infectiousness like SARS2. If the virus did indeed escape from their lab, they deserve the world’s censure for a foreseeable accident that has already caused the deaths of three million people. True, Shi was trained by French virologists, worked closely with American virologists and was following international rules for the containment of coronaviruses. But she could and should have made her own assessment of the risks she was running. She and her colleagues bear the responsibility for their actions. . . .
2. Chinese authorities. China’s central authorities did not generate SARS2, but they sure did their utmost to conceal the nature of the tragedy and China’s responsibility for it. . . .
3. The worldwide community of virologists. Virologists around the world are a loose-knit professional community. They write articles in the same journals. They attend the same conferences. They have common interests in seeking funds from governments and in not being overburdened with safety regulations.
Virologists knew better than anyone the dangers of gain-of-function research. But the power to create new viruses, and the research funding obtainable by doing so, was too tempting. They pushed ahead with gain-of-function experiments. They lobbied against the moratorium imposed on Federal funding for gain-of-function research in 2014, and it was raised in 2017.
Sorry, but this ranking makes no sense to me. It’s like saying that when a father let’s his 6-year old drive the family car, the child is most responsible for an accident that occurs. Certainly the virologists in Wuhan would deserve a great deal of blame if this account is true, but Wade is accusing the global community of virologists of engaging in a truly monstrous crime. Anyone who has ever worked in a lab knows that accidents are inevitable. Would you allow scientists to do experiments on H-bombs in the middle of Manhattan? And no, this isn’t hyperbole; a rogue virus could kill hundreds of millions of people. Wade is suggesting that the global community of virologists actively sought to have the ability to do such research, and then covered up an accident that has killed millions of people (so far.)
I find this claim to be so incredible that I’ve searched my brain for some sort of explanation. Perhaps the potential benefit of such research exceeds the cost. Maybe this research will eventually lead to medical breakthroughs that save hundreds of million of lives, more than making up for the death toll from Covid-19.
It only takes a moment of reflection, however, to realize that this excuse won’t work. If gain-of-function research actually were essential, but could also cause a horrific global pandemic if there were an accident, then it obviously should have been done in remote sites in the middle of the desert, where workers had to quarantine for weeks after leaving work and returning to society. This is how the astronauts were handled after the moon landing of 1969, and the threat of viruses from the moon is much smaller than the threat from gain-of-function research. The astronauts didn’t just wear masks; they wore spacesuits on the moon!
In the past, I’ve usually discovered that when something makes no sense, I have somehow misunderstood the relevant facts. One possibility is that Wade is simply wrong. (I suspect this is the case.) Maybe gain-of-function research is not being done. Or maybe it presents no threat of a global pandemic. Maybe the scientists who say the Covid-19 virus could not be man-made are correct.
One thing is clear—Wade is an unreliable narrator. He presents facts without seeming to understand the explosive nature of his claims. He suggests that he is presenting a Chinese conspiracy theory (and he is), but embedded within the article is a far more explosive claim about the Western scientific establishment. If his claims were true, this would be by far the worst scandal in global history.
READER COMMENTS
Mactoul
May 9 2021 at 10:01pm
I think Wade understands very well what he has written but how could he be more explicit about the specific US role in the pandemic?
Could he write that the pandemic was funded by US?
Scott Sumner
May 10 2021 at 12:00pm
I also think he understands what he wrote, but I’m not sure he understands the implications of the facts that he presents.
Lizard Man
May 11 2021 at 7:51am
It could be “Straussian” writing. As in, the implications are clear to any careful reader, but Wade has not said it. Perhaps he wants to be able to avoid lawsuits for libel that way. Perhaps he doesn’t want to call for an investigation because he is virtually powerless and he wants more influential readers to take ownership of the idea that virologists should be investigated.
Scott Sumner
May 11 2021 at 12:06pm
Yes, that’s possible.
Kevin Dick
May 9 2021 at 11:13pm
I think it’s odd that you try to reason from first principles on whether scientists and research funders might engage in gain of function research with dangerous viruses rather than just looking it up.
If you search: (“gain of function” research papers), the third result is a Lancet article that starts:
“The US moratorium on gain-of-function experiments has been rescinded…
On Dec 19, 2017, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that they would resume funding gain-of-function experiments involving influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. A moratorium had been in place since October, 2014.”
Scott Sumner
May 10 2021 at 12:01pm
A better way to put it would be that I’m agnostic on whether there is gain of function research that might result in a global pandemic. It seems obvious to me that such research should be outlawed. But maybe I’m missing something.
Andrew_FL
May 10 2021 at 1:07am
We do actually have an example of global pandemic caused by accidental release of a lab sample. 1977’s H1N1 Flu outbreak. The dead give away was two fold: first, the viral strain was missing about 20 years of mutations resembling much too strongly a strain of flu not known to be circulating since 1957, and two: People born before 1957 seemed to be much more likely to be immune to the 1977 flu outbreak.
The problem with both “accidental” and “engineered” theories of SARS-CoV-2’s origin is that the virus doesn’t look like this at all. Rather it looks like a recent mutation of a virus not previously known to be able to infect humans, not a frozen sample of a virus that was already infecting humans years ago, whether modified or slightly mutated in a lab or not.
The genetic evidence just doesn’t sustain the lab theories.
You instincts are right.
Ken P
May 10 2021 at 2:15am
This is old news. I first came across it when Trump wanted to stop funding to the Wuhan lab. The gain of research controversy has been reported pretty widely for several months. Matt Ridley has written about it. The Hill has some good YouTube videos on The Rising. Brett Weinstein has some videos on it. Many scientists have published letters on the topic.
JFA
May 10 2021 at 7:07am
“One thing that makes me skeptical of Wade’s account is that he doesn’t seem to understand the implications of the facts that he presents.”
I don’t know enough about the topic to really say anything on it (most people probably don’t), but this comment seemed odd to me. Lots of people see the same facts as everyone else and come to completely different conclusions or they have different ways of understanding the implications of those facts. How people understand the implications of new information does not have much to do with the veracity of that new information.
DAW
May 10 2021 at 7:27am
Please take a look at: https://jamiemetzl.com/origins-of-sars-cov-2/
“Although it is certainly possible that the SARS=CoV-2 virus had small edits (such as for its furin cleavage site, as suggested by Nobel laureate virologist and former CalTech president David Baltimore), the lab incident hypotheses does not require any genome editing to be valid. The virus or a precursor to it could have easily been collected, isolated, and cultured in one of the Wuhan labs. If the latter, serial passage and so-called “gain of function” research could have pushed the “natural” evolution of the virus toward greater pathogenicity without any genome editing. Again, this is only highly informed inference based on publicly available information and my application of Occam’s razor (and mathematical probabilities). I have no definitive way of proving this thesis but the evidence is, in my view, extremely convincing. If forced to place odds on the confidence of my hypothesis, I would say there’s an 85% chance the pandemic started with an accidental leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (or Wuhan CDC) and a 15% chance it began in some other way (in fairness, here is an article making the case for a zoonotic jump “in the wild”). If China keeps preventing a full and unrestricted international forensic investigation into the origins of the pandemic, I believe it is fair to deny Beijing the benefit of the doubt.
The purpose of this post is to present the evidence and my views so that readers can come to their own conclusions. If there is additional evidence I am missing, please let me know. I do not have a political agenda other than finding out why so many people around the world are dead from COVID-19 and how we can learn the lessons from this catastrophe to prevent the next ones.”
Scott Sumner
May 10 2021 at 12:07pm
You said:
“I believe it is fair to deny Beijing the benefit of the doubt.”
Beijing would absolutely be deserving of criticism. But if this story is true then there should be 100 times more criticism of the Western community of virologists. I’m not seeing that, which makes me wonder if this is just one more piece of propaganda in the emerging cold war with China.
Mark Z
May 10 2021 at 1:22pm
I don’t see why western virologists would be peculiarly to blame for this. Even if you take the position that a person has no exceptional moral responsibility for anything they do that’s concurrent with standard norms, that still doesn’t make them *less* responsible than everyone else. The rest of the virologists in the world inherited those norms as much as China did, and the ‘global (or western, you seem to be using interchangeable) virologist community’ is less of a coherent moral agent than the Chinese government or the hypothetical individual leakers.
You’re also assuming that the hypothetical Wuhan scientists who some believe leaked the virus are merely as reckless as everyone else. If it was a lab leak, then the (hypothetical) fact that it leaked in Wuhan and not somewhere else is at least a bit of evidence that the lab there was even more reckless than most other labs are.
Scott Sumner
May 10 2021 at 6:57pm
If there is a cover-up, then I’d blame western scientists even more than Chinese scientists (who might fear going to prison if they go against their government.)
And Western scientists tend to set the standards, indeed they funded the Wuhan project.
Anonymous
May 10 2021 at 10:01pm
The most stunning part of this article for me (if true) was that Fauci personally literally circumvented the law in order to fund gain of function research that resulted directly in the coronavirus pandemic. How ironic can you get? I get that other things are more important, but…
Weir
May 11 2021 at 12:35am
“Peter Senge said, ‘When placed in the same system, people, however different, tend to produce similar results.’ It’s important to understand management structures actually create behaviors. By becoming a systems thinker as opposed to a command and control manager, you come to realize why it is necessary to look beyond individual mistakes or misfortunes to truly understand safety problems. We need to look beyond single events to examine the structures or common causes in the system that shape individual actions and generate the conditions where events (accidents) are more likely to happen.” From an article by Tom Smith.
MarkLouis
May 10 2021 at 8:20am
It’s notable that we don’t even know if GOF research was being done. The lack of transparency into the Wuhan lab is inexplicable at this point.
Alan Goldhammer
May 10 2021 at 8:22am
Lab experiments do go awry (I once had a flask of B. pertussis (whooping cough) shatter as I was transferring it and my lab coat got soaked. Culture fluid was all over the floor and one of my fellow researchers helped clean things up. Fortunately, it was an attenuated strain and no harm was done.
Wade is an accomplished science writer and I’ve followed him for years. I believe he does understand what he has outlined. Whether all the dots connect is another matter.
The key problem is the central government in China is not going to do the analysis that should be done and we will be left with unanswered questions. This will continue to simmer and become further politicized with out the requisite answers. Transparency in science does answer questions and in this case the current narrative is insufficient.
Scott Sumner
May 10 2021 at 12:10pm
You said:
“The key problem is the central government in China . . . ”
No, if Wade’s story is true than the key problem is that there is an evil conspiracy by western scientists to cover up the fact that they are doing research that puts the lives of billions of people at risk.
I’m skeptical of that claim, but it’s the clear implication of his story, if you read the whole thing.
MikeW
May 10 2021 at 10:03pm
Well, come on — they don’t think of it as an evil conspiracy! They think that it’s valuable research and can be done safely. But the big question is, was it done safely?? Remember the old quote about it being hard to convince someone of something when his livelihood depends on him not being convinced…
Scott Sumner
May 11 2021 at 12:09pm
Evil people almost never think of themselves as being evil. (And I’m certainly not saying they are evil, I’m saying that that’s the implication of Wade’s account.)
Anonymous
May 10 2021 at 10:03pm
That part of the story really has little to do with COVID and as far as I can tell it is completely true. GOF research absolutely is being carried out around the world and there absolutely are accidental releases with some frequency. Hence the (later rescinded) moratorium and so forth.
Scott Sumner
May 11 2021 at 12:10pm
Is research being done that could result in a global pandemic? If so, why?
Thomas Strenge
May 10 2021 at 9:09am
The transformation of China from a 3rd World Country to a 1st World competitor within less than 50 years is astounding. That said, every time I’ve visited I think of it as the Land of Not Quite Right. You see so many new things, but rarely without defect. Why would the Wuhan Lab be any different? More importantly, if the virus had truly come from an animal and the wet market, why interfere with the fact finding investigation into the virus origins? There is something rotten in all of this.
Jonathan Vause
May 10 2021 at 9:30am
not disagreeing that sth is rotten, but the interference is just automatic – everybody in China is monitored to ensure they stay on message on any ‘sensitive’ topic, and there’s no way they’re going to risk a foreign scientist going embarrassingly off script in front of the world’s media. the narrative is always controlled – that’s just the way it always is
Scott Sumner
May 10 2021 at 12:17pm
I agree, but again I think China is not the real story here. The real issue is whether gain-of-function research endangers the lives of billions. If so, the global community of virologists is the real problem. An accident could happen anywhere.
Lizard Man
May 11 2021 at 8:13am
Wouldn’t it be more complicated than simply banning gain of function research? Wade presents some evidence that bat coronaviruses with the potential to infect humans were being studied in a bio-safety level 2 lab. So maybe the answer is that research on viruses from families that have infected people before should be treated in the same way as studying those viruses in the family that have infected humans. From what Wade has written, it seems likeliest that the virus escapes from a level 2 lab, not a level 4 lab. Maybe level 4 labs are safe enough for that kind of research.
Scott Sumner
May 11 2021 at 12:11pm
He says it was a level 4 lab being run like a level 2 lab. Do you see the problem?
Christophe Biocca
May 10 2021 at 11:56am
Technically not H-bombs, their pure-fission predecessors, but the first man-made critical nuclear reaction occurred in downtown Chicago.
It was during WW2 and Fermi thankfully knew what he was doing.
Christophe Biocca
May 10 2021 at 12:03pm
As far as Wade’s assignment of blame mainly to the researchers involved, I think it makes sense given the BSL2 vs BSL4 distinction. BSL4 labs have many layers of redundancy, whereas BSL2 labs are pretty lax. His argument is basically that when doing gain-of-function work, you have to assume you might create something really dangerous (way worse than what you planned to create), so you should use the same protocols that have successfully been used to safely study known nasties like ebola, smallpox, and bubonic plague.
Scott Sumner
May 10 2021 at 12:15pm
That’s not correct. Here’s what he says:
“The real problem, however, was not the unsafe state of the Wuhan BSL4 lab but the fact that virologists worldwide don’t like working in BSL4 conditions. You have to wear a space suit, do operations in closed cabinets, and accept that everything will take twice as long. So the rules assigning each kind of virus to a given safety level were laxer than some might think was prudent.”
That’s exactly what I’m talking about when I say that accidents are inevitable. So is sloppiness. It was a BSL4 lab, but the workers were sloppy. Workers everywhere are sloppy!!
TGGP
May 10 2021 at 4:07pm
The issue wasn’t simply that “workers were sloppy”. Rather, work that SHOULD have been done in BSL4 got done at lower level labs.
Scott Sumner
May 10 2021 at 6:58pm
No, it was a BSL4 lab.
Anonymous
May 10 2021 at 10:05pm
My understanding is that a “BSL4 lab” means it is certified to do research that requires BSL4 standards, but that is can also do research at lower standards- which makes sense. And that in this case, the GOF research was conducted at BSL2 standards- even though it was in a “BSL4 lab”
Scott Sumner
May 11 2021 at 12:14pm
You said:
“And that in this case, the GOF research was conducted at BSL2 standards- even though it was in a “BSL4 lab””
That’s exactly my point. That’s how things work in the real work. People are sloppy. So should this research be done?
It does no good to say that the research is fine because if scientists weren’t fallible human beings then we wouldn’t have accidents that kills millions. Scientists cut corners.
Aristophanes
May 11 2021 at 5:48pm
The WIV is often referred to as BSL-4 because it contains 1 (I think) BSL-4 lab. But it also contains many BSL-2 rated labs. I’ve read that the bat coronavirus research was occuring in BSL-2 labs in the facility. This may explain the confusion. (Whether BSL-4 labs are actually operating at BSL-4 standards is of course still a good question in general, but the claims I’ve read is that this isn’t the relevant issue here).
Irrespective, why you put this lab in the middle of a dense city of 10 million is not clear to me.
sean
May 10 2021 at 12:24pm
I assume Wade understands the implications of his article.
I believe you are correct this is very damning of Western science. I believe Wade knows that. I think he also wanted to right the article without directly stating it, but that readers would come to that conclusion.
I get the sense you don’t want to believe the article because its conclusion is too extreme so it must be something else.
Scott Sumner
May 10 2021 at 6:59pm
I tend to discount conspiracy theories unless there is strong evidence in favor. I have an open mind on this issue.
Anonymous
May 10 2021 at 10:07pm
Is there a conspiracy? Doesn’t everyone admit there is GOF research being carried out? I think they just don’t want to take the blame for COVID and so they prefer to believe there is some other explanation. The only conspiracy seems maybe from anti-racist/pro-China people who have reflexively suppressed evidence of Chinese wrong-doing?
Scott Sumner
May 11 2021 at 12:17pm
Wade is suggesting that the global community of virologists is lying to cover up the fact that they are doing incredibly dangerous research. I don’t know if that’s true, but if true it might be the most evil conspiracy in human history.
T Boyle
May 10 2021 at 12:34pm
You might want to review your argument, which is that if someone doesn’t fully understand the implications of what he claims are facts, that he is then an unreliable narrator.
I’m pretty sure that’s a logical fallacy.
bs
May 10 2021 at 1:34pm
There’s plenty of information about GoF research on the Web; it’s not some sort of conspiracy. I can see why it’s not the subject of incessant public relations campaigns (“wonders of science”). Should it obviously be outlawed? Should no reasonable person offer to participate? I suppose, yet look at all the other research into things that could turn out badly.
The simple explanation requires no conspiracy framing: GoF research exists; it has purposes (basically, to explore “enemy courses of action”); there are researchers who pursue it; they have funding; it’s not the kind of thing one talks about loudly; there are risk factors. Where there are risks and/or failures to follow procedures to mitigate risks, accidents happen. When accidents happen, people involved usually try to evade blame.
Scott Sumner
May 10 2021 at 7:01pm
More than 3 million dead. Nothing to see here, just move right along? What if three billion had died?
BS
May 10 2021 at 7:27pm
I’d rather see no GoF research at all, or that it be done as you propose (in the middle of a sterile landscape, underground, with a low yield nuclear device wired up to sanitize the site if anything goes wrong, with the entire staff living on-site, etc).
Three orders of magnitude more deaths would intensify the quests to escape and lay blame, and make a point more strongly (eg. don’t fuss around with nature). For me, that point didn’t need to be made and has been made strongly enough.
I suppose that Wade’s story is plausible, and some answers to questions posed above are: Wade is not wrong; GoF research is being done; it poses a threat of pandemic; the virus could be man-made. Those are all matters of “is” rather than “ought”.
Wade’s proposed hierarchy of blame mimics the search for causes of accidents: immediate cause (researchers at the Wuhan lab), intermediate cause (a government predisposed to cover-ups), early cause (tolerance for research).
In view of that last, you are correct: the scandal is huge. But whereas some are surprised or shocked, I’m not. A bunch of smart people convinced themselves that what they were doing was worth the risk and went ahead without fanfare lest the ignorant masses get excited; possibilities of catastrophe downplayed; actual catastrophe denied. “Film at 11.” Next up: geoengineering solutions for “climate change”.
Eugene D
May 10 2021 at 2:40pm
Scott,
Here is an example of spike protein recombination from Shi Zheng-li’s Lab:
“In this study, we confirmed the use of human ACE2 as receptor of two novel SARSr-CoVs by using chimeric viruses with the WIV1 backbone replaced with the S gene of the newly identified SARSr-CoVs. Rs7327’s S protein varied from that of WIV1 and WIV16 at three aa residues in the receptor-binding motif, including one contact residue (aa 484) with human ACE2. This difference did not seem to affect its entry and replication efficiency in human ACE2-expressing cells.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5708621/
They were swapping spike proteins into viruses and testing them on human ACE2 receptors.
Scott Sumner
May 11 2021 at 1:22pm
Thanks Eugene.
Ken P
May 12 2021 at 12:11am
Thanks for link. Of note:
Peter Daszak, is listed as an author (President of EcoHealth that distributes NIH funds, member of the team that investigated the Wuhan Lab, and expert virologist cited by articles “debunking” the possibility of a lab escape).
The paper shows it received funding from the NIH.
DeservingPorcupine
May 10 2021 at 10:43pm
I don’t understand your incredulity at all. No conspiracy necessary. They do research they understand intellectually could be very dangerous but are lulled gradually into underestimating tail events by not having seen one yet and gradually become more and more lax.
GoF research exists. It’s absolutely silly to think this virus wasn’t connected to the lab right next to where it appeared. Mere proximity combined with the high-level similarities between the virus and the research should make any rational person conclude it came from that lab absent any direct, indisputable evidence to the contrary.
Scott Sumner
May 11 2021 at 12:22pm
So why do expert virologists disagree with you?
MikeW
May 11 2021 at 1:05pm
Expert virologists with a conflict of interest!
Scott Sumner
May 11 2021 at 1:30pm
Some experts like Marc Lipsitch have warned about gain-of-function research for years.
MikeW
May 11 2021 at 3:19pm
I’m not familiar with him. Has he said anything about Covid being related to the possibility of an accident at WIV?
Ken P
May 11 2021 at 9:13pm
The experts that were cited in articles I’ve seen “debunking the conspiracy theory” were Andersen and Daszak. Both had serious conflicts of interest which were spelled out in the Wade article. They also used a red herring, by twisting the GOF into a claim of genetic manipulation. The most likely approach would have been simply passaging in human cells and let evolution do the work. Wade mentions that too, but it’s not really a surprising result. It’s just the opposite of making an attenuated virus, which occurs when you passage in a non-host cell.
DeservingPorcupine
May 12 2021 at 4:08am
Maybe for some of the same reasons market monetarism is relatively unpopular among professional economists…groupthink, lack of consequences for bad beliefs, intellectual fashions, etc.
Daniel Klein
May 11 2021 at 3:20am
I had figured that the virus came from the lab, but my disposition was settled after watching this video.
Peter McCluskey
May 11 2021 at 12:20pm
There isn’t much new about the evidence that the scientific establishment is behaving scandalously.
E.g. see https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/06/commentary-case-against-gain-function-experiments-reply-fouchier-kawaoka
max
May 11 2021 at 5:13pm
Without commenting on whether or not Wade’s essay is correct, I very much disagree with the way Scott is framing the article. I read the essay and thought “wow, he really stuck it to virologists”. He spends a lot of time discussing Peter Daszak and arguing that he is irresponsible/immoral, and pointing out that far too many virologists support him, etc. He also says early on “I will then try to assess the complex issue of blame, which starts with, but extends far beyond, the government of China.” Scott basically quotes the one part of the article that blames the Chinese government, and it’s not at all clear he is saying they are the most culpable.
I think the confusion is in the list. Wade says 1. WIV researchers, 2. Chinese censors 3. Virologists. I think Scott is interpreting this as a rank order list (most guilty to least guilty), but I don’t think that is Wade’s intention. I think the list goes from least abstract to most abstract, or most direct to least direct.
Sean OConnor
May 11 2021 at 9:45pm
We don’t blame 6 year olds for car crashes because 6 year olds lack intelligence and moral understanding. Virologists performing GoF research aren’t comparable even in the slightest.
RK
May 12 2021 at 10:35am
I work at a biology lab at a prestigious institution in the US, and some of the most talented bioinformaticians there (who have come up with some of the most widely used algorithms and programs in that field) have explicitly stated in private communications channels that they find the lab leak hypothesis to be more believable than that of natural origin. Of course, they have not aired their thoughts in public.
People at the highest levels in scientific institutions are highly rational. I see virtually no professional or social upside for any virologist who chooses to focus on mainstreaming the lab leak hypothesis for COVID. A culture of fear can be seen as a game-theoretic equilibrium. Incentives are a powerful thing.
Scott Sumner
May 14 2021 at 2:03pm
You said:
“Of course, they have not aired their thoughts in public.”
You may be right, but that would be so sad. In 2009, I blamed economists for causing the Great Recession, even though I am an economist and my opinion is unpopular among other economists. I’d expect no less honesty from scientists.
Ryan M
May 12 2021 at 4:55pm
And the name “Fauci” ought to be prominent. A man who this country has foolishly deemed to be an authority on this subject, to disastrous effect.
Nicholas Wade
May 14 2021 at 11:43am
Many thanks to Scott Sumner for the serious discussion he gives to my article of the origin of the Covid virus. His horrified surprise at what virologists have been up to is very natural to anyone coming fresh to this field.
The principal charge in his critique is that “Wade suggests that the global community of virologists has knowingly and recklessly engaged in highly dangerous research that threatens the lives of millions (if not billions), and then covered up an accident to avoid scrutiny.”
Of course, I don’t go nearly so far. It is indeed a fact that virologists round the world have been doing “gain-of-function” experiments for 20 years. These experiments are so obviously hazardous that the US government declared a moratorium on funding them from 2014 to 2017 and instituted a reporting system thereafter. All the colorful epithets above are Scott’s, not mine. I’m just saying virologists were doing experiments the safety of which could be questioned – and was.
I do not say that “virologists covered up an accident to avoid scrutiny. It’s a little more complicated. Two groups of virologists, including the principal investigator who channeled NIH funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, wrote influential letters that derided the idea of an accident and lab escape. Despite the defective arguments in these letters, most other virologists said nothing. That hardly qualifies as a coverup. But if it does, it’s Scott’s characterization, not mine.
Very briefly, on some other points: The abstracts of the NIH grants to the Wuhan institute strongly suggest gain-of-function experiments. Dr. Fauci’s surprising recent statement that the experiments did not fall into this category remains to be assessed. It may be some lawyer-like parsing is going on here.
I’m not sure why Scott is so exercised by the order of miscreants in my list of people deserving blame (which I state clearly is provisional, since we still have no proof of what happened). “Wade is accusing the global community of virologists of engaging in a truly monstrous crime.” Not really. I’m following the lead of scientists in the Cambridge Working Group who believe gain-of-function experiments should be brought under closer regulatory scrutiny. The worst charge I lay against virologists is that they have failed to regulate themselves, unlike the scientists in several other fraught fields of biology who have drawn attention to the dangers and sought public input.
I regret Scott’s unsupported conclusion that I am “an unreliable narrator,” but from my perspective it is he, with his talk of H-bombs in Manhattan, who has injected much of the unreliability into the discussion.
That said, I welcome his perception that there are issues here worth taking seriously. To my considerable frustration my article has so far been largely ignored by left wing media and twisted by some on the right into an attack on Fauci. Serious discussion from the likes of Scott Sumner is preferable to both.
Scott Sumner
May 14 2021 at 2:01pm
Thanks for commenting, and sorry if I misinterpreted your article. (I plead guilty to using much more colorful language than you used.) This is what I thought you were saying:
Gain of function research likely led to an accident that killed at least 3 million, probably closer to 10 million worldwide.
Arguments used by virologists to discredit lab leak theories were obviously weak and unpersuasive.
The virologists making these arguments had an incentive to discredit the lab leak theory, as if it were in fact a lab leak then it might lead policymakers to ban such research in all countries.
If I’m right, then that’s a really serious set of accusations.
I don’t know if your claims are accurate, but if there is at least a 10% chance they are accurate then I believe that gain of function research on viruses should probably be banned. Because I believe there is at least a 10% chance you are right, I currently favor such a ban.
I’m a bit mystified as to why you think the H-bomb in Manhattan analogy is a bad one. As you know, people like Marc Lipsitch have been warning about gain-of-function research for many years. Now there is what you claim is exactly the sort of accident that he warned about, and many millions have died. Where is my hyperbole? Why not have the research done in the Gobi desert, and have scientists quarantine for 2 weeks before returning to society? Because it’s inconvenient? I don’t get it.
Unlike JM Keynes, I’m not a good writer. But I agree with this sentiment:
‘Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.’
Does the public understand the risks that you believe are being taken by scientists? If not, how do we wake them up?
Rob
May 17 2021 at 1:38am
What is your opinion on the Lancet letter and proximal origins sections of Wade’s article?
To me, this is the most important part.
Peter Daszak drafted this letter, and it failed even to address his conflicts of interest (in fact, they even discussed removing his name from the letter, but never did).
It is obviously in Peter’s own interests to label this a ‘conspiracy theory’, to avoid further investigation on a project funded through his Ecohealth Alliance organisation. If it was found that virus manipulation was the cause, his funding would be at risk, and he would partly be held responsible (in fact, his funding was terminated for a time last year).
Also, China’s selection of Daszak on the WHO’s investigation team is a huge red flag.
Secondly, the proximal origins letter was clearly not proof that the virus could not have been manipulated, yet this very letter was cited on the WHO’s ‘Origin of SARS-CoV-2’ report as the reason why a lab leak was ‘ruled out’, and thus very little analysis was put on the report (just over 1 page). Analysis no doubt done by Peter Daszak, with no data, no lab notes, no discussion on experiments taking place there (I understand some of these were withheld by higher powers such as the CCP).
Since then, even Dr. Tedros has stated that they need an independent team to investigate the lab leak hypothesis further.
Scott Sumner
May 17 2021 at 1:15pm
That’s all possible, but again I don’t think the big issue here is the Wuhan lab, it’s the existence of possibly dangerous “gain-of-function” research that is being done all over the world.
If that research is as dangerous as some experts suggest (including Marc Lipsitch) then it should probably be banned. We should not do research if a lab accident could kill hundreds of millions of people. That point seems obvious to me, so I wonder what I’m missing. I still have not seen a persuasive rebuttal to Lipsitch’s argument.
Rob
May 17 2021 at 10:55pm
Agree about the GoF research, especially if it was being conducted in BSL-2 & BSL-3 labs at Wuhan as some people are suggesting.
The main point of my previous comment was the that (if true) we have been misled by scientists to disregard the lab leak theory. Science is something we should all trust, but if we cannot trust the people who conduct it (Daszak still to this day labels the lab leak a conspiracy theory), where do we go from there?
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