Will we ever know where covid-19 came from?
BMJ 2024; 386 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q1578 (Published 09 September 2024) Cite this as: BMJ 2024;386:q1578
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Dear editor,
I was excited to read this article because, as the author correctly highlights, efforts to resolve Covid’s origin have been stymied by “the politicisation of the pandemic discourse.”(1) I have argued similarly.(2) Unfortunately, the article left me wondering whether it inadvertently engages in the very politicisation it decries.
One notable example is the author’s use of an EcoHealth Alliance statement to suggest that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which oversaw the organisation’s grant for research in Wuhan, did not consider the work in Wuhan to be “gain of function.” Quoting a portion of a July 7th 2016 email from NIH to EcoHealth, the article states: “NIAID [National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] is in agreement that the work proposed . . . is not subject to the [gain-of-function] research funding pause.”(1)
In the very next paragraph of that 2016 email, however, the NIH also stated that: “if any of the MERS-like or SARS-like chimeras generated under this grant show evidence of enhanced virus growth greater than 1 log over the parental backbone strain, Dr. Daszak will immediately stop all experiments w/ these viruses and provide the NIAID Program Officer and Grants Management Specialist […] with the relevant data and information related to these unanticipated outcomes.”(3)
As we now know, in 2019 EcoHealth conducted experiments in Wuhan with the SARS-like bat coronavirus known as “WIV1” which resulted in viral growth well in excess of 1 log over the parental backbone strain. Despite this, far from immediately stopping the experiment and informing its grant overseer, EcoHealth continued the experiments, failing to report the results for two years. These facts emerged during sworn testimony of Peter Daszak before a bipartisan congressional committee in May of this year.(4)
Furthermore, even if EcoHealth did not work with bat coronaviruses “shown to infect people”, Daszak himself has now acknowledged under oath that neither he nor his organisation know for certain what viruses the Wuhan Institute of Virology holds in its freezers.(4)(5) Despite this, the article quotes virologist Angela Rasmussen: “No SARS2 at WIV, no lab leak.”(1) This quotation is misleading, for, as Anthony Fauci corroborated during sworn testimony, we simply don’t know what viruses the WIV holds.(6)
The article also includes expert comment without disclosing that the expert is a central figure in the origins debate. Kristian Andersen dismisses the possibility of lab leak, telling BMJ “scientists are lazy” and would therefore use common strategies of manipulation that would be recognisable in the virus’ genetic code.(1)
Readers should have been informed that Andersen was a coauthor on the widely cited ‘proximal origin’ Nature Medicine article in early 2020, which stated: “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”(7) Following publication, congressional investigations uncovered evidence that Andersen appeared unconvinced by this conclusion. A month after ‘proximal origin’ was published, he wrote to his coauthors: “I’m still not fully convinced that no cell culture was involved” and “we also can’t fully rule out engineering”.(8)
Finally, while the author discloses past relationships with Jeremy Farrar and the Wellcome Trust, left unstated is that Wellcome provided funding to EcoHealth while Farrar was director.(9) Furthermore, Farrar is known to have influenced the writing of ‘proximal origin’, prompting the authors to change their wording from “It is unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation” to “It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation[.]”(10)
Sincerely,
David Robertson, PhD
Oxford University
Oxford Centre for History of Science, Medicine and Technology
1. Looi MK. Will we ever know where covid-19 came from? BMJ. 2024 Sep 9;386:q1578.
2. Robertson D. Don’t blame nature if COVID-19 leaked from a lab. The Boston Globe [Internet]. 2023 Apr 6 [cited 2024 Sep 11]; Available from: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/04/06/opinion/covid-19-natural-origin-l...
3. Congress of the United States House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. Letter to NIH [Internet]. 2021. Available from: https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/legacy/uploads/2021/11/2021.10.27-...
4. Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. A Hearing with the President of EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Peter Daszak [Internet]. 2024. Available from: https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/a-hearing-with-the-president-of-ecoh... 3:05:04
5. Tobias J. During a Heated Covid Origins Hearing, a Scientist Comes in for Questioning. The Nation [Internet]. 2024 May 3 [cited 2024 Sep 11]; Available from: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/peter-daszak-covid-hearing-wuh...
6. Committee on Oversight and Accountability. A Hearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci [Internet]. 2024. Available from: https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/a-hearing-with-dr-anthony-fauci/ 3.25.38
7. Andersen KG, Rambaut A, Lipkin WI, Holmes EC, Garry RF. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nat Med. 2020 Mar 17;26(4):450–2.
8. Ridley M, Chan A. The Covid Lab-Leak Deception. The Wall Street Journal [Internet]. 2023 Jul 26 [cited 2024 Sep 11]; Available from: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-covid-lab-leak-deception-andersen-nih-r...
9. Feigelson J. EcoHealth Alliance. 2023 [cited 2024 Sep 11]. EcoHealth Alliance Receives New Award from Wellcome Trust to Develop Climate-Sensitive Disease Models. Available from: https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2023/02/ecohealth-alliance-wellcome-tr...
10. Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. New Evidence Resulting from the Select Subcommittee’s Investigation into the Origins of COVID-19 - “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” [Internet]. Washington D.C.; 2023 Mar [cited 2024 Sep 11] p. 7. Available from: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2023.03.05-SSCP-M...
Competing interests: No competing interests
Request for Editorial Action for “Will we ever know where covid-19 came from?” by Mun-Keat Looi
Dear Editor,
The article "Will we ever know where covid-19 came from?" by Mun-Keat Looi (1) omits crucial information about Jeremy Farrar, the former director of the Wellcome Trust and current chief scientist at WHO, regarding his role in downplaying concerns that SARS-CoV-2 might have a research-related origin. Emails released by congressional investigators and reporters show that Farrar played a major behind-the-scenes role in the prompting and drafting of the paper The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 “Proximal Origins,” published in Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020 (2-5). Mr. Looi’s article fails to mention this critical detail.
In the introduction to his article, Mr. Looi notes that Republicans on the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic "restoked flames of contention" over the virus's origins (1). However, the article does not mention Democrats on the very same subcommittee issued a report in July 2023 that concluded Jeremy Farrar, acting in his capacity as director of the Wellcome Trust, had a significant but unacknowledged role in initiating, organizing, editing, and approving Proximal Origins (5). Internal documents and congressional depositions reveal Farrar's hidden involvement, with the authors referring to him as a "leader" and "father figure" of the manuscript (5). One author even wrote in an email, "Jeremy has been an amazing leader—should be author." This was later confirmed by the scientists in a deposition released by congressional Democrats (5).
Nature Medicine's policy on competing interests (6) requires authors to disclose any financial or non-financial interests that could impact the integrity of a publication, including any involvement by funders in the "conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or manuscript preparation." Proximal Origins acknowledges funding from the Wellcome Trust, directed by Farrar at the time, but does not disclose Farrar's significant role in the paper. This omission constitutes a serious breach of publishing ethics and violates the policies of both Nature Medicine (6) and the BMJ (7).
Mr. Looi’s omission of Farrar’s role in Proximal Origins is particularly relevant given that Mr. Looi was employed at the Wellcome Trust during Farrar’s tenure as director and served as a science editor and fact-checker for Farrar's book Spiked: The Virus v The People [see competing interests statement in (1)].
“When we smell misconduct we hunt it down with editorial zeal, culminating in trial by academic institution or the Committee on Publication Ethics,” wrote BMJ’s Kamran Abbasi in a 2004 editorial (8). “Beyond these attempts to urge authors to full transparency, journals operate on a basis of trust.”
The BMJ has previously exposed serious conflicts of interest in the Wellcome Trust and Farrar’s influence on government decision-making (9,10). I believe transparency is essential for maintaining trust. Accordingly, I urge the BMJ to retract Mr. Looi’s opinion article (1), which fails to disclose crucial details about Farrar's role in Proximal Origins--details that may have been ignored due to conflicts of interest. At the very least, the BMJ should require substantial revisions and consider commissioning an opposing view free of financial conflicts.
Sincerely,
Bryce E. Nickels
Professor of Genetics, Rutgers University
Lab Director, Waksman Institute of Microbiology
Co-founder, Biosafety Now
References
1. Looi, M-K. Will we ever know where covid-19 came from? BMJ 2024;386:q1578. https://www.bmj.com/content/386/bmj.q1578
2. Andersen, K.G., et al., The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine 2020;26(4):450-452.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
3. Thacker, P. The Wuhan Cover-Up: Scientists Lied as People Died. The DisInformation Chronicle 2023.
https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/the-wuhan-cover-up-scient...
4. COVID Origins: Proximal Origins Retraction Request #2. Biosafety Now 2024.
https://biosafetynow.substack.com/p/covid-origins-proximal-origins-retra...
5. Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Democrats staff report on the "Proximal Origin" paper. July 11, 2023.
https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-oversi...
6. Nature Medicine Competing Interests policy.
https://www.nature.com/nm/editorial-policies/competing-interests
7. BMJ Authorship & contributorship policies.
https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-submission/autho...
8. Abbasi, K. Transparency and trust. BMJ 2004;329:0-g.
https://www.bmj.com/content/329/7472/0.8
9. Schwab, T. Covid-19, trust, and Wellcome: how charity's pharma investments overlap with its research efforts. BMJ 2021;372:n556.
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n556.long
10. Schwab, T. How Wellcome’s opaque fossil fuel investments harm its global health mission. BMJ 2021;373:n1202.
https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1202
Competing interests: No competing interests