Why scientists are concerned about leaks at biolabs

Yahoo – AFP, Issam Ahmed, Lucie Aubourg and Paul Handley, May 30, 2021

This general view shows the Wuhan Institute of Virplogy in Wuhan,
in China's central Hubei province

The theory that Covid-19 might be the result of scientific experiments has thrown a spotlight on the work of the world's most secure biolabs. 

While the evidence linking SARS-CoV-2 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China is strictly circumstantial, a number of experts want tougher controls on such facilities over fears that accidental leaks could touch off the next pandemic. 

Here's what you should know. 

59 top facilities 

The Wuhan lab belongs to the most secure class, commonly referred to as biosafety level 4, or BSL4. 

These are built to work safely and securely with the most dangerous bacteria and viruses that can cause serious diseases for which there are no known treatment or vaccines. 

"There are HVAC filtration systems, so that the virus can't escape through exhaust; any waste water that leaves the facility is treated with either chemicals or high temperatures to make sure that there's nothing alive," Gregory Koblentz, director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University, told AFP. 

The researchers themselves are highly trained and wear hazmat suits. 

There are 59 such facilities across the world, according to a report Koblentz co-authored that was released this week. 

"There are no binding international standards for safe, secure, and responsible work on pathogens," the report, called Mapping Maximum Biological Containment Labs Globally, said. 

Accidents do happen 

Accidents can happen, sometimes at the top tier facilities, and much more frequently at lower rung labs of which there are thousands. 

Human H1N1 virus -- the same flu that caused the 1918 pandemic -- leaked in 1977 in the Soviet Union and China and spread worldwide. 

In 2001, a mentally disturbed employee at a US biolab mailed out anthrax spores across the country, killing five people. 

Two Chinese researchers exposed to SARS in 2004 spread the disease to others, killing one. 

In 2014, a handful of smallpox vials were uncovered during an Food and Drug Administration office move. 

Lynn Klotz, a senior science fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, has been sounding the alarm for many years about the public safety threats posed by such facilities. 

"Human errors constitute over 70 percent of the errors in laboratories," he told AFP, adding that US researchers have to rely on data from Freedom of Information requests to learn of these incidents. 

'Gain of function' controversy 

There is disagreement between the US government, which funded bat coronavirus research in Wuhan, and some independent scientists, about whether this work was controversial "gain of function" (GOF) research. 

GOF research entails modifying pathogens to make them more transmissible, deadlier, or better able to evade treatment and vaccines -- all to learn how to fight them better. 

This field has long been contentious. Debate reached a fever pitch when two research teams in 2011 showed they could make bird flu transmissible between mammals. 

Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch told AFP he was concerned "that it would create a strain of virus that if it infected a laboratory worker could not just kill that laboratory worker... but also cause a pandemic." 

"The research is not required and does not contribute to the development of drugs or vaccines," added molecular biologist Richard Ebright of Rutgers University, one of the staunchest opponents of this kind of research. 

In 2014 the US government announced a pause in federal funding for such work, which gave way in 2017 to a framework that would consider each application on a case-by-case basis. 

But the process has been criticized as lacking transparency and credibility. 

As late as last year, a nonprofit received funding from the US on research to "predict spillover potential" of bat coronavirus to humans in Wuhan. 

Questioned by Congress this week, Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health denied this amounted to gain of function research, but Ebright said it clearly does. 

The path ahead 

None of this means that Covid-19 definitely leaked from a lab -- in fact there is no hard scientific evidence in favor of natural origin or lab accident scenario, said Ebright. 

But there are certain lines of circumstantial evidence in favor of the latter. For instance, Wuhan is around 1,000 miles north of bat caves that harbor the ancestor virus, well out of the animals' flight range. 

Scientists from Wuhan were however known to be carrying out routine trips to those caves to take samples. 

Alina Chan, a molecular biologist from the Broad Institute, said there were no signs of risky pathogen research dying down in the wake of the pandemic -- in fact "it's possibly expanded." 

Last year, Chan published research showing that, unlike SARS, SARS-CoV-2 was not evolving fast when it was first detected in humans -- another piece of circumstantial evidence that could point to lab origin. 

Chan considers herself a "fence-sitter" on the competing hypotheses, but does not favor banning risky research, fearing it would then go underground. 

One solution "might just be as simple as moving these research institutes out into extremely remote areas...where you have to quarantine for two weeks before we re-enter in human society," she said.

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Facebook reverses course, won't ban lab virus theory

Yahoo – AFP, Rob Lever, May 27, 2021 

Facebook reversal of a ban on suggesting Covid-19 was man-made comes amid
renewed debate on the origins of the virus

Facebook has reversed its policy banning posts suggesting Covid-19 emerged from a laboratory amid renewed debate over the origins of the virus, raising fresh questions about social media's role in policing misinformation. 

The latest move by Facebook, announced late Wednesday on its website, highlights the challenge for the world's largest social network of rooting out false and potentially harmful content while remaining open for discourse. 

"In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of Covid-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps," the statement said. 

"We're continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge." 

The new statement updates guidance from Facebook in February when it said it would remove false or debunked claims about the novel coronavirus which created a global pandemic killing more than three million. 

The move followed President Joe Biden's directive to US intelligence agencies to investigate competing theories on how the virus first emerged -- through animal contact at a market in Wuhan, China, or through accidental release from a research laboratory in the same city. 

Biden's order signals an escalation in mounting controversy over the origins of the virus. 

The natural origin hypothesis holds that it emerged in bats then passed to humans, likely via an intermediary species. 

This theory was widely accepted at the start of the pandemic, but as time has worn on, scientists have not found a virus in either bats or another animal that matches the genetic signature of SARS-CoV-2. 

The lab-leak theory, meanwhile, is gaining increasing traction in the United States, where it was initially fueled by former president Donald Trump and his aides and dismissed by many as a political talking point. 

A recent Wall Street Journal report, citing US intelligence findings, said three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick in November 2019, a month before Beijing disclosed the existence of a mysterious pneumonia outbreak. 

Facebook has updated previous guidance on removing false or debunked claims
about the novel coronavirus -- saying it will no longer remove the claim that
Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured.

Pushback from the right 

Facebook's move, which could impact what some three billion users of its family of apps see, highlights the controversy over social media's aggressive efforts to root out misinformation on topics where facts may be evolving. 

The reversal may be "another exhibit for the possibility that there will be a swing back against the more heavy-handed moderation," tweeted Evelyn Douek, a Harvard University lecturer and researcher of online speech regulation. 

"When the pandemic started, there were many arguments that 'what platforms are doing for health misinfo, they should do for all misinfo all the time.' It was over-simplified then, and strikes me as untenable now." 

Facebook uses independent third-party fact checkers, including AFP, to debunk misinformation. Although the origins of the virus remain unproven, the lab leak theory has been subject to fact-checking. 

One fact checking organization, PolitiFact, reported last September that public health authorities had "repeatedly said the coronavirus was not derived from a lab" but earlier this month revised its guidance, noting: "that assertion is now more widely disputed," and saying it would continue to review the matter. 

The abrupt Facebook reversal prompted angry responses from conservatives and Trump supporters. 

"Wow! But they did suppress the story for a year, defaming Trump and Republicans for a 'conspiracy theory' blacklisting conservative press and banning us," tweeted Kelly Sadler, a blogger and former Trump aide. 

But Rebekah Tromble, director of Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics at George Washington University, said Facebook "is doing the right thing" by updating its guidance. 

"Information changes over time, and responsible organizations -- social media outlets and fact-checkers alike -- make decisions based on the best information available but remain open and willing to change their evaluations as new information arises," Tromble told AFP. 

"Facebook will undoubtedly receive blowback for this decision, as will fact-checkers. But that blowback will come from the same people and groups that have always been critical." 

Facebook in a separate statement said it was stepping up its efforts to curb misinformation by limiting the reach of users who "repeatedly" share false content. 

Until now, Facebook had only taken this action on individual posts, but now will clamp down on the users who are the largest spreaders of false content.

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US court denies appeal in Roundup cancer case

Yahoo – AFP, 14 May 2021 

Roundup weed killer is the subject of thousands of lawsuits in the US

A US federal court in San Francisco on Friday denied an appeal by Monsanto in the cancer trial over its Roundup weedkiller and upheld an award of $25 million in damages. 

It was the latest setback for Monsanto's parent, German chemical giant Bayer, in its campaign to put an end more than 13,000 US lawsuits over the chemical. 

The three-judge panel affirmed the district court's judgment in favor of Edwin Hardeman, who blamed the chemical in Roundup for causing his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. 

The ruling found the district court properly denied Monsanto's appeal "because evidence showed the carcinogenic risk of glyphosate was knowable at the time of Hardeman's exposure." 

A jury originally ordered the company to pay $75 million but a judge later reduced that amount. 

The ruling Friday said the award was "at the outer limits of constitutional propriety" but was acceptable, "Considering the evidence of Monsanto's reprehensibility." 

Hardeman said he used Roundup extensively on his land in Sonoma County -- north of San Francisco -- from the 1980s until 2012. 

He filed a complaint against Monsanto in early 2016, a year after being diagnosed with cancer. 

The case was considered a "bellwether" in the litigation against Monsanto, but the judges cautioned that "different Roundup cases may present different considerations, leading to different results." 

"We are disappointed with the court's decision as the verdict in this case is not supported by the evidence at trial or the law," Bayer said in a statement, adding it would consider appealing to the US Supreme Court. 

The agrochemicals and drugs giant has been plagued by legal woes since it bought Monsanto in 2018. 

Bayer, which is not admitting any wrongdoing, maintains that scientific studies and regulatory approvals show Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate is safe. 

The company set aside some $11 billion to deal with a wave of US lawsuits, and in February said it had settled some 90,000 of the cases.