from US Right To Know
As the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the globe in January 2020, virus hunters pushed for funding to uncover more “yet-to-be-recognized deadly viruses.” They believed that cataloging viruses in wildlife could help prevent future pandemics.
“In China alone, we sampled >10,000 bats and ~2,000 other mammals, using PREDICT protocols to discover 52 novel SARS related-CoV’s, including the closest relative of the Wuhan nCoV [SARS-CoV-2],” boasts a University of California, Davis letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein requesting federal support for programs like PREDICT, the government’s flagship virus-hunting program.
However, the letter didn’t mention the risks of collecting and studying SARS-related viruses, which have the potential to be lethal or highly transmissible. The U.S. Energy Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the World Health Organization now recognize that a research accident with SARS-CoV-2 may have sparked one of the biggest pandemics in history.
Indeed, the entire chain of virus hunting work entails risks that can lead to accidental infection, from handling animals to experiments in the lab. The risks can even extend beyond the program: published virus genetic sequences allow other groups to perform high risk research, and can even give terrorists instructions for bioweapons.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding virus-hunting work, is attempting to address biosafety loopholes that existed in previous programs. However, new documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know show that their latest precautions center around lab work. The risks involved in handling wildlife and publicly publishing sequences of potential pathogens remain...
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