'This is playing with fire - it could spark a lab-generated pandemic'
Is gain-of-function research safe? A deep dive into the origins of Covid-19.
The British tabloid UK Daily Mail recently published an article condemning a Boston University Covid study with the attention-grabbing headline:
EXCLUSIVE: 'This is playing with fire - it could spark a lab-generated pandemic': Experts slam Boston lab where scientists have created a new deadly Omicron strain with an 80% kill rate in mice.
Since its publication, the article has sparked outrage and controversy with experts weighing in on both sides. Is this article pure sensationalism or rooted in reality? What are the facts of the study? Who’s funding this research? Is this gain-of-function research? Is it safe? What’s the risk/reward? All these questions lead to the big question on everyone’s minds: did Covid-19 originate naturally in a wet market or accidentally leak from a Chinese lab? This article will attempt to answer those questions.
What are the facts? A team of scientists at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) at Boston University conducted research into the pathogenicity of a hybrid strain of COVID-19. The goal of this study was two-fold: to figure out why the Omicron variant was less deadly than the original strain, also called the Washington variant, and to determine what component of the virus was the cause of this difference in severity. To do this, researchers combined the Omicron spike (S) protein with the Washington strain and infected mice already susceptible to Covid. The new hybrid Omi-S strain killed 80% of the infected mice, more than the Omicron strain, which killed none, but less than the original strain, which killed 100% of mice. The study concluded that while this spike is responsible for infectivity, it is not the major determinant of the severity of the original strain. The paper was published as a preprint on October 14th and has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Since the Daily Mail UK article, this story has been picked up by various news outlets and has reignited the debate over whether this research is considered to be ‘gain-of-function’ and if it should be allowed to continue? What do the BU scientists have to say?
"They've sensationalized the message, they misrepresent the study and its goals in its entirety," said Ronald B. Corley, NEIDL director and BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine chair of microbiology. According to BU, the research was reviewed and approved by both the Institutional Biosafety Committee and the Boston Public Health Commission. The research was conducted in a lab with a biosafety level-three rating, the second highest safety rating.
BU said in a statement, “First, this research is not gain-of-function research, meaning it did not amplify the Washington state SARS-COV-2 virus strain (original virus from 2020) or make it more dangerous. In fact, this research made the virus replicate less dangerous. Ultimately, this research will provide a public benefit, by leading to better, targeted therapeutic interventions to help fight against future pandemics."
What do the experts not associated with the study have to say? The response is mixed.
Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, the Head of Infectious Disease at Brigham and Women's Hospital said, “I think this was blown completely out of proportion. The type of experiments that were done are the type that essentially are done every day with COVID, and there is nothing at all unusual about this.”
Professor Shmuel Shapira, a leading scientist in the Israeli Government, countered, “This should be totally forbidden, it's playing with fire.”
Virologist Dr. Valentin Bruttel of the University of Würzburg had his critiques:
“[The experiments] could have produced a virus that is “way more lethal” than the original SARS-CoV-2 strain.
The study is useless for the general population, because the chance that exactly this Omi-Spike [would] recombine with an extinct variant [the Washington state strain] are zero.
The chimeric virus could cause more severe disease in humans than estimated from mouse data.
What is gain-of-function research? According to the NIH, Gain-of-function (GOF) research involves experimentation that aims or is expected to (and/or, perhaps, actually does) increase the transmissibility and/or virulence of pathogens. It would seem that by NIH’s own definition that the BU study would classify as ‘gain-of-function’ research. Although the hybrid strain wasn’t deadlier than the original Wuhan strain, it very well could have been. According to the NIH, the goal of this research is to “better inform public health and preparedness efforts and/or development of medical countermeasures.” It’s also worth noting that this type of research was mostly restricted in the US from 2014-2017 in fear that it could inadvertently lead to a global pandemic. In 2017 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) made an about-face and began allowing government funds to be used for such research once again.
How was this research being funded? Turns out this research was funded by The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) without their knowledge. However, according to a BU spokesperson, they didn’t have to.
“Following NIAID's guidelines and protocols, we did not have an obligation to disclose this research for two reasons. The experiments reported in this manuscript were carried out with funds from Boston University. NIAID funding was acknowledged because it was used to help develop the tools and platforms that were used in this research; they did not fund this research directly," the BU representative said.
This seems like a bit of equivocating to me. You acknowledge that NIH funding was used to help “develop the tools and platforms” that were used in the study, but you deny they funded this research directly. Sounds like a game of word play gymnastics if you ask me. The NIH is now examining whether these experiments should have been subject to federal review and approval beforehand. Emily Erbelding, direct of NIAID’s division of microbiology and infectious diseases, said how they should have been more transparent with the NIAID regarding the nature of their work, in order for a review to be conducted.
Did Covid-19 emerge naturally in a wet market, or did it escape from a lab? The narrative has changed. At the beginning of the pandemic, the ‘lab leak theory’ was ruled out as nothing more than a conspiracy theory. A March report from the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that a lab leak was ‘“extremely unlikely.” Then the script was flipped. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, changed tone and said how it was premature to rule out the possibility that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab.
How common is it for a pathogen to accidentally escape a lab? According to the WHO director-general, it is more common than you think. “I was a lab technician myself, I’m an immunologist, and I have worked in the lab, and lab accidents happen,” Tedros said. “It’s common.”
What was going on in Wuhan at the time that Covid-19 emerged? The Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting gain-of-function research on coronaviruses in bats, partially funded by the NIH despite Anthony Fauci’s congressional testimony that no such thing occurred. Fauci’s remarks were shown to be false or misleading at best. In the fall of 2019, several WIV researchers came down “with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.” Despite lacking adequate resources, the CCP-run lab rushed to produce scientific breakthroughs to raise China’s global status with scientists working in inhuman and unsafe working conditions. An investigative journalism piece, published by ProPublica in collaboration with Vanity Fair, concluded, “The COVID-19 pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.” After the breakthrough cases, crucial data was wiped from the Wuhan lab database. The CCP has not been fully transparent or cooperative with international investigations into Covid-19’s origins since that time.
What can we conclude? Depending on who you talk to, the coronavirus research in Wuhan and BU can be defined as ‘gain-of-function’ research. Although the Omi-S strain engineered in the Boston lab was less deadly than the original strain, it could have been more deadly in humans. A disconcerting trend of a total lack of transparency seems to echo throughout these studies. BU was not transparent in their research as the NIH had limited knowledge of what they were working on. Fauci publicly denied the NIH’s funding of coronavirus research in Wuhan in a congressional hearing. The CCP wiped crucial data from their database in the days following the Covid-19 outbreak and have not been cooperative in international investigations. Not all labs are created equal when it comes to safety measures. However, lab accidents are possible and do happen. Gain-of-function research was mostly restricted in the US from 2014-2017 because of these concerns. There are purported benefits claimed by some researchers involved in these gain-of-function studies, but is their position valid? Also, is this work justified, considering the significant risks involved in conducting this type of research. I am skeptical.