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Transcript:
It’s been two years since I last discussed the “lab leak” hypothesis: the now completely debunked idea that COVID-19 began with either the accidental or intentional release of the virus from a laboratory in Wuhan that was studying coronaviruses. That is not what happened. While it was a reasonable hypothesis in early 2020, study after study in the past six years have shown that there is little doubt the virus most likely emerged from an infected animal at the live animal markets in that same area. If you missed all that research and want an overview, feel free to go watch my video from 2021 on that because in the years since, there has been zero new evidence to suggest otherwise and loads of new research to support the market origin.
On June 18th of 2024 I made what I THOUGHT would be my final video on the lab leak idea, as by that point it was completely debunked and the only thing left to say was to point out that it had shifted from a reasonable hypothesis to an actual dangerous conspiracy theory. I pointed out that congressional sessions on it were taking up valuable resources from our government actually moving on and preparing for the NEXT pandemic, and that continued focus on it was leading to scientists being put in physical danger from conspiracy kooks.
Well, it wasn’t my final video, because a few days later Reuters broke the news that the Lab Leak conspiracy theory was actually spread by the CIA in a disinformation war against China, with the added lie that China released the disease intentionally in order to sell the world their vaccines. Just CIA things. Cute.
And now, two years later, I’m back to comment on it once again because unfortunately there are two news stories that support my assertions that this conspiracy theory is dangerous in terms of scientist safety and future pandemic preparedness.
First, let’s talk about scientist safety. I said that they were in danger from antiscience kooks, but I failed to go into the danger they would be in once the anti-science kooks ran all three branches of the US government. Last week, heavily armed federal agents raided the home of David Morens, a 78-year old scientist who retired in 2022 from researching influenza at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
They stripped him to his underwear, put him in handcuffs, and dragged him to jail 40 miles (or 65 kilometers) away, where he was fingerprinted and mug shotted. Later that day they let him go, but then demanded he come back to surrender his passport, which he did.
The charge? Using his personal email instead of his official government email when conversing with others about the origins of COVID-19 after the National Institutes of Health terminated his associate’s grant, Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence, based on the lab leak conspiracy. The Justice Department claims this “represent(s) a profound abuse of trust.”
FBI director Kash Patel, rolling out of bed on a Monday afternoon and taking a handful of aspirin, announced “Not only did Morens allegedly engage in the illegal obfuscation of his communications, but he received kickbacks for doing so.”
What kickbacks, you ask? Well, the associate with the canceled grant wanted to thank Morens for his support by sending him a bottle of wine, and further offered to treat him to dinner. That’s it. That’s the “illegal gratuities.” As a reminder, Kash Patel took a taxpayer-funded private plane to Italy to chug beer with the US Men’s Olympic team. “$15,000 every time it takes off,” according to Patel himself.
So yeah, this is literally just the fascistic US government punishing a scientist because the science disagreed with the conspiracy theory they are still trying to spread in order to beat China. It’s not a coincidence that while at the US NAID, Morens was a top aide to Anthony Fauci, who was such an obvious target of the Trump regime that Biden pre-pardoned him on the way out of office. I don’t think it’s crazy to suggest that had he not done that, Fauci would have been the one handcuffed in his underwear.
Moving on to my point about the lab leak conspiracy theory also being a danger for our future pandemic preparedness, a study was published recently in Science that is concerning but also, as research goes, really fascinating and cool, which is why I saved it for last. Wildlife trade drives animal-to-human pathogen transmission over 40 years is a massive collaboration between scientists in the US and Switzerland that reaches a conclusion you may find to be unsurprising but it’s well-supported and comes at a critical time: the wildlife trade is a huge driver of pathogens jumping from animals to humans, and the longer a particular species is traded, the more pathogens it shares with us, at a rate of approximately one new pathogen every decade. Live animal markets increase the risk significantly, and overall, wild mammals that are traded are 1.5 times more likely to share pathogens with humans compared to those that aren’t traded.
As a bit of an aside, they really did a beautiful job on these graphs. Feel free to pause the video if you want to check them out in detail. This chart, B, illustrates the relative dangers of various relationships with wild animals: “synanthropic” refers to animals that have evolved a close relationship with humans, like pigeons and brown rats, which don’t pose as much of a threat. Next up is wild game meat, like bison or alligator. As you can see, the biggest predictors of zoonotic overflow are time in trade and being sold at live markets, which is likely what contributed to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Last but unfortunately not least is the predictor of “illegal trade.” It’s unfortunate because it tells us that the solution isn’t as simple as just making live animal markets illegal: just like prohibiting alcohol in the US created new problems and dangers from bootleggers and moonshiners, the researchers suggest that banning live animal markets is counterproductive as it leads to a multiplying of dangers. Instead, the path forward is regulation and strict surveillance as we develop new tools to reduce the demand for these markets. Impossible Bat, anyone? I’d try it.
This data is pretty damning, though there are a few caveats. As other researchers in the field have pointed out, this data doesn’t consider the volume of trade of a single species, so a species that is traded once in a year equals a species that is traded a thousand times in a year. The researchers say that they did consider volume early on but it didn’t change their results, so they went with the simpler comparison.
More crucially, they only considered international trade and not domestic, as the data for international trade is clearer and less complicated. But as we all learned from COVID, viruses don’t give a shit about borders and so when we are thinking about the next pandemic, we must consider domestic trade because it will eventually go international.
The good news here is that solid research is still being conducted on this topic, despite US conservatives’ devastating cuts to funding and fascistic attempts to silence scientists and their data. Countries with sensible leadership can begin acting on this research now, and if we can make it through the next few years, then there’s a chance that the US can also get back to listening to the experts and stop the next apocalyptic disease before it starts.
