{"id":29611,"date":"2020-09-18T10:47:05","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T00:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=29611"},"modified":"2020-09-18T10:47:05","modified_gmt":"2020-09-18T00:47:05","slug":"truth-to-power-could-covid-19-have-escaped-from-a-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=29611","title":{"rendered":"Truth to Power &#8211; Could COVID-19 Have Escaped from a Lab?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Alina_Chan.png\" alt=\"Alina Chan\" class=\"wp-image-29612\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Alina_Chan.png 250w, https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Alina_Chan-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Alina_Chan-100x100.png 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>(Tom: This is a great read about a scientist-turned-detective with a level of ethics that matches her competence in biology. Well worth the read! Executive summary:  The seafood-market theory, which Chinese health officials and the World Health Organization espoused in the early days of the pandemic, was wrong. The virus was lab engineered.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s long been a sense that if the public and politicians really knew about the dangerous pathogen research being conducted in many laboratories, they\u2019d be outraged. Denying the possibility of a catastrophic incident like this, then, could be seen as a form of career preservation [for scientists]. \u2018For the substantial subset of virologists who perform gain-of-function research,\u2019 Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist and another founding member of the Cambridge Working Group, told me, \u2018avoiding restrictions on research funding, avoiding implementation of appropriate biosafety standards, and avoiding implementation of appropriate research oversight are powerful motivators. Antonio Regalado, biomedicine editor of MIT Technology Review, put it more bluntly. If it turned out COVID-19 came from a lab, he tweeted, \u2018it would shatter the scientific edifice top to bottom.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/www.bostonmagazine.com\/news\/2020\/09\/09\/alina-chan-broad-institute-coronavirus\/\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Finish reading: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Tom: This is a great read about a scientist-turned-detective with a level of ethics that matches her competence in biology. Well worth the read! Executive summary: The seafood-market theory, which Chinese health officials and the World Health Organization espoused in the early days of the pandemic, was wrong. The virus was lab engineered.) \u201cThere\u2019s long &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=29611\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Truth to Power &#8211; Could COVID-19 Have Escaped from a Lab?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-health-tips","category-vaccines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29613,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29611\/revisions\/29613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}