Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty
Scientists haven t ruled out the possibility that the coronavirus leaked from a lab.
So US officials may have dismissed the lab leak theory to avoid association with this research.
Is the best way to protect people from a dangerous virus to create one in a lab? That s the central question in the debate over gain-of-function research, a branch of virology that alters viruses in a controlled environment to make them more transmissible or infectious.
Proponents of this type of research say the work enables them to predict deadly pathogens that might emerge in real life and start work on vaccines or treatments ahead. But opponents think the experiments are simply too risky. A lab without proper safety protocol could accidentally release a more transmissible virus into the human population.
Throughout 2020, the notion that the novel coronavirus leaked from a lab was off-limits. Those who dared to push for transparency say toxic politics and hidden agendas kept us in the dark. I. A Group Called DRASTIC Gilles Demaneuf is a data.
State Department was steered away from coronavirus origins probe, ex-officials say
State Department leaders were warned not to pursue an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, former department officials told Fox News on Thursday.
The concern was that a probe would bring attention to U.S. funding of research at the Wuhan institute from which the virus may have escaped.
Vanity Fair reported that officials calling for transparency from the Chinese government were told not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain of function research, because it would bring what the outlet described as unwelcome attention of U.S. government funding into that research.
The origin of COVID-19 - the disease that plunged the world into turmoil in 2020 - has become the subject of heated debate between those who suggest that the disease.
Investigators working under the Trump administration came across a 2015 report warning about the dangers of gain of function research, it was reported on Thursday.