Remember when the lab-leak theory — that the COVID virus escaped from a virus research lab — was a conspiracy theory? Even a racist conspiracy theory?

Veteran science writer Matt Ridley writes that it is now assumed to be a fact. Ridley, author with Alina Chan of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19 (Harper, 2021), spells it out in a longform article at Spiked Online:

I did not start out thinking Covid came from a lab. For the first few months of 2020, I went around telling colleagues in the UK parliament we could rule that out (I retired from the House of Lords in 2021). Why? Mainly because I read the paper in March 2020 called ‘The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2’ in the journal, Nature Medicine, which dismissed a lab leak. And I assumed that its authors knew what they were talking about.

Only later did I discover that I had been deceived: not only did their arguments fall apart on closer inspection but also they did not believe them themselves. We now know from congressional inquiries what the five virologists who authored the ‘proximal origin’ paper were saying to each other in private, while they drafted a paper that ruled out a lab leak. All five thought a lab leak was possible if not likely. One called it ‘friggin’ likely’, another ‘not crackpot’ and a third said ‘I literally swivel day by day thinking it is a lab escape or natural’.

They went on saying things like this even after the paper was published – so it’s not that they changed their minds in the light of new evidence (as they have since claimed). A whole month after publication, lead author Kristian Andersen wrote in a private message that, ‘I’m still not fully convinced that no cell culture was involved’ and ‘we also can’t fully rule out engineering’. Writing a scientific paper that says the opposite of what you think is the truth is scientific misconduct at the very least. The paper should be retracted.

Matt Ridley, “There is now very little doubt that Covid leaked from a lab,” Spiked Online, September 10, 2024

Why is this topic taboo?

The lab leak theory was upgraded from conspiracy theory to plausible in 2021, later vindicated. There is considerable subsequent evidence pointing to a lab leak and scientists generally accept it, Ridley writes. Yet there is very little discussion. Why not?

Image Credit: Herr Loeffler - Adobe Stock

One problem, he says, is that few top science groups want to risk offending China. Ridley believes that his efforts to get a broader discussion going have been doomed to failure on that account:

Scientists in the West have become addicted to collaboration with China. They get students and money from China. Ten British universities rely on Chinese students for more than a quarter of their income. Scientific journals get rich on Chinese publication fees. Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet and recipient of a Friendship Award from the Chinese government, went on Chinese television early in the pandemic to say: ‘I think we have a great deal to thank China for, about the way that it handled the outbreak.’

Ridley, “Leaked from a lab”

Ridley’s article is most interesting, not only for the evidence of COVID’s origin but for his detailed documentation of both the “human fingerprints” on the virus and the behavior of the personnel at the lab that is consistent with having something to hide.

How can we prevent a recurrence if we can’t discuss it?

In the end, we are left with the fact that the origin of an epidemiological disaster that killed an estimated 28 million people, that appears to have originated in gain-of-function experiments on viruses, can’t really be discussed in terms of prevention for fear of offending powerful international interests. That’s hardly a good advertisement for Trust the Science!

Elsewhere, Ridley has written about the way in which COVID politicized epidemiology. From a Wall Street Journal interview, we learn,

Mr. Ridley fears “that the pandemic has, for the first time, seriously politicized epidemiology.” It’s partly “the fault of outside commentators” who hustle scientists in political directions. “I think it’s also the fault of epidemiologists themselves, deliberately publishing things that fit with their political prejudices or ignoring things that don’t.”

Matt Ridley, “How science lost the public’s trust,” July 23, 2021

If internet censorship were as strong as many today would like it to be, it might be more difficult than it is now to at least find out what happened.

You may also wish to read: Why did the New York Times discredit the lab leak theory? The Times led the way in zealously discrediting the quite reasonable COVID-19 lab leak theory. But what underlay its zeal?