From the day of the emergence of SARS-COV- in Wuhan, China, the virus’s origin has been a topic of extreme scientific theory. The two approaches are that the Virus emerges when animals are exposed to humans or during a research-related incident. The investigation of the virus’s origin has been more difficult because of the lack of crucial evidence, and Chinese authorities failed to maintain transparency. However, a US-based research institute obtains essential information yet to be released publically.
The proposed data within the United States would include, but are not limited to, viral sequences gathered and carried as part of the forecast project and different funded programs and sequencing data and laboratory notebooks from US laboratories. We urge US Government scientific institutions, especially NIH, to support a complete, independent, and transparent investigation into the origin of SARSCoV2.
President Joe Biden commissioned the US intelligence community in 2021 to investigate the origin of the virus. IC wrote, “All authorities consider the two hypotheses plausible: natural exposure to infected animals and laboratory-related incidents.” The IC further states that “China’s cooperation is likely to be needed to reach a definitive assessment of the origin of COVID 19.” Of course, such cooperation is legitimate, and the US scientific community follows with the US government. However, as outlined below, many considered US-sponsored, US-based studies collaborating with Wuhan institutions, including the Wuhan Institute of Vessel Virus (WIV) in China. Whether the IC investigated these US-sponsored and US-led activities is not yet clear. If so, it has not yet made any of its findings available to the US scientific community for independent and transparent analysis and evaluation.
This loss of US-primarily based clinical research has had four relatively unfavorable consequences. First, public belief will break towards US Scientific Institutions. Second, the study of the foundation of SARS-CoV-2 has grown to be a plan in the US Congress. As a result, the inception of impartial and evident research has been obstructed and delayed. Third, US researchers with profound information about the opportunities of a laboratory-related incident have no longer been able to share their knowledge effectively. Fourth, the failure of NIH, one of the major funders of the United States-China collaborative work, to facilitate the research into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 has fostered mistrust concerning US biodefense studies. So, US institutions must be transparent about knowing the detailed activities underway in Wuhan and the United States.
Absolute denial from NIH is not a good idea. Although the NIH and USAID have strenuously resisted complete disclosure of the info of the EHA-WIV-UNC program, multiple files leaked to the general public or launched via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) have raised issues. These studies’ proposals make clear that the EHA-WIV-UNC collaboration changed into worried with inside the series of a massive variety of undocumented SARS-like viruses and changed into an engagement of their manipulation inside organic protection level (BSL)-2 and BSL-3 laboratory facilities, elevating issues that an airborne virus would possibly have infected a laboratory worker and also other theories.
The federal government, including the NIH, has not done sufficient to promote transparency and public trust in the SARS-CoV-2 matter. A regular trickle of unsettling information has to stop trusting people over the investigation organization.
The NIH must be clear about the possible role of its grantees in the emergence of SARS. Still, the agency has failed to reveal the chances of SARS-CoV-2 emerging from a research-associated event to the general public. But later, they suggested that the NIH management took an early and active role in promoting the “zoonotic hypothesis” and rejecting the laboratory-related hypothesis.
We no longer assert that laboratory manipulation is involved in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. However, we do claim that there has been no independent and transparent scientific scrutiny till the date of the full scope of the US-based evidence.
We continue to recognize the extreme value of US-China cooperation in ongoing efforts to discover the birth of the pandemic. More critical data remain in China, laboratories, clinical samples, and early epidemiological data not yet available to the scientific community.
Only an impartial and transparent investigation, perhaps as a bilateral Congressional inquiry, will reveal the information needed to enable the in-depth scientific evaluation process.
