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Editor’s note: Here’s an excerpt from an article in The BMJ. To read the piece in its entirety, click here.
For most of 2020, the notion that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, was treated as a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory. Only conservative news media sympathetic to President Donald Trump and a few lonely reports dared suggest otherwise. But that all changed in the early months of 2021, and today most outlets across the political spectrum agree: the “lab leak” scenario deserves serious investigation.
Understanding this dramatic U turn on arguably the most important question for preventing a future pandemic, and why it took nearly a year to happen, involves understanding contemporary science journalism.
A conspiracy to label critics as conspiracy theorists
Scientists and reporters contacted by The BMJ say that objective consideration of COVID-19’s origins went awry early in the pandemic, as researchers who were funded to study viruses with pandemic potential launched a campaign labelling the lab leak hypothesis as a “conspiracy theory.”
A leader in this campaign has been Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit organization given millions of dollars in grants by the U.S. federal government to research viruses for pandemic preparedness. Over the years EcoHealth Alliance has subcontracted out its federally supported research to various scientists and groups, including around $600 000 (£434 000; €504 000) to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Read the entire The BMJ article here.
