The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is presided over by Republican representative from Ohio, Brad Wenstrup. Credit: Getty / Anna Moneymaker
In order to stifle discussion about COVID – 19 origins, US House Republicans have charged the authors of a 2020 commentary in an academic journal with working with government representatives. On July 11, two of the authors, virologist Robert Garry of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and evolutionary biologist Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, appeared before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic to categorically refute these claims.
Early in 2020, rumors began to circulate that SARS-CoV-2 was a Chinese bioweapon developed at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. Therefore, Andersen, Garry, and their co-authors examined the genomic data at hand to see if there were any indications of genetic engineering in the regions that encode the spike protein, which the virus uses to enter cells. In a commentary published in Nature Medicine1, the researchers stated that they” do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.” Nature Medicine and Nature Nature are editorially separate entities. The news team of nature is separate from the journal team.
The debate over the lab-leak hypothesis is renewed by a US COVID origins hearing.
Regarding the cause of the pandemic, the US intelligence community is divided. Nevertheless, the scientists maintained their initial assessment from