OPINION:
Lab accidents are shockingly common. One investigation identified 450 accidents just in U.S. laboratories working with dangerous pathogens from 2015 through 2019. A Wuhan lab-leak origin for the COVID-19 pandemic is not far-fetched.
There have been COVID-19-related accidents in animal labs since the pandemic began, too. In April 2020 a University of North Carolina experimenter was bitten by a mouse infected with a genetically engineered strain of SARS-CoV-2. And in November 2021 an animal experimenter in Taiwan contracted a breakthrough case of COVID-19 after being exposed to the delta variant in her animal lab. These are just the incidents that have been identified, reported and covered in the news.
Now experts from Harvard and elsewhere suggest that the unique fingerprints of omicron might point to a lab origin as well.
It’s entirely possible that a lab leak not only caused the pandemic, but made it much worse. Congress must crack down on treacherous pathogen animal experiments before they cause another pandemic.
JUSTIN GOODMAN
Vice president, Advocacy and Public Policy
White Coat Waste Project
Washington
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