Dr. Alina Chan testifies that the lab leak is “more likely than not” and that “a genetically engineered virus is reasonable.”
QUICK FACTS:
- Dr. Chan, a specialist in gene therapy and cell engineering at MIT and Harvard who investigated the origins of SARS-CoV-2, testified before Parliament’s Science and Technology Select Committee.
- According to the Telegraph and other UK outlets, she said that “the lab origin is more likely than a natural origin,” and that “[r]ight now it’s not safe for people who know about the origin of the pandemic to come forward.”
DR. CHAN’S TESTIMONY:
- Regarding the possibility of genetic engineering, Dr. Chan says “[w]e have heard from many top virologists that a genetically engineered origin is reasonable, and that includes virologists who made modifications to the first SARS virus.”
- “We know this virus has a unique feature, called the furin cleavage site,” she continues, “and without this feature there is no way this would be causing this pandemic.”
- “A proposal was leaked showing that EcoHealth and the Wuhan Institute of Virology were developing a pipeline for inserting novel furin cleavage sites. So, you find these scientists who said in early 2018 ‘I’m going to put horns on horses,’ and at the end of 2019 a unicorn turns up in Wuhan city.”
- Viscount Ridley, who co-authored a book about the pandemic’s origins with Dr. Chan, said “after two months we knew the origins of SARS, and after a couple of months we knew MERS was through camels, but after two years we still haven’t found a single infected animal that could be the [SARS-CoV-2] progenitor, and that’s incredibly surprising.”
BACKGROUND:
- Dr. Chan has been active throughout the pandemic and believes “we live in an era where there is so much information being stored that [the truth] will eventually come out.”
- Though originally dismissed by many as conspiracy theory, the lab leak and genetic engineering arguments now gain traction in the mainstream.
