Why the COVID lab-leak theory in Wuhan shouldn’t be dismissed

As members of a World Health Organization expert team have made international headlines recently dismissing as extremely unlikely the possibility that a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China, could have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic, I can t stop thinking of the hundreds of lab accidents that are secretly occurring just in the United States.

As an investigative reporter, I have spent more than a decade revealing shocking safety breaches that officials at laboratories in our own country don t want the public to know about.

I have uncovered exotic and deadly bacteria that have hitched rides out of high-security labs on workers dirty clothing, silently spreading contagion for weeks. I have revealed how spacesuit-like protective gear and tubes carrying safe oxygen to scientists have torn or broken repeatedly and high-tech safety systems have failed dramatically. Vials of viruses and bacteria have gone missing. Researchers bitten by infected lab animals have been allowed to move about in public rather than being quarantined while waiting for signs of infection to appear.

These and similar safety lapses are happening with disturbing regularity at elite U.S. labs operated by government agencies, the military, universities and private firms. There is no reason to believe they aren t happening at labs in other countries as well.

via www.usatoday.com