Virus doubts hanging over two US labs

Transparent probe requires full access to Fort Detrick, college, envoy points out

Editor's note: Chen Xu, China's permanent representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, has called for a "transparent investigation" into two laboratories in the United States as part of a study into the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19. Chen made the call in a letter sent to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Tuesday. The full text of two non-papers submitted with the letter follows:

Doubtful Points about Fort Detrick (US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease)

Fort Detrick, where the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease, or USAMRIID, is located, is the center of US bio-military activities and notorious for its illegal, nontransparent and unsafe practices. Serious concerns have long been raised by the international community over US activities at Fort Detrick, in particular about USAMRIID, and there are many doubtful points about its connections with COVID-19.

1. Fort Detrick was the center of the US biological weapons program in history and USAMRIID was the main research entity there. Fort Detrick was known as the center of the US government's darkest experiments. It remains the development center for US germ warfare research, even after US renouncement of all offensive biological weapons programs in 1969 and ratification of the Biological Weapons Convention in 1975.

2. The BSL-4 lab in USAMRIID is the only BSL-4 lab of the US military.

USAMRIID stores almost all known deadly pathogens, such as Ebola, anthrax, smallpox, plague, and coronaviruses including SARS. Several staff in USAMRIID have conducted researches related to SARS, MERS and other coronaviruses. Back in 2003, after the SARS outbreak, USAMRIID worked with Ralph Baric's team from the University of North Carolina, or UNC, and developed a novel reverse genetic system for manipulation of a full-length cDNA of the SARS-CoV, and relevant outcomes were published in a paper in 2003. According to the paper, within two months after obtaining the RNA of the SARS virus, the full-length cDNA of the virus was successfully synthesized. This shows that as early as 2003, these institutes already had the advanced capabilities to synthesize and modify SARS-related coronaviruses. In 2007, USAMRIID published a paper in the Journal of Virology about using the Ebola virus to conduct animal testing on rhesus monkeys. The virus strains used in the experiments were obtained through reverse genetics techniques, to specifically remove the furin cleavage site, in order to compare the changes in virulence of the viruses. It is worth noting that the furin cleavage site is believed to be one of the reasons that makes SARSCoV-2 highly virulent. In 2018, USAMRIID carried out experiments on African green monkeys. The monkeys were experimentally infected with MERS-CoV to help study viral pathogenesis and develop vaccines. After COVID-19 broke out, USAMRIID and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, a research institute affiliated to the US Army Medical Research and Development Command, codeveloped the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.