The Bias That Has Compromised Elite Science Reporting On The Covid Origins Story

Competing Narratives

There are three versions of the Covid origin story. All seem to agree that the disease first appeared in the city of Wuhan in central China. All accept that SARS-CoV-2 probably emerged initially as a mutation of a bat-borne coronavirus. They differ on the question of how the virus moved from its host species to humans.

The “Contamination” theory claims that the virus arrived in Wuhan in contaminated imported food products The Wuhan lab leak theory holds that Covid originated from either a wild virus or a partially engineered “gain of function” chimera which was the subject of research at the Wuhan Virology Institute The Wet-Market theory assumes the virus jumped from bats to an intermediate animal host, which was brought to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, where it first infected humans

Beijing’s official narrative prefers to locate the origin of the virus outside of China, and officials have sometimes supported the contamination scenario. Chinese scientists have studied “cold-chain food contamination” to explain at least some of the Covid outbreaks.

The consensus in the Western intelligence community and now in many policy-making circles is beginning to coalesce around the lab leak hypothesis. It has taken a while to gain traction, but the recognition that lab accidents are in fact quite common, in China and elsewhere, as well as an understanding of China’s poor track record in biosafety, along with indications of a lab security crisis of some sort in 2019 at the Wuhan Virology Institute, have increased the plausibility of an accident there as the source of the outbreak. Even the mainstream media has now shifted in support of this view. The Washington Post has just published an extensive review and investigation of the circumstantial evidence pointing to this “struggle with biosafety across China.” The article consolidates reports from many sources, and is highly recommended reading for anyone interested in the details supporting the lab leak scenario.

Oddly, however, the consensus in the scientific community has centered on the wet-market storyline.

Why? And why “oddly”?

The Bias for “Science” (vs. Reality)

There are several reasons why many researchers support the wet-market story.

First of all, the alternatives are unpalatable for many scientists. The contamination theory is scientifically implausible, and generally seen as quasi-propaganda or fake news. And the lab leak theory early on acquired negative political overtones – as a “debunked conspiracy theory,” associated with conservative policies and politicians, and perhaps with anti-Chinese bias.

Meanwhile, the zoonotic scenario (the term itself is a symbol of the adoption of a “scientistic” perspective) seemed the obvious default explanation. Previous epidemics (such as the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak) have been traced to viruses that crossed over from various species of bats to an intermediate animal host finally to humans. It was not unreasonable to assume that SARS-C0V-2 would prove to have a similar source, and in the beginning almost everyone in the scientific communityaccepted it as the default hypothesis.

But the three years on, the continued adherence to the zoonosis theory by so many researchers and public health officials is odd – because no evidence of an intermediate host species has been found, despite very extensive testing of thousands of animals.

“Researchers in China have tested around 30,000 wild, farmed and domestic animals, but they still hadn’t found any evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

It is odd for another reason. Science is supposed to be “objective” — which means evidence-driven. A hypothesis can start life “naked,” as an idea, a hunch even, without evidence. The real work of scientific research is to find or develop evidence that will confirm of disconfirm the hypothesis. The ultimate primacy of Fact over Theory is clear. Where evidence contradicts or fails to support theory, theory must give way.

This may not happen all at once, especially when the evidence is dispersed and contradictory. It is often a balancing act, weighing the evidence in favor of alternative hypotheses, which is the case here. However, as the lack of evidence for zoonosis has become clear, the relative weight of the real and hard (if circumstantial) evidence favoring the possibility of a lab leak origin should have received more attention.

Why did scientists not follow the evidence? The blindness may point to motives among some researchers to deflect attention from their involvement in dangerous research practices (gain of function).(We may refer to this as the Peter Daszak problem – in reference to the allegedly compromised researcher who led the early campaign to suppress the lab leak explanation.)

Or it may reflect a subconscious privileging of medical explanations over logistical/operational/bureaucratic explanations. We all turn first to the kind of hypotheses we are familiar with. Researchers who study epidemiology or viral genomics may prefer to look for causes in those fields, and may not know as much about the failure modes of bio-safety hardware or the flaws in China’s bureaucracy that may have impacted how labs there were run.

Or it may reflect simply a distaste for controversy. A zoonotic explanation would portray the Covid outbreak as an “act of god” — the fault of no one. The lab leak explanation would point to human failings: neglect, recklessness or incompetence. It would spur fault-finding, litigation, and calls for punishment or reparations. Much messier.

It will take time to reach a verdict on all this. The failure to find the animal intermediary for SARS-CoV2 has caused a gradual de-anchoring of parts of the scientific community from the wet-market scenario. But some of the leading sources for science news still cling to this increasingly untenable hypothesis.

The Organs of “Official Science” – Nature and Science

I have subscribed for decades to Science (the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science), and Nature (the British equivalent, now published by Springer). These are the elite general media channels for the scientific world. Science was launched in 1880, Nature in 1869. Science is ranked 27th in the top 100 journals for “impact factor.” Nature is ranked 21st. But this is misleading. All the higher-rated journals are specialized medical research publications, serving a narrow audience of active researchers. Science and Nature are much broader, and have a bigger role in shaping the public understanding of scientific research, and our view of “Science” in general. They publish research from all fields of scientific inquiry; they cover general science news, public policy, issues of the day; they include articles edited for the educated layman. They are typically the source for “science articles” published in the mainstream media like the New York Times. In sum, Science and Nature are the main channels by which the latest science news reaches the general public.

Over the years, I have become accustomed to the style of both journals. I have found them to be very valuable insofar as they stick with “the Science.” On contentious issues, from climate change or the effectiveness of crime control policies, to the health effects of salt intake or the efficacy of the latest Alzheimer treatments, questions of scientific “truth” call out for a solid and balanced factual foundation – which these journals provide. Usually.

Lately, however, I have seen a subtle drift in both journals, a drift away from scientific balance and critical objectivity. They have begun to make political endorsements, which has been criticized. The drift affects their reporting on a number of topics, but I notice it most with respect to one subject in particular: Covid, and especially the origins of Covid, and most especially, on China’s role in the Covid story.

The reporting in Nature and Science has generally reflected this preference for the wet-market zoonotic explanation. There are signs that they are resistant to the shifting balance of the evidence described above. More disturbingly, both journals seem to have succumbed to “headline journalism” – where a definitive-sounding headline fronts a rather less-than-definitive report that actually doesn’t align with the “breaking news.”

This is a problem because of the special role these two leading science journals play in the eco-system of public opinion and policy-making. Their shift is at risk of becoming a bias, which could contribute to the loss of confidence in science in general.

An Example

In February 2022, Nature ran a piece with the headline “Wuhan market was epicentre of pandemic’s start” – which sounds like an unqualified assertion of “fact.” But reading the article, we learn that:

“Scientists have released studies that reveal intriguing new clues about how the COVID-19 pandemic started.”

Intriguing clues? Not quite the same as “fact.”

The article continues:

“[The studies] suggest that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 spilled over from animals — possibly those sold at the market — to humans at least twice in November or December 2019. All are preprints, and so have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal.” [My emphasis here and throughout]

The qualifications accumulate.

“These analyses add weight to original suspicions that the pandemic began at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.”

The article quotes Kristian Andersen, one of the authors of the non-peer-reviewed study, who unsurprisingly tell us that:

“This is extremely strong evidence.”

But this is promptly controverted:

None of the studies contains definitive evidence about what type of animal might have harboured the virus before it spread to humans. Andersen speculates that the culprits could be raccoon dogs… adding a degree of speculation…researchers speculate…

So we’re down to suspicion and speculation.

The article winds up with a bit of cheerleading from various commentators: “This is as good as it gets.” “It’s a nice piece of work.” “You want to take this kind of thing seriously.” etc. etc.

The formula is this: Start with an unequivocal headline – which is probably all that most people will see, attached of course to the “as reported in Nature” credential – follow with a lot of hedging and speculation about “intriguing clues” and “suspicions,” then a quick acknowledgement that the evidence is not really definitive, and wrap up with a round of endorsements that sound like the blurbs on the back of the latest best-seller.

Meanwhile, the lab leak hypothesis is downplayed, a suspect “point of view” –

“Although there is no evidence to support it, the lab-leak idea remains popular among certain groups… bandied around… a series of conspiracy theories… in the US it is not super popular among the scientific community… there’s not a lot of evidence for it.” – From a Nature podcast (March 2021)

The Latest Wet-Market Story

Last month a new headline appeared in Science –

“Unearthed genetic sequences from China market may point to animal origin of COVID-19” – Science (March 16, 2023)

Reporting the same news, Nature told us that there was “new evidence supporting the hypothesis that SARS-CoV2 spilled over from an animal…[such as] a raccoon dog, Malayan porcupine, Amur hedgehog, masked palm civet or hoary bamboo rat.”

[Do the Chinese really eat all these things?]

This story was picked up by the mainstream press, eager to promote the new “evidence”:

“Researchers say newly posted analysis supports natural origin for Covid-19 pandemic.” – CNN headline (March 21, 2023) “Genetic evidence gives support to theory COVID originated in Wuhan market.” – PBS PBS Headline (March 17, 2023) “The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic” – The Atlantic headline (March 16, 2023) “Evidence builds that the virus emerged from a market.” – The New York Times (March 19 2023)

But was it “evidence”? Not really.

This new article follows the pattern of earlier Nature and Science pieces: an eye-catching China-friendly, “pro-Daszak” headline… followed by equivocations, presumably to show journalistic even-handedness.

Excerpts:

“The analysis provides evidence supporting the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 spilled over from animals to humans at the market, say some researchers. [But]“Of course, this is not direct evidence,” – says a virologist at the University of Hong Kong…”

Why not?

“Because all the animals have been eliminated from the market and we don’t have swabs of the animals.”

What? “Evidence” is supposed to be verifiable.

But if everything was destroyed years ago, how do we know about it now? Not from the Chinese.

“The swabs were collected in early 2020, after the market was shut down and cleared of animal products….The swabs were first mentioned in a preprint paper by George Gao former director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control (China CDC). Researchers have asked for those data to be made public on several occasions, without success.”

Despite the Chinese lack of cooperation, a record of the swabs was stumbled upon by…

“Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, who discovered the data almost by chance on the public data repository GISAID….”

But after this accidental discovery, the data disappeared again:

“Soon after the researchers downloaded the data, they disappeared from public view on GISAID. In an e-mail to Nature, a GISAID spokesperson said it does not delete records, but that contributors often update their records, which renders them ‘temporarily invisible’. The market-swab data ‘are currently being updated.’”

The “contributor” mentioned here is the Chinese government. GISAID is a Munich-based organization created to “share” genomic data related to the Covid virus and other viruses. (The history of its sharing procedures is interesting, “checkered” one might say, and not entirely clear as to its mission – but that is not the main point here.)

In nay case, the raccoon/hedgehog/bamboo-rat data may reappear later, “updated,” but if so, it will be restricted.

“Availability of the data was restored, with an additional restriction that any analysis based thereon would not be shared with the public.”

The Chinese, for their part, continued to stonewall.

“Débarre reached out to the China CDC to collaborate on the analysis, but the China CDC declined….Gao did not respond to Nature’s requests for comment.”

But the data don’t actually seem to constitute evidence of the sort suggested by the headline:

“The new study does not confirm whether the animals themselves were infected with the virus… ‘There is no data in this work associating SARS-CoV-2 with the presence of any of these animals’, says Justin Kinney, a quantitative biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. ‘These data do not provide a definitive answer to the question of how the pandemic began,’ said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO).’”

The integrity of the data is questionable:

“It is possible that the site was contaminated with SARS-CoV-2 RNA from other sources. ‘There is no evidence that the virus came from an infected raccoon dog; it could just as easily have come from an infected person,’ says Kinney.”

So, to summarize

A Chinese CDC study, three years ago, supposedly collects swabs from animals in the market. The animals are destroyed. The swabs are destroyed. The Chinese write up a report, which is not peer-reviewed, and is probably not capable of being peer reviewed because the data is not disclosed. Years later, a researcher in France accidentally discovers some of the data online. But that data then disappears. If it is restored, it will not be available “to the public.” The Chinese refuse to comment. The data that the French researcher stumbled on doesn’t actually show that the animals were infected. The swabs may have been contaminated. But since everything has been destroyed, there is no way to find out.

There are several vectors of irresponsibility here. The Chinese have never come clean about Covid-related data. And GISAID’s behavior is odd, to say the least. How could they allow the crucial data to “disappear” once its existence and potential importance was known? Why now put it under seal? How can anyone be sure that “updating” didn’t involve tampering, forging, deleting (the standard Chinese data processing techniques)?

But most surprising to me is the failure in Nature’s editorial policy. There is a detectable instinct, not just in this piece but in the past three years of coverage of this story, to promote the wet-market alibi. It is friendlier to China, and it is friendlier to some Western researchers. But it less and less likely to be true.

Is “Science” Tainted?

This is a serious problem. Nature and Science are preeminent in transmitting the results of scientific research to the broader media and the general public. The presumption of their objectivity is important, and it is important to people who do not read and may have never heard of Nature and Science, but who read the science sections of the New York Times and the like. These venerable journals play a unique and important role in shaping the public’s concept of “science.” When they start doing headline journalism, they drift closer to the click-bait artists who run the Cable news channels.

The editors at these journals should adhere to their traditional standards. Data is not evidence, until it has been verified, and if it can’t be verified (because it has been destroyed or “updated”), it should not be called evidence.

The sad truth about Covid origins is that almost nothing now is verifiable. Maybe some future Chinese version of Edward Snowden will escape with a suitcase full of hard drives, and we’ll find out what really happened in Wuhan. Hopefully, Nature and Science will report it properly.