The Covid ‘lab leak' theory isn't just a rightwing conspiracy – pretending that's the case is bad for science

The Guardian

5 days ago

More than five years after the Covid-19 pandemic was declared, its origins remain a subject of intense – and often acrimonious – debate among scientists and the wider public. There are two broad, competing theories. The natural-origins hypotheses suggest the pandemic began when a close relative of Sars-CoV-2 jumped from a wild animal to a human through the wildlife trade. In contrast, proponents of lab-leak theories argue that the virus emerged when Chinese scientists became infected through research-associated activities.
A perplexing aspect of the controversy is that prominent scientists continue to publish studies in leading scientific journals that they say provide compelling evidence for the natural-origins hypotheses. Yet rather than resolving the issue, each new piece of evidence seems to widen the divide further.
In many parts of the world, including the US, France and Germany, public opinion is increasingly shifting towards lab-leak theories, despite the lack of definitive evidence. In other words, a growing number of people believe that research-associated activities are just as likely, if not more so, to have caused the pandemic.
A new documentary by the Swiss film-maker Christian Frei, titled Blame: Bats, Politics and a Planet Out of Balance, places the blame for this divide squarely on the so-called 'rightwing fever swamp', including the likes of Steve Bannon and Fox News. According to Frei, it promotes misinformation and conspiracy theories about the origins of Covid-19 for political gain, thereby confusing and misleading the public.
As a participant in the film and a journalist who has spent the past five years writing a book on the origins of emerging diseases, I must respectfully disagree.
At its core, the controversy is not a left-right issue, but a symptom of deeply entrenched public distrust of science. By framing it along the political divide – and by cherrypicking extreme examples to suit its narrative, the documentary does a disservice to the public interest.
This is not to deny that the question of the pandemic's origins has been politicised from the outset. It was indeed challenging for left-leaning scholars such as the biosafety expert Filippa Lentzo of King's College London to speak openly about the plausibility of lab-leak scenarios, because they risked being perceived as aligning with a rightwing agenda.
However, many outspoken left-leaning researchers like Lentzos have been key drivers of lab-leak theories. While researching my book, I encountered numerous credible and well-respected experts on emerging diseases who also believe the question of Covid-19 origins is far from settled. Their views are grounded in decades of professional expertise.
Far from a rightwing fever swamp, these scholars have lent scientific legitimacy to the debate. They are not convinced that the studies published in leading scientific journals supporting natural-origins theories are as compelling as the authors have claimed. Plus the studies are based on limited data as a result of China's lack of transparency and limited political will to investigate, making significant uncertainties unavoidable.
Few people would claim with absolute certainty to know how the pandemic began. Both sides are gathering evidence to support their case, yet neither can fully rule out the possibility put forward by the other. This lack of clarity is not unlike what we see with most emerging diseases. For instance, we still don't know how the devastating Ebola outbreak in west Africa began in 2014.
The core issue behind the Covid-19 origins controversy is fundamentally a crisis of trust rather than a mere information problem. It reflects longstanding public anxieties over virus research. Strong emotions such as fear and distrust play a crucial role in human cognition. Simply presenting more facts doesn't always lead to a converging of opinions – and can sometimes even widen the divide.
Indeed, the storm of public distrust in virus research had been gathering long before the pandemic. In 2011, two research teams sparked public outcry by announcing the creation of more transmissible variants of H5N1 (bird flu). This led to a pause in US federal funding for research that makes viruses more transmissible or virulent, known as gain-of-function studies, and the establishment of a new regulatory framework.
However, a profound sense of unease persisted, driven by the perception that virologists, funding agencies and research institutions had failed to sufficiently address public concerns and anxieties, coupled with a lack of transparency and inclusiveness in decision-making. The Covid-19 origins controversy sailed straight into the middle of this brewing storm.
Did the virus originate from the kind of gain-of-function research that critics had long warned about? How might even the slightest possibility of this have influenced the behaviours of virologists, funding agencies and research institutions – prompting them to protect their reputations and preserve political backing?
Some scientists assert evidence supporting natural-origins hypotheses with excessive confidence and show little tolerance for dissenting views. They have appeared eager to shut down the debate, repeatedly and since early 2020. For instance, when their work was published in the journal Science in 2022, they proclaimed the case closed and lab-leak theories dead. Even researchers leaning towards natural origins theories, such as virus ecologist Vincent Munster of Rocky Mountains Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, told me they lamented that some of their colleagues defend their theories like a religion'.
No one embodies the crisis of trust in science more than Peter Daszak, the former president of EcoHealth Alliance. A series of missteps on his part has helped to fuel public distrust. In early 2020, for instance, he organised a statement by dozens of prominent scientists in the Lancet, which strongly condemned 'conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin', without disclosing his nearly two-decade collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a conflict of interest.
Similarly, he denies that his own collaboration with the Wuhan lab involved gain-of-function research, even though Shi Zhengli – the Chinese scientist who led the bat-borne coronavirus studies – has openly acknowledged that the lab's work produced at least one genetically modified virus more virulent than its parental strain. (That work is not directly relevant to the origins of Covid-19.)
The documentary claims that attacks on EcoHealth Alliance and the spread of lab-leak conspiracy theories have fuelled distrust in science. In reality, it's the other way round: public distrust in science, fuelled by the unresolved H5N1 gain-of-function controversy and by lack of transparency and humility from scientists such as Daszak, has driven scepticism and increased support for lab-leak theories.
Such errors of judgment and inappropriate behaviour, not uncommon among scientists and not limited to the Covid-19 origins debate, can affect how the public perceives scientists and the trustworthiness of their claims, and how people interpret evidence.
As the social scientist Benjamin Hurlbut of Arizona State University puts it: the problem isn't an anti-science public, but rather a scientific community that labels a sceptical public grappling with legitimate trust issues as anti-science or conspiracy theorists.
A recent Science editorial states that 'scientists should better explain the scientific process and what makes it so trustworthy'. This reflects the persistent influence of the traditional 'deficit model' of science communication, which assumes that trust can be built by providing mere information. But the public's relationship with science goes beyond understanding facts or methods.
Trust cannot be manufactured on demand. It must be cultivated over time through transparency, accountability, humility and relationship-building. Scientists must do more to earn it.
Jane Qiu is an award-winning independent science writer in Beijing. The reporting was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center