Situation Report: Fallout from evolving Wuhan lab accident story could profoundly alter US China policy

From the beginning of COVID-19’s impact on the United States, the origins of the virus and the vector of the initial outbreak have been the topic of heated debate. Until recently, the “lab accident theory” – that the virus was under study or manipulation at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and escaped via infecting its staff – had been considered off limits. It had been mocked and marginalized by corporate media, denied by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and downplayed by Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

On Wednesday, as evidence mounted and pressure to investigate grew, the New York Post reported that the Biden administration had in fact ended a previously undisclosed State Department inquiry into the lab leak hypothesis that had been launched by the Trump administration in Fall 2020. Responding to pressure, President Biden asked the intelligence community to “redouble their efforts” to bring the U.S. closer to a “definitive conclusion” on the origins of COVID-19, saying that opinion in the intelligence community was divided between the animal to human theory and the lab accident theory, with more believing the former.

The defunct State Department probe, conducted by the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, unearthed disturbing information before it was shut down. A fact sheet issued at the closing of the Trump administration in January noted that researchers at Wuhan got seriously ill with “symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and seasonal illness.”

David Asher who led the probe said, “There is probable cause for deep suspicion” that the virus escaped from lab in Wuhan and that “some of our colleagues were deliberately playing down possible links to China’s biological weapons program.” He noted that countries like China “openly aim to incorporate synthetic biology into the future of warfare, apparently with our naïve material and scientific assistance.”

Republicans are calling for additional oversight and accountability, with Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) calling for an independent “credible” investigation. At a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Cotton questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) about a $600,000 grant that went from the NIAID – through a go-between – to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study the risk that bat coronaviruses could infect humans. When Senator John Kennedy grilled Fauci about the grounding of the State Department probe, Fauci claimed that “we did not spike it, we have no influence… it had nothing to do with the NIH.” Kennedy parried, “you’re their experts, they didn’t consult you?” One of Fauci’s fellow witnesses responded, “I read about it in the press this morning.”

The lab accident theory has evolved from marginalized conspiracy theory to a serious inquiry. If it is proved true, the Chinese scientific establishment and therefore the Chinese Communist Party should be held accountable for one of the worst human and economic catastrophes in modern times.

This could be devastating to the credibility of Fauci, the NIH, the NIAID and the Biden administration’s COVID-19 policy. It raises questions about the Biden administration’s seriousness in confronting the profound military and economic challenges the U.S. is facing tied to China’s rise as a world power.