 Greetings to everybody. We'll get started in just a minute people are just entering the room and we'll let people enter the room and then we will begin And welcome to everybody. It's a Jeff Sax here. We'll we'll get started shortly The room is still filling with participants and so we'll give people time to Enter the room get settled have your coffee and and then and then we'll get we'll get started Greetings to everybody Welcome to this webinar On the Lancet COVID-19 Commission report. We're going to have three webinars that follow up on the report today is on the question of the origin of the pandemic and More specifically really the origin of the virus SARS-CoV-2 That is the pathogen that cause this pandemic on November 21st at the same hour that is 8 to 10 Eastern time 8 to 10 a.m We'll have a session on global health finance Which is a major theme of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission and on December 8 We'll have a webinar on health system Strengthening which is also a major theme of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission so today the focus is on the question of the origins of the virus. This is a big issue first, of course, we're experiencing the worst the pandemic in modern times and The origins are important to understand but also the question of origins is crucial for the understanding of how to prevent future pandemics as well and so this is not only a Historical question what just happened to us in the world a Pandemic that has claimed 18 million deaths worldwide by current estimates But how do we prevent this from happening in the future? Let me give you just a couple of minutes of background about the Lancet Commission itself the Lancet Journal Hosts commissions on major themes of public health and it has been doing this for many many years and these commissions I have played a major role in helping to Explain to the broad public and the policy community the the best knowledge on various facets of public health So it was a great honor and a big responsibility for me to be asked by the editor of the Lancet Richard Horton to chair a commission on the pandemic and We decided to launch this commission in mid 2020 I was kind of hoping the pandemic would be over a year after Maybe two years after now we're more than two years running and we're still very much in the midst of this pandemic but we decided that the Lancet COVID-19 Commission would not be a lifetime enterprise but would draw to a close at the time of the UN General Assembly this year in 2022 when we released the report it's available on the Lancet website and on the COVID-19 Commission website on September 14th 2022 the idea of the commission from the start was to give real-time advice and understanding about this burgeoning pandemic But also we hope to draw lessons more generally for the world on how to finish up this pandemic and how to take steps following this pandemic for future preparedness and more generally just a better and healthier and more prosperous world Alas the the report is it's it's not It's not a happy report It is a report mostly a failure rather than success We don't know how many people have died so far The official count is something like seven million depending on whose official numbers you're using the estimates that try to include the unreported cases of death but that aren't counted and therefore involve modeling assumptions are around 18 million that's a disaster and a huge tragedy and of course the pandemic continues and we remain highly vulnerable to new variants of SARS-CoV-2 Well today we're talking about how this started and what we know about the origin of the virus Also the question when exactly did it start the answer is we don't know and the conclusion of the Lancet commission Is that there are two absolutely viable hypotheses Neither has been fully investigated The idea that there's one Story which is overwhelmingly likely to be true is not right. There are two possible origins of this virus and they the fact that there are two possible origins not only Tells us a lot about what needs to be investigated To do better to ascertain what really happened But it means that we have two kinds of risks for the future also and Those absolutely both need to be faced now I could just Say that in our key findings, I'll quote at the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 remains unknown There are two leading hypotheses That the virus emerged as a zoonotic spillover from wildlife or a farm Animal possibly through a wet market that the Huanan market has been pointed to In a location that is still undetermined Or that the virus emerged from a research related incident During the field collection of viruses or through a laboratory associated escape So this is the first point that two Very distinct hypotheses are present In our key recommendations, we say WHO governments and the scientific community should intensify The search for the origins of SARS-CoV-2 Investigating both a possible zoonotic origin and a possible research associated origin The search for origins requires unbiased independent transparent and rigorous work By international teams and virology epidemiology bioinformatics and other related fields And we say further in our recommendations. We call for a dual track to prevent future emerging infectious diseases To prevent natural spillovers governments should coordinate on the global surveillance and regulation of domestic animals and wild animal trade And take stronger measures against dangerous practices to prevent research related spillovers WHO should be given new oversight authority Regarding the biosafety biosecurity and bioresk management of national and international research programs that are engaged in the collection testing and genetic manipulation Potentially dangerous pathogens Very interestingly just in the last couple of weeks researchers at boston university Showed Made through gain of function research that is a manipulation in the laboratory Ate more dangerous pathogen than the omicron variant They mixed and matches parts from the omicron virus and parts from the original so-called Wuhan variant of SARS-CoV-2 and When this came out NIH itself the us oversight agency that actually funds these labs in part said whoa You didn't even tell us about this research apparently It was unsupervised and unapproved and the university Rather sniped back saying no, we don't have to tell you we we decided on this it kind of illustrated the situation that we are in in the world with regard to the Absolutely remarkable Advances in The technologies of genetic manipulation and the fact that not maybe not surprisingly The regulatory oversight lags far behind the realities of this kind of dangerous research well We as a commission Heard from many many scientists reviewed the records and like the whole Almost all the scientific community. I should say but much of it You can't really Determine one way or another between the research related Spillover and the natural origins spillover and therefore it's crucial Both in the investigation and in the follow-up regulatory Implications that both of these lines of possibility Be followed It is concerning though that we have not had a proper public understanding of these two different possibilities From the start. I think it's right to say that While both have been heatedly debated most of the mainstream media has gone with the Natural origins hypothesis and a lot of the alternative media have gone with the laboratory Associated or the research associated Range but we have not had the open public Discussion and understanding of this A senator recently senator burg issued His own report saying that in his Conclusion and his staff's conclusion. He put a lot of weight on a laboratory release as a possibility Others have taken a different view the purpose of today's meeting is to have A kind of airing of the issues of a Broad discussion of the issues the way we're going to do it is we're going to hear from Two leading scientists that have been looking at this from the start And then one of the leading reporters that has been covering this Siduously from the very start They're each going to present from 10 to 15 minutes of their perspectives on this Then we're going to open it up for the Some of the commissioners of the lancet covid commission that are on this call And then during this process, I would encourage everybody that's listening to Send in questions and you can do that by the chat function or by the q&a Function, there are a number of reporters that are on the line I would hope that they would raise questions certainly There's a lot of the public online Of course, we're recording this so that I anticipate it will be very widely watched by thousands tens of thousands of people in the coming days And so we'll have a very very Interesting discussion of these issues and without further ado. We're going to hear from Two scientists who have been Watching this very closely And have been writing about it extensively and I would say following every twist and turn Of this saga from the earliest days The first is alina chan Who is a researcher In synthetic biology vector engineering and medical genetics at the brode Institute of mit and harvard and she wrote a wonderful book about the pandemic That has a great couple of chapters where An advocate speaks on one side an advocate speaks on the other side so that the reader can hear a fantastic Debate between these two possibilities but Dr. Chan has continued to look in Incredible detail at every aspect of the evidence Of the genome itself of saras kov2 of the research environment of the Nature of the investigations that have been carried out to date. So let's start with dr. Alina chan and Next i'll introduce the the speakers the next speakers after that so Alina, thank you so much for for being Part of this webinar today, which I think is extremely important for helping people to Understand what this debate is all about Thanks for inviting me to this panel So I have two things to say first before I get into my slides So the first thing is that the science has been clear since day one That we just don't know that there is not enough evidence to say that one hypothesis is plausible and the other is not plausible So up till today the available evidence is all circumstantial. None of it is definitive or dispositive None of it is direct evidence of a natural or lab origin and so the second thing i'll say is that This this issue has become more about politics unfortunately over the last almost three years now And as the death toll has risen, I think the stakes have gotten higher and higher And so I think that there are many Scientists and virologists and journalists who are rightly afraid that if they dig too deep We're going to find out that this pandemic started from research activities and it's going to implicate whole coalition of scientists So not just scientists in china But scientists in the us who funded collaborated with this work Scientists across southeast asia who who helped collaborate it and sent samples up to this land in Wuhan So this this issue here is not about that one scientist make a oopsie in Wuhan and cause a pandemic This question is like Is is there you know community of dozens possibly hundreds of scientists all conducting this type of high risk virology research who might suddenly find themselves? Blamed for this pandemic and and so much easier to point to this nameless voiceless wildlife trader in the market and one and say this person caused a pandemic because then we we don't have to blame anybody And we we don't actually have to do anything. We don't have to regulate our research. There's no motivation. There's no incentive to drive Change to drive safer and more transparent research So with that said i'm going to dive in into the slides and then hopefully they are helpful to everyone here So i'm assuming you can see my slides so that uh Everyone can see my slides. Okay. Yes. We see them. We see them clearly Okay. Thank you. Uh, so So I'll say this about the origin. There's there's almost no dispute That the ancestral origin of this virus the pandemic virus came from bats at some point that the far Distant ancestor of this virus must have come from bats at some point But the question really is how did those how did that bat virus end up in humans in 2019? and there are two types of spill overs natural versus lab and they are Descent this way because the ways to prevent such a natural or lab Spill overs, uh, it matters how it the virus got from bats to humans So the natural spill overs scenarios are where you have intermediate holes So this is this is the favorite hypothesis is that from bats it jumps to an animal That's more similar to humans adepts there and then jumps to humans gains the ability to jump from the animal to humans and causes an outbreak So this Possibly could have happened in uhan through the wildlife trade through animals like these that were sold in uhan Uh, another natural spill over scenario is where a person in their non-research related activities Is exposed to bats. So this could be someone who is mining for guano in the cave Or local villager or someone who has a lot of interfacing with bats and gets that virus And somehow it's enough to trigger an outbreak. So somehow that virus although it came from bats Already had the ability to transmit and cause a human outbreak Or circulate in humans for a while before jumping into into a larger population in uhan, let's say In the lab scenarios, this one is actually very similar to the to this natural spill overs scenario But instead of a cave miner or a local villager It's a scientist who's out there collecting samples from animals or people living in these communities from the wildlife trade Let's say and through that the scientist goes to a city where it ignites an outbreak So these two scenarios are really difficult to to differentiate And you can only tell the difference by contact tracing by knowing who the earliest cases were And seeing who was the person was exposed to these animals and brought it into the city The last scenario in the lab category is the one that's very controversial because it involves this new New arena of science where where scientists have now Gained such techniques that they can seamlessly construct synthesized engineer Recombine splice all these words like to to to recreate different viruses that might have pandemic potential and It's possible that during research, especially if you're not doing at the appropriate biosafety level Or you didn't know that you created a pandemic pathogen You could have an accident and that can be carried out into the human population Let's say in a city where that lab is located. So The reason why it's been so difficult in the last almost three years to tell how the virus came to humans in Wuhan is because As you can see a virus that comes through this arm could look exactly like a virus that comes through this arm It looks it looks perfectly natural. It doesn't have to have any signs of lab engineering and and the problem is also that With today's technology modified pathogens can have no patterns or signs of a genetic tinkering So that there's no like aha this person signed there like John Hancock on this virus So it No, no amount of machine learning can can tell you whether or not this uh, this virus was engineered Unless unless the person deliberately put signs in there that the engineer that and then told everyone that I engineered this virus Okay, so let's look at the evidence that's available and again. I just want to remind it's all circumstantial Not just the Lancet commission, but even the wHO sargo team the scientific advisory group for origins of novel pathogens And the u.s intelligence community and and many scientists all say that we don't know We need to gather more evidence before we can reach a dispositive or a strong conclusion about where this virus came from So if you look at natural evidence natural origin evidence, there are some key pieces of evidence that Scientists and investigators would be looking for when tracking a novel pathogen So the first thing is seeing whether the earliest cases were interfacing with live animals and in the case of SARS-CoV-2 You could argue that that's possible that because the earliest cluster the largest cluster known Was at this wildlife market in Wuhan that some of these earliest cases might have been exposed to live animals The problem here is that by the time the Market was investigated a lot of these vendors were not vendors who were Sellers of wildlife. So they were like shrimp vendors selling like domestic goods frozen cold chain products And the whole market was covered. So this this market the size of 10 NFL football stadiums It was just plastered with virus by the time the local CDC and the Beijing CDC arrived to the sample So in this case, we just don't know whether the earliest cases had been exposed to live animals It could very easily have been a person who brought it into this very crowded and contaminated space and it spread the virus everywhere So another piece of evidence that people look for is infected animals at the markets or at the farms in the supply chain So this is again also missing for SARS-CoV-2. So some will argue that yeah But when the investigators arrived at the market, there were no live animals or that's what they reported That there were no live mammals specifically that could have been the intermediate host so So then the question is really did they go back to the farms to the supply chain and according to the investigators They did some of that but they still didn't find it so Again, it's just emphasizing that the absence of evidence is not evidence against a natural origin I'm just saying that just look at this the available evidence is very weak and a lot of key evidence is missing so Next you look for animal variants of the virus So presumably if a virus is very transmissible and can jump easily from species to species like SARS-1 or SARS-CoV-2 You'd expect to find many animals infected that virus to show signs of this virus having spread in the wildlife trade And and these would be almost like 99 plus percent matches to the human outbreak virus So these were easily found for SARS-1 and MERS, but Till today, we have not seen any of these for SARS-CoV-2 As an original source so so not counting the ones where a human has clearly given it to minks in Denmark Or or to deer in the u.s. But we cannot find any original animal variants of this virus And another piece of evidence is antibody serological evidence of infected animals or traders So these were again very quickly found for SARS-1 and MERS But not found for SARS-CoV-2. So the question is Were were any of these tests done and and that's really open question Unfortunately was not addressed by the WHO China investigation last year And lastly once you have established many of these key evidences You want to see whether there is a strong wildlife conduit between the known bed reservoir and the outbreak site so For SARS-1 actually it took it took a decade to go and find the bed reservoir And then the scientists there said yes They they knew there was a wildlife trade between that place in Yunnan Where there were farms growing cervids and sending them directly to Guangdong where a lot of cervids been consumed But in the case of SARS-CoV-2 the opposite is true. So we already know the bed reservoir We already know where the closest relatives are like a 97 percent match These are in Yunnan in south china and south southeast asia and laos So we know where these bed reservoirs are but we don't know how An animal would have gotten from there to Wuhan. So again, it could have been through the small wildlife trade They went up there or it could have been through researchers who were sampling these areas and bringing samples back up into Wuhan So none of these key evidence have been established for SARS-2 and that is why in my opinion It's too early to say that we know that the market is the only plausible hypothesis. That's that's just wrong There isn't enough evidence to support that And and I think it's it's premature to say that's the only one that should be considered widely disseminated in the media or investigated So let's look at the lab origin. What what is the circumstantial evidence that exists for lab origin? So there's in Wuhan the headquarters of virus hunting And this was an expensive program targeting animals and humans So not just animals like bats and animals in wildlife trade But even people people who live near these caves and were in the wildlife trade They wanted to find sick people and sick animals sample them and take those samples up from eight countries including china To uhan and and this lab was very unique. So this as far as I know This is the only lab that that that's all these activities which i'm going to go through and this is why This striking coincidence compels us to look into a lab origin of this work Uh, this lab had also found and developed SARS to like An interest in studying SARS to like viruses by 2013. So several years even before the pandemic They had learned at once virus isolation and seamless cloning from collaborators in the us They had also developed it on their own. So they were really doing some cutting-edge work in this lab Uh, worryingly though, they they underestimated the dangers of some of these virus So they worked with the live virus Not at the highest biosafety They weren't doing all this in bsl4 because it would be very expensive and difficult to do this work at that level But they were doing it at biosafety level two and three. So two different types of lab spaces Where we know that SARS-CoV-2 Is really difficult to contain. So SARS-CoV-2 definitely cannot be contained by a bsl2 Which which cannot protect you against airborne SARS like virus and bsl3 we've seen instances Like in in taiwan where unfortunately at this top bsl3 lab human error led to a young double vaccinated worker Getting infected and exposing 100 people before they realized that the virus had leaked from the lab And lastly there is this Research proposal that was leaked last year In september of last year Describing this cleavage site insertion program that was pitched by both the uhan scientists and their collaborators in the us So they had this idea. They said what what happens if we stop putting these rare and normal cleavage sites these features Into a weak SARS virus in the lab. So they don't specify which Cleavage sites they had seen they don't specify what SARS like viruses they have in their lab But they say why don't we take a weak one and we put a cleavage site in there so we can understand How this might cause a pathogen to have a human infection potential So again, none of these are definitive, but they are very concerning So i i'm gonna end here and i'm very interested in answering questions from the audience today and the lancid commissioners Because there are ways to investigate both natural and lab origin and and some of these don't even require us to go into china A lot of the investigation can be done outside of china So i hope that today we'll be able to reach some ideas On practical steps to move forward Thank you, alina. Thank you very much Wonderful and and very clear and let's go into that question of how to Investigate these different pathways more deeply and what we could learn in the us And what we could learn in china and what kind of information we need To develop further. So our next speaker is professor Richard ebright And he is the board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology at rutgers university And he's the laboratory director at the waxman institute of microbiology He's been watching this extremely closely And has been involved in these questions about The laboratory study of pathogens for a long time So i know that richard has a lot to say and a lot to teach us. Thank you richard for for being here Are you able to see my screen? Yes, we are Very good So i'd like to concur with dr sacks and dr chan on the key points I will resummarize those same key points and then speak to steps that should be taken next So with respect to our current status as you've heard from Both dr sacks and dr chan the available scientific data and by that I mean the sequence of the viral genome The properties of the virus and the epidemiology of the disease Those data do not enable a choice between or even assigning relative probabilities to natural spillover Versus research related spillover The available other data These include the research performed by the wuhan institute of virology and its collaborator and funder eco health alliance in 2016 to 2019 to 2018 The research that was proposed by wuhan institute of virology and eco health in 2018 in 2019 And the inadequate biosafety protections used by wuhan institute of virology and eco health alliance in 2016 to 2019 And finally the lack of transparency by wuhan institute of virology and eco health after the start of the pandemic These features point to but by no means prove research related spillover I'd like to just briefly summarize what those Available other data are first with respect to the research performed by the research team in 2016 to 2018 The researchers performed two categories of high risk research one of those was virus discovery research in wildlife, which as you've heard involves collecting samples intensively In areas that are remote and rarely accessed returning those samples to a laboratory and Characterizing viruses or virus nucleic acid sequences in the samples characterizing viruses For their ability to infect human cells Their ability to replicate in human cells and for their ability to infect laboratory animals That was one category of high risk research A second category of high risk research performed by the research team in 2016 to 2018 Was virus gain of function research or enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research This category of research involves starting with a natural virus discovered in the first program of research and then modifying that virus in ways that potentially Could increase ability to infect human cells to replicate in human cells and to infect and Uh cause pathogenesis in laboratory animals that research included Uh, constructing novel chimeras or hybrids of viruses that combine the spike gene of one Batsars related coronavirus with the rest of the genetic information of another batsars related coronavirus It involved constructing such chimeras that were found to have greater than 10 000 fold increases in viral growth And greater than four fold increases in lethality Uh in mice engineered to display human receptors for SARS like viruses Uh and other high risk activity. So this is research that we know was performed in 2016 to 2018 We know it was performed in Wuhan because the research was published in scientific journals and because progress reports for the research Which was performed with NIH funding have been released under FOIA lawsuit We next turn to the research that was proposed by the research team in 2018 to 2019 We know about the proposals because a proposal for renewal of an NIH grant for the research was submitted in 2018 and awarded in 2019 and a proposal Uh for a second line of funding for expansion of the research was submitted to Uh the defense advanced research projects agency DARPA in 2018 Uh this research that was proposed by the research team included a large-scale expansion of the program of high risk virus discovery in wildlife and an expansion of the program of high risk virus gain of function research Including the construction of additional novel chimeric SARS related coronaviruses that combine the spike gene of one With the rest of the genetic information of another Also the construction of novel consensus SARS related coronaviruses that use the sequence of multiple natural viruses to generate and if you will average sequence that represents the shared features of the group And the insertion of protease cleavage sites including furing cleavage sites at the spike gene s1 s2 border Precisely the point where a furing cleavage site is present uniquely among its group of viruses in SARS-CoV-2 Then we turn to the inadequate bio safety protections that were used by the research team in 2016 to 2019 shockingly All of the virus discovery research and almost all of the virus gain of function research was performed at biosafety level two This is a biosafety standard that cannot provide effective protection against the virus that has The transmission properties of SARS-CoV-2 This is a biosafety standard such that if researchers are using this and encounter a virus with those transmission properties They likely will become infected and therefore likely will be able to leave the lab and transmit that infection to others So all of the research short of research on experimental animals was performed at biosafety level two In many cases with lapses even in biosafety level two set standards such as the failure to wear sufficient protective equipment The only research was performed at a higher standard was research with experimental animals and that was performed at biosafety level three uh None of the research at the 100s new virology on that SARS related coronaviruses were performed at the higher level of biosafety Biosafety level four, which is generally shown in in images of laboratories performing research of this Finally, we have the lack of transparency by the research team Uh, I would simply point out here that the simplest way to close consideration of the matter Would have been to be transparent and forthcoming and to open the books The research team has not done that and that lack of transparency arguably has prominent value So overall, I believe the totality of the evidence considering both the available scientific data Which are inconclusive and the available other data which by themselves also are inconclusive the totality of the evidence meets And exceeds the standard of probable cause that would provide basis to initiate investigation An investigation must be performed An investigation needs to be performed in order to go beyond the available data to obtain the data that have not yet been released I would also argue that the totality of the evidence provides and exceeds the standard Required to improve oversight to take steps to reduce risks of recurrence So turning to what those next steps would be the first crucial step is to initiate a comprehensive Independent forensic investigation of origins of covid-19 pursuing lines of evidence both inside china and outside china And I think that last point is crucial The virus entered human populations in wuhan in hubei province in china But there are lines of evidence outside china that need to be investigated that have not been investigated The research that I summarized was funded by the united states government It was funded by the united states agency for international development. It was funded by the nih And it was funded by other us agencies The research also was performed in collaboration with a us private organization equal health alliance which Provided funding cooperation collaboration and co-authorship on research papers And the research in part was performed in collaboration with other laboratories in the united states Therefore, there are records. There are records on hard drives. There are records in files There are records in memories of persons who were involved in the funding and in the collaboration in the united states which would be available for and independent forensic investigation And that could be accessed without the cooperation without the need for cooperation of china It is remarkable that such an investigation has not yet occurred and that these Documents and records have not yet been assessed that needs to occur Moving beyond that it is time to take the next steps to prevent future Uh spill overs both natural and research related and this can be undertaken before knowing and without knowing The full facts regarding the current pandemic and its origin We should restrict by that. I mean reduce the amount of and regulate by that I mean increase the oversight of wildlife markets and wildlife farming This of course is what one does to reduce the likelihood of future natural spill overs And in addition, we should restrict again reduce the amount of and regulate again increase the oversight of High risk wildlife virus virus discovery research and high risk virus gain of function research I'd like to speak just a bit further to this last point When we discuss the subject we refer to three Different topics biosafety biosecurity and bioresk management Biosafety refers to protections against the accidental release of a pathogen Biosecurity refers to protections against the deliberate release or the theft of a pathogen And bioresk management refers to risk benefit assessment Performed before conducting or while conducting high risk research on a pathogen If we turn to each of those one by one with respect to biosafety to protect against accidental release Biosafety is achieved using a set of controls. These include engineering controls Which are features of infrastructure or containment that separate a pathogen from the researcher And operational controls which are operational procedures And personal protective equipment that again separate a pathogen from A researcher and management controls including planning training and incident reporting These controls are grouped into sets of standards The lowest standard relevant to pathogens is biosafety level two or bsl two And the requirements for bsl two include the following and only the following a lockable door Screen windows an uncarpeted floor a sink an eyewash a decontamination or sterilization device gown and gloves This I point out again Is the level of biosafety at which most research on batsars related coronaviruses Both virus discovery and bias gain of function research was performed at wuhan institute of virology Second level is biosafety level three or bsl three This includes all of the features mandated for bsl two Plus negative air pressure tandem self-closing doors sealed windows mandatory use of a biosafety cabinet and a rear closing gown And the highest level for highest risk pathogens biosafety level four or bsl four Which includes all of the features mandated for bsl three Plus pass through decontamination sterilization An exit shower donning a doffing room in shower positive pressure suit Basically a spacesuit at an independent air supply For reference a bsl two facility looks like this you have a researcher wearing a laboratory jacket and gloves In a standard laboratory room Optionally using a biosafety cabinet for the research Again, this is the level of research That was performed for most of the work all of the work short of animal studies at wuhan institute of virology At biosafety level three one has a mandatory use of a biosafety cabinet One has a front closing gown and face protection And as shown here optional use of a powered personal air respirator For further protection and at biosafety level four one has a fully contained room A full suits for investigators with independent air supplies from the exterior This is what we see often in photographs of the wuhan institute of virology This is a level of biosafety standard that is available to wuhan institute of virology But this is not the level at which the research with sar's related coronaviruses was performed in 2016 to 2019 in that laboratory All of the research short of animals was performed at biosafety level two and the research with animals was performed at biosafety level three How does one achieve Biosecurity this includes controls Engineering controls such as security of entrance video surveillance and video archiving Operational controls such as a rule for two persons to be present at all times M management controls including registration inspection personnel reliability assurance training inventory monitoring and incident reporting And how does one achieve bio risk management which again is the risk benefit assessment for the highest risk research This involves first identifying proposed high-risk research on pathogens That is to say proposed research activities reasonably anticipated to increase a pathogens transmissibility pathogenesis pathogenesis ability to overcome immune response or ability to overcome a vaccine Or to reconstruct a eradicated pathogen and then performing a formal risk benefit assessment enumerating the risks Enumerating the benefits weighing the risks against the benefits and reaching a decision Either to proceed as proposed or to proceed with additional risk mitigation or not to proceed So with respect to biosafety biosecurity and bio risk management is clear how it can be performed unfortunately currently In the united states oversight of biosafety biosecurity and bio risk management is performed by federal agencies to perform the research Or fund the research which provides an inherent conflict of interest Even more important. There are absolutely no regulations with force of law for biosafety or bio risk management Or any pathogen other than smallpox virus This is in contrast to for example the extensive regulations for research on human subjects or vertebrate animals Because there are no regulations with force of law in these areas There are no enforceable measures. There is no monitoring and there is no enforcement And there are only inadequate regulations addressing management controls, but without providing specific guidance or specific regulation on Operational controls for uh for biosecurity these points need to be addressed And we already have the information in hand to know that we should be indeed must be proceeding with uh strengthening By safety biosecurity and by risk management if we wish to avoid the next pathogen. So thank you Richard, thank you very very much Could I ask you by the way before we turn to the next speaker? Is the research that was posted by boston university gain of function research in your opinion? Without question the researchers in that work constructed novel chimeric Corona viruses that combined the spike gene of omicron b a1 with the rest of the genetic information of the original wuhan one virus from 2019 or 2020 The resulting viruses acquire both the high immune escape properties of omicron And they acquire a higher severity in experimental animals specifically engineered to reflect infection properties in humans So one has enhanced One has a combination that has an enhanced combination of immune escape And severity that is a gain of function As defined in the u.s policies that were affected in 2014 to 2017 That also is an enhancement of a potential pandemic pathogen as defined in the u.s policies that are in effect at the current time And am i correct that it looks from the nih's response that they didn't know about it beforehand actually So that there really was no oversight of that research Well, that that is the norm and since the time of the report for boston university at least three additional laboratories performing the identical or nearly identical research of combining the spike gene of an omicron virus with the rest of the genetic information of the 2019 or 2020 SARS-CoV-2 virus Have been identified So this is research that is happening in multiple locations and in no location as far as can be determined With a national level risk benefit review having been performed before the research was carried out And in most cases with no knowledge by federal agencies that the research has been carried out Yeah, thank you very much extremely interesting and important Our third panelist is Emily cop of us right to know Emily is an investigative reporter And us right to know is an organization that has Committed itself to getting information that the government doesn't want us to know often And I I can say in my own experience as chair of the lancet commission I There was no transparency by key participants In this process I experienced it because I asked Eco health alliance for example to provide the information of what it was doing And I was told very explicitly no eco health alliance is advised by its lawyers not to provide the information And that was a big problem for the work of the lancet commission because we are Committed to complete transparency and by the way to finding out what what really happened. Well It's very notable that us right to know along with other groups Took on the challenge of Getting information that the u.s government did not and others did not want released because we have a freedom of information act that at least gets Some of the information out even though some of it remains hidden it redacted in other words disguised as it's released but Emily cop has been assiduous from the beginning in pursuing this issue. So i'm really eager to hear Emily about your update of how you see What we have learned till now Both about the origins and about this process of investigation or lack of investigation. So over to you Well, thank you professor sacks for inviting me today and thank you doctors chan and ebright for your expertise in your tenacity So this is a complex story There are many important needs to pursue including the ongoing search for traces of covet in china's wildlife trade But the focus of my reporting and my presentation will be on virus hunting and gain of function virology underway in wuhan We live in an amazing era and information about research conducted across the world Can be made available to me in my washington dc apartment through freedom of information laws The outbreak of the pandemic was preceded by a push by us scientists to establish ties with the wuhan institute of virology The university of north carolina shared cloning technology eco health alliance collaborated on virus hunting The university of texas medical branch advised on biosafety And the nih underwrote all of it We may be able to get a glimpse into the work underway before the pandemic through freedom of information laws These laws are premised on the right of regular citizens to details about how publicly funded institutions are run us right to know has submitted dozens of foyers and has 13 active freedom of information lawsuits I will describe for the commission several leads each involving american public institutions with an obligation to provide documents to the public as well as key obstacles And I may get a little technical But happy to answer questions after so first NIH and eco health's progress reports So it's clear by now That eco health alliance did extensive sampling and lab work on SARS related viruses in collaboration with a lab at the pandemic's epicenter Indeed, they were a world leader in this work as alina mentioned Remarkably all of the details of this work have not been made public in the nearly three years since the pandemic emerged For example, the intercept is in litigation with NIH in pursuit of documents related to 31 grants to eco health alliance There are 1,400 outstanding documents that have not yet been released in addition to 300 pages released to the intercept but redacted in whole So in face of this stonewalling us right to know is also seeking information about eco health alliance grants in creative ways Namely through a close partner the university of california davis US right to know is also seeking information via a board member of eco health alliance who also holds a position at the university of mariland second USAID and virus hunting Eco health alliance was a core partner of predict a decade-long virus hunting expedition Funded by the united states agency for international development A key deliverable of this project was a database called edith Notably this edith database no longer has a functional interface and it was taken down in september 2020 A separate interface that may have pulled in data from edith is currently under construction eco health alliance told me An email under foya shows that eco health alliance president peter jasek Recommended withholding sequences collected in china after the pandemic broke out because doing so would put the reputation at risk Other documents obtained under foya indicate some records collected with the aid of predict might have required approval from host governments for release Predict was perhaps the most expansive pre-pandemic virus hunting project Its data could shed light on the origins of coveted natural or no Yet data collected by this publicly funded project is not easily accessible and there are serious questions about whether the available data is complete Okay number three The national center for biotechnology information and sequence data So nyh's archive of partial sequences is used by scientists across the globe But some SARS-CoV-2 sequences sampled early in the pandemic were improperly killed from nyh's public facing site And a computational biologist has identified over a hundred thousand other sequences deleted from the public database And using metadata he ranked them in order of priority as it relates to the information about covid's origins He estimated processing a hundred thousand a hundred thousand of these accessions would require two to six weeks So it's worth underlying here that the chief obstacle to better understanding the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 may not be for lack of data, but Because of an apathy at nyh when it comes to searching its own servers and files um And to illustrate this partial sequences of a Wuhan institute of virology virus with a 96 identity to SARS-CoV-2 called ritg 13 Were uploaded to this nyh database in 2018, but were not published until a few weeks ago And critically a virologist credited on an associated paper has been among the most vocal proponents of the zoonosis theory There are also, you know, possibly more creative ways to query non-public information stored by nyh For example by asking for metadata on blast query inputs NCBI also collects certain information about its users Including the url of the website the user visited immediately prior and the user's location at the time they visited the site all right for The barric lab and genetic engineering techniques Renowned for cutting-edge work on reverse genetic systems with coronaviruses In 2015 the barric lab in north carolina Conducted an experiment in collaboration with the Wuhan institute of virology on a SARS related coronavirus described as poise for human emergence The experiment raised eyebrows among scientists concerned about gain of function research at the time including dr. Ebright, I believe This paper would later prompt concerns about a lab leak among virologists and nyh leaders in the early weeks of the pandemic We have very few clues outside of a leaked grant report as to what sort of work was planned Following the lab's earlier gain of function collaboration And us right to know is currently in the midst of a mediation process with UNC to obtain this information Okay, five diffuse and defense funding us right to know has foiled several defense agencies This is important not least because a rejected grant proposal grant proposal to the defense advanced research projects agency involving eco health alliance The barric lab and the Wuhan institute of virology demonstrated a desire to experiment with fear and cleavage sites in SARS related coronaviruses And that's just the sort of work that could have conceived that we resulted in SARS-CoV-2 According to a formal whistleblower complaint the file describing the proposed work was moved by someone at DARPA into an Scare folder in a way that appeared designed to conceal it It's important to fully understand the pentagon's interest in virus hunting through the preempt program Which is very similar to predict If nonproliferation of unnecessarily risky research is a goal It's critical for the u.s. Government to engender trust both among american citizens and our allies abroad through transparency okay Finally nyh and credibility I think this is probably the most controversial and uncomfortable line of inquiry But I think for me as a reporter. It's unfortunately critical It involves the question. How do we decide who was credible? Two writings about the origins of kovat gain traction in the pandemics early days An editorial in the lancet and a correspondence in nature medicine Both can sign the possibility of a lab origin of kovat 19 to the realm of conspiracy theory But as it turns out the off the authors were often conflicted in undisclosed ways Or harbored private concerns about viral engineering or the store of coronaviruses at the wuhan institute of virology But it's taken months or years for this information to be disclosed and only through FOIA requests For example, in just the last week. We learned the scientists who contributed the central ideas to the proximal origin of kovat SARS-CoV-2 We're not actually credited on the correspondence The virologist who pitched its central premises who pitched its central premise Was likely Ron fuchier a controversial figure at the center of a years long debate About an experiment that made a 50% lethal virus airborne I think the public would have viewed the conclusions of that correspondence very differently had that information been known when it published in march 2020 Which may be why he wasn't credited Um, so I think understanding whether trusted public messengers on the origins of kovat 19 have integrity as well as expertise is an important piece of the puzzle Finally, I thought it might be helpful to explain what I hope to achieve by seeking misinformation and translating the findings for a general audience My understanding as my job as a reporter holds that my responsibility to the public outmatches my responsibility to protect the reputation Of any particular science scientist scientific discipline or government agency Even if following these leads confirms there was nothing to hide I think they're worth pursuing the public deserves more clarity about the pandemics early days And that's it. Thank you Emily, thank you very very much. Could I ask you to elaborate on one one point? Which I found to be amazing at the beginning of The epidemic I I read like many other people the proximal origins of SARS-CoV-2 paper in march 2020 which said that it's overwhelmingly Likely to be natural and it shifted our attention away from the second possibility But then you have tracked almost to the hour the discussion about the origin of the origin proximal origin paper and it's Really stunning the things you found and I just would like you to elaborate a little bit about that to explain that because for me this was really eye-opening and exactly Revealed by by your work Sure. Yeah, I think this is a really critical piece of the puzzle It's really hard to oversee the impact that this correspondence in nature medicine had It's been cited by something like 2000 news organizations and it's one of nature medicines most widely read articles on on covid generally And it took 15 months and a freedom of information act lawsuit to reveal the circumstances that led to the drafting of that correspondence And what raises the eyebrows of me? And that I think some You know other reporters should pay attention to is the participation of NIH leaders Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci on that call As well as the fact that you know, it's been revealed very recently that it's possible that it's sort of central premise was not formulated by the virologist who ended up credited In the byline and in fact the virologist credited in the byline were we're very concerned about The possibility that covid was the result of a research related incident or could be engineered And it seems like people who have sort of been at the center of you know, the You know monumental debates about you know function research were really critical to to that correspondence, but we're not credited and so and One final thing I'll say is the virologist on that correspondence have continued to be very public important public messengers on the origins of covid and have been Quite aggressive in their support of The natural origins theory and marginalizing other theories and They have considerable expertise, but I think you know Me and other reporters should ask the question whether they've Shown integrity Emily, thank you very very much. Thank you for the very hard work because Again, nothing was offered Voluntarily everything had to be pried out and this is very strange. I have to say In my capacity as chair of the commission I would have thought that in the midst of a pandemic like this the nih would have opened up Immediately, let's figure out what's happening in a true spirit of investigation. You've spent Years now trying to pry out basic information and that to my mind You know not speaking to The question of the origins, but just the behavior Of the u.s. Government is is extremely concerning to me that we haven't had transparency I don't know if i'm allowed to share my screen, but i'm going to try because I wanted to show you I wanted to show everybody. Can you see that? page possibly this is Emily, I don't know if this was the u.s. Right to know or the intercept, but it was one of the reports that was through the freedom of information act called for and it's an n i a i d that's Dr. Fauci's unit the national institutes of allergies and infectious disease unit at nih it's called strategy for strategic plan for COVID-19 research april 10 2020 So they gave the cover But this is what redaction means. I don't know if people can see this But this goes on for 300 pages This is the report of nih In a freedom of information act supposedly informing the public of what's going on blank pages blank pages blank pages blank pages 290 blank pages to my mind unbelievable unbelievable in these circumstances and with the stakes involved Let me say before we turn to Some of the commissioners who may have questions. I see them on and if they have questions, we're going to bring them in next Dr. Robert Redfield Wanted to join but at a last moment he had a plain Flight that Exactly at this time so he couldn't join he was head of The centers for disease control. You'll remember in 2020 he Tends to believe that it is the research related hypothesis. That's the more likely I don't want to speak for him because you can find his interviews online but what he did Say very clearly to me and to others as part of my work and as part of his report to the public that when he called for an investigation of the laboratory related hypothesis Inside the u.s. government It was he was basically Shut down by nih Even though he was cdc director with extensive experience in These issues and he had a lot of reason and a lot of concern Both from classified information that he had access to an unclassified information and some formally classified information that's now unclassified that The virus may well have started earlier than december that there were risk signs that The laboratory may have been implicated that u.s. Scientists may have been implicated very much through The proposals that we've talked about but that no such investigation took place Inside the u.s. government So just to I think it's right to say on behalf of all of the panelists Neither hypothesis is Dispositive right now Nothing is proved But both are absolutely viable And what dr. Ebright said is that both require further investigation and Very importantly what we've heard Is that a lot of information is available in the united states? because The projects that could have given rise To this virus were heavily u.s. Funded With a lot of u.s. Scientists engaged a lot of record Inside the u.s. But Now so many lawsuits remaining of trying to pry information out of the u.s. So this is um Why things are so concerning but why the cough in the lancet commission for more Independent transparent Science-based investigations Is relevant and why we don't have to wait for one country or another We have information right at hand In the united states for example that could shed a lot of light on these issues So let us open it up for others I see some of the commissioners if they would like to speak They should raise their hands. I would ask Dr. Chan and dr. Ebright if they would like to come back on any of these Topics to do so at any moment And I know that people have also been sending in Questions and i'm supposed to get a list of questions Maybe it's already been sent to me By the chat So that I can also pose some of the questions But first let me turn to ismael sarah gelden who is One of the world's great leaders on the science policy interface In multiple capacities in leadership at the world bank In the founder of the The modern library of alexandria a modern wonder of the world That is Based on the ancient wonder of the world and a very esteemed commissioner of the lancid covet 19 commission. So ismael. Let me Turn the microphone over to you Thank you, jeff and thank you for following up on this particular Controversial issue that we've been having earlier on I would like to pose a slightly different approach to this Let's for a moment even assume That There was No sufficient evidence for the lab leak theory But the question remains that we know this research Not only can be done is being done And therefore a primary it seems to me anyway that a primary consideration For recommendations to avoid future pandemics Has got to be to completely rejig the the Bio risk surveillance the entire systems of regulations Under which circumstances this particular type of research could be done because we know that it can be done I mean even if you were to prove today that it was not the cause of the original 2019 Pandemic At the very least we know that it can be done. It is being done But we also know that The supervision is totally inadequate the regulations are in there and the The horror story that you heard from me and from emily about the difficulty Of even finding out what is going on even in the country like direct states with the freedom of information So it seems to me that this is An absolutely central piece for recommendations going forward regardless Of the past. I mean you have to recognize it's being done and it's dangerous and that we don't have adequate Supervision and regulations on it. So this will be Ismail, thank you for the strong point. I wonder if Richard Ebright could comment on that because Richard's been really Saying for a decade This is extremely dangerous and it has to get under control Richard you've been at this for a long time. What what what? Are your reactions first to what? Dr. Sarah gelding has said and And where are we on this question of oversight because clearly we're not quite there yet I agree completely with what dr. Sarah gelding said We know enough already to know that Either natural spillover or research related spillover could have been the origin of the present pandemic We need to investigate that but while investigation is occurring Even before an answer becomes available and even if no answer becomes available And even if an answer becomes available and that answer is natural spillover We must be taking steps to reduce the risk of the next pandemic. This is self-evident After every plane crash after every train derailment, there is an investigation And crucially measures are taken to reduce the risk of recurrence. That has not happened in this case There has been no investigation and there has been no movement towards The implementation of effective oversight that needs to change Yeah, I agree with both dr. Sarah gelding and dr. Ebright So there are two situations recently that they really speak to this point The first is that the niaid awarded another multimillion dollar grant to the eco health alliance to do more of the same research But in different countries just not china So again, no investigation done but more money just pwned into this organization that Whose collaborators and funding and research activities might have started the pandemic And the second incident is the boston unit was the revelation that they were doing Splicing of pandemic viruses in their lab. And so Where where is the oversight? Where is the transparency? The bu researchers said they did not have to report to their funders because The funding that they took from nyh was just used on tools and resources and not on the highest part of the research So from these two incidences, it's very clear that there's very little insight into what research is being done around the world and all these biosafety labs and and Whether any of it ever gets reported so that the public only finds out from either paper being published in the high profile journal Or an outbreak in their city Thank you I see that uh another esteemed commissioner dr. professor phoebe kondori who is a professor at The ethan school of economics and business and a leader in sustainable development worldwide and enormously valued commissioner Is here wants to join in Thank you, jeff Very clear and very informative Presentations. Thank you very much. I have two questions The first one If we have a thorough transparent serious investigation Are we confident that we can have a definite answer with regards to the origins? And the second question There are countries Like the countries within the european union where we have Quite extensive biosafety regulatory framework Did anybody investigate whether we have Uh, let's say True transparency with regards to the research on these issues that is carried on in the EU And is there any correlation at least not causality between low accidents or safety Issues in europe compared to the us for example or outside europe did anybody investigate these issues Very clear. Thank you very much. And again, richard and alina If you could come in alina, thanks So I think these questions are largely unanswered and that's why i'm really happy to be part of this Pathogens project which is being organized by the bulletin of atomic scientists And they're convening experts from all around the world to come in and meet and organize a conference in april of next year in janeva To answer exactly these questions and to see what what information should we be gathering to figure out if there are good oversight systems in different countries And other ways that Countries can be incentivized to be more transparent with this type of work So certainly there's no answer right now as to whether an investigation Can can lead to a definitive answer But we know for sure that there's a lot of evidence around the world that can can tell us can point us closer to the origin And so if we just give up now I think that that is a big mistake and it shows that there's no way to be To hold people accountable And and this can lead to much more Dangerous research being done because people can see oh even if there's accidents We'll just blame the market down the road We don't have to no one will investigate us because they're too afraid to just to point the fingers at us And and this means Unfortunately that small things like a single lab accident can lead to millions of people dying and this is something that we cannot tolerate in the future Emily there's a question for you about what reasons The nih gives for the redactions that it makes for example the document that I showed but I think it's a more general question in fact which is Almost all of the documents that you receive by foyer are redacted Sometimes afterwards the redactions are removed so we can see what was redacted. What's your feeling about how this process works? Yeah, so um NIH gives a variety of excuses as its stone walls information to Access to public information One is that NIH has I think rightly received a lot of foyer requests from people interested in covid's origins and other aspects of the pandemic response And so I think a common response is that they are they are overwhelmed, but it's important to note that um It's easy to just release documents that the challenging part is Redacting because you don't want certain information disclosed And so as a result we're sort of on this Delayed timeline when it comes to obtaining information we're obtaining information about critical things that happened in february 2020 in October 2022 and so it's just really unacceptable I want to ask it's another question that has come in And I'd like your view Emily first and then Alina and Richard I think it's right to say that in That this narrative That started with the proximal origins that there's only one One approach that is valid and the other not really I think it's right to say did pretty much take hold and In the major news outlets in the united states for a while It may be changing right now But one person asked why are people afraid to press too hard on the scientists or why would the reporting be in one way or another Up until recently There was one dominant story and one kind of conspiracy theory now. I think it's fairer to say that um You know senators others are saying look it's something serious I What caused the move in one direction in the mainstream media Whereas you had to fight to the nail every step to to get Key information Even when it came it was often not widely reported actually in In mainstream outlets. So just love your reflection on that Sure, um, I mean To give an honest answer I think a lot of reporters are really intimidated by this story because very few people have the sort of expertise required to evaluate the sort of scientific evidence on on both sides um And we live in an era where um, you know anti science of attitudes have taken hold. Um, and so Yeah, it's it's easy to be intimidated by this story and to sort of begin to question sort of eminent giants in the field of virology who have told us via the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 correspondence that Um, it's impossible that this was a research related incident um, but again, it comes down to integrity and I don't think it takes a PhD in virology to understand that, um you know Changing your view to believing a lab accident was possible to saying it was impossible in a conspiracy theory within about four days Um while in communication with you know leaders of the national institutes of health, which is by far the leading Thunder of infectious diseases rich in the united states doesn't take a PhD in virology to to conclude that something is off but But I think another aspect here that is again probably controversial and uncomfortable to talk about is that um, a lot of reporters really respect anthony fowchee um, and he is a brilliant scientist, but um, I think the question is whether brilliant scientists are capable of sometimes misleading the public because of a um, perhaps a fear of the truth or um Desire for a tidy narrative. I'm not sure, but um, those are some reasons of state or other other things Yeah, I very well put uh is male. Please come in Thank you, Jeff. I have a slightly different point and this is uh, I recall in 2015 Uh, uh the beginning the new editing crisper cast line all the stuff going on the national academy of sciences national academy of medicine Created the commission around the issue of when and under what circumstances would we allow the application of these Techniques to humans. I had the privilege of serving on that commission for 18 months We had hearings in the u.s. And hearings in europe and we produced the report In 2017 in which we said it should not be used on embryo research at all At least not for the time being probably in 2018 professor. Heijing Kang in china Showed two little baby girls that had been edited the first human edited Uh, uh, he thought I suppose there was going to be applause. There wasn't the net result was the Government of china put him in jail for three years But my key point here is can we not anticipate And say something like the national academies of science national academies of health Along with the royal society along with other people should create commission on this question of supervising The uh, uh, virology research, which is obviously inadequate. I mean, uh, and what we were doing at the time Was not to come back and say it has happened or it has not happened at the time we did this in this commission It had not happened. I mean, it was broken by other people later on but Between you and emily and all the other eminent people who have been hearing we have overwhelming evidence of the enormous danger that this poses And that therefore the scientific community now, it's not a matter of holding somebody accountable or sorry What would you recommend as a scientific community as a radical community? Should be the guarantors of biosafety bio risk analysis and so on and how can we get something like that? Maybe legislated While somebody can still pursue who said what when about whether it was right Great, thank you Thank you is mel and i'm going to add one more thing and then we'll have a final round from Our panelists and then i'll i'll make a short wrap up, but i'd like to add one more difficult and uncomfortable aspect to this if anyone would care to comment on it and that is what is the intersection Of this research with bio defense or bio warfare and what are we are we seeing? This intersection and if so my god, what what does that mean for even the capacity to Get at what's happening? Because this is a part of The sphere of secrecy that is Probably quite intense and i know that all of you have some Brushes with that in what this could mean so i'd like to add that to the table How can we basically how can we get this under control and is the bio warfare bio defense side of this story? the The known or the hidden elephant in the room, which makes this all Even more complicated than it is and maybe we could ask alina Richard and emily to comment on that or anything else in closing and And then we'll wrap it up Yeah, that's really difficult to follow this idea of bio weapons and secrecy I mean just just to get back to this question of how did this pandemic start? My my belief is that even if it did come from a lab it wasn't a bio weapon So There's this long track record and all this available information showing that this lab in uhan and its collaborators Were all really interested in understanding how pathogens function and to me that is that is a very big problem Is that you have hundreds of of labs around the world very interested in understanding how pathogens work? And they all believe that they are the most responsible and the most careful scientists out there So they all have this belief that i'm not going to be the one who starts next outbreak or the next pandemic And unfortunately that that is a danger that all of this work is is just by default done privately There's the scientists are not ethicists Most of us don't consider the question of like who should be brought into the table to discuss When I plan my experiments that could affect millions of people and and so this This ever post covid is really about rethinking like how can we bring in more people than just the scientists? So scientists are not just there by themselves thinking my experiments are safe. So um, I I really wish that Uh, this panel had been able to to get a natural origin proponent So people will believe that this started in the in the market for sure I wish that those those people would have come because what we really need is a forum Where where scientists can openly discuss and debate and then talk about the science and talk about the the responsibilities Of the scientific community to address this issue Thank you very much elina and as you know, but and be sure I invited 10 of the proponents of the national natural origins to participate Most of them never answered at all sometimes with repeated email invitations We didn't get any but it was not for lack of trying. I want open transparent discussion Debate investigation balance This is not an attempt in any way to pack a story one way or another quite the contrary. We're trying to Elicit as much understanding and I thank all of the panelists for showing all sides of this But I did invite many many of the scientists that are associated with the natural origins hypothesis, but none of them Agreed to participate, which I think is is unfortunate Let me ask richard to come in now for closing thoughts So on your question about biodefense and bioweapons, it's important to Clarify the definitions of those terms so biodefense as a term of art refers to preparedness for encounter measures against bioweapons threats A bioweapons agent is a pathogen or a biological toxin That could be used as a bioweapon and a bioweapon is a bioweapon agent That is developed and produced for use as a bioweapon So there are three separate terms and it's important not to separate not to conflate them with respect to biodefense All of the research that we have been talking about was performed Explicitly as biodefense research and was funded from budgets appropriated explicitly for biodefense So the research funds from NIH to eco health alliance to wuhan institute virology came From the biodefense budget specifically labeled as such and flagged as such Of the national institute for allergy and infectious diseases The research at boston university the same the research at other us institutions that have made similar Chimeras similar to those at boston university the same all of this is biodefense research Part of the effort of preparedness for encounter measures against bioweapons threats With respect to bioweapons agents these are the pathogens or biological toxins that can be used as bioweapons This research identifies new bioweapons agents that indeed is a principal purpose not the sole purpose But a major purpose and why the research is funded as biodefense in the united states Each time virus discovery in wildlife identifies a new virus that has the ability to infect humans to replicate in humans to infect and cause pathogenesis to Experimental animals engineered to reflect infection properties in humans each time that happens That is the identification of a new bioweapons agent a new bioweapons agent For which preparedness Potentially can begin Each time again a function research creates a new enhanced pathogen with enhanced Transmissibility or enhanced pathogenesis or enhanced ability to overcome immune response That is the creation of a new bioweapons agent That biodefense can begin against so this research by definition Identifies new bioweapons agents and this poses not only the material risks that we've been talking about so far Which is the risk of an accidental or deliberate release of the agent by a laboratory But it also creates information risks each time a new bioweapons agent is identified and published That publication provides if you will a step by step recipe To construct a new bioweapons agent A recipe that with current technology can be followed by almost any country in the world from largest to smallest All but the very smallest and by sub-state organizations and even by some individuals So this research is biodefense. It was funded explicitly as biodefense It is listed as biodefense research on NIAID websites and NIAID appropriations It identifies bioweapons agents and those bioweapons agents inherently pose both materials risk of accidental release or deliberate release And information risks of copycats By other nations by sub-state organizations or by individuals seeking to do harm That is why this is crucial to To bring under control to restrict and to regulate Extremely clear and very sobering. Thank you very much. And Emily, let me turn it to you for final thoughts for our session It's hard to improve upon those comments But I'll just say, you know, we're digging into the interest of defense agencies in virus hunting and gain of function research But it seems clear to me as a layperson that there is a perception problem to paraphrase a member of the NSAPB, which is the independent body that advises NIH Doing research to prepare to defend against Biological threats can sometimes resemble, you know, creating biological threats And so I think there's a conversation to be had and some reflection to do about you know, whether we're doing duplicative risky research that creates a perception among other nations that You know, we we are a danger in some way And whether that that perception stokes the, you know, a proliferation of labs around the world Um And unnecessary risky research So, um, and then, you know, just as far as closing Um, I will say that I don't typically sort of outline my you know method of investigation and Tell the world exactly, you know, which leads I'm pursuing it kind of goes against every instinct I have as a reporter Um, but I will just say if there are reporters on the line You know, I welcome competition. We definitely need help. This is such a complex story. Um, and so So I hope reporters on the line will consider that Great. Thank you very very much. Let me thank all three of our panelists and our commissioners that participated for Really a superb session We will post this session on the un sustainable development Solutions network website. We will Make sure that People are aware of it. I think it's got a tremendous public educational value I would hope that it would inspire scientists on all sides of this debate to Open up for public discussion more because we really need that public discussion much more Uh, I hope that our report and the very hard work of us right to know and the Scientific probing of dr. Chan and dr. Ebright and many many others Will Finally lead to a proper transparent independent science based investigation drawing on information from all sources including from NIH and from the funders of a lot of The research that has been underway and places where we could Find more information The essence of the lancid covet 19 commission report is that both the natural and the research Associated spillover hypotheses are viable Both urgently need further investigation And both suggest future dangers That irrespective of the past need to be addressed now and that point I think has come through very very clearly We need regulation of this extremely dangerous laboratory work. We also need Regulation of the safety of this research going out to collect viruses in nature and also regulation of these wildlife markets and handling of wild animals and so forth and farm animals so that we prevent future Spillovers that can be of such danger to humanity. Let me thank everybody for participating for questions That have not been addressed yet We will try to address them and post them on our website along with the posting of the Tape of this session Thank you all remember that we have two forthcoming workshops and The first Is on november 21 where we're going to talk about global health finance The fact that in low-income settings The difficulty of even having a health system that covers the population is an acute challenge That is a threat of course to those societies, but to the whole world in a in a world of cross-border pathogens and on december 8 A special session on health system strengthening because at the core of our report We emphasize that health systems were not up to the task of properly controlling This pandemic and we need to do better Both of those sessions will be from 8 to 10 a.m Eastern time and I look forward to Everybody joining then thank you to all thank you to all the panelists to the commissioners to the participants and to The team of the secretariat of the lancet coven commission and to the sdsn And columbia center for sustainable development for Enabling our webinar today. Take care everybody. Thanks so much