A research paper which suggests Covid-19 originated in raccoon dogs held in cages at a market in Wuhan has been criticized after it emerged the data originated from Chinese scientists who’ve now withdrawn it.
Samples taken from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan were used for the new study which comes just weeks after US authorities doubled down on their belief the virus leaked from a nearby lab in Wuhan.
But the very same samples have previously been studied by scientists who concluded the virus didn’t come from animals at the market.
The data was unexpectedly uploaded to an international research database called GISAID last week and downloaded by international researchers who stumbled across it while looking for other information.
Within hours of processing this new data, the team discovered traces of the Covid-19 virus in samples that also contained animal genetic material that matched the raccoon dog.
The new study suggests covid originated in raccoon dogs at a the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan. Pictured: A caged raccoon dog at the market in 2014
Researchers have cast doubt on the new paper. Dr Li-Meng Yan, who gained famed for her divisive research supporting the lab leak theory, claimed the new data had come from the Chinese Communist Party as an attempt to conceal the leak
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist involved in the research, said: ‘This is a really strong indication that animals at the market were infected. There’s really no other explanation that makes any sense.’ But critics have asked why the data used in the study was removed by the Chinese scientists who uploaded it
The team contacted the Chinese researchers who’d uploaded the files offering to collaborate on the research – before the data was mysteriously deleted from GISAID.
The new paper has also not been published or peer reviewed, casting further doubts about its reliability.
Details of the research were first published in The Atlantic, which made the hefty claim that the study ‘may offer some of the clearest and most compelling evidence that the world will ever get in support of an animal origin’.
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist involved in the research, said: ‘This is a really strong indication that animals at the market were infected. There’s really no other explanation that makes any sense.’
But Dr Stephen Quay, a pharmaceutical CEO who has studied the origins of covid, likened publishing research that relies on data that’s no longer available to using evidence that doesn’t exist ‘in a court of law’.
‘You can’t say, ‘I have seen evidence of the origin but I am not going to show it to you. Just take my word for it’,’ he told DailyMail.com.
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‘Especially when these people have previously been untruthful not once but multiple times. I need to see the data, probe it for fabrication which I know I will find, and then publish why it is a lie.’
Dr Steven Salzberg, a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, told DailyMail.com it was ‘highly unusual’ for the data to be deleted after it was uploaded. He said that it’s not possible to make conclusions about the study until the paper is available and ‘preferably after its been peer reviewed’.
Dr Li-Meng Yan, who gained famed for her divisive research supporting the lab leak theory, claimed the new data had come from the Chinese Communist Party as an attempt to conceal the leak.
The paper comes week after FBI Director Christopher Wray said the agency has concluded a lab leak was the most likely source of the virus.
On February 28, Wray doubled down on the agency’s findings in 2021 and accused the Chinese government of working to undermine the damning results.
‘The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,’ Wray said. ‘Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.’
Wray’s comments came after the Energy Department made the same conclusion as the FBI.
Wray said last month that the virus was likely the result of a lab leak and that the Chinese government has worked to undermine his agency’s work
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning blasted what she termed ‘politicization’ of theories on the origins of COVID-19, after an Energy Department analysis that pointed to possibility of a leak from the Wuhan lab
The FBI said in 2021 it had ‘moderate confidence’ that the pandemic that gripped the world was a result of an accidental leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Wray said last month that the work was conducted by top experts in the FBI and US government who specialize in monitoring potential outbreaks.
‘The FBI has folks, agents, professionals, analysts, virologists, microbiologists, etc, who focus, specifically, on the dangers of biological threats, which includes things like novel viruses like COVID, and the concerns that in the wrong hands some bad guys, some hostile nation state, a terrorist, a criminal, the threats that that could pose,’ Wray said.
‘So here, you’re talking about a leak at a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans, and that’s precisely what that capability was designed for.’
Despite the FBI’s conclusion, Wray added that Beijing has continuously tried to undercut the US government’s work.
‘I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we’re doing, the work that our US government and close foreign partners are doing, and that’s unfortunate for everybody,’ he said.
