The novel coronavirus being of natural origin is universally recognized by scientists worldwide, as
the World Health Organization (WHO) showed there were some 15,000 full genome sequences
of the novel coronavirus available to prove this.
Yet the COVID-19 pandemic has turned the public attention to biological laboratories as never
before, as more and more people wonder whether lab security measures are effective and
whether their presence poses a threat to human security.
The White House's recent "Chinese lab theory" has been widely rejected, and even US' allies
have distanced themselves from the groundless slander, despite US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo has changed his tone, admitting the US cannot be certain the coronavirus outbreak
originated in a Wuhan lab.
China is opposed to a culpability investigation that frames any laboratory in the world with
groundless accusations. But we are calling for a global laboratory safety inspection, with the
WHO acting as supervisor.
The US, which has one of the world's largest biotechnology industries with extensive research
realms, is outside a 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) protocol, approved by
some member-states to the Convention, to increase the transparency of treaty-relevant
biological facilities and activities. The US should respond to the international community's call for
lab transparency
Global concerns rose after the US CDC restored full operating capability to all US Army Medical
Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland at the end of
March after a shutdown in July 2019 out of safety concerns.
US media quoted the CDC as saying the lab was suspended because it had no "sufficient systems
in place to decontaminate wastewater" from its highest-security labs. At least the claim reflects
how the safety of the US laboratory is in serious danger.
From 2006 to 2013, labs notified federal regulators of about 1,500 incidents with select agent
pathogens, and 15 people contracted laboratory-acquired infections, according to US newspaper
USA Today.
As a country with the strongest scientific strength in the world, the US has more power to set the
agenda around laboratory safety issues, and has a tendency to use this power for geopolitical
purposes. The US ramped efforts in accusing laboratories in other countries, but ignored
domestic loopholes.
Washington has taken advantage of the scientific resources and political vacuum left by the
collapsed former Soviet Union to set up biological laboratories in the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) countries around Russia that, some suspect, are performing riskier
experiments than those in the US.
Research carried out by those laboratories and their safety should be the focus of international
attention.
The COVID-19 pandemic reveals the dysfunctional governance system of the US, where some of
the key capabilities once considered world-leading have proven woefully inadequate.
It is reasonable to be highly suspicious that the security at the US' vast biological laboratories is
substandard, and that there are a lot of "dirty tricks" going on inside for fear that the outside
world will find out.
Through this ongoing outbreak, the international community should truly regulate biological
research in the US and urge it to reach the basic level of transparency.
The US should not be exempted from international screening for biological risks, but rather be at
the forefront of such inspections. The vast number of laboratories in the US, with their complex
and diverse management bodies and methods, needs a clean-up test that will reassure the
international community.
 showed the){kind=link}