As David A. Relman was quoted as saying in the article, “If the only information . . . is provided by the very people who have everything to lose . . . that just doesn’t come close to passing the sniff test.” There continues to be a lack of transparency as to what research was going on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, including studies funded by U.S. taxpayers through the Defense Department and the National Institutes of Health. This lack of transparency includes American scientists unwilling to thoroughly investigate or inform the public.
At the very least, the public needs to know that lab research looking for the next pandemic includes passaging zoonotic viruses through multiple animal cell cultures to see whether a highly transmissible pathogenic human virus can be created.
Bette Goldman, Lewes, Del.