[i/]n 2014, the U.S. government decided it would stop funding gain-of-function research, though Baric’s study was underway and was grandfathered in. The National Institutes of Health deemed the study not risky enough to fall under the moratorium on funding, Baric told Nature in 2015. The lingering literature around the debate appears to have drawn attention to Baric’s work. An editor’s note attached to the top of Nature’s article about the debate now reads: “We are aware that this story is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true.” Debbink, who helped author Baric’s 2015 paper, said everyone involved with that research has been targeted online by harassers who are accusing them of creating a biological weapon.
EXPERT RESEARCH SHOWS THE VIRUS DIDN’T COME FROM A LAB
But since COVID-19, just one of several known coronavirus strains in the world, has had a chance to be studied, scientists have been resolute in saying there’s no proof of it being engineered by humans. On the contrary it appears to be quite natural in origin, likely coming from bats, they say. A recent article in the journal of Emerging Microbes & Infections aimed squarely at false claims about Baric’s 2015 paper. The authors of the study found no connection between Baric’s research and the new pandemic — because the hybrid Baric used and the virus that causes COVID-19 are completely different strains. “This claim lacks any scientific basis and must be discounted...,” the authors wrote. “[T]here is no credible evidence to support [it].” Susan Weiss, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and an author of the article, said she didn’t have time to talk to an N&O reporter about the false theories but added, “The conspiracy theory is ridiculous.” In February, The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal, published a statement “strongly condemning conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.” The group of scientists who published the statement cited nine different genomic analyses that all pointed overwhelmingly toward a natural origin of the virus. “Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumors, and prejudice that jeopardize our global collaboration in the fight against this virus,” the scientists in The Lancet wrote. Debbink said she doesn’t expect researchers to slow down their work because of the conspiracy theories, but she is worried about the long-term consequences of them. “I think conspiracy theories are very harmful to the public discourse,” she said, “... less so because of people like me getting death threats ... but because they degrade the public trust in science and confuse people.”[/i]
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