New coronavirus mutant strain kills 100% of “humanized” mice, White House warns of dangerous Chinese research “harming Americans”

politics

by steven nelson

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is now warning about dangerous scientific research in China after a study there found a coronavirus variant killed 100% of “humanized” mice. ”

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Wednesday the reason for the increased vigilance is that if the virus is mishandled in the lab, it could “come back and harm Americans.” said.

Asked about the controversial study during a regular White House briefing, Sullivan said, “We have long documented concerns about biosafety and the biosecurity practices of many countries; This includes China.” Preprint paper released last month.

“That’s something we continue to be vigilant about. Biosafety and biosecurity, especially the security of hazardous biological materials that are everywhere in the world, that can ultimately come back and harm Americans.” Because it is,” Sullivan added.

“So this remains a key focus of multiple agencies of the U.S. government, and we continue to work on it.”

A preprint of the new study went viral due to the theory that the novel coronavirus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 and went on to kill nearly 1.2 million Americans. Of these, approximately 800,000 people have died since President Biden took office.

Prominent scientists said the latest research was alarming due to safety concerns.

Dr. François Ballou of the Institute of Genetics, University College London, said: I wrote to X“We don’t find anything vaguely interesting like what you’d get by force-infecting some weird kind of humanized mouse with a random virus. On the contrary, we found out just how many things can go wrong.”

In a preprint uploaded by researchers from Beijing University of Chemical Technology to the platform bioRxiv, their research shows that the “SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus GX_P2V” was isolated from a Malaysian pangolin in 2017 and subsequently mutated in 2017. He said he was handling it. Obvious adaptation to cell culture.

The researchers said, “To our knowledge, this is the first report showing that a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus can cause 100% mortality in hACE2 mice, and that GX_P2V can cause 100% mortality in humans. “This suggests a risk that could spread to other countries.”

They further added, “We speculate that the cause of death may be related to the development of a late-onset brain infection.”

Important information such as safety measures was not immediately disclosed, and the report highlighted the study’s small sample size and major differences between humans and genetically modified mice that may explain the high mortality rate. has been done.

China has lacked transparency about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, and President Biden has rarely mentioned the topic in public remarks since declaring in an August 2021 statement: I haven’t.[t]He deserves answers and I won’t rest until I get them. ”

The FBI and the Department of Energy’s National Laboratory have assessed that the coronavirus may have leaked from the laboratory.

One of the facilities in Wuhan considered a possible source of the pandemic was conducting dangerous “gain-of-function” research funded by the United States to modify the genetics of bat coronaviruses.

Documents published by The Intercept in late 2021 show that EcoHealth Alliance used U.S. grants to fund experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that modified three types of bat coronaviruses that are different from the novel coronavirus. It became clear that The study found that adding human-type receptors to “humanized” mice made the virus more infectious.