Experts rubbish Chinese virologist’s claims coronavirus was made in a lab after she defected to the US
A CHINESE virologist's claims that coronavirus was man-made have been widely rejected by scientists.
Dr Li Meng-Yan, who defected to the US after claiming she was being muzzled by China, published an unfounded report alleging the virus was created in a lab.
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Experts rounded on her and accused her writing 'highly speculative' report that not been peer-reviewed.
Dr Yan is formerly a specialist at Hong Kong's School of Public Health who said her supervisor first asked her to investigate a new "SARS-like" virus in Wuhan on December 31 — but claims her efforts were later stifled.
After reportedly being told she would "be disappeared" if she spoke out, she fled to the United States.
She wrote that the coronavirus could have been "conveniently created" within a lab setting over a period of just six months.
She adds: "SARS-CoV-2 shows biological characteristics that are inconsistent with a naturally occurring, zoonotic virus."
Scientists around the world have since dismissed her findings saying they are not supported by evidence.
Gkikas Magiorkinis, Scientific Coordinator of the National Reference Centre for Retroviruses at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, said: “Closely related coronaviruses have been retrieved from animals such as bats and pangolins.
"So this makes the scenario of naturally occurring evolution far more likely than any scenario of laboratory manipulation.
"This paper by Li-Meng does not provide any robust evidence of artificial manipulation and is highly speculative.”
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, added that the genetic features highlighted by Dr Yan also appear in nature and do not prove the virus was created in a laboratory.
In echoes of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, it has been claimed the virulent virus leaked out and the China's communist regime tried to cover this up, giving the world little time to prepare for a pandemic.
So far nearly 993,000 people across the world have perished from Covid-19 which continues to relentlessly spread around the world.
From the early stages of the pandemic, reports emerged of doctors being detained after trying to warn others about the virus on social media.
Journalists also had their equipment confiscated after trying to report on the issue.
Coronavirus is believed to have jumped from animal to human within a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan sometime in late 2019.
But Dr Yan writes: "The natural origin theory, although widely accepted, lacks substantial support.
"The alternative theory that the virus may have come from a research laboratory is, however, strictly censored on peer-reviewed scientific journals.
"Nonetheless, SARS-CoV-2 shows biological characteristics that are inconsistent with a naturally occurring, zoonotic virus."
Dr Yan’s paper is titled: "Unusual Features of the SARS-CoV-2 Genome Suggesting Sophisticated Laboratory Modification Rather Than Natural Evolution and Delineation of Its Probable Synthetic Route".
SARS-CoV-2 shows biological characteristics that are inconsistent with a naturally occurring, zoonotic virus
Dr Yan had been working at Hong Kong University’s public health laboratory sciences division, a World Health Organisation (WHO) infectious diseases research centre, when her boss asked her to probe the outbreak in Wuhan.
Dr Yan claimed her team’s findings were suppressed before being told to only to report cases linked to the Huanan seafood market.
She claims she reported back that cases appeared to be rising exponentially but was told to "keep silent and be careful".
"'We will get in trouble and we'll be disappeared'," her supervisor reportedly said.
Fearing for her life, she fled to the United States.
'THEY CALLED ME A LIAR'
Speaking on ITV's Loose Women from an undisclosed location on Friday, Dr Yan claimed: "It comes from the lab in Wuhan."
Her study has been published on , which is an open access digital platform.
Other scientists disputed Dr Yan’s claims and concluded that it is naturally occurring and was passed to humans from an animal, probably a bat.
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Writing in a research paper published earlier this year, immunologist Kristian Andersen PhD of the Scripps Research institute in California said: "By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that [Covid-19] originated through natural processes."
Doctors from Wuhan have reported being detained after speaking out on social media about what they were witnessing, while journalists have recounted being harassed and having their equipment confiscated after trying to report on the issue.
Ill-fated "whistle blower" Dr Li Wenliang tried to warn the world about the killer virus but was sent a chilling letter by the police before he died.
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Wenliang was told by cops "if he refused to repent he would be punished" not long before he was killed by the deadly virus.
This article and headline has been corrected to refer to Dr Yan's findings as unfounded and notes that her report is a simply a draft paper that has not been peer reviewed. It also adds comments from experts accusing her of making 'highly speculative' and 'unsubstantiated' claims. We are happy to clarify this position.
