Labs, Leaks, and Liability

The resurfaced conversation surrounding the idea that SARS-CoV-2 might have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, represents an opportunity to reexamine the confluence of science, politics, and public discourse.

Written byBob Grant

| 6 min read

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Recently, the so-called lab-leak hypothesis has reared its head again. Injected back into the public conversation surrounding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, the idea proposes that SARS-CoV-2 emerged (either unintentionally or intentionally) from virology research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) rather than from a zoonotic transmission event from an animal host to a human. The arc of the lab-leak hypothesis is long and complex, and in a June Vanity Fair article, journalist Katherine Eban covered the ins and outs of the story in great detail.

The Cliffs Notes of the serpentine story are essentially as follows: There was gain-of-function research involving coronaviruses going on at the WIV for years prior to the COVID-19 outbreak detected in Wuhan sometime in late 2019. Such research examines the infective capacity of viruses by endowing them with abilities in the lab beyond those that ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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