Published on Wednesday, the paper said it remains “possible” that Sars-Cov-2 arose either through natural spread or a laboratory incident and called for more safeguards to be introduced to reduce the risk of either eventuality. But the report, the result of two years of work, also suggested that American researchers could be guilty. In addition to the Wuhan facility, he noted that “independent investigators have yet to investigate” the US labs and said the National Institutes of Health had been “resistant to releasing details” of their work. The report comes as controversy swirls over the committee’s chairman, economist Professor Jeffrey Sachs. At a conference in Madrid earlier this year, he said he was “quite convinced” that Sars-Cov-2 “came out of a US biotech lab, not from nature” – a claim that has since been widely promoted by Chinese diplomats. In August, Professor Sachs also appeared on a podcast hosted by Robert F Kennedy, Jr – one of the world’s most prominent anti-vaccine commentators – to discuss his beliefs, just days after Instagram and Facebook suspended a account of Mr. Kennedy for repeatedly sharing what the platforms said was misinformation about Covid, especially about vaccines
“Embarrassing moment” for Lancet
Experts said Professor Sachs’ actions had overshadowed much of the strong research and recommendations in the 58-page report and criticized the Lancet for resisting calls for him to be removed. “Sachs’ appearance on RFK Jr’s podcast … undermines the seriousness of the Lancet Commission’s mission to the point of negating it entirely,” said Professor Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Agency of Canada. “This may be one of the Lancet’s most shameful moments in terms of its role as steward and leader in communicating critical findings for science and medicine,” she said, adding that she was “quite shocked at how blatantly” the report ignored basic facts about covid. origin.
