On January 4, 2024, a preprint study was uploaded to the bioRxiv servers (Bio-Archive) by a group of Chinese researchers from Beijing University of Chemical Technology. The article, which had not yet gone through the peer-review process, describes a study that tested the lethality of a coronavirus on mice. The virus has been genetically modified to more closely study how diseases affect people. According to the study, all mice injected with an active version of the virus died within eight days of infection.
The research was shared by scientists on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) who debated the merits of conducting the research and its findings.
A cell culture-adapted mutant SARS-CoV-2r pangolin virus that is lethal to hACE2 mice appears to cause a late-stage brain infection.
Beijing Univ Group, preprint published 4 Jan 24. https://t.co/mW4E8Ry7V3— MJ Allen (@MJnanostretch) January 7, 2024
As the study spread on social media, tabloids like The Daily Mail and the New York Post also picked up on it, attaching fear-mongering headlines to the story and claiming, among other things, that the researchers had created the virus. That wasn’t true.
Below we outline some of the most important rumors.
First, the preprint and the study are real. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bio-Archive became a tool that allowed researchers to quickly share information and breakthroughs with their colleagues without having to go through the long and arduous academic publishing process. It is a reliable source; However, because the articles uploaded to the site have not been peer-reviewed, scientific findings should be taken somewhat with a grain of salt.
Second, the virus used in the experiment is not a “new, mutated variant of COVID,” as claimed in The New York Post headline about the study. Coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, are a family of viruses that share similar structures. The specific coronavirus used in the study, GX_P2V, was isolated from a pangolin coronavirus in 2017. The most accurate comparison might be to call SARS-CoV-2 and GX_P2V “cousins.”
Third, the virus mutated from its original isolate, but it’s a bit unfair to claim that the scientists “created” the virus. Since coronaviruses (and viruses in general) are known to mutate their genetic instructions rapidly, it is not surprising that the virus used in the study mutated from the moment it was isolated. In the paper (and in previous research by the same group), the researchers note that this particular variant of GX_P2V contained the mutation because it had adapted better to the cell cultures in which it was grown.
Fourth, the study was very small. Because you can’t just inject someone on the street with a virus you know virtually nothing about, researchers used laboratory mice. These mice were genetically modified to contain the human proteins that SARS-CoV-2 uses to get into cells. The researchers used just twelve of these mice to study the lethality of the virus, and only four were injected with the live virus, all of which died. While this is indeed a 100% fatality rate, there simply isn’t enough data on the virus to panic.
Fifth: At least one researcher had past ties to the Chinese military, as The Daily Mail claims. This was a point raised by many on social media, suggesting that the Chinese military was building a bioweapon that it could use to decimate its political enemies.
The research was conducted by a team that included Tong Yigang, a professor who previously studied and taught at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, part of the military’s research department. Tong is not currently affiliated with that institution, and Snopes was unable to find any other evidence confirming or denying possible ties to the Chinese military.
What worried most people, virologists and conspiracy theorists alike, was the reason for conducting the study. There are two possible explanations for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic: the zoonotic transmission hypothesis, which means that an infected animal transmits the disease to patient zero, and the laboratory leak hypothesis, which means that the safety protocols in a laboratory in which the pathogen is present, have not been followed. effectively tracked and the coronavirus infected patient zero from there.
Unfortunately, neither can be completely ruled out, although as Snopes has reported, most, but not all, scientists and government agencies accept the animal-to-human hypothesis.
Nevertheless, in the wake of the pandemic, virologists have examined safety procedures to ensure that their research never becomes a threat to the general public. This is where the academic criticism of the study lies: Figures like Francois Balloux, the director of the Genetics Institute at University College London, criticized the researchers on were worth investigating.
I looked at the preprint. It’s a terrible study, scientifically completely pointless. I see nothing of vague importance that can be learned by forcibly infecting an alien species of humanized mice with any virus. Conversely, I could see how such things could go wrong…
— Prof. François Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) January 10, 2024
The downsides, of course, could be another global pandemic. Snopes contacted Balloux, along with the study’s researchers and other experts in the field. We will update this story if we hear back.
Sources:
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Balloux, François, et al. “The Past, Present, and Future Epidemiological Dynamics of SARS-CoV-2.” Oxford Open Immunology, full. 3, no. June 1, 2022, pg. iqac003. DOI.org (crossref)https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfimm/iqac003.
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“https://Twitter.Com/Examachine/Status/1747418249371750897.” X (formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/examachine/status/1747418249371750897. Accessed January 17, 2024.
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Kasprak, Alex. “DOE and FBI say lab origins of COVID ‘highly likely’ – but won’t say why.” SnackingMarch 3, 2023, https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/03/03/fbi-doe-covid-origin/.
Lu, Shanshan, et al. “Induction of significant neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 by a highly attenuated Pangolin coronavirus variant with a 104nt deletion at the 3′ UTR.” Emerging microbes and infections, full. 12, no. 1, December 2023, p. 2151383. DOI.org (crossref)https://doi.org/10.1080/22221751.2022.2151383.
Rasmussen, Angela L., et al. “Virology – the Way Forward.” Journal of Virologyedited by Stacey Schultz-Cherry, January 2024, pp. e01791-23. DOI.org (crossref)https://doi.org/10.1128/jvi.01791-23.
Tilley, Caitlin. “Chinese scientists ‘create’ a Covid strain with a 100% death rate in mice.” Email onlineJanuary 16, 2024, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12969105/chinese-scientists-lab-coronavirus-kill-rate-mice.html.
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Wei, Lai, et al. Lethal infection of human ACE2 transgenic mice caused by SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus GX_P2V (short_3UTR). bioRxiv, January 4, 2024. bioRxivhttps://doi.org/10.1101/2024.01.03.574008.