Happy Halloween! This week we haves lots of scares for you, including even more misuse of international organizations to further disinformation narratives! This week, we focus on Russia’s request for a UNSC investigation of its bogus BW claims and complaint lodged in accordance with Article VI of the BWC, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions minority report on SARS-CoV-2 origins, and ongoing debates about the SARS-CoV-2 experiments conducted at Boston University. We also cover new publications, upcoming events, and new announcements ahead of One Health Day.
Russia Criticized Heavily After Calling for UNSC Resolution on “Secret Biolabs in Ukraine”
In yet another massive waste of everyone’s time, Russia has continued to press its false claims that the US runs “secret military biological programs” in Ukraine with the UN Security Council, this time drafting a resolution that would establish a commission (comprised of all 15 UNSC members) to investigate the claims. This comes amid a new wave of “transparently false allegations” on the part of Moscow, most recently regarding alleged Ukrainian plans to use a dirty bomb in its own territory. In response to this latest effort at the Security Council, the UK’s Ambassador to the UN, Dame Barbara Woodward, asked the question on everyone’s mind-“How much more of this nonsense do we have to endure?”
This newest attempt includes an official complaint to the UNSC, filed in accordance with article VI of the BWC, in addition to the request for the formation of a formal commission to investigate the October 24 complaint. The complaints continue to center on efforts between the US and Ukraine, largely under the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, to support public health research and diagnostic facilities, though Russia insists these facilities are not for peaceful purposes.
In a Thursday briefing before the Security Council, the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) reiterated again that it is not aware of any biological weapons programs in Ukraine, echoing its previous statements on the matter made in March and May. In response, Russia’s Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said, “Do you really think that we’re that naïve?…Do you really think that we think that the Pentagon is going to inform the high representative of the Office of Disarmament Affairs within the UN about their secret biological programs in Ukraine?”
US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, summarized the absurdity of Russia’s claims, explaining “We hear Russia raise alarms that biological weapons will be delivered by birds and bats and now even mosquitoes. Birds and bats. Russia knows public health laboratories routinely study migratory animal species to assess and counter animal-borne pathogens. Bear in mind, much like Russia, birds and bats don’t tend to observe or respect sovereign borders. Russia’s assertions are absurd for many reasons, including because such species, even if they could be weaponized, would pose as much a threat to the European continent and to Ukraine itself as they would to any other country.”
Thomas-Greenfield also described the meeting as a “…colossal waste of time… an attempt to distract from the atrocities Russian forces are carrying out in Ukraine and a desperate tactic to justify an unjustifiable war.” She later added, “It doesn’t matter how many meetings Russia tries to call on this subject. And it doesn’t matter how hard it ratchets up its propaganda machine. We must not divert UN resources toward a baseless investigation. And we must not allow Russia’s tactics to distract us from its brutal war of aggression.”
Senate HELP Committee Minority Interim Report Released on SARS-CoV-2 Origins
This week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Minority oversight staff released their interim report-“An Analysis of the Origins of the COVID-19 Pandemic”. The report makes a number of claims, including “While it remains possible that SARS-CoV-2 emerged as a result of a natural zoonotic spillover, facts and evidence found in previous documented zoonotic spillover events have not, to date, been identified in relation to this pandemic,” “Substantial evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic was the result of a research-related incident associated with a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” and “This investigation’s interim report concludes that SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting COVID-19 global pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident associated with coronavirus research in Wuhan, China.”
The 35-page report does not completely rule out a market origin and, importantly, it does not claim that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered as a bioweapon-a popular conspiracy theory. One interesting element it does focus on is that Chinese scientists began testing their COVID-19 vaccines in humans about a month before the United States did. The report implies this means the Chinese had some sort of advanced (pre-January 11, 2020) access to genomic sequencing, though it does still ask “What additional steps, processes, or novel techniques did AMMS [PLA Academy of Military Medical Sciences] researchers take that advanced the development of their vaccine faster than the Operation Warp Speed timeline?” The report states, “While mRNA vaccine candidates were able to design their vaccine construct in two days, because mRNA vaccines only need the coronavirus’ genetic sequence to make a vaccine and no virus has to be cultivated in labs, traditional vaccine platforms take longer.” It continues, highlighting that the first Operation Warp Speed (OWS) vaccine candidates to enter human clinical trials were non-mRNA vaccines-AstraZeneca-Oxford’s offering and Johnson & Johnson’s, both viral vector vaccines.
It then contrasts the 8 months it took for OWS viral vector candidates to human clinical trials with the 67 days it took one AMMS team to do the same, writing “Given Operation Warp Speed’s success, it is unusual that the two AMMS COVID-19 vaccine development teams were able to reach early milestones in vaccine development even more quickly. The Chen AMMS team beat AstraZeneca-Oxford to phase I clinical trials by 38 days. The Zhou AMMS team built and validated the effectiveness of its COVID-19 candidate vaccine 44 days after the sequence of SARS-CoV-2 was released. The extremely accelerated vaccines development timelines achieved by the AMMS teams pose the following two outstanding questions:”
- “What additional steps, processes, or novel techniques did AMMS researchers take that advanced the development of their vaccine faster than the Operation Warp Speed timeline?”
- “If no additional steps were taken to speed up the development timeline, when did researchers in China have access to the genomic sequence? Was it before January 11, 2020? If so, how far in advance of January 11, 2020?”
This argument does not address differences in the regulatory environments of the US and PRC. Rather, it seems to imply that this is evidence the Chinese had advance knowledge of this outbreak with no discussion of drug and therapeutic approval reforms in recent years that aim to improve the country’s ability to compete in pharmaceutical manufacturing globally and incentivizes development of vaccines and drugs for rare diseases. The CCP has identified competition in global biopharmaceutical manufacturing as a top priority, so the implication that the faster timeline to clinical trials supports the lab leak theory is unsatisfactory as presented.
It also does not appear to have even won over prominent supporters of the lab leak theory, including Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University. The New York Times explains, “Dr. Ebright, who was interviewed by the report’s authors, said he supported the argument that evidence pointed to a laboratory origin. But the only new element, he said, appeared to be questions raised about how China could have developed a vaccine so quickly, which he did not find persuasive. Otherwise, he said, “there was no information in the report that has not been publicly presented in the media and discussed in the media previously.”
Naturally, this interim report has been heavily criticized. The conclusion reached in this report obviously differs from the two peer-reviewed Science articles published earlier this year that found 1) the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was the epicenter of the initial outbreak and 2) that there were at least two distinct spillovers from animals sold at the market. Scientists supporting the market origin still have not identified which animals were infected or where they came from, as no animals were tested before the market was shut down early in 2020. Of this, the report states “Critical corroborating evidence of a natural zoonotic spillover is missing. While the absence of evidence is not itself evidence, the lack of corroborating evidence of a zoonotic spillover or spillovers, three years into the pandemic, is highly problematic.”
Dr. Michael Worobey, Department Head of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona and a co-author of both the Science articles, addressed the report with Science news, with the news team writing “Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who has co-authored scientific reports examining data from the early days of the pandemic that provide some of the strongest support for a jump from animals to humans, speculates that the timing of the report’s release could be “a cynical effort to try to win Republican votes” in the upcoming midterm congressional and state elections. Or, Worobey says, “it could just be a bunch of staffers with no ability to understand the science who stumbled across a bunch of misinformation and disinformation-filled tweets.” (“Senator Burr felt enough compelling, open-source information had been gathered during staff’s comprehensive review of the facts that an interim report was appropriate,” a senior aide to the minority staff told Science.)”
After the minority interim report was released, Senator Patty Murray, Chair of the Senate HELP Committee, issued a statement on “continuing bipartisan oversight efforts into the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19” that did not address the minority report. Sen. Murray stated “COVID-19 has caused so much pain, hardship, and loss for people in Washington state, across our country, and all across the globe. As I’ve said time and again, it is absolutely critical we learn the lessons from this pandemic so that we never find ourselves in a similar situation again—and that, of course, includes undertaking a full examination of how COVID-19 first emerged.”
“That’s why I made it a top priority as Chair to craft bipartisan legislation to strengthen our public health and pandemic preparedness systems with the PREVENT Pandemics Act—which, among so many other vital steps, would establish an independent task force to conduct a comprehensive review of COVID’s origins and the federal response to the pandemic. And it’s why, in 2021, I announced a bipartisan oversight effort with Senator Burr into the origins of this virus. The HELP Committee is continuing bipartisan work on this oversight report, and I remain committed to passing the PREVENT Pandemics Act, which advanced out of Committee with overwhelming bipartisan support.”
More on the Boston University Controversy
While the controversy surrounding experiments conducted on SARS-CoV-2 at Boston University has subsided some, attention has shifted to how such research is regulated. The New York Times explains the concerns, writing “But the uproar highlighted shortcomings in how the U.S. government regulates research on pathogens that pose a risk, however small, of setting off a pandemic. It revealed loopholes that allow experiments to go unnoticed, a lack of transparency about how the risk of experiments is judged and a seemingly haphazard pattern in the federal government’s oversight policy, known as the P3CO framework.” It also notes “Even as the government publicly reprimanded Boston University, it raised no red flags publicly about several other experiments it funded in which researchers manipulated coronaviruses in similar ways. One of them was carried out by the government’s own scientists.”
Nature explains the issue further, writing “At issue is whether — and when — researchers modifying SARS-CoV-2 or other deadly pathogens need to keep regulators and funding agencies such as the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) informed about their work, even if the agencies didn’t fund the experiments in question. Studies that make pathogens more transmissible or virulent are sometimes called ‘gain of function’ research.”
The issue now being discussed is if federal guidance is too vague in explaining what disclosures are required after a proposal is approved and research is progressing. Dr. Greg Koblentz told The New York Times “The government should be providing the guidance to help people figure this out,” and explained to Grid that “Pandemic prevention and lab safety rules “only move in fits and starts,” said biodefense professor Gregory Koblentz of George Mason University, pointing to the long list of past controversies. “And we only make progress where there is some crisis, or perceived crisis, that grabs people’s attention.”
Koblentz also commented on the confusion surrounding “gain of function”, telling Grid “‘Gain of function’ — we should retire that term, it really doesn’t help us in that debate,” said Koblentz. “It has become shorthand for a class of research that people are worried about because of the risks it poses, but it is a term that really has outlived its usefulness.” The term garnered attention during a number of political debates, including back-and-forths between Senator Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Grid also noted that, though many experts disagree on the utility of the term “gain of function, “There’s one point all of the experts who spoke to Grid agreed on — the Boston University chimera experiments do point to a need for stronger federal government oversight of potentially dangerous bugs. The fact that we are still debating whether to review genetically altering known pandemic pathogens, not even potential ones, said Koblentz, “is an indictment of both the self-governance model that the virology community largely supports and the current policy.”
NCT Magazine
In this issue focused on 4th generation chemical weapons, several experts offer their perspective on existing and emerging issues. Drs. Stefano Costanzi and Gregory Koblentz authored a piece for this issue, “Controlling Novichok Nerve Agents After the Skripal and Navalny Incidents”. They cover the history of this family of nerve agents and international disarmament and nonproliferation attempts before discussing the Skripal and Navalny incidents as evidence that both the Chemical Weapons Convention and Australia Group Chemical Weapons Precursors list need to be revised to better address Novichok agents. They conclude “The ability of the CWC and AG to adapt to the new challenge posed by these fourth-generation nerve agents demonstrates the resilience of the chemical weapon nonproliferation regime. However, further measures need to be implemented to reduce the opportunities for proliferators to develop and use Novichok nerve agents. Embracing a family-based approach to listing chemicals of proliferation concern would strengthen the nonproliferation regime and the adoption of technologies such as cheminformatics can facilitate the transition to this new approach to containing the threat posed by chemical weapons.”
“Designation of Three Syrian Military Officials Due to Involvement in Gross Violations of Human Rights”
On the topic of chemical weapons, the US State Department recently designated multiple military officials from the Syrian regime, it declared in a press release this week. The statement reads in part, “Of the atrocities committed by the Assad regime, some of which rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity, few are as inhumane and abhorrent as the repeated use of chemical weapons against civilians. In August 2013, the Syrian Artillery and Missile Directorate of the Syrian Armed Forces launched rockets carrying the nerve agent sarin, a deadly chemical, on Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, killing at least 1,400 people, many of them children. Today, we are taking additional action to promote accountability.”
“The Department of State is designating three Syrian regime military officials involved in these airstrikes, pursuant to Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2022. Brigadier General Adnan Aboud Hilweh, Major General Ghassan Ahmed Ghannam, and Major General Jawdat Saleebi Mawas were involved in gross violations of human rights, namely the flagrant denial of the right to life of at least 1,400 people in Ghouta. As a result of today’s action, Hilweh, Ghannam, and Mawas as well as their immediate family members are ineligible for entry into the United States.”
“To Fix American’s Biodefense Strategy, Think Smaller”
From Breaking Defense: “It’s a natural reflex for the US government to try to develop strategies to deal with issues as broadly as possible, to handle a wide array of contingencies. But in the op-ed below, Al Mauroni of Air University’s Center for Strategic Deterrent Studies argues that the Biden administration’s biodefense strategy, expanding on past strategies, has grown too cumbersome and is in need of a cure of its own.”
ASPR TRACIE on Major Radiological or Nuclear Incidents
ASPR’s Healthcare Emergency Preparedness Information Gateway (TRACIE) recently released this updated document providing an “overview of health and medical response and recovery needs following a radiological or nuclear incident…” It also outlines resources for planners. Other relevant resources can also be found on the TRACIE CBRN page.
“Preventing and Preparing for Pandemics with Zoonotic Origins”
This piece from the Council on Foreign Relations discusses how factors that drive pathogen emergence and spread should influence decisions on investments in pandemic preparedness and response. It discusses priority pathogens, primary pandemic prevention, and secondary pandemic prevention and pandemic preparedness, concluding that “There is unprecedented support at the highest levels of government to enhance global pandemic prevention and preparedness. The recent decision to create a new fund for pandemics out of the World Bank and the ongoing negotiation for a pandemic agreement within the World Health Organization are potentially transformational. It is critical that comprehensive action be taken quickly through these efforts before the world’s collective attention moves on to the next crisis. Failure to do so means future generations will live less healthy and productive lives than we have today.”
“COVID-19 Genomic UK (COG-UK) Consortium: Final Report”
In this article from RAND Health Quarterly, Marjanovic et al. write in their abstract “The ability to sequence and understand different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and their impact is crucial to inform policy and public health decisions. Soon after the UK went into its first lockdown in March 2020, the CCOVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium was launched. COG-UK is a collaboration of experts in pathogen genomics including academic institutions, public health agencies, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, NHS Trusts and Lighthouse Labs. RAND Europe evaluated how COG-UK delivered against its objectives, for example how it contributed to advancing scientific knowledge about SARS-CoV-2, informing public health decisions, and providing information that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of vaccines and treatments. The evaluation also examined the diverse factors that influenced COG-UK progress and impact, including enablers and challenges, and considered implications for the future.”
Coronavirus Vaccines R&D Roadmap
From CIDRAP: “CIDRAP, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation, has led an international collaborative effort to develop a coronavirus vaccines research and development (R&D) roadmap (CVR). The CVR aims to serve a strategic planning tool to facilitate R&D, coordinate funding, and promote stakeholder engagement aimed at generating broadly protective coronavirus vaccines.”
“A key component of roadmap development is gathering feedback via a public comment period. The draft CVR is now available for a 4-week public comment period from October 24 – November 18, 2022. Feedback gathered during the public comment period will be used to refine the roadmap, resulting in a final roadmap made available in early 2023.”
“The draft CVR may be downloaded in PDF format. Comments should be submitted via this survey, which will be available through November 18, 2022. The survey offers the opportunity to share general and specific comments on the roadmap; the team welcomes as little or much feedback as you would like to provide.”
“The Future of Infodemic Surveillance as Public Health Surveillance”
In this recent piece from a supplement issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Chiou et al. write “Public health systems need to be able to detect and respond to infodemics (outbreaks of misinformation, disinformation, information overload, or information voids). Drawing from our experience at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the COVID-19 State of Vaccine Confidence Insight Reporting System has been created as one of the first public health infodemic surveillance systems. Key functions of infodemic surveillance systems include monitoring the information environment by person, place, and time; identifying infodemic events with digital analytics; conducting offline community-based assessments; and generating timely routine reports. Although specific considerations of several system attributes of infodemic surveillance system must be considered, infodemic surveillance systems share several similarities with traditional public health surveillance systems. Because both information and pathogens are spread more readily in an increasingly hyperconnected world, sustainable and routine systems must be created to ensure that timely interventions can be deployed for both epidemic and infodemic response.”
COVID Taking the Fun Out of Fungi?
The WHO recently released its first fungal priority pathogens list (FPPL)- “the first global effort to systematically prioritize fungal pathogens, considering their unmet research and development (R&D) needs and perceived public health importance.” The WHO explains that “The WHO FPPL aims to focus and drive further research and policy interventions to strengthen the global response to fungal infections and antifungal resistance. The WHO FPPL list is divided into three categories: critical, high and medium priority. The report presents these categories and proposes actions and strategies for policymakers, public health professionals and other stakeholders; targeted at improving the overall response to these priority fungal pathogens including preventing the development of antimicrobial resistance. Three primary areas for action are proposed, focusing on: (1) strengthening laboratory capacity and surveillance; (2) sustainable investments in research, development, and innovation; and (3) public health interventions.”
This comes amid a spike in certain fungal diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the report found that “Currently, fungal infections receive less than 1.5% of all infectious disease research funding,” and that “most treatment guidelines are informed by limited evidence and expert opinion.”
Opinion: “To Fight Misinformation, We Need to Teach That Science Is Dynamic”
In this piece for Scientific American, Dr. Carl Bergstrom, Daniel Pimentel, and Dr. Jonathan Osborne discuss public ignorance of the scientific community, identifying ways this can be rectified. They write, “It’s easy to see why so many of us struggle to distinguish trustworthy science from what is flawed, speculative or fundamentally wrong. When we don’t learn the nature of consensus, how science tends to be self-correcting and how community as well as individual incentives bring to light discrepancies in theory and data, we are vulnerable to false beliefs and antiscience propaganda. Indeed, misinformation is now a pervasive threat to national and international security and well-being.”
They discuss the need to develop a population of competent outsiders, explaining “Giving people more facts is insufficient. Instead, we need a populace that can tell which sources of information are likely to be reliable, even if the science itself is beyond what they learned in school, so that they can identify when they need scientific information to make decisions in their own lives. Just as critically, people must understand enough about how science attempts to minimize error. In other words, every member of our society needs to be what science education researcher Noah Feinstein calls a “competent outsider.”
What We’re Listening To 🎧
This Week in Virology 948: Breathless with David Quammen
“David Quammen returns to TWiV to discuss how he wrote his new book ‘Breathless’, a story about the science and the scientists behind the race to understand the pandemic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.” Listen here.
Conversations Before Midnight
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is hosting its Bulletin Annual Gathering on November 9, 2022, at 5 pm CDT virtually. This is the Bulletin’s “signature event” and it aims to allow guests to engage in high-level conversations with influential voices tracking man-made threats. At the event, “Each virtual table has an expert, established and up-and-coming specialists in the fields of nuclear risk, climate change, disruptive technologies, and biosecurity. These discussion leaders include members of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, Board of Sponsors, and invited experts from around the world. Below are a few samples for this year’s gathering.”‘ Table experts include our own Dr. Greg Koblentz, so be sure to check out this event’s info page here.
Briefings in Preparation for the Ninth BWC Review Conference
From UNIDR: “The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is a cornerstone in the regime to prevent the hostile use of biology. The Ninth BWC Review Conference will take place in late November 2022 and presents an important opportunity to take stock of the past and chart a course for the future of this increasingly important agreement. In support of preparations for the Ninth BWC Review Conference and beyond, UNIDIR has recently published several reports intended to stimulate thinking on substantive issues related to the BWC.”
“This virtual event will bring together the authors of the latest UNIDIR publications on BWC topics to provide short outlines of the key insights and ideas in their respective reports for State Parties to consider ahead of the Review Conference. These include verification, advances in science and technology, international cooperation, and potential outcomes of the Review Conference. The presentations will be followed by a moderated interactive discussion with the participants.” This event will take place on November 7 at 2 pm CET, online. Learn more and register here.
Infection Prevention and Control: Incorporating Lessons Learned in Managing Special Pathogens
“After nearly three years responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals and other healthcare facilities have learned many lessons about the management of special pathogens and essential infection prevention and control practices. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response’s Technical Resources, Assistance Center, and Information Exchange (ASPR TRACIE) and the National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center (NETEC) invite you to learn more about some of those lessons. Speakers will share their perspectives on how our approach to outbreaks has changed since the pandemic began. They will address issues such as infection prevention for healthcare workers and patients and mitigating disease spread. Speakers will also highlight newly developed tools and resources. This webinar will take place November 7 at 2:00 pm ET. Register today!”
From One Health Commission-World Bank Open Call
“World Bank has posted a call for experts to serve on the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) to the Governing Board of the Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response Financial Intermediary Fund (“PPR FIF”).”
“The TAP will comprise a multidisciplinary pool of up to 20 experts, bringing a diverse range of independent technical and financial expertise relevant to PPR FIF-supported projects and activities. To register your interest in being considered for the PPR FIF TAP, please submit documents to ppr_fif_secretariat@worldbank.org using the subject line “Expression of interest for the PPR FIF TAP”
Speaking of One Health…November 3 is One Health Day
Mark your calendars for this year’s One Health Day on November 3. One Health Day is an international campaign that was launched in 2016. The One Health Commission explains that “The goal of One Health Day is to bring attention around the world to the need for One Health interactions and for the world to ‘see them in action’. The One Health Day campaign is designed to engage as many individuals as possible from as many arenas as possible in One Health education and awareness events, and to generate an inspiring array of projects worldwide.” If you are hosting an event on this day, you can register your event here with the Commission. A list of registered One Health Day events for 2022 is also available here.
The Pandora Report 