• Fifty-Nine Labs around World Handle the Deadliest Pathogens – Only a Quarter Score High on Safety

    The focal point of this lab-leak discussion is the Wuhan Institute of Virology, nestled in the hilly outskirts of Wuhan. It is just one of 59 maximum containment labs in operation, under construction or planned around the world. Known as biosafety level 4 (BSL4) labs, these are designed and built so that researchers can safely work with the most dangerous pathogens on the planet – ones that can cause serious disease and for which no treatment or vaccines exist. Far from all of these labs score well on safety and security.

  • Rising Trends in Suicide by Firearms in Young Americans

    Deaths from suicide are rising in the United States. These rising trends are especially alarming because global trends in suicide are on a downward trajectory. Moreover, in the U.S., the major mode of suicide among young Americans is by firearms.

  • Here’s What Scientists Learn from Studying Dangerous Pathogens in Secure Labs

    There are about 1,400 known human pathogens – viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa and helminths that can cause a person’s injury or death. But in a world with a trillion individual species of microorganisms, where scientists have counted only one one-thousandth of one percent, how likely is it researchers have discovered and characterized everything that might threaten people? Not very likely at all. And there’s a lot to be gained from knowing these microscopic enemies better.

  • Unmedicated, Untreated Brain Illness is Likely in Mass Shooters: Study

    The first analysis of medical evidence on domestic mass shooters in the U.S. finds that a large majority of perpetrators have psychiatric disorders for which they have received no medication or other treatment.

  • The Many Ways Domestic Violence Foreshadows Mass Shootings

    The San Jose transit shooting is the latest to illustrate the deadly connection between intimate partner violence and mass murder. How are these seemingly separate issues intertwined, and what can be done to save lives?

  • Invisible Scourge: The Investigation, Legacy, and Lessons of the 2001 Anthrax Attacks

    The anthrax incidents of 2001 represented a major milestone for the national security community, in that they highlighted the vulnerabilities of the United States to a very unique domestic threat. While the number of initial casualties were few, the anthrax-filled letters created a nation-wide panic because they were unattributed, and the biological agent was perhaps the most dangerous organism that had been weaponized. This “invisible scourge” also shook the public health community, which was not prepared to respond to deliberate biological threats.

  • Urban Crime Fell by over a Third around the World During COVID-19 Shutdowns

    A new analysis of crime rates in 27 cities across 23 countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East has found that stay-at-home policies during the pandemic led to an overall drop in police-recorded crime of 37 percent across all the sites in the study.

  • Ghosts in the Machine: Malicious Bots Spread COVID Untruths

    Malicious bots, or automated software that simulates human activity on social media platforms, are the primary drivers of COVID-19 misinformation, spreading myths and seeding public health distrust exponentially faster than human users could, suggests a new study.

  • COVID Origins Probe Should Focus on Lab-Leak Theory, Analysts Say

    Analysts say there is increasing interest in determining whether the coronavirus leaked from a research lab in Wuhan, China, where the deadly virus was first detected in humans, as the U.S. intelligence community acts on President Joe Biden’s directive to “redouble” efforts to investigate the origins of COVID-19.

  • How Virus Detectives Trace the Origins of an Outbreak – and Why It’s So Tricky

    Every time there is a major disease outbreak, one of the first questions scientists and the public ask is: “Where did this come from?” As an expert in viral ecology, I am often asked how scientists trace the origins of a virus. In my work, I have found many new viruses and some well-known pathogens that infect wild plants without causing any disease. Plant, animal or human, the methods are largely the same. Tracking down the origins of a virus involves a combination of extensive fieldwork, thorough lab testing and quite a bit of luck.

  • The Lab-Leak Theory: Evidence Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

    In the justice system, where the most exacting evidentiary standards are applied, Andrew McCarthy writes, the requirement is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, not proof beyond all possible doubt. “There is no proof beyond all possible doubt.” And investigative journalists have chronicled for months what must be considered “proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the coronavirus pandemic was generated by an accident — a lab leak, a not-uncommon mishap in medical research conducted by fallible human beings — at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” He adds: “Unless and until China comes forward with convincing evidence that the lab-leak theory is wrong, the position of the United States and the world must be that China is culpable.”

  • The Origins of Covid-19 and Preventing the Next Pandemic

    Did COVID-19 originate with bats or scientists? Amanda Moodie and Nicholas Evans write that the desire to identify the origins of the novel coronavirus is perfectly understandable, but that “while answering the question of where the novel coronavirus came from is important, many of the most important policy decisions the United States needs to make to prevent future pandemics do not depend on viral origins.” “there is one important scenario in which it would be absolutely vital to know the origins of COVID-19: If “the pandemic stemmed from a deliberate attempt to develop a biological warfare agent, this would have serious implications for the Biological Weapons Convention and the broader norm against the use of disease as a weapon.”

  • Is Covid-19 a Bio-Weapon?

    The “racial disparity” of the deaths from Covid should raise alarms.  Not the relatively small differences between white, black and Hispanic death rates in America, but the massive disparity between death rates of East Asian countries, and everyone else on earth. On a per capita basis, non-East Asians are dying at rates 20 times higher that of East Asians. That is not a statistical “blip.” It screams that the virus has massively unequal kill rates - and kills people of different races very differently. That is the signature of a bio-weapon.

  • The Next Pandemic Is Already Happening – Targeted Disease Surveillance Can Help Prevent It

    As more and more people around the world are getting vaccinated, one can almost hear the collective sigh of relief. But the next pandemic threat is likely already making its way through the population right now. My research as an infectious disease epidemiologist has found that there is a simple strategy to mitigate emerging outbreaks: proactive, real-time surveillance in settings where animal-to-human disease spillover is most likely to occur. In other words, don’t wait for sick people to show up at a hospital. Instead, monitor populations where disease spillover actually happens.

  • U.S. to Make Intelligence on COVID-19 Origins Public

    The United States will share the results of a new deep-dive by its top intelligence agencies into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed millions of people across the globe. Top U.S. intelligence agencies said last year that their information supported “the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified” but that they would “continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence” to determine whether the outbreak began after the virus was transmitted to humans from animals in nature or as the result of a laboratory accident.