Leading experts in evolutionary biology and infectious disease told Newsweek that the research paper is weak; it offers no new information and makes numerous unsubstantiated claims.
The SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, was first detected in Wuhan, China late last year.Scientists in a new paper make strong claims regarding evidence that the COVID-19 virus did not originate in nature—the prevailing theory—but instead was made in a lab. According to six leading experts in evolutionary biology and infectious disease consulted by, the paper offers no new information, makes numerous unsubstantiated claims and its scientific case is weak.
"This pre-print report cannot be given any credibility in its current form," says Andrew Preston, an expert in microbial pathogenesis at the University of Bath in the U.K. The paper,"Unusual Features of the SARS-CoV-2 Genome Suggesting Sophisticated Laboratory Modification Rather Than Natural Evolution and Delineation of Its Probable Synthetic Route," is authored by Dr. Li-Meng Yan and three colleagues affiliated with the Rule of Law Society, a group not known for its work on infectious disease. The Society was founded by Stephen K.
Banerjee also cast doubt on the authors' assertion that a feature called a furin-cleavage site—part of the virus' spike protein, which it uses to attach to human cells—was deliberately inserted into the virus. The paper, says Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California at Davis, is"filled with unsubstantiated claims."
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