COVID Origin Investigation Update: What We Know 2 Years Later with Molecular Biologist

Alina Chan [00:00:00] So I actually engineer viruses to deliver therapeutic genes to people. And so I know that when, when people hear the word like, or the phrase virus engineering, they get all freaked out now because of pandemic. But actually the, the vast majority of viruses do not cause human disease. Hi, I'm Dan Crow, a small business owner living in central Illinois, and you're listening to the Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:28] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Well, I don't think anybody is surprised that it feels like 1984 right now. It feels like our attention is drawn to one conflict and we get really, really worked up about that, where all of our energy and attention is going there, and then all of a sudden it's on some new conflict that's over here, and we have to change directions. And so we're watching people change the background flags and, and behind them and what they're talking about and what they're angry about. And so I've been trying to take a measured step back, and one of the ways that we can do this is to not leave behind the stories that clearly are important, but that we never really saw to their conclusion. And the best example I have of this is where did COVID come from? Just the other day I went out on Twitter and asked that question and I got dozens and dozens of answers. Everything ranging from people that were a little bit sarcastic, like, Hey, you're gonna get in trouble for putting that out there to people believing yes, it's absolutely a lab leak To other people saying, no, it's been completely debunked. And so I decided to have Alina Chan author of the book Viral with Matt Ridley that talks all about COVID. That book, as you remember, back in November, was shocking to me. It was one of those books that I found myself being completely engaged in and then sent it out to everybody I knew saying, Hey, this is a worthwhile read. Well, now, six months later, we've had Alina back on and she's here to discuss what is the state of the, of the origin of COVID and what is it that's changed since her book was published.

Vance Crowe [00:02:08] This is an in a refreshing interview. Alina always seems to have an upbeat sense about her, but she's also so measured. She doesn't point the finger at people. She's trying to figure out how can we learn from this so that other viruses don't come out and cause a pandemic in this same way? So I am really excited to publish this interview. We're gonna get to that in just a second. But as many of you know, I've been doing these Legacy Interviews where I sit down with a loved one to ask them about five areas of their life, their childhood, their career, their marriage, parenting, and then the legacy that they wanna leave behind. As you can tell from the scene, you can see right here we've invested in some really serious camera and lighting equipment and we are moving into a new studio. But in the meantime, while that studio is being built, we would love to do, do some of these interviews online over Zoom. And if you have a loved one that you'd like me to sit down and interview for 90 minutes trying to cover the span of their life, to capture their memories, their values, and the essence of who they are, then you can go to store dot Articulate Ventures, and there you can book a Zoom interview, which right now is at a discounted price if you use the term Vance on your checkout, because we're trying to do a bunch of these interviews so that way we can get more practice, we can get more experience with the equipment and, and be ready for when that studio opens. So if you're interested in me doing a legacy interview, go to store dot Articulate Ventures and use the promo code Vance V-A-N-C-E for 20% off until May when we should be moving into our new studio.

Vance Crowe [00:03:48] Thank you so much. And now let's head to this interview with Alina Chan. Alina Chan, welcome back to the podcast.

Alina Chan [00:03:56] Thanks for having me back for a second time.

Vance Crowe [00:04:00] So, you know, the last time we were here, you were right at the edge, this was before anybody was even really allowed to talk about the lab leak theory, and now it's like nobody wants to talk about the lab leak theory because we've all moved on and are either talking about the Canadian trucker convoy or the conflict in Ukraine. Can you just give us a quick update to where is the status of the, of the inquiry into whether or not this was a lab leak or a natural hypothesis?

Alina Chan [00:04:29] So there actually no ongoing investigations. There are investigations that are about to start, but it's very slow. And so there has not actually been a formal investigation even launched yet. People are just still talking about it in the US government or in the commission planning group. I would say where we are at right now is that the US intelligence community has said that they don't know both natural and lab-based hypothesis are plausible and need to be investigated. Some public polls have been taken and they show that actually regardless of whether you're a Democrat or Republican, regardless of your education level, the majority of Americans believe that this most likely started in a lab, that the pandemic came from a virus that emerged true research related activities. So I, I think that maybe people are just maybe born on this topic. This is, is been drawn up for two years now and there are far more pressing issues and hand like the in invasion of Ukraine. So right now, everyone's bandwidth's a too stretched out to pay attention to this origin issue.

Vance Crowe [00:05:35] When we were talking before, the idea that you even talked about, you know, that this could be leaking from a lab was dangerous to me. I remember sitting down with my executive producer and being like, Hey, we might get taken off of YouTube for this. What was the experience like of going from having a, a hypothesis that people thought of as conspiracy theory to now being mainstream? What is understood by the world?

Alina Chan [00:06:00] Well, I, I had hoped that it would be no longer controversial two years later in, in 2022 to, to say that this might have started in the lab, but surprisingly it's still very controversial and there's been a great deal of pushback from some of the prominent experts in virology and infectious diseases. So as recently as, as I think three weeks ago there was some preprints. So these are not peer reviewed studies that have been put out saying in i, I think overly confident terms that those scientists believe that this virus started in the market. So they're, they're taking us back two years exactly to where we were in early 2020 when it looked like there was early cluster of cases at the market that were definitely wild animal animals saw that in market. And based on, on just that these, these scientists are saying that they have this positive or they have incontrovertible evidence that this virus has a natural origin.

Vance Crowe [00:06:58] Yeah, it was I the other day I went out on Twitter and I said, where do you, where did COVID come from? Right? And this like instantly generated conversation, and I would say most people fell into one F three camps, either one, they made a joke like, are you allowed to talk about this? Two, they just were like, Hey, this is obvious it's a lab leak. Or the third one, which I heard from a lot of like the scientific community, which was, hey, this is, it's well known now. It's been documented, it was natural origins. And that that's just all there is. What is the weight of evidence that the people that are saying, Hey, we think it's a natural or origin, where is this coming from? Where did this data, how strong is it?

Alina Chan [00:07:40] So I, I think this is coming from a place of a lot of scientists not understanding how a natural origin should be tracked and what types of evidence to expect when a natural spillover. So a animal gives a human the virus what types of evidence you would expect to find during an investigation. And these are quite easy to see when you look at SARS one and mes like how quickly they found the animal host for SARS one, it took them two months of isolating the virus to find the animal host at the market. So what had happened in sars one is that they knew that many of the first cases were people who had handled these animals. So not, not actually the animal traders, but chefs delivery people, waitresses people who, who the second point of contact for these animals, they gotten sick. So those scientists and investigators went straight for the market and they found infected animals, they found animal versions of the virus. And this is really important because it shows that it was not a human who brought the outbreak virus into the market and gave it to the animals, but that these animals actually carried their own version of the virus, which was likely related to what spilled over into humans. And, and they found antibody evidence amongst the traders and the market showing that these sellers of the animals had been exposed frequently to cells like viruses. And so all of these evidence put together made a really strong case for natural origin of SARS one. And, and similarly for Mers me in SARS two, the evidence stops at the early cases. So we just see that some of the early cases, people at the market, but they have not found animal hosts, they have not found animal versions of the virus.

Alina Chan [00:09:16] So it's, it's equally plausible that a, a sick person brought the outbreak virus into the market. They have not found antibody evidence to show that these viruses are expected to be found in animal trading community in Wuhan. So all in all, there's this huge absence of evidence that you would hope that scientists and investate investigators would quickly find.

Vance Crowe [00:09:39] So when I think about like finding a disease where all of the animals from that wet market, they're gone now, you know, like the, you know, they've already been sold or you know, the people have all moved on or so much has changed. It seems like impossible for me to imagine how you could go backwards in time and discover where this came from or, or you know, how it was established. How does that even get done at this point, two years afterwards?

Alina Chan [00:10:06] I think that's one extremely frustrating aspect of this problem is that we should have investigated as soon as possible. But there were some people who were like, why is this important? Why not wait until the pandemic is over? And then we investigate. And back then even two years ago, telling them, if you wait two years later, there's so little you can investigate at that point that it, it will be near impossible. And here we are two years later trying to investigate the origin of this pandemic. So it's very frustrating. But I would say that there's still enough data outside of China even that can help paint a better picture of what was happening in Wuhan in those early days. So we know that they, there were US doctors who were based in Wuhan in late 2019, and apparently those doctors have not been systematically interviewed to see what do you know about the earliest cases? What were the rumors being spread at the time? Was it definitely market linked or had you heard about this even in November or October before the market cluster? There is data on the animals being saw that that market which exists and has international collaborators on that study, they have been trying to share with the World Health Organization, but the Chinese government won't let them. But we know that data exists. There's also a ton of communications and documentations exchanged between Chinese investigators and scientists and their friends and, and contact outside of China. So all of these need to be collectively looked at. And the problem is that we have no investigation yet.

Vance Crowe [00:11:32] So when you fire up your computer in the morning and you're like, Hey, I'm gonna spend some time working on this issue, are you still encountering new information that you didn't have before? What is it that someone like you can explore at this point to discover something novel?

Alina Chan [00:11:49] So most of the novel information that's coming up, actually emails that are being released through the Freedom of Information Act. And these tend to lean towards the lab origin hypothesis because we've seen from emails released only last year, but, but they were sent in early 2020 that act. Actually many of the top experts in this field, even experts who studied the first SARS virus, thought that this pandemic virus most likely came from a lab. And despite that, their public stance has been, this is natural, a lab is a conspiracy theory. And so those types of emails have rolled out. There have also been emails and grant documents released from the Eco Health Alliance and the National Institute of Health, both of which have indirectly or directly funded US taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan and steel virology. And these documents and emails tell us a lot about the types of research that are happening in Wuhan. And it it, it makes this very clear pathway for us, us to like virus, a pandemic virus to, to go through from either Southeast Asia or China, south China up into Wuhan, be grown there or manipulated and potentially start a pandemic like the one we are living in right now.

Vance Crowe [00:13:07] Since we spoke, I mean, your book had, I think just been published, so it would've been November or December of last year. How much of your model, in your mind of like where COVID came from and how it was spread and what happened, how much has changed since November?

Alina Chan [00:13:24] I'd say that up until, I think maybe the last week before we sent the manuscript off for printing, I had not been able to put any likelihood estimates on either a natural or lab origin of COVID-19. But in September, 2021, there was a grant document leaked from the Equal Health Alliance showing that they had an as exact roadmap, the type of which you'd expect SARS cov to two, the pandemic virus to have emerged from. So that, that completely changed my mind about the likelihood of a, of a natural and, and lab origin. I, at that point, I really did think that the evidence pointed more strongly towards a lab origin, because here you have a research group saying they're gonna do the type of research and then a year and a half later a virus that could have come from that research pops up in their city. So it's, it's such a coincidence. I don't know when else in history you could find such an example. So for me, when, when I saw that, I was like, okay, this, this looks like it came from that lab because it's, it's too coincidental. But since then, that, that story was really under reported by the way. And ev even stunned some of these experts who had been pushing for natural origin for two years. But since then they have launched a counter attack attack by saying, isn't it such a coincidence that the virus had early cluster at the market? And so I I can see how people on both sides can pick what looks more coincidental to them and say that I, I think this is the more likely hypothesis.

Vance Crowe [00:14:57] Yeah. In international relations, they often use the phrase, where you sit determines where you stand. Meaning if you're at the table because you're from the EcoHealth Alliance or you're from the, you know, world Bank or the China or who, whoever else is around there, where your seat is at the table is gonna determine where your in, you know, initial framing is where, where you're coming away. Do you, when you look at that, think people have self seized themselves when you look at saying like, Hey, you know, they're really wrong about this because of this much data. Have they self deceived themselves or do you think they are being deceptive themselves?

Alina Chan [00:15:35] I mean, I, I, I try not to go into that territory because it gets really messy. The moment you start assuming someone's motivations and incentives, it gets really messy unless there's a clear conflict of interest. Unless clearly they had sent money to the research institute that could have caused the pandemic, then in that case you can say obviously they would have a self-interest not to be seen as the culprit or, or the person responsible for this pandemic. But, but with, with other things. For, for most of the scientists arguing for natural origin, I, I'd say that I try to give them maximum benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise. So most of the time I do think that they have been susceptible to a lot of peer influence or, or pressure because there are, there are some of these top virologists like saying as loudly as possible, telling every reporter they can find the New York Times, putting on breaking news on the front page during the Ukraine invasion saying that they have found this positive evidence for a natural origin of COVID-19 saying that they've closed the case like this, this screws the lid shut on the debate that they, they know it's from a market. So when you're a scientist in that field and you see someone with that much power and authority saying that you tend to just go along without, without really scrutinizing what they're saying, seeing if they have the data to back it up and whether it, their argument is robust.

Vance Crowe [00:17:01] So you, you published this book and people all over the world read it, you know, I I personally know probably more than 15 people that have read it, including, and, and that's not even including all the people from my podcast that read it, but how much did your life change after, you know, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people started reading your book?

Alina Chan [00:17:24] I don't think it has changed that much. I, I think people see as a life changing event, but for me, I, I was just relieved to have the book out and, and to get this very comprehensive, fully fact checked like, like story description of both Na Natural and Lab origins. And a lot of people who have not read the book have been told that it's like a, it, it it's, it's pimping on the lab origin hypothesis, but actually if you read it, you realize that no, it, it gives a really fair, you know, balanced representation to both, both sides. So for me, I think it, it has definitely made me more of a public figure, but I think otherwise it's, my life is pretty low key and I try to keep it less, less stressful. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:18:16] So how much have you stayed up on this? I I, from my perspective, I see your Twitter and I think, oh man, she's going at this as hard as she was when I saw her around the time when her book published. Is that true?

Alina Chan [00:18:28] I think there, there are moments when it's, it when there's a frenzy. So every time there's a new batch of emails released or there are new documents released, there's a frenzy when the natural origin site pushes out a, a preprint claiming that they've solved a case, there's a frenzy. So there, there are moments when there's a huge amount of activity and you have to respond to that, but otherwise it is pretty low key. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:18:53] So you mentioned that you were, you know, accused of pimping out the, the lab leak hypothesis. What other feedback did you get from your book that maybe you didn't expect?

Alina Chan [00:19:05] I, I think I would say that, that the book got quite a bit of good coverage as well as bad coverage, but the, the good coverage led to a lot of scientists around the world, like sending me snail mail, like sending me like cutouts of the, the press releases and things like that telling me keep up the good work or emailing me. Like some of these are virologists by the way, like top virologists at top like institutes, but they just don't want to publicly come on and say that this was a good book, but they've been sending me all these messages and things saying like, you are on the right track, like nonstop looking. And they, and some of them are quite mad at their colleagues, the ones who are just going 100% raccoon dog origin. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:19:52] So now COVID, you know, I can go into any grocery store that people don't wear masks. There's nowhere near the level of fear. Where do you think public perception of COVID goes in the next few months and years?

Alina Chan [00:20:09] I think that there are really diverse reactions to, to how the pandemic is going, right? So you, you've got people who are now lining up to get the false booster. I mean the, the fourth shot of the vaccine there, people are really worried about the BA 0.2 variant, the new variant that, that seems to be dominating, especially in Europe. I, I think for a lot of us, and, and for, for myself, just just a sense of fatigue and, and the knowledge that this is going to go on for a long time, and we have, we have no ability to know when it will be back to normal. We just, we just don't know, like everyone's praying and hoping that this summer will be, you know, other, all the variants will go away and we'll, we'll have like complete immunity and that kind of thing. But I think that that's too optimistic because there's still large parts of the world where people don't have access to effective vaccines and Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:21:04] Well I think that for many people, at least in the c in the circles I run around with like rural and, and those areas, like the belief is COVID is done and if it comes back, it is only propaganda that, that to, to see that, hey, we need to put masks back on or we need to, you know, housing, you know, go back into our houses or shut down businesses to the people in the world that I run around with, they, they would view that as nothing other than hysteria and hysteria that we should know better from because COVID didn't get us last time. But you're saying you think there'll be legitimate fears that people could have that they would want to take precautions that are, that are reminiscent of where we came from?

Alina Chan [00:21:48] Yes, because if you, if you think about it on a global level, so zooming out away from the US alone, you, you see that the large populations of people who don't have access to good vaccines, to working vaccines and, and unfortunately that includes China. So China has not been able to give, you know, one plus billion of their population, the mRNA vaccines, they've mostly used their own homemade sinovac, orsino, pharma vaccines, and they, they're kind of facing this issue now where if, if COVID blows through that country right now, that's, that's like hundreds of millions of people infected. Like, you have no idea what's gonna come out at the end. Like what kind of novel variant will come out, whether it will have, it'll be so different than all the vaccines need to be updated again, or, or you need to get like six or seven boosters. So I'd say that right now, it's just so unpredictable. I I also wish that the pandemic will be over like tomorrow, but I think we also have to be really cautious and, and cognizant, like aware of all these risks that are there outside of, outside of the us but still they will, they'll find a way into the US if it happens.

Vance Crowe [00:22:56] Yeah. You were even mentioning there that there's some variant in Europe. I've never heard of that. And then I see in China, at least I see over Twitter that China is putting things into lockdown

Alina Chan [00:23:08] And

Vance Crowe [00:23:08] These almost seem like a watching a snowstorm somewhere else where I'm like, ah, that's kind of just pass or that that's, you know, what they're dealing with, but you think these things are, are gonna brew in other places or have the high potential and come here.

Alina Chan [00:23:21] Yeah. That, that's been the story for most of the other variants like the, the alpha variant that that was first detected in the uk. It also blew through the US the delta variant that also was detected in India and blew, blew through the US then Omicron, which was from detected in African continent and then blew through the us. So like a, a snow storm is limited by area, by geography, but the virus isn't, so it's just one plane right away. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:23:48] So I think one of the things that became much better known after your book was published was the role of the EcoHealth Alliance and Peter dk and that, you know, the US had more of a, of a role in whatever is going on than anyone was thinking beforehand. Since the time you published the book, have more emails been put out? Has there been more of a spotlight on EcoHealth alliance?

Alina Chan [00:24:13] Yes. The Republicans in, in the US actually released a transcript of, of emails that were exchanged amongst top US scientists in, in early 2020. So these emails had been, FOIAed had been leaked, had been released through the Freedom Information Act in, in middle of 2021, but they were almost like 90% redacted. So the Republicans sent their staffers in there and they, they transcribed what was underneath those reductions, and they, they released those early this year. And so that, that created another storm because it looked like all of these experts, at at least most of them who were mentioned in the emails, were extremely concerned about a lab origin of COVID Ovid 19. They specifically looked at one part of the virus that they just couldn't understand how that had appeared in the virus naturally. And, and they, they speculated all sorts of ways that this could have occurred in a, in a lab. So I, I would say that from, from my point of view in early 2020, I had no idea of the US involvement. Like, frankly, I just thought of this as, as kind of routine virus research that was conducted in many countries and just like, unfortunately, an accident might have happened in China and caused a pandemic, but it could have happened anywhere else. But I had no idea that this work was so encouraged and so highly funded by, by US scientists. By US leaders.

Vance Crowe [00:25:38] Leaders. Yeah, it really feels like when you're looking at the way this all played out, and I'm, I'm sure I've heard this from listening to interviews that you and Matt Ridley have done in addition to the book where that the, the amount that the US was playing in this game, it was, it was certainly not inconsequential, but then the weirdest part about it was using China was almost like using Cuba to be able to have Guantanamo Bay, right? Where you're outside of the rules of what normally is allowed to happen, but because you're in this other country now, you don't have to follow the rules. Is that why you think the US was working with China on this? Or did China have some special scientists that we needed access to?

Alina Chan [00:26:24] I think the latter. So actually the, the same type of research was being done in the US as well, but the one thing that required Chinese collaboration was access to these viruses. So China had unfettered access to these viruses in South China. There were many provinces there, and that's where they did most of their virus hunting. And later we found out that China also had connections with seven Southeast Asian countries who were directly sending samples up along that, that strip where there, there's just a whole diversity of viruses sending all of these up directly into Wuhan City. So that is not something that the US had at the time, although now there's ongoing research where these samples from Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia are being sent directly to the US for similar types of research.

Vance Crowe [00:27:14] So some of the research, if you're trying to, to be fair to the, to the people that are funding this stuff is to say, Hey, if we just wait until, you know, a bat virus gets out into the US the human population, then there's a whole bunch of stuff we won't know. Or imagine there are bad actors that are grabbing these viruses and and engineering them in such a negative way. So therefore we need to do this research in order that they don't get ahead of us. How does that, that that line of reasoning sit with you?

Alina Chan [00:27:45] I think that line of reasoning doesn't match up with reality. And, and there is evidence to, to back up what I'm saying because there's this, this, the whole virus hunting scheme that was funded with hundreds of millions of US tax dollars has not led to better prevention of, of outbreaks, better tracking of outbreaks. So what has actually happened is a lot of these millions of dollars have gone to international collaborators who can decide how much data they want to share with you. So even though US dollars have paid for this data, for part of the data, at least they have no control. They, they have to beg, they have to say, can you please share your data with us? And China said, no. So, so, and in this case, unfortunately, it looks like the money has gone to create someone's database of very dangerous viruses and, and the US has been blocked out of it. So I would say that the argument that you're funding it to, to gain access, where, how, how can you back this up? You don't even have access to the database.

Vance Crowe [00:28:45] Yeah. And like I, I noticed on your Twitter feed, there was some things where you were like, look, there's a whole bunch of data after 2 20 16 that they just, you know, there's like a black hole. We knew they were collecting information only when we asked them for their data. All of a sudden it just kind of goes dark there.

Alina Chan [00:29:02] Yeah, exactly. So we are completely at the mercy of the people who are doing the actual field work and, and, and taking the samples back to their lab for characterization for study. So if they don't want to tell us then, then there's nothing we can do. And if they keep the juiciest viruses for themselves, there's nothing we can do either. So I think that the whole approach has, that has that enormous potential for failure

Vance Crowe [00:29:27] Coming from the diplomatic world. I can understand why the US government and the Chinese government might have some limited conversations where they say, we are gonna keep this behind, you know, we're gonna redact this information or we're not gonna share this with other people because we need to be able to have flexibility to discuss things that the public might not find palatable, but is necessary. So I get that. But when it comes to scientific data, this seems like the most bizarre thing you could think of, that there's information that one government can have that the other one can't have, that that one group would get to control where these black holes are in the, in the data. How, like, are there other examples of this happening? Or is this just a one off situation where, where there, where there's making claims that they can have access to the data, but we can't.

Alina Chan [00:30:19] I think that, that it's not exclusive to China because this type of research actually spent many countries even across the Middle East and other parts of Asia and Africa. But the, the US funders have acknowledged that it is up to each one of these collaborators whether or not they, they share any data at all. So some of them could say, no, I don't want to share any data with you, and it still goes forward. So there's no mechanism in place to, to enforce data sharing. There's no mechanism in place to check if the data shared is comprehensive. So someone could take that money and, and find 10,000 viruses, but at the end of the day, they only share a hundred with you and say, we only found a hundred. So how do you know how many viruses they found? How, how do you force them to, to share the data with you? Right? So all of that is still not in place and yet more hundreds of millions of important to this type of research. So my, my main concern is that this money is going to fund all these private collections of pathogens around the world to which the US has extremely limited access.

Vance Crowe [00:31:27] Now, when we were talking a little bit before with about Peter DDDZ and EcoHealth Alliance, has anything happened to them because of their involvement with, with the lead up to this COVID outbreak?

Alina Chan [00:31:40] Yeah, so I, it, it bothers me that some of the EcoHealth alliance personnel, including Peter de Dash act like he, they have been harassed a lot and death threats and the like. And I fully condemn that. I don't think that people should be stalking them and sending them death tra that death threats, like go through the proper process like, you know, publicly write letters, calling for subpoenas, calling for the release of documents, but don't, don't threaten them with violence because that that puts them more on the defense and gives them a rationale to tell people, Hey, look at all the crazy conspiracy theorists who are trying to kill me. So I'm, I'm the good guy and they are the bad guy. So I, I think that's how, how the harassment has unfolded, it's not right, even though a lot of people are reasonably upset that this, this organization and, and their president has repeatedly withheld information that could be relevant to the origin of COVID-19.

Vance Crowe [00:32:40] Now that time has elapsed, do you believe we will still find the origin of COVID?

Alina Chan [00:32:47] Yes, especially because the US China relationship on this has gotten clearer and clearer. It looks like there are more and more documents and email communications that are probably here in the US that can tell us what was happening in Wuhan. So we may not have access to their database, but we may be able to see what types of experiments they were considering in the years leading up to the pandemic. And that can really help us to, to flesh out, like had they had, they started putting in, you know, these unnatural genetic modifications into novel viruses that found and and could this have been the pandemic virus? Could this have been how it started?

Vance Crowe [00:33:25] So a few, I don't know, a couple weeks ago now, everything seems to run together. There was a huge uproar. Russia started saying, look, the, there are labs just like the Wuhan labs that are in the Ukraine US is running those. Is is there any merit to this? Are they right? Is, is this overblown hype? What's going on there?

Alina Chan [00:33:45] I think the same thing happened with the Wuhan lab actually, is that a lot of people immediately started accusing it of making bio weapons and that that completely took over the narrative of, of a, of a lab accident when actually just very routine experiments can lead, can lead to outbreaks and, and that can cause a pandemic. And so I think we, we have to dial it back to what is factual and what is factual is that there are a lot of labs around the world that are engaged in biodefense or potentially dual use research. So the problem with biological research is that the, the same, the same virus that you're studying can be used to develop a vaccine or it can be used to develop a, you know, a bio weapon. So it really depends on, on the, the person who's, who's working with this virus and what their intent is. And there are just dozens of these labs around the world and many of them boast of international funding. So they're funded by not just the US but by their home country, Europe, many other sources of funding. And they're, they're very interconnected and they do store a large amount of dangerous pathogens inside these labs, especially the higher biosafety labs, like the biosafety level four labs. They'll have all sorts of pandemic level pathogens. But the purpose of that is, is not to create bio weapons, but to develop treatments and to study these viruses. So I'm not surprised that Ukraine wouldn't have these labs, like many countries have these labs, they're scattered Europe, Europe has dozens of these labs.

Alina Chan [00:35:19] And so I, I think that what has happened is that, that this information has really focused on painting these labs as, as bio weaponry labs when real, when in reality we just have a lot of these labs for biodefense.

Vance Crowe [00:35:35] So you've been working at the Broad Institute. How has your work changed? Are you still Yeah. How has your work changed since you got involved with COVID and then even since your book has been published?

Alina Chan [00:35:47] Well, I still work really hard at work, so I still do a lot of experiments like full like 10 to 12 hour long experiments. So it, I

Vance Crowe [00:35:57] Tell us about those experiments. What do you do at the Brood Institute?

Alina Chan [00:36:01] I work on gene therapy, so I actually engineer viruses to deliver therapeutic genes to people. And so I know that when, when people hear the word, like all the phrase virus engineering, they get all freaked out now because of the pandemic. But actually the, the vast majority of viruses do not cause human disease. And I, I don't work with viruses that cause human disease or could start an outbreak in humans, but many of these viruses can be repurposed to, to serve a really good function in medicine. For example, all of these PCR tests that we are taking for COVID-19, it came from the components for that, the key ingredient for that PCR test came from studying a virus. So and so many viruses can be repurposed and, and re-engineered to, to serve like, to, to be useful for human health.

Vance Crowe [00:36:53] I guess I didn't realize my mistake on this, but I was thinking you were just a full-time. Where did COVID come from? Hunter, that, that we're doing that? I didn't realize that this is your part-time or your your spare time work.

Alina Chan [00:37:08] It is my spare time work. So I mean, people should, my my, the people who are afraid of me should, should hope that I have a very busy life at the broad because if I, if I had double the time to look in the origins, I would be unstoppable.

Vance Crowe [00:37:24] Do has your interest in it stayed the same as whatever connected you to it before?

Alina Chan [00:37:32] I would say that my interest grew as, as more and more evidence and information came out, especially regarding the research that was happening in Wuhan. I really, I really did try to, to close the book on this with the book. I really did want to just, just put on whatever I knew in that book and just leave it behind. But somehow I still keep getting sucked back into it every time there's like a new batch of like FOIA emails or a new batch of preprints from, from the natural origin side of things. So it, it's, it's been difficult. Like every time I tried to leave, they put me back in and it's just like all these people emailing me and messaging me all the time. Like it goes all the way from people in the US government to other scientists, to internet sls, just like, just everyone bombarding me every time. That's a new finding asking me to interpret it or to, to work on this. So it's, it's been sometimes challenging, but I would say that I, I put my broad work first. So there, there are many times when now it's just like I cannot work on the origins thing. I need to finish my, my huge like experiment phase and then I'll get back to this when have time. Yeah, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:38:34] I mean I've definitely felt the intensity when just even when I just asked on Twitter, where did, where did COVID come from? But even when I published the podcast, the people that are interested in this subject are so interested in it and so intense that you may get, you know, three or four or five messages in a single day from a person that you've never even responded to. And so you see like, well, it takes a certain kind of person to wanna persevere and keep looking in this subject when the rest of the world has moved on. But it's a level of intensity that's not easy to, to navigate, I think.

Alina Chan [00:39:11] Yeah, I think the intensity is fun. A lot of scientists, so like I I also have that obsessive compulsive personality when it comes to scientific questions is, is when I, when I think the answer is within reach, I won't let anyone tell me that I can't find it. I won't let anyone bully me in the thinking that we can't find the origin or that the case is closed. Like I, I'm like, I know that we can find it and evidence isn't settled yet. So you you better stop harassing me and let let people investigate. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:39:40] So when you think about the average person in the world with all the things that they have to pay attention to, whether it's the news that's going on in the world or their own personal life, how much should a person care or put energy into discovering the origins of COVID?

Alina Chan [00:39:57] I'd say that most people have their own struggles during this pandemic. And, and because of that, they don't have the bandwidth to consider the origin of COVID that, that much and that that is totally normal and expected. There's so many healthcare workers who are just like slammed with like COVID cases and other cases indirectly caused by COVID just throughout this pandemic. They don't have the bandwidth to be looking at the origin of COVID-19. You've got all these other experts in public health, you know, vaccine experts and things like that. They're just hyper-focused on their goal, right? Like make good public health policy, develop effective vaccines so they don't have time to pay to look at origin. But what I would say is that it's important to each acknowledge the importance of our respective work. I think developing vaccines extremely important, you know, public health extremely important. I also think the origin is extremely important. So I think we should all be respectful of each other's interests because these, these are very important questions for the next pandemic too. Just developing our vaccine infrastructure, public health infrastructure and, and also finding out how these pandemic starts so that we can stop it next time or, or find ways to detect it more quickly.

Vance Crowe [00:41:09] One thought I had after our interview was, I, I think like it's easy to go to somebody like you and say, what happens if we discover this and what do you think should happen to China or what do you think should happen to the people involved with it? But another question is, is there an inherent danger that you destabilize the world if you do discover an answer, if you do discover there were people doing nefarious things or nations, I mean, it could go from a lab leak to warring nations. Are you concerned at all about the truth causing negative impacts?

Alina Chan [00:41:44] Well, I don't understand why a war would start because the US funded the work and this type of work is done in, you know, most of the developed countries around here, like Europe also does this work. So just because China was the unfortunate one, if it came from a lab this time, it, why, why would that be a wall? I, I don't understand. Because they had collaborated with scientists from all around the world. So it is, it is collectively everyone's fault, if you wanna look at it that way. I mean the, the version, the problem that's been pitched to me is that this would destabilize trust in scientists, but for me, why are you protecting the science more than human life? Because if this came from a lab accident, we have to stop this happening again. We, we can't just let you know it be a wild west in science and just, okay, don't worry. It's start as many pandemics as you want. We'll never investigate you. Like the whole point of science is to enhance and protect human lives. So that comes first. That should be investigated first, and that's how you build trust in science. It shouldn't be the other way around where you build trust in science by hiding the truth from people that that's terrible. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:42:48] Yeah, I completely agree with that. Like the, the, the credibility of scientists should be in question. Like, I, I think that we, we want to have a very healthy dose of skepticism because when you start using words like, or you know, like phrases like the sciences spoken or the sciences settled, these kinds of things, then it makes science is more of a religion than it is like a, a verb a process.

Alina Chan [00:43:13] Yeah. It, it's again unfortunate because everyone is so stretched thin by the pandemic that not everyone has time to go through all of the data, like thousands of pages of datas and reports and things like that. So a lot of this follow the science mentality is really people saying, I trust this scientist, I trust this scientist and I don't need to look at the data because he or she has looked at all the data. So unfortunately when that happens, it can lead to abuse so that when there are people in power who have this public trust, they, they can unintentionally make errors, but unfortunately that makes the whole of society go crazy in some ways, like about mask or vaccines or, or they can know that they have that power and just say things for their own benefit and, and hope that everyone just takes their word for it. So I, I think it's very dangerous when there isn't a, a structure in place, a science communication, science reporting structure in place, a scientific like among scientists structure in place to, to crosscheck each other and be able to say, Hey, no, I think this really influential scientist is actually really wrong on this topic.

Vance Crowe [00:44:15] You know, earlier you mentioned that it's not just the, the China's fault or if this came from China that it would be our collective responsibility, or at least the US would have some ruling. That's a novel thought. In fact, that's not even one I've heard entertained by anyone so far. But it does seem like if you came to a country and said, look, we're not gonna get mad.

Alina Chan [00:44:38] Like we

Vance Crowe [00:44:38] Just need to figure out how this happened. It's a, it's a little akin to, you know, a parent being like, you, you don't, you know, like I'm not gonna get mad at you, but tell me the truth. But in some way trying to, to make sure that whoever actually causes, if it was China, that it's more important to us to get the correct answer than it is to get retribution. That that would be a, a very helpful way to untie this knot.

Alina Chan [00:45:03] Yeah, and I think this is how it should have been in early 2020 rather than us scientists saying it's a conspiracy theory to suggest a lab accident started this pandemic. They should have said, actually we are business partners in this and even the best scientists have accidents. Like, let's treat this very seriously, take a lab accident, like seriously and respond appropriately. I think that would've changed the entire cause of the pandemic. Frankly, if they had said that, if they had said like, yeah, maybe we might have accidentally enhanced this virus in the lab and then got out, like I think the response from international governments would've been completely different as opposed to what we were fed in early 2020, which is this came from a wild animal in the market, everything's normal, it's just SARS one happening again. That kind of rhetoric. So I think that that was a, that was a huge mistake made at that time.

Vance Crowe [00:45:53] And what do you think, are we safer today than we were four or five years ago from like COVID OD?

Alina Chan [00:46:02] No, we're not. So both in terms of the wildlife trade and research, we are not safer. So China did ban wildlife for consumption, but it's notable that they have not, they have not banned their fur trade, which is where many of these intermediate host or animal hosts of novel viruses come from. So these raccoon dogs, m Soviets, they're still being grown in the millions in, in China. Even other countries have have shut it down. So like the Netherlands, I think they have shut down their mink industry after it was found that human passed COVID to a mink and a mink passed it back to humans. They realize it was a huge risk of, of cross species transmission. So they shut it down. But China's still ongoing. It is still, it is still allowing the trait of pangolins. It's still allowing the trait of all these animals that could pass novel viruses to humans. So we are not safer from a natural spillover. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:46:53] What is the, when you think about, you know, of the people that can take time, so let's imagine that the people listen to this podcast say, you know, I've probably got 30, 45 minutes to go look into these things. What kinds of questions should people be asking themselves rather than just the binary? Was it created in a lab or what or not, right? Like, are there other questions you think people should be asking themselves with so they can understand this, this pandemic in a better way?

Alina Chan [00:47:23] I think one thing that really stands out to me is how scientific findings get communicated to the public. So I, I think one thing that that really became extremely apparent to me is that there are some really well connected scientists who, who can tap into their journalist friends and immediately get their findings out into the front pages of, of Tom Media who can immediately talk to someone and government and say this, this is the truth because I'm a scientist, I'm an expert and this is the truth. And so unfortunately that these, these channels by which there's a fast pass for science that may not be well or rigorously reviewed by, by, by other experts with opposing or diverse viewpoints. So these, these can be exploited during times of crisis to result in a lot of misinformation coming from experts in the pandemic. So I'm hoping that that gets corrected on top of solving the origin of COVID-19. And I think that they, they can be done at the same time. In fact, they have to be done at the same time because by finding out who were the scientists and how did they spread misinformation, whether intentionally or not, we can start to see what all this, all these untruths are and, and find our, find our way to the origin of COVID-19.

Vance Crowe [00:48:39] Yeah, I mean I was in preparation for this interview, I was watching one of the exchanges between Ron Paul and Fauci and it was, it was interesting to me that Ron Paul pointed out, Fauci had some emails that said, Hey, don't worry about it. I got this in Wired. We're gonna burn down the, the reputations of these scientists over here. And you think, man, that is one of the powers, you know, a a bureaucrat maybe doesn't have a ton of power, but if they have the bully pulpit where they, you know, they can ring up Wired magazine or nature and get their point of view put out there, man, that is a power asymmetry that should be addressed.

Alina Chan [00:49:17] Yeah, exactly. And it's unfortunate that some of these scientists who have those connections keep challenging. Like, junior scientists like me saying, why don't you publish in nature? Then I'm like, I'm, I'm not you. I don't, I'm not best friends. I'm not whining and dining editors and nature on the New York Times. So it, it's a, it's kind of, I think they're really mean.

Vance Crowe [00:49:39] Do what do you think about the state of scientific publishing now after we've seen so many letters get signed by people and, and things like this? Because it seems to me that at least the general public, maybe not the scientific community, but the general public has lost a lot of faith in those institutions. Is that true of scientists?

Alina Chan [00:49:59] I I think it's true. I think even scientists have lost faith in, in scientific publishing and, and reporting in the news. And this isn't a COVID only thing. It wasn't like COVID happened and then suddenly we all reached a conclusion. Actually many of us were on our way. We, we've known scientists have known for many years that the way that we publish science is completely broken and, and predatory in many ways. And I, I wish that through this pandemic we could quickly fix those things before another crisis happens and all these shortcomings get exploited again. So one really easy way is just to open peer review is to, is to make all of the review of, of every publication. So the way that science gets published is that you, you write up your work and then you send it to a journal and they get some other experts to privately review your work. And then the journal decides, am I gonna publish this or not? But unfortunately the way that it works some of the times is that when you're a really famous scientist and you're good friends with the editors, they tend to give you a easier time going through this process. They might get your friends to peer review your work. So they might say, yeah, these, these guys always give a, you know, a good review and then your work gets out. So one way to, to get rid of that corruption is to open up all peer reviews, to publish all the reviews and let other scientists see like, was this properly reviewed or did they get like a a a hall pass

Vance Crowe [00:51:25] And what is the, the response by the institutions? 'cause if it were an obvious slam dunk for them, they would do it. But what what do they say is the reason they don't wanna do it?

Alina Chan [00:51:34] They have no incentive to do it. So what is the incentive? They're already making billions of dollars of revenue. So there's there's no carrot and there's no stick.

Vance Crowe [00:51:44] Yeah. And it's funny because if you look at computer code, right, when, when people are using that, the most reliable or the, the code that people depend on the most is open and you can see where people have made commits and you can see where, where people have said like, now this doesn't work or you, you

Alina Chan [00:51:58] Need to fix

Vance Crowe [00:51:58] These bugs. But if the scientific community is, you know, if you can get this past three reviewers and we don't really know who those reviewers, I mean, 'cause you don't even know the, the public isn't made to wear who the reviewers even were. Correct,

Alina Chan [00:52:11] Yeah. Even the, the authors themselves, the scientists themselves don't know who the reviewers are most of the time.

Vance Crowe [00:52:17] Yeah. Unless you're in some extremely rare field where, you know, there's only three other people.

Alina Chan [00:52:22] Yeah. Yeah. If the, if the reviewer says they didn't pay enough attention to my work, so then that's when you can have a good guess. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:52:31] So in wrapping up, what is on the horizon? Where, where, where do you think the next big information drop will come and, and you know, how do you see this playing out in the next three to six months?

Alina Chan [00:52:43] I think I'm quite optimistic that we will get a much better idea of where this, how this pandemic started in the next two to five years. So I can't say too much, but what I know, but I, the, there are investigations on their way and I'm sure that some of these will unearth a lot of important information, although some of it will, much of, it'll probably not be able to be made public. But my my hope is that they will get a balanced committee on these investigations and they will have access to all these interviews of people access to data that cannot be made public and true that we will get much closer.

Vance Crowe [00:53:19] And if somebody was gonna take those 15 to 30 minutes that they have to spend on COVID, what, is there something they can do that, that would blow oxygen on your work?

Alina Chan [00:53:32] I haven't really thought about that. That's kind of a strange question.

Vance Crowe [00:53:36] Well, I mean, I think that you had mentioned, you know, trying to get people to push for more open access. So would it be writing senators, would it be, you know, contacting people like what What is it that could happen that would make it so the scientists that are trying to discover the origins of COVID have the, the support of the public that they need.

Alina Chan [00:53:57] Yes. Some of these gets into extremely technical areas though, but if, if people want to write to their, their leaders saying that, yeah, we need to completely make, make public or to unearth as much of this like documentation, especially from the Equal Health Alliance and collaborators of the Wuhan Institute here in the us, that would be great because they have so far been extremely opaque on what they know. For example, it take, it took them close to two years and, and someone had to leak their grant documents showing that they were doing quite risky research on these coronaviruses sar like viruses in Wuhan. So if, if people wanna write letters saying that we need to see all this information, that would be great. And, and more letters saying we need a US government initiated investigation. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:54:41] Well, Alina Chan, thank you so much for coming on and talking COVID again. I'm, I'm glad to, to keep a spotlight on it, even though most of the world's attention has moved past it. So thank you for coming on.

Alina Chan [00:54:52] Thanks for having me.