As the World Health Organization draws up plans for the next phase of its probe of how the coronavirus pandemic started, an increasing number of scientists say the U.N. agency isn't up to the task and shouldn't be the one to investigate.
Numerous experts, some with strong ties to WHO, say that political tensions between the U.S. and China make it impossible for an investigation by the agency to find credible answers.
They say what's needed is a broad, independent analysis closer to what happened in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The first part of a joint WHO-China study of how COVID-19 started concluded in March that the virus probably jumped to humans from animals and that a lab leak was 바카라extremely unlikely.바카라
The next phase might try to examine the first human cases in more detail or pinpoint the animals responsible 바카라 possibly bats, perhaps by way of some intermediate creature.
But the idea that the pandemic somehow started in a laboratory 바카라 and perhaps involved an engineered virus 바카라 has gained traction recently, with President Joe Biden ordering a review of U.S. intelligence within 90 days to assess the possibility.
Earlier this month, WHO's emergencies chief, Dr. Michael Ryan, said that the agency was working out the final details of the next phase of its probe and that because WHO works 바카라by persuasion,바카라 it lacks the power to compel China to cooperate.
Some said that is precisely why a WHO-led examination is doomed to fail.
바카라We will never find the origins relying on the World Health Organization,바카라 said Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University.
바카라For a year and a half, they have been stonewalled by China, and it's very clear they won't get to the bottom of it.바카라
Gostin said the U.S. and other countries can either try to piece together what intelligence they have, revise international health laws to give WHO the powers it needs, or create some new entity to investigate.
The first phase of WHO's mission required getting China's approval not only for the experts who traveled there but for their entire agenda and the report they ultimately produced.
Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, called it a 바카라farce바카라 and said that determining whether the virus jumped from animals or escaped from a lab is more than a scientific question and has political dimensions beyond WHO's expertise.
The closest genetic relative to COVID-19 was previously discovered in a 2012 outbreak, after six miners fell sick with pneumonia after being exposed to infected bats in China's Mojiang mine. In the past year, however, Chinese authorities sealed off the mine and confiscated samples from scientists while ordering locals not to talk to visiting journalists.
Although China initially pushed hard to look for the coronavirus's origins, it pulled back abruptly in early 2020 as the virus overtook the globe.
An Associated Press investigation last December found Beijing imposed restrictions on the publication of COVID-19 research, including mandatory review by central government officials.
Jamie Metzl, who sits on a WHO advisory group, has suggested along with colleagues the possibility of an alternative investigation set up by the Group of Seven industrialized nations.
Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University, said the U.S. must be willing to subject its own scientists to a rigorous examination and recognize that they might be just as culpable as China.
바카라The U.S. was deeply involved in research at the laboratories in Wuhan,바카라 Sachs said, referring to U.S. funding of controversial experiments and the search for animal viruses capable of triggering outbreaks.
바카라The idea that China was behaving badly is already the wrong premise for this investigation to start,바카라 he said. 바카라If lab work was somehow responsible (for the pandemic), the likelihood that it was both the U.S. and China working together on a scientific initiative is very high.바카라
