Science should always respect the power of nature
In the darkly satiric Cold War film “Dr. Strangelove,” the renegade general Jack D. Ripper ignites a chain of events leading to the world’s thermonuclear destruction. The movie exposes the insanity of placing humanity’s fate in the hands of a few scientists and generals, where even world leaders cannot prevent an apocalypse.
Sixty years have passed since Stanley Kubrick’s film was made, yet it seems nothing has been learned.
Today, a scientist performing research that enhances a potential pandemic pathogen, with the full approval of the government and scientific establishment, has emerged as an existential threat to humanity. In a Congressional hearing earlier this month, former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield testified that today, “Biosafety is the greatest security threat faced by the United States.”
For decades, the US, alongside Chinese and European science funders, has supported virus discovery and virus enhancement research as a way to purportedly prevent pandemics. In 2012, Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins wrote in the American Society for Microbiology that the benefits of such work were worth it, even if a laboratory accident launched a pandemic.
What exactly do these scientists want to do? They trek out to the wild places and bring back dangerous germs to experiment on in their laboratories, often located in city centers. Sometimes, these experiments make the germs more infectious and hazardous to humans (so-called “gain-of-function” experiments). Scientists say this research is essential to identify biological threats in nature and prepare for a possible emergence.
Ironically, there is a high chance that this misguided reasoning caused the COVID pandemic. While the laboratories that do this kind of research are billed as “safe,” it’s impossible to guarantee that lab workers will not accidentally infect themselves or that biological waste is disposed of safely every single time. All it takes is one accident to launch a pandemic like the one the world just went through.
A recently released policy framework, due to go into effect in May 2025 for the federal oversight of gain-of-function research, adds insult to injury. Following the announcement of the new policy, many experts —including some who desperately oppose the COVID lab leak origin idea — hailed it as an important step forward. We strongly disagree. The new policy, if implemented, will increase the likelihood of research-related pandemics.
First, the new policy is a White House policy “statement,” not formal federal regulation. Such statements are mere recommendations without legal enforcement.
Second, the policy is written in opaque language, inviting the scientists entrusted with adopting the safety rules to find loopholes. Instead of correcting and tightening the loopholes scientists exploited in the past, the policy institutionalizes these gaps, paving the way for future public health disasters.
Third, and perhaps most worrisome, the new framework entrusts scientists who conduct dangerous experiments with regulating themselves. Trust us, they say — but their track record in the COVID era does not inspire confidence.
In a rational world, the possibility that research might have triggered a global pandemic resulting in millions of deaths and trillions in economic losses would prompt serious reflection within the scientific community. Instead, for over four years, the loudest voices in the scientific community have falsely claimed that there is “overwhelming” evidence that COVID originated naturally.
In 2021, researchers, politicians and internet sleuths exposed the coverup of the possibility of a lab leak by Fauci and Collins and others who falsely insisted such a COVID origin hypothesis was a conspiracy theory. Virologists viciously attacked the reputations of people who argued for banning such dangerous research.
The virologists who conduct such experiments correctly understand the stakes. If the public believes — as polls suggest — that virologists may have caused the pandemic, public support for the field will dry up. In the face of these facts, does it make sense to entrust virologists to do better next time?
Are there any benefits to the virus discovery and enhancement approach? It’s hard to identify any. Finding and enhancing dangerous germs has never actually prevented a pandemic. Any vaccines developed are likely to be obsolete by the time they are tested adequately, since the germs will mutate in unexpected ways once they circulate among humans.
Finally, such virology work is perhaps most useful for bioweapons research that contravenes the provisions of the Biological Weapons Convention. No country, much less the United States, should be engaged in such work.
We call on elected officials to prioritize global public safety over the interests of a narrow set of researchers. The new White House policy permits funding for dangerous projects without clear benefits, increasing the risk of accidents, particularly in lax international laboratory settings. The Senate is actively considering biosafety legislation with teeth. We call for Congress to enact and implement independent oversight for research that represents an existential risk to humanity.
“Dr. Strangelove” should remain in the realm of fiction.
Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of health policy at Stanford Medical School, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the co-founder of the Academy for Science and Freedom at Hillsdale College. Bryce Nickels is a professor of Genetics at Rutgers University, lab director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and co-founder of the nonprofit Biosafety Now.
