The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Wednesday last week heard testimony from two biosafety experts on the oversight of federally funded “dual-use” and “gain-of-function” research.

While acknowledging the need for biological research advancements, the experts called for increased oversight, safer alternatives and ethical considerations instead of controversial gain-of-function experiments designed to increase the transmissibility of pathogens.

Gerald W. Parker, a former commander of the US Army’s bioresearch facility at Fort Detrick, told committee members that while dual-use research – aimed at both constructive and potentially harmful applications – is largely beneficial, a small subset raises serious biosecurity concerns.

Jaime Yassif, vice president of Global Biological Policy and Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which in 2021 held a tabletop exercise simulating a monkeypox outbreak, joined Parker in recommending incentivizing “safer alternatives” to risky gain-of-function experiments.

However, neither witness disavowed gain-of-function research outright and neither was willing to state that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab.

Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (Republican-Ohio), stating his belief that Covid-19 “likely” leaked from the Wuhan lab, discussed the need to modernise oversight to close “gaps” in biosafety regulation.

However, he also cautioned against stifling beneficial research, stating that “scientists that are conducting their work safely and with proper precautions should not have any concerns about more oversight on bad labs.”

In a press release, Wenstrup noted that infectious diseases – such as Covid-19 and other dangerous coronaviruses – “do not recognise borders.” He highlighted “the importance of interagency coordination and cooperation among credible state actors.”

The hearing came as the federal government is proposing changes to research oversight policies and just days after the federal government’s public comment period ended.

Responding to Wednesday’s proceedings, Francis Boyle, a bioweapons expert who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 and is a critic of gain-of-function research, told The Defender that such calls for “safer alternatives” are not enough.

“Dual-use research of concern and gain-of-function research are both euphemisms for developing offensive biological warfare weapons prohibited by international law and US domestic law and that are existentially dangerous to human life,” he said.

“We know that Covid-19 was an offensive biological warfare weapon with gain-of-function properties that leaked out of the Wuhan, China, BSL-4 [biosafety level 4] laboratory and was manufactured in cooperation with the University of North Carolina BSL-3 laboratory,” Boyle added. Wenstrup said, “While there’s mounting evidence supporting the lab-leak theory, we may never know with 100% certainty the origins of Covid-19.”

He noted, though, that “we do know some things for certain,” including “serious” biosafety concerns by the US Department of State regarding research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that “the American taxpayer was likely paying for” and that Dr Anthony Fauci “knew” was being conducted.

This view was mirrored by Representative James Comer (Republican-Kentucky), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, under which the subcommittee operates, and by subcommittee member Representative Michael Cloud (Republican-Texas).

“We have US taxpayer dollars funding research in other countries who are competing against us for pre-eminence in this and why we would put that on the American taxpayer is kind of beyond me,” Cloud said. “It’s not a stretch to say that US taxpayer dollars help fund the pandemic.”

Wenstrup added that there has been a long history of prior lab leaks, including the escape of smallpox from a UK laboratory in 1978, the accidental release of anthrax from a Soviet Union military research facility, two lab-related releases of SARS in China in 2004 and US leaks and lab-related accidents “as recently as 2016.”

“These lab leaks can occur for a multitude of reasons,” Wenstrup said. “They can occur because of mishandled biological materials, escaped aerosols, laboratory design flaws or human error” and they can lead to “disastrous consequences.”

Highlighting this point, subcommittee member Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks (Republican-Iowa), former president of the Iowa Medical Society, said three such leaks occurred at biological research laboratories in her state between 2019 and 2020.

“None of these incidents were reported to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, even though the incidents were considered as posing a risk to agriculture and public health,” she said.

Parker, who is now associate dean for Global One Health at the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, told the committee such accidents “happen more often than you think.”

“A high-containment lab consisting of biosafety levels 3 and 4 requires the highest level of containment to protect workers and public safety,” he said. “These labs require a highly skilled workforce and detailed attention to operations and sustainment.”

Parker referred to his experience as commander of the Fort Detrick laboratory, which houses the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease.

“I’m a former commander of a high-containment lab and I know how complex they are and the detailed attention that you have to do there,” he said. “Not all countries share our view of what that means to have strong institutional norms and ethics and the resources needed.”

“Lab accidents and misuse are more likely to occur where there’s a lack of institutional norms,” he added. “This is why it’s imperative for a modernized, harmonized, domestic and international framework to ensure a skilled workforce and institutional norms needed to operate these facilities.”

Wenstrup also referred to controversies over the “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” paper, published in Nature Medicine in March 2020, which was used to refute the “lab-leak” hypothesis of Covid-19’s origin.

In July, the subcommittee released a report presenting evidence of a coordinated effort by federal officials, including Fauci, to suppress the Covid-19 lab-leak hypothesis and promote the “natural origin” theory, including via the Proximal Origin paper.

“The authors [of Proximal Origin] were aware that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting risky gain-of-function research with coronaviruses under questionable biosafety conditions, including in BSL2 laboratories,” Comer said, adding, “They were also aware that this research could be done without leaving a trace.”

“Troublingly, the US government also knew about these concerns,” he added.

Wenstrup questioned the witnesses about whether it is common for scientists to rely “more on political implications than actual science” when conducting research and drafting scientific papers.

I don’t think it’s common,” Parker said. “I think virologists … scientists, everybody working in the infectious disease research community, including hazardous pathogens, they want to do this work safely and securely.”

Yassif avoided taking a position on whether a lab leak was responsible for the spread of Covid-19 but said that “hypothetically … such an action would be inappropriate.”

“The evidence as to whether it emerged naturally or resulted from an accident is still inconclusive,” she said. “But the fact that it’s even plausible that so much disruption could have been caused by a possible lab accident is a big blinking red light.”

The possibility that such a leak occurred “signals the urgent need to strengthen biosafety and biosecurity,” Yassif added. “It’s in our interest to take an international approach to bolstering biosafety and biosecurity. That’s because infectious diseases, no matter their origin, do not respect borders.”

“We know enough already that we must take action at the animal-human-environmental interface nexus,” Wenstrup said. “Whether that’s in nature, whether that’s in a laboratory – inaction really is not an option.”

• The Defender report