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Content uploaded by Gilles Demaneuf
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All content in this area was uploaded by Gilles Demaneuf on Feb 04, 2022
Content may be subject to copyright.
Allowing a Comprehensive International Investigation of
Pandemic Origins would be a True Expression of Olympic Values
February 4, 2022
The Olympic Charter states that “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service
of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful
society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”
Unfortunately, as athletes from across the globe gather together today for the start of
the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games, this noble aspiration is being undermined
through the ongoing efforts of the host government to prevent a comprehensive
international investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed
millions of people and harmed billions across the globe.
Understanding how this terrible crisis began is essential to preventing future pandemics
and building a safer future for all.
The ongoing efforts by China’s government to block any meaningful investigation into
pandemic origins – which has included destroying biological samples, hiding records,
imprisoning courageous Chinese citizen journalists, and enforcing a series of gag
orders preventing Chinese scientists from saying or writing anything about pandemic
origins without prior government approval – have been an affront to the international
scientific community and to people everywhere.
Due primarily to the Chinese government’s intransigence and the aggressive pressure it
has placed on foreign governments and international institutions, no comprehensive
international investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic has yet been
initiated.
Nearly a year ago, at a press conference on February 9, 2021, the leader of the
international mission to Wuhan organized by the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr
Peter Ben Embarek, announced that the international study team had concluded that a
pandemic “natural origin” was likely but that a lab incident origin was “extremely
unlikely” and should not be investigated. Dr. Embarek later admitted, however, that he
actually thought that at least one manifestation of a lab accident was “likely,” that he had
been under pressure from Chinese hosts not to raise the lab incident origin hypothesis,
and that he had bent his expressed views to accommodate the sensitivities of the
international group’s Chinese hosts.
Olympics Statement p.1/4
Although the WHO has more recently established a new body - the Scientific Advisory
Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) - to advise the WHO Secretariat on
technical and scientific considerations regarding emerging and re-emerging pathogens
and to investigate the origins of novel pathogens including SARS-CoV-2, it appears this
body does not have unfettered access to relevant raw data and sampling sites in China
and has not been allowed to perform audits of Wuhan´s laboratories where various bat
coronaviruses were being collected, stored, and manipulated before the outbreak
began.
With no established plan in place for a comprehensive and unrestricted international
investigation into COVID-19 origins, everyone on earth and future generations remain at
heightened and unnecessary risk of future pandemics.
Calling for a comprehensive investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic at
this moment, when athletes from across the globe are coming together to promote
openness and mutual trust, is a true representation of the ideals underlying the Olympic
movement.
As a community of scientists and experts from around the world deeply committed to
uncovering the origins of this pandemic as a cornerstone of preventing future ones, we
therefore:
● Call on all nations of the world, and all people, to unite in demanding a
comprehensive and unrestricted investigation into COVID-19 origins in China
and, as appropriate, beyond;
● Call on the Chinese government to affirm its support for a comprehensive
international investigation into pandemic origins with full access to all relevant
records, samples, retrospective contact tracing data, and personnel in China;
● Call on the United States, the European Union, and other national and
international bodies to establish broad-based COVID-19 commissions to explore
pandemic origins and propose avenues to make sure such a pandemic never
happens again;
● Call on all nations to require scientists in their countries who have previously
collaborated with Chinese laboratories researching coronaviruses to share all the
relevant data and communications;
● Call on the Chinese government to allow access to information critical for
properly assessing all plausible origins, by:
○ sharing the missing virus sequence and sample databases managed by
the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which have been removed from the
internet since September 2019, despite forming the most exhaustive
research resource on recently identified bat coronaviruses;
Olympics Statement p.2/4
○ sharing records of all coronavirus sampling trips involving staff or
researchers in Wuhan for the years 2018 and 2019;
○ sharing the full list, with sampling dates, of the medical samples taken
from the miners who developed Covid-19-like symptoms working in
Mojiang, Yunnan in 2012, as well as a list of the institutions that received
these samples;
○ allowing international researchers to visit and sample at the Mojiang mine,
Yunnan and at the Shitou caves, which were described in the 2018
DEFUSE grant application submitted to DARPA by the EcoHealth Alliance;
○ sharing laboratory books and research records from the relevant labs in
Wuhan, in particular, but not limited to, the WIV at its Xiaohongshan
(BSL-2/3) and its Zhengdian (BSL-2/3/4) sites, Wuhan University
(ABSL-3), Wuhan CDC BSL-2, and the Wuhan Institute of Biological
Products, as well as all of the biosafety records since 2016 submitted
annually by these institutions to the Chinese authorities.
● Call on the World Health Organization to establish and promote a secure
whistleblower provision making it easier and safer for scientists and experts in
China and across the globe to share information regarding pandemic origins;
● Call on the international community to recognize the exemplary Chinese medical
professionals and the many ordinary Chinese citizens who took great personal
risks in documenting the early outbreak in Wuhan and alerting the world and who
too often got severely punished for doing so.
Realizing these critically important next steps would help build a safer future for all and
be the ultimate expression of the true Olympic values.
Olympics Statement p.3/4
Signatories:
-Colin D Butler, Honorary Professor, Australian National University, Canberra,
Australia (ORCID 0000-0002-2942-5294)
-Henri Cap, PhD, Zoologist, Toulouse, France
-Jean-Michel Claverie, Virologist, Emeritus Professor of Public Health, Aix-Marseille
University, France (ORCID 0000-0003-1424-0315)
-Virginie Courtier, Evolutionary geneticist, Research Director, Institut Jacques
Monod, CNRS, Paris, France (ORCID 0000-0002-9297-9230) (Co-Organizer)
-Gilles Demaneuf, Engineer and Data Scientist, Auckland, New Zealand (ORCID
0000-0001-7277-9533) (Co-Organizer)
-François Graner, biophysicist, Research Director, CNRS and Université de Paris,
France (ORCID 0000-0002-4766-3579)
-Mai (Mike) He, Pathologist, Associate Professor, Washington University in St. Louis
School of Medicine, MO, USA
-Makoto Itoh, Professor, Engineering Systems, University of Tsukuba, Japan
-Hideki Kakeya, Information Scientist, Associate Professor, University of Tsukuba,
Japan
-Richard Kock, Professor, Wildlife Health and Emerging Diseases, Royal Veterinary
College, London, UK.
-Jonathan Latham, PhD, Exec. Director, The Bioscience Resource Project, USA
-Milton Leitenberg, Senior Research Fellow, University of Maryland, USA
-Steven E Massey, Computational Biologist, Professor, University of Puerto Rico,
Rio Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
-Jamie Metzl, Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council, USA (Co-Organizer)
- Steven Quay, Formerly of Dept. Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine,
USA (ORCID 000-002-0363-7651)
-Monali Rahalkar, Scientist (Microbiologist), Agharkar Research Institute, Pune,
India (ORCID 0000-0003-0945-4378)
-Bahulikar Rahul, Scientist (Plant genetics and taxonomy expert), BAIF
Development Research Foundation, Pune, India (ORCID 0000-0002-0442-4607)
-Charles Rixey, MA, formerly CBRN Chief, United States Marine Corps; Analyst,
DRASTIC, Dallas TX, USA
-Günter Theißen, Geneticist, Professor, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena,
Germany
-Roland Wiesendanger, Nanoscientist, Professor, University of Hamburg, Germany
-Allison Wilson, PhD, Science Director, The Bioscience Resource Project, Ithaca,
NY, USA.
Olympics Statement p.4/4