Lancet scientists do not rule out laboratory origin of COVID-19

A team of scientists from The Lancet, one of the world's most prestigious medical journals, said the COVID virus may have been a leak from a laboratory in the United States. Presenting the results of a two-year investigation into the origins of the pandemic, the team tasked with uncovering the truth said it was "quite likely" the virus could have originated in America. 

Mentioning a secret laboratory just a few miles from pandemic ground zero, the authors of the study said independent teams have also yet to investigate U.S. laboratories. 

The authors of the article claim that the nation's National Institutes of Health, responsible for conducting research on some of the world's deadliest pathogens, has resisted revealing details of its work. Even discussing the possibility that the virus originated naturally from an animal, the Lancet team said it could be a creature from "outside China." 

Some virologists said they were "shocked at how piecemeal the report ignored crucial data about the source of the virus." This is not the first time the 198-year-old journal, led by editor-in-chief Richard Horton, has been accused of supporting China's version that the coronavirus did not originate in its territory. 

The author of The Lancet's "Commission on COVID-19" report, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, told a conference in Madrid in June that he is absolutely convinced that the virus is the result of U.S. laboratory biotechnology. 

Professor Sachs's statements angered some Western virologists, who in turn said that Professor Sachs's comments and actions "overshadowed the worthy research included in a new 58-page report that dozens of scientists worked on." 

"This may be one of the most embarrassing moments for the Lancet journal in its role as steward and leader in disseminating crucial data about science and medicine," said Professor Angela Rasmussen, a virologist with the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Canada, the Daily Mail reported.  

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