![]() The 12-member group is made up of experts in emerging viruses and animal health. ![]() The task force had been pursuing leads on both the natural and laboratory-leak hypotheses.Īustralian scientist Dr Danielle Anderson.ĭr Sachs appointed Dr Daszak to lead the task force in 2020. He said he isn’t backing one hypothesis about the origins of Covid-19 over another. “A lot is going on around the world that is not properly scrutinised or explained to the public,” he said. More labs have the technology to re-create or build new viruses, he said, yet regulation and standards on how to conduct these experiments safely aren’t keeping up. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia Universityĭr Sachs said the Lancet Covid-19 Commission would continue studying the origins for a report to be published in mid-2022 but broaden its scope to include input from other experts on biosafety concerns including government oversight and transparency regarding risky laboratory research. The search has fueled geopolitical tensions and debates over whether the virus began spreading after spilling into the human population naturally, from an animal, or from a laboratory or other scientific research-related accident.Ĭalls from scientists and health leaders for an investigation into the possibility of a lab accident have gained traction in recent months. “I just didn’t want a task force that was so clearly involved with one of the main issues of this whole search for the origins, which was EcoHealth Alliance,” said Dr Sachs, who is also director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.ĭisbanding the task force is the latest development in the global scientific quest to find the origin of the virus. ![]() One task-force member said the disbanded group did not have conflicts of interest that interfere with its ability to gather and assess data on how the virus got into human populations. Some other members of the task force have collaborated with Dr Daszak or EcoHealth Alliance on projects. That New York-based nonprofit has been under scrutiny from some scientists, members of the US congress and other officials since 2020 for using US funds for studies on bat coronaviruses with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research facility in the Chinese city where the first Covid-19 outbreak occurred.ĮcoHealth Alliance’s president, Peter Daszak, led the task force until recusing himself from that role in June. Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs says he has disbanded a task force of scientists, including Australian virologist Danielle Anderson, probing the origins of Covid-19.ĭr Sachs, chairman of a Covid-19 commission affiliated with the Lancet scientific journals, said he closed the task force because he was concerned about its links to EcoHealth Alliance, Dow Jones reports.
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