Uncovered risks — no oversight of UNC’s extreme virology

In the shadow of some scientific research lies the potential for catastrophic consequences. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s virology program, spearheaded by Dr. Ralph Baric, deserves attention for technical achievement but also for questionable safety practices.

According to an Aug. 17, 2020 ProPublica investigation and a follow-up piece, from 2015 to 2020 UNC-Chapel Hill reported 28 lab accidents involving genetically engineered viruses, including six genetically engineered coronaviruses accidents, to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In one mishap — in April 2020, 90 days into the pandemic — a UNC researcher was bitten on the index finger by a mouse infected with a novel SARS-CoV-2 variant created in Chapel Hill. While we were shut in our homes, the researcher was asked to self-quarantine for 14 days, and the local health department was notified of the incident. 

It is helpful to judge public health risk as a relative matter with more than one data point. Since 1952, NC State University has operated a campus nuclear reactor in downtown Raleigh closely regulated by state and federal authorities. If there were a radiation accident, no one would disagree it would be an acute health risk to the region. Therefore, the reactor is monitored by the government.

Compared to other risks, virology research at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health involving SARS-CoV-2, MERS coronavirus, and related animal coronaviruses operates in an unmonitored, unregulated environment, posing potentially catastrophic global consequences if mishandled. This unmonitored, unregulated research is both a local and a global concern. 

Recent documents obtained by court order by the public advocacy non-profit US Right to Know (USRTK) reveal that UNC developed and then exported dangerous coronavirus technologies and coronavirus research plans in the years leading up to the pandemic.

In 2018, UNC-Chapel Hill, in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and EcoHealth Alliance, a New-York-based NGO, applied for, and were awarded, a five-year $3 million grant from the NIH to construct novel bat SARS-related coronaviruses having enhanced pandemic potential.

Also in 2018, UNC-Chapel Hill — again in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and EcoHealth Alliance — applied for a $14 million grant from the US Defense Advanced Research Program (DARPA) to construct novel bat SARS-related coronaviruses having enhanced pandemic potential. Correspondence on drafts of the grant proposal, obtained by USRTK through the Freedom of Information Act, show that the applicants decided to mislead the Pentagon about the location of the proposed work, telling the Pentagon that the research would be performed at UNC-Chapel Hill, but actually planning to perform the work with fewer biosafety precautions at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The UNC-Wuhan collaboration sought to create novel genetically modified SARS coronaviruses having enhanced ability to attach to human cells by virtue of a deliberately inserted “furin cleavage site” associated with enhanced transmissibility and virulence.

The evidence suggests that UNC midwifed a virus that killed 20 million people. 

A well-informed North Carolinian, upon hearing of the university’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic, might justifiably dismiss this as misinformation. Unfortunately, in this case the information is supported, beyond a reasonable doubt, by hard-to-obtain court-ordered documentation.

The documents have been met, so far, by an awkward refusal by the press, both political parties, and the UNC System leadership and UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees to discuss the inconvenient truth. This in part reflects their hagiographic treatment of Ralph Baric in the early days of the pandemic. The Raleigh News & Observer honored Baric as Tar Heel Of The Year, and the university system honored him with its highest recognition, the O. Max Gardner Award. This treatment also likely reflects the fact Baric has been a major revenue producer for UNC, receiving a remarkable $208 million in grants from the NIH alone.

While skilled as an experimentalist and a grant writer, Baric arguably is more notable for embodying the warnings of Mary Shelley in her 1818 classic “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.” In this case, our unstoppable Prometheus gave Wuhan a blueprint for constructing novel viruses having the distinctive features of SARS-CoV-2. UNC also provided Wuhan with living mice grown by UNC to have human receptors for SARS viruses in their lungs in order to test and further enhance the transmissibility and virulence of such viruses.

The defense of the extreme virology pioneered in Chapel Hill is reminiscent of Cold War nuclear testing prior to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Like the atom bomb enthusiasts of that generation, Baric and UNC’s public health bureaucracy claim their works are defensive. But wiser heads in the 1960s recognized the arrogance of data at any cost and pulled back from the deliberate creation of physical horror. The sane approach adopted was to forgo testing of technology for its own sake in favor of sophisticated modeling, lest we create the basis for our own demise. 

The North Carolina press, state legislature, and the university system’s executive office must take a proactive role in shedding light on extreme virology in NC. Transparency is the first step toward accountability. As a state, we must confront the ethical and safety implications of our scientific ambitions. It is time for open dialogue, investigation, and reform to ensure that the pursuit of knowledge does not endanger the world we aim to protect.