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Lab leaks and accidents up 50% in UK since pandemic: Report
British technician working with virus at the Pirbright Institute in Woking, UK. Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Lab leaks and accidents up 50% in UK since pandemic: Report

Elements of the U.S. government remain reluctant to conclude whether the unhygienic Chinese communist-run lab at the center of the pandemic — where patients zero conducted radical experiments on coronaviruses — was indeed the origin of the virus. Time and federal lawsuits may yet reveal whether alleged bribes helped muddy waters stateside.

A fact that does not depend upon the consensus of government agencies possibly affected by Anthony Fauci's apparent cover-up and the communist regime's denial is that lab leaks happen. Not only do they happen, they recur frequently, both in countries like China, where biosafety is notoriously second-rate, as well as in Western nations.

This is especially true in Britain, where the Telegraph recently highlighted a 50% rise in lab leaks and accidents since the emergence of COVID.

This massive increase in leaks is all the more alarming granted freedom of information requests to the British government, to universities in the U.K., and to government research bodies have revealed that lethal viruses and bacteria ranging from anthrax and rabies to Middle East respiratory syndrome are being stored nearby in large populations.

As demonstrated early in the COVID pandemic — where the Chinese regime wittingly permitted hundreds of thousands of possibly infected travelers to travel internationally whilst limits were otherwise placed on domestic travel — a problem abroad can fast become a problem for America.

The Health and Safety Executive, a British government agency responsible for workplace health and safety, reportedly recorded 286 lab incidents or near misses between January 2010 and December 2019. That averages out to roughly 28 a year.

The COVID pandemic evidently did not chasten Britons sporting lab coats. Since January 2020, the HSE has recorded 156 incidents, or 42 lab incidents a year.

The HSE, which divulged this startling number only because it had been threatened with contempt of court by the Information Commissioner's Office, refused to provide full details about some of the incidents because they involved viruses and bacteria listed in the Terrorism Act, reported the Telegraph.

Col. Hamish Stephen de Bretton-Gordon, a chemical weapons expert and former commander of NATO's Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense Forces, said, "The apparent lab leaks in this country alone show we are all sitting on a ticking time bomb."

"It seems highly likely that (Covid-19) was man-made, though also likely an accident at a lab, rather than deliberate," Bretton-Gordon told the Telegraph. "The next pandemic is highly likely to be man-made, given the ease and unregulation of synthetic biology, and could kill millions of people."

Even when regulations are in place, dangerous experiments continue behind closed doors.

While, for instance, the Obama administration announced a pause on the funding of any new studies involving gain-of-function experiments with influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses in 2014, the National Institutes of Health nevertheless approved continued GOF research on coronaviruses with funding from Peter Daszak's scandal-plagued EcoHealth Alliance, which was in turn partly funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The Telegraph noted that among the lab accidents revealed by freedom of information requests were:

  • a bird flu leak from a cracked test tube at a Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency lab in Hertfordshire, England;
  • an accident involving Neisseria meningitidis, a bacteria linked to life-threatening sepsis, which prompted an evacuation at the Manchester Royal Infirmary;
  • COVID breaches at an uncommissioned lab at the University of Liverpool;
  • the escape of a mutant mouse; and
  • an accidental injection of a lab worker with a modified form of Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease.
Just as concerning as Britain's inability to keep its viruses locked up is the 2023 Global Biolabs Report suggesting that the U.K. actually has a relatively high biosafety score — 18 out of a possible 20. Australia and Canada rank highest, as both have a score of 20. India, the Ivory Coast, Gabon, and Saudi Arabia rank lowest, scoring 5, 3, 3, and 1, respectively.
The Global Biolabs Report noted that out of a possible biosecurity score of 18, Britain scores 17. The U.S., by way of comparison, has a perfect score. Again, India, the Ivory Coast, Gabon, and Saudi Arabia score poorly, 5, 1, 1, and 2, respectively.
A Chatham House report revealed there were lab-acquired infections in 309 individuals from 51 pathogens around the world between 2000 and 2021. In 16 incidents, pathogens reportedly escaped biocontainment facilities, reported the Telegraph.
Dr. David Harper, former chief scientist and director general for health improvement and protection in the British Department of Health, was greatly disturbed by the Telegraph's findings, stating, "Accidental breaches in laboratory biocontainment can have potentially catastrophic consequences."
"The accidents that are reported today without doubt provide an underestimate of the true scale of the problem," continued Harper. "Greater transparency, with better reporting, documentation and analysis, is urgently required together with improved governance and oversight."
The HSE recorded 376 incidents of release or escape of biological agents outside of labs.
Bretton-Gordon wrote, "There are around 4,000 laboratories and one million scientists who have the ability to manipulate the genome to create a devastating pathogen and at the moment nobody is looking too closely at them."
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Joseph MacKinnon

Joseph MacKinnon

Joseph MacKinnon is a staff writer for Blaze News. He lives in a small town with his wife and son, moonlighting as an author of science fiction.
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