The Lab-Leak Theory Has Only Sharpened Ethical Questions Around Virology

We should let science and evidence prevail while recognizing that science, like other disciplines, is shaped by competing interests.

_Voices _Voices Support Us A doctor at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention gestures to a colleague in their laboratory in Beijing on April 16, 2013. Photo: STR/AFP via Getty Images I was living in Shanghai when a new avian flu virus emerged there in 2013. The outbreak started in February, shortly after the Lunar New Year, when an 87-year-old man and his two sons showed up at a local hospital with a fever and other symptoms. By early March, the elderly man was dead, leading an anonymous Chinese social media user to speculate about the strange circumstances surrounding his demi

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