| _version_ | 1866902119388282880 |
|---|---|
| author | Karin Moelling |
| author_facet | Karin Moelling |
| contents | <p><strong><span>Origin of Corona Virus?</span></strong></p> <p><span>Recent information released by the German BND in April 2025 raises the question of how free can research be? In principle – research is free. The question is, whether dangerous research can be free – and more difficult is the question, what kind of research is dangerous? The report by the BND refers to studies performed by the German BND in summer 2020 and had been initiated by the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The report was immediately kept secret and is only now mentioned in newspapers. It is not published. The information from newspapers states, that with a probability between 80 to 95% the SARS Corona virus-2, CoV-2, escaped from a laboratory of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan. Even with my offer to sign a secrecy agreement, the document is unavailable to a virologist like me. I published a paper on “Risky Research” in 2021 <strong><span>[1,2]</span></strong> describing possibilities of laboratory accidents with human pathogens, including examples known from the past, mainly in context with SARS CoV-1. It is most important to learn, whether there is any information in the report about research on viruses what caused the pandemic and in order to learn, how to prevent other pandemics in the future. This is of important general interest. So far it is kept secret and we cannot learn from it. There is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in the USA, which exists also in Germany. Several organizations have recently released information about how to perform research with viruses, such as the German Society of Virology (GFV), the Leopoldina and the German Science Foundation (DFG) (2022), as well as local Ethics Committees. In all cases it is up to the researcher how to classify his research and whom to consult or include.</span></p> |
| format | Recurso digital |
| id | zenodo_https___doi_org_10_5281_zenodo_15561200 |
| institution | Zenodo |
| language | |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publisher | Zenodo |
| record_format | zenodo |
| spellingShingle | Virology: Freedom to Operate? Karin Moelling <p><strong><span>Origin of Corona Virus?</span></strong></p> <p><span>Recent information released by the German BND in April 2025 raises the question of how free can research be? In principle – research is free. The question is, whether dangerous research can be free – and more difficult is the question, what kind of research is dangerous? The report by the BND refers to studies performed by the German BND in summer 2020 and had been initiated by the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The report was immediately kept secret and is only now mentioned in newspapers. It is not published. The information from newspapers states, that with a probability between 80 to 95% the SARS Corona virus-2, CoV-2, escaped from a laboratory of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan. Even with my offer to sign a secrecy agreement, the document is unavailable to a virologist like me. I published a paper on “Risky Research” in 2021 <strong><span>[1,2]</span></strong> describing possibilities of laboratory accidents with human pathogens, including examples known from the past, mainly in context with SARS CoV-1. It is most important to learn, whether there is any information in the report about research on viruses what caused the pandemic and in order to learn, how to prevent other pandemics in the future. This is of important general interest. So far it is kept secret and we cannot learn from it. There is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in the USA, which exists also in Germany. Several organizations have recently released information about how to perform research with viruses, such as the German Society of Virology (GFV), the Leopoldina and the German Science Foundation (DFG) (2022), as well as local Ethics Committees. In all cases it is up to the researcher how to classify his research and whom to consult or include.</span></p> |
| title | Virology: Freedom to Operate? |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15561200 |