Lab accidents can happen anywhere, including in the United States, but multiple reports and studies have highlighted ongoing equipment problems and inadequate safety training in China’s labs.
A recent investigation by The Washington Post found that China’s rapidly expanding biotechnology sector has not kept pace with safety protocols and best practices.
According to the WP’s investigation of Chinese government records, there have been several incidents pointing to poor safety standards.
These have led to issues such as the illegal sale of lab animals after being utilized in experiments or the flushing of dangerous lab waste into sewers.
These problems are compounded by a secretive, top-down bureaucracy that often covers up accidents and discourages public acknowledgment of shortcomings.
For instance, in the summer of 2019, a government-run biomedical complex in Lanzhou experienced a mysterious accident. There was no alert system in place to warn lab workers that the sanitation system had failed and a dangerous pathogen was released into the atmosphere.
At least 10,000 people living nearby were exposed to the pathogen, which causes brucellosis. This is a livestock disease that can produce flu-like symptoms in humans. It has the potential to become a chronic illness or even fatal if left untreated, per the WP.
Writing about the incident, Georgios Pappas, a physician at the Institute of Continuing Medical Education of Ioannina, Greece, noted that this was “possibly the largest laboratory accident in the history of infectious diseases” despite the local residents not being warned about it by the authorities.
It was months before accounts of the outbreak were run on state-run media outlets, yet lacking transparency as to the scope and cause, per the WP.
Although this incident was unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic, it provides a glimpse into China’s struggles with biosafety at the time.
Even today, politicians, government agencies, and the global health community continue to debate the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China.
Some point to a zoonotic spillover, notably a wild bat-to-human transmission, as the likely cause.
On the other hand, as The Dallas Express previously reported, a revised assessment from the U.S. Energy Department affirmed in February that COVID-19 likely originated from a laboratory leak.
This was also the hypothesis of the Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor, and Pensions, as indicated in its October 2022 report.
In fact, China enacted laws to enhance biosafety in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Yet the absence of transparency complicates the evaluation of the implementation of new safety standards, per the WP.
After looking at the inspection reports on Chinese lab practices, Robert Hawley, a biosecurity specialist and former MRI Mid-Atlantic Operations senior professional, told the WP, “It is very, very apparent that their biological safety training is minimal.”
The origin of the problem of Chinese lab safety is the environment of extraordinary political and economic pressure in which scientific research endeavors are pursued.
Beijing has poured billions of dollars into constructing dozens of laboratories and encouraging cutting-edge research.
This ambition even extends beyond the limits of Earth to include the Moon.
As The Dallas Express reported, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson believes that China and the United States are in a space race.
The Chinese space program has made startling progress, which Nelson feels might lead to future conflicts over exploration and communication infrastructure setups, as he expressed during an interview with Politico.
A statement from Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, dismissed these concerns, noting that “Outer space is not a wrestling ground,” per Politico.
Just last month, a Chinese rocket — inoperational space junk — disintegrated over Texas in an uncontrolled, unscheduled reentry that U.S. Space Command criticized for putting lives at risk, per The Dallas Express. The incident went unacknowledged by China.
At the same time, China’s advances in fields such as genetic engineering and experimental pharmaceuticals have led to many successful collaborations with institutions in the West, per the WP.
Yet it has also created a culture of speed and ambition that sometimes encourages shortcuts.
“You can’t cut corners,” Hawley told the WP. “And you can’t glean the knowledge that’s required in a two-week course and then expect that people will be able to fly solo. It doesn’t happen that way.”