The task of tightening lab biosafety has become urgent and in every country’s interest, even China's
American spooks are about to finish a 90-day review of covid-19’s possible origins, on President Joe Biden’s orders. It is unlikely to reach a firm conclusion. Yet it is clear that the answer China least wants to hear—that the virus could have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, or been picked up by a researcher collecting samples in the field—is plausible. And it would not be the first time this has happened.
People who work with deadly pathogens do so with scandalously little transparency or supervision. Rules in some places are not legally binding or subject to independent oversight. That has to change. The world needs to know who is working with which pathogens, where, and under what sort of safety protocols. International standards are needed, and a global body to advise on the most dangerous kinds of work. This will be hard to accomplish, but there is a precedent.
America, which could be leading the way, is not. Researchers who receive federal grants to study pathogens have to follow federal rules. Private labs are not so constrained. This will not do. Ideally there would be an agreed set of basic rules, enforced by a watchdog that is independent of the bodies that fund research. The backers of a project cannot be neutral arbiters of its safety.
Many other countries follow America’s lead on biosafety. So if it improves its rules and procedures, others will, too. That could be a step towards a proper set of global norms. And it would be in every country’s interest, even China’s, to abide by such norms. Meetings this year to discuss a pandemic treaty offer a chance to harmonise rules on lab biosafety. Organisations such as the
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