Viewpoint: Anti-GMO groups ‘using the COVID lab-leak theory to spur opposition to a wide swath of important, even life-saving, biotechnologies’ -…

The origin of the virus, and its jump from animals to humans is a question worth investigating. Credit: Infinity Wave

Some scientists, conspiracy theory experts andmedia outlets have reacted to USRTKs sudden interest in virology by highlighting the groups ties to anti-vaccine activists. This is a clever attempt to discredit USRTK and its allies, but its ultimately a mistake that ignores what anti-GMO activists are up to with their lab-leak advocacy.

Groups like USRTK have always couched their anti-technology agenda in termspursuing truth and transparency in public healththat resonate with most Americans. They are doing this again by using the pandemic to attackallbiotechnology. Tying these activist outfits to anti-vaxxers will not prevent them from gaining support among a certain segment of the general public for that agenda, which should concern everybody in the science community.

Nobody knows if SARS-CoV-2 naturally jumped from animals to humans or somehow escaped from a lab, and we may never know for sure. But a lab leak is a plausible scenario that has been investigated byreputable voicesin scientific and geopolitical circles. Respected science writer Matt Ridley and Broad Institute molecular biologist AlinaChan may be a lot of things, but theyre not kooky conspiracy theorists andtheir argumentsneed to be taken seriously.

The real problem is that many activist groups have backed the lab-leak scenario because it comports with their more comprehensive and decidedly unscientific anti-biotech agenda. This is what the media has missed in its coverage of anti-GMO groups endorsing a lab leak. Its a controversial idea to start with,The Daily Beast reportedrecently, and US Right to Know promotes it because they have graduated from agitating against biotech cropsto providing a sheen of legitimacy for the conspiratorial musings of their primary donor, the Organic Consumers Association.Daily Beast:

Like USRTK, the 23-year-old Organic Consumers Association began as a group preoccupied with pesticides and genetically modified organisms. But as it gained financial backing from ultra-rich backers in the wellness sector it adopted their conspiratorial anti-vaccine views

Earlier this year, OCA founder Ronnie Cummins, who has also advanced 9/11 truther narratives, co-authored a book with [Joe] Mercola which purported to expose The Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal. The books footnotes included multiple citations of USRTK research on COVID-19s origins and, in promoting the book last month, Cummins referred to USRTK as a longtime ally.

The conspiratorial leanings of the anti-biotech movement have been knownfor many years;highlighting them now serves little purpose. Our real concern should be that USRTK and others are using the lab-leak theory to spur opposition to a wide swath of important, even life-saving, biotechnologies.

Consider the Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT), yetanother activist groupfunded by Joe Mercola and closely linked to the Non-GMO Project. Whatever IRT believes about the pandemic, notice that their fundraising letters are clearly designed to alarm people about issues that have little to do the pandemic. The lab-leak theory is a useful rhetorical tool, tagged on almost asan afterthought:

IRT is on a mission to get the word out against the REPLACEMENT OF NATURE [emphasis in original]. Can you help us make a difference? Consider just a few applications of this new gene editing technology known as GMOs 2.0 Do any of these new technologies make you a bit nervous? Will you join us in preventing a gene edited futureand raising awareness about gain-function- research?[my emphasis]

Engineering disease-fighting insects or breeding crops suited for different environments has next-to-nothing in common with gain-of-function research,whichaims or is expected to (and/or, perhaps, actually does) increase the transmissibility and/or virulence of pathogens. While thatcould be consideredgenetic modification, it serves a very different purpose and carries risks that are unrelated to other biotech applications. Such nuances are irrelevant to IRT and its allies, though, because their ultimate goal is to prevent a gene-edited futurefull stop.

Why does this matter? There are millions ofjaded Americanssuffering from pandemic fatigue. Fed up with lockdowns, travel restrictions, and mandatory vaccines, theyre again inclined to take the anti-GMO movement seriously. Indeed, the fact that mainstream science so dislikes USRTKmight even help the groups causewith people who are enraged by the pandemic response. The science community should therefore combat the misconception that a lab-leak theory undermines the safety of biotechnology more generally.

This cohort ofactivistgroups isadept at co-opting the publics concerns. When journalist Matt Taibi suggested in April that Googlehad censored USRTK, group co-founder Gary Ruskintold him that

I really strongly believe in the First Amendment and have been concerned for probably during that entire period about when the censors come for someone, they could easily come for you tomorrow.

Taibbi was apparently unaware that USRTK exists toharass and intimidatescientists into silence. Its frankly disturbing how far Ruskins group has gonein its effortsto shut up academics who speak publicly about biotechnology: publishing their emails, writing hit pieces about them and evenleaking documentsto propaganda outlets like Russia Today (RT), which will promote the same anti-GMO agenda.

In other words, USRTK and its allies arent on the warpath against censorship, nor are they campaigning for safer virology research in any meaningful sense. But they will use those issues to garner public sympathy. Pointing out their ties to anti-vaccine activists is amusing but mostly useless as a means of expanding the publics acceptance of biotechnology.

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Viewpoint: Anti-GMO groups 'using the COVID lab-leak theory to spur opposition to a wide swath of important, even life-saving, biotechnologies' -...