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posted: August 22, 2026
tl;dr: Trying to contain the uncontainable...
Anyone who does not realize how dangerous microbiology labs are, which is most people, should read this well-researched book by investigative reporter Alison Young. For years Alison Young was a reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the primary newspaper in Atlanta, which also happens to be the location of one of the most dangerous lab complexes in the world, operated by the U.S. CDC. The CDC’s Atlanta facility is where U.S. public health officials send the world’s most dangerous viruses, including smallpox and Ebola. Does the CDC’s Atlanta complex have a perfect safety record? Not even close, as Young documents. Is the CDC’s Atlanta complex uniquely bad? Again, not even close. All biocontainment facilities have flaws and failures. Lab leaks are inevitable, it is just a matter of time.
This topic is of particular importance after the COVID-19 pandemic killed millions worldwide, worsened life for nearly every inhabitant on earth, and cost trillions of dollars. The evidence (see Viral, The Wuhan Cover-Up, and Deception) is overwhelming that the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan. I say “leaked” rather than “was purposely released,” which some people believe, because I find it hard to believe that Wuhan, where the virus was being worked on, would be the location chosen to release it.
As Pandora’s Gamble documents, lab leaks are incredibly common. Alison Young discusses multiple instances of both the original SARS-1 virus and SARS-CoV-2 leaking from Bio Safety Level (BSL) 3 and BSL-4 labs that were knowingly handling the viruses after their initial introduction into the human population. It’s just incredibly hard, nay impossible, to keep viruses inside a lab when there are so many things that can go wrong. And there is every reason to believe that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was developing chimeric SARS viruses at the lower safety level of BSL-2. See the quote below from top coronavirus scientist Ralph Baric, who developed many of the techniques to create chimeric viruses that do not exist in nature.
In Pandora’s Gamble Alison Young reviews the history of lab leaks and the biosafety efforts that arose in response to leaks. A lot of the initial leaks and biosafety initiatives arose at the U.S. Army’s Fort Detrick facility, home of the U.S.’s bioweapons program, although the term “bioweapon” is no longer used (the government prefers “biodefense” and “pandemic preparation”). China, in fact, points to leaky Fort Detrick as the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which they claim was brought to Wuhan.
There are multiple unsolvable problems when attempting to contain viruses. There are the engineering problems of designing failsafe systems. But even with backups, these systems have failed under certain conditions (e.g. flooding, power outages). There is the human error element of mishandling virus samples (e.g. a needle prick or an animal bite) or failing to follow all lab procedures exactly (e.g. failing to properly clean a spill, failing to always wear all required safety gear). Alison Young also claims that there is a cavalier mentality among biologists working with dangerous viruses, and a strong tendency towards covering up issues when they do occur. We certainly saw this over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 origin cover-up is now finally falling apart in the justice system and the first guilty plea has been obtained, from Anthony Fauci’s senior advisor David Morens. But it has taken more than six years.
Alison Young is to be commended for writing Pandora’s Gamble. I am glad she remains on the lab leak beat, as lab leaks will inevitably continue to happen. If you have any interest at all in this topic this book is a must read. And if you don’t I’ll leave you with some analogous personal experiences that demonstrate just how hard it is to contain tiny particles that are much, much larger and more visible than viruses. Have you ever thrown a glitter party for children? You may try to keep the glitter party to one room, but you will be finding pieces of glitter throughout your house for years to come. Twice in my life someone in my neighborhood has spilled some shipping peanuts. They get dispersed everywhere, and for years to come I occasionally pull one out of a bush. It’s tough to contain glitter and shipping peanuts. It’s impossible to contain viruses.