Wuhan Institute of Virology Can Ask Federally-Funded Biosecurity Lab to Destroy Records
U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit investigative research group focusing on public health transparency, recently retrieved documents such as a memorandum of understanding via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealing that the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan China is granted the right to request partnering American lab Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch to literally destroy all records of their collaborative work. Actually, either one of the labs can request the other lab to destroy documents or “secret files” or, for that matter, any other communications, documents, associated data, or equipment arising out of the collaboration, including a demand that the partner destroys all copies. The Wuhan lab is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This is quite a strange clause, given the Texas-based lab is supported by federal funds that are associated with record retention requirements.
Why would a Chinese lab have the right to ask that a prominent lab with national security relevance destroy any secret files? This right persists even after the five-year term of the agreement terminates in October 2022, reports the nonprofit organization.
Sensitive Biocontainment Labs
Both Wuhan and the Texas Medical Branch Labs are classified as biocontainment labs that both inked a collaborative deal in 2018. Both of them are part of an elite and select group of facilities involved in cutting-edge research, including investigations into novel coronaviruses, reports Right to Know.
NIH Funds Collaboration
The National Institutes of Health funded a joint collaborative partnership between the Texas and Chinese-based labs as part of a biosafety training program. Under the agreement, the Sino-American cooperation also pursued novel research and the sharing of resources and knowledge.
Do the Chinese Have the Right to Demand Destruction of Data?
According to this agreement, they do. The Wuhan lab affiliated with the Chinese government is empowered in this agreement “to call for the destruction of data on U.S. servers funded by U.S. taxpayers.” This, of course, seems odd that a U.S.-based lab would agree to such terms.
After all, the Texas Medical Branch lab includes a Biosafety Level 4 research laboratory storing highly infectious materials.
What are Some Other Red Flags?
According to Right to Know, other legal experts raise concerns, including a comment from Reuben Guttman, partner at Guttman, Buschner & Brooks PLLC, a consulting firm specializing in government program integrity, who declared, “The clause is quite frankly explosive.” They continued, “Anytime I see a public entity, I would be very concerned about destroying records.”
In fact, records retention and destruction policies are governed by legal concerns such as records management schemes and are necessary across federal, state as well as academic, and even private corporate legal mandates. As mentioned in the recent Right to Know piece, relevant laws associated with the Texas lab include the Texas Public Information Act and the federal False Claims Act. The Galveston National Laboratory, a part of the University of Texas System—which receives federal funding—most definitely has record retention accountability.
WIV: We don’t delete records—really?
WIV claims they would never delete records, yet U.S. Right to Know reports a WIV virus database disappeared in 2019 and continues to represent “…a source of intrigue for reporters, scientists, and U.S. intelligence agencies pursuing the origins of SARS-CoV-2.”
Meanwhile, Zhengli Shi, a senior scientist known as Bat Woman with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, shared with MIT Technology Review that suggestions that her lab would destroy records associated with SARS-CoV-2 are “baseless and appalling