Li-Meng Yan: Difference between revisions

Template:Chinese name Li-Meng Yan (simplified Chinese: 闫丽梦; traditional Chinese: 閆麗夢) or Yan Limeng, is a Chinese virologist and whistleblower^[1][2][3][4] who claims that SARS-CoV-2 was made in a lab^[5] and that the Chinese government and the World Health Organization knew about person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 much earlier than reported.^[6]

Yan's hometown is Qingdao.^[7] Yan received her MD degree from Xiangya Medical College of Central South University. She went on to earn her PhD from Southern Medical University.^[8] Her research includes the study of The inhibition effect of propranolol on the corneal neovascularization in an alkali-induced injury mouse model^[9] and the challenges in developing a universal influenza vaccine.^[10] At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic she was employed at the Hong Kong School of Public Health, University of Hong Kong (HKU), conducting research specialised in virology and immunology.^[11]

Yan claims that she was one of the first scientists in the world to study the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, after Leo Poon, her supervisor at HKU (a WHO reference lab), asked her to look into a cluster of SARS-like cases in Wuhan, in December 2019.^[7] According to Fox News, Yan maintained an extensive network of medical professionals from mainland China, one of whom told Yan about human-to-human transmission of the novel disease on 31 December 2019.^[12] According to Yan, she reported her findings about the virus multiple times to her superiors, including one on 16 January, after which she says she was warned by her supervisor "to keep silent and be careful."^[13]

She co-authored a paper called "Pathogenesis and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in golden hamsters", published in Nature in May 2020, regarding transmission of the virus in hamsters. This paper was co-authored by her now former colleagues at HKU.^[14] She also co-authored a paper called "Viral dynamics in mild and severe cases of COVID-19" published in The Lancet in March 2020, regarding the viral shedding patterns observed in patients with mild and severe COVID-19. This paper was also co-authored by three of her now former colleagues at HKU.^[15]

In interviews, Yan accused the Chinese government of knowing about the novel coronavirus before it publicly said that it did and said that lives could have been saved if they had not censored her work.^[7][16] She also accused her supervisors, including Leo Poon and Malik Peiris, of ignoring research that she was doing at the onset of the pandemic that she says could have also saved lives.^[7][16] Feeling that she and her colleagues had an obligation to tell the world of their research^[17] given their status as a World Health Organization reference laboratory, Yan fled to the United States on 28 April with what she said was her intention of delivering "the message of the truth of COVID," adding if she tried to tell her story in China, she said that she would be "disappeared and killed."^[7][16] Yan's interviews and accusations were subsequently cited in other media outlets.^{[12][18][19][20][3][21][22][23][24]}

In July 2020, a press release from HKU denied her claim and stated that "HKU notes that the content of the said news report does not accord with the key facts as we understand them. Specifically, Dr Yan never conducted any research on human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus at HKU during December 2019 and January 2020, her central assertion of the said interview. We further observe that what she might have emphasised in the reported interview has no scientific basis but resembles hearsay."^[25] The press release did not mention when and why Yan left HKU.^[26] According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the director of HKU's School of Public Health, Keiji Fukuda, said in an internal memo to staff that none of the researchers named by Yan were involved in any cover-up or "secret research".^[26]

In September 2020, Yan was interviewed on the talk show Loose Women and said she planned to release scientific evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was made in a Wuhan laboratory. According to Yan, "this virus is not from nature". The director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology has denied that the virus accidentally spread from the facility.^[5]

Later in September, Yan co-authored a pre-print research paper named "Unusual Features of the SARS-CoV-2 Genome Suggesting Sophisticated Laboratory Modification Rather Than Natural Evolution and Delineation of Its Probable Synthetic Route."^[27] Three other researchers were listed as co-authors, but the SCMP was unable to find any prior work from them.^[28] The paper was uploaded to the Zenodo website, an open-access repository where anyone can post their research.^[29] The paper is affiliated with the Rule of Law Society, founded by Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui.^[27][29] The Rule of Law Society had not previously published scientific or medical research.^[29] Yan had previously appeared on Bannon's "War Room" podcast.^[28][29]

According to the paper's abstract, "SARS-CoV-2 shows biological characteristics that are inconsistent with a naturally occurring, zoonotic virus" and that it could have been created in a lab in approximately six months.^[30][31] According to Newsweek, several experts in evolutionary biology and infectious disease, including Jonathan Eisen and Carl Bergstrom, said the paper did not include new information, contained multiple unsubstantiated claims and had a weak scientific case.^[27] According to Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, the paper was "basically all circumstantial and some of it is entirely fictional".^[29]

After describing her newly published research paper in a Fox News interview with Tucker Carlson in mid-September 2020, Yan said she believed the Chinese government intentionally released the virus.^[32] Instagram and Facebook flagged posts of the interview on Tucker Carlson Tonight as false information about COVID-19, saying that they repeated information “that multiple independent fact checkers say is false.”^[33]

On 15 September 2020, Yan's Twitter account was suspended, although the reason for the suspension was unclear. She had only four visible posts and one linked to the preprint paper that had not been peer reviewed.^[34]