The problems are exacerbated, experts say, by a secretive, top-down bureaucracy that sets demanding goals while reflexively covering up accidents and discouraging any public acknowledgment of shortcomings.Ĭhina adopted legislation to improve biosafety around the time of the covid-19 outbreak caused by the novel coronavirus. But Chinese government reports, bolstered by interviews and statements by Western and Chinese officials and scientists who visited the facilities as recently as 2020, describe ongoing equipment problems and inadequate safety training that in some cases resulted in lab animals being illegally sold after being used in experiments, and contaminated lab waste being flushed into sewers. Lab accidents happen everywhere, including in the United States, where illnesses and deaths caused by accidental infections have occurred, especially before the adoption of modern safety standards in the 1970s. Yet, safety practices in China’s new labs have failed to keep pace, a Washington Post examination has found. The expansion is part of a government-mandated effort to rival or surpass the scientific capabilities of the United States and other Western powers. (Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images/Bloomberg News)īeijing has embarked on a major expansion of the country’s biotechnology sector, pouring billions of dollars into constructing dozens of laboratories and encouraging cutting-edge - and sometimes controversial - research in fields including genetic engineering, and experimental vaccines and therapeutics. The Biosafety Level 4 laboratory, center, on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, in May 2020.
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