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wherever you get your podcasts.

1:20

In

1:34

April 1979, in the

1:36

Russian city of Sverdlovsk,

1:39

now called Yekaterinburg, 900 miles

1:41

east of Moscow, cases

1:44

of a mysterious illness began appearing

1:47

in hospitals. The

1:49

symptoms progressed quickly to

1:52

organ failure and death.

1:54

For the US intelligence agencies,

1:57

the cause was clear cut. a

2:00

leak of anthrax spores from

2:02

a building they had long suspected of

2:04

being a biological weapons research

2:07

facility.

2:09

But the Soviet government angrily

2:11

denied the allegation. It was

2:13

anthrax, they said, but

2:15

it was a natural outbreak caused

2:18

by the eating of contaminated meat.

2:21

So, was this a classic

2:23

authoritarian cover-up of

2:25

a deadly disaster? Or

2:27

a case of anti-Soviet Cold

2:30

War propaganda on the part

2:32

of the US?

2:34

Well,

2:35

perhaps science could help find an answer. Enter

2:38

one of America's preeminent experts

2:40

in bioweapons.

2:42

My

2:43

name is Matthew Meselson. I

2:45

was trained as a chemist,

2:48

but now I'm in the department of molecular

2:51

and cellular biology at Harvard.

2:54

I got interested in biological weapons

2:57

purely by accident.

2:59

As a young scientist in the 1960s,

3:02

Matthew Meselson found himself with an unexpected

3:05

opportunity to visit a US

3:07

military base called Fort Dietrich, at

3:10

the time the site of a highly

3:12

secretive American bioweapons program.

3:16

I was given the grand tour by a very

3:18

nice immunologist. And

3:21

we came to a seven-story building

3:24

with what from a distance looked like windows.

3:27

But when you get up close, they were just imitation

3:29

windows. And he explained to me, that's

3:32

because you want spies to

3:34

think it's a real

3:35

office building when it's not. What

3:38

do we do there, I asked? He said, well, we

3:40

make anthrax spores. And

3:43

I must have asked him something like, why

3:46

do we do that? He

3:49

said, it'll save us money. It's

3:51

a lot cheaper than nuclear weapons.

3:54

I don't think I realized instantaneously,

3:57

but it didn't take many minutes before I thought. Wait,

4:01

you want to introduce a strategic

4:03

weapon that's

4:05

so cheap that everybody

4:06

could have it? It's crazy."

4:12

It was a realisation that would prove

4:15

life-changing. Matthew's

4:17

concern over the risks of biological

4:20

weapons would eventually lead him to

4:22

play a role in President Nixon's decision

4:24

to renounce their stockpiling and

4:27

use. And much later,

4:30

it was as one of America's top

4:32

experts in the field that he'd

4:34

find himself drawn into the Soviet

4:36

anthrax incident.

4:42

In 1986, seven

4:44

years after the disaster, with

4:46

signs of a more open approach beginning

4:48

to show under the new Soviet leader

4:50

Mikhail Gorbachev, he was

4:53

given permission to travel not to Sverdlovsk

4:55

that remained off-limits but to Moscow.

4:58

Okay, so I met with their former

5:01

Minister of Health and the

5:03

epidemiologist who

5:05

had written a report about this outbreak. And

5:10

I took her out to dinner several times by

5:12

herself because I

5:15

thought that if they weren't telling me the full story

5:17

that she would, she was sympathetic, and she

5:19

believed it too, that it was an outbreak

5:22

that was gastrointestinal.

5:25

So the narrative was that this had come from infected

5:28

meat. It was a natural

5:30

outbreak in cattle and people were eating the

5:32

infected cattle. That's right. That's

5:35

what they

5:36

said. After three days in detailed

5:38

discussions with his hosts, poring

5:41

over the documents and autopsy photographs

5:44

they showed him, he concluded

5:46

that the Soviet account was plausible

5:48

and consistent with other natural

5:50

outbreaks of anthrax in the Soviet

5:52

Union. This was

5:54

a case of bad meat, not a lab

5:57

leak, and his visit, it seemed,

5:59

was a perfect demonstration of

6:01

how engagement with foreign scientists,

6:04

rather than vilification, can

6:07

lead to the sharing of evidence

6:09

and ultimately the truth. Except,

6:12

it turns out, Professor Mezzelson

6:15

couldn't have been more wrong.

6:19

I'm John Sudworth and I was the BBC's

6:21

correspondent in China for almost

6:23

a decade. And this is the

6:26

story of my quest to ask a question.

6:31

You have no right to tell me not to ask questions. I

6:34

have no right. It's a question

6:37

I've been told I shouldn't ask. And

6:39

one that's become embroiled in the fractious

6:42

and fevered politics of our times.

6:45

It's very dangerous to stir up suspicion,

6:48

rumours. It's not racist

6:49

at all, no, not at all. It comes

6:51

from China. The

6:54

question is a simple one. Where

6:57

did Covid come from? For

7:00

the pain, the isolation, the

7:02

livelihoods destroyed for every long

7:04

sufferer, for every one of the millions

7:07

of lives lost, the answer matters.

7:11

From BBC Radio 4, this

7:13

is Fevre, the hunt for

7:15

Covid's origin.

7:27

Episode 7. The

7:29

suspicion business. The

7:34

collapse of the Soviet Union at

7:36

the start of the 1990s

7:39

led to an admission.

7:40

The anthrax outbreak had in fact

7:43

been caused by an accident

7:45

at a bioweapons facility.

7:49

Look at the Sverdlovsk.

7:51

You can have anything you want. So

7:55

in 1993, Matthew went to

7:57

Russia again. This time, he

8:00

was allowed to go to Sverdlovsk. We'll

8:02

give you a man with a car, he'll drive you

8:04

around, we'll be put up in the most luxurious

8:07

Communist Party boss hotel, had

8:10

infinite amounts of black caviar. I

8:13

meet Matthew at his lab in Harvard.

8:16

He's in his 90s now, gray

8:18

haired and a little frailer, but with the

8:20

same drive and sharp intelligence

8:22

that half a century ago helped change

8:25

the course of US military history. He

8:28

tells me that on that second

8:29

trip he was accompanied by his wife,

8:32

Jean Gilman. Once in

8:34

Sverdlovsk, along with the chauffeurs

8:36

in the caviar, they were given a list of

8:39

names and addresses of 68

8:41

victims of the anthrax outbreak.

8:44

Well,

8:44

my wife Jean, who's no longer

8:46

alive, is a medical

8:49

anthropologist. So

8:51

she goes door to door with

8:53

two Russian women who are professors

8:55

of English, who could

8:58

speak English and Russian. And that made

9:00

it possible to make this map here on

9:04

a spot satellite map of

9:06

Sverdlovsk. This one. See,

9:09

each red number is an interview

9:11

that either Jean did, most of

9:13

them, or some that were done while

9:16

she wasn't still there. This

9:18

is a big factory,

9:19

a ceramics factory. This

9:22

is right next to the facility,

9:24

which is here, right there. And

9:27

you can see the cases sort of spreading

9:29

out in a line sense. Never

9:32

in the history of medical epidemiology

9:34

has there been such a clear-cut case. This

9:38

is the smoking gun.

9:40

It's more than smoking. It's red

9:43

hot. Yes, and it's Jean

9:45

who did this. All

9:47

I did was to write

9:49

it, well, all I did was to

9:51

get her there. It's just

9:53

astonishing.

9:58

The red numbers spread out.

13:52

in

14:00

the same ballpark, not

14:03

to the same degree.

14:09

Same ballpark? China

14:11

and America? Really?

14:15

I often heard variations of this view

14:17

during my 10 years in China. Many

14:21

corporate executives posted to

14:23

Beijing with US or European

14:25

multinationals shared

14:27

Jerry's concern with the dysfunction

14:30

and discord on open display in

14:32

the democratic systems they had come from.

14:36

To them, in comparison, China

14:38

appeared stable and prosperous.

14:41

And as a result, they found my

14:44

reporting on the mass incarcerations

14:46

in Xinjiang or the repression in

14:48

Hong Kong, for example, a

14:51

little negative, a little unfair.

14:54

After all, nowhere's perfect,

14:56

they'd say.

14:58

In answer, I'd point out that we

15:01

only know about the many failings of

15:03

democratic societies precisely

15:05

because those failings can be

15:08

exposed.

15:09

The accountability isn't perfect,

15:12

but it's there.

15:14

To me, America is not

15:16

in the same ballpark as a system with

15:19

no political opposition, no independent

15:21

courts, no free press or speech,

15:24

and no branch of science free

15:26

from party control.

15:29

And those who fail to see that fundamental

15:32

difference

15:32

risk failing to see the highly

15:35

politicized nature of everything

15:37

said or done by the one

15:40

party state.

15:51

My name is Daniel Lucy, and I'm

15:53

an infectious disease and public health physician.

15:57

Daniel Lucy, an adjunct professor

15:59

at Georgetown University.

15:59

University in Washington DC does

16:02

not believe that it's wrong for a scientist

16:04

to be, to use Matthew Mezzleson's earlier

16:07

phrase, in the suspicion business.

16:10

They provided what they know

16:13

are woefully insufficient and

16:15

inadequate and incomplete information to

16:17

the WHO team.

16:19

But despite echoing some of President

16:22

Trump's criticisms of China, they

16:24

didn't tell the truth. He's no Trumpian

16:27

fellow traveller. Fight

16:29

for Trump! On January

16:32

the 6th 2021, at

16:34

home in Washington DC, Daniel

16:36

was watching live on TV as the

16:39

city around him descended into

16:41

chaos. And we fight. We

16:43

fight like hell. And if you don't fight like

16:45

hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

16:48

I didn't know what was happening, but I felt strongly

16:50

that something important was happening. So

16:53

let's walk down Pennsylvania

16:55

Avenue. So for better or for worse, it

16:58

was quite cold that day. I remember I put on

17:00

my coat and

17:01

walked out 7th

17:03

Avenue and two blocks

17:05

later I was on Constitution and Pennsylvania

17:07

Avenues. But I

17:09

turned not left, which would

17:12

have taken me to the capital, seven blocks

17:14

away. But I turned to the right, in part because

17:16

I wanted to see the faces

17:19

of the people who were marching by.

17:23

Pennsylvania was a medic walking against

17:25

a crowd surveying the faces

17:28

in the grip of a conspiracy

17:30

fever.

17:31

The false claim of a stolen

17:33

election that would soon culminate

17:36

in an attack on the US Capitol

17:38

building.

17:38

And

17:43

yet for him, not everything conspiracy

17:46

theorists believe should always be

17:48

dismissed out of hand. That

17:50

there could be a lab origin. For me, just

17:52

to clarify, I don't consider

17:54

that a conspiracy theory. I consider that really

17:57

a morally responsible.

17:59

inquiry. Now in

18:02

his sixties,

18:03

Daniel is an expert in the science

18:05

of emerging diseases,

18:07

as well as their devastating effects,

18:10

having spent much of his career travelling

18:12

the globe from outbreak to outbreak.

18:15

A veteran of SARS-1 in China,

18:18

Ebola in Sierra Leone and

18:20

Zika in Brazil to name but a few, he

18:23

has the calm open demeanor of a

18:25

man who's spent a lifetime attending

18:27

to the very sick.

18:30

And in early 2020 he

18:32

found himself once more heading

18:34

into the eye of the storm. I

18:38

got a plane on Kong and I got a plane and went to Shanghai

18:40

because I couldn't get to Wuhan directly. Despite

18:43

the good contacts he's built with senior

18:46

health officials in China over the years,

18:48

this time he ran into a wall of silence.

18:52

Messages, emails, phones, nothing, zero

18:54

silence. So for me that was quite significant.

18:57

Daniel had no choice but to leave

18:59

China and today he believes

19:02

that rather than trusting the limited

19:04

Chinese data that's been provided, we

19:07

should be asking why they're so little.

19:12

They know very well how to do it, they're highly motivated

19:14

because of SARS-1 and multiple

19:17

other outbreaks. They effectively

19:19

trace them, stop them, etc. and multiple other

19:21

diseases.

19:24

A country as scientifically

19:26

advanced and as well resourced as China,

19:28

he says,

19:30

would be unlikely to give up an opportunity

19:32

to gather vital data.

19:34

China's official line is that

19:36

the market at the center of the investigation

19:39

was closed down and all the

19:41

live mammals removed before

19:43

its scientists arrived.

19:46

Apart from a few butchered animals

19:48

kept in freezers, there

19:49

was little for them to test

19:51

other than the surfaces of the market

19:53

stalls. very

20:00

thorough, comprehensive investigation

20:02

of that seafood market and other markets in

20:05

Wuhan and elsewhere in Hubei, and

20:07

perhaps in other provinces. They did it. I don't

20:10

for a minute believe their story that they only

20:12

tested frozen animal

20:14

parts in freezers in that market.

20:16

For Daniel, the possibility of both

20:19

a lab and a market origin ought

20:22

to remain firmly on the table until

20:25

China produces more information.

20:27

So I think they have done very thorough

20:30

scientific investigations, both of the

20:32

zoonotic source and the laboratory

20:34

source, but they haven't provided this information.

20:37

And it's screamingly loud to me, in

20:39

my view, China clearly has more.

20:42

But when we'll get it, if ever, or how

20:44

much we'll get, etc., I'm not

20:47

optimistic.

20:48

Incidentally, there's one other

20:50

part of the world Daniel's been to,

20:53

Sverdlovsk.

20:55

He went there in 2011, long

20:57

after the truth was known, to learn

20:59

more about the techniques used to

21:02

treat the anthrax victims.

21:04

Might the world face a similarly

21:07

long wait for the truth about Covid?

21:09

In the end, it

21:11

wasn't trust or suspicion that forced

21:14

Sverdlovsk to reveal its answers,

21:16

but regime change. But

21:18

it wasn't until 1992, 13 years

21:21

after, that the Russian scientists and pathologists

21:23

who did that, published the fact that it was

21:26

a lab leak. That's a lot

21:28

of years.

21:32

Remember Professor George Gao, the

21:35

former head of the Chinese Center

21:37

for Disease Control, who we spoke

21:39

to last time on the phone from Beijing?

21:43

Well, I was keen to ask him whether

21:45

China has done more to search for

21:47

the origin of Covid than it's made

21:50

public. Do you know, George, if any

21:52

formal investigation has been carried

21:54

out in the laboratories in Wuhan? Have

21:57

Chinese investigators been able to go in and look through

21:59

lab records?

21:59

look through books, look at the sequences that were held

22:02

on file. The government organized something.

22:04

Also, the scientists involved the WHO

22:07

group, but not the China CDC.

22:10

Although not carried out by the China

22:12

CDC, he says, the Chinese

22:14

government did organize something. But

22:17

he also mentions the scientists from

22:19

the World Health Organization inquiry

22:21

team. So I ask again.

22:23

We know the WHO scientists visited

22:26

the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but

22:28

it was a long way short of an investigation.

22:30

You think another branch of the Chinese government

22:33

has carried out a formal search

22:35

of that laboratory, maybe others in Wuhan,

22:38

to double check that there was

22:40

no lab leak?

22:41

Yeah, that lab was double checked by

22:43

the experts in the field, not

22:45

from China CDC. At

22:48

least I myself was not involved for that.

22:50

Have you seen the results of their investigation? Well,

22:55

I have to say they're real results.

22:57

Of course, you know, I heard something that conclusion

22:59

is that they are following all these

23:01

protocols. They have found what we...

23:04

They didn't find wrongdoing, he says.

23:07

It's the first such acknowledgement

23:09

that China carried out some kind

23:11

of formal lab leak investigation.

23:14

And what about the investigation of

23:16

the Wuhan and seafood market?

23:19

Remember, China's official position is

23:21

that it had already been closed down

23:23

by the time George Gao's scientists

23:25

arrived. There were no live

23:27

mammals left for them to test.

23:30

We captured all these animals we could find,

23:32

wild animals, in that market. So

23:34

we found some animals, you could get

23:37

what they called raccoon,

23:40

what are they called? Raccoon dogs. Raccoon

23:43

dogs, yeah, directly. You had raccoon dogs

23:46

from the market?

23:48

Well, I can't remember if the

23:50

raccoon dogs from market, but I do

23:52

remember the raccoon dogs around

23:54

that area. You mean possibly from other markets

23:56

in Wuhan? Or do you think probably from the Huan

23:59

and seafood market?

24:00

Around that area, you might

24:02

find some raccoon dogs. Maybe we also

24:04

tested some

24:06

raccoon dogs or bodies from

24:08

that market. I can't remember,

24:10

you know, directly. Raccoon

24:14

dogs? Or raccoon dog

24:16

bodies from the market?

24:18

There's no record in anything

24:20

that China has yet made public to

24:22

suggest that any raccoon dogs,

24:25

alive or dead, were found

24:27

at all. It seems

24:29

a strange mistake to make. Raccoon

24:32

dogs are, of course, the prime

24:34

suspect for those scientists who say

24:36

their analysis points firmly to

24:39

a natural origin for Covid. So

24:42

has China tested them? If

24:44

not, why not? And

24:46

although three years is a long

24:48

time, isn't it a little

24:50

strange that a scientist as senior

24:52

as George seems so vague?

24:57

Then, when

24:57

I ask him directly about the possibility

25:00

of a lab leak, he tells me something

25:02

that on the face of it also

25:04

seems a little surprising.

25:06

A lot of people have some suspicion, but

25:10

I haven't seen anything. But nor can you rule

25:12

it out? As long as this

25:14

scientific question is not answered, you

25:17

can always suspect anything

25:20

that's a science. For science, you

25:22

have to keep yourself open-minded.

25:24

Keep yourself open-minded means

25:27

everything is possible. Don't rule out

25:30

anything. Don't rule out

25:32

anything, not even a lab leak, he says.

25:38

From one of China's top scientists,

25:40

this does sound surprising, given

25:43

that the government dismisses the lab leak

25:45

as a lie promoted by anti-China

25:47

forces. But on

25:49

reflection, perhaps it's not too

25:52

dissimilar from the official line, the

25:54

idea that there's simply no evidence

25:57

that the virus came from China at

25:59

all.

25:59

lab, or market. So,

26:07

what about those Western scientists who,

26:09

at the beginning of the pandemic, argued

26:12

so strongly against pointing the

26:14

finger of suspicion over

26:16

the possibility of a lab leak? Those

26:19

who said that it was only through trust

26:21

and collaboration with Chinese scientists

26:24

like George Gao that the truth

26:26

would emerge. Well,

26:28

today,

26:30

they find themselves well and truly

26:33

in the suspicion business

26:35

too. Professor

26:37

Bob Gary from Chilean University,

26:39

you'll remember, was one of the authors of

26:41

the scientific papers that argue there

26:44

is now stronger evidence than ever that

26:46

Covid began in a Wuhan market.

26:49

But, if that's true, then

26:52

surely the Chinese authorities

26:54

must know that too? I'm

26:56

guessing they probably do know about it, but

26:59

I think that their policy, their position is they

27:01

don't want it to be having

27:03

originated in China.

27:05

Bob was one of those who once dismissed

27:08

the idea that China had covered

27:10

up a lab leak

27:11

as a conspiracy theory. But

27:14

here he is, now arguing that

27:16

the authorities are engaged in

27:18

a conspiracy to cover up

27:20

a natural origin.

27:22

Doesn't that make him a conspiracy

27:24

theorist? It probably does, but

27:27

it's okay. I think, you know, sometimes the

27:29

conspiracies are actually true, right?

27:32

And for your critics, can you not see a certain

27:34

frustration in that? For years, any

27:36

suggestion that there may have been a deliberate Chinese

27:38

cover-up of a lab leak has been rejected as unfair,

27:41

as wrongly maligning a country,

27:44

science in general, individual scientists. And

27:47

yet here we are three years later, with

27:50

the very same scientists suggesting

27:52

that China's done exactly that.

27:54

I think there is pretty good evidence that they

27:56

want to put the blame outside of China.

27:59

The facts are what they are.

28:06

For Bob and his colleagues, that's

28:09

perhaps the true comparison with

28:11

what happened in Sverdlovsk all those

28:13

years ago. The Soviet

28:16

Union was hiding the role of

28:18

an industrial disaster in an anthrax

28:21

factory and spreading death across a

28:23

Russian city. China is

28:25

now hiding the role of its industrial

28:27

scale wildlife trade in

28:30

sparking a global pandemic. But

28:33

to arrive at that conclusion, the

28:35

ideals of

28:36

trust and collaboration have

28:38

gone. And a man who once dismissed

28:41

a conspiracy theory is

28:43

now a confessed conspiracy

28:46

theorist. Next

28:50

time on fever, the hunt for

28:52

COVID's origin, speculation

28:54

that a new release of information from

28:56

the US intelligence agencies would

28:59

contain smoking gun evidence.

29:03

Would it?

29:12

Fever, the hunt for COVID's origin,

29:14

is presented by me, John Sudworth.

29:17

The series producer is Simon Mabin,

29:20

the editors Richard Varden, Sound

29:23

Design and Mix by James Beard,

29:25

the commissioning editor for BBC Radio 4

29:28

is Dan Clark. Lots of other

29:30

people were involved in making this podcast

29:33

and you can see the full credits in the episode

29:36

notes.

29:38

How did Kanye West go from hitmaker

29:41

to political agitator spreading anti-Jewish

29:43

hate and where does he go next? Kanye's

29:47

antisemitism has prompted a wholesale

29:49

reevaluation of his career, his

29:52

influences and his inspirations

29:54

to understand Kanye's dramatic fall

29:57

from grace, you need to know where

29:59

he came from. In

30:01

the Kanye story, we follow his life

30:03

and career from middle-class Chicago roots

30:06

and activist parents through the reality

30:08

TV and celebrity years to his

30:10

links with the alt-right today. We'll

30:13

also ask what's next for him.

30:16

I'm Mabin Azar and from the BBC,

30:18

this is the Kanye story. Listen

30:21

on BBC Sounds.

30:31

Seeking

30:31

the truth never gets old. Introducing

30:33

June's Journey, the free-to-play mobile game

30:36

that will immerse you in a thrilling murder mystery.

30:38

Join June Parker as she uncovers hidden

30:41

objects and clues to solve her sister's death

30:43

in a beautifully illustrated world set in

30:45

the roaring 20s. With

30:47

new chapters added every week, the excitement

30:50

never ends.

30:53

Download June's Journey now on your Android

30:55

or iOS device or play on PC

30:57

through Facebook games.

31:01

Hello, I'm Dr Michael Moseley

31:03

and welcome to my new BBC

31:06

Radio 4 podcast series, Stay

31:08

Young. In each episode, I'll

31:10

explore one simple, scientifically

31:12

proven thing you can do to rejuvenate

31:15

yourself from the inside out.

31:18

Which will you try? Maybe

31:20

a slice of mango to reduce your

31:22

wrinkles. Delicious. Or

31:24

learning something new to stay sharp.

31:30

How about lifting some

31:31

weights to protect your muscles against

31:33

the ravages of time?

31:38

To hear all about How to Stay Young,

31:41

subscribe to the series wherever you

31:43

get your podcasts.