The SARS conspiracy theory began to emerge during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in China in the spring of 2003, when Sergei Kolesnikov,^[1] a Russian scientist and a member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, first publicized his claim that the SARS coronavirus is a synthesis of measles and mumps. According to Kolesnikov, this combination cannot be formed in the natural world and thus the SARS virus must have been produced under laboratory conditions. Another Russian scientist, Nikolai Filatov, head of Moscow's epidemiological services, had earlier commented that the SARS virus was probably man-made.^[2]

However, independent labs concluded these claims to be premature since the SARS virus is a coronavirus,^[3][4][5] whereas measles and mumps are paramyxoviruses.^[6][7] The primary differences between a coronavirus and a paramyxovirus are in their structures and method of infection, thus making it implausible for a coronavirus to have been created from two paramyxoviruses.

The widespread reporting of claims by Kolesnokov and Filatov caused controversy in many Chinese internet discussion boards and chat rooms. Many Chinese believed that the SARS virus could be a biological weapon manufactured by the United States, which perceived China as a potential threat.^[8] The failure to find the source of the SARS virus further convinced these people and many more that SARS was artificially synthesised and spread by some individuals and even governments. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the SARS virus crossed over to humans from Asian palm civets ("civet cats"), a type of animal that is often killed and eaten in Guangdong, where SARS was first discovered.^[9][10]

Supporters of the conspiracy theory suggest that SARS caused the most serious harm in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, regions where most Chinese reside, while the United States, Europe and Japan were not affected as much. However, the highest mortality from SARS outside of China occurred in Canada where 43 died.^[11][12] Conspiracists further point out that SARS has an average mortality rate of around 10% around the world, but no one died in the United States from SARS, despite the fact that there were 8 confirmed cases out of 27 probable cases (10% of 8 people is less than 1 person).^[11][13][14] Regarding reasons why SARS patients in the United States experienced a relatively mild illness, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has explained that anybody with fever and a respiratory symptom who had traveled to an affected area was included as a SARS patient in the U.S., even though many of these were found to have had other respiratory illnesses.^[14][15]

Those who argue it is a natural disease mention that the human variant of the SARS coronavirus has been fully gene sequenced and that the genome has been made globally available.^[3] Naysayers insist there has been no evidence found of genetic engineering in the genome. The SARS coronavirus is novel, they say, but this only implies it has mutated or was previously undiscovered, not that it is genetically engineered. Epidemiologists in support of the theory say it implies the artificial introduction of the disease into the population. Many disregard the scientists' research as mere propaganda and an impossibility.

However, scientists report that the genome of the coronavirus is similar to SARS only in the structural and method of infection. The version of SARS which affects bats "can be detected only in anal swabs"^[16] and does not share any symptoms found in the human version of SARS. These missing symptoms resemble that of measles and mumps, which some believe is a clear sign of the well-understood field of gene splicing.^[17]

In October 2003, Tong Zeng, a Chinese lawyer and a volunteer in a 1998 Chinese-American medical cooperation program, published a book^[18] that again speculated that SARS could be a biological weapon developed by the United States against China. In the book, Tong disclosed that in the 1990s, many American research groups collected thousands of blood and DNA samples and specimens of mainland Chinese (including 5,000 DNA samples from twins) through numerous joint research projects carried out in China. These samples were then sent back to the United States for further research, and could be used in developing biological weapons targeting Chinese. These samples came from 22 provinces in China, all of which were hit by SARS in 2003. Only provinces like Yunnan, Guizhou, Hainan, Tibet, and Xinjiang were left out, and all these provinces suffered less severely during the SARS outbreak. The author suspects that Japan is also involved, as many Japanese factories in Guangdong in the 1990s made it compulsory for all workers to have blood tests in the factory annually, rather than asking workers to go to local hospitals for blood tests and a proper physical examination. However, Tong Zeng admits that these are only speculations, and he does not have any concrete proof from the study of the virus's genetic sequence.^[19]

The two scientists named above expressed the possibility that the SARS virus was man-made.^[20]

Coronaviruses similar to SARS have been found in bats in China, suggesting they may be their natural reservoir.^[21]

See also

• Unethical human experimentation in the United States
• Project 112
• United States biological weapons program
• Allegations of biological warfare in the Korean War
• 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic
• Misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak

References

External links

• ParaPundit: Conspiracy theories in China
• San Francisco Chroncle's report
• SARS Crisis: Don't Rule Out Linkages To China's Biowarfare Article by Richard D. Fisher Jr. for The Jamestown Foundation.
• People's Daily's report on Tong Zeng's book (simplified Chinese)
• Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao reports the conspiracy theory and Hou's assertion