The Scientific Case for Covid's Lab Origin

Featuring physician-scientist Dr. Steven Quay, author of the newly released book The Code as Witness, this episode explores the growing body of scientific evidence surrounding the origins of COVID-19. In conversation with Lee Smith, Dr. Quay outlines the research and molecular analysis that led him to conclude the virus originated in a laboratory rather than through natural transmission from a wildlife market.

Throughout the discussion, Dr. Quay examines the unique characteristics of the virus, the implications of gain-of-function research, and the critical lessons the scientific community and policymakers should take away from the pandemic. The conversation also addresses the need for stronger biosecurity safeguards, improved oversight of high-risk laboratory research, and practical steps to reduce the likelihood of future global public health crises.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

From the brave roots of our father, to the unstoppable force of American ingenuity, to the sacred inheritance of freedom we must protect. This is our legacy. Join investigative journalist Lee Smith on Roots, Rights, and Reason. Powered by America's future.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Hi, I'm Lee Smith. Welcome and thanks for joining us for this new episode of Roots, Rights, and Reason. This week we're discussing one of the most consequential questions of our time: the origins of COVID-19. New findings support very convincingly the theory that the virus was man-made and leaked from a lab. So, how did a virus emerge that shut down the global economy, transformed daily life across the planet, and claimed millions of lives? For years, the answer has been the subject of intense scientific, political, and public debate. Our guest today argues that the debate is no longer a mystery. In the view of Dr. Stephen Quay, if we follow the scientific evidence wherever it leads, the conclusion is clear. COVID-19 originated in a laboratory. Dr. Stephen Quay has devoted years to examining the origins of COVID-19 through the lens of molecular biology, genetics, and forensic analysis. A physician scientist, biotechnology entrepreneur, inventor, and author, he has become one of the leading voices investigating the evidence behind the lab leak theory and what it means for the future of global public health. His new book, The Code as Witness: Proof of COVID's lab origin and a pandemic prevention plan examines clues embedded within the virus's own genetic code. Evidence that points not to a natural spillover event, but to human manipulation and a laboratory origin. By tracing the genetic signatures of SARS-CoV-2, he shows that the virus itself serves as a witness to its own creation. But this is about more than settling a historic debate. It is a warning about the future. While the COVID-19 pandemic may be receding into history, the conditions that made it possible remain very much in place. Around the world, the gain of function research continues to expand, often with limited oversight and inadequate safeguards. Experiments that increase viral spread or lethality pose risks that extend far beyond the lab. If such research continues unchecked, future outbreaks could be far more devastating than the pandemic the world has just endured. But this isn't an argument to end scientific research. Rather, legitimate scientific inquiry has to be preserved while imposing stronger national and international safeguards on high-risk experimentation. Dr. Kway's goal is to replace what he describes as a Wild West approach to virus manipulation within a framework of transparency, accountability, and responsible oversight. Dr. Kway is founder and CEO of Atosa Therapeutics, developing novel therapeutics in oncology and infectious diseases. He has held faculty positions at Harvard and Stanford University and has briefed Congress and advised the State Department on COVID-19's origins and biosecurity. Dr. Kwe, you have made a pretty convincing case that COVID is man-made and it was made in the lab.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Yeah, I have Lee in the book The Code as Witness, it just uh came out last week. Uh I walked through it in pretty uh in great detail, if I can say that.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

What what what are the different things? I mean, you know, this this has been an ongoing debate since, I don't know, since I guess uh since since COVID first erupted uh into the American uh into the American biosphere around December uh 2019, January 2020. It's been an enormous debate. What what what are the different things, what what is it that you found, because again, people at the time that said, well, actually it doesn't look like it's uh like it comes from uh from uh the the the mixture of a of a pangolin and uh uh a pangolin and a bat. It looks it looks like it was made in a lab, and those people were often labeled as uh conspiracy theorists or people who didn't have a grasp of the science. So what is the case that you've made?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah, so I I I really I I divided into a hierarchy. First question did it come from a market or a lab? When that gets answered, then in the lab, was it a natural virus or was it actually engineered? And then I finally look at whether there's non-academic uh engineering inside it. And so each layer requires a different look, uh, a different approach. But for example, uh in the decision between a market and a lab, uh the first and fairly simple analysis is all of the evidence in the market comes from December 2019. So the question you ask is, well, was it circulating in the world before December? Because if it did, it didn't come from that market. Uh and there's 16 different pieces of evidence. I mean, it was found in wastewater in Brazil, it was found in patient blood samples in Italy, blood banks in Canada. Uh the virus itself has a molecular clock that says August, September. So when you put all of those together, you get to the point, it's beyond a reasonable doubt, uh, that it came from uh the lab and not the market.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Fascinating. Can you go into a little more detail on, you know, you said Brazil uh uh Brazil, Italy? This is before, this is before that we've identified the virus in what, December, I guess December 2019. So what what when was it found? And what does that, aside from telling us it wasn't uh it didn't come from nature, it came from a lab, what does it tell us that it was in all these different places?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Well, I it it it's because it was engineered in a way to make about half of the cases uh asymptomatic spreading, which again is very unusual. There's never been a new respiratory virus that had 50% asymptomatic spreading. It was designed in SARS-CoV-2. So what that means is that it was circulating in the fall, maybe even the late summer, um, and the Wuhan Airport has uh 14 cities around the world, Milan, Italy, uh, Brazil, uh, nonstop flights, two flights into America, New York, and San Francisco. So it spread very easily uh in that time frame because it was, again, because it was asymptomatic, or in healthy individuals, it's it can be a pretty mild infection. So it wasn't until it really caught the attention in December. And then once you're once you're two or three months into it, you then have tests, you have uh assays that you can look at blood or look at wastewater from Brazil and say, wow, in uh September, October, it was appearing in the wastewater there. Um, these are all retrospective analyses, but nonetheless, you can't have something start on the market in December if it's in Brazil in in October.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Fascinating. So I I I I remember reading very generally and a very little bit about it, but but the argument over asymptomatic spread was not not never mind COVID, but generally with respiratory illnesses, that it was not necessarily resolved, it wasn't a uh a slam dunk case. So how is this different that there was a f you said 50% asymptomatic spread? So why was COVID engineered to be different?

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Well, uh, and just so backing up, Lee, when when a new virus hits a human, there's two immune systems we have. We have what's called the innate immune system and the adaptive. The innate is is sort of you think of medieval uh warriors, you know, throwing things over the castle wall and the like. Um, and one of its chief uh capabilities of the innate system is to produce what's called interferon. That that gives you the fever, it gives you the chills, it gives you the red cheeks, so that we you know we know when someone's uh infected. HIV showed that that there was actually a way to suppress that in the 90s. We learned that HIV could do that. And SARS-CoV-2 is engineered to do that. There's a protein called ORF-8 in SARS-CoV-2. It's 10% similar to any other protein in the world, clearly engineered, uh, that suppresses interferon production. So you don't really have those symptoms. SARS-1, which was a natural virus, 98% of the people had symptoms. 50% was SARS-2.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Wow. So this is part of the evidence that and that it was man-made. And so to to what purposes, I mean, again, there's speculation at the time, and there's been speculation since. Like, did uh were the Chinese working on uh was this part of their biowarfare program? Of course, the Chinese have a biowarfare program as as as you know as as do we, whether it's uh defensive or not.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Um I mean I I get I I am I'm very careful to stay in my lane and to stay in the science of this virus. So what what I can say is there was there's three things you do academically with viruses and two that you do if you're developing weapons. The three academics are you change the host, so from bat to human, you change how infective it is, and you change how pathogenic, how severe the infection is. That's academic research that you see all the time in gain of function. Two things uh are not academic, making it asymptomatic and and and and thwarting or blunting the immune system to make a response. SARS has both of these. So, in fact, the same protein orphat that makes you not have symptoms at the beginning makes it hard to make antibodies, to make T cell responses. So, one of the reasons people keep getting this infection over and over again is this property where your your immune system is blunted by this. Um, and this was uh an active research program at the WIV, who in history of viology, for five years, looking at what are the mets and bounds of ORF8 that would allow it to be uh to manipulate the clinical symptoms of the disease.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Wow. So I just want to go back and make sure that I understand, and our viewers are understanding what you're saying. You're saying that the pieces of scientific research, those are the things you said, but the suppressor or the asymptomatic spread, that is not for scientific research. So what would that be for? And again, I'm I'm I don't want to put you into a corner where you have to, you know, where you're saying, oh, it's bio war we're not, but what does it tell you if I if I can ask for some sort of it's it's extremely suspicious because again, I'll and I'll repeat, it's it's not done by academics when they when they study these viruses.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

But it's in the playbook, uh, whether it's been done or not, but it's described in the playbook, and and for example, the uh National Academy of Science says we don't do that kind of research in America. Um so those two those two properties, asymptomatic spread, blunting the immune system, are things that are not supposed to be done in medical research with coronaviruses.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Wow. Uh what has been what has been the response in the medical and the scientific community so far, especially the people who do who who do gain of function research, what's been the response to your to to your findings, your thesis?

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Yeah, well, I mean, um I began this journey, you know, in 2020 when I saw suspicious things uh in the virus. I've testified in Congress three times. Um there is a group of dedicated virologists that do this kind of work that at least publicly um are very you know are standing behind the work, they think it's the right thing to do, they're not willing to to take the leap that, gosh, their their very research techniques and tools could have led to the you know what I consider the the largest industrial accident in the history of the world.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Wow. Um do have have people welcomed it in your community and the scientific community said, look, it's good because finally we're moving past all of the all of the impassioned argument and the fear and uh you know the accusations, but we need to know what happened, and this is a really important case.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Lee, it very quickly gets into sort of uh, you know, uh p p political discussions, if I can call it that. I mean, I believe that we should we should look very carefully and use this lesson uh to teach us what to do next. And and almost a third of the book is about what we should do in the future to prevent the next one. Uh part of my analysis was that this was a 1% lethal virus and it killed between 10 and 20 million people, um, and it created $20 trillion worth of economic damage. That's 1%. My analysis says a 10% virus would take us back to about 1860, 1870 in terms of lifestyle, just before uh you know fossil fuels were discovered. So we need to get our hands around this because, again, in the work that I did in prepping for the book, uh the Chinese laboratories are are experimenting with 30% lethal viruses, 47% lethal viruses, 75% lethal viruses, taking them apart, playing with the with the ingredients. And that's a recipe for getting an infection in the lab and then walking out and taking the subway, uh, which is what I believe happened in in this particular case.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Uh what do you mean when you say 2% fatality? That would take us back to mid uh mid-19th century standards of living. What would happen?

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Yeah, if if I said two, I you uh you misheard me. It's 10%. Oh, and so what what I did was I was I did there's something called a Monte Carlo analysis, which is kind of fun. It's the the name comes from the fact that you when you turn the roulette wheel hundreds and hundreds of times, you can start to predict what numbers and what colors are going to come up and that sort of thing. So I I did a I did a 10,000 uh pandemic uh experiment where I varied the the uh the death, the the fatality of the virus, and then I looked at four pillars of society. I looked at food from the field to the grocery store, I looked at energy from the oil fields to the gas pump, fire and police for you know for security, and hospital care doctors and nurses. And you know, and then I I I allowed each one of them to break in different percentages. Um what I found was that overall, after 10,000 uh runs of this experiment, a 10% virus breaks the food chain, breaks the energy chain, uh the police force can no longer respond to calls. There are no doctors when you go to a hospital. That process very quickly devolves into a into a very primitive quality of life, basically before fossil fuels.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

10%. So 10% takes that many people down with it? That's what happens?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yes, exactly. It's a pyramid. So if you have a 10% lethal virus, you're having 50% of the people not showing up work for work for two or three weeks. You know, the the truckers from the fields to the to the to the grocery store, the onpackers at the grocery store, the people in the fields, the the people that run the oil fields or the gas pumps and that sort of thing. And part of it is the expertise that could happen is is we we teach the next generation of employees in all of these, and if if enough people are missing, not only would it take us back to 1860 or 70, but it could be years, even decades to restore, to get us back to to ground zero, if I could say it that's the one.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

So given all that, I mean, do you think, and without getting too much, you know, without getting into the political aspects of it too much, but do you think that then the you know, the government's response to COVID was understandable and relatively competent? I mean, I I want to talk about what your suggestions are going forward, but if we can start with that, what happened in in in 2020 and 2021 as well, was that a relatively competent response?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yeah, I think it was. Uh I mean, I think I think around the edges I would have made a lot of suggestions. Um there were there were sort of things that had been missed that that led uh led to uh to certain changes. The the last uh coronavirus that was similar to the SARS-2 that we had had about a 7 to 9% lethality. So the first thing out of the box, I would agree, is you think, okay, this is gonna be 7 to 9% again lethal, and it seems to be spreading highly. So that triggers a lot of you know changes and and decisions that maybe in retrospect, when it's only 1% lethal, you know, you wouldn't have done. Now, my research showed that by mid-March we knew it was 1% lethal. There was a study out of China with 85,000 people that showed no nobody under 20 died. People from 20 to 40 who died had cancer or some other comorbidity. But it was, you know, and it's 10 to 50 percent lethal for the 70, 80 year olds with two or three different uh you know chronic conditions. So that should have informed our decision making. I wasn't there, so I don't know quite quite why it wasn't, but uh, you know, I think that I think that the the next time around we would look very quickly at at some of these aspects. Um I think that some of the responses we made uh may have been, again, based on uh you know, on sort of false information. I think the you know it's it's really easy to criticize in retrospect. So I want to try to to avoid that. But but I think one of the one of the things that um that a good leader does and that we should have uh is to have two people in the room at the same time who are saying two completely different things. So one person is saying this is a 10% lethal virus and we need to shut down the world, the other person is saying, hey, I'm seeing a study with only one percent lethal, and it's you know, it's only in the really old people. Maybe we should temper this. Um and I think we had too much of a a one-sided um discussions because I think the people who were talking about some of these things, like it came from lab asymptomatic transmission, uh, weren't in the room. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Yes, I mean it seems to me that the people who the most most of the people who were in the room, these were the people who were saying, look, this is really extremely bad, and they weren't taking in any and uh any more information, any more data at all. They were pretty pretty set in their ways.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah, I mean, I I had a chance to to to to break break bread with uh uh Robert Redfield on uh Friday night, this last Friday night in DC. He was a CDC director at the time. He's a military doctor, uh very decorated doctor, virologist, and you know, he was saying very quickly, look at this this thing is spreading rapidly, it looks like it's asymptomatic. It might have come from a lab. And and he is, you know, in his own book and his own interviews has talked about the fact that he was basically excluded from the room um once his his opinions in that direction were were made uh public, made that's strange.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

That seems to be a very big problem because the discret the uh the keeping him out of the room then wasn't served political purposes, it appears. Again, I I don't mean to make you opine on these different things. This is not what your book is about, but for many people remembering what was going on in 2020 and the panic and the you know the the the the uh some of the political plays, yeah, very upsetting. Well look, but but before before we look at uh before we look at what's happening going forward, and maybe this is a part of what for the you know what what your book describes, how we move forward, how we plan ahead, are do we talk to the People's Republic of China about what they're what they're experimenting with? You're telling me that some of these viruses are 75% fatality rate?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yeah, it's a it's a virus called the NEPA virus. Uh-huh. It in it infects you through the respiratory tract, but it goes right into your brain, kind of asymptomatic for almost three weeks, and then you start having convulsions and things. You know, my my uh well at the time I guess she was a freshman in high school, she's now a uh a freshman in college. My daughter said, that sounds like a zombie dad, um, but the NEPA virus is is you know, is that lethal? Doesn't occur in China, and and yet they're doing a lot of intensive research on it. So they're not the only lab. There's a network of 14 to 20 labs that do this kind of work, they exchange reagents, they exchange people, they exchange methods. Um, and um it's a cabal. And I think one of the things we need to come to terms with is what does what does this research serve for the health of the American people who have you know a chronic disease crisis going forward here? Um and and you know, maybe it doesn't need to occur. I my own analysis is I've looked at 200 papers on gain of functional research, and I see no benefit with respect to diagnostics or therapeutics or vaccines. I'm willing to talk to somebody who thinks it's you it's useful. But we have that conversation, we come to a conclusion, then we I think we're gonna end up on the side where we we we don't do this except in very limited biodefense uh kinds of postures, where we do have to be prepared if someone else is doing it in some other part of the world.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

How do we talk to people about it though? Or or I I mean that I I I imagine that is one of the that is one of the dilemma. Uh, you know, say, well, we don't want to do it, but we have to acknowledge the fact that other people are doing it, whether it's China, whether it's Russia, uh, whether it's the Iran, whether it was, you know, Syria or Iraq, we have to do that research, or else we're in big trouble. I would imagine that's part of the justification, and maybe it's not entirely wrong. How do we get other people how do we get other people to sign on to saying, yeah, we don't want to develop viruses that are 75% fatal?

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah. So I think it's two, it's two aspects. What do we do inside America, and then what do we do as leader, as the leading, you know, the leader of the world? And so within months of getting in office, President Trump signed a ban of this kind of research, and Secretary Kennedy and and Jay Bhadichary, the head of NIH, are implementing that into the system. So it has to work its way in, you know, seep into the system. Um, but that absolutely bans the the this kind of gain of function research in a very meaningful way. I've also talked in the book about something called gain of opportunity, where you send virologists into a bat cave that no human's been in in 10 years, and you you take some bats, you know, saying, and you bring them back to the lab in a big city, you amplify it in the lab, and you do these things. Gain of opportunity also has similar dangers to gain of function. So you stop that right away at, you know, at the U.S. borders. And then we need to transition the the um biological weapons convention, which is the world treaty 180 countries have signed on to, uh similar to the nuclear and the chemical bands, um, was written in 1975. And so none of this technology, none of the modern AI-based biotechnology existed in that point in time. It's 51 years old. Um, and in my analogy is it's a little, it would be a little like putting together the nuclear control documents and protocols before the Manhattan Project made a bomb. Um that's kind of where it's at. So that needs to be updated in a serious way, and that will bring China and the other countries in the world, they'll bring them to the table to get that accomplished, because everyone is interested in not having uh their society destroyed by an avoidable event, which could be, you know, coming from a laboratory, either man-made in a lab, collected in nature, never going to get to a lab. Um, that's a high priority.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Dr. Kui, we're just about out of time, but I I want to ask you, what's the most important thing going forward that you you discuss in your book? That what's the most important thing going forward that we need to know to avoid uh to avoid not just COVID, a replay of COVID, but something much, much worse?

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Yeah, I mean, I think I think it I think it starts in the research bench, both control and gain of function, control and gain of opportunity experiments. Um and then and then there's countermeasures that you do where you want to control the research, control the the tools, uh, you know, uh control the borders. Uh we should be doing wastewater analysis at the borders, just like we spend billions and billions of dollars on vetting people coming across the border, but pathogens get a visa-free transit. So uh a number of important changes that need to be made. Uh, they're they're covered in the book.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Dr. Stephen Quite, thanks so much for being here with us today on Roots, Rights, and Reason. Congratulations on your new book. Really important, the code. Um, and uh we look forward to speaking with you uh again, again about this soon and see how this is going, what effect your book has had, because I'm s I'm I'm certain it's going to wake a lot of people up and uh get their attention in a way it should be. Thanks to all of you for watching Roots, Rights, and Reason. I'm Lee Smith, and we'll see you in our next episode.