2021-04-28
This article introduces an essay by Hideki Kakeya published in the monthly magazine WiLL, examining questions surrounding the origin of COVID-19, the WHO investigation, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and contradictions identified in information provided by China.
It also addresses the need for an independent investigation and international safeguards for laboratories handling dangerous pathogens.

The latest issues of the monthly magazines WiLL and Hanada, now on sale, are filled with genuine articles and editorials.
And yet, each costs only 950 yen, including consumption tax.
A friend of mine who is an avid reader often says, “Nothing is cheaper than a book,” and these two magazines prove the truth of that remark.
Every Japanese citizen should go to the nearest bookstore and subscribe to them.
The genuine editorials and articles published in both magazines are essential reading not only for the Japanese people but also for people throughout the world.
I have done everything I can to introduce them to readers around the world.
Japan is a country in which the turntable of civilization is turning, and together with the United States, it must lead the world for another 170 years.
It is therefore only natural that some of the finest articles and papers in the world are being published in Japan day after day.
Until this column began in July 2010, however, such writings were hardly being introduced to the world at all.
That is one of the reasons why today’s world has become so unstable and extremely dangerous.
In this chapter, I would like to introduce an article by Hideki Kakeya, an associate professor at the University of Tsukuba, published in WiLL.
He is a genuine scholar who remains almost entirely unknown to people who do not read magazines such as those mentioned above, or who rely on the Asahi Shimbun and television news alone.
It is no exaggeration to say that such people, and many others around the world like them, have never encountered a serious paper of this kind.

The following is the article by Hideki Kakeya introduced above.
Don’t Let Up on the Pursuit of China
by Hideki Kakeya
Scientists who remain silent in the face of contradictory claims by China have lost their sense of ethics.
An Investigation Independent of the WHO
Fourteen countries issued a joint statement criticizing the report released on March 30 by the WHO investigative team.
Many countries have now officially challenged China’s claims concerning the origin of the novel coronavirus.
A group of researchers who issued an open letter on March 4 in response to the WHO investigation issued another open letter on April 7.
The letter was also covered by major international media, including The New York Times and Reuters.
From Japan, the letter was signed by myself and one other Japanese researcher in information engineering.
As a result, news reports referred to it as “an open letter by researchers from Europe, the United States, Australia, and Japan.”
I am proud that I was able to contribute, even in a small way, to strengthening Japan’s presence in this international debate.
At the same time, I was deeply disappointed that not a single Japanese life scientist had signed the letter.
In our April open letter, we pointed out the lack of fairness in the WHO investigative team’s report and presented proposals for how the investigation should proceed from that point onward.
The first proposal was to review the terms agreed upon between the WHO and China.
Under those terms, China effectively possessed veto power, making it impossible for independent experts to conduct a genuinely independent investigation inside China.
We argued that revising those terms was essential.
The second proposal was for the World Health Assembly in May 2021 to adopt a resolution calling for a full investigation into the origin of the novel coronavirus and for new international rules governing dangerous gain-of-function research.
The third proposal was that, if those first two measures could not be realized, countries should cooperate in conducting a transparent investigation into the origin of the novel coronavirus independently of the WHO.
As a supplement, the open letter also pointed out a number of inconsistencies in the materials submitted by the Chinese side and included in the WHO report.
One example concerns the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
As I have mentioned before, the institute shut down a database that had previously been accessible to and cited by outside researchers.
China claims that the database was taken offline to protect it from hacker attacks triggered by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
But the database had already been taken offline in September 2019.
There is a glaring contradiction in China’s claim.
China’s assertion that none of the employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology had antibodies to the novel coronavirus is also highly questionable.
When examining the staff of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the claim that not a single employee possessed antibodies to the novel coronavirus deserves rigorous verification.
Corrupt Ethics
Some argue that China has already destroyed evidence and that, even if an investigation is conducted in the future, proving a laboratory leak will be difficult.
However, it is still possible to examine the immunity of every employee of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, including immunoglobulin and T-cell responses.
If the infection history of all staff members could be established, it might be possible to identify the route through which the virus escaped.
This is evidence that cannot simply be destroyed without eliminating the people themselves.
Even without political action, the scientific community has the power to exclude from academic conferences and journals researchers affiliated with Chinese institutions that refuse to cooperate with such an investigation.
As the Cold War should remind us, it is abnormal for institutions under a dictatorship to enjoy unrestricted access to the academic activities of the free world while refusing transparency themselves.
A country in which the concealment of information is accepted as normal is not an appropriate environment for genuine academic inquiry.
No true scientist should disagree with that principle.
The Chinese government would probably respond to the exclusion of researchers affiliated with Chinese institutions by claiming “discrimination” and portraying itself as the victim.
One possible response would be to accept researchers who leave China as refugees or grant them asylum.
This is not something that scientists alone can accomplish.
Political action would also be necessary.
Some infectious-disease experts argue that if China’s responsibility is pursued too aggressively, the Chinese government will become even more secretive.
But such reasoning cannot justify concealing the cause of a catastrophe that, by that time, had already resulted in approximately three million deaths worldwide.
If China hardens its position and intensifies its concealment, travel to and from China should be suspended.
Doing so could help prevent the next infectious disease originating in China from spreading around the world.
Aum Shinrikyo was able to carry out the Tokyo subway sarin attack because it had not been thoroughly pursued after the Matsumoto sarin attack.
If the origin of the novel coronavirus is not thoroughly investigated, the next incident could be even more dangerous.
We must learn from the lessons of history.
Some people say that investigating the origin of the novel coronavirus serves no purpose because doing so cannot undo the damage already caused by the pandemic.
But by uncovering the truth about the origin of the virus and correctly identifying the relevant risk factors, we can take measures to prevent the next pandemic, whether the virus originated in nature or in a laboratory.
The first step should be to establish an international inspection system for laboratories that handle dangerous microorganisms.
If such laboratories are located in densely populated areas, they should be relocated as quickly as possible to sparsely populated regions or remote islands.
Nuclear facilities are subject to an international inspection system through the IAEA, and many such facilities are located away from densely populated areas.
Comparable safety measures should also be introduced in the field of life sciences.
Yet the ethical standards of today’s scientific community have deteriorated to such an extent that even this kind of discussion has become extraordinarily difficult.

First published on April 28, 2021.
English text revised for grammar, terminology, and readability while preserving the original argument and content.