Wuhan virology lab head rebukes Pompeo’s WSJ commentary

By publishing an opinion piece that’s lacking in evidence and laden with fallacies co- authored by former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, the Worst Secretary of State Ever, who simply wants to keep his political profile after stepping down, the Wall Street Journal has trespassed the bottom line of media integrity and descended into a propaganda machine that sells false information for clicks.

The opinion piece, titled “China’s Reckless Labs Put the World at Risk,” was co- authored by Pompeo and Miles Yu, a previous political advisor to Pompeo and a lousy “expert” who is infamous for anti- China opinions. The article implied that China’s negligence of biosafety led to the current COVID- 19 situation.

The article, which used the typical technique of grafting one twig on another and twisting experts’ comments, met with a torrent of criticism from the public.

It cited Yuan Zhiming, director of the biosafety level 4 lab of the Wuhan Institute of Virology ( WIV), as saying that “The biosafety laboratory is a double- edged sword: It can be used for the benefit of humanity, but can also lead to a disaster.”

Yuan told the Global Times on Wednesday that the commentary was a malicious attack and he “did not know where the article got his quotes from.”

The so- called quotes the commentary picked up were from an academic paper published in the Chinese Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity in March 2019, entitled “Studies on Developing a Safe Management Standard System for Chinese Biosafety Laboratories.” The Global Times found out that the quote is a garble quote out of text of the article, and the opinion piece wrongly claimed it under Yuan’s name.

The article was co- authored by five scientists including Yuan, but it clearly stated that since the outbreak of SARS, increasing numbers of biosafety laboratory levels have been established in China. Thus creating a specialized and standardized management system for biosafety laboratories has become necessary, and it is one of the key prerequisites to guarantee the effective and safe functioning of high- level biosafety laboratories.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry slammed the commentary full of unverified claims, and it warned US politicians like Pompeo that if they try to seek personal gains by relying on anti- China rhetoric after leaving office and continuing to kidnap China- US relations, their efforts are doomed to be in vain.

“Pompeo has already lost credibility and become a byword for lies,” Wang said.