Lab-Created Bird Flu Virus Accident Shows Lax Oversight of Risky ‘Gain of Function’ Research

The story of how the H5N1 viruses came to be created – and the response to a 2019 safety breach – raises uncomfortable questions about the tremendous trust the world is placing in research labs.

This exclusive article is adapted from former USA TODAY investigative reporter Alison Young’s forthcoming book “Pandora’s Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk,” which will be released April 25. In this excerpt, Young reveals for the first time details of a December 2019 lab safety breach involving one of the world’s most infamous lab-created “gain of function” viruses – and the efforts that were made to downplay the event, avoid notifying health authorities and oversight bodies, and keep the public and policymakers in the dark.

Inside the high-security Influenza Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, two experienced scientists were pulling ferrets out of their HEPA-filtered cages on a Monday in December 2019. Another researcher, still in training, was also in the room to watch and learn.