A new book has been published on the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. As you’ll gather from my review, it doesn’t pull its punches. That’s both refreshing and important because the origins issue has been bedevilled by censorship, including self-censorship. I explored this problem of censorship with two of the books’ authors when I interviewed them recently to discuss their book. I wanted to know whether they’d had direct experiences of censorship – and if so, what were the motivations behind it, in their view. I give the answers that emerged at the end of this review. They’re eye-opening.

Combining investigative journalism with scientific analysis made accessible to the layperson, this book argues that a “crime against global health” has been committed by certain entities and individuals, starting with the Chinese government and including scientists and institutions in the West.

Between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, the authors contend, Beijing intentionally omitted to warn global health authorities and policymakers of the especially infective nature of SARS-CoV-2, even though they were fully aware of it since the early stages of the Wuhan epidemic. Had they done so, they believe, more effective management measures could have been enacted by world leaders and lives would have been spared. In addition, the book concludes that there is “overwhelming” evidence that the virus was genetically engineered for enhanced infectivity in gain-of-function experiments and then escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.