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Oil on Braced Baltic Birch 16” x 16” (Framed)
 
In the early months of 2020, it was widely believed that COVID-19 was a zoonotic virus originating naturally from either bats or pangolins in the wet markets of Wuhan, China. Eventually, due to mounting evidence, scientists, the FBI, U.S. Energy Department, investigative journalism publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, concluded that it was likely the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology “where potential pandemic viruses were tinkered with to expand host range and uncover new ways to enable wildlife viruses to infect humans.”[1] Research on gain-of-function viruses had already been taking place in the United States under the watch of Dr. Francis Collins, director of National Institutes of Health (NIH). Due to the risk as a national bio-hazard, this research was paused in 2014 by President Obama. However, Dr. Anthony Fauci and the NIH continued to fund the development of viruses like SARS-CoV-2 (the causative agent of COVID-19) at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China via EcoHealth Alliance grants, a fact which was first exposed by the White Coat Waste Project.
 
The Wuhan Laboratory houses a massive Experimental Animal Centre with thousands of cages containing genetically engineered mice, ferrets, bats, rabbits, and dogs. According to a Wuhan University lab report in 2019, “There is a lot of debris in the laboratory . . . [it] is crowded and chaotic . . . Students are not wearing lab coats . . . Chemical waste and household waste [is] mixed.”[2] The Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity expressed concerns about the quality of animal experiments done there with highly infectious agents, warning that “The infectious animals may escape and cause a potential hazard to humans and the environment when cage lids or doors are not properly locked.”[3]
 
In my painting, a lone Black-Footed Ferret lays deceased on a lab table with a syringe, perhaps one of the many experimental injections for risky virus research. This work is a lament for the horrors of vivisection (animal testing). The seven rose petals are symbolic of a funeral. It is my way of eulogizing the ferret, one of the commonly used species for coronavirus vaccine experiments, due to its lung structure closely resembling that of humans. While, at first, the ferrets showed promising signs of antibody response, many died later when exposed to the wild virus.[4] Today animals are experimented on in labs all over the world and, just like the ferrets, many suffer and prematurely perish due to compromised immune systems.
 
While we mourn the 7 million reported human deaths caused by COVID-19, I believe the pandemic needs to be re-framed as a cautionary tale for what happens when we uncritically “trust the science.” May we never again turn a blind-eye to scientists who forego ethics and wisdom, enamoured by money granted for their mad-science experiments. Although I am grateful for modern medical advancements, the pandemic exposed the frailty of so-called scientific progress.
 
[1] Direct quote from correspondence with Alex Washburne, PhD. For a detailed analysis see his article, “The Strength of Evidence for a Lab Origin,” A Biologist’s Guide to Life, Substack. 
[2] Bostickson and Ghannam, “Wuhan Laboratories, Bat Research and Biosafety.”
[3] Guo, et al, “Biosafety and data quality considerations for animal experiments with highly infectious agents at ABSL-3 facilities,” Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity.
[4] Mercola, The Truth About COVID-19, 229, 232.