If you google “Where did coronavirus come from?” you’ll come across rumors that COVID-19 started in a lab. (It didn’t.) There are more movies, books and video games about unscrupulous scientists unleashing pandemics than you could shake a Purell-covered stick at.
But when asked to name an instance when a dangerous pathogen escaped a lab and infected the public, biosafety expert Allen Helm draws a blank. To his knowledge, it’s never happened.
“I don’t know of any evidence of any bugs that have gotten out,” says Helm, a senior biosafety officer at the University of Chicago. That’s in large part due to scientists whose job is making sure that dangerous viruses and bacteria don’t leave the lab.
