PolitiFact – The claim that Boston University created a COVID-19 strain with an 80% kill rate omits important details

Social media lit up with news of what appeared to be an alarming study from Boston University.

“Boston University is CREATING a new strain of COVID that has an 80% kill rate — reflecting dangerous experiments feared to have started the pandemic,” read an Oct. 17 Instagram post that showed a screenshot of a Daily Mail headline.

“A virus created in a lab? Where have I heard that before,” read a caption accompanying the post.

We found numerous social media posts the also shared the Daily Mail headline, all alluding to the unproven theory that COVID-19 was manufactured in a Chinese lab. You’ve been flagged in Facebook’s newsfeed as part of its efforts to combat fake news and misinformation. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

While scientists at Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories conducted research involving the creation of a hybrid strain of COVID-19, the headline provided important context about the purpose of the study, the safety measures taken during the study, and their Results omitted.

The study, conducted in mice, reflected a common way of studying viruses and was not done dangerously, said the university and other experts we spoke to. What’s more, the study found that this hybrid strain was actually less deadly in mice than the original — no more.

Ronald Corley, director of the Boston University lab, said the attention given to the 80% figure was used to spread a “sensational” message.

“This was a statement taken out of context for the sake of sensationalism,” Corley said in a statement released by the university, “and it completely misrepresents not only the results but (also) the purpose of the study.”

About the study

In the preprint study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, researchers from the Boston lab wanted to examine the spike protein in the original omicron variant of COVID-19 called Ba.1. Their goal was to find out if the mutations in these proteins were why the virus variant is milder than previous COVID-19 strains and evades immunity more easily, but results in fewer deaths.

To do this, the researchers added a spike protein from Omicron to an original SARS-CoV-2 strain to create a new strain, which they named Omi-S. They then compared the effects that the new virus strain, the ancestral strain and the Omicron strain had on infected mice.

All mice infected with the ancestral strain died.

All mice infected with Omicron survived. And 80% of mice infected with Omi-S died.

The researchers concluded that the results showed that the lower severity of omicron was not related to the spike protein mutations. They said more research is needed.

The mice used were “a specific type of mouse that is very vulnerable,” Corley said.

“Consistent with studies published by others, this work shows that it is not the spike protein that drives omicron pathogenicity, but other viral proteins.” Determining these proteins will lead to better diagnostic and disease management strategies,” said Mohsan Saeed, one of the lead authors of the study, in a statement from Boston University.

“Ultimately, this research will deliver public benefit by leading to better, more targeted therapeutic interventions to help combat future pandemics,” the school’s statement said.

About the safety of the study

The headline shared in these posts comes from an Oct. 17 article in Britain’s Daily Mail news agency that Boston University officials criticized as misleading. The article, updated with a new headline and additional criticism of the study, cites experts who said The research was an example of “gain of function” research, a broad term for research that can make a virus potentially more dangerous.

But the school and other experts we spoke to dismissed that claim. They noted that the work being done in the Boston lab was being done elsewhere.

Michael Imperiale, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan School of Medicine, said the Boston lab’s research could be viewed as a “loss of function” because the new strain was less deadly than the original virus, which killed all the mice. He said it was inappropriate to compare the Omi-S strain in this study to the original Omicron strain, which did not kill anyone, since only the original strain was manipulated.

Andy Pekosz, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the study’s work with COVID-19 was not unusual, pointing to two previous similar studies.

“This is a common approach to mapping differences between two related lineages of SARS-CoV-2, and in fact this is done with many different viruses,” Pekosz said. “By swapping out large parts of the virus, you can more quickly identify which mutations might alter a virus’ fitness or replication.”

Boston University also noted that the “research reflects and reinforces the findings of other, similar research conducted by other organizations, including the FDA.”

Scientists from the US Food and Drug Administration co-authored a similar study published in September.

The Boston research was conducted in the Biosafety Level 3 laboratory facilities, which allow the researchers to work with dangerous pathogens. The lab is owned and operated by the school, but is part of a network of such sites across the US where researchers can study infectious diseases.

Pekosz called the facility “a safe way to deal with even the most dangerous SARS-CoV-2 variants.”

Gigi Gronvall, a senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said critics ignore the “extraordinary security measures” being put in place at places like the Boston lab and that such research is vital.

“Safety first, but there is no indication that there has been a safety issue,” Gronvall said. “To understand viruses like the one we’re dealing with that has killed millions, you have to study it.”

Laboratory security measures include a series of locked doors; sealed walls and floors; and sophisticated filtration and decontamination technology, the school said.

But these labs aren’t risk-free, as a Vox article noted. It was reminiscent of a case of a laboratory worker in Taiwan who was bitten by an infected mouse, later exposing more than 100 people to the virus.

In an interview with health news site STAT, Emily Erbelding, director of the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, expressed concern that the Boston researchers failed to alert the agency to the type of work being carried out.

“We wish they had,” Erbelding said, although she also noted that media coverage had overstated the risk of the work.

Boston University said in its statement it is not required to report its work to NIAID. The NIAID funded tools and platforms used in the research but did not fund the research directly, it said.

The research was approved by the Institutional Biosafety Committee and the Boston Public Health Commission, the school said.

We reached out to NIAID for comment, but didn’t immediately receive a response. However, an NIAID spokesman told the Financial Times that the agency is “reviewing the matter to determine whether the research conducted is subject to the NIH’s policy statement on grants or meets the criteria for review under government research guidelines.”

dr Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID, said in an Oct. 19 interview with CBS News that while the NIH did not fund the Boston study, “I think it has been over-interpreted by some as very worrying.”

Our verdict

One Instagram post shared an image with a caption that read, “Boston University is creating a new strain of COVID with an 80% kill rate.”

That is partially correct. Boston University researchers are studying why the omicron variant of COVID-19 is less deadly and more likely to evade immunity. In this attempt, they added a spike protein from a milder omicron virus to an original SARS-CoV-2 strain to create a new strain, which they named Omi-S. When researchers compared the effects of the three viruses on mice, they found that 80% of mice infected with Omi-S died.

But just saying 80% misses key context, including the fact that the resulting strain was less deadly than the original, which killed 100% of mice. Experts say this type of research is not uncommon and the experiment was conducted in accordance with accepted safety procedures. The mice used were very susceptible to the virus. And the point of the study was to learn more about why the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 often evades immunity and leads to fewer deaths.

We rate this claim as half true.