Worobey et al., 2022 & Pekar et al., 2022 Retraction Requests

Request for editorial action for Worobey et al. 2022 and Pekar et al. 2022 (June 14, 2024)

This post is the third in a series of documented calls for the retraction of scientifically unsound papers on the origin of COVID-19. These papers are based on invalid premises and conclusions, or are potentially products of scientific misconduct — including fraud.

Below is a letter requesting the retraction of "The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic" by Worobey et al. (1) and “The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2” by Pekar et al., (2) published on July 26, 2022, in Science. This letter was sent to the editor in chief of Science on June 14, 2024.

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Subject: Request for editorial action on Worobey et al. 2022 and Pekar et al. 2022

Dear Editors:

We are writing to bring to your attention serious issues with a pair of papers published on July 26, 2022: "The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic" by Worobey et al. (1) and “The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2” by Pekar et al. (2).

The analyses of Worobey et al. 2022 and Pekar et al. 2022 are unsound.

Worobey et al. (1) presents a geospatial analysis that purportedly suggests SARS-CoV-2 entered humans at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan.

The analyses in Worobey et al. are scientifically unsound (3-5). Zhang et al. 2022 point out intra-market differences in the locations of animal cages and the locations of environmental samples positive for SARS-CoV-2 that invalidate the conclusions of Worobey et al. 2022 (3). Weissman 2024 points out that ascertainment bias invalidates the conclusions of Worobey et al. (4). Stoyan and Chiu, 2024 point out that the statistical analyses in Worobey et al. are unsound (5).

Science has published a correction and an erratum to Worobey et al. 2022 (6). However, the correction and erratum do not address the criticisms of refs. 3-5.

Pekar et al. 2022 (2), which was published together with Worobey et al. by an overlapping set of authors, presents a phylogenomic analysis that purportedly suggests SARS-CoV-2 entered humans at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan.

The analyses of Pekar et al. 2022 are scientifically unsound (7-9). Massey et al. 2023 point out that the unwarranted exclusion of intermediate sequences invalidates the conclusions of Pekar et al. (7). Lv et al. 2024 report new intermediate sequences that invalidate the conclusions of Pekar et al. (8). PubPeer comments report computational errors that invalidate--in toto--the conclusions of Pekar et al. (9).

Science has published an erratum to Pekar et al. 2022 (10). However, the erratum does not address the full set of criticisms of ref. 9 and does not address the criticisms of refs. 7-8.

The premises of Worobey et al. 2022 and Pekar et al. 2022 are unsound.

Phylogenomic evidence, epidemiological evidence, and documentary evidence all indicate that SARS-CoV-2 entered humans in July-November 2019 (11-26 [entry in July-November 2019 in ref. 11; entry in August 2019 in refs. 12-13; entry in September-October 2019 in ref. 14; entry in September-November 2019 in ref. 15; entry in September 2019 in ref. 16; entry in October-November in ref. 17; and entry in or before November 2019 in refs. 18-26]). Arguments based on data for the Huanan Seafood Market on or after mid- to late December 2019--as in Worobey et al. 2022 and Pekar et al. 2022--cannot, even in principle, shed light on spillover into humans that occurred one to five months earlier, in July-November, 2019.

Worobey et al. 2022 and Pekar et al. 2022 may be products of scientific misconduct, up to and including scientific fraud.

Compelling evidence has been presented that four of the authors of Worobey et al. 2022 and Pekar et al. 2022 (Kristian Andersen, Robert Garry, Edward Holmes, and Andrew Rambaut), including one of the corresponding authors of Worobey et al. 2022 and Pekar et al. 2022 (Kristian Andersen), committed scientific misconduct, publishing conclusions they knew to be invalid, on a previous paper on the same subject: Andersen et al. 2020 (27), a paper that concluded "Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus" and "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."

Private email and Slack communications of authors Andersen, Garry, Holmes, and Rambaut--made public through a Congressional inquiry--establish that Andersen, Garry, Holmes, and Rambaut knew the premises and conclusions of their paper were invalid at the time the paper was drafted, at the time the paper was submitted for publication, and even at the time the paper was published (28-29). For example, in private email and Slack communications, Andersen wrote "the lab escape version of this is so friggin' likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario" on the day the first draft of the paper was started; wrote "accidental escape is in fact highly likely" and "we can’t prove one way or the other, but we never will be able to" on the next day; wrote "From a genomics perspective, the theories Richard Ebright lay out I expect would look the same - there would be no way to distinguish between them" four days later; wrote "The furin link keeps bugging me" on the day the first draft of the paper was completed; wrote "we unfortunately just can’t rule out a potential accidental infection from the lab" on the day the paper was submitted for publication; and wrote "we can’t fully disprove culture" and "We also can’t fully rule out engineering" a month after publication of the paper (28-29).

Formal requests for retraction of Andersen et al. 2020 for scientific misconduct have been submitted (30).

When papers are scientifically unsound, have invalid premises and conclusions, and have four authors, including a corresponding author, who committed scientific misconduct on a previous paper on the same subject--as for Worobey et al. 2022 and Pekar et al. 2022--there is clear basis to infer the papers may be products of scientific misconduct, up to and including fraud.

In conclusion, Worobey et al. 2022 and Pekar et al. 2022 are scientifically unsound, have invalid premises and conclusions, and may be products of scientific misconduct, up to and including scientific fraud. We urge Science to issue an Expression of Editorial Concern for these papers and to initiate an investigation of these papers for possible retraction.

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Signers (in alphabetical order)

Paul Babitzke, Penn State University

Jay Bhattacharya, Stanford University

Colin Butler, Australian National University

Gilles Demaneuf, Engineer and Data Scientist, New Zealand

Richard H. Ebright, Rutgers University

Mohamed E. El Zowalaty, Ahram Canadian University

Andre Goffinet, UC Louvain

Richard N. Goldstein, Harvard University

Edward Hammond, ex Sunshine Project

Neil Harrison, Columbia University

Angelika Hilbeck, ex Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

Laura H. Kahn, One Health Initiative

Hideki Kakeya, University of Tsukuba

Steven Lagana, Columbia University

Yanna Lambrinidou, Virginia Tech

Jonathan R. Latham, Bioscience Resource Project

Milton Leitenberg, University of Maryland

Austin Lin, State University of New York

Steven E. Massey, University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras

Tony R. Merriman, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Jamie Metzl, Atlantic Council

Stuart A. Newman, New York Medical College

Bryce E. Nickels, Rutgers University

Andrew Noymer, University of California, Irvine

Matt Ridley, ex Science and Technology Select Committee, UK House of Lords.

Steven Quay, ex Stanford University School of Medicine

Joe Schaefer, SunStar Systems

Harish Seshadri, Indian Institute of Science

Diederick Sprangers, ENSSER

Günter Theißen, Friedrich Schiller University Jena

Antonius M. VanDongen, Duke University

Roland Wiesendanger, University of Hamburg

Allison K. Wilson, Bioscience Resource Project

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References cited

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2. Pekar J, Magee A, Parker E, Moshiri N, Izhikevich K, Havens J, Gangavarapu K, Malpica Serrano L, Crits-Christoph A, Matteson N, Zeller M, Levy J, Wang J, Hughes S, Lee J, Park H, Park M, Ching Zi Yan K, Lin R, Mat Isa M, Noor Y, Vasylyeva T, Garry R, Holmes E, Rambaut A, Suchard M, Andersen K, Worobey M, Wertheim J. The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2. Science. 2022, 377(6609):960-966.

3. Zhang D, Demaneuf G, Jones A, Massey S, Quay S, Deigin Y, Nemzer L. Zoonosis at the Huanan Seafood Market: a critique. Zenodo. 2022.

4. Weissman W. Proximity ascertainment bias in early COVID case locations. J. Royal Stat. Soc.: Statistics in Society. Series A. 2024, qnae021.

5. Stoyan D, Chiu SN. Statistics did not prove that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was the early epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic. J. Royal Stat. Soc. Series A. 2024, qnad139.

6. Erratum for the research article "The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic" by M. Worobey et al. Science. 2024, 383(6688):eadp1133. doi: 10.1126/science.adp1133.

7. Massey S, Jones A, Zhang D, Deigin Y, Quay, S. Unwarranted exclusion of intermediate lineage A-B SARS-CoV-2 genomes is inconsistent with the two-spillover hypothesis of the origin of COVID-19. Microbiol. Res. 2023, 14:448-453.

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9. PubPeer. Post-publication peer review comments on Pekar et al. 2022.

10. Erratum for the research article "The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2" by J. E. Pekar et al. Science. 2023 382(6667):eadl0585.

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17. Pekar J, Worobey M, Moshiri N, Scheffler K, Wertheim JO. Timing the SARS-CoV-2 index case in Hubei province. Science. 2021, 372:412-417.

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