Soviets Denied Anthrax Lab Leak. Truth Came Out A Decade Later
The Times of India Mumbai|June 21, 2021
The accident and a subsequent cover-up have renewed relevance as scientists search for the origins of Covid-19
Anton Troianovski
Soviets Denied Anthrax Lab Leak. Truth Came Out A Decade Later

Yekaterinburg: Patients with unexplained pneumonia started showing up at hospitals; within days, dozens were dead. The secret police seized doctors’ records and ordered them to keep silent. US spies picked up clues about a lab leak, but local authorities had a more mundane explanation: contaminated meat. It took more than a decade for the truth to come out.

In April and May 1979, at least 66 people died after airborne anthrax bacteria emerged from a military lab in the Soviet Union. But leading American scientists voiced confidence in the Soviets’ claim that the pathogen had jumped from animals to humans. Only after a full-fledged investigation in the 1990s did one of those scientists confirm the earlier suspicions: The accident in what is now the Russian Urals city of Yekaterinburg was a slab leak.

This story is from the June 21, 2021 edition of The Times of India Mumbai.

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This story is from the June 21, 2021 edition of The Times of India Mumbai.

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