WNS Leads to Increased Infant Mortality
September 6, 2024
An important new study, recently published in Science and widely covered by major newspapers like The Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, has
Updated 03/26/20
The source of human exposure to the COVID-19 virus, or as it was first called, Wuhan virus, according to the March 12th edition of The Conversation, has yet to be identified. However, in a rush to judgment, far too many public health officials and media outlets are focusing almost entirely on bats. This has been seen in multiple news sources, from CNN to Vice. Such speculation can be counterproductive, especially when acted on as fact.
Bats, despite their essential ecological and economic roles, rank among our planet’s most rapidly declining and endangered animals1. They have few defenders and are often mistakenly viewed as dangerous. People who fear bats are less tolerant and frequently kill them 2.
Fear is needlessly created when virologists emphasize potentially distant evolutionary relationships that shed little light on where and how a virus is actually transmitted to humans. Bats are currently believed to harbor more kinds of viruses than other mammals. But even if true, there is no credible documentation of higher risk of transmission3. Most viruses are innocuous or even beneficial 3,4.
Bats, like any living organism, are capable of harboring scary viruses, yet transmission is rare, typically only to humans who carelessly handle a bat that bites in self-defense, followed by failure to seek medical attention. Nipa virus, in India and Bangladesh, is acquired by drinking unpasteurized palm juice, eating unwashed fruit, or associating with sick pigs5.
For more than a decade, virologists have used increasingly sophisticated technology to disproportionately search for new viruses in colonial bats6. New viruses can be found by looking no farther than our own human bodies, and they’re all related at some level4! We’re 96 percent genetically identical to chimpanzees7.
Scientists at Singapore’s Bioinformatics Institute examined a key surface protein on the COVID-19 virus and found it just 79 percent genetically similar to SARS, noting that these viruses “are like comparing a dog and a cat.” 8 This flies in the face of widespread claims of similarity.
Finding the immediate source and mode of COVID-19 virus transmission to humans is key. Premature speculation presented as fact simply impedes efforts to prevent new exposure because resources are misallocated. The location of the initial transmission hasn’t even been confirmed yet. In fact, thirteen of the first forty-one infected humans had not visited the Wuhan wet market9.
Stories in Newsroom and The Scientist quoted leading virologists as predicting that the COVID-19 virus would ultimately be traced to bats. Then, when genetic analysis pointed to a snake origin10, it was claimed that the snakes (many banded crates and Chinese cobras) must have been infected by bats, continuing to emphasize a bat origin. The same followed for pangolins11. Scientists who in 2018 concluded that horseshoe bats were the source of SARS12 still insist on a bat origin in the case of the COVID-19 virus, though their claim has itself been questioned13.
Despite numerous efforts, bats still have not been credibly documented as transmitters of SARS to humans13. Even if bats did play a background role by infecting civets, control in humans had to focus on reducing contact with civets, not bats14.
In the case of MERS, bats were yet again the initial focus in the search for a source of human outbreaks. However, camels were eventually identified as the sole source15. Misdirecting attention from documented sources of human infection, in order to blame bats, needlessly decreases tolerance of bats while deflecting caution from other animals of far higher risk.
Arguments over historic lineages are unlikely to solve current problems.
The bias on sampling colonial bats is understandable. Compared to snakes or other animals, they are by far the easiest to quickly capture and process, have few defenders, and are already widely feared. Associating bats with rare, little-known viruses provides tempting opportunities for quick publication, big grants, and career advancement15.
Nevertheless, history does not support this bias. The great pandemics have come from birds, rodents or primates, not bats16. In truth, bats have one of our planet’s finest records of living safely with humans2,15.
We have a long history of co-association, in caves, thatched huts, and log cabins. Millions of humans in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific and Indian Ocean Islands still eat bats17. Thousands of inhabitants of the Old-World tropics spend countless hours in bat caves collecting guano for fertilizer. Thousands of sport cavers explore caves worldwide. Millions of Africans share their cities with huge bat colonies15, all without detected disease outbreaks.
Even Ebola, which has been widely attributed to bats and intensely searched for in them, has not been confirmed from bats18. According to the January 28 article in Business Insider, even if we were to assume that all human deaths from the major so-called “emerging” diseases – i.e. viruses like Ebola, SARS and MERS, and now COVID-19 – came from bats, this would account for just 15,698 human deaths combined over several decades. These numbers are trivial compared to 59,000 deaths annually from dog-transmitted rabies19 or 23,000 U.S. deaths from the flu just this season20. Why are we focusing so much on rare mortality sources while virtually ignoring those of far greater importance?
Finally, reactions to the new COVID-19 virus appear to be exaggerated. If this rush to judgment turns out to be a false alarm, will future threats be taken seriously? If speculation proves inaccurate, not only bats but the credibility of scientists could be harmed. The best approach is rapid detection and response, not prediction22.
Our combined voices can make a difference. The following publications have misleadingly presented facts about bats. We urge you to politely share your opinion in your own words with the editors, authors and organizations. You may find our resource, Give Bats a Break, additionally helpful in composing your reply. Editors do take notice. Remember, your response can be very simple such as, “I don’t appreciate misleading presentation of facts that create needless fear of bats.” Editors just need to know you like or dislike an article in order for you to have impact. It’s numbers that count. Bats need all of you! Tell a friend about bat values and how they can help.
References
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An important new study, recently published in Science and widely covered by major newspapers like The Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, has
On March 6, 2024, the Wall Street Journal presented findings from the University of Leeds in their opinion piece, “Why Scientists Love Chasing Bats; The
Response to Misleading Scientific American Bat Story I am responding to the article titled, “A Secret Weapon in Preventing the Next Pandemic: Fruit Bats,” which
Believe it or not, bats have one of our planet’s finest records of living safely with humans. Despite frequent claims to the contrary, they harbor
2024 © Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation. All rights reserved.
Michael Lazari Karapetian has over twenty years of investment management experience. He has a degree in business management, is a certified NBA agent, and gained early experience as a money manager for the Bank of America where he established model portfolios for high-net-worth clients. In 2003 he founded Lazari Capital Management, Inc. and Lazari Asset Management, Inc. He is President and CIO of both and manages over a half a billion in assets. In his personal time he champions philanthropic causes. He serves on the board of Moravian College and has a strong affinity for wildlife, both funding and volunteering on behalf of endangered species.