Scowcroft Institute Report Examines COVID-19 Brain Effects And Origins
Texas A&M research institute releases final installment of study highlighting the pandemic's neurological impact and raising concerns about Chinese military research on coronaviruses.
The Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University has released the second and final installment of a major report completed by Dr. Robert Kadlec in 2024. The report, A Critical Review of COVID-19 Origins: “Hidden in Plain Sight,” examines the evidence on how the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and the disease’s impact on the brain.
The final installment of Kadlec’s report reaches three overarching conclusions:
- Evidence suggests that the pandemic began due to a virus escaping a laboratory rather than natural spillover from infected animals. This finding was included in the first installment of the report, published in November 2024.
- COVID-19 infection often has major short- and long-term effects on the brain, even in children and people with mild cases. Efforts to treat and prevent these effects should be urgent priorities.
- The Chinese military may have been researching a vaccine to protect against the effects of COVID-19 prior to the pandemic. This and other Chinese military research on coronaviruses threaten U.S. national security and raise concerns about Chinese compliance with international arms control treaties.
“Developing a greater understanding of all facets of what happened with the COVID-19 pandemic is vital for not only America’s public health but also for our national security,” said John Sherman, dean of The Bush School of Government and Public Service, home of the Scowcroft Institute. “We must not leave any stone unturned, and this report sheds light on critical aspects of the virus, its origins and its effects.”
The report is intended to help focus public attention on finding ways to prevent such a pandemic from happening again and calls for improved early detection of biological threats and stronger biosafety standards for laboratories across the world.
“It’s important to continue seeking the truth about COVID-19’s origins not to lay blame, but rather to prevent it from happening again,” said Dr. Glen Laine, a senior fellow at the Scowcroft Institute.
Kadlec finds that Americans continue to suffer from COVID-19’s long-term consequences. The report cites figures that 17 million U.S. adults and 6 million U.S. children have “long COVID,” a chronic condition with a range of effects that can include fatigue and brain fog. Each new infection of COVID-19 appears to raise the risk of developing long COVID. According to the report, COVID-19 can also cause degeneration in the brain like that seen in Alzheimer’s disease. Kadlec argues that research and public health interventions are urgently needed to prevent and treat COVID-19’s long-term effects, especially in children.
Kadlec also presents a new analysis of Chinese military vaccine research. Prior to the pandemic, the Chinese military was conducting research that may have been intended to protect against COVID-19’s effects on the brain, according to the report. This research may have been conducted purely as a public health measure. But Chinese military strategists have also expressed interest in the brain as a new combat domain and created a military medical specialty devoted to brain science. And China appears to have suppressed early information on COVID-19’s impact on the brain and cognition. Taken together, the findings raise concerns about whether the People’s Republic of China is abiding by the letter and spirit of the Biological Weapons Convention.
“The report finds no evidence that the virus was intentionally released,” according to a foreword by Laine and Scowcroft Institute Director Andrew Natsios. But “the report’s findings are enough to justify placing a much greater priority on intelligence efforts aimed at possible Chinese [biological weapons] activities.”
“The proliferation of high-containment laboratories and gain-of-function research may be more dangerous than nuclear proliferation: they represent a viral time bomb waiting to explode across the entire globe,” Natsios said. He added, “policymakers must ask whether ‘risky research’ with extremely dangerous pathogens provide scientific benefits that exceed the extraordinary potential cost.”
Before his work on COVID-19 origins, Kadlec served as assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He held this position from 2017 to 2021, and he played a key role in the United States’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including helping to conceive and launch Operation Warp Speed during the first Trump Administration. Across a 41-year career in public service, he held senior staff roles on the Homeland Security Council, at the Department of Defense, and in the U.S. Senate.
Kadlec graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy and spent more than two decades as a military physician, including combat deployments during Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has been named a senior fellow at the Scowcroft Institute.
Kadlec’s final report was published as a White Paper on the Scowcroft Institute web page and can be accessed at https://bush.tamu.edu/scowcroft/white-papers/.
“This report is a testament to the Bush School’s commitment to furthering knowledge on high-interest international issues through intensive research,” Sherman said. “It also underscores the school’s foundation of public service — to the American people and our nation’s security.”
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