Yan Li-meng

Origins of SARS-CoV-2 Preprint papers Between September 2020 and March 2021, Yan authored a series of four preprint research papers, wherein she argued that SARS-CoV-2 did not emerge naturally in a "spillover from animals," but rather was produced in a laboratory. However, other scientists disputed the validity of the papers, pointing to poor methods, undisclosed funding from politically-motivated sources, the use of pseudonyms for the papers' co-authors, and the papers having never been submitted to a journal for review. The papers were described by virologists as "non-scientific," "junk science," and written to spread "political propaganda."

Reviewers for MIT Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 , which seeks out preprint papers and reviews them in an attempt to reduce the spread of false or misleading scientific news, analyzed Yan's study and issued the following statement:

Given the far-reaching implications of the "Yan Report," RR:C19 sought out peer reviews from world-renowned experts in virology, molecular biology, structural biology, computational biology, vaccine development, and medicine. Collectively, reviewers have debunked the authors' claims that: (1) bat coronaviruses ZC45 or ZXC21 were used as a background strain to engineer SARS-CoV-2, (2) the presence of restriction sites flanking the suggest prior screening for a virus targeting the human receptor, and (3) the furin-like cleavage site is unnatural and provides evidence of engineering. In all three cases, the reviewers provide counter-arguments based on peer-reviewed literature and long-established foundational knowledge that directly refute the claims put forth by Yan et al. There was a general consensus that the study's claims were better explained by potential political motivations rather than scientific integrity. The peer reviewers arrived at these common opinions independently, further strengthening the credibility of the peer reviews.

Political links

Yan's preprint was promoted by the Rule of Law Society, a political organisation affiliated with Steve Bannon, former Trump strategist, and Guo Wengui, an expatriate Chinese billionaire, in November 2020. The organisation's stated intent was to investigate "Chinese corruption and financially support victims of the regime." The Rule of Law Society had not previously published scientific or medical research. During a 2025 interview Bannon attributed the success of messaging on the pandemic to her saying, "The whole arc of the story and the counternarrative that we put out about Covid, a lot of it was because of Dr. Yan."

Media coverage In an 80-minute show in January 2020, YouTube host Wang Dinggang, also known as "Lu De", said he heard from an unnamed whistleblower who told him China was not being transparent about the outbreak in Wuhan. and the Daily Mail. Yan claimed in interviews that she became aware of person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 in late December 2019, and that she attempted to communicate the risks to her superiors in late December 2019 or early January 2020.

An official statement issued by HKU on 11 July 2020 confirmed that Yan was formerly a post-doctoral researcher at the institution, but disputed the accuracy of other elements of her account, adding that "Dr. Yan never conducted any research on human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus at HKU", and that many of her claims had no scientific basis.

Since July 2020 Dr. Yan's family say that they have not spoken to her. In 2021 Yan's husband, Dr. Ranawaka Perera a Sri Lankan national, accepted a post at the University of Pennsylvania so that he could remain in the United States to seek to reconnect with her. A 2025 article in The New York Times described efforts by Yan's husband and parents to contact and reconcile with her as well as Yan's continued assertions in interviews that this behavior on the part of her family is coerced by the government of China.