US intelligence is now investigating over 120 taxpayer-funded biolabs overseas, including 40 in Ukraine — a story long dismissed as conspiracy is now official.

• Tulsi Gabbard has launched a probe into the labs to identify locations, pathogens, and the research being done.
• Putting labs overseas lets the US avoid oversight — Congress cannot demand records the way it could for domestic labs.
• Biological weapons are banned by treaty, but there is no enforcement mechanism, so countries can quietly develop them.
• Even Senate hearings this week showed lawmakers cannot get straight answers from the intelligence community at home, let alone abroad.
• Russia claims it found COVID vaccine samples and anthrax in captured Ukrainian labs; some journalists inside Ukraine report seeing the same.

Outlook: The investigation will likely move slowly and hit roadblocks, but genetic tools now make it harder for any future lab-made outbreak to be passed off as natural.