Peter Karim Ben Embarek is a Danish

food scientist Food science is the basic science and applied science of food; its scope starts at overlap with agricultural science and nutritional science and leads through the scientific aspects of food safety and food processing, informing the developmen ...

and former program manager at

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...

(WHO) specializing in

food safety Food safety (or food hygiene) is used as a scientific method/discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent food-borne illness. The occurrence of two or more cases of a similar illness resulting from t ...

and

zoonoses A zoonosis (; plural zoonoses) or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen (an infectious agent, such as a bacterium, virus, parasite or prion) that has jumped from a non-human (usually a vertebrate) to a human. ...

Early life and education

Ben Embarek graduated with a master of science in

food science Food science is the basic science and applied science of food; its scope starts at overlap with agricultural science and nutritional science and leads through the scientific aspects of food safety and food processing, informing the developm ...

and technology and a doctorate in food safety from the

Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University ( da, Kongelige Veterinær- og Landbohøjskole, abbr. KVL) was a veterinary and agricultural science university in Denmark. It was founded in 1856 and operated until 2007, when it became a part of t ...

in Copenhagen.

Career

Peter Ben Embarek joined the World Health Organization at its

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

headquarters in 2001. He worked at WHO's China Office and advised the Chinese government on food safety and nutrition issues. Between 2014 and 2017, he managed WHO's MERS-CoV virus Task Force and coordinated the investigation into the animal source of the virus. He is the WHO's top expert on zoonotic diseases. In 2020, he was appointed mission head of the 13 member team of the World Health Organization's investigation into the origins of COVID-19. On 9 February 2021, at the conclusion of his investigation, Ben Embarek said it was "extremely unlikely" that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan; Ben Embarak later noted that Chinese officials pressured him to include this phrase in the report. In a Danish documentary aired on August 12, 2021, Ben Embarak stated: "A lab employee infected in the field while collecting samples in a bat cave — such a scenario belongs both as a lab-leak hypothesis and as our first hypothesis of direct infection from bat to human. We’ve seen that hypothesis as a likely hypothesis".

Awards

Ben Embarek is a fellow of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology under the

International Union of Food Science and Technology The International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST) ( ) is the global scientific organization and voice for food science and technology representing more than 300,000 food scientists, engineers and technologists through its work in m ...

. He is also the recipient of the 2017 Scientific Spirit Award of the Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology.

Controversies

In 2022, Ben Embarek was fired from WHO for sexual misconduct after allegations received in 2015 and 2017. Ben Embarek said there was still an “ongoing procedure” and that he had challenged the WHO sanction, which was “not final”. He added an incident in 2017 was amicably settled. Ben Embarek said he was unaware of any other complaints and denied harassment.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ben Embarek, Peter Danish scientists World Health Organization officials Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic Living people Year of birth missing (living people)