Foreign Affairs

Mother Of Woman Killed In Russian Lab Incident Speaks Out. She Has Doubts About Her Daughter’s Cause Of Death

lab work photo: Wikimedia Commons/Marta D https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Behind_the_lab_work.jpg

Reports circulated across Russian social media platforms that lab technician Darya Shipilova broke a test tube while handling a strain of the pneumonic plague — however those closest to the now-deceased researcher spoke out challenging these claims.

In an in-depth report published by an independent Russian media outlet on Tuesday, Shipilova’s mother, colleagues, and former classmates all expressed significant doubts about the “broken test-tube” narrative spreading through the media and Telegram, alleging that a lab accident killed the scientist and may have started a regional plague. Lyudi Baikala (LB) published the story — with a headline translating to “Is it really the plague?!” in English — which explored Russian media blackouts and the competing narratives surrounding Shipilova’s death.

On Monday, Darya Shipilova’s 64-year-old mother Svetlana Shipilova was quarantined at an Irkutsk hospital and was tested and swabbed every day, the outlet reported.

“They’re checking for something, looking for something. Maybe they’re afraid of some other infection, so we don’t catch COVID,” the elder Shipilova told Glubina, another Russian publication.

The younger Shipilova’s neighbors spread a false rumor that her mother “couldn’t bear the loss of her daughter and died of a heart attack,” the outlet reported.

However, at the time of the article’s publication, LB reported that the mother was alive and well all-be-it quarantined in a local hospital with other family members and had the opportunity to talk with her on the record about her daughter’s death.

The mother says she’s “really struggling” and doesn’t want to “read nasty things about her child,” LB reported. At the time of the article’s publication, Darya Shipilova had still not been buried, nor had there been confirmation for a funeral.

“Who’s going to bury her if we’re sitting here in prison?” Shipilova’s mother told the outlet.

Svetlana Shipilova told LB that she still hadn’t received the official death certificate for her daughter.

“I’m waiting for it to be official. Not just in the media, but from Rospotrebnadzor,” she added, referring to Russia’s national public health agency. “It has to be an official document.”

“I know the truth. I’m fending off stupid friends who believed all this. Smart ones, of course, didn’t,” the elder Shipilova told the outlet.

The late lab technician’s mother and friends also denied allegations that she broke a vial holding a lethal virus while working at the Anti-Plague Institute Research Lab in Siberia, the article said.

“Not all doctors even realize that a test tube is unbreakable. Even if you throw it against a wall. Only an amateur could say that. Even hypothetically, it’s simply impossible to spill or break because they’re so protected,” Darya Shipilova’s mother told the outlet.

The deceased researcher’s friends also do not believe she could have broken the test tube, according to the article.

“They’ve smeared a woman without properly investigating,” an unnamed friend and classmate of Shipilova’s told LB. “It’s impossible to connect this whole story to [her]; it’s as if they’re talking about someone else. Knowing how hardworking and responsible she was, it just doesn’t add up for me.”

An anonymous colleague of Shipilova’s who works at the Anti-Plague Institute expressed a similar sentiment against the theory that she broke a test tube in the lab, according to the report. The staff at the Siberian laboratory had been tested for three days straight, were found to be healthy and had been released from quarantine to return back to work.

“That doesn’t happen here. But even if she did, there’s an isolation room, isolated clothing,” the Institute employee told LB. “Nothing would happen at all.”

In an anonymous conversation, she repeatedly emphasized that “there’s still no final data” on the cause of her daughter’s death. “The investigation is still ongoing, and there are no results at all. The cause of death is still being determined. Everything will settle down in a week, when the results are ready.”

A Russian clinician also spoke with the outlet and gave their professional opinion on the situation, but also requested anonymity.

The clinician made note of two possibilities to LB: Either Shipilova did have some form of the plague but “it was contained and they decided not to talk about it publicly,” or Russian authorities and medical professionals are still “conducting an epidemiological and laboratory investigation,” and are afraid of “panic and liability.”

The doctor told LB they suspected that “some potentially significant epidemiological event” did indeed occur, supported by the internal investigation conducted and the isolation of a large number of employees.

However, final laboratory confirmation from testing the deceased woman could take up to ten days, the outlet reported.

“It is impossible to definitively identify the pathogen within one day of the autopsy,” the clinician told LB.

“A young employee of the Anti-Plague Institute suddenly falls ill with a severe infection and dies quickly, after which the hospital is closed, and the institute staff and their relatives are quarantined. An epidemiological investigation is then conducted. This doesn’t prove the plague, but it gives journalists sufficient grounds to investigate this theory,” the source told the outlet.