A medical worker works in a mobile lab for COVID-19 nucleic acid testing in Wuchang District of Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Aug. 5, 2021. (Photo by Wu Zhizun/Xinhua)

"Details are deficient, scientific analysis contentious and expert voices missing" in Australian journalist Sharri Markson's thesis, which establishes a "crime scene" around the Wuhan Institute of Virology in central China.

Australian journalist Sharri Markson's book, which sought to play up a Wuhan lab leak theory, was based on contentious scientific analysis, The Guardian has reported.

In an article published Friday, Hamish McDonald, the newspaper's China correspondent who once worked for the Sydney Morning Herald, dismissed the statements in Markson's book, titled "What Really Happened in Wuhan," as potentially "something more sinister" than the coronavirus itself.

McDonald argued that Markson's arguments in her new book, built on reporting for News Corp papers and Sky television, and piled up by remarks from Hawkish U.S. politicians such as Mike Pompeo and so-called anti-China "insiders," did not stack up.

"Details are deficient, scientific analysis contentious and expert voices missing" in Markson's thesis, which establishes a "crime scene" around the Wuhan Institute of Virology in central China, "with the murder weapon a virus called SARS-CoV-2," McDonald said.