9 ms·

It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/articl

by harryf 5y ago

It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... I can’t find sources for this right now but apparently Dr Anthony Fauci played a key role in getting the ban lifted. He’s also the head of the NIAID ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci ) which (apparently) is the ultimate source for all funding on gain of function research. So the lead guy we’ve been listening to (and still are) for scientific advice on this pandemic is entangled in a massive conflict of interest. Edit: I assume this is getting down-voted either because is sounds like conspiracy theory or just everyone has already heard it and it's not news. Fauci has already admitted having been involved in funding Wuhan - https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/fauci-admits-nih-funding-of-wuhan-lab-denies-gain-of-function/ https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/fauci-admits-nih-funding-of-wu... - that on it's own should not have been something he first admitted to in May 2021, while holding such a responsible position. Looking for more sources right now... Edit 2: In this article from December 2011 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-flu-virus-risk-worth-taking/2011/12/30/gIQAM9sNRP_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-flu-virus-risk-wor... - you have Fauci making the case for creating viruses in a lab; > "Given these uncertainties, important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory." It doesn't explicitly mention gain of function but - while raising the concerns, it's arguing for research which would include gain of function. Meanwhile listening to this panel discussion which included Fauci from Nov 2017 - https://www.c-span.org/video/?437187-1/johns-hopkins-forum-explores-pandemic-preparedness-response https://www.c-span.org/video/?437187-1/johns-hopkins-forum-e... ... again he's arguing for more aggressive types of research

epitactic 5y ago
> It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... The ban was actually lifted by the Obama administration, _11 days prior_ to Trump taking office. Source: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2017/01/09/recommended-policy-guidance-potential-pandemic-pathogen-care-and-oversight https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2017/01/09/recomme... JANUARY 9, 2017 AT 9:06 Recommended Policy Guidance for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight "Adoption of these recommendations will satisfy the requirements for lifting the current moratorium on certain life sciences research that could enhance a pathogen’s virulence and/or transmissibility to produce a potential pandemic pathogen (an enhanced PPP)."
arrosenberg 5y ago
You are getting downvoted because it's muckraking. There is nothing shady about NIAID giving a (verrrry small for this type of research) grant to a foreign research lab, which is doing research about a topic of interest. That's how you ensure the U.S. government gets a copy of the results.
- ricksunny 5y ago
  Since when has muckraking taken a pejorative meaning - especially one that would justify somebody’s downvote. The early 20th century muckrakers enabled much-needed and widespread reform.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  There is a lot of evidence that Fauci had quite a bit of conflict of interest, and knew about the gain of function research long before he denied it to Rand Paul in May. It's not muckraking. There is heavy smoke, and people denying the existence of fire while trying to get people to stop looking for it.
- harryf 5y ago
  I'm not saying it's shady to provide that funding. What I'm saying is it demonstrates conflict of interest. Last year in May 5 2020 Fauci dismissed the idea that the virus came from a lab that his own organisation was providing funds to - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronavirus-source-dismissal/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronav... Whether or not anything shady was happening, the conflict of interest is clear.
  - arrosenberg 5y ago
    It's not a conflict of interest because Dr. Fauci wasn't gaining anything. The agency he is head of is specifically interested in infectious disease and has a large budget for grants. $120K per year pays for a couple plate of genetic samples and tech time to run them. Maybe in China you can run a few more for that cost, I don't know. As head of that agency, it's also his job to share his professional opinion with the public. For this, his reward is a public servant's salary. Seriously, what's he getting here for his supposed "deception"?
pfisch 5y ago
So it sounds like Fauci is saying they didn't fund gain of function research in the Wuhan lab. If they did doesn't that really mean Trump is either more responsible for Covid or equally as responsible as China? Trump allowed the ban to be lifted after the Obama whitehouse explicitly shut down this kind of research. Fauci just worked for Trump. It was ultimately on Trump, not an employee of his.
- whydoibother 5y ago
  No no, you see, responsibility goes to the top, unless it lands on your tribe. Then it only goes to the nearest opposing tribe.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> So the lead guy we’ve been listening to (and still are) for scientific advice on this pandemic is entangled in a massive conflict of interest. How does any role he might (or might not have) played in GOF research create a conflict of interest in terms of his advice about the pandemic?
- jtbayly 5y ago
  Because you can't trust him. Full stop. That's the problem with conflicts of interest. And to get more particular, the reason you can't trust his advice about the pandemic is because you can't trust him to give advice that would be based on or would reveal information related to the conflict of interest. Pretending as if that's impossible is silly. It's obvious it could happen, whether it did or not.
- harryf 5y ago
  Last year in May 5 2020 Fauci dismissed the idea that the virus came from a lab that his own organisation was providing funds to - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronavirus-source-dismissal/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronav... The conflict of interest is: was this statement actually what he believed to be true at the time, or was it to draw attention away from the Wuhan lab, so there wouldn't be ugly questions about why his organisation provided funding to it? To me it seems like the right thing for Fauci to have done at the time was draw attention to the potential conflict of interest but that admission only became public last month - https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/fauci-admits-nih-funding-of-wuhan-lab-denies-gain-of-function/ https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/fauci-admits-nih-funding-of-wu...
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    You write this as if NIH is a privately run foundation with Fauci at the head. He's not even head of the NIH, and while I have no doubt that he was directly involved in decisions to fund research at the Wuhan lab, this is a government agency, which as we're told over and over (when it's convenient to say so) means layers upon layers of bureaucracy and red tape , particularly when handing out money. Is it your position that he was able to run it as some personal fiefdom? Suppose that Fauci had known for a fact in May 2020 that SARS-COV-2 originated in that lab. How would that have changed the advice he (attempted to) offer regarding public health and safety?
lamontcg 5y ago
They indirectly gave WIV funding to support research into Pig SARS -- Swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV). There is exactly fuckoff zero evidence that funding wound up supporting gain of function research for anything. And giving China money to study diseases in pigs happening in China that are closely related to a human disease that we were worried about it (or maybe a close relative) spilling over into humans only makes sense.
- deugo 5y ago
  > There is exactly fuckoff zero evidence that funding wound up supporting gain of function research for anything. From the Fauci e-mails: People Fauci directly worked with seemed surprised and shocked to learn otherwise, and could not even instantly say if their funding had made it abroad. There are papers resulting from GoF research of concern at the WIV. There are grant proposals, which specify the exact modifications they will do to Bat SARS to increase infectivity on mice with humanized lungs. How can you speak so certain, if you are unaware of this? > And giving China money to study diseases in pigs happening in China that are closely related to a human disease that we were worried about it (or maybe a close relative) spilling over into humans only makes sense. It makes sense, but you'll see through studying the records that it was the cover for military funding. What was the Defense Threat Reduction Agency funding doing at the WIV where military researchers shared floors with civilian researchers working on the same animals? Making sense to research spillover?
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    - There was GOF research done on US soil at UNC Chapel Hill which collaborated with WIV. They took a SARS-CoV-1 backbone and splied in a surface protein from another coronavirus and ran it through mice to produce a mouse coronavirus. - There's no papers out of WIV indicating GOF research > but you'll see through studying the records that it was the cover for military funding. You're offering a blatant conspiracy theory now with no substantiation. The funding to WIV had nothing to do with GoF and there's no evidence of anything else. But it HAD to be GoF research. Circular, evidence-free logic.
mkhpalm 5y ago
> It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump... I'm not sure that claim aligns with historical NIH funding for gain of function research: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9819304 https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9819304
austhrow743 5y ago
Article gave me the impression that the Obama ban wasn't real. It included an "unless its important" exception and everyone just kept on doing it anyway. >Inside the NIH, which funded such research, the P3CO framework was largely met with shrugs and eye rolls, said a longtime agency official: “If you ban gain-of-function research, you ban all of virology.” He added, “Ever since the moratorium, everyone’s gone wink-wink and just done gain-of-function research anyway.”
- texasbigdata 5y ago
  Wink wink, you/they should go to jail upon blatantly disregarding something meant to protect us.
- loveistheanswer 5y ago
  >“If you ban gain-of-function research, you ban all of virology.” This is an absurd strawman. If it were true, why have there been so many virologists calling GoF unethical and seeking to prohibit it?
tomp 5y ago
Fauci in2017: > Fauci said the Trump administration will not only be challenged by ongoing global health threats such as influenza and HIV, but also a surprise disease outbreak. https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20170111/fauci-no-doubt-trump-will-face-surprise-infectious-disease-outbreak https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20170111/fauc... https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/29/fact-check-2017-anthony-fauci-warned-potential-outbreak/5494601002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/29/fact...
- AstralStorm 5y ago
  That it was incidentally self inflicted makes it so much more delicious drama. (Even if accidental.)
- cedilla 5y ago
  Well, of course. Disease outbreaks happen all the time. Just from the top of my head I remember tropical fevers (like Zika and yellow fever), Ebola, Corona viruses (such as MERS and SARS), zoonotic flues outbreaks that threatened to become a pandemic. This happens every other year. Fauci said "thing that happens every 1-2 years likely to happen during a 4-8 year period".
unishark 5y ago
Your May 2021 story includes the following quotes: > But Fauci emphatically denied that the money went toward so-called “gain of function” research, which he described as “taking a virus that could infect humans and making it either more transmissible and/or pathogenic for humans.” > “That categorically was not done,” he insisted. > Earlier in the hearing, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) that researchers at the Wuhan lab “were not approved by NIH for doing “gain of function research” before adding “we are, of course, not aware of other sources of funds or other activities they might have undertaken outside of what our approved grant allowed.” Are you saying these are still lies? It doesn't really matter if the NIH funded some other kind of research on coronaviruses if that research was not risky. Presumably the question is whether gain of function research performed there created covid-19. And the grant, which I assume is public record, is claimed not to be for that. Maybe there's more to the story, but seems like guilt-by-association at this point. If Wuhan used the funding for some research it was not supposed to be used for, then it might just as well have been funding for any other disease anyway.
shlant 5y ago
> I assume this is getting down-voted either because is sounds like conspiracy theory I would imagine that is true and it's because how you are presenting it is absolutely conspiratorial. You seem to be very adamant about involving Fauci with weak evidence which is the MO for almost all other biased conspiracy theorists in regards to this topic. Fauci seems to be a scapegoat for many peoples frustrations with very little rational reasoning - similar to Soros and BLM. Conspiracy theorists rarely talk about the repercussions of their perspectives or tangible calls to action and instead get obsessed with who to blame and nefarious-by-default tangential financial associations. Maybe if you addressed some of the evidence in the article or even the content of the comment you are replying to then your comment wouldn't be perceived in the same light.
nkrisc 5y ago
In retrospect, and knowing what we know now, do you think his advice and direction has been inadequate?
- geoduck14 5y ago
  >In retrospect, and knowing what we know now, do you think his advice and direction has been inadequate? No
freeflight 5y ago
> It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump It was never really "banned", there was a moratorium on such research after a string of safety lapses in US laboratories, moratorium's are always only of a temporary nature [0]. The often mentioned "GoF research" involving bats with US participation and funding, didn't even fall under that moratorium [1]. > you have Fauci making the case for creating viruses in a lab Of course he would make that case, because that's a useful tool to have in research. No offense, but trying to make this out as something so binary and only bad, reminds me a lot about the more radical and clueless takes on GMO that see "All GMO as bad". [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/10/17/357010964/u-s-to-temporarily-halt-funding-for-controversial-virus-research https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/10/17/3570109... [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18787 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18787
bryanwb 5y ago
_IF_ Covid-19 is the result of a lab leak on research that Fauci funded and promoted AND he colluded w/ a group of scientists to hide this fact, it literally is the greatest conspiracy of our generation. It isn't a big if. The recently released e-mails support this line of reasoning but don't confirm it. To argue the opposite of this, you should have better than ad hominem attacks.
lettergram 5y ago
Supposedly, Fauci only got an approval from a low level Trump administration official. IMO it’s not clear anyone even approved the research. I wouldn’t be surprised if the NIH just pulled a fast one. There’s also no evidence Fauci never mentioned the research to anyone near the beginning of the pandemic. Several Trump officials came out and said they were never told.
bryanwb 5y ago
Upvoting because you are right. All roads of investigation lead to Fauci. Many seem in denial about this.
cindarin 5y ago
I appreciate that you provided sources and yet the conversation seems to be focused on just your baseless conjecture.
jackfoxy 5y ago
> gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump There's no need to politicize the discussion. 1) There's no evidence any recent president or cabinet member had a clue, or if they did have a clue it was off their radar anyway. 2) All this gain of function research was administered either in academic circles or at lower governmental circles where politicians are not involved. See for yourself. Fauci's own email from January 2020 referenced research already published in 2015. (That's during Obama's gain of function research ban, for those of you keeping score at home). Start at 5:00 into the referenced video. EDIT: The paper was published after the ban was initiated. The research began before the ban, but apparently continued. The whole video is well worth watching and walks trough Fauci's immediate responses as soon as it became apparent this is the real deal, and still 6 FULL WEEKS before the WHO declared a pandemic. A whole lot of CYA going on here. Fauci knew enough to reference this paper in the wee hours of the morning after a very busy day and before another hectic day he was headed for. Think he was familiar with the topic? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNxoVFZwMYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNxoVFZwMYw

by harryf 5y ago

epitactic 5y ago

> It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... The ban was actually lifted by the Obama administration, _11 days prior_ to Trump taking office. Source: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2017/01/09/recommended-policy-guidance-potential-pandemic-pathogen-care-and-oversight https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2017/01/09/recomme... JANUARY 9, 2017 AT 9:06 Recommended Policy Guidance for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight "Adoption of these recommendations will satisfy the requirements for lifting the current moratorium on certain life sciences research that could enhance a pathogen’s virulence and/or transmissibility to produce a potential pandemic pathogen (an enhanced PPP)."

arrosenberg 5y ago

You are getting downvoted because it's muckraking. There is nothing shady about NIAID giving a (verrrry small for this type of research) grant to a foreign research lab, which is doing research about a topic of interest. That's how you ensure the U.S. government gets a copy of the results.

ricksunny 5y ago
Since when has muckraking taken a pejorative meaning - especially one that would justify somebody’s downvote. The early 20th century muckrakers enabled much-needed and widespread reform.
LegitShady 5y ago
There is a lot of evidence that Fauci had quite a bit of conflict of interest, and knew about the gain of function research long before he denied it to Rand Paul in May. It's not muckraking. There is heavy smoke, and people denying the existence of fire while trying to get people to stop looking for it.
harryf 5y ago
I'm not saying it's shady to provide that funding. What I'm saying is it demonstrates conflict of interest. Last year in May 5 2020 Fauci dismissed the idea that the virus came from a lab that his own organisation was providing funds to - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronavirus-source-dismissal/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronav... Whether or not anything shady was happening, the conflict of interest is clear.
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  It's not a conflict of interest because Dr. Fauci wasn't gaining anything. The agency he is head of is specifically interested in infectious disease and has a large budget for grants. $120K per year pays for a couple plate of genetic samples and tech time to run them. Maybe in China you can run a few more for that cost, I don't know. As head of that agency, it's also his job to share his professional opinion with the public. For this, his reward is a public servant's salary. Seriously, what's he getting here for his supposed "deception"?

pfisch 5y ago

So it sounds like Fauci is saying they didn't fund gain of function research in the Wuhan lab. If they did doesn't that really mean Trump is either more responsible for Covid or equally as responsible as China? Trump allowed the ban to be lifted after the Obama whitehouse explicitly shut down this kind of research. Fauci just worked for Trump. It was ultimately on Trump, not an employee of his.

whydoibother 5y ago
No no, you see, responsibility goes to the top, unless it lands on your tribe. Then it only goes to the nearest opposing tribe.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

> So the lead guy we’ve been listening to (and still are) for scientific advice on this pandemic is entangled in a massive conflict of interest. How does any role he might (or might not have) played in GOF research create a conflict of interest in terms of his advice about the pandemic?

jtbayly 5y ago
Because you can't trust him. Full stop. That's the problem with conflicts of interest. And to get more particular, the reason you can't trust his advice about the pandemic is because you can't trust him to give advice that would be based on or would reveal information related to the conflict of interest. Pretending as if that's impossible is silly. It's obvious it could happen, whether it did or not.
harryf 5y ago
Last year in May 5 2020 Fauci dismissed the idea that the virus came from a lab that his own organisation was providing funds to - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronavirus-source-dismissal/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronav... The conflict of interest is: was this statement actually what he believed to be true at the time, or was it to draw attention away from the Wuhan lab, so there wouldn't be ugly questions about why his organisation provided funding to it? To me it seems like the right thing for Fauci to have done at the time was draw attention to the potential conflict of interest but that admission only became public last month - https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/fauci-admits-nih-funding-of-wuhan-lab-denies-gain-of-function/ https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/fauci-admits-nih-funding-of-wu...
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  You write this as if NIH is a privately run foundation with Fauci at the head. He's not even head of the NIH, and while I have no doubt that he was directly involved in decisions to fund research at the Wuhan lab, this is a government agency, which as we're told over and over (when it's convenient to say so) means layers upon layers of bureaucracy and red tape , particularly when handing out money. Is it your position that he was able to run it as some personal fiefdom? Suppose that Fauci had known for a fact in May 2020 that SARS-COV-2 originated in that lab. How would that have changed the advice he (attempted to) offer regarding public health and safety?

lamontcg 5y ago

They indirectly gave WIV funding to support research into Pig SARS -- Swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV). There is exactly fuckoff zero evidence that funding wound up supporting gain of function research for anything. And giving China money to study diseases in pigs happening in China that are closely related to a human disease that we were worried about it (or maybe a close relative) spilling over into humans only makes sense.

deugo 5y ago
> There is exactly fuckoff zero evidence that funding wound up supporting gain of function research for anything. From the Fauci e-mails: People Fauci directly worked with seemed surprised and shocked to learn otherwise, and could not even instantly say if their funding had made it abroad. There are papers resulting from GoF research of concern at the WIV. There are grant proposals, which specify the exact modifications they will do to Bat SARS to increase infectivity on mice with humanized lungs. How can you speak so certain, if you are unaware of this? > And giving China money to study diseases in pigs happening in China that are closely related to a human disease that we were worried about it (or maybe a close relative) spilling over into humans only makes sense. It makes sense, but you'll see through studying the records that it was the cover for military funding. What was the Defense Threat Reduction Agency funding doing at the WIV where military researchers shared floors with civilian researchers working on the same animals? Making sense to research spillover?
- lamontcg 5y ago
  - There was GOF research done on US soil at UNC Chapel Hill which collaborated with WIV. They took a SARS-CoV-1 backbone and splied in a surface protein from another coronavirus and ran it through mice to produce a mouse coronavirus. - There's no papers out of WIV indicating GOF research > but you'll see through studying the records that it was the cover for military funding. You're offering a blatant conspiracy theory now with no substantiation. The funding to WIV had nothing to do with GoF and there's no evidence of anything else. But it HAD to be GoF research. Circular, evidence-free logic.

mkhpalm 5y ago

> It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump... I'm not sure that claim aligns with historical NIH funding for gain of function research: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9819304 https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9819304

austhrow743 5y ago

Article gave me the impression that the Obama ban wasn't real. It included an "unless its important" exception and everyone just kept on doing it anyway. >Inside the NIH, which funded such research, the P3CO framework was largely met with shrugs and eye rolls, said a longtime agency official: “If you ban gain-of-function research, you ban all of virology.” He added, “Ever since the moratorium, everyone’s gone wink-wink and just done gain-of-function research anyway.”

texasbigdata 5y ago
Wink wink, you/they should go to jail upon blatantly disregarding something meant to protect us.
loveistheanswer 5y ago
>“If you ban gain-of-function research, you ban all of virology.” This is an absurd strawman. If it were true, why have there been so many virologists calling GoF unethical and seeking to prohibit it?

tomp 5y ago

Fauci in2017: > Fauci said the Trump administration will not only be challenged by ongoing global health threats such as influenza and HIV, but also a surprise disease outbreak. https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20170111/fauci-no-doubt-trump-will-face-surprise-infectious-disease-outbreak https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20170111/fauc... https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/29/fact-check-2017-anthony-fauci-warned-potential-outbreak/5494601002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/29/fact...

AstralStorm 5y ago
That it was incidentally self inflicted makes it so much more delicious drama. (Even if accidental.)
cedilla 5y ago
Well, of course. Disease outbreaks happen all the time. Just from the top of my head I remember tropical fevers (like Zika and yellow fever), Ebola, Corona viruses (such as MERS and SARS), zoonotic flues outbreaks that threatened to become a pandemic. This happens every other year. Fauci said "thing that happens every 1-2 years likely to happen during a 4-8 year period".

unishark 5y ago

Your May 2021 story includes the following quotes: > But Fauci emphatically denied that the money went toward so-called “gain of function” research, which he described as “taking a virus that could infect humans and making it either more transmissible and/or pathogenic for humans.” > “That categorically was not done,” he insisted. > Earlier in the hearing, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) that researchers at the Wuhan lab “were not approved by NIH for doing “gain of function research” before adding “we are, of course, not aware of other sources of funds or other activities they might have undertaken outside of what our approved grant allowed.” Are you saying these are still lies? It doesn't really matter if the NIH funded some other kind of research on coronaviruses if that research was not risky. Presumably the question is whether gain of function research performed there created covid-19. And the grant, which I assume is public record, is claimed not to be for that. Maybe there's more to the story, but seems like guilt-by-association at this point. If Wuhan used the funding for some research it was not supposed to be used for, then it might just as well have been funding for any other disease anyway.

shlant 5y ago

> I assume this is getting down-voted either because is sounds like conspiracy theory I would imagine that is true and it's because how you are presenting it is absolutely conspiratorial. You seem to be very adamant about involving Fauci with weak evidence which is the MO for almost all other biased conspiracy theorists in regards to this topic. Fauci seems to be a scapegoat for many peoples frustrations with very little rational reasoning - similar to Soros and BLM. Conspiracy theorists rarely talk about the repercussions of their perspectives or tangible calls to action and instead get obsessed with who to blame and nefarious-by-default tangential financial associations. Maybe if you addressed some of the evidence in the article or even the content of the comment you are replying to then your comment wouldn't be perceived in the same light.

nkrisc 5y ago

In retrospect, and knowing what we know now, do you think his advice and direction has been inadequate?

geoduck14 5y ago
>In retrospect, and knowing what we know now, do you think his advice and direction has been inadequate? No

freeflight 5y ago

> It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump It was never really "banned", there was a moratorium on such research after a string of safety lapses in US laboratories, moratorium's are always only of a temporary nature [0]. The often mentioned "GoF research" involving bats with US participation and funding, didn't even fall under that moratorium [1]. > you have Fauci making the case for creating viruses in a lab Of course he would make that case, because that's a useful tool to have in research. No offense, but trying to make this out as something so binary and only bad, reminds me a lot about the more radical and clueless takes on GMO that see "All GMO as bad". [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/10/17/357010964/u-s-to-temporarily-halt-funding-for-controversial-virus-research https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/10/17/3570109... [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18787 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18787

bryanwb 5y ago

_IF_ Covid-19 is the result of a lab leak on research that Fauci funded and promoted AND he colluded w/ a group of scientists to hide this fact, it literally is the greatest conspiracy of our generation. It isn't a big if. The recently released e-mails support this line of reasoning but don't confirm it. To argue the opposite of this, you should have better than ad hominem attacks.

lettergram 5y ago

Supposedly, Fauci only got an approval from a low level Trump administration official. IMO it’s not clear anyone even approved the research. I wouldn’t be surprised if the NIH just pulled a fast one. There’s also no evidence Fauci never mentioned the research to anyone near the beginning of the pandemic. Several Trump officials came out and said they were never told.

bryanwb 5y ago

Upvoting because you are right. All roads of investigation lead to Fauci. Many seem in denial about this.

cindarin 5y ago

I appreciate that you provided sources and yet the conversation seems to be focused on just your baseless conjecture.

jackfoxy 5y ago

> gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump There's no need to politicize the discussion. 1) There's no evidence any recent president or cabinet member had a clue, or if they did have a clue it was off their radar anyway. 2) All this gain of function research was administered either in academic circles or at lower governmental circles where politicians are not involved. See for yourself. Fauci's own email from January 2020 referenced research already published in 2015. (That's during Obama's gain of function research ban, for those of you keeping score at home). Start at 5:00 into the referenced video. EDIT: The paper was published after the ban was initiated. The research began before the ban, but apparently continued. The whole video is well worth watching and walks trough Fauci's immediate responses as soon as it became apparent this is the real deal, and still 6 FULL WEEKS before the WHO declared a pandemic. A whole lot of CYA going on here. Fauci knew enough to reference this paper in the wee hours of the morning after a very busy day and before another hectic day he was headed for. Think he was familiar with the topic? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNxoVFZwMYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNxoVFZwMYw