3 ms·

Correction to 4: Biosecurity incidents are common, there were about 17 in the last decade [0]. Just SARS-CoV-1 leaked from the lab 4 times [1]. [0]: https://en

• raphlinus 5y ago
  This is fair! I was only really counting events with large numbers of infections (so the 1977 flu and maybe one or two others), but biosecurity incidents themselves are, as you say, common, and many prominent people in the field (Marc Lipsitch particularly comes to mind) have been calling for better biosecurity - and strict limitations on gain of function research - for some time.
  • jMyles 5y ago
    Although he has been consistently wrong on interventions during this pandemic, I have enormous respect for Marc Lipsitch; I wish he were in a position of decision-making on dispersal of NIH funds wrt pathogen research. And for that matter, the rest of CambridgeWG has also had a consistent record of calling for investigation into lab-leak incidents at WIV for several years, including from the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Hats off to all of them.
  • logifail 5y ago
    > biosecurity incidents themselves are, as you say, common Let's generalise that a touch to defang it, incidents in scientific laboratories are common. #1: I worked in a university science lab for four years. One of my colleagues blew up a fume cupboard* and, since he was deafened and had minor wounds from flying glass shards, I - personally - called the emergency services. * don't apply a heat gun to stuff that looks like ice but might not be.... I met the fire service and ambulance at the front door to the department, as requested, and led them up to our laboratory, accompanied by bemused looks from other students and staff. The lead guy from the fire service asked me (I'm not kidding) "is there anything dangerous in your lab?" ... I tried hard not to giggle (the adrenaline had taken over by that point), I told him it was a Chemistry lab and asked if he had anything specific in mind? We stored dangerous stuff alphabetically, and as I recall, the fume cupboard that blew up was the second one along, so had everything dangerous from (approximately) F to L. #2: After they'd carted my colleague off to hospital, a professor turned up and asked who had called the emergency services. I fessed up. He gave me a dressing down and told me "the press will hear about this!". I was dumbfounded. My colleague was in the back of an ambulance on the way to hospital covered in glass shards and the prof was worried about us getting in the papers?
• newacct583 5y ago
  "Biosecurity incidents" aren't the same thing as a global pandemic, though. We're being asked to believe that Wuhan was doing secret GoF research, and that they had a security incident, and that this escaped detection until spreading in the general population, and that no one involved so far has blabbed about it. Any of those in isolation would be pretty unlikely. In combination they really don't say much at all. The one thing saving the conspiracists so far is the Journal story of two weeks ago that western intelligence agencies were aware of an outbreak of something among lab staff at more or less exactly the right moment to explain a covid origin. That's the one thing that's hard to explain as a coincidence. And even then... meh. I give it even odds at best. Again, if this was really happening you don't think some enterprising PhD would have tried to leverage a tenure position at Stanford or something in exchange for testimony? The incentives to tell the world about this are huge.