3 ms·

NIH corrects untruthful assertions about funding gain-of-function research

14 points by tomohawk 5y ago

bananabiscuit 5y ago
So the untruthful assertion that they corrected is that “the NIH had not funded gain-of-function research”, meaning that the correct assertion according to the NIH is that they had funded GoF research. Correct?
- dekhn 5y ago
  Are you a scientist?
GaryTang 5y ago
So does this suggest that not only was the virus created in a Wuhan Lab, it was also signed off by Fauci?
- jtmcmc 5y ago
  no it does not suggest either of those things
coronqueue 5y ago
"For comparison, today's human genome is 96% similar to our closest ancestor, the chimpanzee. Humans and chimpanzees are thought to have diverged approximately 6 million years ago." This is disingenuous. I can't fathom why this comparison was chosen, it is incredibly damaging to the credibility of the claims made in the letter. Opportunities for evolution occur once per generation. The lifespan of a human being is measured in decades. The lifespan of a virus and the number of mutations created in lungs is on an entirely different and much shorter timescale. Different organisms evolve at different rates, and this comparison seems misleading at best. Saying that humans took 6 million years to diverge by 4% would reasonably be followed by "and this virus could be expected to do it in X"... and that's a MUCH smaller number than 6 million years.
lenkite 5y ago
These posts are being repeatedly flagged/removed for some reason. The post mentioning that NIH scrubbed the gain-of-function definition from their website was also flagged and removed. https://twitter.com/JeremyRedfernFL/status/1451565600673828869 https://twitter.com/JeremyRedfernFL/status/14515656006738288... https://web.archive.org/web/20211019065407/https://www.nih.gov/news-events/gain-function-research-involving-potential-pandemic-pathogens https://web.archive.org/web/20211019065407/https://www.nih.g...

3 ms·

NIH corrects untruthful assertions about funding gain-of-function research

14 points by tomohawk 5y ago

bananabiscuit 5y ago
So the untruthful assertion that they corrected is that “the NIH had not funded gain-of-function research”, meaning that the correct assertion according to the NIH is that they had funded GoF research. Correct?
- dekhn 5y ago
  Are you a scientist?
GaryTang 5y ago
So does this suggest that not only was the virus created in a Wuhan Lab, it was also signed off by Fauci?
- jtmcmc 5y ago
  no it does not suggest either of those things
coronqueue 5y ago
"For comparison, today's human genome is 96% similar to our closest ancestor, the chimpanzee. Humans and chimpanzees are thought to have diverged approximately 6 million years ago." This is disingenuous. I can't fathom why this comparison was chosen, it is incredibly damaging to the credibility of the claims made in the letter. Opportunities for evolution occur once per generation. The lifespan of a human being is measured in decades. The lifespan of a virus and the number of mutations created in lungs is on an entirely different and much shorter timescale. Different organisms evolve at different rates, and this comparison seems misleading at best. Saying that humans took 6 million years to diverge by 4% would reasonably be followed by "and this virus could be expected to do it in X"... and that's a MUCH smaller number than 6 million years.
lenkite 5y ago
These posts are being repeatedly flagged/removed for some reason. The post mentioning that NIH scrubbed the gain-of-function definition from their website was also flagged and removed. https://twitter.com/JeremyRedfernFL/status/1451565600673828869 https://twitter.com/JeremyRedfernFL/status/14515656006738288... https://web.archive.org/web/20211019065407/https://www.nih.gov/news-events/gain-function-research-involving-potential-pandemic-pathogens https://web.archive.org/web/20211019065407/https://www.nih.g...