7 ms·

No it's not, and yes it is. That these laboratories were (and still are?) doing gain of function research - deliberately creating new variants of viruses to stu

No it's not, and yes it is. That these laboratories were (and still are?) doing gain of function research - deliberately creating new variants of viruses to study them - has been known since the start of the pandemic (the results are published in reputable scientific journals, and a lot of the funding came from western medical research bodies). And it's definitely something I think we need to have a societal conversation about. Personally in light of recent events I feel like this is something we probably ought not to be doing.

mardifoufs 5y ago
Yeah I knew about GoF research but I didn't know they planned on doing it on MERS. Another troubling thing was that they basically ignored the moratorium so even if measures were taken to stop GoF... they were just ignored by using a foreign lab as a loophole? To me it's mind-boggling that you could get arrested and fined for violating covid-related restrictions but people who did much much much more potentially dangerous stuff are not only getting away with it but also kept getting financed by the government. Even if covid turns out to not originate from a lab, just the insane potential risks that came from the blatant violations of the GoF moratorium should have been enough to land people in trouble. Especially since us commoners were punished based on the possibility that we could transmit the virus, whether we were infected or completely virus free didn't matter.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Yes, this is where the whole lab leak "conspiracy" came from. The lab was doing GoF research with bat and pangolin Coronaviruses exploring if the spike protein can be modified to enter through the human ACE2 receptor. There are a number of papers from Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli on the topic with research done at the Wuhan lab.
- ryanobjc 5y ago
  I think your 'commoners' framing... is not helpful here. You raise a few objectionable assertions that I think is good to contemplate: - GoF was never banned - The ban was NIH funding GoF - The ban was lifted in 2017 anyways - Is this risky? The ban on funding it doesn't mean it's risky, as per se. - The potential pie in the eye risk are infinite, but what are the realistic risks? That really depends on the technical details of how the research is done, and where it's done. - Compare and contrast to activities that are very dangerous and have nearly infinite catastrophic risks but we do every day: driving, flying, operating nuclear power plants, refining oil, and much much more. All of this research came out of the desire not to be caught flat footed by the next version of SARS or MERS. Overall global research did in fact prep us for SARS-CoV-2. Vaccines "made in months" that have stood the test of efficacy and safety? Months if you ignore the years of research behind it. Is this particular thing excessively dangerous or not? I'm not 100% sure. Most of the "this is unacceptable" seems to be coming from people who seem to have a visceral hatred of Dr Fauci and who as head of the NIH was indirectly responsible for this funding. But I don't find that a reasonable line of reasoning. One thing I know, is every scientist I know is not paid a boat load, and care deeply about what they are doing and why. Perhaps GoF is too 'dangerous', but maybe we should also hear about how it can be made safe, how does it compare in hazardousness to other common things that are deemed 'safe' and what the benefits are.
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    Yep - we kept having near-misses with prior coronaviruses, so understandably, scientists were spending a ton of energy trying to figure out what makes them so pathogenic and how the animal-human jumps occur. Considering the fact that SARS and MERS both came from zoonotic origin (and IMO, Sarscov2 did as well) - we should really be spending our energy on the best research methods to prevent another pandemic, whether that's GoF research or something else.
    - TeeMassive 5y ago
      Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. And the probability that what is created in a lab will be close enough to what is naturally occurring in nature to be useful are none to zero.
      - fn-mote 5y ago
        > Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. The first step is understanding. Until you understand how it happens, statements about whether or not you can prevent it do not make much sense to me. For example: imagine you have not yet discovered that the unwashed hands of doctors are transmitting disease in a hospital. You might make a statement very similar to yours about how "even if we can figure out how people get sick, it's not like we can stop it".
        nicoburns 5y ago
        That's true, but whether the understanding is worth the risk is questionable. It seems likely that we've managed to cause rather than prevent a pandemic with this particular research.
        mattcwilson 5y ago
        I’m not sure how realistic your example is. Prior to discovering handwashing, were scientists doing things they knew had the potential to get literally everyone morbidly sick, just to try figuring out how it worked?
- TeeMassive 5y ago
  The conspiracy theory (at this point, is it even one?) is that they want to create a virus that targets only certain ethnic group, like SARS2 did to some extent, or at least being a able to have the vaccine before everyone else, which also happened to some extent. Because otherwise there are no valid reasons to create this kind of pathogens in labs; the chance the bugs created there will be similar to the naturally occurring ones are basically none and even less so that the vaccines or treatment will be or remain efficient treatment.
  - rcpt 5y ago
    > they want to create a virus that targets only certain ethnic group Ok that is totally made up. There are plenty of reasons that researchers make dangerous pathogens that have nothing to do with ethnic cleansing. Some of these methods even get published despite the risks that the knowledge presents https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10875 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10875
    - mattcwilson 5y ago
      Can you explain what you mean by “totally made up?” Are you saying literally no one at all wants this? Just that there are also other reasons to do the research? Something else?
      - nicoburns 5y ago
        I think that the covid pandemic is highly unlikely to be the result of such research. It's much more likely to be the result of research into how to prevent future pandemics and treat coronaviruses.
        mattcwilson 5y ago
        Ok, I think that’s reasonable. At the level of individual research directors, I agree that probably the large majority of them have good intentions. My concern is that there aren’t just altruistic research directors. There are funders. There are politicians. There are militaries. There are covert agents. And I get really concerned how easy it is for actors with less savory, noble intentions to coopt naive researchers into participating in a larger agenda. It’s super convenient for everyone to be able to have the plucky, innocent, earnest research director come out with shining optimism about the potential. And it’s a convenient reason not to totally slam the brakes on research that, for better or worse, may lead (may have led) to global pandemic.
ars 5y ago
> doing gain of function research - deliberately creating new variants of viruses to study them What do they learn from these studies? The drawbacks to GOF is clear - but what are the potential gains that makes the risks worthwhile?
- pvarangot 5y ago
  Disclaimer: I think the virus leaked from a lab because scientists are usually more stupid and reckless than what their funders think they are, so maybe I'm insane and you shouldn't listen to me because I can affect your mental health. Also what I will write may be very dangerous misinformation so be careful because if you keep reading you consent to being misinformed. This writing is known by the state of California to cause cancer. There's two objectives of this type of research. One is that after you have the new virus you can try different drugs on it, so that if gets out you can rapidly control it. Usually the drugs you try are ones that the company you work for sell or have a patent for. I think creating a pathogen and then testing how you can cure it with stuff that you can sell for a big profit creates a conflict of interest if it's also your responsibility to be sure it's not released, but apparently I'm pretty alone in this conspiranoic belief. The other objective is creating a bioweapon, or getting ready for one. The US allegedly withdrew from researching bioweapons in an offensive manner but offensive and defensive research are very similar in that field because you speculate what viruses your alleged adversaries have and then recreate them to try the vaccines against them.
  - blurbleblurble 5y ago
    One other rationale I've seen is to create self-disseminating vaccines: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1254-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1254-y
    - pvarangot 5y ago
      Yeah but that's like a very long-term goal for which it's not even clear there's a legal framework or even a market for such products.
f7ebc20c97 5y ago
I keep hearing this a lot, but how do "we as a society" have a "conversation" about something, exactly? Twitter?
- mattcwilson 5y ago
  Yes. And here, and Facebook, and at the bus stop, in the office breakroom, around the dinner table, etc. And hopefully enough of the people in those conversations then write their representatives.
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    That's adorable. The reality looks more like an inflamed populist movement mounted atop a bucking orange baffoon.
    - largbae 5y ago
      Somehow the world came to a consensus that nuclear weapons should never be used, and that genocide and slavery are reprehensible. Creating and/or modifying viruses to better infect humans belongs on the short global "don't do" list.
justapassenger 5y ago
Not doing gain of function research is like not doing disaster recovery drills or penetration tests at the tech companies.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  gain of function research is more like inventing novel nuclear weapons more likely to kill humans to study bomb shelter and anti radiagion technology than any drill. the pathogens created are not drills.
  - justapassenger 5y ago
    Only if nuclear weapons would evolve by its own, and on insanely much higher speed than what you can invent.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  But if the drills end up killing thousands or the pen tests end up causing massive data breaches, wouldn't you agree that the pen tester or drill organizer should be held liable? Or do you just let them do it again because it's just a risk we need to take
  - justapassenger 5y ago
    If you leak pathogen - sure. But there’s no proof of any kind that it happened, and people fear mongering greatly overestimate abilities of gain of function. It’s like Skynet vs current state of an AI. We don’t ban pen tests, just because people who have 0 understanding of it are sacred of it.
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      There is obviously a risk of pathogen leak.. https://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Escaped-Viruses-final-2-17-14-copy.pdf https://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Esc... And there are highly qualified experts in the field who view GoF research as the most likely source of COVID-19, so on what basis are you so confident that it doesn't pose a major risk?

mardifoufs 5y ago

Yeah I knew about GoF research but I didn't know they planned on doing it on MERS. Another troubling thing was that they basically ignored the moratorium so even if measures were taken to stop GoF... they were just ignored by using a foreign lab as a loophole? To me it's mind-boggling that you could get arrested and fined for violating covid-related restrictions but people who did much much much more potentially dangerous stuff are not only getting away with it but also kept getting financed by the government. Even if covid turns out to not originate from a lab, just the insane potential risks that came from the blatant violations of the GoF moratorium should have been enough to land people in trouble. Especially since us commoners were punished based on the possibility that we could transmit the virus, whether we were infected or completely virus free didn't matter.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
Yes, this is where the whole lab leak "conspiracy" came from. The lab was doing GoF research with bat and pangolin Coronaviruses exploring if the spike protein can be modified to enter through the human ACE2 receptor. There are a number of papers from Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli on the topic with research done at the Wuhan lab.
ryanobjc 5y ago
I think your 'commoners' framing... is not helpful here. You raise a few objectionable assertions that I think is good to contemplate: - GoF was never banned - The ban was NIH funding GoF - The ban was lifted in 2017 anyways - Is this risky? The ban on funding it doesn't mean it's risky, as per se. - The potential pie in the eye risk are infinite, but what are the realistic risks? That really depends on the technical details of how the research is done, and where it's done. - Compare and contrast to activities that are very dangerous and have nearly infinite catastrophic risks but we do every day: driving, flying, operating nuclear power plants, refining oil, and much much more. All of this research came out of the desire not to be caught flat footed by the next version of SARS or MERS. Overall global research did in fact prep us for SARS-CoV-2. Vaccines "made in months" that have stood the test of efficacy and safety? Months if you ignore the years of research behind it. Is this particular thing excessively dangerous or not? I'm not 100% sure. Most of the "this is unacceptable" seems to be coming from people who seem to have a visceral hatred of Dr Fauci and who as head of the NIH was indirectly responsible for this funding. But I don't find that a reasonable line of reasoning. One thing I know, is every scientist I know is not paid a boat load, and care deeply about what they are doing and why. Perhaps GoF is too 'dangerous', but maybe we should also hear about how it can be made safe, how does it compare in hazardousness to other common things that are deemed 'safe' and what the benefits are.
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  Yep - we kept having near-misses with prior coronaviruses, so understandably, scientists were spending a ton of energy trying to figure out what makes them so pathogenic and how the animal-human jumps occur. Considering the fact that SARS and MERS both came from zoonotic origin (and IMO, Sarscov2 did as well) - we should really be spending our energy on the best research methods to prevent another pandemic, whether that's GoF research or something else.
  - TeeMassive 5y ago
    Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. And the probability that what is created in a lab will be close enough to what is naturally occurring in nature to be useful are none to zero.
    - fn-mote 5y ago
      > Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. The first step is understanding. Until you understand how it happens, statements about whether or not you can prevent it do not make much sense to me. For example: imagine you have not yet discovered that the unwashed hands of doctors are transmitting disease in a hospital. You might make a statement very similar to yours about how "even if we can figure out how people get sick, it's not like we can stop it".
      - nicoburns 5y ago
        That's true, but whether the understanding is worth the risk is questionable. It seems likely that we've managed to cause rather than prevent a pandemic with this particular research.
      - mattcwilson 5y ago
        I’m not sure how realistic your example is. Prior to discovering handwashing, were scientists doing things they knew had the potential to get literally everyone morbidly sick, just to try figuring out how it worked?
TeeMassive 5y ago
The conspiracy theory (at this point, is it even one?) is that they want to create a virus that targets only certain ethnic group, like SARS2 did to some extent, or at least being a able to have the vaccine before everyone else, which also happened to some extent. Because otherwise there are no valid reasons to create this kind of pathogens in labs; the chance the bugs created there will be similar to the naturally occurring ones are basically none and even less so that the vaccines or treatment will be or remain efficient treatment.
- rcpt 5y ago
  > they want to create a virus that targets only certain ethnic group Ok that is totally made up. There are plenty of reasons that researchers make dangerous pathogens that have nothing to do with ethnic cleansing. Some of these methods even get published despite the risks that the knowledge presents https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10875 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10875
  - mattcwilson 5y ago
    Can you explain what you mean by “totally made up?” Are you saying literally no one at all wants this? Just that there are also other reasons to do the research? Something else?
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      I think that the covid pandemic is highly unlikely to be the result of such research. It's much more likely to be the result of research into how to prevent future pandemics and treat coronaviruses.
      - mattcwilson 5y ago
        Ok, I think that’s reasonable. At the level of individual research directors, I agree that probably the large majority of them have good intentions. My concern is that there aren’t just altruistic research directors. There are funders. There are politicians. There are militaries. There are covert agents. And I get really concerned how easy it is for actors with less savory, noble intentions to coopt naive researchers into participating in a larger agenda. It’s super convenient for everyone to be able to have the plucky, innocent, earnest research director come out with shining optimism about the potential. And it’s a convenient reason not to totally slam the brakes on research that, for better or worse, may lead (may have led) to global pandemic.

ars 5y ago

> doing gain of function research - deliberately creating new variants of viruses to study them What do they learn from these studies? The drawbacks to GOF is clear - but what are the potential gains that makes the risks worthwhile?

pvarangot 5y ago
Disclaimer: I think the virus leaked from a lab because scientists are usually more stupid and reckless than what their funders think they are, so maybe I'm insane and you shouldn't listen to me because I can affect your mental health. Also what I will write may be very dangerous misinformation so be careful because if you keep reading you consent to being misinformed. This writing is known by the state of California to cause cancer. There's two objectives of this type of research. One is that after you have the new virus you can try different drugs on it, so that if gets out you can rapidly control it. Usually the drugs you try are ones that the company you work for sell or have a patent for. I think creating a pathogen and then testing how you can cure it with stuff that you can sell for a big profit creates a conflict of interest if it's also your responsibility to be sure it's not released, but apparently I'm pretty alone in this conspiranoic belief. The other objective is creating a bioweapon, or getting ready for one. The US allegedly withdrew from researching bioweapons in an offensive manner but offensive and defensive research are very similar in that field because you speculate what viruses your alleged adversaries have and then recreate them to try the vaccines against them.
- blurbleblurble 5y ago
  One other rationale I've seen is to create self-disseminating vaccines: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1254-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1254-y
  - pvarangot 5y ago
    Yeah but that's like a very long-term goal for which it's not even clear there's a legal framework or even a market for such products.

f7ebc20c97 5y ago

I keep hearing this a lot, but how do "we as a society" have a "conversation" about something, exactly? Twitter?

mattcwilson 5y ago
Yes. And here, and Facebook, and at the bus stop, in the office breakroom, around the dinner table, etc. And hopefully enough of the people in those conversations then write their representatives.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  That's adorable. The reality looks more like an inflamed populist movement mounted atop a bucking orange baffoon.
  - largbae 5y ago
    Somehow the world came to a consensus that nuclear weapons should never be used, and that genocide and slavery are reprehensible. Creating and/or modifying viruses to better infect humans belongs on the short global "don't do" list.

justapassenger 5y ago

Not doing gain of function research is like not doing disaster recovery drills or penetration tests at the tech companies.

LegitShady 5y ago
gain of function research is more like inventing novel nuclear weapons more likely to kill humans to study bomb shelter and anti radiagion technology than any drill. the pathogens created are not drills.
- justapassenger 5y ago
  Only if nuclear weapons would evolve by its own, and on insanely much higher speed than what you can invent.
mardifoufs 5y ago
But if the drills end up killing thousands or the pen tests end up causing massive data breaches, wouldn't you agree that the pen tester or drill organizer should be held liable? Or do you just let them do it again because it's just a risk we need to take
- justapassenger 5y ago
  If you leak pathogen - sure. But there’s no proof of any kind that it happened, and people fear mongering greatly overestimate abilities of gain of function. It’s like Skynet vs current state of an AI. We don’t ban pen tests, just because people who have 0 understanding of it are sacred of it.
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    There is obviously a risk of pathogen leak.. https://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Escaped-Viruses-final-2-17-14-copy.pdf https://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Esc... And there are highly qualified experts in the field who view GoF research as the most likely source of COVID-19, so on what basis are you so confident that it doesn't pose a major risk?