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From the City Journal article[1] that this Atlantic article is responding to: "The [traditional] pandemic preparedness playbook [that RFK is trying to remove]
by staplefire 11mo ago
From the City Journal article[1] that this Atlantic article is responding to:
"The [traditional] pandemic preparedness playbook [that RFK is trying to remove] entails three basic steps.
First, catalog every existing pathogen by sending scientists to every remote place (bat caves in China, and the like), take biological samples of wildlife there, and bring them back to labs. ...
Second, evaluate the risk of each pathogen infecting humans by testing its ability to penetrate human cells—and sometimes even genetically modifying it to make this more likely. The latter practice is now called dangerous gain-of-function (dGOF) research. ... . The idea is to estimate the likelihood that the infectious pathogen will mutate in a way that could conceivably threaten humans.
Third, having identified which few of the countless pathogens studied pose the greatest risk, develop vaccines and therapeutics before they leap into human populations. Crucially, this step involves awarding large contracts to pharmaceutical manufacturers to develop and stockpile the countermeasures."
RFK proposes:
1) to strike these above goals from NIH pandemic preparedness playbook
2) Focus on "getting everyone to eat better and exercise," since healthy people have better outcomes in infectious outbreaks.
[1] https://www.city-journal.org/article/nih-jay-bhattacharya-covid-pandemic-lab https://www.city-journal.org/article/nih-jay-bhattacharya-co...
- hedora 11mo ago(2) conveniently forgets that some pandemics hit healthier people the hardest (due to immune system overreactions).
- tengbretson 11mo agoHow can the risks involved in such a playbook be justified when an mRNA vaccine takes only 26 days to develop? https://oregonhealthnews.oregon.gov/plug-and-play-mrna-technology-works-fast-updating-vaccines-in-months/ https://oregonhealthnews.oregon.gov/plug-and-play-mrna-techn...
- amanaplanacanal 11mo agoUnfortunately they have defunded all mRNA research. Good luck, I guess!
- jasonvorhe 11mo ago[flagged]
- amanaplanacanal 11mo agoHaven't they been telling us to eat better and exercise all along? What am I missing? Telling people to eat better and exercise doesn't seem to have much effect, from what I can see. This seems really out of touch.
- unrealhoang 11mo agoNo but this time RFK is saying that, before it was devil Dems saying (Michelle Obama), so people had to eat trash food and be lazy out of spite.