Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 131 posts

Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

#91

Post by neuro_imager »

I'm not entirely clear on the scenarios in which this type of research would be beneficial (I'm a physician):

- AFAIK research on vaccines does not require altering an organism to make it more lethal. You would want to cover as broad a spectrum of serotypes/serovars of the existing organism as possible. I can see how someone might argue that you could pre-empt a more malignant variant but surely this is outweighed by the likelihood of creating systemic risk.

- What exactly would we learn form creating new, highly virulent organisms that can't be learned using the same technology on non-virulent organisms?

- It bothers me that this is a push to create more biological weapons from the military complex (especially terrifying considering the infantile intellects we currently have in congress).

Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

#92

Post by DigitalJack »

DigitalJack wrote: post #37

An informative series from pbs narrated by Jeff goldblum on YouTube: search for "dna episode 1 of 5 the secret of life" It's a great high level overview of dna sequencing from the discovery of its shape through the completion of the human genome project in 2000. I'm having trouble pasting a link, maybe someone could help me out.

The downvotes seem weird to me. Maybe it felt off topic?

Dr. Francis S. Collins is in several of the videos, and the third video is all about this particular controversy of dangerous experiments at the dawn of genetic engineering(for example one guy wanted to splice a cancer causing gene in e. coli bacterium).

It seemed relevant to me. It is what the article is talking about afterall.

Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

#94

Post by grzm »

DigitalJack wrote: post #92
DigitalJack wrote: post #37

An informative series from pbs narrated by Jeff goldblum on YouTube: search for "dna episode 1 of 5 the secret of life" It's a great high level overview of dna sequencing from the discovery of its shape through the completion of the human genome project in 2000. I'm having trouble pasting a link, maybe someone could help me out.

The downvotes seem weird to me. Maybe it felt off topic? Dr. Francis S. Collins is in several of the videos, and the third video is all about this particular controversy of dangerous experiments at the dawn of genetic engineering(for example one guy wanted to splice a cancer causing gene in e. coli bacterium). It seemed relevant to me. It is what the article is talking about afterall.

Hard to say. Maybe the lack of a link? I agree it otherwise looks it would be relevant.

Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

#96

Post by QAPereo »

emodendroket wrote: post #40
jknoepfler wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted, other than that it isn't precise. I'm general you can't trust regulators or legislators at the federal level.

If you take this argument to its logical conclusion there is no point arguing about the law in the first place.

Maybe you can’t trust them with novel pathogens designed to kill people.

Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

#97

Post by sndean »

For more background, and since this article is surprisingly short:

This is a better article: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/nih-lifts-3-year-ban...

This ban that's being lifted stems from a few incidents, but really the driving force was Ron Fouchier's [0] gain-of-function study where his lab made a few mutations that enabled transmission of the bird flu (H5N1) virus between ferrets. All they had to do was make five mutations and it was suddenly more dangerous (here's the paper [1]). Ferrets may sound random, but they can become infected with human flu virus and show similar pathology to humans - they're a model for humans.

I remember hearing Fouchier speak in Washington at a biodefense conference right after the study came out. He was (is?) pretty much a celebrity among scientists, but the policy folks had a different opinion...

Pretty sure these things will escape from the lab at some point. I've personally handled some B. anthracis (causes anthrax) that was supposedly non-viable only to find out later that it was almost certainly still alive. (Not this case, but here's an example [2] mentioned in the article.) There would (hopefully) be more regulations on BSL3+ organisms like the viruses being discussed, because anthrax is relatively friendly, but like any other field, all it takes is one incompetent person.

[0] https://www.erasmusmc.nl/MScMM/faculty/CVs/fouchier_cv?lang=...

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4810786/

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/anthrax/news-multimedia/lab-incident/ind...

Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

#98

Post by jdironman »

yegle wrote: post #4

The intention seems legit, despite the concern. Quote from the article: The pathogen to be modified must pose a serious health threat, and the work must produce knowledge — such as a vaccine — that would benefit humans. Finally, there must be no safer way to do the research.

Opensource Virus Warfare

Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

#99

Post by Jach »

wickawic wrote: post #83
jacquesm wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything Ebola is too lethal. It tends to burn out locally before it can spread far from its originating point though if someone should immediately travel after becoming infected it could spread to a new location. But in the majority of the cases so far it has burned out before it could spread to a new village, though the largest outbreak to date claimed in excess of 10,000 lives and spread quite far. http://www.b…

You can just move to Madagascar and close the ports.

Except http://www.who.int/csr/don/15-november-2017-plague-madagasca...

Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

#100

Post by toomanybeersies »

TheSithMaster wrote: post #57
yegle wrote: post #4

The intention seems legit, despite the concern. Quote from the article: The pathogen to be modified must pose a serious health threat, and the work must produce knowledge — such as a vaccine — that would benefit humans. Finally, there must be no safer way to do the research.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Getting a bit off topic here, but I've always interpreted that aphorism differently, and apparently the history of the saying agrees with me.

I've always interpreted it as being a corollary to "actions speak louder than words". Simply saying something, or having the intention to do something does not mean it will actually get done.

Post reply on HN