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The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)

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Re: The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)

#71

Post by nradov »

Icathian wrote: post #65
TheBlight wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree that it's misplaced. If it was caused by a lab leak it's easier to address before it happens next time via a simple change in protocols for this type of research e.g. all GoF work is done in an isolated environment not in the middle of major population hub.

Just because this one was a lab leak doesn't mean the next one has to be. I think origin would be worth knowing just for the historical record, but ultimately it doesn't matter in the slightest.

It matters. Zoonotic viruses that jump to humans naturally tend to be less well adapted to human biology, and thus less contagious. That potentially gives us more time to respond before they evolve really dangerous human adapted variants. Whereas GoF research using human tissue or transgenic animals can produce viruses that are perfectly adapted to humans right out of the gate.

Re: The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)

#72

Post by ImaCake »

m0llusk wrote: post #57

The article notes that a lab leak or gain of function research or both are suspected because research with cultivated influenza strains was common at that time. In contrast, attempts by researchers at Wuhan to consistently cultivate coronavirus were unsuccessful. That is why they decided to work with chimeras instead of pursuing gain of function research. All of this focus on the point of origin is misplaced. We know…

America has a history of responding poorly to pandemics. They let HIV rip through their population before getting serious about it. Regan famously denied it was even happening. It is interesting to contrast this with Australia's quick public health response that saved a lot of lives. It is easy to see similarities with COVID responses, but two timepoints and n=2 do not make for quality statistics. Hopefully the USA does better with whatever pandemics come for us all in the next decades.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_in_Australia

Re: The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)

#73

Post by lettergram »

m0llusk wrote: post #57

The article notes that a lab leak or gain of function research or both are suspected because research with cultivated influenza strains was common at that time. In contrast, attempts by researchers at Wuhan to consistently cultivate coronavirus were unsuccessful. That is why they decided to work with chimeras instead of pursuing gain of function research. All of this focus on the point of origin is misplaced. We know…

> CDC was forced to focus on making the president look good instead of dealing with the virus.

I saw this claim when the border was closed. But perhaps I missed other incidence? Can you cite a few?

Re: The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)

#74

Post by germinalphrase »

ameminator wrote: post #58
walterbell wrote: post #38

In addition to not making new viruses, we should consider a moratorium on further digging up of old viruses, e.g. securing Arctic graves of Spanish Flu victims, or ancient viruses in the sea bed or icebergs, https://www.nature.com/articles/437794a (2005) > It is thought to have killed 50 million people, and yet scientists have brought it back to life. In this issue of Nature, scientists publish an analysis of the ful…

I would like to point out that the same Winnipeg lab discussed above, seems to have been infiltrated by the Chinese military [0]. If this doesn't concern you, I'd like to bring to mind that our current pandemic is suspected to have been leaked from a lab in China. That's without discussing any of the bioweapon fears or fear of war between the West and China... [0] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-chin…

“I would like to point out that most of the research, at the same Winnipeg lab discussed above, seems to have been shared with/taken by the Chinese military“

The linked article does not support your assertion that “most” research was shared/taken.

Re: The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)

#75

Post by ImaCake »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #70
m0llusk wrote: post #57

The article notes that a lab leak or gain of function research or both are suspected because research with cultivated influenza strains was common at that time. In contrast, attempts by researchers at Wuhan to consistently cultivate coronavirus were unsuccessful. That is why they decided to work with chimeras instead of pursuing gain of function research. All of this focus on the point of origin is misplaced. We know…

> That is why they decided to work with chimeras instead of pursuing gain of function research. The distinction between gain of function research, and creating lab made chimeric viruses is purely semantic. If you were doing gain of function research, you'd spend most of your time creating chimeric viruses. The argument is that "not all chimeric virus experiments are gain of function research, because you might be con…

Isn't a chimera akin to putting part of one organism with another? I think this would make the astrazeneca vaccine a chimera (Adenovirus with SARS-COV2 spike protein). Obviously the AZ vaccine has not causes a pandemic so maybe the distinction is very important here.

Re: The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)

#76

Post by AmericanChopper »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #68
radu_floricica wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth is wanting to know why I was locked in my house for months with men with guns patrolling the streets.... "misplaced"? This is what 50 years of postmodernism and cultural relativism broughts us. "Why" doesn't matter, don't search beyond what the consensus is telling you.

Because if we had a competent strategy for dealing with the virus, you wouldn't have been locked in your house for months. This is entirely a failure of government. The origin is for all intents and purposes irrelevant. "Why" ultimately doesn't matter because viruses can just spontaneously evolve in carrier animals, in a lab or by whatever other means causes a mutation where it is now infectious to us. People searchi…

> "Why" ultimately doesn't matter because viruses can just spontaneously evolve in carrier animals, in a lab or by whatever other means causes a mutation where it is now infectious to us.

People are going to die in traffic accidents whether i drive home drunk tonight or not, so it probably doesn't matter what I do, right?

Understanding why something happened is also a pretty important step in trying to prevent it from happening again. If you're having production incidents every day, "just get better at incident response" is probably not a very thorough solution.

Re: The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)

#77

Post by lettergram »

ImaCake wrote: post #72
m0llusk wrote: post #57

The article notes that a lab leak or gain of function research or both are suspected because research with cultivated influenza strains was common at that time. In contrast, attempts by researchers at Wuhan to consistently cultivate coronavirus were unsuccessful. That is why they decided to work with chimeras instead of pursuing gain of function research. All of this focus on the point of origin is misplaced. We know…

America has a history of responding poorly to pandemics. They let HIV rip through their population before getting serious about it. Regan famously denied it was even happening. It is interesting to contrast this with Australia's quick public health response that saved a lot of lives. It is easy to see similarities with COVID responses, but two timepoints and n=2 do not make for quality statistics. Hopefully the USA d…

The nature of the USA is not to have a federal response. A fairer way to review this is at the state level.

That being said, Fauci lead the charge on the AIDS pandemic and this one ...

Re: The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)

#78

Post by rayiner »

m0llusk wrote: post #57

The article notes that a lab leak or gain of function research or both are suspected because research with cultivated influenza strains was common at that time. In contrast, attempts by researchers at Wuhan to consistently cultivate coronavirus were unsuccessful. That is why they decided to work with chimeras instead of pursuing gain of function research. All of this focus on the point of origin is misplaced. We know…

> All of this focus on the point of origin is misplaced. We know that there will be new viruses. What matters is how we respond to them. In this case the US response was completely botched.

It’s worth talking about better versus worse covid response, but that’s missing the forest for the trees. Most of the G7 didn’t do that much better: from Germany to Italy, and including the US, they’re all in the 1,200 to 2,200 deaths per million people range. Countries like Australia that did a little better, down at 700, are still having to have military-enforced lockdowns 18 months into the pandemic.

Is it really possible that none of these advanced economies were adequately prepared? The next time this hits, are we really going to try this massively expensive lockdown approach again? That seems like madness to me.

Re: The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)

#79

Post by shlant »

quantumsolace wrote: post #53
shakna wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So is McDonald's every time they advertise and sell any of their garbage product. And yet we recognize that it is important that people make up their own minds than do 'what is right', because it is not our place to determine what is right for them. Pelman v. McDonald's [0] covered that in considerable detail. Markson, has promoted information that is detrimental to health, as positive for health, and so is not aff…

Aside for YouTube "tut tut" what has Markson said that disqualifies her? I ask in full faith, as I don't know who she is. But why does YT get to tut tut anyone? The only basic reason for it is that you fundamentally agree with YT's worldview and are OK with their dominance. I'd ask for you to turn the tables around, YT censoring PoV you agree with. But we both know that is a ridiculous question; introspection by the…

> "But why does YT get to tut tut anyone?"

because it is a platform they own. I'm not arguing whether that is good or bad but if you run a site you are free to moderate it however you wish. Until YT, FB etc. are classified as public utilities or similar, you have no rights whatsoever to say what you want on someone else's platform.

Re: The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)

#80

Post by ImaCake »

8bitsrule wrote: post #66

There are a lot of related-articles links on the Wikipedia page for this topic. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu ]

It looks like a lot of those references are the results of an edit war on the page. The consensus seems to be it was a lab leak (probably).

You can read about alternative hypotheses on the talk page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:1977_Russian_flu

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