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Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

nytimes.com

191–200 of 350 posts

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#191
post #188

https://news.yahoo.com/bill-gates-warns-smallpox-terror-0001... Just like he said about covid.

I'm curious what kind of privileged insight could Gates have when he's just a billionaire with no expertise and special clearance in this domain? Or is this such a high likelihood scenario that it's the first thing any billionaire would come up with?

Who knows? But it'd be naive to think that donating billions to global health orgs over the years doesn't buy some sort of access.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to do a little more than touch ether to set it off.

Ethers can form highly reactive (i.e. explosive) organic peroxides when exposed to oxygen, especially over a long period -- for example, when a half-empty bottle is left on a shelf for a few years. https://www.uaf.edu/safety/industrial-hygiene/laboratory-saf...

I went back and re-read the explanation for the explosion in my lab. https://synapse.ucsf.edu/articles/2019/03/24/date-ucsf-histo...

This is the part I knew about, since I had discussed it with the individuals involved when I moved into the office:

"Well aware of the dangers of old ether, Shetlar carefully set the cans in the fume hood next to the cabinet, venting the lids. He went back to work in the cabinet and almost immediately heard a “pop” sound from the hood.

However, if you read further, there are several important bits of data which instead show that it's more likely a second set of ether bottles caught on fire and ignited the one that exploded and sprayed nitric acid on Martin.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the dog whistle? The original article has nothing to do with Bill Gates, but the commenter in this thread posted this wholly unrelated article, pronouncing it "Related", without any other comment to explain the context of the linked article or how it relates to the original story. You need look no further than the other (also heavily downvoted) commenters in this thread to see who heard the dog whistle loud…

Where does the puppet master/unleashing pandemic stuff come into play? The article of Bill Gates talking preventative measures against future pandemics (including smallpox, which funny enough is related to smallpox vials), has literally 0 conspiracy-related things in it. How can that even be a dogwhistle? If you post a story about cancer, and I post a semi-related story of Bill talking about cancer prevention, am I a…

[deleted]

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#194
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handwriting or printer yellow dots can still lead to them. Sign of times though - calling law enforcement when you find old pathogen and its vaccine in a freezer in a vaccine development lab. MBA types. In order to mentally train myself for an MBA career i need to start calling law enforcement anytime i find a bug in the 20+ years old code.

>calling law enforcement when you find old work in the lab. MBA types. It's not just MBA types. Needlessly escalating up the chain as a means to shirk responsibility is a broader societal trend. Post "what do I do" about anything anywhere short of a prepper forum and people will tell you to call some external authority, the police, your landlord, a credentialed professional, etc, etc, and wash your hands of the situa…

You are wrong because for all questions someone might ask the response is leave it to someone qualified.

I teach my kids how to use a knife. I panic when my baby finds a knife, but when the baby gets a few years older I will make them qualified to hold a knife.

If you are reasonably intelligent and able bodied (able bodied differs depending on the task) you can learn to do anything a human can do. However there isn't time to learn everything there is to know. Some things (brain surgery) take years and have a well earned reputation of being hard. Some things are easy.

Part of disposing of this is proper documentation of your process all along the way. The documentation is probably harder than the actual work. Because mistakes are so dangerous we should put you in prison for attempting to destroy a sample and failing. If you destroy a sample you need to prove you did it correctly, the documentation that you did that should be complex.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#195
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No law enforcement != no action ("pretend that did not see it"). Classic strawman. You definitely got your money worth as your post has all the qualities of an MBA type.

I am assuming good faith. What part of my statement is a strawman?

No law enforcement != no action ("pretend that did not see it").

Hmm. Despite the edit, I still do not see it as strawman. The important piece and this may be the piece missing from this conversation is 'what action did I take?'. It is not that law enforcement is necessary in all, most, or even some instances. The question is whether you IGNORE something that should not be ignored.

Again, it is possible I am not understanding your argument. Please elaborate.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#196
>In the event of an outbreak, the C.D.C. said, “there is enough smallpox vaccine to vaccinate every person in the United States.”

We'd be lucky to get 80% uptake. I can already imagine all of the anti smallpox vaccine propaganda that would spread through FB within a day.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smallpox has a genome with approximately 200k base pairs. I think you're underestimating the difficulty of synthesizing and amplifying a full genome of this size.

Grad student I know says he could do it in a week

I love this reply, thank you

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#198

>In the event of an outbreak, the C.D.C. said, “there is enough smallpox vaccine to vaccinate every person in the United States.” We'd be lucky to get 80% uptake. I can already imagine all of the anti smallpox vaccine propaganda that would spread through FB within a day.

There's a difference between someone coughing through their illness on instagram versus someone covered head to toe with boils. Maybe someone could call it "a somewhat stronger chickenpox" as a method of dismissal, but it'll be difficult.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID is not comparable to the flu. It's 3-20x as deadly depending on a variety of factors. Smallpox would still be significantly more deadly than COVID individually, but I'd bet people would take lockdowns much more seriously for smallpox than they did for COVID, preventing a pandemic and resulting in fewer deaths overall. Especially because people believe falsehoods like "COVID is comparable to the flu" because it…

Give the benefit of the doubt. It’s certainly deadlier but still comparable in the scheme of things relative to a 30% death rate virus. I’m vaxxed and have a booster, mask up, and def not a denier but it’s true that the death rate of covid is fairly low for most folks.

The amount of apologizing and disclaiming in this thread is sad.

You shouldn't have to announce your medical history to compare fatality rates of a virus.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#200
post #188

https://news.yahoo.com/bill-gates-warns-smallpox-terror-0001... Just like he said about covid.

I'm curious what kind of privileged insight could Gates have when he's just a billionaire with no expertise and special clearance in this domain? Or is this such a high likelihood scenario that it's the first thing any billionaire would come up with?

Well he isn't "just a billionaire with no expertise or special clearance in this domain". He has spent more time working on vaccine distribution and disease eradication than he spent as CEO of Microsoft. He founded and leads an organization that operates in this domain. He's literally one of the leading global experts in this domain.
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