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NIH restarts bat virus grant

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Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#191

Post by eli »

jonhohle wrote: post #168
eli wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I mean a majority of all experts around the world. And I don't find it particularly damning that the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was involved in the commission of one of many studies to determine the origin of an infectious disease.

Having the primary author not attach their name to the paper that they’ve secretly been asked to write and disseminate is typical?

Was this the most damning fact uncovered by the House investigation into this report? That there was a researcher working on it who wasn't properly credited? That in itself doesn't seem like reason to discard the report, let alone to reach the opposite conclusion.

And of course there has been subsequent research by independent scientists who also reached the conclusion that a zoonotic origin is most likely.

I'm not saying the lab leak theory has been conclusively disproved -- it hasn't -- but certainly neither has the wildlife theory.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#192

Post by baja_blast »

program_whiz wrote: post #44
op00to wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better to study and be prepared, than to stick our head in the sand and pretend emerging infectious disease aren't a recurrent factor in our lives.

counter example: we won't know how to fight a robot apocalypse unless we go ahead and develop some super-intelligent kill bots ourselves, so we can train against it and develop strategies. Given enough time and random variation, someone or some government is bound to create them, so we should not stick our heads in the sand or let fear-mongering stand in the way of research. In reality COVID-19 required several key m…

The idea that the mutations that happen in a lab setting whether direct editing or serial passaging would ever resemble anything that would happen in the wild is as likely as expecting a store bought banana evolving in the wild.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#193

Post by baja_blast »

jonhohle wrote: post #65
eli wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evidence for the lab leak theory is weak. You're assuming facts that most experts dispute.

[flagged]

I bet Eli would only listen to Boeing executives and engineers directly tied to the Boeing 737 MAX' opinions on what caused the crash and how safe the systems are. Everyone else that disagrees is not and expert, only trust Boeing executives with extreme COI!

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#194

Post by baja_blast »

criticalmass2 wrote: post #128
shon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The downside would be no vaccines for any diseases, as all vaccines are derived from "gain of function" research. There is also not conclusive evidence that this latest pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident. Every other catastrophic pandemic in human history emerged "naturally", and many more will continue to do so.

But vaccine development can only be done with existing viruses circulating in humans. The mutations to the existing virus to test immunity escape are minimal and less risky. But mutating unknown animal/bat viruses to be transmissible towards humans to see how infectious it can possibly be only creates new risks, because if any of those viruses get out of the lab there will be no vaccine (since you can't test the effectiveness of a vaccine without circulation in humans) and to make matters worse the viruses are already predated towards humans!

SARS/MERS were easily contained because the virus needed to adapt and evolve before effectively spreading amongst humans. SARS2 was predated and highly infectious thus containment was impossible.

Also if this research was so essentially, why does EcoHealth still to this day refuse to share their research/data? You'd think that would be useful to have publicly funded research to help with the worst pandemic in 100 years, but I guess not! So why take the risks?

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#195

Post by xyzzy123 »

criticalmass2 wrote: post #107
galangalalgol wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatvare the arguments for gain of function research? Is there any reason to think the mutations gained as a virus adapts to mice with human lung tissue will resemble the ones it makes when it crosses in the wild? Or is it kind of like the old giant nuke plants, a way to peace-wash war tech? Edit: Vouching for the reply wasn't enough to resurrect it. It was a claim with no support other than an appeal to authority, b…

The term “gain of function” is used by different people in different ways. It is a broad category of research and the misguided attempts to categorize it as dangerous in one broad stroke are not helpful. To quote Dr. Fauci: "If all gain-of-function stops, you will have no vaccines for flu. You will have no vaccines for any of the other diseases, because all of that manipulates a virus or a pathogen to gain a certain…

This seems disingenuous, afaik the contributions of GoF work (that enhances transmissibility, pathogenicity or immune escape of a virus) to widely deployed vaccines is minimal or zero.

EDIT: if downvoter(s) could provide specific examples of how GoF experiments have materially contributed to the development of ANY deployed vaccine I would be grateful (and update my position). For "the vaccines stop if GoF stops" to be true, it should be possible to name at least one vaccine which critically relied on GoF research, right?

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#196

Post by eli »

baja_blast wrote: post #193
jonhohle wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I bet Eli would only listen to Boeing executives and engineers directly tied to the Boeing 737 MAX' opinions on what caused the crash and how safe the systems are. Everyone else that disagrees is not and expert, only trust Boeing executives with extreme COI!

Who are the unbiased truth tellers here? House Republicans?

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#197

Post by rewfewfewfew »

eli wrote: post #21
local_crmdgeon wrote: post #14

At what point does a conspiracy become a fact? This results in another pandemic, it's not going to be pretty when gov't demands lockdowns.

Because of all the conspiracy theories, it is not going to be pretty if there's a lockdown in the future for any reason whatsoever. Indeed, I think governments will be very reluctant to order a lockdown even if it's the right thing to do. This has nothing to do with facts about virus research though.

>governments will be very reluctant to order a lockdown even if it's the right thing to do

Under what possible circumstances will this be the right thing to do? It's already very apparent that the historically unprecedented worldwide Covid lockdowns have had a devastating effect on the prospects of the poorest in society, while seriously enriching the wealthiest (go and take a look at the Forbes rich list, and find someone who has lost money since 2020. You'll have to look very hard).

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#198

Post by Name_Chawps »

jMyles wrote: post #163
Name_Chawps wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orthogonal doesn't mean opposites, it means they're perpendicular i.e. unrelated.

I understand. But they're not unrelated. Sometimes a fact pattern reveals a conspiracy.

Your previous response indicates that you did not understand, and you are now backtracking.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#199

Post by [deleted] »

shon wrote: post #118
criticalmass2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with bioweapons. The reality is that throughout all of human history, viruses have evolved organically in the environment in such a way that they are infectious to humans. Viruses will continue to evolve and future pandemics will happen. This research is attempting to study how viruses might evolve in a way that is particularly concerning to humans so that we can be more prepared in terms of cr…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#200

Post by shon »

defen wrote: post #189
criticalmass2 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't tell if this is a serious question, but the answer is: yes, obviously. Without the decades of research the death toll would have been orders of magnitude higher. Consider the platform technology revolution in how vaccines are made (and the highly effective vaccines). Structure-based immunogen design, that also helped with the rapid development of antivirals. Consider for example that there are zero recorded dea…

I'm not talking about virus research in general, I'm talking about the specific type of research EcoHealth Alliance was doing. You're not arguing that their research helped us develop hospital PPE, are you? My question is whether pre-pandemic research into hybrid coronaviruses was essential for the development of the vaccines or other treatments for COVID-19.

100% —this is also my original question.
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