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Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research

nytimes.com

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Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research

#21

Post by oldpersonintx »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #14
purpleblue wrote: post #5

I'm glad that things are slowing down here. Virology research is one of those things no one ever thought about, but the fact that a single careless lab was able to release a virus that killed tens of millions around the world should be a wake up call that the researchers were outpacing the regulations. The entire industry around the world has to be heavily regulated at this point to prevent this from happening again.

Except of course that isn't what happened. All evidence points to zoonotic spillover, aggravated by our encroachment on previously undisturbed natural areas and global warming. Sadly, it was both political useful ('the Chinese did it!'), and ideologically useful ('a few faulty humans did this, like in the movies'), to blame the lab in Wuhan. By doing so, we can absolve ourselves of blame, and of need to take action -…

> All evidence points to zoonotic spillover, aggravated by our encroachment on previously undisturbed natural areas and global warming.

what evidence?

in any case, thats fancy language for: "Donald Trump was a proponent of the lab leak hypothesis so we had to come up with an alternate theory lest we appear to be in agreement with Donald Trump...so we've decided that it was people eating Pangolin Soup"

Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research

#22

Post by peteradio »

fzeroracer wrote: post #7
dehrmann wrote: post #4

Rather than modifying viruses and seeing what happens in the hope that that will inform us for the next pandemic, it seems smarter to start making more vaccines with different techniques where mistakes are lower-stakes and the benefit is more clear.

What exactly do you think gain of function research is for? In order to determine how viruses behave in a safe and reasonable manner, gain of function is one of the ways we do so. For example, modifying a virus that normally only infects humans to infect an animal, so we can examine how it works in a lab and in turn design better vaccines or treatments. Some of these fears and comments reminds me a lot of comments ar…

Is there any requirement that gain-of-function follow conceivably natural pathways?

Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research

#23

Post by anon291 »

xracy wrote: post #16

I get that there are a lot of arm-chair experts who think this was a lab-leak. But we're making many large jumps here from: Was this created in a lab? Was this leaked from a lab? Is there something inherently dangerous about studying viruses in labs? Full NIMBY. The positive externalities of this are good jobs around virology study to try and prevent the next pandemic. But we're just leaning super hard into fear-mong…

Your argument here boils down to 'we shouldn't care if it's created in a lab, because even if it were, the benefits of studying viruses outweigh the risk'. It's funny that you accuse others of being 'armchair experts', when you yourself are being an armchair expert on the topic of the risk/benefit analysis of gain-of-function research. Moreover, your idea is even more dangerous because it necessitates that there will never be any expertise in this area. If no one investigates whether this was a lab leak, we'll never be able to put together proper research and data to answer the question of whether the benefits outweigh the risks of gain-of-function research.

The main purpose behind determining if it's a lab leak is not to 'make jumps'. It's so that we know. It's important we know because it's how science and policy get done. Putting our fingers in our ears and covering our eyes and pretending it doesn't matter is irresponsible.

> We've still not proven that COVID was a lab-leak, so we're attempting to say that something that otherwise has a very safe record is dangerous based on what might have happened.

How is anyone supposed to prove or even provide evidence of such a thing if China doesn't cooperate? And that's really the reason this has exploded. China is not cooperating. No one knows, and that's suspicious.

Even if, as you say, all indicators point to gain-of-function research being useful, I think we should all be able to agree that labs that are not open to being investigated by international, neutral bodies should not be involved in conducting them. The possibility of cover ups is too great.

Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research

#24

Post by JoshTko »

Any benefit from research of gain of function research is clearly outweighed by risk of lab leak. I.e if the estimated incremental realized benefit of better planning, better mitigation from a single gain of function research equaled X; the cost of a lab leak seems to be 100X~10,000X.

Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research

#25

Post by Ajay-p »

Perhaps I am one of a small group but it still irritates me how politicized the origins of COVID were. It should never have been that way and it should never happen again. Lab leak, deliberate act, accident, or a mutation in the wild, the origins should have been rigorously challenged and pursued no matter the consequence.

Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research

#26

Post by jrm4 »

xracy wrote: post #16

I get that there are a lot of arm-chair experts who think this was a lab-leak. But we're making many large jumps here from: Was this created in a lab? Was this leaked from a lab? Is there something inherently dangerous about studying viruses in labs? Full NIMBY. The positive externalities of this are good jobs around virology study to try and prevent the next pandemic. But we're just leaning super hard into fear-mong…

Yeah, nah. You're conflating certainty with risk.

Crazy virus comes from where said crazy viruses are literally made and studied.

Occams Razor suggests a lot, but more importantly, smart risk management dictates that you treat the lab as if it is the source; absent some sort of clear risk-related reason that these experiments are likely to do more good than harm.

So I suppose the correct question is -- what are we getting from these labs that's worth the risk of leaks?

Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research

#27

Post by galangalalgol »

pmarreck wrote: post #9
purpleblue wrote: post #5

I'm glad that things are slowing down here. Virology research is one of those things no one ever thought about, but the fact that a single careless lab was able to release a virus that killed tens of millions around the world should be a wake up call that the researchers were outpacing the regulations. The entire industry around the world has to be heavily regulated at this point to prevent this from happening again.

> the fact that a single careless lab was able to release a virus that killed tens of millions around the world Wait, is this canon now? If so, how is China going to not garner the hatred of the entire world?

I haven't read much in the last year that didn't consider it extremely likely. The lab was receiving funding from other nations including the US, so I don't think hatred specifically and only for China is rational, but being rational is so cliche. What is 100% accepted and documented is that the lab in question had a history of repeated leaks and failures to follow protocol. When a Chinese nuke plant doesn't follow protocols other nations use, that is one thing, but given global ramifications, it seems like even otherwise adversarial nations could agree on a set of safeguards for such labs and enforce them. That is assuming the aluminium fedora crowd are wrong and it wasn't like that scene in goonies where they hand Chunk a picture frame they want broken knowing he isn't very coordinated.

Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research

#28

Post by xracy »

tmaly wrote: post #19
xracy wrote: post #16

I get that there are a lot of arm-chair experts who think this was a lab-leak. But we're making many large jumps here from: Was this created in a lab? Was this leaked from a lab? Is there something inherently dangerous about studying viruses in labs? Full NIMBY. The positive externalities of this are good jobs around virology study to try and prevent the next pandemic. But we're just leaning super hard into fear-mong…

I have not kept up with this topic. What does the evidence point to? Has any new evidence surfaced in the past year?

I have certainly not heard of any new evidence that would change my view that it was not caused by a lab-leak yet. My impression is that the market animal to human jump was still the prevailing theory.

Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research

#29

Post by WatchDog »

xracy wrote: post #16

I get that there are a lot of arm-chair experts who think this was a lab-leak. But we're making many large jumps here from: Was this created in a lab? Was this leaked from a lab? Is there something inherently dangerous about studying viruses in labs? Full NIMBY. The positive externalities of this are good jobs around virology study to try and prevent the next pandemic. But we're just leaning super hard into fear-mong…

> We've still not proven that COVID was a lab-leak

We also haven't proven it wasn't a lab leak.

> so we're attempting to say that something that otherwise has a very safe record is dangerous based on what might have happened.

I'm not sure how good the record really is[0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity...

Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research

#30

Post by fabian2k »

xracy wrote: post #20
fabian2k wrote: post #11

One thing the pandemic certainly has shown is just how dangerous an otherwise unremarkable animal virus can be if it gains the ability to infect humans. Simply because nobody has a pre-existing immunity it gains enormous advantages in its ability to spread compared to similar viruses that are already endemic. I think previous candidates for new pandemic viruses did mislead us as those never got far enough to become a…

> I think avoiding many if not most gain-of-function experiments is a reasonable lesson to learn from this pandemic. Help me out, I don't see the thread of logic from your previous points...

Certain gain of function experiments, e.g. modifying an animal virus to be able to infect humans could create viruses that might behave very similar to SARS-CoV2 if leaked. We now know more about the potential consequences of such a leak, we have a full-blown pandemic as a benchmark.

If those experiments have a chance to repeat a similar pandemic, I don't think any of them are worth that risk.

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