That's what happens when you release an endemic virus that kills millions of people.
I mean, are we supposed to feel bad for a handful of scientists and not the millions of people who died and the billions whose lives were disrupted? Seriously?
Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research
81–90 of 253 posts
Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research
#82It's a bummer to be a scientist whose work is stymied by these concerns. Nevertheless, pumping the brakes here is sensible. I get the sense that researchers feel a certain injustice that geopolitics is affecting scientific decisions by their funding bodies. Funding should be decided on the scientific merit of their proposals. In a vacuum, that makes sense. Seen more widely, though, the decisions of the NIH and simila…
There's the completely reasonable compromise of continuing to conduct this research at an isolated Antarctic station, at a quarantined oil platform etc. Instead these labs are all near major population centers, with researchers freely mixing with the general population.
This is what I don't get, why is this all happenning in cities?
Like I live in a place where one of the major employers is a government research facility and every day people go to the designated meeting point and a bus takes them the rest of the way, or they spend 45 minutes driving on a dirt road to the middle of nowhere to keep anything from work (in this case nuclear related stuff) from coming home with them.
Why the hell are we putting biological virology institutes in the middle of the major population centers instead of the middle of nowhere?
Like there's plenty of unused land in the west, hell WY has like 2 dozen people living there, it seems that would be safe.
Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research
#83[deleted]
Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Everybody on the pro-GoF side talks about how valuable it could be. Do we have any demonstrated public health wins from it we can look at?
Sure, remember how useful GoF was during the pandemic? Oh wait, no, that was mRNA vaccines. In fact, if there was ever a time GoF could have been helpful, it would have been a global pandemic. So maybe it's a crappy technique that should be banned by all countries everywhere because it is all costs and no benefits. :-/
Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research
#85That's what happens when you release an endemic virus that kills millions of people.
I mean, are we supposed to feel bad for a handful of scientists and not the millions of people who died and the billions whose lives were disrupted? Seriously?
I think of the poor Wuhan Lab that lost it's US funding finally. What a dark day for Science, right?
Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, where is this documented that this lab is known for leaks? To my knowledge, as of 3 months ago, the only “tangible” evidence for a lab leak was that china cleaned up before the WHO arrived and could better investigate. You are the first person I have ever seen, after hundreds of articles, claim that the lab is known for leaks.
https://www.vox.com/22453571/lab-leak-covid-19-coronavirus-h... That is where I thought I got it from, but I don't see it just scanning through. Either it came from somewhere else, or I got it confused in the section where they were talking about a Beijing lab. If so they have my apologies.
It was this one I think.
Edit:https://www.voanews.com/a/covid-19-pandemic_chinese-lab-chec...
Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Everybody on the pro-GoF side talks about how valuable it could be. Do we have any demonstrated public health wins from it we can look at?
They certainly can come up with plenty of reasons its valuable for them. Cigarette smokers can come up with a lot of justification of why cigarettes shouldn't be banned.
It seems like the GoF research shows a lot of "oh look we made a super virus. It would be very bad if a virus did this in nature." Perhaps we can get some data on specifically _how bad_ that particular function would be. What do we get beyond that? Like you said, are there any other benefits that outweigh the risks?
Maybe we're all just really bad at understanding risks. I see a lot of comparisons between nuclear power. We know exactly how much dangerous material is in a nuclear reactor. Those physics don't evolve. Nuclear material doesn't reproduce and reinfect endlessly. A nuclear power plant needs a chain of failure to be harmful. A virus only needs one particle to infect.
Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research
#88I'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.
How is that in any way the currently accepted origin of the pandemic?
I know, it's crazy right? There are people here that just blindly assume that because the NIH lied about 1-degree indirectly funding gain of function research on coronaviruses at China's only level4 bio lab, where workers were just happened to be some of the first that got sick, where security protocols were admitted to being flawed, and the Chinese government came in and deleted data... that any of this means it came from there!?
When in reality we all know China said it maybe came from a wet market in the same city (as the only Level4 biolab), because someone ate a bat.
You and I have higher burdens of proof than these "conspiracy theory" pushers.
Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research
#89>Scientists doing “gain-of-function” research said that heightened fears of lab leaks are stalling studies that could thwart
or initiate
>the next pandemic virus.
Re: Lab leak fight casts chill over virology research
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's curious to me that deliberate act is the one option no one seems interested in entertaining as a possibility.
Because it lacks motive. Further 'they did it to us' was pretty clearly sparked by fear. And it has been years; if some one did it deliberately then they failed to capitalize on it.
Who is "they"? Lots of people made lots of money from covid 19. There were also significant political ramifications.