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Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

nytimes.com

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

#341

Post by T0Bi »

dahfizz wrote: post #318

This comes right after the FDA approves a new small pox drug[1] and bill gates warns about a small pox "terror attack"[2]. Suspicious.... [1] https://www.fda.gov/drugs/news-events-human-drugs/fda-approv... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/bill-gates-smallp...

Please watch the Bill Gates interview.

The articles on this are very clickbaity. Bill Gates did not warn of a small pox attack. He used it as an extreme example of bio warfare which the world can prepare against through investing more in desease & epidemic research.

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

#342

Post by T0Bi »

T0Bi wrote: post #341
dahfizz wrote: post #318

This comes right after the FDA approves a new small pox drug[1] and bill gates warns about a small pox "terror attack"[2]. Suspicious.... [1] https://www.fda.gov/drugs/news-events-human-drugs/fda-approv... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/bill-gates-smallp...

Please watch the Bill Gates interview. The articles on this are very clickbaity. Bill Gates did not warn of a small pox attack. He used it as an extreme example of bio warfare which the world can prepare against through investing more in desease & epidemic research.

Edit: Here's the interview: https://youtu.be/CZplF4qdwII

Relevant @ 28:49

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

#343

Post by dogma1138 »

oasisbob wrote: post #332
dogma1138 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How different is it to other pox viruses? You might need a few snips…

I don't know, but a team of Canadian researchers synthesized a pox virus in 2018. They say, "this is the first complete synthesis of a poxvirus using synthetic biology approaches." The methodology required was involved. They point out the difficulties dealing with the hairpin telomeres which would also be encountered with smallpox: However, poxviruses represent special challenges because of the size (many exceed 200…

I actually dread what will happen when this would be come as easy as using a 3D printer you can already buy lab equipment on eBay for a fraction of the costs, order CRISP-R kits online and a lot of really weird supervillain stuff like ordering viruses with a “customized payload”.

Right now you still need a pretty substantial lab and knowledge to pull it off but at some point you might be reading on hack-a-day “How I hacked my food synthesizer to produce Ebola..”

I only hope that our ability to defense against such pathogens would advance at least as fast as we commoditizing the ability to play with proteins and amino acids on a molecular level…

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

#344

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #220
morpheuskafka wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were transported to the existing, single approved location for processing these samples before being cultured. So the risk may not have been any more than existing research at that facility.

I was always under the impressions, that they keep the samples frozen in some big "freezer", and that they don't poke them around and "play" with them... so opening an unknown vial of an unknown sample of possibly smallpox, having the sample analyzed, and all the procedures needed for that, seem (to me) more risky than just keeping the freezer running.

Analysing unknown samples is part of the mission of these facilities, think about studying a new pathogen from human or animal samples for example. It’s fairly routine for them. They have the equipments and know how to do it safely.

In this case, I think it was done to assess the risk of this kind of discovery in the future. If these samples had failed to be viable that would have been a huge relief for everyone.

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

#345

Post by spurgu »

annexrichmond wrote: post #310
skocznymroczny wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the definition of deaths. Most people don't get tested for flu. Also, in many cases, died of covid means "had a positive test result within two weeks of death". That's ignoring the dubious reliability of PCR tests in general.

Hi, I am curious, can you elaborate on the "dubious reliability of PCR tests"? Also, what do you mean by "in many cases" here. Like let's say if you are admitted to a hospital after a gun shot wound and happened to have Covid and die the next day due to the injury -- is it a Covid death?

Depends. I'm know that this is how it's counted in Finland at least. If a person dies within 30 days of getting tested positive for Covid it's counted as a "Covid death".

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

#346

Post by spurgu »

bastardoperator wrote: post #190
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is going to age like skim milk. Covid killed so many people because it was novel. It'll likely decline year over year as the population either develops antibodies or dies (of covid or natural causes).

"likely" That doesn't sound very confident...

Actually it does.

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

#347

Post by spurgu »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #171
bluGill wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we can grow our smallpox vaccine stockpile that fast. We know how to make them and have the ability, but getting production to scale will take a fair amount of time.

Smallpox vaccine can be grown in people - look at how the original vaccination campaigns got theirs across the ocean before there was refrigeration. If there was a smallpox outbreak the country the country would go to a sudden stop and everyone would race to be vaccinated, it is that deadly. Unfortunately, Covid is in that uncanny valley where too many people do not care until it hits them personally. That's why we a…

"we are all fucked" seems like a rather exaggerated conclusion. It's like you're excluding how many people there are who are not bothered even when it hits them personally.

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

#348

Post by throwawaylinux »

ricardobayes wrote: post #338
throwawaylinux wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for lack of people being willing to take the vaccination though. People look at risks and benefits and generally make their minds up pretty rationally, if you account that not everybody values things exactly the same as you do. Covid is really not that much of a risk if you're otherwise healthy and the vaccines are not highly effective as the smallpox one is (in fact stated definitions of vaccine had to be revise…

A comment like this got me banned from reddit, stating I was downplaying the risk of Covid. Not saying covid is not dangerous, it really is, but just looking at numbers even diarrhea kills 10M people yearly. It's just not visible to us in the western world and not picked up by the media.

A lot of people can't cope with hearing about different peoples' perspectives or learning about new ideas that might contradict their own beliefs. They don't go on the internet to be challenged, they go on it to be comforted and assured that their beliefs are right and that other people believe the same things.

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

#349

Post by natch »

dahfizz wrote: post #322
natch wrote: post #75

It’s also possible there is viable smallpox frozen in permafrost which is increasingly thawing recently. It would take an unlikely chain of events for it to reestablish itself from that starting point, but it’s possible.

Is that actually possible? Labs have to prepare biological samples before freezing them. Otherwise, ice crystals will destroy any cells or viruses that they are trying to preserve.

So all germs and viruses can be killed with 100% certainty simply by freezing, no ifs, no exceptions, is that your claim?

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

#350

Post by jopsen »

crate_barre wrote: post #311
wutbrodo wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many people who don't make their vaccination decisions out of a mystic adherence to the very concept of a vaccine, but based on what they perceive to be a cost-benefit analysis (with the level of rigor varying wildly, naturally). Unlike covid, there's no large cohort of the population for which smallpox is a fairly negligible personal risk, and smallpox outbreaks provide much more dramatic and visceral evid…

Shows how vain society is. If COVID was a harmless and flu-like, but causes a permanent mole on your nose, then I can promise you everyone would get the vaccine.

Hehehe, I bet that's true :)
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