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.<p>I think previous candidates for new pandemic viruses did mislead us as those never got far enough to become a true pandemic. Those were scarier than SARS-CoV2 by lethality, but were manageable by the usual epidemiological tools. Now we've also seen how a virus can spread that is far more contagious, and how we are unable to stop such a virus.<p>What I found scary about SARS-CoV2 is just how much it improved between variants. It didn't have any special features like influenza to increase its potential there. It simply had the numbers, enormous amounts of hosts to evolve in. So potentially any virus that is able to spread as far initially could be able to evolve in a similar manner.<p>I think avoiding many if not most gain-of-function experiments is a reasonable lesson to learn from this pandemic.
Another lesson we should learn from the pandemic, aside from the risks of GoF research, is that searching for novel viruses in animals can be extremely dangerous.<p>WIV collected samples from bat populations to find novel coronaviruses. Processing those samples was <i>not</i> done in a BSL-4 facility, but instead in BSL-2 labs. Some of those samples, like RaTG13, were as close as 96% similar to SARS-CoV-2. Even if COVID didn't require GoF research to spill over into humans, and was a purely natural spillover, actively collecting novel viruses and processing them in a low-BSL lab is a recipe for disaster.<p>BSL-4 is reserved for pathogens known to be dangerous to humans. This policy effectively translates to treating novel viruses as safe until proven otherwise, which is reckless.
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.
Long before Covid there was pushback against these projects, particularly near population centers. Boston University built its National Emerging Infectious Diseases center right in the middle of the city, which was approved by local regulators (<a href="https://www.bu.edu/articles/2017/neidl-bsl-4-lab-approved" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.bu.edu/articles/2017/neidl-bsl-4-lab-approved</a>) but strongly criticized by neighbors when they learned that Ebola and Marburg were studied there. Covid research at the center has not followed bureaucratic protocols, either:<p><i>But it has become apparent that the research team did not clear the work with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was one of the funders of the project. The agency indicated it is going to be looking for some answers as to why it first learned of the work through media reports.<p>Emily Erbelding, director of NIAID’s division of microbiology and infectious diseases, said the BU team’s original grant applications did not specify that the scientists wanted to do this precise work. Nor did the group make clear that it was doing experiments that might involve enhancing a pathogen of pandemic potential in the progress reports it provided to NIAID.</i><p><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2022/10/17/boston-university-researchers-testing-of-lab-made-version-of-covid-virus-draws-government-scrutiny/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.statnews.com/2022/10/17/boston-university-resear...</a>
It's a bummer to be a scientist whose work is stymied by these concerns.<p>Nevertheless, pumping the brakes here is sensible.<p>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 <i>scientific merit</i> of their proposals. In a vacuum, that makes sense.<p>Seen more widely, though, the decisions of the NIH and similar funding bodies are shot through with political considerations. For example, it would be hard for a physician scientist to attend a conference in the last few years where considerable resources were not devoted to equity issues.<p>My point here is that we already contextualize what work we fund by political decisions, for better or worse. In this circumstances, we continue to do so, but we in particular pause funding on research that may, in some form, be responsible for the deaths of millions of people and the disruption of lives of billions. That's a sensible choice.
The fundamental problem with GoF research is that the virology community has shown that it's not trustworthy enough to be working with things that are this dangerous.<p>In China, there has been almost a complete information blackout after COVID. Most of what we know that points to a leak that actually comes from China has been accidentally disclosed or was published before the pandemic.<p>In the U.S. and Europe, it's sadly largely the same story. We now know through FOIA requests that the authors of the pivotal Proximal Origin thought privately that there was a significant likelihood that SARS2 was lab derived, but what they published was that "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible." They also sought to conceal some of the true authors of the paper in order for it to appear more independent and credible. They, and their colleagues then relentlessly smeared and called conspiracy theorists, anyone who publicly said the very same things that they said privately to each other.<p>EcoHealth and DARPA refused to provide a copy of the DEFUSE grant proposal. It ultimately had to be leaked by an anonymous source in the government. When it finally came out it ended up being more or less a direct blueprint for how you'd create SARS2 from existing bat viruses, and it was submitted just a year before the outbreak started in Wuhan. One of the collaborators on that project was to have been the Wuhan Institute of Virology.<p>Throughout, (and there is much more), not a single person who has brought any of this to light has been a virologist. Some have been biologists in other fields, some have been outside the scientific establishment entirely.<p>Being responsible for an animal that harbors a virus that could kill 10,000,000 people or more if you make a mistake is an awesome responsibility, and only people of the utmost integrity can be trusted with something that dangerous. What we've seen is that sadly, nowhere near this level of integrity exists in the virology community.
If you want to do this research:<p>Get in line.<p>Include building a completely hermetically sealed underground facility.<p>Sign away the ability to interact with the world at large for the duration of the experiment.<p>All samples and potentially contaminated equipment is to be incinerated/vitrified upon conclusion of the experiment.<p>If you think you are good enough to play God with manufacturing new pandemic pathogens, okay. Fine. I sure hope you're really willing to sacrifice it all for your work. Because otherwise, the answer should be no by default.
Or, you know, "Lab Leak of Coronavirus casts chill over virology research".<p>I know it's not definitive it was a lab leak, but many US agencies including, notably, the Department of Energy, say it's likely it was.<p>And when you change the headline to reflect that, it sure does change the message.
>Scientists doing “gain-of-function” research said that heightened fears of lab leaks are stalling studies that could thwart<p>or initiate<p>>the next pandemic virus.
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.
When we can do this work in a satellite with robots, and ensure that in case of launch failure or de-orbitting the samples are incinerated, then we can discuss doing this research. Otherwise we are just playing with fire and doing our best to ensure somebody doesn't bring something smoldering to the outside.
Why are we so focused on understanding the biology of viruses, while making almost no effort to block them physically or install any more filters in public?
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:<p>Was this created in a lab?
Was this leaked from a lab?
Is there something inherently dangerous about studying viruses in labs?
Full NIMBY.<p>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-mongering here. How many people in the comments of this article really describe the processes used at each of these labs to prevent the viruses from getting out? How many can say how effective those practices are? We've <i>still</i> 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 <i>might</i> have happened.
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.
I think the answer will be to do this covertly, maybe to an unsuspecting population.<p><a href="https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault_81" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault_81</a>
See how paid actors and shills quickly jump in push the "it was not a lab leak" concerning a virus that was deliberately engineered with the additional benefit of creating profit from patented cures.<p>Very early on after the virus genome was released a group of Indian researchers quickly noted that the virus had been deliberately engineered and they were quickly shut down,<p><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v2.article-info" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v2....</a><p>then one Peter Daszak who was financing GoF research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology got a group of scientists to publish a paper saying it was not engineered and the Chinese were not involved in any such thing.<p><a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...</a><p>Here is the BBC featuring Peter Daszak given Wuhan a clean bill of health while forgetting to tell viewers about his relationship with the Wuhan institute - <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-56002216" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-56002216</a><p>Peter Daszak's Ecohealth Alliance passing on NIH funding to WIV - with receipts - <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6227902415001" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.foxnews.com/video/6227902415001</a><p>We now have leaked Slack conversations from a group of scientists who jumped in to say the virus was a naturally evolved was admitting privately in the conversations that the evidence pointed to deliberate engineering.<p><a href="https://www.bizpacreview.com/2023/07/19/so-friggin-likely-anti-lab-leak-scientists-private-messages-conflict-with-their-congressional-testimony-1378773/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.bizpacreview.com/2023/07/19/so-friggin-likely-an...</a><p>Isn't that the same Kristian Andersen who received a huge load of money from Tony Fauci after backtracking on the lableak/artificial origins theory?<p><a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2023/03/scicheck-no-evidence-scientists-received-grant-for-changing-opinion-on-pandemic-origins-contrary-to-claims/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.factcheck.org/2023/03/scicheck-no-evidence-scien...</a><p>Now here are some researchers who maintain that the new variants did not evolve naturally.<p><a href="https://zenodo.org/records/8361577" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://zenodo.org/records/8361577</a>
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.