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Comment by sgt101 | Hacker News Reader

Because we have natural pathogens that could be released to do the same as a bioengineered one. For example the Spainish Flu, smallpox, plague. All of these could be introduced into our cities and kill millions. In addition there is and has been for quite a while the potential for buoengineered viruses as well.

So, what should we do if the local chapter of the Aryan Nation or whatever bad actor we choose to discuss were to go on a bioterrorism campaign? What could we do if we had not capability to test, evaluate and develop counters for these agents? These labs are where the folks that understand these agents come from.

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I understand that's the value proposition of the research, but the difference between theory and practice is.. we just had a plague and it's not clear the research helped in any tangible way. In fact it may very well have been the catalyst.

There is bioweapon potential in these combination of technologies beyond simply engineering a virus, I won't go into detail here, since maybe (however unlikely) no-one else has come up with this particular scheme. However recent work by Baric and others leads me to believe that this kind of scheme is precisely their endgame.

I don't think it is the best strategy to build a dangerous pathogen, because we do not have the capability to contain it reliably. We just do not, as has been demonstrated many times. Humans are involved, and mistakes will happen.

To imagine you are "preparing" for a possible outcome, by realizing that exact outcome (as this pandemic may demonstrate), is like training the fire department by burning down Chicago.

Plague can be treated with antibiotics now.

We have supplies of smallpox vaccine ready to go in the event of an attack.

I don’t think we actually have the Spanish flu in a lab somewhere in reproducible form. Supposedly H1N1/swine flu is descended from it, but most people have protection against severe disease now from vaccination or a previous H1N1 infection.

If someone releases a new SARS-CoV-3 that’s been engineered to be as good a killer as MERS or SARS1 while retaining the transmission characteristics of covid-19 we could be in trouble, same if someone did it with a different virus family we don’t have some immunity to already.

Bird flu could be a good example here. It is an excellent human-killer but luckily doesn’t transmit well.

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