Comment by noobermin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by noobermin | Hacker News Reader

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Thank you for posting.

Regarding your answer to 8, how important is gain of function research in the virology eco-system, is there sufficient reason amongst the powers that be within the discipline (that is, well-known researchers, leaders of departments or labs, funders and program managers, etc) to be wary of a funding cut for this research that they might be biased in dismissing the idea of a lab leak?

My analogy is in particle physics, the idea of supersymmetry is incredibly popular amongst the super start researchers, heads of parts of CERN, funding agencies, etc, that very few in the field are willing to admit the lack of evidence for supersymmetry at the LHC is in fact a crisis for the field after how many billions have been spent on the supercollider. My question is, is gain of function that important or popular in the field of virology? Why can't they just admit it's dangerous and chuck it, will enough of them suffer if they were to do so?

The vast majority of virologists are not working on gain-of-function research or with potential pandemic pathogens, but this type of research has some very influential backers who control significant sources of funding in virology and infectious diseases. This makes it very awkward and professionally risky for virologists to say that the top leaders in their field advocated for research that might have caused this pandemic and taken millions of lives globally.

National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) has been reconvened this year to review US government policies on dual use research of concern (DURC) and research with enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (ePPP/P3CO). Their public meeting is available here: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=44823 Please also see my thread on it: https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1499035660627419139

There is another public engagement session next week. Details here: https://osp.od.nih.gov/event/virtual-stakeholder-engagement-...

Based on these sessions and the history of the NSABB, I'm not confident that they will recommend measures to make this type of research more transparent or even safer.

The elephant in the room, as far as support for GOFROC (gain of function research of concern) goes, is Fauci. Several leading biologists (Marc Lipsitch, David Relman and others) have argued for years that the risk/reward ratio for GOFROC is too high to justify it. But it had to go all the way to Obama for Fauci to change course. Obama imposed a 3-year moratorium from 2014-17, which was lifted soon after he left office. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-flu-virus-risk-wor...

To me the fact that top officials in both the US and China have a likely interest in not investigating lab origins goes a long way to show why this hasn’t been done. And why no other country can get the ball rolling on it, these are the two most powerful countries in the world.

IMO it’s likely no one knows where this virus came from right now. but it could well be a lab, but anyone who could potentially investigate this theory absolutely does not want to in case it turns out it was.

It's even worse. If you look at that Lancet Letter scandal, you'll find for example Christian Drosten as a signatory, who was the expert with the most influence over the German government until recently.

Even after the Daszak conflict of interest was discovered, despite the declaration of no conflict of interest, none of them ever retracted it or even apologized. Even more, it was later revealed the letter had actually been authored by Daszak himself, as the pretend lead author Charles Calisher himself admitted. Calisher is a long retired professor born in 1936 who at this point may or may not understand what's going on. To his credit at least he told the truth when journalists questioned him. It looks like Daszak used his name to distract from his authorship. The strategy worked too, at first.

What's shocking is that none of them have faced any consequences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_letter_(COVID-19)

Shocking and depressing. It was a gross abuse of the trust that society places in scientists. What is astonishing is that the conlicts of interest of the authors would have been clear with a simple Google search. Yet, no newspaper thought of doing that! More likely, they took a decision to not pursue that angle.

  I didn't know that Calisher is that old !

I agree. Australia was one of the few countries which called for an investigation of all possibilities and the reaction from China was swift and furious. For most countries, concerns about trade and geopolitics outweigh everything else.

The US (and I would add France, which built the BSL-4 lab in Wuhan) has additional reasons not to investigate, as you said.

Not long after Australia pointed the finger at China, it emerged that Australian Government Labs had been doing gain of function research on bats ...

If the bar for proof of guilt is "swift and furious reactions" then by the playground court rules; "whoever smelt it, dealt it" and "whoever said the rhyme did the crime"

This sounds exactly like the kind of disinformation the CCP would be creating and promoting.

Ah of course I am parotting disinformation from the CCP, not quoting from statements made by the Chief Executive of Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO.

Perhaps your aggressive rebuttal was a sign of your guilt and complicity in the global pandemic.

https://www.csiro.au/en/news/news-releases/2021/response-to-...

Though your link doesn't quite say that, there are strong advocates of GOFROC (Doherty, Subbarao and others) at the Peter Doherty Institute, Melbourne. Moreover, one of the leading Australian virologists, Eddie Holmes, is a long-term collaborator of WIV and other Chinese institutes. But these facts by themselves are not indicative of guilt or complicity. What has been missing is an independent investigation of both possibilities (lab related and zoonotic spillover). The baffling reluctance of the US and China to call for such an investigation is very disturbing. However, to talk about guilt is premature at this stage.

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