Comment by barry-cotter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by barry-cotter | Hacker News Reader

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> Early on, Fouchier told Science that he had created “probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make.” But after controversy broke out, as the science communicator Peter Sandman has written, Fouchier and his supporters shifted to downplaying the danger. In early 2013, flu scientists ended their voluntary pause, arguing that when the research was done at enhanced biosafety level 3, or BSL3+, the benefits outweighed the risks. Kawaoka, who was normally the more taciturn of the two, hosted journalists in his lab, where he explained his safety procedures. “The influenza virus is sensitive to detergent,” he reportedly said while explaining the process of showering out. “They die.” A biosafety staffer at the University of Wisconsin got up before a university audience to dispel what she called myths about lab oversight. The address was broadcast on local television.

> Then, months later, Kawaoka’s lab saw two accidents involving lab-generated flu viruses, just one week apart.

> The accidents, a spill and a needle prick, carried a low risk of infection. Flu viruses are typically transferred through respiratory droplets, not skin contact or injection. Nonetheless, in letters obtained by The Intercept, staff at a funding agency accused the university of shirking biosafety precautions that Kawaoka had promised to adopt. They also demanded changes to the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s protocol for accidental lab exposures. Of particular concern was a plan to quarantine all researchers exposed to modified H5N1 at home, even if they were at high risk of infection — an approach that the funding agency administrators found so alarming that they threatened to end the lab’s grant unless the university changed course.

- "Of particular concern was a plan to quarantine all researchers exposed to modified H5N1 at home, even if they were at high risk of infection — an approach that the funding agency administrators found so alarming that..."

They're already relying on researchers to self-report exposure incidents, so what other, better policy could they aspire to? Attach any negative deterrent to incident reporting, and people will simply not report things, for their own convenience. The empirical evidence for this is more overwhelming than physics' QED theory.

Pretending that their lab technicians will dutifully and conscientiously self-report exposures is exactly the same security surface as pretending that they will dutifully and correctly self-quarantine at home.

> what other, better policy could they aspire to

Force the universities to get insurance, an on-site monitoring room with food service and pay 24 hours per day for 14 days.

This type of research is inherently dangerous, the idea that a lab tech exposed to a potential pandemic-causing infectious agent should be just expected to go home (where they likely have family/friends) and trusted to self-isolate is plain bad policy. Coming out of 2 years of pandemic and self-isolation at the global level the idea that we will be willing to compromise on this so that a university can save money is downright moronic.

If they cannot conform to the stringent rules for that sort of research, they shouldn't be doing it. Simple as that.

> Flu viruses are typically transferred through respiratory droplets, not skin contact or injection.

A bewilderingly ambiguous sentence. Is the rarity of infection via injection adjusted for the rarity of getting stabbed with an injection of flu virus? I can think of a number of times I’ve been sneezed on but I’m challenged to recall the last time flu virus was injected into my body.

Yes it's not really ambiguous it's just completely illogical. Of course they're not usually transferred via injection, it does not in any way follow that injecting yourself with influenza therefore has a low risk of infection. At least it seems this claim is one made up by the journalists and not actual scientists.

Also, they don't really know how flu viruses are transferred. The epidemiology of respiratory viruses is poorly understood and the whole aerosol vs droplet debate rages for flu just as much as for SARS-CoV-2. People touching their faces was meant to be a major pathway for transmission of SARS-CoV-2 so skin contact would seem to be likely to transmit the moment if you accidentally rub your eyes or something before realizing. And even later in the artice, it quotes an official saying: “An individual’s permanent residence is not appropriate due to the fact that many residences are in buildings with high occupancy that share air exchange and other infrastructure,” i.e. aerosol transmission is assumed.

It's good though, that The Intercept is/was doing this sort of investigation. The ultra-lax approach used by these virus labs is highly relevant information, and puts claims that COVID couldn't have come from a lab in important context. For this, we can forgive the author for an illogical statement here and there. It's clear from this sort of investigation and others that regardless of whether COVID did or did not come from a lab, the things these labs do combined with the near non-existent oversight is practically a guarantee of man-made pandemics.

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