Thank you for an informative and well-written post. I wish the people who are so panicked about the mouse results of this research would be as concerned about the actual effects in humans of the currently circulating viral strains.
For example, effects documented in any one of these (and many other) articles:
The preprint’s mouse expresses human ACE2 under the CAG promoter, which is maybe the strongest promoter known, and probably expresses in every tissue. So probably every cell in that mouse’s body was coated with human ACE2. Any virus targeting that receptor would be lethal.
I had an open mind going in, but this doesn't seem reassuring at all. To summarize your argument:
- Virologists do this all the time (not reassuring)
- It totally wasn't created in a lab except for the part where they collected viruses from wild animals, brought them to the middle of a city and then serially passaged them through artificial cell cultures initiated with filtered mouse poop, then repeatedly infected genetically engineered mice. Which, y'know, happens all the time in nature. Nothing artificial about that sequence of events at all. (not reassuring)
- Gain of Function was made illegal in the past because it goes wrong so frequently. In a completely shocking twist, virologists have now come up with a redefinition in which GoF is specified so narrowly that serially passaging viruses until they can kill with 100% lethality doesn't meet it. (this is merely playing with words and has no intellectual merit; not reassuring)
- Humanized mice are specifically designed to simulate the human respiratory pathways and proteins that SARS-CoV-2 targeted, but because they aren't literally humans that 100% death rate might be ok actually! We don't actually know, and have previously fucked up causing a global pandemic by doing the exact same thing, but maybe with luck we're so incompetent that our mouse models aren't actually useful for the things we designed them for (not reassuring)
- OK the paper does literally lay out everything you need to know to synthesize a possibly deadly virus, and there are companies that will happily synthesize RNA on demand if you email them a sequence, but who's gonna do that, evil people lol?! (not reassuring)
Then you end with yet another repeat of "it's totally not made in a lab guvnor, 100% pinky promise", except it absolutely was, so this is actually anti-reassuring because it shows that the field of biology is still nowhere even close to being able to self police, years after COVID.
Sorry, but this sort of article just seems to reinforce the argument that all labs working with viruses need to be shut down today. No exceptions, no allowances for "this isn't really GoF" and other wiggle room. These scientists are delivering grossly negative value and have evolved to exploit our culture's tolerance for their bullshit. When clearly dangerous work like that is justified with semantic game-playing over words like "natural", the power to decide on these experiments must clearly be removed from those who are most conflicted by them.
This did not happen. They did not serially passage it in mice, which would help the virus evolve in a mammal. Just in vitro. It's hard to do any viral research without this
> redefinition in which GoF is specified so narrowly that serially passaging viruses until they can kill with 100% lethality doesn't meet it
This is not the definition of GoF, the definition is trying to make the virus more pathogenic/lethal on purpose which did not happen here. And the definition has always been this.
> Humanized mice are specifically designed to simulate the human respiratory pathways and proteins that SARS-CoV-2 targeted, but because they aren't literally humans that 100% death rate might be ok actually!
They are incredibly different and they do not simulate the human respiratory pathway, they simply OVERexpress (so much much more than humans) one human protein.
> Sorry, but this sort of article just seems to reinforce the argument that all labs working with viruses need to be shut down today.
From my post:
I think you can argue that messing with viruses at all is so dangerous that we simply should not do it, regardless of whether it’s Gain-of-Function or not. But that’s a really different discussion that has to be had about an *entire field*.
Yes it did. They infected hACE mice four times intra-nasally, and then in a followup experiment they infected sixteen mice (eight with inactivated virus, which we must hope they did correctly).
You appear to be mis-interpreting "infected repeatedly" to mean "for the purpose of serial passaging", but I didn't say that, nor does it matter. Any time you are doing this sort of thing with a virus there is a chance of mistakes and escape.
> the definition is trying to make the virus more pathogenic/lethal on purpose
Your definition might be. Nobody outside virology gives a shit what the stated intent in the abstract is, especially because the entire field of virology is now proven to be rife with deception and coverups. What matters is what happens.
> they do not simulate the human respiratory pathway
From the virus' perspective yes they do, that is the entire point of making them in the first place. If they aren't doing this then what is the purpose of breeding hACE mice, exactly? What are they for?
> But that’s a really different discussion that has to be had about an *entire field*.
How is it a different discussion? People responded to a paper that bears many similarities with what happened in Wuhan and a freakout followed because it's clear that biology has learned no lessons. Then you asserted that this paper is actually not evidence of that and the whole thing is just "a social media induced moral panic", but that's your position, not other people's. And now when I push back you're saying it's a different discussion? Your article is the different discussion - the points I'm making here are the mainstream discussion.
China has recently cracked down on it (primarily because of covid) but of course there is widespread belief in its efficacy, so there is still illegal trade of them ongoing.
Thank you for an informative and well-written post. I wish the people who are so panicked about the mouse results of this research would be as concerned about the actual effects in humans of the currently circulating viral strains.
For example, effects documented in any one of these (and many other) articles:
Neurological: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10179128/
Cardiovascular: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10282193/
Gastrointestinal: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10459193/
thank you!
Yes, agreed.
The preprint’s mouse expresses human ACE2 under the CAG promoter, which is maybe the strongest promoter known, and probably expresses in every tissue. So probably every cell in that mouse’s body was coated with human ACE2. Any virus targeting that receptor would be lethal.
I had an open mind going in, but this doesn't seem reassuring at all. To summarize your argument:
- Virologists do this all the time (not reassuring)
- It totally wasn't created in a lab except for the part where they collected viruses from wild animals, brought them to the middle of a city and then serially passaged them through artificial cell cultures initiated with filtered mouse poop, then repeatedly infected genetically engineered mice. Which, y'know, happens all the time in nature. Nothing artificial about that sequence of events at all. (not reassuring)
- Gain of Function was made illegal in the past because it goes wrong so frequently. In a completely shocking twist, virologists have now come up with a redefinition in which GoF is specified so narrowly that serially passaging viruses until they can kill with 100% lethality doesn't meet it. (this is merely playing with words and has no intellectual merit; not reassuring)
- Humanized mice are specifically designed to simulate the human respiratory pathways and proteins that SARS-CoV-2 targeted, but because they aren't literally humans that 100% death rate might be ok actually! We don't actually know, and have previously fucked up causing a global pandemic by doing the exact same thing, but maybe with luck we're so incompetent that our mouse models aren't actually useful for the things we designed them for (not reassuring)
- OK the paper does literally lay out everything you need to know to synthesize a possibly deadly virus, and there are companies that will happily synthesize RNA on demand if you email them a sequence, but who's gonna do that, evil people lol?! (not reassuring)
Then you end with yet another repeat of "it's totally not made in a lab guvnor, 100% pinky promise", except it absolutely was, so this is actually anti-reassuring because it shows that the field of biology is still nowhere even close to being able to self police, years after COVID.
Sorry, but this sort of article just seems to reinforce the argument that all labs working with viruses need to be shut down today. No exceptions, no allowances for "this isn't really GoF" and other wiggle room. These scientists are delivering grossly negative value and have evolved to exploit our culture's tolerance for their bullshit. When clearly dangerous work like that is justified with semantic game-playing over words like "natural", the power to decide on these experiments must clearly be removed from those who are most conflicted by them.
You are misrepresenting a lot of this.
>then repeatedly infected genetically engineered mice.
This did not happen. They did not serially passage it in mice, which would help the virus evolve in a mammal. Just in vitro. It's hard to do any viral research without this
> redefinition in which GoF is specified so narrowly that serially passaging viruses until they can kill with 100% lethality doesn't meet it
This is not the definition of GoF, the definition is trying to make the virus more pathogenic/lethal on purpose which did not happen here. And the definition has always been this.
> Humanized mice are specifically designed to simulate the human respiratory pathways and proteins that SARS-CoV-2 targeted, but because they aren't literally humans that 100% death rate might be ok actually!
They are incredibly different and they do not simulate the human respiratory pathway, they simply OVERexpress (so much much more than humans) one human protein.
> Sorry, but this sort of article just seems to reinforce the argument that all labs working with viruses need to be shut down today.
From my post:
I think you can argue that messing with viruses at all is so dangerous that we simply should not do it, regardless of whether it’s Gain-of-Function or not. But that’s a really different discussion that has to be had about an *entire field*.
> This did not happen.
Yes it did. They infected hACE mice four times intra-nasally, and then in a followup experiment they infected sixteen mice (eight with inactivated virus, which we must hope they did correctly).
You appear to be mis-interpreting "infected repeatedly" to mean "for the purpose of serial passaging", but I didn't say that, nor does it matter. Any time you are doing this sort of thing with a virus there is a chance of mistakes and escape.
> the definition is trying to make the virus more pathogenic/lethal on purpose
Your definition might be. Nobody outside virology gives a shit what the stated intent in the abstract is, especially because the entire field of virology is now proven to be rife with deception and coverups. What matters is what happens.
> they do not simulate the human respiratory pathway
From the virus' perspective yes they do, that is the entire point of making them in the first place. If they aren't doing this then what is the purpose of breeding hACE mice, exactly? What are they for?
> But that’s a really different discussion that has to be had about an *entire field*.
How is it a different discussion? People responded to a paper that bears many similarities with what happened in Wuhan and a freakout followed because it's clear that biology has learned no lessons. Then you asserted that this paper is actually not evidence of that and the whole thing is just "a social media induced moral panic", but that's your position, not other people's. And now when I push back you're saying it's a different discussion? Your article is the different discussion - the points I'm making here are the mainstream discussion.
I just saw you read Alex Berenson. Makes sense
This response means you've given up on defending your thesis, so you should post a retraction at the top.
no, I do not have endless time to debate stuff with internet anons.
Who says only anons will read your post?
Are those pagolins normally anywhere near humans? Or are we just creating more risk by bringing it into a lab near humans?
They're the most trafficked mammal in the world. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2014/04/opinion/sutter-change-the-list-pangolin-trafficking/
Pangolin scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine and have become endangered accordingly: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52981804
China has recently cracked down on it (primarily because of covid) but of course there is widespread belief in its efficacy, so there is still illegal trade of them ongoing.