Dr. Anthony Fauci Appreciation Thread

[Trey3216 15352]

1 minute ago, jimmyjazz said:

I imagine Vermonters test more than Florida residents, but ignoring that, the reality is that Vermont is lagging Florida by ~ 2 months on this recent wave.  At its peak in mid-August, Florida was averaging ~ 1 new infection per 1,000 residents each day.  Vermont appears to have just crested, but was currently averaging ~ 1 new infection per 2,500 residents each day, at their peak.

So, it's not exactly a strong argument you're making.

Understand that as well.  But it's still a spike.  And of course it's lagging another geographic area over 1500 miles away.  That's how shit works.  

[HenryJames 66151]

 

[sheeeit 129]

Also, concerning vaccines, I and my entire extended family and friend group are vaccinated and I think the people not getting vaccinated (obviously unless a doc tells them it is dangerous due to some condition) are misguided.

On the mandates, I suppose I am generally against a medical mandate but I certainly understand the argument and dont feel too strongly about it.  At the very least, in this case, the government isnt asking anyone to do something that they haven't already done to themselves.  However, the Biden mandate is just so typical of government ridiculousness.  Almost a text book example.  Mandating some people without mandating all people is just useless.  

And I can not believe that with all of the virtue signaling and bad mouthing and hatred and everything else that the majority of this board has directed at those americans who refuse to get a shot, not one of you, that I can find, has even commented on the fact that the Biden Admin is releasing tens of thousands of immigrants into US cities every single day that are Covid positive and they are NOT mandating vaccination.  It truly boggles my brain.  The whole way this admin has handled immigration is reprehensible but you would think that when we are firing teachers, cops, nurses, firemen etc that at a fucking bare minimum we would vaccinate illegal immigrants before we release them into the country.  

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13587]

GOP is one jackal of a motherless goat away from going plaid-tard. 

[jimmyjazz 46057]

55 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Understand that as well.  But it's still a spike.  And of course it's lagging another geographic area over 1500 miles away.  That's how shit works.  

It's actually only their 2nd significant spike, whereas Florida is coming off #3.

[bolverk 29707]

4 hours ago, Trey3216 said:

That Florida's case counts have dropped like a stone and Vermont, that bastion of vaccination superiority, is now one of the highest if not the highest in the country.  Because virus gonna virus.  

 

It's a comparison of sorts.  You know, a juxtaposition on how virus infections wax and wane as opposed to how mitigation efforts are championed to be the end all be all of success.   The virus is gon virus, it just has cycles.  

The following states all have higher case rates per 100,000 (in descending order) than Vermont over the last two weeks:

• Alaska 140/100,000
• Montana 81
• Wyoming 72
• Idaho 63
• North Dakota 62
• West Virginia 50
• Utah 46
• Colorado 44
• New Mexico 38
• Minnesota 38
• Michigan 38
• South Dakota 36
• Washington 36
• Arizona 35
• Maine 34
• Wisconsin 34
• Vermont 33

And the problem seems to be isolated to the northeastern part of the state where vaccination rates are the lowest, which appears to have allowed the virus to take hold. I imagine that's just a coincidence because the "virus is gonna virus" no matter what we do. Fortunately, it appears to be peaking or has peaked at a level much lower than all those states listed above.

https://www.healthvermont.gov/covid-19/vaccine/covid-19-vaccine-dashboard

 

Edited October 26, 2021 by bolverk
case rates added

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

6 hours ago, sheeeit said:

Also, concerning vaccines, I and my entire extended family and friend group are vaccinated and I think the people not getting vaccinated (obviously unless a doc tells them it is dangerous due to some condition) are misguided.

On the mandates, I suppose I am generally against a medical mandate but I certainly understand the argument and dont feel too strongly about it.  At the very least, in this case, the government isnt asking anyone to do something that they haven't already done to themselves.  However, the Biden mandate is just so typical of government ridiculousness.  Almost a text book example.  Mandating some people without mandating all people is just useless.  

And I can not believe that with all of the virtue signaling and bad mouthing and hatred and everything else that the majority of this board has directed at those americans who refuse to get a shot, not one of you, that I can find, has even commented on the fact that the Biden Admin is releasing tens of thousands of immigrants into US cities every single day that are Covid positive and they are NOT mandating vaccination.  It truly boggles my brain.  The whole way this admin has handled immigration is reprehensible but you would think that when we are firing teachers, cops, nurses, firemen etc that at a fucking bare minimum we would vaccinate illegal immigrants before we release them into the country.  

It just speaks to the hypocrisy of this admin. and how they've used the COVID issue as something political, and an opportunity.

[jimmyjazz 46057]

1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

It just speaks to the hypocrisy of this admin. and how they've used the COVID issue as something political, and an opportunity.

You know what's interesting?  You and yours are exactly the reason why this administration has had to implement vaccine mandates.  If dumbfucks like those who vote like you do wouldn't be so fucking . . . dumb . . . we'd be past this.  But yeah, it's "this administration's" fault.

Idiot.

[TwiceHorn 31520]

7 hours ago, sheeeit said:

Also, concerning vaccines, I and my entire extended family and friend group are vaccinated and I think the people not getting vaccinated (obviously unless a doc tells them it is dangerous due to some condition) are misguided.

On the mandates, I suppose I am generally against a medical mandate but I certainly understand the argument and dont feel too strongly about it.  At the very least, in this case, the government isnt asking anyone to do something that they haven't already done to themselves.  However, the Biden mandate is just so typical of government ridiculousness.  Almost a text book example.  Mandating some people without mandating all people is just useless.  

And I can not believe that with all of the virtue signaling and bad mouthing and hatred and everything else that the majority of this board has directed at those americans who refuse to get a shot, not one of you, that I can find, has even commented on the fact that the Biden Admin is releasing tens of thousands of immigrants into US cities every single day that are Covid positive and they are NOT mandating vaccination.  It truly boggles my brain.  The whole way this admin has handled immigration is reprehensible but you would think that when we are firing teachers, cops, nurses, firemen etc that at a fucking bare minimum we would vaccinate illegal immigrants before we release them into the country.  

So wait, you're opposed to vaccine mandates in some way, but if we are going to do them, they need to be everywhere?

You do realize that the federal government probably lacks the jurisdiction to mandate vaccines everywhere for everyone?  The "labor" mandate through OSHA is about as broad as it can get.

[jimmyjazz 46057]

6 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

So wait, you're opposed to vaccine mandates in some way, but if we are going to do them, they need to be everywhere?

You do realize that the federal government probably lacks the jurisdiction to mandate vaccines everywhere for everyone?  The "labor" mandate through OSHA is about as broad as it can get.

he/she/eeit doesn't give a rat's ass about intellectual consistency.  It's all about trolling "the libs" (which, ironically, make up maybe 30% of this board).

[TwiceHorn 31520]

Spoiler

 

It appears that some "gain of function" type research occurred in China, once removed from Wuhan, through a grant once (or more) removed from NIH via EHA, and that research was discovered likely after its occurrence by several years (we KNOW it was reported this year, there's an allegation that it was reported earlier and the allegation is self-serving).

Anastasis is correct that the oversight is lacking and that needs correction.  And I have questioned the use of third-party grant administrators like EHA from the get-go.  And they need to be either eliminated or overseen more carefully. But it is far from proven that "Fauci lied."

Also, that CNN stuff is bizarre.  The CNN doc says that GOF research wasn't "intended."  That's a weird way to put it.  A more blunt way to put is is the NIH didn't fund GOF research, but some people downstream went off the reservation and did it anyway.  Maybe there was some kind of wink-wink, nudge-nudge going from one research entity to another to EHA back up the chain to Fauci.  That's probably never going to be proven, so we can speculate about that until we're blue in the face.  Seems more straightforward to assume that Chinese researchers, half a world away, were gonna do whatever the fuck they wanted with whatever money they got from whomever, and were confident that PRC would cover them.

The whole Fauci thing is just another, more plausible, fucking conspiracy theory.  I'm so goddamn sick of conspiracy theories.

Edited October 27, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

You know what's interesting?  You and yours are exactly the reason why this administration has had to implement vaccine mandates.  If dumbfucks like those who vote like you do wouldn't be so fucking . . . dumb . . . we'd be past this.  But yeah, it's "this administration's" fault.

Idiot.

Fuck you Dick head. I’m not anti vax. The issue is the sliding rule changes federal  workers were originally exempt from the mandate for some bizarre reason, immigrants were / are being released into the country without the shot, lots of images of federal employees and elected officials not following their own mandate requirements when no one is looking .

 

if you knew even 1% of what you were alleging about me you’d have something worh listening to . As it is just STFU and keep your ignorant opinions about me to yourself.

Edited October 27, 2021 by Onboard 2.0

[jimmyjazz 46057]

5 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Fuck you Dick head. I’m not anti vax.

I never said you were.  Reading. Is. Fundamental.

[Incredulity 11682]

8 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I never said you were.  Reading. Is. Fundamental.

Quote

You and yours are exactly the reason why this administration has had to implement vaccine mandates

LO fucking L

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

10 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I never said you were.  Reading. Is. Fundamental.

Oh really ?  " you and yours are exactly the reason why this admin. has had to implement vaccine mandates". Sounds a bit like exactly what I was responding to. Memory, not that fundamental to you I guess.

Funny how this admin. didn't require mask mandates for gov't employees until well after they made them mandatory for the rest of the country, unvaccinated, Afghan refugees are walking off of the military bases they've been sent to, and the gov't does nothing to stop them. Unvaccinated illegal immigrants are released in to the country with no vaccinations.  I'm sure they're all donning masks though.. to be in legal compliance ya know....

Yeah that mask mandate sure is a huge factor in eradicating COVID.  Covid has been used by this admin. to push a political agenda..

Democrats.. never let a crisis go to waste...

[jimmyjazz 46057]

"You and yours" was a reference to Trump supporters, and by extension, Republicans.  You couldn't be bothered to mount enough support to take down Trump in the primary, and then you couldn't see what was glaringly obvious and do the right thing in the general election (except for the 10s of millions of "Gary Johnson voters", who actually fell just short of 4.5M votes).  As a result, Trump took office and completely bungled the response to the coronavirus, and furthermore, managed to turn it into a toxic political stew that led some 30% of Americans to believe vaccines and masks are silly and an infringement of their freedoms.

Yeah, you and yours.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Just now, jimmyjazz said:

"You and yours" was a reference to Trump supporters, and by extension, Republicans.  You couldn't be bothered to mount enough support to take down Trump in the primary, and then you couldn't see what was glaringly obvious and do the right thing in the general election (except for the 10s of millions of "Gary Johnson voters", who actually fell just short of 4.5M votes).  As a result, Trump took office and completely bungled the response to the coronavirus, and furthermore, managed to turn it into a toxic political stew that led some 30% of Americans to believe vaccines and masks are silly and an infringement of their freedoms.

Yeah, you and yours.

Sure........  I'm talking about the mask mandates, and COVID, and you can't resist talking about Trump for some reason...  Lat time I checked Mr. Biden was president... well he's the body sitting in a chair in the Oval Office.

[DDD Dad 14346]

Covid has been used by this admin. to push a political agenda..
Democrats.. never let a crisis go to waste...

What political agenda is that?

[jimmyjazz 46057]

2 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Sure........  I'm talking about the mask mandates, and COVID, and you can't resist talking about Trump for some reason...  Lat time I checked Mr. Biden was president... well he's the body sitting in a chair in the Oval Office.

Quote

It just speaks to the hypocrisy of this admin

 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

7 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

 

Yeah, this admin. the Biden admin.  Everyone has to wear a mask... well except for you gov't employees of course....

[High Plains Drifter 11050]

43 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

What political agenda is that?

 

Do the right thing, protect yourself and your community by getting vaxxed and wearing a mask while in public.

You know, socialist communist fascist tyranny.

[hobbes2702 13052]

1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Oh really ?  " you and yours are exactly the reason why this admin. has had to implement vaccine mandates". Sounds a bit like exactly what I was responding to. Memory, not that fundamental to you I guess.

Funny how this admin. didn't require mask mandates for gov't employees until well after they made them mandatory for the rest of the country, unvaccinated, Afghan refugees are walking off of the military bases they've been sent to, and the gov't does nothing to stop them. Unvaccinated illegal immigrants are released in to the country with no vaccinations.  I'm sure they're all donning masks though.. to be in legal compliance ya know....

Yeah that mask mandate sure is a huge factor in eradicating COVID.  Covid has been used by this admin. to push a political agenda..

Democrats.. never let a crisis go to waste...

No I think reading was the fundamental part since he never once brought up you being anti-vax. Pretty clear he’s talking about those who vote Republican.
 

I see all our right wings trolls and soft brains have wondered back to the CR after sitting out for a few years. I guess they’ve regained some sort of moral or political compass. Or maybe they are just back to attempt more bad faith arguments based on racism and stupidity.

Edited October 27, 2021 by hobbes2702

[sheeeit 129]

13 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

So wait, you're opposed to vaccine mandates in some way, but if we are going to do them, they need to be everywhere?

You do realize that the federal government probably lacks the jurisdiction to mandate vaccines everywhere for everyone?  The "labor" mandate through OSHA is about as broad as it can get.

Yes I am aware of that.  My guess is that even the OSHA related mandate will not stand when challenged legally.  But why do it in the first place?  If it truly is about safety and trying to stop/slow the spread (and I believe that is a big part of it but that politics is also at play) then why not mandate vaccine shots for Afghan refugees or tens of thousands of illegal immigrants at the southern border?  The hypocrisy and ineptness are staggering.  The OSHA angle was just some half baked attempt at doing something that dems can use to campaign on and repubs can campaign against.  It hasn't really moved the vaccination rates at all but is has certainly further angered the country.

Further, every single state has an equivalent for OSHA for smaller businesses.  Why no pressure on them from Biden?  Biden can apply tremendous pressure via the Fed purse.  If they really wanted a nationwide mandate they could get there.  Virtually every person in the US either uses federal services or benefits from federal services in some way.  Threaten to cut those off for the unvaccinated.  That is if they are really serious about this

It is just another example of having no real clue of what to do.  Always reactionary.  Always something super easy.  It just doesn't seem that anyone in the admin really wants to actually work or actually solve a problem.

[sheeeit 129]

14 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

It appears that some "gain of function" type research occurred in China, once removed from Wuhan, through a grant once (or more) removed from NIH via EHA, and that research was discovered likely after its occurrence by several years (we KNOW it was reported this year, there's an allegation that it was reported earlier and the allegation is self-serving).

Anastasis is correct that the oversight is lacking and that needs correction.  And I have questioned the use of third-party grant administrators like EHA from the get-go.  And they need to be either eliminated or overseen more carefully. But it is far from proven that "Fauci lied."

Also, that CNN stuff is bizarre.  The CNN doc says that GOF research wasn't "intended."  That's a weird way to put it.  A more blunt way to put is is the NIH didn't fund GOF research, but some people downstream went off the reservation and did it anyway.  Maybe there was some kind of wink-wink, nudge-nudge going from one research entity to another to EHA back up the chain to Fauci.  That's probably never going to be proven, so we can speculate about that until we're blue in the face.  Seems more straightforward to assume that Chinese researchers, half a world away, were gonna do whatever the fuck they wanted with whatever money they got from whomever, and were confident that PRC would cover them.

The whole Fauci thing is just another, more plausible, fucking conspiracy theory.  I'm so goddamn sick of conspiracy theories.

I won't take the time to correct your inaccuracies in the above but I will certainly respond to this being a conspiracy.  It is not a conspiracy at all with regards to Fauci.  Read his sworn testimony.  He was adamant and indignant that anyone would suggest that any money from NIH went towards GOF.  But he knew some money was going to the Wuhan lab and he knew that they were doing GOF research in that lab.  As mentioned previously, the head researcher at Wuhan (the "bat lady") has not only talked about it and admitted it in the past but she published her findings.  No one was even hiding it.  They were proud of it.  Fauci is certainly not dumb.  Of course he knew that type of research was being done in Wuhan.  When the pandemic broke he was in complete and total damage control as to the origins.

What Fauci should have said if he was truly an apolitical medical guy is that "the NIH did not intentionally make any specific grants that went directly to GOF function research but money did go indirectly to a lab in Wuhan that was actively conducting GOF research and perhaps that was a mistake and the fact that a global pandemic involving bat coronaviruses appears to have started in the same town where the world's most active research on bat coronaviruses and GOF research is located that it should be fully investigated".  

[jimmyjazz 46057]

3 hours ago, sheeeit said:

If it truly is about safety and trying to stop/slow the spread (and I believe that is a big part of it but that politics is also at play) then why not mandate vaccine shots for Afghan refugees or tens of thousands of illegal immigrants at the southern border?

Well, approximately 58% of Americans are fully vaccinated.  That leaves ~ 138M who are not fully vaccinated.  Your pearl-clutching over less than 4 percent of 1 percent of that number is duly noted, asshole.

[workswithseed 2109]

7 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Do the right thing, protect yourself and your community by getting vaxxed and wearing a mask while in public.

You know, socialist communist fascist tyranny.

Look at this trump supporter! 

[SizzleChest 8284]

Nice RT spam. 🙄

[Satoshi 129]

On 10/23/2021 at 7:32 PM, Anastasis said:

NIMBY is right.

 

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/medical-advances/578086-bipartisan-legislators-demand-answers-from-fauci

"Our investigators show that Fauci’s NIH division shipped part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies so that the insects could eat them alive," White Coat Waste said.

 

I mean, can you imagine all the barking.  What an annoyance. 

Wait, they figured that out.

 

Allegedly, 44 beagle puppies were used in a North Africa laboratory, and some of the dogs had their vocal cords removed so scientists could work without incessant barking.

 

 

Warning-rough footage 

[SizzleChest 8284]

[workswithseed 2109]

21 minutes ago, SizzleChest said:

Nice RT spam. 🙄

Wow, the video is fake?! Stop protecting the typhoid Mary in the video.

Edited October 27, 2021 by workswithseed

[DDD Dad 14346]

7 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Wow, the video is fake?! Stop protecting the typhoid Mary in the video.

Just asking questions?

[SizzleChest 8284]

8 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Wow, the video is fake?! Stop protecting the typhoid Mary in the video.

 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33884]

10 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Wow, the video is fake?! Stop protecting the typhoid Mary in the video.

you do know what RT is, right? regardless of whether the video is 'real' or 'fake', why are you carrying russia's propaganda water for them? 

[JimmyJames 12271]

43 minutes ago, Satoshi said:

Warning-rough footage 

Negged for posting disgusting propaganda. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

Fauci kills beagle puppies! What will that ebil man do next!?! 
 

Glub glub glub 

[jimmyjazz 46057]

Over 750,000 Americans have died of covid, probably 400,000 more than were necessary, and yet our newly-returned CR buddies are worried about fucking beagles.

Only in America.

[hobbes2702 13052]

It’s also awesome how they pretend this is somehow new information. It’s interesting that y’all didn’t give a shit about animal testing until now…

[wildcat09 29366]

Democrats in states all around the country have been trying to pass legislation to eliminate puppy mills for years and have frequently been blocked by Republicans. Now the Republican trolls want to blame puppy mills on Fauci?

 

[Anastasis 23481]

LOL this thread is great. 

 

Recent article from Science.

https://www.science.org/content/article/was-nih-funded-work-mers-virus-china-too-risky-science-examines-controversy

 

The part where they argue that the new more infectious chimera that was created was not GOF because they started with a virus that could not infect humans just speaks to the fact that these people are hiding behind bureaucratic semantics. The insight that they were also monkeying with MERS is a new one that I haven't seen before. 

 

 

Was NIH-funded work on MERS virus in China too risky? Science examines the controversy

EcoHealth Alliance defends hotly debated research that altered deadly coronavirus

Questions related to the frustrating search for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic keep creating commotion. Last week, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) placed one of its grantees, and itself, in the hot seat when it told Congress in a letter that the EcoHealth Alliance in New York City had failed to promptly report potentially worrisome results from a virology experiment done by a collaborator in China. In a progress report for one of its grants, EcoHealth had mentioned an altered bat coronavirus made mice sicker than expected, a discovery it should have notified the agency of immediately, NIH asserted in a letter to Congress.

EcoHealth, which has directed some of its NIH money to researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), was already under attack. Some scientists, politicians, and journalists espouse the idea that the ongoing pandemic was likely sparked by a virus that escaped from WIV.

There is no concrete evidence for that. But to detractors of NIH and EcoHealth, the letter and the progress report show NIH supported what’s often called gain-of-function (GOF) virus research in China, the type of studies that can make pathogens more dangerous to humans and that some think may have spawned SARS-CoV-2. (“In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan,” Vanity Fair declared, for example.)

NIH has consistently denied that it has funded risky GOF research in China, and still does. EcoHealth’s work didn’t meet the bar, the agency says, because the more pathogenic bat coronavirus was created from one not known to infect humans. Still, NIH demanded that EcoHealth provide by this week any unpublished data beyond its last progress report, which covered year five of the grant.

Peter Daszak, EcoHealth’s founder and president, tells ScienceInsider the group has submitted a response and defends its efforts as transparent and legitimate. Echoing what an EcoHealth spokesperson said last week, Daszak also challenges NIH’s claim that EcoHealth has violated any grant conditions with the mouse results, saying it notified them of the data and NIH failed to request follow-up action. “This is spelled out in detail in a letter we sent to NIH yesterday, with detailed documentary evidence, strongly refuting that we were out of compliance with our reporting requirements,” he wrote to ScienceInsider today.

But to some scientists, another part of EcoHealth’s year five grant progress report was also troubling: results from studies that manipulated a different coronavirus, the one that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). That virus, MERS-CoV, which originated in bats before spreading to camels and then people, is lethal in roughly 35% of diagnosed human cases.

Concerns about risky studies with MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV—the virus that caused the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak—and H5N1 avian influenza led to a 2017 U.S. policy requiring a special review to weigh potential benefits and risks for certain work with specific pathogens. Some virologists and biosecurity experts say EcoHealth’s studies with MERS-CoV should have warranted that type of review, and expressed dismay that EcoHealth backed such work in China.

But NIH says EcoHealth’s MERS-CoV experiments didn’t fit the Department of Health and Human Services’s (HHS’s) definition of research requiring special review because “the research was not reasonably anticipated to result in an ePPP,” or an enhanced pathogen of pandemic potential. (NIH has recently asked media to avoid the term “gain of function,” saying it is confusing for the public—it even scrubbed the term from a web page URL and header in favor of ePPP last week, a move that was quickly spotted.)

The letter has reignited the debate about the benefits and risks of engineering pathogens that could spark a pandemic. A recent draft directive from a Senate appropriations committee may force NIH and the virology community to revisit that contentious topic in depth.

Here’s a closer look at the issues, including Daszak’s defense of EcoHealth’s work with MERS-CoV.

What experiments were done with the MERS virus and why?

EcoHealth and WIV researchers had collected novel bat viruses dubbed HKU4 in several provinces in southern China, found they were closely related to the MERS virus, and wanted to study their ability to transmit and cause disease in other species, to see whether they posed a pandemic risk. Some of their work focused on the spike surface protein that coronaviruses use to infect cells, specifically a portion called the receptor-binding domain (RBD).

Researchers frequently can genetically sequence coronaviruses found when sampling bats in the wild, but they rarely can grow those viruses in culture. So they create chimeric viruses with ones that do grow in culture, which in this case was MERS-CoV.

Specifically, the scientists isolated the genetic code for the RBD from various HKU4 strains and swapped it into the genetic “backbone” of the MERS virus, a June 2018–May 2019 progress report states. The researchers showed these chimeric viruses could infect human tissues, and that they replicated well in cells that had a receptor named DPP4 that MERS-CoV uses to enter human cells. “The results suggest potential risk of the bat HKU4r-CoVs for cross-species infection in humans,” the report concludes.

Are such studies justified and necessary?

That’s where scientists disagree. To put RBDs from some of the novel HKU4 viruses into MERS-CoV, already a lethal human pathogen, is “sort of crazy” and “unjustified,” says University of Montana, Missoula, virologist Jack Nunberg.

Tulane University virologist Robert Garry has a more charitable take. “They are trying to determine if the HKU4 viruses have pathogenic potential,” or whether these viruses could jump to humans if they acquire certain mutations, he says. “That’s legitimate.” Another lab that has collaborated with WIV, Ralph Baric’s group at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has done similar, albeit controversial chimeric virus studies with SARS-CoV, the virus that caused the global SARS outbreak of 2003. “I don’t think [this Wuhan work] is that different,” says virologist Stephen Goldstein, a postdoc at the University of Utah.

Another reason to modify MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV is to be able to infect mice with these viruses, which makes other types of studies possible, Goldstein notes. For example, Baric has developed a mouse model to test drugs and vaccines against viruses related to MERS-CoV.

Yet the EcoHealth studies may not have been necessary because Baric’s lab had already done studies with HKU4 “pseudoviruses,” which are designed to bind and enter cells but can’t replicate, Garry says. Virologist Stanley Perlman of the University of Iowa says he’s not convinced the chimeric viruses tell scientists anything more about pathogenicity than pseudoviruses. “I think that this is not the best way to answer the question,” Perlman says.

But Daszak argues that the chimeric viruses added crucial information beyond infectivity. “Pseudoviruses will demonstrate capacity to bind cells, recombinant viruses allow measures of things like viral genome copy per gram–clues as to the potential importance of these viruses for public health,” he wrote in an email to ScienceInsider.

The MERS-CoV studies are modifying a dangerous human virus. So why didn’t the work qualify as ePPP (or GOF, the term NIH now wants to abandon), which would have triggered an extra layer of review?

NIH says the work did not qualify as ePPP because the researchers did not anticipate that the modified MERS viruses would be more infectious to people than the original virus. Virologist Michael Imperiale of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, says that makes sense. “MERS-CoV already infects humans,” he says; if the same virus but with a bit of bat virus RNA stitched in does the same, that isn’t GOF research, Imperiale says.

Garry does not see a problem either. “The odds of combining any random bat virus with MERS-CoV and getting a more pathogenic virus than MERS-CoV is vanishingly small,” he says. And it did not happen: In the EcoHealth-backed cell experiments, one chimeric virus replicated equally as well as MERS-CoV in cells expressing DPP4, and three others did not grow as well.

Why did EcoHealth deny it was doing MERS-CoV studies?

EcoHealth did not keep the MERS-CoV studies secret from NIH. It included the MERS-CoV plans in its 2014 grant proposal that NIH approved, and also noted the intended studies in its fourth year progress report. Yet The Intercept, which recently obtained these documents with a public records lawsuit, reported that in September, EcoHealth spokesperson Robert Kessler had said the group did not conduct the MERS-CoV studies described in the grant proposal.

Daszak calls that a straightforward “mistake,” adding: “The actual permission for us to do this work was requested in a letter to NIH at the end of year 3 of the grant. NIH allowed the work to move forwards. Robert Kessler didn’t have access to that letter at the time – he’s a spokesperson, not a scientist.”

Daszak also told ScienceInsider the MERS-CoV chimeric studies were conducted in WIV’s biosafety level-3 labs, the same level of biosafety required in the United States for such research.

What will happen next?

Daszak told ScienceInsider that EcoHealth submitted a response on 26 October. The last progress report, dated in August but covering work in 2018–19, noted plans to test MERS-CoV chimeric viruses in live mice, so there may be some data on that in EcoHealth’s response.

The debate over the MERS virus experiments may give more impetus to revisiting the HHS policy on potentially risky pathogen research. A Senate report accompanying a bill funding NIH’s 2022 budget calls for such a review by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), a panel of outside advisers that helped develop the current policy. NSABB last met in late January 2020 to discuss whether federal decisions about ePPP research should be more transparent—just as COVID-19 had begun its global spread.

The Senate demand will have to survive the budget reconciliation process, which may not be done until the end of the year. NIH Director Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The Wall Street Journal in September they’re open to reviewing the policies.

 

[Neonmoon 38130]

3 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

Democrats in states all around the country have been trying to pass legislation to eliminate puppy mills for years and have frequently been blocked by Republicans. Now the Republican trolls want to blame puppy mills on Fauci?

 

[TwiceHorn 31520]

On 10/27/2021 at 2:01 PM, sheeeit said:

I won't take the time to correct your inaccuracies in the above but I will certainly respond to this being a conspiracy.  It is not a conspiracy at all with regards to Fauci.  Read his sworn testimony.  He was adamant and indignant that anyone would suggest that any money from NIH went towards GOF.  But he knew some money was going to the Wuhan lab and he knew that they were doing GOF research in that lab.  As mentioned previously, the head researcher at Wuhan (the "bat lady") has not only talked about it and admitted it in the past but she published her findings.  No one was even hiding it.  They were proud of it.  Fauci is certainly not dumb.  Of course he knew that type of research was being done in Wuhan.  When the pandemic broke he was in complete and total damage control as to the origins.

What Fauci should have said if he was truly an apolitical medical guy is that "the NIH did not intentionally make any specific grants that went directly to GOF function research but money did go indirectly to a lab in Wuhan that was actively conducting GOF research and perhaps that was a mistake and the fact that a global pandemic involving bat coronaviruses appears to have started in the same town where the world's most active research on bat coronaviruses and GOF research is located that it should be fully investigated".  

Apparently, you would not know a conspiracy theory if it bit you in the ass.  Just because it might actually be true does not relieve it of being a conspiracy theory.

I find "intentionally" to just be a weasel word that blurs the facts.  Either NIH  funded "gain of function research" or it didn't. Bringing intention into it just creates needless subjectivity.  Whether that funding was subsequently used for "GOF" is a separate question with the companion questions of whether and when NIH should have discovered it and done something about it.

Anyone who expects Fauci to be completely apolitical is a fool.  The better or more practical question is whether he is playing some kind of partisan political game or just being a bureaucrat with an agency and a budget to defend.

Here is a dissection/fact check of the latest information.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/29/repeated-claim-that-fauci-lied-congress-about-gain-of-function-research/

I'm not going to offer it as gospel truth, I'm a little skeptical of it frankly and would like @Anastasis or another of the biotypes to opine on any weaseling.

It does appear, as I have sensed, that there is room for disagreement about what exactly constitutes "gain of function" research and what exactly would have been prohibited or circumscribed under the 2014-2017 P3C framework. There is the very broad, lay definition, that some like to use for political purposes, and others like to use in an abundance of caution:  that is, anything that could possibly enhance a pathogen's transmissibility to humans is GOF.

And then there is a more precise definition that one would expect quasi-legal scientists like Fauci, who live and die by things like the P3C protocol,  to use.  That shouldn't really surprise anyone.

There also seems to be some room for disagreement over what and how EHA and its scientists reported that may or may not constitute GOF research.  It might fit the broad definition, it might not.  

What's fascinating is that the jackholes like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz aren't demanding real reform of the grant procedures and reexamination of gain of function research protocols, but only that Fauci be prosecuted.  N.B. Paul did sponsor a shit ass little bill amendment that would ban funding of only certain "gain of function" research in China.  https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/dr-rand-paul-stops-gain-function-research-funding-china 

Lol. Complete bullshit.  Either gain of function research is a real problem, a global one, or it's not, Rand, you fucking tool.

 

Edited October 29, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I find "intentionally" to just be a weasel word that blurs the facts.  Either NIH knowingly funded "gain of function research" or it didn't.  You can omit knowingly or not at your pleasure.  Whether that funding was subsequently used for "GOF" is a separate question with the companion questions of whether and when NIH should have discovered it and done something about it.

Anyone who expects Fauci to be completely apolitical is a fool.  The better or more practical question is whether he is playing some kind of partisan political game or just being a bureaucrat with an agency and a budget to defend.

Here is a dissection/fact check of the latest information.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/29/repeated-claim-that-fauci-lied-congress-about-gain-of-function-research/

It does appear, as I have sensed, that there is room for disagreement about what exactly constitutes "gain of function" research and what exactly would have been prohibited or circumscribed under the 2014-2017 P3C framework.  There also seems to be some room for disagreement over what and how EHA and its scientists reported that may or may not constitute GOF research.

 

I'm not going to offer it as gospel truth, I'm a little skeptical of it frankly and would like @Anastasis or another of the biotypes to opine on any weaseling.

 

I'm sure he was hamstrung by national interest protocols.  I do believe they/he knew what was going on, and what were side effects of any of the funding they were passing out.

[jimmyjazz 46057]

Anyone who has worked in or for the government knows how inefficient and silo'ed it can be.  I still say that the fact Fauci says one thing and EHA says another is evidence of neither "truth".  Hell, they could both actually believe they're right.

Ultimately, this was a tiny project with a tiny budget, and that alone leads me to believe that the NIH's role was minimal, even if it was intentionally misleading in terms of the scope of research.  If in fact that is the case, the size of the project doesn't matter -- shit's broked, and shit needs to get fixed.

[Gil Bang 25990]