Read on Twitter
Back on October 16, 2014, the U.S. National Institutes of Health instituted a “pause” on gain-of-function experiments with influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses, citing concerns about biosafety and biosecurity risks. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
“Gain-of-function studies” refers to scientific research that increases the ability of any of these infectious agents to cause disease by enhancing its pathogenicity or by increasing its transmissibility among mammals by respiratory droplets. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
NIH: "experiments that would make [these viruses] even more pathogenic in mammals (and hence potentially in people) were concerning enough to warrant placing those experiments under the pause until their risks and benefits could be better characterized.” https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
That pause on funding remained in place until December 2017. Francis Collins was the director of NIH at both the announcement of the pause and the ending of the pause. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
The safety and security of dangerous viruses and substances was at the forefront of federal officials’ minds in 2014. The CDC had unintentionally exposed personnel to potentially viable anthrax, and the FDA found smallpox vials in a storage room. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
One study at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was allowed to continue by NIH. It was led by Ralph Baric, an infectious-disease researcher who ranks among the best of the best. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
Baric’s team engineered virus with the surface protein of the SHC014 coronavirus, found in horseshoe bats in China, and the backbone of one that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
Articles at the time suggested some virologists weren’t so sure the benefits of the research were worth the risk. Apparently, this is a long-standing debate among virologists and virus researchers. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
Fourteen other scientists worked with Baric on this project — mostly others at UNC, but also from the Switzerland Institute of Microbiology and Harvard Medical School, and two others… https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
… those two others were Xing-Yi Ge and Zhengli-Li Shi, who worked at the Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
You may recognize Zhengli Shi as the Chinese researcher nicknamed “Bat Woman” for her work with the animals. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
Some folks look at this and conclude that SARS-CoV-2 is bioengineered. As laid out in previous newsletters and articles, too many virologists, biologists, and genome researchers say that simply cannot be the case with this virus. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
The “engineering” would be too difficult to hide, and other genomic researchers would see the metaphorical “fingerprints” of the alteration of naturally occurring traits. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
But this does tell us that the Obama administration and U.S. NIH were sufficiently worried about scientists working on these types of viruses, and the risk of an accidental release of one of these viruses, to halt federal funding for this research. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
In addition to the embarrassing errors at the U.S. CDC and FDA in 2014, the Chinese CDC’s National Institute of Virology in southern Beijing had accidentally released SARS in 2004.
Twice. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
Twice. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
But the research on bats and coronaviruses continued at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the declarations and funding leverage of the National Institutes of Health held no sway. https://bit.ly/3bZVqv6
