GAIN-OF-FUNCTION: WHAT'S ITS REAL VALUE? Dr. Richard Ebright: "not a matter of value but a matter of incentives. GoF research . . . is fast and easy, much faster and much easier than vaccine or drug development."

Fauci funded most likely. https://t.co/vuJ3evObRs

— Salty Cracker (@SaltyCracker9) October 17, 2022

Here is how it starts

Boston University scientists were today condemned for 'playing with fire' after it emerged they had created a lethal new Covid strain in a laboratory. 

DailyMail.com revealed the team had made a hybrid virus — combining Omicron and the original Wuhan strain — that killed 80 per cent of mice in a study.

Okay, a little standard journalism would be nice.  For example, who condemned the Boston University Scientists?  Well, here is one condemnation from an academic, Professor Shmuel Shapira from the Israeli government.  Are we comforted given how the Israeli government captured such a high rate of vaccination? 

Professor Shmuel Shapira, a leading scientist in the Israeli Government, said: 'This should be totally forbidden, it's playing with fire.' 

Okay, this sent a chill down my spine, 

But the practice has been largely restricted in the US since 2017.   

So you mean to tell me that the U. S. government has allowed the genetic manipulation of virus, animals, bacteria, and all sorts of other critters?  To what end?  And given who we already know is in charge of the labs--like Fort Detrick [boy, do they have fancy names for bioweapons], and others--

Here is another condemnation.  Does this sound like a condemnation to you?  

Dr. Richard Ebright, a chemist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, told DailyMail.com  that: 'The research is a clear example of gain of function research.' 

adding that

'If we are to avoid a next lab-generated pandemic, it is imperative that oversight of enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research be strengthened.'

Ooh, that is damning.  Honestly, do these guys look like they'd ever become whistleblowers?  A quick check shows that Rutgers chemist, Dr. Ebright, has been terrifically forthright about why the gain-of-function viruses were used in the first place.  In a Senate hearing via Zoom, he was forthcoming, saying that "it's not a matter of value but a matter of incentives."

During yesterday’s hearing, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked Dr. Ebright and the other witnesses to explain why gain-of-function research is a popular choice among scientific researchers.

“Doctor Ebright, let me ask you about the merits of gain-of-function research because I was struck that something you said in your written testimony,” said Sen. Hawley.  You said, ‘gain-of-function research has no practical civilian application.’ From a research perspective, then what, why do it? I mean, what’s the, what’s the value, the real value of gain-of-function research?”

Doctor Ebright said, “Not a matter of value but incentives, particularly incentives within the academic research ecosystem. Gain-of-function research of concern is fast and easy, much faster and much easier than vaccine or drug development. And gain-of-function research is publishable, and gain-of-function research is fundable. With those four incentives in place: fast, easy, fundable, and publishable, the research will be performed.” 

So in his defense, it seems that Dr. Ebright has the interest of people everywhere.  This is refreshing.  

As to Shapira, he was critical of a Genesis award to Pfizer CEO, Albert Bourla, 

The former head developer of Israel’s experimental coronavirus vaccine lashed out on Wednesday against the decision to award the prestigious Genesis Prize to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.

Taking to Twitter, Prof. Shmuel Shapira, the former head of the Defense Ministry’s Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), called the decision “pathetic.”

It shows he's got good instincts.  Plus, this, 

“There are other vaccines that are far more effective. There are countries with lower vaccination rates that bore [the pandemic] just fine,” he said. 

Yeah, why wasn't this evidence included in the science of evaluating vaccines?  To ask is to answer the question.  

Oh, this is rich.  As usual, they're changing the language.  The instance here is from bioweapons lab to a biosafety lab.  Cleaned the threat of mass murder right up.  

Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories is one of 13 biosafety level 4 labs in the US. 

It adds that, 

In biosafety 4 labs, researchers do all experiments in a ‘biosafety cabinet’ — an enclosed, ventilated workspace for handling materials contaminated with pathogens.  

CATHOLIC FRANCIS COLLINS & 9TH COMMANDMENT

Here's my conversation with Francis Collins (@NIHDirector), director of the NIH and one of the most impactful science leaders in history. I asked the difficult questions and Francis answered with humility and brilliance. This conversation gave me hope. https://t.co/BcA7kXrTiY   pic.twitter.com/cIpjT4A9Yh

— Lex Fridman (@lexfridman) November 5, 2021

The only value I found in this interview is to watch a leading government official lie, lie, lie with the complicity of a young journalist who got the interview on the promise to not contradict, drive down, or ask any real meaningful questions but instead to allow the interview to be constructed as a kind of defense used to legitimize mass murder.  But he's a catholic, so that's okay.  Does Collins violate the 9th Commandment?  To ask it is to answer it.

Collins lies brazenly, shamelessly, and repeatedly in the interview,

You should have asked him about the ninth commandment (eighth commandment in some faiths) and the "sanctity of truth."

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) November 6, 2021

From the start: 

Science at its best is our social hope. So it’s been difficult for me, as it has during the pandemic, to become a source of division.  What I would love to do in this conversation with you is to touch on some difficult topics, and do so with humility and empathy so that we may begin to regain a sense of trust in science.  And once again science can become a source of hope.  Is that okay with you? 

I love the goal. 

Let’s start with some hard questions. 

You called for thorough, expert-driven, and objective inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, so let me ask, “Is there a reasonable chance that the COVID-19 gene leaked from a lab?

I can’t exclude that.  I think it’s fairly unlikely.  I wish we had more ability to ask questions of the Chinese government and learn more about what kind of records were in the lab that we’ve never been able to see.  But most likely, this was a natural origin of a virus probably starting at a bat perhaps traveling at some other intermediate, yet-to-be-identified host and finding its way into humans.

Richard H. Ebright cites example after example of Francis Collins, a Catholic, lying.  

2:47

I think we might know if we find that intermediate host. With SARS, it was 14 years before we figured out it was the civet cat

people’s immune cells are taken out of their body and treated with a genetic therapy that revs up their ability to discover the cancer that that patient currently has maybe even at Stage IV, and then give them back, as those old Ninja warriors go after the cancer and it sometimes works dramatically.  That’s gain-of-function.  You gave that patient a gain in their immune function that may have saved their life.  So you’ve got to be careful not to say that gain-of-function is bad.  Most of what we do in science that’s good involves quite a bit of that.  And we’re all living with gain-of-functions every day.  Taking off his glasses, he says, “I have a gain-of-function because I’m wearing these glasses; otherwise, I wouldn’t be seeing you as clearly, I’m happy with that gain-of-function.”

6:30

so, that’s where a lot of confusion has happened.  The kind of gain-of-function, which is now subject to very rigorous and very carefully-defined oversight, 

6:37  is when you are working with an established human pathogen that is known to be potentially causing a pandemic, 

6:44  and you are enhancing, or potentially enhancing its transmissibility or its virulence.  We call it EPPP, Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogen.  

6:59  That requires this very stringent oversight, worked out over 3 years by the National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity that needs to be looked at by a panel that goes well beyond NIH to decide “are the benefits worth the risks in that situation?”  Most of the time, it’s not worth the risk.  Only 3 times, in the last three or four years, have experiments been given permission to go forward—they were all on influenza.  So I will argue that if you’re worried about the next pandemic, the more you know about the coming enemy, the better chance you have to recognize when trouble is starting.  So if you can do it safely, studying influenza or coronaviruses—like SARS, MERS, and SARS-CoV-2—would be a good thing to know about.  But you have to be able to do it safely because we all know--lab accidents can happen.  I mean look at SARS where there have been lab accidents and people have gotten sick as a result.  We don't want to take that chance unless there's a compelling scientific reason.  

8:11   That's why we have this very stringent oversight.  The experiments being done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a sub-award to our grant to Eco-Health in New York 

8:24   did not meet that standard of requiring that kind of stringent oversight.  I want to be really clear about that because there's been so much thrown around about it.  

8:30  Was it gain-of-function?  Well, in the standard use of that term that you would use 

8:48

8:53

9:11

9:13 9:16, 9:22, 9:30, 9:37, 9:56, 10:04, 10:19, 10:21, 10:33, 10:41, 10:50, 11:13, 11:50, 13:11, and 13:34 (and that is just the first 15 minutes).

Rand Paul should never run for president again. He's much more valuable in the senate.

"You won't admit that it's dangerous, and for that lack of judgment I think it's time that you resign."

The NIH did fund gain-of-function in Wuhan.  Even the Chinese authors in their paper admit that viruses not found in nature were created, and yes, they gained in infectivity.  Your persistent denials are not just a stain on your reputation but are a clear and present danger to the country and to the world.  As Professor Kevin Esvelt of MIT has written, gain-of-function research looks like a gamble that civilization can't afford to risk.  And yet here you are again steadfast in your denials.  Why does it matter?  Because gain-of-function research with laboratory-created viruses not found in nature could cause a pandemic even worse the next time.  We're suffering today from one that has a mortality of approximately one percent that are experimenting with viruses that have mortalities that have approximately 15 and 50%.  Yes, our civilization could be at risk from one of these viruses.  Experiments that combine unknown viruses with known pandemic-causing viruses are incredibly risky.  Experiments that combine unknown viruses with coronaviruses that have as much as 50% mortality could endanger civilization as we know it.  And here you sit, unwilling to accept any responsibility for the current pandemic and unwilling to take any steps to prevent gain-of-function research from possibly unleashing an even more deadly virus.  You mislead the public by saying that the published viruses could not be COVID.  Well, exactly no one is alleging that.  No one is alleging that the published viruses by the Chinese are COVID.  What we are saying is that this was risky type of research, gain-of-function research, that it was risky to share this with the Chinese, and that COVID may have been created from a not-yet revealed virus.  We don't anticipate that the Chinese are going to reveal the virus if it came from their lab.  You know that but you continue to mislead.  You continue to support NIH money going to Wuhan.  You continue to say that you trust the Chinese scientists.  You appear to have learned nothing from this pandemic.  Will you today, finally, take some responsibility for funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan? 

FAUCI, 2:52  Senator, with all due respect, I disagree with so many things that you've said.  First of all, gain-of-function is a very nebulous term.  We have spent, not us but outside bodies, a considerable amount of effort to give a more precise definition to the type of research that is of concern that might lead to a dangerous situation.  You are aware of that.  That is called P3CO

PAUL, 3:27  We're aware that you've deleted "gain-of-function" from the NIH website.  

FAUCI, 3:30  Well, I can get back to that if we have time.  But let's get back to the operating framework and guide[rails] of which we operate under.  [wow, Fauci is carefully sparsing out his words.]  And you have ignored them.  The guidelines are very, very clear.  That you have to be dealing with a pathogen that has shown, and very likely, to be highly transmissible in an uncontrollable way in humans and to have a high degree of morbidity and mortality and that you do experiments to enhance that. Hence the word, EPPP, Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens.

PAUL, 4:08  So when EcoHealth Alliance took the virus SHC-014 and combined it with WIV1 caused a recombinant virus, that doesn't exist in nature, and it made mice sicker, mice that had humanized cells, you're saying that that's not gain-of-function research? 

FAUCI, 4:25  According to the framework and guidelines, 

PAUL, 4:27  So what you're doing is defining away gain-of-function.  You're simply saying it doesn't exist because you changed the definition on the NIH website.  This is terrible, and you're completely trying to escape the idea that we should do something about trying to prevent a pandemic from leaking from a lab.  There's a preponderance of evidence now that points to this coming from the lab, and what you've done is change the definition on your website to try to cover your ass basically.  That's what you've done--you've changed the website to try to change the definition that doesn't include the risky research that is going on.  Until you admit that it's risky, we're not going to get anywhere.  You have to admit that this was risky.  The NIH has now rebuked them.  Your own agency has rebuked them.  But the thing is that you're still unwilling to admit that they gained in function when they say "they became sicker," They gained in lethality.  That's a new virus.  That's not gain-of-function?  

FAUCI, 5:20  According to the definition that is currently operable . . . you know, Senator, let's make it clear for the people who are listening.  The current definition was done over a two-to-three-year period by outside bodies, including NSABB, two conferences by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [National Academies] on December 2014 to March 2016, we commissioned external risk-benefit assessment.  And then on January of 2017, the Office of Science and Technology of the White House issued the current policy

PAUL, 6:06  The definition appeared on the same day that the NIH said that, yes, there was a gain-of-function in Wuhan, the same day the definition appeared, the new definition to try to define away what's going on in Wuhan.  Until you accept it, until you accept responsibility we're not going to get anywhere close to try and prevent another lab leak of this dangerous sort of experiment.  You won't admit that it's dangerous, and for that lack of judgment I think it's time that you resign.  

Dracula negotiating the definition of what bite means.

— Mike Walgenbach (@mwalgen44) November 4, 2021

 

Rand Paul should never run for president again. He's much more valuable in the senate.

— Moved to Florida (@not_retired) November 4, 2021