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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums2012, Fauci defends the practice of "gain of function" experiments.
Saw a blurb on Twitter about this. Didn't like the source. Did my own research.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/07/us-infectious-disease-chief-urges-flu-scientists-engage-support-h5n1-research
Read the article, read it carefully.
Let me summarize.
This article was written in 2012 and it's chilling as you fast forward to 2020.
"Gain of function" research. Prepare to hear that phrase a lot. It means, researchers in a laboratory engineering a pathogen to make it more deadly. They give the pathogen, a virus in this case, characteristics that make it more deadly, more contagious, more mutations... (*speculation) where do you think the "Spike Protein" unique to the C19 came from? Natural mutation or engineered enhancement?
Indeed the spike protein itself, even without the virus has been proven to attack the heart and lungs.
https://www.salk.edu/news-release/the-novel-coronavirus-spike-protein-plays-additional-key-role-in-illness/
Fauci argued in 2012 that this research was important, as it allowed researchers to study "what-if" scenarios. He continued to argue that it was "worth the risk" in case of accidental release.
Scientists, he said, often "answer that the benefit outweighs the risk.
However, it is essential we respect the concern of the public domestically or globally, and not ask them to take the word of the influenza scientist."
In a chilling flash-forward, Fauci said "Accidental release is what the world is really worried about".
Hear people talk about a connection between Fauci and the American NIH and the Wuhan Lab?
Here's the facts (from politifact, debunking a WND article but explaining the re;ationship):
In 2014, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the part of the NIH headed by Fauci, awarded a $3.4 million grant to the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, which aims to protect people from viruses that jump from species to species.
The group hired the virology lab in Wuhan to conduct genetic analyses of bat coronaviruses collected in Yunnan province, about 800 miles southwest of Wuhan. EcoHealth Alliance paid the lab $598,500 over five years. The lab had secured approval from both the U.S. State Department and the NIH.
That the NIAID funded the project is not in question. However, the WorldNetDaily article goes further than that, claiming that the grant covered "gain of function" research on a bat coronavirus, which "created" SARS-CoV-2.
Gain-of-function research is a controversial form of study that involves boosting the infectivity and lethality of a pathogen. Proponents of gain-of-function say it helps researchers spot potential threats to human health and allows them to figure out ways to tackle a new virus. Fauci has advocated for gain-of-function research in the past. In a 2011 article he co-wrote for the Washington Post, he promoted it as a means to study influenza viruses.
Up to a few moths ago, it was almost a certainty that C19 came from animals, spread to humans naturally.
But recently:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/health/wuhan-coronavirus-lab-leak.html
Now, in a letter in the journal Science, 18 prominent biologistsincluding the worlds foremost coronavirus researcherare lending their weight to calls for a new investigation of all possible origins of the virus, and calling on Chinas laboratories and agencies to open their records to independent analysis.
We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data, the scientists write.
So... my friends, this is just the start of the story and it's going to make ONE HELL OF a movie someday.
Raine
(30,540 posts)scary stuff, the truth needs to come out about exactly what happened!
burrowowl
(17,638 posts)Duppers
(28,118 posts)No wonder Fauci is worried!
Why why the hell would New York-based EcoHealth Alliance give a Wuhan Lab almost $600K to study a dangerous virus that could be turned into a biological weapon? (Not that that was their intent!)
😱
This tremendously complicates this issue.
Rstrstx
(1,399 posts)For the record I dont think were going to get straight answers out of China, they may have some culpability here that theyre trying to hide, at least theyre acting like it, and if the EcoHealth story can keep some plausible shared blame in the news they will probably push it. Their earlier cover story of America released it as a bio-weapon at the Wuhan Olympic Games was believed by absolutely no-one so theyre going to need new excuses. Would not be in the least bit surprised if they form a strange political bedfellow with the American right if it takes some heat off them (and the right will only be too happy to get in bed with them if it hurts the Biden administration in any way, country be damned).
As I stated in another post, be VERY suspicious of what kind of stories you start hearing, take a look at their sources and any possible motives. The GOF theory is real and has legs, expect it to get politicized immediately like virtually everything else these days. People like Rand Paul and Tucker Carlson are already playing fast and loose with conjectures, treating them as facts.
Duppers
(28,118 posts)Rstrstx
(1,399 posts)Start getting acquainted with the names of people like Peter Daszac, Shi Zhengli, as well as early skeptics like Richard Ebright and Alina Chan.
This stuff is going to start getting politicized and FAST, and this is where the right wing excels, at vilifying people who are outside their clan and who look or act like elitists. There is going to be a crapload of this coming out of every orifice of Fox News and lesser news organizations and its going to be put in a light to make Fauci and other academics look bad while letting Trump off scot free, even though it was under his watch GOF research started again (the Obama administration had paused it out of concerns like this).
Granted Trump was way too stupid to have understood any of what his administration was doing, but his administration not only restarted GOF research they also made the more egregious move of shutting down the pandemic response team. Every time I hear Fauci Im subconsciously hearing Dont blame me! being voiced by DJT. By the time this is over theyll have tried to pin this on Hunter Biden.
Keep your guard up against news stories. Question their sources, who writes them, what their motives are, its all going to be coming at breakneck pace and the right has no intention of getting the truth as long as they can get their narrative.
If in doubt check in with Alina Chans twitter feed, shes been a skeptic from almost the beginning and is in the middle of all this. She is also decidedly liberal and will not go along with right-wing hit jobs.
Duppers
(28,118 posts)For clarifying. Yes, question sources.
mopinko
(70,077 posts)got into it on fb w a foaf. young dude, no college, entry level job. but he had 'done his research' and so should i, he said.
the thread was about the shots.
WarGamer
(12,436 posts)scipan
(2,341 posts)"That the NIAID funded the project is not in question. However, the WorldNetDaily article goes further than that, claiming that the grant covered "gain of function" research on a bat coronavirus, which "created" SARS-CoV-2."
WorldNetDaily is an American news and opinion website and online news aggregator which has been described as "fringe" and far-right as well as politically conservative. The website is known for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories. Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldNetDaily
WarGamer
(12,436 posts)Did you read the OP?
lol...
I'll cut/paste it again:
Here's the facts (from politifact, debunking a WND article but explaining the relationship)
scipan
(2,341 posts)Neither do your links. You simply wrote what WND claimed and stated that it has been debunked by politifact, with no link to it or debunking from it.
I will add what I think you should have (at least the link).
Fact-check: Did Dr. Fauci fund research that created COVID-19?
By Noah Y. Kim, PolitiFact.com
If the virus had been altered in a lab, its genomic data would show signs of tampering. Although scientists from around the world have publicly shared the virus genetic makeup thousands of times, theres still no evidence that the virus was bioengineered.
The CDC, the WHO, and the NIH have all said that the virus that causes COVID-19 evolved naturally. There is no evidence to support that claim that it was created by researchers.
This claim is False.
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2021/02/09/covid-dr-anthony-fauci-did-not-fund-research-tied-creation/4450338001/
WarGamer
(12,436 posts)You're trying to hard to argue something that is irrelevant to my post.
Everything BELOW this sentence is a DIRECT QUOTE from Politifact:
In 2014, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the part of the NIH headed by Fauci, awarded a $3.4 million grant to the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, which aims to protect people from viruses that jump from species to species.
The group hired the virology lab in Wuhan to conduct genetic analyses of bat coronaviruses collected in Yunnan province, about 800 miles southwest of Wuhan. EcoHealth Alliance paid the lab $598,500 over five years. The lab had secured approval from both the U.S. State Department and the NIH.
That the NIAID funded the project is not in question. However, the WorldNetDaily article goes further than that, claiming that the grant covered "gain of function" research on a bat coronavirus, which "created" SARS-CoV-2.
Gain-of-function research is a controversial form of study that involves boosting the infectivity and lethality of a pathogen. Proponents of gain-of-function say it helps researchers spot potential threats to human health and allows them to figure out ways to tackle a new virus. Fauci has advocated for gain-of-function research in the past. In a 2011 article he co-wrote for the Washington Post, he promoted it as a means to study influenza viruses.
WarGamer
(12,436 posts)Scientists are questioning the "naturally occurring" claim left and right.
Take up your disagreement with them. I'm simply claiming that as of today, WE DON'T KNOW.
https://www.ctpost.com/news/coronavirus/article/Was-COVID-created-in-a-lab-Yale-researcher-calls-16206900.php