This week, Boston University found itself at the centre of scorn over claims its laboratories were engineering a “SARS-CoV-3” virus that would (hypothetically) put humanity one lab-leak away from a renewed Covid pandemic.
In the midst of worldwide relief over SARS-CoV-2’s eventual replacement by the mild, ‘common cold’ Omicron variant, BU’s scientists have created de novo an “Omicron S-bearing virus”, potentially marrying Omicron’s transmissibility with the Wuhan strain’s dangerous pathogenicity.
Boston University leadership should not be shocked by the widespread condemnation of this experiment. It has its own hubris to blame: steamrolling neighbourhood opposition to the urban placement of America’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), through which BU amasses lucrative research grants. As the philosopher Spider-Man has said, “with great power, there must also come great responsibility.”
In this case, BU exhibits power, but avoids responsibility. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is examining whether these experiments should have triggered a federal review as ‘gain of function’ with SARS CoV-2’s gaining new or enhanced abilities, which NIH deems “inherently risky”. Boston University says it “did not have an obligation to disclose this research”, despite having received federal NIAID funding which BU states was only for “tools and platforms” used by the scientists.
“We take our safety and security of how we handle pathogens seriously, and the virus does not leave the laboratory,” noted NEIDL’s Dr. Ronald Corley. Cynics might point out that as recently as 2018, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) touted that its work “held the secret to preventing epidemics”. NEIDL has (probably) released fewer unintentional pandemics than WIV, so there’s that.
NEIDL can be seen as either a bulwark against – or conversely, a conduit for – bioterrorism. NEIDL houses the Level-3 Biosafety Lab (BSL-3) of this trans-viral graft experiment as well as one of the rare US BSL-4 laboratories, intended for studying the deadliest transmissible diseases, such as Ebola.
Lab-coat scientist researchers are not selected or rewarded for political acumen, nor should they be. Actual wet-lab work often embodies the phrase by which physicians tease anesthesiologists: “99% boredom and 1% panic” – but, without the panic. Instead, researchers have their 1%-portion comprised of the brief, refreshing glory on the occasion of publishing consequential results – the news of which usually stays within a small coterie of PhDs cognisant of the technical ‘twin-speak‘ pertinent to the narrow focus of the experiment performed.
Upending the news cycle, bringing fear and then furor to a Covid-weary populace, and a posse of paparazzi upon itself is not the usual modus operandi of researchers releasing a preprint dryly titled (as they often are): “Role of spike in the pathogenic and antigenic behavior of SARS-CoV-2 BA.12 Omicron“. Boston University’s Mohsan Saeed (et al.) ‘buried the lede‘ by not communicating clearly having formed a SARS-CoV-2 mutant through chimeric graft of Omicron spike onto SARS CoV-2.
The researchers’ insularity is evident in their not predicting that producing novel camouflage for the pandemic’s perpetrator would be sufficient cause for all hell to break loose. Given Dr. Saeed’s interim disappearance from the scene, it is assumed notoriety was not the researchers’ actual intent. His additional lack of communicating the societal need for a rejiggering of COVID-19 spare parts into a new mutant strain is its own problem.
NIAID says that the BU should have communicated in advance the purpose and nature of the study. BU responds that it did not have to because the primary funds were from BU itself. Medical ethicist Dr. Arthur Caplan says, “the entire research community would benefit from better communication.” Perhaps even earlier “better communication” might have obviated the experiment itself.
By focusing so intently within the micro-world, it’s perhaps forgivable virologists lose sense of the macro. Conversely, the general public has earned every right to be twitchy and tetchy over ‘gain of function’ engineered augmentations to SARS-CoV-2 after the many millions of excess deaths following what many suspect was a Wuhan lab leak.
The Daily Mail’s story headlined “‘This is playing with fire – it could spark a lab-generated pandemic’” had this graphic stating the mutant strain has an 80% kill rate.
Sensationalism definitionally entails shocking language at the expense of accuracy. Corrections are therefore in order:
- Yes, this lab is performing a ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ experiment: putting Omicron’s spike protein (head) on ancestral SARS CoV-2’s envelope (body) – but, this is the standard operating procedure for virologists. Chimeric work allows comparisons to be made gauging the relative strength or pathogenicity of individual virion segments.
- Yes, this is a brand-new ‘deadly strain’ – but for a particularly and purposefully vulnerable strain of mice, not for humans. The new ‘Frankenstein’ Omicron-spike-and-Wuhan-body chimeric coronavirus caused 80% of hACE-2 lab mice to die – fewer, actually, than had perished from the ancestral Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 itself. For better or worse, these mice have been specifically genetically engineered to have 100% fatality to SARS-CoV-2. If the mice instead replicated human’s very low fatality rate against this virus (less than 0.1% in the non-vulnerable), it would be nigh impossible to make any statistically significant judgements in any experiment unless multi-thousands of mice were included in every phase.
This specific type of work was performed in an appropriate BSL-3 laboratory, and was technically legal even it encompassed ‘gain of function‘ work. There had been a moratorium in the mid-2010s on such potentially dangerous work within the United States, but that was repealed in 2017. The rationale for reversing the moratorium was similar to that of any military’s maintaining and testing weaponry and engaging in wargames: “Researchers deliberately make viruses more dangerous to help prepare better responses to outbreaks that might occur naturally.”
Ostensibly, the moratorium was lifted to keep us safe; however, it was instituted for the very same reason, in 2014, to curtail scientists’ juicing up avian flu.
In 2011, Fouchier and Kawaoka alarmed the world by revealing they had modified the deadly avian H5N1 influenza virus so that it spread between ferrets (animals used for their similarity to humans’ influenza response). Critics worried a souped-up virus could spark a pandemic if it escaped from a lab (accidentally or as bioterror).
The flip-flopping in allowing gain of function research points to the dual needs in relation to such cutting edge science. Even as the moratorium was lifted, there were rules about the flow of information on gain of function experiments. Open communication is a prerequisite to scientific innovation but also can provide ready blueprints for any intrepid bioterrorist. An additional complication is that almost every study in the U.S. receives federal funds, creating a loophole of having to divulge sensitive results through any given FOIA request.
It is uncertain if BU’s newly chimeric COVID-19 mutant could qualify as a bio threat. Personally, I think not. Almost every one of its mutations is less efficacious than the parent. Viruses go through trillions in order to adapt sequentially to changing immune systems amongst the host. That researchers would come up with a highly dangerous one on the first try seems unlikely. In any event, there is vast natural immunity to Omicron and natural and vaccine immunity to ancestral SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19.
So what was the purpose of the BU NEIDL team? Since poor communication seems to be a thread throughout this story, it is perhaps no surprise that this preprint’s abstract section lacks clarity – and features instances of ‘begging the question’.
The recently identified, globally predominant SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (BA.1) is highly transmissible, even in fully vaccinated individuals, and causes attenuated disease compared with other major viral variants recognised to date. The Omicron spike (S) protein, with an unusually large number of mutations, is considered the major driver of these phenotypes. We generated chimeric recombinant SARS-CoV-2 encoding the S gene of Omicron in the backbone of an ancestral SARS-CoV-2 isolate and compared this virus with the naturally circulating Omicron variant. The Omicron S-bearing virus robustly escapes vaccine-induced humoral immunity, mainly due to mutations in the receptor binding motif (RBM), yet unlike naturally occurring Omicron, efficiently replicates in cell lines and primary-like distal lung cells. In K18-hACE2 mice, while Omicron causes mild, non-fatal infection, the Omicron S-carrying virus inflicts severe disease with a mortality rate of 80%. This indicates that while the vaccine escape of Omicron is defined by mutations in S, major determinants of viral pathogenicity reside outside of S.
Let’s translate the abstract into general English:
Omicron is milder – and its spike protein is structurally different enough from the ancestral Wuhan strains that an mRNA vaccine to SARS CoV-2 does nothing to protect mice from Omicron. This is somewhat immaterial because Omicron doesn’t make these mice sick in the first place (basically the same situation as with humans). So, with research funding in hand, what are we going to do? Let’s put an Omicron ‘Halloween mask’ on the dangerous Wuhan strain! How many mice will die? A lot, nearly 80%. That’s sounds really bad, but we forgot to mention (in this abstract) that Wuhan strain without the Omicron-spike mask kills 100% of these mice, which sadly are canaries in a coal mine, engineered to die from SARS-CoV-2. Conclusion: the stuff inside the SARS-CoV-2 envelope is the really bad stuff. With its very own original spike protein it’s more dangerous, but what did we expect? We just made a virus that’s different from a fairly dangerous one and it’s not quite as dangerous.
Thus restated, it becomes difficult to ascertain the genuine need for doing this experiment (whose results seem obvious, predictable and axiomatic). Einstein favored Gedankenexperimente (‘thought experiments’) using conceptual rather than actual experiments in creating the theory of relativity. There’s nothing like the ‘real thing’, but I’m imagining 99% of virologists could have foreseen a conclusion similar to this without having done any of the study. Moreover, most would not have seen a real point in doing this study in the first place. Of course, getting paid and churning research grants can help provide motivation.
Even without the researchers’ having read my own article “Is it Time to Accept That Omicron is not COVID-19?” in The Daily Sceptic, September 25, 2022 – they should still have had enough information to know Omicron (despite its Greek letter) is not a SARS CoV-2 variant nor lineal genomic or genetic descendent. Such information was easily available January 2022. With this in mind, the highlighted portions make little sense and the purpose of the study even less.
One virologist offered these criticisms of the preprint’s study (in confidence):
- Why put Omicron S on a virus that is no longer circulating? I’m not sure what scientific question they are trying to answer.
- The grants that are cited for the work were meant to study innate immunity. They claim they want to study the role of spike protein in phenotype but they are not using the proper controls.
- It would have made more sense to have reversed the experiment, i.e., put the Wuhan spike on the Omicron envelope.
- Also, site-directed mutagenesis (creating specific, targeted changes) would have been a more useful technique, given that there are so many mutations in Omicron’s spike protein compared to earlier variants.
- The authors’ conclusion, “These findings indicate that the S protein is not the primary determinant of Omicron’s pathogenicity in K18-hACE2 mice,” should say that “S protein was not a primary determinant of Wuhan pathogenicity”.
- They actually [downwardly] attenuate the Wuhan strain by putting the Omicron-S onto that virus, yet try to sell it as if they had made the virus more lethal.
- Overall, they seem to really be studying Wuhan pathogenicity in the context of Omicron spike.
All products and methods of technology (e.g. nuclear power, mining, fossil fuels) are variously considered ‘double-edged swords’. So too it is with these studies. There are potential benefits and potential risks. In this particular case, were the risks worth it? Was the study appropriately directed and was the information gleaned worth the global consternation? The answer to both is ‘no’.
“It’s not like they made this monster virus, that’s a complete misinterpretation,” states infectious disease specialist Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes. “Researchers compared the ancestral version, Omicron, and a combined version of the two to research what piece of the virus dictates how sick a person will get. What we see in animal models does not translate directly to what we will see in humans. The labs are extraordinarily careful in how they do these experiments. There are strict protocols in place to make sure that nothing produced in the lab is released into the environment.”
My assessment is that this is more ‘tempest in a teapot’ than monster – although Dr. Frankenstein’s methods and ethical issues find resonance here. That there is a federal investigation into this case is interesting for the side reason that it seems an admission against its own interest, namely to the possibility that virology laboratories can potentially leak mutant strains. Who would’ve thought? For so long, it was all but forbidden to consider such a possibility for China’s WIV, even though ancillary evidence is nearly conclusive it occurred.
Dr. Randall Bock is a primary care physician near Boston, Massachusetts, and the author of Overturning Zika. Read his blog and follow him on Twitter.
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Tuesday Morning Henley Road & Playhatch Rd Playhatch
Oxfordshire
Donald Trump calls Keir Starmer
MMEGA! (Make My Ear Great Again!)
Of course Trump’s (and any other potential invaders) task has been made a great deal easier by the incompetent, spineless, visionless and short sighted socialist fascists who have been running this country since 1990.
Britain’s Army is now smaller than those of Romania and Bangladesh, and just slightly larger than those of Canada and Armenia. Until now, its lowest manpower level over the last two centuries came in 1823, when it had just 72,000 soldiers. But that understates the current problem. Britain’s population in 1823 was just over 20 million, versus around 67 million today.
The U.S. Marine Corps, on its own, is has as many personnel as Britain’s entire armed forces and, tellingly, twice as many aircraft.
Together with the unilateral disarmament of the rest of Europe, not one country in Western Europe able to put even one armoured division in the field, this weakness has encouraged fascist dictators across the world.
‘Erosion of the effectiveness of the Atlantic army will inevitably result in an erosion of political will, strategic flexibility, and freedom of action.
As a bare minimum, it is the role of the Atlantic army to replace the strategic nuclear deterrent as the instrument with which the attack option is foreclosed to (Russia).
But that is a bare minimum.
In a modern strategy the Atlantic army must provide for the West a sense of security to a degree that will encourage it to act and react in respect to global events with confidence.
That forecloses to (Russia) the options of intimidation, blackmail, and political leverage. The political requirement is that the military situation in Central Europe be in balance-that it be stabilized so that global freedom of action is not impaired.’
‘An Atlantic community paralyzed by its military inferiority in Europe could only wring its hands as (Russian) power and influence moved unimpeded into the so-called Third World, portions of which provide the materials upon which the industrial, economic, and social health of the industrial West depend.’
‘While agitation for the reduction of US forces in Europe has subsided for the moment, it could rise again if within the US it is thought or perceived, however fairly or unfairly, that Atlantic partners are not bearing an equitable burden.’
LAND FORCES IN MODERN STRATEGY by LIEUTENANT GENERAL DE WITT C. SMITH, JR. US ARMY 1977
That is going to cost this country a great deal more, in the long run, than it ever would have, had our leaders had the backbone to maintain a credible conventional deterrent over the last few decades.
“LAND FORCES IN MODERN STRATEGY” from 1977? How relevant is this in the light of the last 50 years’ development of weapons?
The fighting in Ukraine has totally changed the modern battlefield in ways that would have been unimaginable fifty years ago. From their public pronouncement it would seem that Western strategists have still not grasped the impact of the changes.
Wasting money on “conventional deterrents” would not have changed the course of the conflict, but would only have further enriched the armaments manufacturers.
Innovation is the decisive factor together with realistic, timely appraisal of intelligence.
Post WW2 strategic thinking resulted in the long peace in Western Europe 1945-2022
‘Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are condemned to repeat them’
Santayana
‘We have lost the art of strategic thinking: the forms and ways of analysis, the need to first understand the problem – something that Carl von Clausewitz described as the supreme, most important challenge – to first understand the nature of the conflict you are in, and to assess the grammar of war.
The patterns of major war are familiar to us: initial optimism that war can be limited; setbacks and escalation; total war measures; devastation, and finally, a significant re-ordering of the globe.
The way to avert such a catastrophe lies in studying again the Cold War, examining what made our strategy successful, and understanding the past, in order to apply strategic thinking to the problems of the future. That is why strategic studies is so vitally important today. And that is the challenge………’
‘If you can look into the Seeds of Time, and say which Grain will Grow and which will Not, speak then unto me’.
Robert Johnson
We know what to do. We’ve done it before. It worked.
Post WW2 strategic thinking resulted in the long peace in Western Europe 1945-2022.
Well, excepting Yugoslavia … and better not mention NATO’s forays in northern Africa and the Middle East. Just off the cuff …
Somehow cultivating peace is not something humans are good at.
Unfortunately it is not just humans but also primates:
‘……scenes of violence among chimpanzees in Kibale National Park in Uganda. These primates’ fierce battles were instigated by coalitions of adult males, with the sole aim of extending their territory. The areas where the fighting took place corresponded to the land conquered by force.’
https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/hostilities-began-in-an-extremely-violent-way-how-chimp-wars-taught-us-murder-and-cruelty-arent-just-human-traits
Your cuff is far too long. Yugoslavia, Northern Africa and the Middle East are not within Western Europe where the long peace was maintained 1945-2022 by both nuclear and conventional deterrents.
‘…war may come from outside as a rationally calculated act of aggression. When the Manchus swept away the Ming dynasty, some 25m Chinese died, one sixth of the population. If it is war from outside which ends the long European peace, the results may be similar. We or our children, grown soft in peace, grown complacent in enlightenment, will have forgotten how or why to defend ourselves.’
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/55890/the-long-peace
If you wish for peace etc etc
Um, yes, we all know that Britain’s Armed Forces have been deliberately decimated.
Thanks for stating the Blinking Obvious, robot.
‘When military people first began to analyze and study their profession, the word was used in a rather straightforward way. Clausewitz considered strategy “the use of the engagement for the purposes of the war.”!
But after the word began to be used by the military, the realization came about that military force was only one means by which a nation could exercise influence on another.
A distinction had to be made:
Was the author to speak only of the employment of military force or of the employment of the full range of national power?
A distinction had to be made, in other words, between national or grand strategy and military strategy.
“strategy covers what we should do, how we should do it, and what we should do it with. Military strategy encompasses the tasks for the military, the operational doctrine we should pursue and the force posture we should develop and maintain.”
The point is that, in view of the clear failure of conventional deterrence: what force posture should we now develop and maintain……and why?
General DeWitt Smith provides a clear answer:
‘….military forces, including land forces, have two important effects on an adversary. One is the physical, the other is psychological. In actual conflict, both are operative. But if the “what” of modem strategy includes preventing the outbreak of conflict, the psychological effect of military force during periods of nonactive conflict becomes all-important. It influences to a large degree (indeed, it may determine) the “how” and “with what” of modern strategy.’
‘The political requirement is that the military situation in Central Europe be in balance-that it be stabilized so that global freedom of action is not impaired.’
The bare minimum requirement to face down an experienced Russian Army in the West of at least 500,000 men is a formed Land Army of 200,000, comprising three army corps, each of three divisions, with at least another Army Corps in depth, backed by Air Forces able to achieve air superiority.
Britain must provide, as hitherto, one Army Corps in depth, roughly 60,000 soldiers.
Poland will shortly be able to put a formed (armoured) Army Corps, at least, in the field and is spending circa 3.1% of GDP on defence.
That is the target that the next U.S. President will set for NATO members.
‘While agitation for the reduction of US forces in Europe has subsided for the moment, it could rise again if within the US it is thought or perceived, however fairly or unfairly, that Atlantic partners are not bearing an equitable burden.’
Reference above
Seriously, WTF is this??
”A pregnant woman suffered a miscarriage and lost her unborn child after being attacked by two schoolboys while waiting for a bus.
The woman is said to have gotten into an altercation with two teenagers in the High Street in Tranent, East Lothian at around 6.20pm last Friday.
The teenage thugs are said to have pushed the pregnant woman off a bench and knocked her to the ground before running off.
According to the social media appeal, the boys were high school students and were wearing black uniforms, with one in shorts while the other wore trousers.
The pregnant woman even offered them a seat and tried to be nice but the teenagers were ‘rude’.
After she was hurt, she got angry and told them she was pregnant.
They ‘said sorry and ran away’, the social media post added.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13809359/pregnant-women-miscarriage-loses-baby-attacked-teenagers.html
I have a question.
Yesterday I was at a sports gathering and when having a drink, there was a discussion on politics and the state of finance in the U.K.
Someone made the remark that Covid and the Ukraine were costing us a lot of money and two people said that the previous government had handled Covid very well…
So my question is how people in polite society handle this?
I get triggered and find it difficult to stay silent. So I give them my point of view in a succinct (which is difficult as there are so many angles to this) and polite way.
But I end up not feeling great about it. Should I just let it slide? Will my remarks at least set them thinking?
Bearing in mind I did not start this conversation…
My view if somebody with whom I am in company with starts to tell me that ‘government handled covid well’ is to either call it out as BS or challenge them to advise on what ways it was handled well. It all depends on how belligerent I am feeling. If I haven’t started the conversation I feel no need to bite my tongue and I am certainly NOT having propoganda inflicted on me by half-wits who think that by regurgitating something heard on el-Beeb they are “informed.”
F. ’em, they get both barrels. I am long past caring what people think of me and my views. If they don’t want my opinion don’t raise the subject.
It is a dilemma and normally one does just let it slide but I try to practice saying “you are half right” and then go on to make a point that they have not considered. Easier said than done of course but they tend to like the acknowledgement that you half agree with them and then they should at least half agree with you or think it through further. Manners and all that.
The reality for women and girls living just in this one part of Germany. You go down as ”German” once you have your citizenship;
”Last year, police in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia arrested 155 suspects in connection with 209 cases of gang r*pe.
A total of 84 suspects were foreign nationals and 71 were German citizens.
At the request of the AfD state parliamentary party, the state government has published the first names of the “German” suspects.
Ahmet
Bayar
Bilal
Burak
Burak
Furkan
Gamil
Hanif
Hasip
Ibrahim
Ismail
Kaan
Melik
Mihraç
Mirhan
Mohamed
Muhammed
Nicolas
Norbert
Nurkan
Seçkin
Seda
Süleyman
Thierno
Wahell
Yasar-Engin
Yasin
Yasmine
Yazan
Yigit
Zakaria
Zayd
The names above are a non-exhaustive list of the “German” suspects but are an indication of how crime statistics can be skewed by left-leaning administrations to hide the effect that mass immigration is having on public safety.”
https://x.com/RMXnews/status/1830926105517208041
“The rise of ‘Left-conservatism’” – “The Sahra Wagenknecht phenomenon”
Oh please! Don’t fall for yet another TROJAN HORSE candidate!
This half-Iranian Muslim woman, who joined the “PDS’s Communist Platform, a Marxist-Leninist faction”, is part of The Unholy Muslim-Marxist Alliance.
Her job is to weaken the German “Far Right” by mimicking their popular anti-immigration policies, to draw voters away from the True Conservatives called the AfD.
Just as Nigel Farage once boasted that he had single-handedly destroyed Nick Griffin and the British National Party.
She’s like that Muslim Turk in Stilettos who was handed the leadership of a Dutch fake “centrist” party that helped stop Geert Wilders from taking his rightful place as Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
“Angela Rayner prepares to rip up Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme”
Dare I say I actually agree with the Dreaded Rayner on this one?
As many others have lamented, the “Right to Buy” scheme was a total disaster for affordable housing, because so many council tenants were handed mortgages for which they could not keep up the payments, and went into foreclosure.
All those former council homes were gobbled up by wealthy private landlords and companies, who then rented them out at exorbitant rates, sometimes to the same council tenants who had tried to buy them.
The councils were left with a gaping hole in their available, affordable properties, while the private landlords were laughing all the way to the bank.
“We need to kick men out of women’s football”
Yes, and we also need to kick women out of men’s football, with no more female trans-players, coaches, managers, bosses or referees of male teams.
And we also need to declare that only Indigenous Englishmen can play on English teams in any sporting competition, Welsh on Welsh teams, Africans on African teams, Swedes on Swedish teams, Orientals on Oriental teams, Indian Subcontinentals on Indian Subcontinental teams, South Americans on South American teams, Aussies on Australian teams, etc.
Fair is fair.