A lot of people - rightly so- complain about central banks printing money to fund wars. However, not enough is said about all the money printing that happens to fund shoddy, immoral and dangerous Fiat Science. [No American citizen voted to print US dollars to torture beagle puppies in NIH funded labs, for example!]
We've all suspected that the genome of the SARS-CoV2 virus was genetically enhanced, and that the lab leak from Wuhan started the pandemic. The mainstream media has been an NIH apologist. It seems like they are now ready to throw Fauci and Collins under the bus. (Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/a-science-in-the-shadows/). Here's a revealing excerpt from the long, but brilliant article.
"[In 2011], One of the NIH-funded researchers, Ron Fouchier in Rotterdam, had altered H5N1 to make it more dangerous — so that it spread through respiratory droplets among caged ferrets, mammals that were the best simulation for humans’ susceptibility. Fouchier and his counterpart in Wisconsin, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, were seeking to learn more about the H5N1 strain, especially how it mutated.
Paul Keim, a Northern Arizona University geneticist who was then chairman of the NIH biosecurity board, recalled that his colleagues were concerned about the risk of publishing.
“We were saying, ‘Wow — it’s highly transmissible with a 60 percent mortality rate,’ ” Keim said. “You could kill 4 billion people in a flash, because these viruses go around the world.”
On Nov. 30, 2011, the board unanimously recommended that key research methodologies should be withheld from publication.
The board’s vote directly challenged the stewardship of Fauci and Collins, because the pathogen-altering research had been approved by NIH with no external review or publicity.
“They had made the decision to fund this work,” said Imperiale, who was on the board at that time. “It was awkward for them.”
[From 2011: Federal panel asks journals to censor reports of lab-created ‘bird flu’]
Fauci and Collins responded by working privately to reverse the biosecurity board’s recommendation — while publicly defending the need for the research, according to interviews and records.
Publicly, Fauci and Collins, along with a third NIH official, co-authored an essay, published by The Post on Dec. 30, 2011, concluding that the risks of the Rotterdam and Wisconsin experiments were worth taking.
The three men wrote that “important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory.” The experiments with ferrets, they said, were aimed at filling “important gaps in knowledge” regarding human transmissibility" .
When done openly and with proper oversight and safety measures, the knowledge gained from this kind of research is exactly what is necessary to prevent and combat future highly contagious diseases.
Doing research like this in controlled environments saves us having to experience a full blown pandemic to learn the lessons we need to learn to prevent future pandemics.
Knowledge is always a double edged sword, the same guy that gave us a chemical method for creating nitrogen fertilizer, allowing billions to eat, also developed chemical weapons that killed millions...
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Sure, I'll grant you all that. Even if that were true, who decides what experiments need to be done? The "experts" who have gotten everything absolutely wrong for the last two years? Who decides how many billions go into these projects? Where does this money come from? Why can't we use this money to feed poor children in our country instead? Do you vote to elect any of the people in charge of the NIH? How much oversight do you think is realistic in a massive bureaucracy that has actively demonstrated a lack of competence?
To not ask these questions and simply trust the "experts" is against everything that Bitcoin teaches us.
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I absolutely agree, I am of the opinion that this research needs to be done, but not the way it has happened thus far.
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I appreciate your honesty :)
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(Probably no, not even the most lunatic chinese party member wouldn't shoot in their own foot)
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It may not have been intentional. Unintentional lab leaks have happened in the past.
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In 2011 a guy in the Netherlands played with some ferrets and thus you conclude Covid was made in a lab? Lmao, that makes no sense.
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You call genetically engineering a pathogen orders of magnitude more lethal - and then specifically tweaking it for mammalian systems - "playing with ferrets". Sorry, but that's absolutely delusional. If you want to be an apologist for these scientists, you're free to do so of course. As someone who has considerable experience in the field, I can confirm that academic science has degraded to the point where Fiat money printing can incentivize researchers and professors to conduct abhorrent behavior. This needs to be talked about.
I'm upset that my children may be born into a world where some unelected bureaucrats in the NIH get to play god and test their sick experiments on the world's population.
Did you even read the article?
"In 2017, a change made under their watch removed the committee’s power to block the projects, recasting the panel as strictly an advisory body.
Another change at that time redefined gain-of-function research, giving NIH leaders greater leeway to approve projects without referring them to the review committee. Some researchers had complained that far-reaching reviews would slow NIH approvals and scientific progress."
And by the way, this is the Bezos Post talking. This was untouchable content just a few months ago. We must acknowledge the shocking pace of this narrative shift.
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As someone with 'considerable experience in the field' you should also know that such 'sick experiments' are a tool to probe the effect of genetic changes and understand which natural mutations might lead to future pandemics.
While there are always risks (which are valid to be concerned about), the intent is to remain a step ahead of natural evolutionary processes, which already do a fine job of 'gain-of-function' without us.
Call it playing god or apologism if you like, but the fact is this sort of work can bring benefits in terms of surveillance and developing therapeutics ahead of time, so it's unlikely to stop.
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Benefits in terms of surveillance? Start a pandemic to learn about pandemics? You have some bad takes, amigo.
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Agreed. Is there any evidence out there that gain of function research has helped prevent large scale pandemics?
Because there sure is evidence that very research has caused a large scale one.
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It is also unlikely to stop because it has an unlimited fiat money printing machine funneling it. Do American citizens vote on the budget of the NIH? Do they buy bonds to fund these projects? Don't they deserve to know what they're getting their wealth debased for? I respect your view point but it is strange to see so much sympathy for unsupervised projects fueled by money created out of thin air.
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