Controversial experiments that could make bird flu more risky to resume (2019)
science.orgI truthfully do not see the value (vs risk) in this kind of research. Humanity is too careless to do this kind of thing safely. Figure out better ways to model this in software instead, IM (uninformed) O.
A general defense is that nature is a far better incubator and gain-of-function laboratory that we could ever hope to be. A few billion birds have caught bird flu in the past decade, so we're talking about trillions and trillions of viruses constantly undergoing mutation in close proximity with farm mammals and humans all over the world... If we know the genetics of what turns a bird flu into one transmissible to humans, it's probably better to "get in front of it" rather than just awaiting that mutation to happen somewhere in nature for the first time.
Trillions and trillions of mutations and still the most dangerous H5N1 viruses were created a decade ago by Fouchier and Kawaoka. And how did that help us prepare for the inevitable natural evolution of the same virus?
Sure, but that's only if you restrict it to H5N1 instead of looking at the history of Influenza A and things like the Spanish Flu, which was the most deadly disease in human history and derived from a mutated bird flu.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmp058281
Even still, H5N1 has repeatedly infected humans in the wild... the most famous case in Hong Kong infecting 18 people and killing 6 of those. So you can make the case that GoF is irresponsible given the stakes, but it seems important to acknowledge that you're basically just hoping these horrific viruses don't mutate as we predict them to.
That would be the case if GoF research was necessary to defend against these viruses, but that’s not the case. AFAIK, GoF research played no part in the development of vaccines and treatments for Covid.
Sure, but it took over a year, trillions of dollars of economic disruption and millions of lives to develop the vaccines — its all balance of probabilities and costs.
Some of the proposed research that was GoF adjacent (that was never actually performed) was to develop pseudo viruses more similar to hACE strains that would evoke an immune response in horseshoe bats, effectively vaccinating them. Would the small, but certain, risk of an accident from that research been worth it if it could’ve averted the last 3 years and every future sarbecovirus pandemic?
It still might be the case that we shouldn’t risk GoF - but the simplistic “hurr durr, greedy virologists just want their grant money and don’t understand the risk” takes are childishly simplistic. There is nobody on earth more attuned to the risk of pandemics than the people doing this research, it’s why they’re doing the research.
That’s a terrible defence. Evolution isn’t directed. Gain of function research is like trying to breed animals for specific features, it probably reduces the disease’s overall fitness but it sure could increase its fitness in humans because that’s what they’re breeding for.
We’ve had dozens of zoonotic jumps with bird flu that we know about, and surely thousands that we don’t know about. The mere proximity of humans and birds (and birds and other mammals) means that you don’t need directed evolution. Random mutation + recombination with other strains of influenza already present in humans and animals means that a single “winning” combination will inevitably spillover again. And has trillions of opportunities to do so.
When virologists talk about the inevitability of pandemics, this is the exact mechanism that worries them.
Not doing the GoF work is absolutely no guarantee that you’ll avoid these strains. I’m not convinced it’s worth the energy either, but playing ostrich isn’t a viable alternative.
There's a chance that being more informed might help form a different opinion more aligned with most informed people.
There's a chance the most informed people's salary depends on not understanding this. It takes a special kind of person to proclaim their profession is a danger to humanity and needs to be curtailed.
There's also the chance being more informed would lead to the same basic conclusion, and there's the chance that most informed people actually share his opinion (unbeknownst to you).
I once heard an ad sponsored by the American Podiatric Medical Association that listed the benefits of going to your podiatrist, and concluded with a recommendation that everyone should get a podiatric examination once per year, just to maintain foot health.
I'm sure that seemed intensely reasonable to all the heavily informed podiatrists that were involved.
There’s also a chance that most informed people do this kind of research at work, and would like to keep their jobs.
If only information granted wisdom
As long as china and other countries refuse to operate sanitary food chains, the risk they represent will be 1000s of times higher than a high security lab. That is why so many zoonotic diseases come from such places and so few from the rest of the world.
Don't "strain out a fly and swallow a camel"...
You might find it interesting to read up on the ways US agribusiness is trying to avoid food safety regulations!
https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/6547/dang...
Also I went to a shocking wet market the other weekend in Seattle. Raw fish on display, raw meat galore in coolers, produce, etc.
Wet markets have a pretty good reason for existing. If you don't have a reliable cold chain and aren't sure about refrigeration, then keeping animals alive as long as possible and then butchering them just before you need to use the meat keeps the chances of food poisoning low.
That, or because a fifth of the worlds population live there.
Better not resume bird flu then
I was trying to figure out how bird flu would damage my CV.
Bird flu is down around Cobol in popularity. Sure they have their niches, but is that someplace you want to work?
How about we finally build a research station on the Moon and send people who want to do these experiments there?
Weird title, needs a comma after "risky", but I guess HN removes them while sanitizing
> Weird title, needs a comma after "risky", but I guess HN removes them while sanitizing
It would be grammatically incorrect in English to put a single comma there. A correct alternative would be to put a comma there and also change "that" to ", which" - ie, reading, "Controversial experiments, which could make bird flu more risky, to resume". The entire relative clause needs to be sandwiched with commas; putting a single one at the end is incorrect.
That said, the title as it stands is grammatically correct, although it is potentially ambiguous in meaning.
Other languages have different rules about comma usage, but this is how it works in English.
Why do I get the feeling that this will not help humanity?
What even is the most generous, steelman argument of how this could help humanity prepare for a pandemic? The article just glossed over that part.
Because after Covid it sure seems like whatever it is, there are a lot of much lower hanging fruit as far as detection, early testing, contact tracing infrastructure, understanding what air is, etc that would do a lot more to prepare for the next pandemic.
We transitioned from doing live nuclear warhead tests to testing using computer simulations. We should do the same with viruses. I'm not sure if we can simulate such complex molecules yet.
In other news: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00283-y
How many times would you be comfortable rolling a million-sided die for humanity's extinction?
Extinction is hyperbole. Even a lack of immunity to smallpox did not result in native Americans being wiped out by smallpox, although it did drastically lower their numbers.
Humanity will see a virus that causes its extinction only once.