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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32867 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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Two days ago this preprint was posted: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.13.512134v1.full.pdf

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.

They made a COVID variant that robustly escapes vaccine-induced immunity, is more infectious (if I'm reading this correctly) than Omicron and has a lethality of 80%. Now the lethality is only in humanized-lung mice not primates and the sample size for this particular part of the test was only 10, so 80% = 8/10. IMO this is a tiny silver lining in a Jovian-sized thundercloud.

Why are they doing this? Does the world really need the information that if you mess with parts of Omicron, COVID and the spike proteins, you get something that makes Ebola look benign? Do we really need super-COVID chimeras being fabricated by American scientists? If this work absolutely has to be done, could we not do it in Antarctica, behind a 6 month quarantine for anything or anyone that leaves? They actually did it in a BSL-3, not even a top level BSL-4 lab.

I think they shouldn't have done this work and certainly shouldn't have published it upon doing it and finding these results.

It really puts a dark spin on Boston's 'National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories' who helped with this operation. And of course, this got NAID funding too, so your American tax dollars are going towards this. There seems to be loop where bio-scientists decide to do really exciting, fulfilling work making chimeras, slicing up viruses and sticking them together, adding furin cleavage sites. Internally they wonder about the possibilities of human manipulation in the origins of COVID. But officially they stick to a party line that it's just a natural evolution. Otherwise all hell breaks lose, there's a massive blow to the credibility of their profession and an end to the gravy train of exciting, fun research and govt grants. And so because there's no official stance that the leak had anything to do with gain-of-function, of humanized cells in mice being used to test these horrors, then the fun continues!

Why are they doing this? Does the world really need the information that if you mess with parts of Omicron, COVID and the spike proteins, you get something that makes Ebola look benign?

According to the last sentence in the extract you posted, they're studying the causes of pathogenicity and vaccine escape in Omicron. Without looking into it further, this seems like a very worthwhile research topic, with immediate applicability.

Otherwise all hell breaks lose, there's a massive blow to the credibility of their profession and an end to the gravy train of exciting, fun research and govt grants.

There is no "gravy train". Anyone working on this kind of research could easily be making twice as much money working in industry (biotech/pharma). They're working on this because they care.

I think they’re working on it because they enjoy the status offerings and respect, which may be chipped away if people realize how dangerous and civilization-ending the risks are. There is no more chance that they do the work because they care than a given plumber, police officer or teacher.

A plumber, police officer or teacher can't easily switch to a different employer and get twice the pay. Many people probably do decide to become police officers or teachers (not sure about plumbers) because they care, but once they do, they're locked in, unless they want to start an entirely different career from scratch.

I don't know what "status offerings" are, but I don't think working in academia is much higher-status than working for a biotech company, especially given the difference in pay. Isn't income the primary determinant of status?

But then why would anyone become an academic or a researcher? Do people become maths professors because they care, or because they like the work and status? But working on a virus in a lab gives even more respect than being an academic, at least pre-pandemic. As much as I love race for the prize by the flaming lips.

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