NIH suspends pathogen studies over 'gain-of-function' concerns(www.science.org)
28 pointsby bustadjustme7 months ago7 comments
  • Cornbilly7 months ago
    These chuckleheads probably don’t even know what this research entails but banning it makes their dimwitted followers excited. The state of the US right now is shameful.
    • devwastaken7 months ago
      thats the point. nobody knows how it all works, and by the time you think you do you youve killed people with it.

      these attempts to play god always fall prey to the most basic sins. just because someone says they “want to do good” doesnt mean they effecticely can. humans cannot handle the power.

      i dont believe in trading lives just so we can fund research grants.

      • Llamamoe7 months ago
        We know enough about how it works to make it safe, and everything else that we don't know, we learn through the process, to the benefit of our future as a species.
        • devwastaken7 months ago
          No, you dont. you cant know its safe. youre just repeating phrases from popular media.
          • Llamamoe7 months ago
            Oh shut up. The fact that YOU don't know anything about genetic engineering doesn't mean other people don't. My insight comes from hanging out with people who do actual genetic engineering and YouTube videos of them explaining the process in detail. That's on top of a background on how biochemistry works.
            • devwastaken7 months ago
              “im youtube educated so its okay that for profit corps play around with genetics they know nothing about”

              burden is on you to demonstrate that we somehow have anywhere close to a good theory of how genetics work. we dont, it doesnt exist, because we dont know. your friends paychecks dont care much for science.

              • Llamamoe7 months ago
                Genes code for production of protein. Protein have a specific, usually very narrow function. There's a lot of cases where a gene you want to add doesn't work right because of the difference between the organism it comes from and the one you're transplanting it to, but there isn't much of a way for it to have unpredictable results.

                E.g. if you add a gene coding for an enzyme that turns molecule A into molecule B, most of the time there simply isn't a way for it to do anything, and the organism will usually adjust production of molecule A to compensate, so that there's barely even the tiniest difference other than it now producing molecule B.

          • drekk7 months ago
            I hope for consistency's you never take an antibiotic. Never take a vaccine. Never take any pharmaceutical drug. Don't want anyone "playing god"
            • devwastaken7 months ago
              im sure youd keep the crows away from any field with that much straw man.

              we actually dont need the vast majority of for profit pharmaceuticals. billions invested in all political parties to make sure you think theyre the savior. thats why theyve banned antibiotics from anyone but an expensive prescription, create vaccines that get banned, and sell a lot of “mental health” drugs that tranquilize society.

  • 7 months ago
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  • jMyles7 months ago
    The name-calling and derogating in this thread is surprising and disappointing.

    For more than a decade, a substantial chorus of the world's foremost experts in the relevant disciplines have been calling for an end to gain-of-function research. This isn't some sudden trend, or a misinformed knee-jerk reaction.

    This is the result of patient deliberation and research building an irrefutable case, which has made convincing empirical inroads unto near academic consensus.

    To refer to organizations like Cambridge WG as "chuckleheads" is really beneath what I hope is our standard on HN.

    If you haven't already, I suggest thumbing through this abbreviated list of publications and reports, and look at the pre-COVID19 warnings issued by researchers at every elite institution of medical research in the world:

    https://www.cambridgeworkinggroup.org/pubs.html

    • 7 months ago
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  • thro17 months ago
    Federal officials in 2014 paused 18 projects before releasing 2017 guidelines that allowed work to move forward. But the debate flared again during the COVID-19 pandemic, when some scientists and Republican politicians, including Trump, alleged that the

    coronavirus responsible came from GOF work at a lab in Wuhan, China,

    that had received NIH funding.

  • yieldcrv7 months ago
    don't worry dismayed scientists, there are other paths of viral and microbial research you can focus on that can help humanity just as much if not more
    • feoren7 months ago
      Yes, let's all just change our career specialty every time the fascist cultists set their goldfish-level attention on another anti-intellectual "evil" that some lead-poisoned radio personality told them to get their anger fix from while shelling out supplements. A perfectly reasonable way to do science.
    • conception7 months ago
      You mean miasma research?
  • dyauspitr7 months ago
    I wish the Democrats did borderline evil things like deny healthcare to people that supported a party that is anti science.